CHAPTER 30

EVERAM’S RESERVOIR

334 AR

Jarvah was waiting as the walls of Docktown came into sight. This time she sat beside her brother Sharu—Ahmann’s fourth son—and Drillmaster Qeran. Flanking the road were rows of Sharum, too disciplined to show they had just been pulled from their posts and bunks to escort the Damajah, who none had known was coming. Many sat their mounts uncomfortably, more used to rolling ship decks than the saddle.

The procession pulled to a halt as Sharu, Qeran, and Jarvah rode out to Inevera’s pillow carriage. Eunuchs opened the doors to reveal Inevera on her pillows.

Despite his metal leg, the drillmaster leapt as nimbly from his horse as young Jarvah and Sharu, all three landing on their knees with his hands on the ground, head bowed. “Damajah.”

“Welcome to Everam’s Reservoir.” Inevera did not need to see Sharu’s aura to know he was afraid. It was in his voice, the slight tremble in his limbs. “When you sent word of a delegation, you did not mention you meant to lead it personally.”

Inevera smiled, letting him dangle on the hook. Sharu supported his half brother when Jayan defied the Skull Throne in his attack on Angiers. Now that plan lay in ruins, and Asome was Shar’Dama Ka. Blood gave Sharu command in Docktown, but he was inexperienced, and it was Qeran who made the real decisions. The boy was expendable and knew it.

“I did not wish it known,” Inevera said at last. “Your drillmaster would have sent too many men to secure the road.”

“It would have been wise,” Qeran agreed.

Inevera smiled. Qeran was as prideful as any Sharum, but he had earned it, and remained loyal. “It would have shown our hand to the alagai.”

“Of course.” Qeran glanced dubiously at the five hundred Sharum’ting marching in formation behind them. “Though I am only a low Sharum, and do not see how five hundred…warriors changes our hand.”

He did not mention that the warriors were women, but Inevera knew he and Sharu were thinking it. And indeed, five hundred was but a fraction of Docktown’s force.

“I have brought more than warriors,” Inevera said. “As of this moment, I am in command of Everam’s Reservoir.”

The men hesitated. This was more than a simple visit. They quickly recovered, putting their heads to the ground. “Your will, Damajah.”

“What passes for a palace in this wetland shipyard?” Inevera asked.

“After the chin burned Jayan’s palace, the khaffit’s warehouse became his base,” Qeran said. “It is the safest and most richly appointed building in the city, with a view of the water and the road.”

Sharu coughed. “I have been staying there since my brother left, but if you—”

“I do,” Inevera said.

Sharu bowed again. “Your will. I will send runners to have my possessions removed and ready the warehouse for your arrival.”

Abban’s “warehouse” was much like the man himself. A squat, ugly building, full of industry on its sprawling main floor. But the floors above, where the khaffit lived and worked, exceeded even the most audacious Damaji’s palace décor.

There were fountains, colored silk, cashmere, and gold. Thick curtains that would aid in hora casting. The windows and walls were strengthened by magic already, a last gift from Asavi before she returned to Everam’s Bounty and tried to kill Inevera.

The largest room, great windows overlooking the city and docks, was a fitting place for the pillowed throne Inevera’s eunuchs bore up the steps on their backs. The heavy frame was built of the bones of heroes and alagai in equal measure. The skulls of Andrah Ashan and Damaji Aleveran adorned the headrest, flanking the skull of a demon prince. The entire frame was warded and coated in precious electrum set with gemstones.

The pillowed throne was not as ancient or powerful as the true Skull Throne, but with the mind’s skull to power it, the throne would cast a forbidding over a mile in radius. Enough to cover the docking bay and most of the city proper. Farther than a demon could throw a stone, or drop one with any accuracy.

“We have more than seventeen thousand Sharum stationed at Docktown,” Sharu said. Qeran unrolled a great carpet before the pillow throne, woven into a map that showed the reservoir and its environs.

