جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 37

The swans came on like a hymn you don’t get to choose, measured, layered, inevitable. Five hulls: two cutters quick and clean, two frigates with proper opinions, and the flagship with a jaw full of doctrine. The wind had decided they should be here, and wind is a politician when it likes the audience.“Northing holds for an hour,” I said, squinting past the glare, chart in my head. “Then the tide forks, warm edge, cold gut. They’ll take the fast water and think it’s wisdom. We’ll take the colder cut and let it give us a hand where it looks like a fist.”“Cold it is,” Kade said. “Harp, haul for northerly. Jas, teeth in, not out, no first bite. Freckles, eyes on the powder, not the prettier things.”“I don’t know prettier things,” Freckles lied, grinning because he was young enough to. “Aye, Captain.”The Wraith lifted her chin to the north, and the sea answered in cross hatch, little slants that promised more when you added speed. Lenses in the fla

The three days back rode me like a borrowed horse, obedient, unloved. The flagship kept me above with officers who pretended my presence was air and not weather; below, iron measured my crew’s hours one clink at a time. I walked the rail and wore a path between anger and fear and something softer I refused to name. Every bell rang a different fate: my father’s face when he saw me; Seraphine’s smile when she decided who I was again; Kade’s shoulders going stubborn under chains. Vey kept his distance and his courtesy. Twice he brought me tea that tasted like apology. I drank it and did not absolve him.We made the royal docks at noon on a day that looked like it had been polished for the purpose. Guards lined the pier in their braids and borrowed bravery. The swan flag remembered its posture. And there, hatless, jaw set too carefully, stood Rowan. Not a king I had dreamed as a child, not a monster I had trained as a fugitive. Just a man who’d misplaced his daughter and found

The palace slept like a cat, one eye open, pretending not to see mice.Second bell. Torch change quarter. Stew, change half. I stood in the dark between the dressing screen and the window and tied the dull brown ribbon into my hair. The swan blue dress waited on its stand like a trick. I put it on. Silk bit ribs; the bodice made me a truth I couldn’t dodge. Knives went into the hem and sash. The marlinspike slid into my sleeve. The curtain cord rope coiled around my waist like a lie I planned to tell convincingly.Esme knocked twice on the garden door and didn’t wait for me to say enter. “Laundry’s up,” she whispered. “Bath oil’s gone. If someone slips, it’ll be a shame.”“Bless you,” I said, and meant it.“Bless yourself,” she said, fiercer. “I prefer saints who breathe.”We moved. The two guards on my door were new enough to pride themselves on being bored. They straightened; I let them see me, dress, hair, a princess taking air, the sc