“We’re fine,” Josef said. “She’s with me.”
This didn’t seem to reassure the sailors, but they kept rowing, glancing sideways at Nico as she squinted at Josef from beneath her dark hood.
“How’d it go?” Josef said.
“Pretty well,” Nico answered. “I went to every one of the outer villages just like you said. They didn’t believe me at first, but once I pointed out the Empress’s ships, they went along just fine. The catapults are being set up right now. If a palace ship gets within two hundred feet of the outer island shores, it’ll be bombarded.”
“Good,” Josef said. “Won’t be enough to sink a palace ship, but a barrage will make landing troops hairy. That’ll have to be enough to protect our flank for now.” He squeezed Nico’s arm and stepped past her, climbing back up on the prow so he could look the rowers in the eye. “Listen up!” he shouted. “The admiral and I explained this earlier, but since we’re the flagship and everyone’s following our lead, I’m going to say it again. We’re not out here to fight the Empress’s fleet. Our only objective is to stop her advance long enough for reinforcements to arrive from the mainland.”
He threw out his arm and pointed down at the water. This far out, it was beautifully clear. Down below, the shadow of their boat shot across the bright, rocky reef that waited thirty feet below the waves, the natural barrier between their island and the sea. “See that?” Josef said, stabbing his finger at the reef. “That’s our weapon. All we have to do is hold them over the shallows and let the tide do our work for us.”
The captain gritted his teeth. “Begging your pardon, majesty, but how are we going to hold ships that big with no clingfire? The admiral said you had some kind of secret weapon, but, and I ain’t intending to be speaking above my station, I don’t see nothing on you but a big metal bar.”
Josef grinned wide and reached over his shoulder, drawing the Heart in a smooth arc. “This big metal bar is all we need. Just row where I tell you to go. I’ll do the rest.”
“Aye, sire,” the captain said, though he couldn’t hide the tremble in his voice. “Full ahead.”
The flagship shot forward, cutting through the water like a knife toward the front line of the palace ships.
The Empress’s fleet slowed to meet them, the palace ships halting their unnatural speed as they reached the edge of the reef. Josef fell to a crouch. The other runners had fanned themselves out around the flagship and were keeping pace, just as they were supposed to. Josef was just starting to feel good about this whole crazy operation when he felt Nico tense beside him.
“What?” he said, glancing at her.
Nico was staring straight ahead, eyes wide. “Was there always an island there?”
“What are you talking about?”
Nico pointed at the sky behind the palace ships. Josef squinted against the bright sun, and then his eyes went wide as he saw it too. There, rising like a specter over the enemy fleet, was the shadowy shape of a large, rocky island. But that was impossible. Osera was the last land in these waters. Yet there it was, sturdy and large as any of the Oseran mountain islands. Even this far away, Josef could make out the shape of buildings clinging to the island’s rocky slope. Buildings in a style he’d never seen before.
His blood began to run cold, but even as the fear rose, Josef made himself let it go. “Forget it,” he said, raising his voice. “Nothing has changed! Full ahead!”
“Aye, sire,” the captain said. “Steady!”
The sailors obeyed, and the Oseran fleet flew at the line of palace ships like a tiny bird flying at a wall that spans the world.
Nara stood on the balcony of her war palace, watching the tiny specs of the Oseran fleet approaching her front line. Her ornate sword was out and naked in her hand, a rare sight, and one that made her general extremely uncomfortable.
“Hail, Empress,” he said after waiting a solid minute for her to notice he was there.
“One of the Hundred Conquerors has fallen,” the Empress said, raising her sword for him to see. “I still don’t believe it. I haven’t had a sleeper fall since I took the high mountains. What was that, two hundred years ago?”
“Two hundred and fifty-three,” the general said. “If my Empress is referring to her war with the Ascetics of the Great Glacier.”
“Oh, yes,” the Empress said. “That pack of ice builders. A good war, if I remember. I think I ended up commanding their glacier to provide the water that turned the northern plains green.”