As he spoke, Sharu’s eyes kept drifting to the white headscarf tied over Sikvah’s helm. His aura had a familiar cast—the confusion of a man who had yet to understand women as equals first encountering one his better. Sharu was a son of the Deliverer, but as with his sister Jarvah, only his veil was white.

“Seventy-three kai’Sharum, two thousand two hundred and six dal’Sharum, six thousand one hundred seventy kha’Sharum, and some nine thousand chi’Sharum,” Qeran said, nimbly pulling from a pouch on his belt meticulously painted figures symbolizing groups of warriors, placing them on the rug where Docktown was marked.

“In addition, we have a standing fleet of thirty-two fighting vessels, fifteen cargo ships, and some sixty smaller vessels.” Qeran placed tiny painted ships on the great blue section of carpet.

“I see why you and the khaffit got along, Drillmaster.” Inevera gave Qeran a hint of smile.

“Everam willing, my master will return,” Qeran said. They had not spoken of Ashia. It was doubtful Sharu even knew his cousin had passed through the city.

Inevera nodded, looking to Sharu. “More than half your warriors are chin. Are they loyal?”

“In the night, absolutely,” Qeran answered, when Sharu hesitated. “During the day…” He shrugged. “The levies from Everam’s Bounty are a different tribe than the fish men of the Reservoir. They have no love for each other, and will fight if commanded, but neither craves war.”

“Do these…fish men have the resources to retake Docktown?” Inevera asked.

Sharu shook his head. “The Laktonians cannot commit to an attack on Docktown so long as they maintain the blockade.”

Qeran walked easily on his bladed leg to squat where Hasik’s monastery was marked, placing more ships, these painted with the flag of Lakton. “More than half the Laktonian fleet surrounds the docks. We believe their plan was to retake the monastery before converging upon us, but Hasik’s coming stymied them.

“The fish men control the waters close to their city.” Qeran pointed to a small island at the center of the lake, the weave depicting what appeared to be hundreds of ships, lashed together. He placed tiny models of sleek, armed vessels patrolling the water.

“The rest of the lake belongs to us.” Qeran spread ships marked with the crossed spears of Krasia hemming the Laktonians in. “Our privateers keep the fish men from bringing sufficient supply from the mainland to their floating city. We have discovered their other ports around the lake and destroyed them. They have nowhere to run.”

“You’ve given them no choice but to attack,” Sikvah said.

“We were only meant to hold the enemy over the winter, while Jayan went north,” Sharu said. “He was to return and fill the ships’ holds with dal’Sharum to storm the floating city and force their tribe to kneel before the Skull Throne.”

“You admit to abetting Prince Jayan’s treason, cousin?” Asukaji asked.

“What were we to do?” Sharu seemed eager to defend himself. “Abandon the post assigned to us by the Deliverer’s firstborn? Stand back and let the fish men escape our carefully laid nets?”

“Indeed, not,” Inevera said. “You have done well under difficult conditions.”

Sharu let out a breath. “Then why have you…”

“Come to your town, without enough soldiers to take the city on the lake?” Inevera asked. “The dice foretell a dark Waning over Docktown.”

The fear that had left Sharu’s aura returned tenfold. Inevera wanted to be forgiving of it. He was young and untested. But he was the Deliverer’s son. The other warriors would look to him.

“Effective immediately, you will report to the Sharum’ting Ka,” Inevera told him.

Again Sharu looked to Qeran, but the drillmaster held up a hand, straightening to his full height at last. “Do not look to me, boy. Bow and tell the Damajah you understand.”

Sharu turned, and both men bowed. “Your will, Damajah.”

They turned to regard Sikvah, who was still studying the map. She produced a braided gold cord, laying it in a precise circle on the map, encompassing much of the bay and half the town. “The pillow throne will cast a forbidding in this circle. Drillmaster, arrange to move your best ships into this part of the bay before Waning to protect them.”

