Page 9 of Pearls of Salt and Sacrifice

“I thought I saw something in the water. Ripples. Maybe a shadow. Then came the explosion. The fire.”

“Did you see fins?”

Albus shook his head, his face wrinkling in concentration. “I don’t think so? But maybe? It happened so fast, ma’am. The ripples, then the explosion. Might have been fins? I don’t remember.”

“Not very helpful,” Reva said once the lad had been dismissed to scramble back on board the ship.

“We’ll interrogate the crew—and the survivors,” Isla said. “But if something was in the water…maybe this wasn’t an accident.”

“You’re thinking of the elves?” Reva shielded her eyes with her hand and glanced about the area with a heavy sigh. “But then why are they helping?

“Your guess is as good as mine. The arrival of the sea elves was timely, though.” Isla used her oar to push the dinghy away from the hull of the Perseus with the help of two other sailors who’d remained in the boat with them. “This would have taken far longer without them.”

“Maybe it was just an accident—the powder magazine exploding, like you said. And maybe there wasn’t anything in the water…just dolphins or a shark.”

Isla didn’t respond immediately, her shoulder muscles straining as she pulled on the oars. “I think all the wounded have been retrieved.”

Bile rose to the back of Reva’s throat once again, and she swallowed with difficulty.

“Yes. Should we return to the island, then? I suppose Prince Felix is due a status report.”

“I suppose Prince Felix can kiss the soles of my boots,” Isla snapped. “Why do we owe him a status report when he didn’t care enough to come out and save his own people?”

Reva did not disagree. However, she knew better than to badmouth the prince in front of her crew, even one as high-ranking as Isla.

“After all, you were there,” Isla said. “Captain Rency was there. And the sea elf. What’s his name?”

“Jareth.”

Reva pulled hard at the oars. The tension in her shoulders increased at the reference to the elf prince. She hadn’t taken the time to process his presence at Black Rock.

As she rowed, her thoughts now returned to his sudden arrival just before the attack on the Endellion. Coincidence? He and his people had been very helpful, so she found it hard to believe they’d been behind the attack. If so, why the pretense?

And why the desperate look in his startling blue-green eyes when he’d looked at her and announced he’d come seeking her hand in marriage?

“What’s he doing here anyway?”

Reva hesitated and kept her eyes on the horizon behind them. She didn’t really want to say the words out loud. “He says he is looking for a wife.”

“A what?” Isla shot her a sharp look and then threw back her head and laughed. The sound echoed across the waves, harsh and unnatural after the horrifying sounds that had ricocheted over the waves that morning.

Sands and Pearls!

Reva yanked harder at the oar, gritting her teeth. She’d come to Black Rock seeking trade routes...not suitors.

And now she had more suitors than she knew what to do with and the trade routes seemed…impossibly elusive.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” Isla said, still grinning from ear to ear. “I don’t suppose it’s all that funny.”

Reva tuned out the rest of Isla’s diatribe until they had drawn up on the sandy shoal of Black Rock Island. Then she jumped into the surf and helped the crew drag the longboat high on the sand, out of the greedy tug of the tide.

“Thank you, Isla. And thanks to all of you.” She nodded to each of the crew in turn. “You acted valiantly today.”

They nodded, grim smiles on their weary faces.

Reva braced herself and marched toward Cassandra and Prince Felix who sat beneath the awning. From the corner of her eye, she spotted Captain Rency’s longboat also drawing near the shore. Blast the fellow’s poor timing. Reva hoped he’d be on his best behavior while she tried to smooth things over with Prince Felix.

But perhaps that was asking too much...he probably didn’t even know what good behavior was.

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