“Who the fuck is this prick?” Theryn grabbed a dagger from his waist, his thick clothing soaked against the lean lines of his arms.

“Frank.” Jàden scrambled for the gun.

In one swift move, Frank had a weapon in each hand.

He fired, several glowing wires wrapping Jàden’s arms and pinning them to her body. Her connection to the Flame dampened, but this time it didn’t disappear. Her power was too strong now. “Theryn, don’t move!”

Frank pointed the handgun at Theryn’s forehead. “You heard her, boy.”

Not again, not again.

Jàden dropped sideways, slamming her palm to the floor. The Flame crackled through her arms, ripping the ground upward and tossing both men against the walls.

As the wires around her body shorted out, she unraveled enough to get her arm free and grabbed her discarded handgun.

Jàden squeezed the trigger, firing off a single shot.

“You fucking bitch.” Fury in his eyes, Frank clutched his stomach. Crimson bled through his fingers, but he kept his handgun pointed at Theryn’s head. “How the fuck did you get out of hypersleep?”

Her hands shook as she inched backward. “Where is he? Where’s Kale?”

A sneer curved the corner of Frank’s mouth. “He’s dead, darlin’. It’s just you and me and that glass cage you love so much.”

“He was your son!” Tears spilled onto her cheeks. A raw pain ripped open her chest, widening the hollow gap. Tendrils of white light circled around her arms, the Flame’s energy whispering against her senses. “I’m not going back, and we both know you’ll never kill me.”

“How right you are, darlin’.” He fired at Theryn.

Jàden squeezed the trigger, wood shattering behind Frank’s head.

A red-haired blur slammed into Frank, the two crashing into the wall.

“Dusty!” Theryn howled, clutching his arm and cursing as he raced across the room.

Jàden aimed her gun at the wrestling men then dropped her arm. She didn’t want to accidentally hit the wrong person. “Pop the firemark out! He can’t shoot if his weapon has no power.”

A large swell crashed against the ship’s hull, flipping the boat sideways and knocking her across the room. Her back slammed against the ceiling, pain shooting along her spine.

“Jàden!” Jon shouted from somewhere outside as seawater swelled into the room.

“In here!” She scrambled to her feet, fire digging into her hip as the saltwater soaked her burn. Jàden spied the datapad and shoved the thin tablet inside her bodice.

Seawater rose to her waist, a tangle of bodies splashing in the center of the room.

They had to get out, but the doorway was already flooding.

The hull ripped open, the ship groaned as wood shards burst into the air.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Jàden covered her head. Splinters sliced across her hand as Frank and the two bowmen fell through the submerged wall into the sea. She clutched the weathered wood, holding onto the edge. She tried to pull herself toward the orange-and-gray clouding but didn’t have the strength.

The ship groaned again.

“Jon!” she called.

“I gotcha.” Jon’s face appeared over the torn wall. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her up beside him.

Relief flooded through her. As soon as he pulled loose the last wires wrapping her body, she threw her arms around him, burying her face in his neck. “You came.”

“I’ll always come,” he whispered.

The storm had cooled his skin, but his deeper warmth pressed through the prickles of his beard.

Jon held her tight and buried his chin in her neck. “We gotta get out of here. This ship’s sinking.”

“The others—”

“Let’s get you to safety first.”

Jàden grasped Jon’s arm as he helped her climb across the corridor wall to the edge of the sinking hull. His breath on her skin wound tightly to the Flame’s power, and a sense of peace whispered through her.

This felt like home.

Waves crashed against the hull, the stormy seas gray and dreary. With some of the fog burned off, the city’s stark white towers stood tall among rows of tight buildings.

Frank’s scout craft flickered with orange light as one wing lay high in the air, a giant hole torn into the blast shielding.

“Shit, I did that,” she whispered. Sparking wires and pipes dangled along the side. “I should detonate the ship.”

She hesitated, glancing between the city and the storm waves crashing around the sleek craft. Citizens would come poking inside, or maybe merchants would tear it apart and sell off the pieces.

“Leave it.” Jon clasped her hand. “We have to get away from this city.”

A smaller vessel with wine-colored sails slid alongside them.

Jon pointed to where the others waited. “Go.”

“You’d better be right behind me.” She hastened for the edge and leapt across the gap.

Jàden crashed onto the deck, agony screaming through her hip and shoulder. She bit back a cry of pain and stumbled to her knees, the gun skidding across the deck.

Jon cursed as he crashed to the deck beside her, clenching his fist. Blood soaked his lower leg.

“You’re hurt,” she said.

“I’m fine.” He clasped her arm and helped her up.

She doused the firemark and slid the gun into her waistband as dozens of women in wine-colored bodices and breeches swarmed the deck.

“Ship’s going down quick, Hevkor,” an umber-skinned woman with sleek, black hair shouted.

Someone replied from the stern, but it was garbled under Thomas’s shouting. “There they are.”

A dozen women raced to the rail, several tossing ropes over the side.

Jàden stumbled over and pulled the gun from her waistband, swiping her thumb across the firemark until it glowed, afraid that Frank would be trying to climb aboard.

Dusty and Theryn clung to a knotted rope and climbed up the side.

But she was searching for a third head.

For Frank’s defining mohawk among the swells or another of those white-haired bastards. Dozens of Rakir cursed them, clinging to wood planks or swimming toward the orange flickers.

Frank was nowhere to be seen.

“That bastard disappeared,” Theryn muttered as he pulled himself over the rail. He grabbed the gun from her hand, inspecting the weapon. Blood soaked his shoulder where a gunshot hadn’t quite missed his arm. “You are one terrifying Guardian. Remind me never to piss you off.”

Jàden swept her fingers across the firemark, dousing its power before the bowman accidentally shot himself, but she kept searching the sea. Frank would find a way to survive—he always did.

“I’ll never go back, Frank,” she shouted to the wind as snow scattered snow across the deck. “You come after me, and I’ll shoot you again, this time between the eyes.”

Jon laid a hand on her shoulder and pulled her away from the rail. “Is everyone here?”

She never wanted to see this city again. Tears burned in her eyes.

Two years she’d waited for Kale to come, only to watch him die. Jon found her in less than a day. She clutched his hand and leaned against his shoulder as wine-colored sails unfurled to catch the wind.

“So, the rumors are true.” A short, stocky woman with black hair pulled back from her face strode up to them, dressed in a long wine-and-gold tunic. Salty air weathered her plain features, placing the woman’s age somewhere near her eighties, just closing in on mid-life.

“What rumors?” Jàden tightened her grip on Jon’s hand as women in dresses discarded their skirts, deck-hand uniforms the same deep burgundy as the ship’s sails. They let their hair down to catch the wind, grabbing ropes and climbing tall masts like they’d lived all their lives on the sea.

“Herana, the moonless Guardian has returned.” The shorter woman narrowed her eyes, almost as if she were displeased to see Jàden. “I’m Hevkor Naréa. Welcome to the Darius.”