“That will leave openings to the fish men to regroup and slip our nets,” Qeran noted.

“It cannot be helped,” Sikvah said. “I have seen firsthand what the mind demons are capable of. If one of Alagai Ka’s princelings rises near Docktown on Waning, the water alagai may begin using tools.”

Qeran gaped. “We’ll be helpless as they scuttle the ships. It will be done, Sharum’ting Ka.”

“Triple the wall guard by Waning,” Sikvah said. “But we should assume it will fall.” She pointed to the gold braid. “We’ll build a second defense at the forbidding.”

“If the alagai get that far, won’t the throne hold them back?” Sharu asked.

“It will not prevent them from hurling stones or burning brands,” Qeran said. “They can still destroy the city without entering.”

“The power of the throne is not infinite,” Inevera said, “nor powered by the demons themselves, as with the outer wards. If enough alagai strike at once, the field will weaken, and they will slowly press inward, like swimming against the tide. The demon princes will know this and move to exploit the weakness.”

“We must delay, trap, and kill as many alagai as possible before they reach the forbidding, to ensure it remains strong.” Sikvah studied the area of the map between the gold rope and the town walls. “We have a week to turn these streets into a new Maze.”

“The tide is low,” Qeran said, as night fell on Waning.

Inevera had strengthened the city’s defenses as best she could, but the preparations seemed woefully inadequate if the alagai brought their full strength to bear. Below, much of the warehouse level had been cleared and scrubbed clean, laid with white cloth as she and her sister-wives waited for the wounded to come.

And still Jurim had not shown himself.

“Eh?” Inevera asked.

Qeran pointed out the window to the dock below. “Those markers should be covered with water at this time.”

“If the alagai break through, the shallows will be to our advantage, making water demons easier to strike.” Inevera gave one of her earrings a twist. “Sikvah. Report.”

“The walls are clear, Damajah,” Sikvah responded immediately. “Every inch is under Sharum eyes, with reserves waiting to reinforce any breaches. The Maze is set and ready to be sprung. A third defense waits at the forbidding.”

“The alagai?” Inevera asked.

“None sighted yet, Damajah,” Sikvah said. “But the evening fog is thick. They could be using it to draw close. I could order a volley…”

“Everam’s beard,” Qeran said.

“Hold, yet,” Inevera said.

“Your will, Damajah.”

“We must get out,” Qeran said.

“Eh?” Inevera turned to regard the drillmaster, pointing out the window again, this time at the horizon.

“We must get out, now!” Qeran shouted.

Inevera focused her eyes in Everam’s light, seeing beyond the limits of her natural vision. Water was drawing rapidly from the bay, moorings squealing as the boats began to sink. But in the distance, she could see the water rising in a wave that threatened to crush the docks like the Hand of Everam.

Inevera touched her earring as she allowed Qeran and Jarvah to usher her toward the door. “Sikvah. Sound the horns to evacuate the docks.”

“Your will, Damajah.”

The horns were already sounding by the time she made the hall. Qeran was waving them toward the stairs to exit the back of the building. Inevera turned to her sister-wives and eunuch guards. “Go with Qeran to the city center.”

“Where are you going?” Qasha asked.

“Too long have you been in my shadow, sisters,” Inevera said. “This night, you must shine on your own. Go. Now.”

“Your will, Damajah.” Qasha, Umshala, and Justya bowed as one, then turned and fled with the eunuchs down the stairs.

Inevera went up instead. Behind her, she heard Qeran curse, but he and Asukaji followed. Jarvah kept silent pace with her, moving ahead to open the access door and secure the roof.

The wind was fierce, whipping Inevera’s veil from her face. She made no move to secure it, facing the vast shadow of water rising in the twilight and raising her hora wand.

