A Thousand Heartbeats

The kingdom of Stratfel was along the coast, and a huge part of their economy depended upon fishing. As such, their collection of fishing boats was extensive, so there were plenty to steal. Enough small boats to carry our people to an island, and enough to devastate dozens of Stratfelian families.

I stayed out of sight, playing no part in the thievery. I simply climbed aboard when directed, knowing I had no choice. I toyed with the ropes on the boat, tying the few knots I knew. Sheet bend, lark’s head, sheepshank. I hoped the action would untie the knots in my stomach. It did not. We kept close to shore, unwilling to test the boats unnecessarily. At the same time, our eyes were out to sea, wondering if they were close.

“I don’t even know what I’m looking for,” Blythe admitted. “Just any ship on the horizon?”

“Essentially,” I replied.

Inigo and Blythe had stayed by my side, as had Griffin and Rami.

“I don’t see anything,” Inigo stated dejectedly. “Were we given the wrong date?”

I shook my head. “No. This was designed to lure at least some of us into the open. They’re out there.”

Just then, we rounded a jagged edge of the coast, and right ahead of us were three massive frigates. Now that I could see just what they had at their disposal, my greatest fear was confirmed: this was a full-fledged assault.

“Get your weapons ready,” I yelled to my crew. “Their ships are bigger, but that makes them slower. There’s a chance they haven’t noticed us yet, but they will soon. When that happens, be on guard. We don’t know what defenses they have. We will need all of our number, so protect one another.”

“Yes, sir!” they all responded.

Inigo was already adjusting the sails, using the wind and our size to our advantage. Blythe and Rami were side by side, lining up the unlit torches in neat, easy rows on both the starboard and port sides of the boat.

As my father’s cape drifted out behind me, I wondered idly whether there was more to be said between my mother and me. And, most important, would today rob us of the opportunity to try?

Inigo’s use of the winds was excellent, pushing us past many of our own ships easily. I stood on the front of our schooner, watching. It wouldn’t be long before they realized we were on their tail, and I had my eyes on the backs of the ships, waiting for that moment. I glanced to my sides, making sure everyone I could see was ready.

When I turned to my right, my mother was there, holding on to the mast of a small boat three away from me, looking at me with something in her eyes that could almost be pride. After a moment she pointed up to her eyebrow, mirroring mine. I shrugged and gave her an almost smile. Let her think I fell, or that I got hit practicing. Now was not the time to trouble her. I nodded at her, and she nodded back. I turned, focusing on what lay ahead.

Maybe a minute later, a watchman caught sight of us. I could hear the frantic yelling over the waves.

“Light the torches,” I called.

We were so close. So close. My heart was racing at the thought of that giant, beautiful ship sinking to the bottom of the sea. It would be the first step in taking down the entirety of their navy. The navy, then the monarchy, then the castle. Dahrain would be ours within days.

And then they turned.

With more agility than I’d have thought possible for a ship that large, they lined the port sides of their frigate against our sad little fleet, creating a massive wall.

“Scatter!” I called when no one else gave a command. “Throw!”

We were close enough that some of the torches made it to the deck. Several bounced off the sides but didn’t make contact long enough for fire to catch. It was hard to tell from this distance if the ones on the deck were doing much damage.

The aft side of the ship closest to us looked like it had a growing plume of smoke, and that made me smile briefly before a bullet sailed past my shoulder.

“What was that?!” Blythe shrieked, ducking.

“They have muskets!” I yelled back. Of course they did.

Another bullet came our way, hitting the side of the boat and splintering the wood.

“Stay down!” I ordered. Ignoring my own words, I leaped up to survey the damage. Two or three of our boats had tipped in the wake of the frigate, and people were grasping for something to hold on to, begging for someone to throw them a rope. In another boat, someone was crying as blood spilled out of a hole in their arm.

Where was my mother? I scanned our fleet, finding her where I’d seen her last, a few boats away. Even from here, I could see the tears streaming down her face as she hurled curses and torches at the massive ship, years of grief spilling out.

