The Midnight Star

“We will,” he echoes. He offers me a terse nod, his face expressionless.

The sky above us, startlingly blue when we first left Kenettra, is now a threatening gray. Black clouds streak the horizon in front of us. Sergio gathers his cloak more tightly about him, his eyes trained in concentration on the approaching storm. He has been working on this tempest ever since we set sail, and now it is strong enough that I can sense the sparks in the air, the prickle along my arms.

“Black seas,” Sergio mutters, gesturing down at the dark waters. “A bad omen.”

“Your Majesty!” Magiano’s voice shouts at us from the crow’s nest. We both look skyward. “We’ve sighted land!” His arm emerges from the side of the nest to point toward the horizon, and when I follow it, I see a sliver of gray land emerging underneath a dark sky. Even from this distance, the vague silhouette of a high wall can be seen, fortified by one side that is nothing more than a steep cliff.

An instant later, Magiano drops down next to us. I didn’t even notice him making his way down the main masthead. “That is Alamour, my love,” he says, gesturing toward the cliff and wall.

The last time my forces set our sights on Tamoura, it was to conquer their northwestern territories. Now I am going to set foot in their capital. Thunder rolls across the ocean, and flashes of lightning make the clouds glow. I wrap my arms around myself and shudder. My mother told me stories of this place, from where my ancestors came, and how many times armies had failed to penetrate its walls.

But I will be different.

If Violetta were here, she would be trembling at the thunder. Is she doing so right now, somewhere in Tamoura?

Sergio rests his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I haven’t heard their bugles sound. But if they haven’t seen us yet, they will soon. Half of our fleet is going to sail into their western bay.” He draws an invisible image in the air, gesturing at the city’s two bays and the cliffs running along its northern border. “The west is their main harbor, difficult to enter because of the narrow passage in. The east is an easier bay to access, but full of sharp rocks. This is where the other half of our fleet—where we ourselves—will enter. We can sail in, but we can’t dock. So we’ll call our baliras instead.” Sergio pauses to look at me. “I hope you feel rested, because we’re going to need you to conjure one vast illusion of invisibility for us.”

I nod. Even if the Tamourans can see a glimpse of our ships right now, they will not be expecting them to all vanish into thin air. Invisibility, despite all my mastery, is still the most difficult of my illusions—making myself invisible in a city usually requires a great deal of concentration, painting over my appearance with whatever is around me, constantly, as I move. But out here in the open ocean, all I need to do is weave an illusion of repeating waves and sky over our ships. Even if I make a few mistakes, the Tamourans will be watching from far away. It should be easy to fool them. If I can weave invisibility across the entire fleet, they won’t know where we are until we are upon them.

“And are the baliras ready?” I ask, stepping closer to the railing to look down at the ocean.

Sergio nods. “They’re ready.” But I sense an immediate unease in him and look up. When he sees my expression, he sighs and shakes his head. “The baliras have been restless all night. I’m not an expert in their behavior, but some of the other crew members tell me that they seem like they’re ill. Something in the water, perhaps.”

“Always knew the fish from this strait tasted funny,” Magiano quips, but he barely says it like a joke. I study the baliras that skim the surface of the water as they swim. I can’t tell how healthy they are, but Sergio’s words frighten me.

“Will they be strong enough to carry us across the eastern bay?” I ask as one of them bursts through the waves with a haunting call.

Sergio crosses his arms. “They say the baliras will fly long enough to get us over the wall. I don’t know if they’ll survive a long battle, though.”

“So we need to make it quick and clean,” Magiano says.

“Essentially, yes.”

Magiano raises an eyebrow at me. He doesn’t say it, but I know he’s wishing that we had someone like Gemma with us. Maybe we would have, once upon a time. But Gemma is dead. She hated you, anyway, add the whispers, and I harden my heart before I let myself think about her for much longer. The Daggers will be waiting for us, along with the Tamouran army. The thought of forcing them to their knees gives me some sense of satisfaction. Finally, the whispers sigh.

In unison, our silver-white pennants turn into black ones that blend with the darkening sky. Our war drums echo deep and rhythmic across the sea. The shores of Tamoura are growing closer, and I can see the towers of the capital. Ships have gathered in the harbor, some clustered at the narrow entrance, ready to stop us. But Sergio’s storm is already doing its work. The ocean crashes hard against the harbor’s rocks, sending white spray high in the air and rocking the Tamouran fleet.

The waves hit our own ships hard too, and as one smashes into our side, I careen toward the railing. My hands find it and latch on for safety. Behind me, Magiano makes a flying leap at the edge of the sail and lifts himself onto it in the blink of an eye. He pirouettes to the ladder steps, which lead up along the mainmast. “You’re going to need a better view,” he shouts. “Care to join me?”

He’s right. I take his hand, and he pulls me to the first step. Slowly, I make my way up as the ship tosses. Blackness has nearly covered the entire sky, leaving only a sliver of blue over the capital, surrounded by churning storm clouds. Fat drops of rain have started to pelt down on us. A roll of thunder shakes us. From here, I can see the entire expanse of the Tamouran coastline—the smaller bay off to one side of the city, and the wider bay that we are now sailing dangerously close to. The bay’s mouth gapes before us, and the rocks lining it are sharp and jagged, like the jaws of a monster rising out of the ocean. Directly beyond it is a line of Tamouran warships, all facing our fleet and ready for battle. As we look on, a burst of cannon fire sparks from one of the ships. A warning shot.