Wrist straight, the wand was an extension of her arm, and she worked it like a brush, trailing silver magic in the air as she traced a pyramid of linked impact wards. The wave was too great to break or destroy, but as in sharusahk, perhaps its force could be diverted. The shape grew exponentially as she fed it power and sent it streaking toward the wave.

The impact was deafening as the magic cut into the water, splitting the wave like a scalpel split flesh.

For a moment, at least. The flows divided, but the water kept pressing, and even the massive power she spent—half the wand’s charge—could not hold back millions of gallons of water. The wave flowed back together before it struck the docks, but its power was much blunted.

Perhaps the extra moment saved a few lives as men and women fled the docks, but it did not save the ships, or the skeleton crews aboard. It did not save the Mehnding scorpion crews stationed on the far piers.

The boats that had been sinking a moment ago rose into the air, shattering as their hulls smashed together, fusing into a massive battering ram of wood and water that splintered the docks and tore through buildings like castles of sand.

Even Abban’s warehouse rocked, but its foundation was deep, inlaid with a skeleton of magic and warded glass. Inevera bent as a palm in wind, keeping her feet as she watched the destruction of the fleet. In one stroke, the alagai princes had reached through her wards and smashed Krasia’s budding naval power in its infancy.

Water exploded all around, drenching and knocking all of them back as it flooded across the roof.

“Damajah.” Qeran sprang to her side, not daring to touch her, but she could see the need in his aura. “We must get out now.”

Inevera shook her head. “The building can withstand…”

“It does not matter.” Qeran pointed to the horizon. Already the wave was receding, waters flowing back to build anew. “We will be trapped. Caught in the enemy’s net.”

“Everam’s balls!” Inevera spat, but she wasted no more time, running for the stairs. All of them Drew on hora, moving with inhuman speed and grace down the flooded steps.

Inevera’s earring began to vibrate, and she clicked the wards back into alignment without breaking stride.

“Damajah!” Inevera could hear the crashing stone and screaming warriors surrounding Sikvah. “The demons are at the walls!”

“How many?” Inevera demanded.

“All of them!” Sikvah shouted. “We cannot hold!”

“Tell the men on the walls Everam is watching,” Inevera said, “and bring the Sharum’ting to the town center. I will meet you there.”

Asukaji made the landing first, the splashing water up to his thighs. There was a wreckage of cargo and white cloth swept in from the warehouse blocking the doors, but the young dama raised his hora staff and blasted a path through.

Inevera splashed out onto the streets of Docktown, purple silks soaked and clinging to her body. Her veil was lost in the wind.

The city was in chaos. Men, women, and children they had thought ensconced in the safest part of the town were a wild press trying to flee uphill. The water was knee-deep, a sucking current pulling at her center, sweeping flotsam, jetsam, and bodies through the streets.

So many dead, and the sun had barely set.

“Make for the town center!” Inevera used the warded gem anchoring her bodice to amplify her voice, sending it resounding in the streets. “Aid your neighbors! Take no possessions! Everam is watching! Everam will protect us!”

And then she Drew, people and buildings blurring as she sped past, leaving water in a slashing wake for the others to follow. She feared for Qeran with his bladed leg in the water, but there was no time to waste. If the drillmaster could not keep pace, he would find another way to assist.

Moments later she was in the town center, the square already filling with people. She had barely come to a halt beside her sister-wives when Asukaji, Jarvah, and Qeran appeared beside her.

She heard Sikvah before she saw the woman, her voice amplified by the choker at her throat as she sang the Song of Waning at the head of five hundred singing Sharum’ting.

“Sing, Children of Everam!” Inevera boomed. It was not hard for the quivering, fearful people of Docktown, Krasian and chin alike, to let themselves be swept up in Sikvah’s song, sung every night in Sharik Hora. Their voices were tentative at first, growing in strength as they desperately clutched at hope. “Sing, for Nie is listening!”

Sikvah leapt down from her horse, but her warriors continued to sing, leading the crowd. Each woman had a hora brooch, less powerful than the ones Inevera and Sikvah wore, but enough to cut through the cacophony.