I’d known she was formidable. This was something else, something deeper than the sheer determination she threw into surviving. It was almost animalistic.

Following her lead, I called back to Blythe and Rami. “Light the torches, and I’ll throw them from here.”

Rami passed me one first.

I remembered my father’s face and threw.

I remembered my cold room and threw.

I remembered needless blood on my sword and threw.

I remembered every last thing I went through because of them, and I fought the only way I could.

Over all the screams and the muskets firing, the waves and clamor, I was brought to a halt by a voice calling out.

“Annika, get back!”

She was here.

White Flag—Coleman—had specifically said that she would be kept far from a war, so why—why—was she here?

There. I found her on the stern of the ship, searching for something. She was in white.

I stood there stunned as the wind picked up her hair, tossing it back and forth.

She dragged her gaze over the boats, finally meeting my eyes.

She stopped looking.

Had I been what she was trying to find?

I didn’t know how much time passed as we stood there, watching each other, not moving. I sensed, in the deepest parts of myself, that we were both inviting unnecessary danger.

“Lennox! Lennox, take the torch!” Rami said.

I came back to my senses. “What?”

She stood up taller. “Take the tor—”

Suddenly, Rami was on her back, an ugly red pool growing around her abdomen. She’d been hit twice in quick succession, and the bullets were doing their work fast.

“Rami!” Griffin cried, coming over to cradle her. His lips were trembling. Everything was trembling.

She hardly made a sound, and I watched as her eyes moved from the clouds to the boat to each person surrounding her . . . until she found Griffin.

“You,” she whispered as Griffin clutched her hand. “You made everything bright.”

“Stop it,” he ordered. “We can fix this once we get to land. Just keep pressure on it.”

There wasn’t much point. Inigo already had pressure on the wound, and the blood was still pouring.

Rami kept her eyes on Griffin. “You made . . . everything . . . worth it.”

“Please,” he said. There wasn’t anything else to ask. “Please.”

“I love you,” she told him, the hint of a smile on her face.

Griffin nodded. “How could you not?”

She really smiled at that.

“I love you. It won’t stop,” he vowed.

“No,” she whispered. “No . . . it won’t.”

Rami reached up and traced a finger along Griffin’s cheek. Then her hand fell to the deck, lifeless. Griffin let out a guttural cry, the sound shaking something in the deepest parts of me. Blythe, always so steady and cool, covered her mouth, crying as well. Inigo had stood up beside Blythe. He almost went to put a hand on her back, but he remembered the blood on them and stopped, watching her in concern.

I barely knew Rami, but all I could think about was how her brief life had been wasted, stolen. The fire of anger in my chest was rekindled, and I stood, looking back to the frigate.

Annika wasn’t on the deck anymore. In her place was that coward from the Forest, the fiancé.

We had to change tactics.

“Pull back!” I called. “Pull back!” I turned to Inigo. “Set our course for the Island. We’re going to take them on land.”

He nodded and leaped into action, his bloodstained hands moving quickly.

“Hey!”

I turned to see the boat with Kawan on it beside me.

“Who are you to call orders?” he demanded.

I bypassed him for a moment, looking for my mother. She was still there, uninjured it seemed, except for the ghosts tormenting her mind.

I turned to Kawan. “It takes a skilled soldier maybe twenty seconds to reload a musket. Under war conditions, that slows out of fear. It becomes thirty seconds, a minute. And thirty seconds at the end of my sword or Inigo’s, thirty seconds on the receiving end of Blythe’s or Griffin’s bow . . . that’s enough time to take down a country. Get us to land so we can have that time.”

He considered this, then nodded.

I looked behind me, watching as Griffin kissed Rami’s forehead. He stroked her hair off her face, and he didn’t let her go as we shifted our course for land.

It had been fascinating to watch how love chipped the jagged edges from someone, made them sharper in some ways and softer in others. It left me, for the first time, awed by the prospect. Love was complicated.

Complicated, but so unexpectedly beautiful.