The temptation to hand over the bomb and all that came with it fluttered in her chest. She didn’t want this, but she could see no other way. Oran would take this responsibility from her. He would protect her from it by adding to his own wounds. But that was no way to lead.

“Tell everyone to grab their shields and stay as close to the starboard rail as possible,” she said with a nod, holding the bomb against her belly.

Oran’s expression drew tight, but he nodded and then he moved to complete her orders.

Both crews were in motion, making ready for the fight. And as the grappling hooks came down to lock the Luminous Wake in place and gangways followed, Caledonia climbed atop the railing.

“Hold!” a voice growled from the deck of the Bullet ship.

Caledonia found him at once. Aric Athair. The Father himself.

He stood far from the railing with a contingent of Bullets to protect him. With one hand resting on his gun, he was the picture of confidence and command. Sunlight spilled over his shoulders, casting his face in dark shadow, yet his hair was just long enough to catch the light breeze, ruffling around his head like the leaves of an old oak tree.

“Caledonia Styx,” he said.

She knew she must look unimpressive—short and slight, her cheeks and nose sharpened by the sun and wind, her hair too short to do anything but twist away from her head like truncated tentacles. She was no comparison to the man of vine and rock standing amid a hundred Bullets.

They were two points on a map that were never meant to meet. Yet here they were: the tyrant and the rebel, the man and the girl.

“Hello, Aric,” she said, raising the bomb above her head as she depressed the ignition.

He followed her movement, eyes widening in surprise as Caledonia thrust the bomb high, throwing it in an arc that would place it in the dead center of Aric’s deck.

“Shield!” he called frantically.

In an instant, twelve Bullets gathered around Aric in a tight cluster. With horror, Caledonia realized they were the shield. They were going to die to protect this brutal man.

And it was too late to change anything.

Behind her, the crew raised a wall of plate metal shields as they ducked low beneath the starboard rail. Caledonia leapt. The bomb exploded. And as tiny stars ripped into the railing, Oran hooked an arm around Caledonia and pulled her close.

It lasted less than a minute. The bomb ejected its lethal stars amid violent cries of pain, and the air cleared. Caledonia was on her feet at once, ready to rally her crew and take advantage of the lull. She climbed atop the rail, gun ready, eyes scanning for a sign that Aric had survived, but the scene that greeted her was so much worse than she’d imagined it would be.