“Damajah.” Sikvah’s voice was calm, but her aura betrayed her. Her first real command, and already she had failed.

“The walls have fallen,” Inevera said.

“The breaches were contained when I left,” Sikvah said, “but more alagai penetrate the outer wards every moment. It is likely there are already demons in the Maze.”

Inevera nodded. “Then that’s where we’re going.” She turned to her sister-wives. “Take your Sharum’ting east, west, and south. Hold the Maze.”

“Your will, Damajah,” the women said, signaling their warriors as they strode away.

“I will go to the north section of the Maze,” Inevera said. The most direct approach, where the alagai would be thickest.

Inevera drew a ward with her wand as the field demon kicked off the wall and leapt at her.

But even the wand, its core the ulna of a mind demon, had limits. Its power spent, Inevera barely had time to slap the demon’s jaws aside and roll with the impact, keeping hold of the alagai to stay in close and out of reach of the creature’s scrabbling claws.

From her belt Inevera pulled her curved knife, slashing open the demon’s vulnerable belly. Black ichor spattered her grimy silks, and she thrust the wand into the wound before the demon’s magic could knit it closed. He fingers danced across the wards carved into the bone, Drawing hard.

In Everam’s light, it seemed the creature turned inside out as the magic was sucked from the ichor in its veins, refilling some of the wand’s reserve. She left it twitching on the cobbles as another demon came at her, this one neatly speared by Drillmaster Qeran, who advanced to cover her with his mirrored shield.

Jarvah had the opposite flank, methodically hacking at the arms of a bog demon like she was pruning branches from a tree. It spat at her, but Jarvah battled the globule aside with her shield. It struck a stone wall, smoking as it burned.

All around the ambush pocket, battle raged. A Push Guard of Sharum’ting drove a group of demons into a makeshift demon pit, a circle of one-way wards. Demons trapped inside would be held until dawn, if the circle was not broken.

Asukaji spun his thick hora staff like a whip staff, crushing demon heads with the impact wards on the heavy end. His knuckles were covered in warded silvers, and his blows fell like thunderclaps upon the enemy. A wood demon broke through the Push Guard, but Asukaji was there, drawing wards in the air to force it back into the pit.

This group contained, Inevera reached out with her senses, pulling at the flows of magic on the air. Tasting them.

“This way.” She pointed with her wand. Astride her black charger, Sikvah fell in beside her, she and Jarvah weaving their voices together. The effect their song had on the ambient magic in the air was different from that of warding, but no less pronounced. She felt the spellsong weave invisibility about her as the Sharum’ting who followed did to themselves.

Many of the demons flooding the town were of the common variety, seemingly moving without guidance beyond their own violent lusts. But there were others, alagai plucked from deep in the abyss, ancient and full of magic. Two such giants were tearing through an entire company of chi’Sharum in a small square ahead.

Cloaked by Sikvah’s song, Inevera and her company were invisible to the demons until they struck. Cobbles exploded as Asukaji drew wards with his staff, knocking the demons off balance. Sikvah lowered her long spear and galloped at one of them, taking the demon full in the belly in an attack timed precisely to add to its stumble.

Indeed, the twenty-foot demon went down on one knee, but the blow, which might have killed a common rock demon, seemed little more than an annoyance. Sikvah tried to pull the spear free, but it resisted her, and in that instant’s hesitation the demon swiped, taking the horse from under her.

Sikvah leapt clear in time, landing in a roll and coming back up with her shield and short stabbing spear raised. She was a blur as she moved back in, dancing around the demon’s heavy blows. Again and again she struck with her glass spear, sending flares of magic and pain through the demon, but the attacks only seemed to anger it.

Asukaji kept hammering the other demon with impact wards until it fell, the chi’Sharum casting chains to tangle its legs. Wards flared and strained as the powerful demon flexed and tested their strength.

