Page 50 of Lady for Embers

“Then he will deliver his message.” Scarlett stilled. “Personally?”

Lord Tyndell nodded. “He will come for you himself and send these ships to the bottom of the Edria.”

“His little power to crush a heart will not accomplish such a thing,” Scarlett countered.

“No,” Lord Tyndell agreed. “But the seraphs that he will bring with him can.”

“We will see them coming from miles off,” Sorin cut in. “We will take them from the sky before they can get close enough to attack even one.”

“And yet we have a seraph on every ship already,” Lord Tyndell countered.

“One or two is easy enough, but the number needed to take usalldown?” Scarlett countered. “That will not be so easily accomplished.”

“We have more than elemental magic, my dear.”

Shadows rose up behind her, the panthers in front of her splitting into several wolves, while blinding white ?ames raced around them in a large circle. “So do I,” she said coldly.

“But will it be enough to save all the innocents you have with you?” Lord Tyndell asked. “Before you answer, I will give you an hour to debate your decision. Not as a courtesy to you, but to my children, who I am hoping will return with you.”

His hand fell from Tava’s arm, and she was instantly racing across the deck, not to Callan, but to Drake. The shields around them seemed to recognize her, letting her pass through, and Drake was enveloping her in his arms.

“Are you all right?” he murmured, clutching her to his chest. Callan could see her visibly shaking.

“They were trying to get Eva,” she replied, her voice trembling as much as her body. “I couldn’t let them take her.”

“I know, Tava,” Drake murmured again, tucking her head under his chin.

“Why won’t he leave us alone?” she whispered. “If we’re not his, what does he want with us?”

“I wish I knew,” her brother replied. Eva.

They were here for him and his sister and Scarlett. And now they knew Sorin lived. An ace up their sleeve now lost.

And yet all he could seem to focus on was that Tava had gone to her brother instead of him.

“Our priorities are the four main ships that house us and the children,” Sorin was saying from where he stood at the head of the long table in the dining room at the back of the ship. “If we lose the others, we’ll make do.”

“Two of those other ships have all of our supplies, Sorin,” Cyrus argued. “We can’t just say the hell with them.”

“I understand that, but if we are forced to choose, we choose the people.”

“Obviously,” Cyrus drawled, “but that doesn’t mean we simply abandon the other ships with us. We already took the bare minimum necessary. If we lose those supply ships, the rest of this passage will be taxing on everyone.”

Scarlett sat silently beside her husband, head propped on a ?st as she listened and watched everything taking place around her. She’d hardly spoken since Lord Tyndell had vanished into the air, taking the seraph with him. Azrael had immediately taken Briar and Sawyer to the ship where Eva was, and the Earth Prince had promised to bring Eva back with him when they returned.

Callan was seated on a bench down the table, his leg bouncing incessantly beneath it as he waited to lay eyes on his sister.

“We make those the second priority,” Sorin was saying. “But our people and those children... We all come out of this alive.”

“How do we prepare for their magic?” Auberon asked. He sat across from Callan, beside Rayner. “These seraphs could have any gift, possibly not even a power from this world. How do we counter that?”

“You prepare for any and every possibility,” Scarlett said, speaking suddenly. The hand she’d been resting her chin on fell to the arm of her chair. “If you have not been trained to expect the unexpected, then you will sit this ?ght out.”

“What?” Eliza balked. “We will need every weapon possible, Scarlett.” Scarlett was shaking her head. “Those not prepared to ?ght this way will be liabilities, and you know it, Eliza. Our focus and attention will be split. We are already at several disadvantages. We cannot afford more.”

“She makes a valid point,” Rayner supplied.

“Those who are not trained to ?ght this way will be placed with the children to guard them,” Scarlett continued. “We take down—”

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