Page 15 of Scourged

It twisted and turned, the world slowing as Sebastian watched the deadly, stone-solid ice fly. Two hundred feet fromthe battlements, though, the sphere met something invisible. The ice shuddered midair, its opacity dripping off it with the droplets of water it shed. In a matter of seconds, it turned transparent, now a perfect, shimmering ball of glass rather than a deadly globe of ice.

Sebastian didn’t flinch as the glass struck the stone, shattering on impact with a boom. But that was the most damage it inflicted.

The wards were malfunctioning, but … they still worked, in a way. If they ever fell completely, those spheres of ice would blast the battlement towers from the coast. As it were, the wards worked just enough to weaken the ice into a nuisance.

Their dance had become one of traded blows. The Kizar pirates seemed content to remain there, sending their spheres of ice into the battlements, as long as Verith fought back. Never sailing closer, but never going home, either.

A week after the attacks had begun, Sebastian had decided to ignore this ridiculous game. He’d ordered Mariah’s Armature and the chief officers to let the pirates launch their harmless attack; they would return to their search for Mariah and Andrian.

Sebastian hadn’t realized that the pirates weren’t sailing any further bychoice. That the wards only kept out magical attacks, not physical crossings.

The blood of the people who’d been on the docks that day now stained his hands, adding to the long tally of his failures.

He’d failed those innocent people by not protecting this city.

He’d failed Mariah by urging her to trust an untrustworthy man.

He’d failed his queen by not saving her from a fate that haunted his nightmares.

Sebastian’s rage—at Andrian, at these fucking pirates’ obnoxious games, at his failure—swept over him as he turned,meeting Drystan’s stare. Crystalline shards still rained around them, shattered globes reminding them why they stood here and fought. His lip curled back from his teeth as he raised his hand.

“Fire!” he roared, voice ringing off the cliffs. Twisting, he echoed the command to Feran.

In perfect tandem, the two trebuchets launched massive stone boulders into the Bay.

Sebastian’s eyes tracked the stone from Feran’s trebuchet. It arched through the sky before plummeting down, down, down.

Right into the deck of the nearest ship, wood splintering into the water with a shattering boom. The mast cracked in half, men diving into the blue-green waters and swimming for their sister vessels. Cheers from the battlements filled the late afternoon skies.

But Sebastian knew how this game was played.

In the center of the fleet sat a ship larger than the others. Sebastian trained his attention on that ship, waiting.

Sure enough, there was movement on the deck. Then, a massive white flag was attached to a central mast, hoisted up into the sky. The dance was done for the day.

That was all it took. Sink a ship, and the pirates would retreat to lick their wounds. Sometimes, it took days for the ancient trebuchets to land a shot. The longest it had taken was a week, the fighting raging day and night. The Armature took battlement duty in shifts, sinking into exhausted slumber and shoveling food down before it was their turn to return to the lines, to keep the morale of the Guards and Infantry high.

They got lucky this time. This battle had only started at sunrise. Sebastian had been here since it started.

It was a short one, but he knew it wouldn’t last. The pirates would be back.

“Sebastian!” Drystan’s voice rang out over the battlements, cutting through the cheers.

Sebastian turned, seeing Drystan and Feran standing on the battlement above him, exhaustion written plainly on their faces.

Feran slung his longbow across his back, rolling his shoulders. “It’s over for the day. Let’s go home.”

Sebastian spared one final look out at the black-sailed ships retreating from the Bay of Nria. With a sigh, he nodded, hanging his head.

“Let’s go home.”

Theallumesconceson the walls flickered. Darkness guttered around them, peppering the marble floor with shadows.

Sebastian’s bones were leaden as he trudged down the hall, flanked by Drystan and Feran. None of them so much as flinched at the wavering lights; after five weeks, they’d become all but accustomed to it.

Accustomed, but not accepting. Sebastian would never accept this as their eternal fate.

They had to get Mariah back.

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