Jarvah and Sharu swept in, brother and sister side by side as they hacked at the demon’s chest. The demon swiped a great arm, throwing Sharum from their feet. Its legs kicked, and the warriors desperately pulling the chain were rung like bells on a ribbon.

Still Jarvah and Sharu worked, protecting each other with their shields as they timed their precise blows.

Like Sikvah’s, the attacks seemed to do no lasting damage, until Sharu made the last stroke and the rock ward cut into the demon’s breastplate activated, drawing on the alagai’s own power to form a forbidding. The ward grew brighter and brighter until the lines blended together and the demon’s chest shattered.

The remaining warriors fell on the last demon like ants on a melon rind, hacking the powerful creature into less powerful pieces. Inevera went to the corpse of its fellow, putting her wand in the ruin of its chest and Drawing, refilling the reservoir.

Her arm burned, wand hand aching. There was only so much magic a body could channel and survive. Already, her eyes were dry, throat and sinuses burning, muscles aflame.

But there was no time to ponder limits. Bog demons poured into the streets, the walls all but gone now. How long had they been fighting? How many hours until dawn? Time was lost in the battle, in the hunt. It seemed like days since she led two hundred singing Sharum’ting from the town center. The time before felt like another life.

There were too many demons.

“All forces disengage and fall back to the forbidding!” Inevera used her earrings to send the call to her sister-wives to pass to their kai’Sharum.

Sikvah lifted her head as horns sounded. “Three Sharum units trapped in the third layer.”

Inevera pulled her wand, near fully charged, from the demon’s chest with a squelch. “Lead the way.”

Inevera’s arm was leaden, hora wand drained. Her throat burned as she shouted commands, muscles screaming as she fought and ran.

The warriors didn’t feel it—energized every time their warded weapons struck the enemy—but the hora users spent something of themselves every time they channeled the power. Asukaji leaned on his staff, aura dangerously dim.

“You cannot keep this up,” she said to him. “Use your staff and your silvers, but draw no more wards.”

“What about you?” Asukaji asked. “I can see your aura dimming as well, Damajah.”

“I have been doing this far longer than you, nephew,” Inevera said, but she knew he was right.

“We won’t turn the tide fighting hand-to-hand,” Asukaji said.

Indeed, their situation was steadily worsening. On a small rise overlooking the battle, Inevera could see the shattered gates, demons crowding to push through. The Maze was lost, alagai slowly pushing the defenders in toward the weakening pillow throne. The bay churned with water demons.

But then a horn cut through the night, accompanied by the sound of thunder. Magic began to flare beyond the wall as three hundred spears tore into the demon ranks from behind.

Jurim had arrived with the Wolves of Everam to nip their heels.

The dama’ting oversaw harvesting the lifeless but still magic-rich bodies of the alagai before the dawn burned them away. They were dragged into barns and warehouses, hacked to pieces as their ichor was collected in slurry vats.

Traditionally, the demonflesh was burned away with acid and the bones treated to prepare them for warding, but there was no time for such luxuries. The Pillow Throne’s weakened power had to be extended. Sharum Pit Warders were using the raw demonflesh to power new traps in the Maze.

The throne would recharge naturally, Drawing ambient magic in the night, but its reserve was nearly depleted, and it might be months before regaining full power in such fashion. Inevera ordered the windows of the throne room blocked and had Asukaji’s dama using hora to speed its restoration.

The dama’ting set up a new surgery in the basement of Jayan’s burned-out palace, working in utter darkness as they cut and stitched in Everam’s light. They painted wards around the wounds with the ichor slurry, speeding healing of injuries that might otherwise take longer than the Pillow Throne to recover.

Inevera herself worked the tables, advising her sister-wives and taking the most difficult cases upon herself. All of them were drained and exhausted, moving from battlefield to surgery with time for little more than to scrub and put on fresh robes.

