Chapters (70)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- Map
- Epigraph
- BEGINNINGS
- PART I
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- PART II
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- TRICKSTER
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Also by Susan Dennard
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- Newsletter Sign-up
She reached the central table of her quarters. Charts were stretched and weighted, while miniature ships had gathered against the table’s raised rim. Unmagicked. The expensive Aetherwitched miniatures she’d wasted a tiny fortune on had been lost or destroyed or Noden only knew by Merik.
Vivia waited until Sotar had closed the door into her cabin. Vaness would likely sequester in her quarters belowdecks, where she often hid, and Cam would be organizing the crew to set sail.
“Has the blockade cleared your departure?” Sotar asked. He joined Vivia at the table, watching as she lined up ships outside the Veñaza City harbor upon a chart. Thirty-four warships, letting no one in and no one out without approval from the Doge.
“No,” Vivia said. “But our names got us through the blockade. They will get us out.”
“Are you certain?” Sotar lifted cool eyebrows, and once more, the similarities to Stix …
Vivia’s throat clenched tight. She chewed her lip several beats before nodding briskly. “They cannot stop us. We are a queen and an empress, even if they refuse to help us reclaim our thrones.”
She grabbed a second set of miniatures, painted rich, iris blue. One she placed in the harbor, west of the blockade.
“Us,” she said. Then she plopped down the remaining two. “Our ships.”
One she placed in Lovats, useless and destroyed. The other she set near Lejna. “I sent out three ships two months ago under the Fox banner. One was captured in Saldonica.” And sent back to Lovats filled with seafire. She did not say that part aloud. Sotar knew; Sotar had been there. “One we now sail, and the third…” She glanced at Sotar. “I ordered them to hide in the Hundred Isles, and they have been awaiting orders ever since.”
Sotar’s lips pursed. Contemplative, perhaps. More likely disapproving. He had known of Vivia’s attempts at piracy and he had looked the other way. When he spoke again, it was to say simply, “I see, Captain. Shall I tell Cam to fetch the banner then?”
“Not yet.” Vivia matched his grim expression. What she had done two months ago, she had done with no pleasure—but she had also jumped in too quickly. As desperate as she’d been for food, for weapons, the bounty had not been worth the price.
Sometimes little foxes were run into holes with nowhere to hide, while other times they had to turn and face the danger before it was too late for themselves, for their cubs, for everything they’d ever loved.
If that moment ever came, then Vivia would raise the Fox flag.
“The Nubrevnan iris will do,” she told Sotar, referring to the banner now flapping against the mast: a blue iris on a checkered field. “For now, we are the Royal Navy, and I pray that is enough to get us through.”