However much she tried to focus on the patient in front of her, Inevera could not help but see auras in her peripheral vision. The dim glow of the exhausted dama’ting. The fluttering light of the wounded. The hollow emptiness in the air when one winked out forever. Many of them were former Spears of the Deliverer, warriors who had slain alagai alongside her husband for twenty-five years.

The Wolves of Everam had taken heavy losses. Jurim’s charge at the head of three hundred fresh dal’Sharum warriors made the difference in finding the dawn, the chaos of the Wolves’ mad assault upending the careful, even press of the alagai ka.

But the alagai would return at dusk for the second night of Waning, having already broken their outer defenses beyond repair, and devastated their fighting number. Even if some survived until the dawn, the third night of Waning would be their undoing.

There was a feather brush against the entrance curtains, a series of layers of thick velvet to prevent the slightest hint of sunlight in the room where the dama’ting worked their healing spells.

“Speak,” Inevera said.

“Damajah, you are needed on the docks.” Sikvah used the magic of her choker to deliver the words to her ears alone.

Inevera handed off her patient and moved through the curtains to the scrub room, where she immediately began stripping her bloody robes. “Report.”

“The fish men have come,” Sikvah said, handing her a cake of soap.

“Everam’s balls.” Inevera spit blood into the drain of the scrub sink. “How many?”

Servants were already rushing to towel her dry and help her into fresh robes of deep blue silk.

“All of them,” Sikvah said.

Inevera blinked in the bright daylight as she stepped from the makeshift Chamber of Shadows. The sun was high in the sky, glittering off the water.

Or what little water there was. Hundreds of ships crowded the bay, floating amid the wreckage of the Krasian fleet. More boats than Inevera had ever imagined could exist.

“Should not the dice have warned of this?” Asukaji asked.

“They might have, had I bothered to ask. The alagai hora volunteer nothing, nephew. The focus of my castings this past week has been the alagai and our defenses, not the doings of the fish men.”

She volunteered much with the words, piercing her own aura of infallibility, but the boy had earned the lesson. The dama already experimented with the wards of foretelling.

“Even battered and exhausted, our warriors can make them pay a bloody price for the beach,” Sikvah said, “but against such numbers, the fish men will overwhelm us.”

Asukaji spat in the water. “They are no better than servants of Nie, striking when the alagai have weakened our defenses.”

“It was no less than we did to them, in the Battle of Docktown,” Qeran said, “letting the alagai thin the enemy before pressing the attack. We might manage such a victory again, if we can keep the Laktonians bottled up in the bay until nightfall…”

Inevera shook her head. “No. Not ever again. Everam will judge that night against you when you walk the lonely path, Drillmaster. You had best provide much in the balance.”

Qeran knelt and put his hands on the dock. “I am prepared to face Everam’s eternal judgment, Damajah.”

“Indeed.” Inevera knew that while Qeran had carried out the plan, it was born in the mind of the khaffit. Not for the first time, she wondered why she was risking so much for such a wretched creature. “If it comes to that, we will abandon the wetlands and retreat to Everam’s Bounty.” The words were bitter on her lips. “I will not let our army be destroyed for the sake of a ruined town.”

But the Laktonians did not send their ships to storm the docks. Instead, two great vessels separated from the rest, sailing in close and releasing boats flying the white flag.

Inevera’s makeshift palace still stood, an island amid the wreckage. The warehouse floor was ruined by flood, but the upper levels remained dry and secure.

She curled upon the Pillow Throne, pleased to see it glowing brightly once more. Enormous amounts of hora were drained to restore its well of power.

The enemy fleet sent two emissaries, a man and a woman, to treat with them. The woman was easily recognizable from her wanted posters. “Welcome, Captain Dehlia. It is an honor to meet you. The name Sharum’s Lament carries boundless glory on the water.”

Her eyes flicked to the man, his aura burning hot under finery that seemed too heavy on him, as if he were unused to their weight. “And you are?”

The man strode forward. “I am Duke Isan of Lakton, elected this morning by the council of captains.”

“Duke Reecherd is dead?” Inevera asked.

“Killed in the night,” Isan said.

“My people speak of you fish men as cowards, but it is bold of you to come in person, Duke Isan.” Inevera gave him a respectful nod. “Are you so confident in your numbers?”

“I had to come,” Isan said. “Had to look you in the eye.”

Inevera raised a brow. “Oh?”

“The mother of the demon of Docktown,” the duke said in Krasian. “Jayan asu Ahmann am’Jardir am’Kaji, who slaughtered my family.”

“Isan…” The name was familiar.

“Isan asu Marten,” the duke said. “Your son stripped my father and forced him to the ground, kicking his manhood to a bloody pulp before executing him in front of my mother and her court.

“Isan asu Isadore. My father’s body was not yet cold when Jayan asu Inevera forced a marriage contract upon my mother, and took the pen in his eye. He ran her bloodied ruin up the flagpole for all to see.

“Isan brother of Marlan. Your drillmaster,” the duke jerked his head at Qeran, “cast tar upon my brother’s ship, and water demons dragged him and more than a hundred men down into the deep.”

Qeran’s aura blossomed with shame at the words, but he stood silent.

Inevera rose to her feet. “My drillmaster sinned against Everam when he exposed you to the alagai,” Inevera said. “The Creator will judge him.”

She began to descend the steps. “My son committed grave crimes against you, for which Everam judges him, even now.”

She reached the floor, walking toward Isan, and everyone tensed. “But it was I who ordered the attack on your people.”

“To capture the tithe,” Isan said.

“To capture you,” Inevera said. “To join your forces with ours in the battle against Nie.”

She was close now. Isan looked as if he wanted to back away, but he stood his ground, meeting her eyes. In Everam’s light, she could see the blade concealed beneath his coat.

“It is I who bears the ultimate responsibility for what was done to you and your people.” Inevera spread her arms, vulnerable in her thin silk. “Do you mean to strike the first blow for them, and cast our people into battle anew, even as Alagai Ka walks the night?”

Isan’s eyes were wild, hand twitching toward the blade. Even now, Inevera could stop him—break his wrist before he had the weapon free of his coat—but the duke seemed to find his center, hand moving back to his side.

“You have now looked into my eyes, Duke Isan of Lakton,” Inevera said. “What do you see?”

“I see that you are not a coreling,” Isan said. “I see you have the only succor on the lakeshore large enough to protect my people. And so I have come personally to test your claim. Do you truly want to join with us?”

“Everam my witness, I do,” Inevera said. “We will negotiate the terms in good faith, but in the coming night, our succor is yours as well.”

Isan bowed stiffly. “Thank you…Damajah.”

“Tell me what happened,” Inevera said.

“Demons been quiet for weeks,” Dehlia said. “But the deep water began to churn at sunset last night. At first, we thought it nothing out of the ordinary, but then the leviathan demons began leaping and diving in the water, creating wave after wave, each building in intensity over the last.

“By the time we saw it coming, we barely had time to sound the alarm. The Lament sped to the city, but what could we do to defend against such a thing?”

“The island was flooded,” Inevera said.

“Drowned,” Isan said, “but the island was only a tiny fraction of Lakton. Three-quarters of the city was made of hundreds of ships, lashed together around its center, connected by planks and bridges.

“We hacked at the moorings desperately, freeing as many of the heaving vessels as we could. We were scattering when the worst of the waves hit.”

“How many were lost?” Inevera asked.

Isan threw up his hands. “Who can say? Some were simply docked, and able to fill with refugees and sail in short order—others had not floated free in a hundred years or more. Those that survived the waves were hunted by water demons through the night.”

“You’ve burned every other port,” Dehlia said. “The demons destroyed the blockade and presumably took the monastery in the night. We have nowhere else to go.”