Lindsay Buroker - Encrypted

“ There are Nurians on board, at least two. They killed my guard. I thought they might want me as a translator as well and I was ready to jump into their arms when they flung a psi wave at me.”

Rias’s brow furrowed. “Why would the Nurians want to hurt you? They ought to be worshipping your people after the help you gave them in the war.”

She watched his face, trying to decide if his tone was accusatory, but only puzzlement furrowed his brows. “I don’t know. I figured they might be after you, too, though I haven’t deduced exactly what your part is in all this yet.” Tikaya wriggled her eyebrows to suggest he might share any time. “I decided to come break you out.”

Another jolt rocked the ship. Tikaya was not sure how long the flame had to be applied to loosen the bond between hinge and pin but wedged her sword into the crack anyway. It was tighter this time.

“ I’m not sure whether to be offended that you’d think Nurian hospitality preferable to Turgonian or tickled that you came down to help me.” Rias gave her that lopsided smile again and, despite the cannons thundering above and the threat of Nurians lurking below, she bit her lip to hide a pleased grin.

“ I’d think even you would prefer Nurian hospitality to Turgonian at this point.” She wriggled the sword, and the pin inched upward.

“ Not really. I’ve been in one of their prison camps and-”

Something bowled into her.

Tikaya was rammed into the gate and dragged to the ground. The sword flew from her grip. She launched a clumsy fist at her attacker, but encountered no one.

“ Invisibility illusion,” she barked.

Metal screeched.

She started to roll to her feet, but her unseen assailant grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. With one hand, she groped for the sword, and with the other clawed for the Nurian. She jerked her head down to protect her neck.

The cell door flew outward, and metal thudded against flesh. Tikaya’s invisible attacker grunted. Rias tore the Nurian off her.

She scrambled out of the way. A snap echoed through the brig, and an orange-clad man appeared. He collapsed on the deck. Dead.

Color flashed behind Rias.

“ Look out!” Tikaya cried.

He whirled as a woman with scimitar and dagger leaped at him, blades leading. He ducked low and barreled toward her legs. The woman jumped and spun in the air to land facing him.

Knowing Rias was still shackled and had no weapons, Tikaya lunged for the dropped sword. She jumped to her feet, hilt clasped in both hands. Even with her inexperience, she figured she could stab someone in the back, but Rias had closed with the Nurian woman. They grappled briefly, then he released her with a shove. She went down, her own dagger protruding from her chest.

Wordlessly, Tikaya handed him her sword. He would know how to use it whereas she would probably just trip over it.

“ You all right?” Rias looked her up and down, brow wrinkled. “Are these the same ones who attacked you above?”

“ I’m fine and…no.”

He knelt and pulled a pin from the dead woman’s hair. “If they can turn invisible, there’s no telling how many are on board.”

“ Comforting.” Tikaya watched him probe the lock on his shackles. “How about we use this chaos to escape or find a good hiding place until the ship gets to port?”

His wrist accessories snapped open and dropped to the ground. He pocketed the hairpin. “Let’s head above decks and find out what’s going on.”

Tikaya raised her eyebrows. That was not exactly her plan-her plan had a lot more focus on the word escape.

On the upper deck, Tikaya and Rias crouched behind a funnel venting hot air from the boiler room. Streaks of lightning branched from the cloudy night sky and lanced around the warship, some sizzling harmlessly against the dark waves and others tearing into mast and sail. Agile as monkeys, marines raced through the rigging, beating out conflagrations. Others perched in the fighting tops, rifles firing intermittently. Tikaya hoped they were too busy to look down and notice her and Rias.

Two wooden Nurian ships, decks lit by glowing orbs, trailed slightly behind on either side of the ironclad. Every time they edged too close, an officer on the gun deck barked orders to fire the cannons. The same weather phenomenon setting off the lightning filled the enemy sails with unnatural wind, and, despite the steam-powered propeller adding knots to the warship’s speed, the Nurian vessels kept pace. In fact, they could have overtaken the warship, and Tikaya had a feeling they were waiting for something. The assassins to kill her? She grimaced.

“ We outman them and outgun them,” Rias said. “But wizards always have tricks that make them dangerous. Bocrest has already slagged this, letting them surround us.”

At the moment, the invisible assassins were more of a concern for Tikaya. “Let’s go to the training area.”

Rias tore his gaze from the Nurian ships. “The blades are dulled; real weapons are kept in the armory.”

“ What I need is over there.”

She expected him to question her further, but he simply led her through the shadows. Two marines in the forecastle manned the chaser gun, which was rotated toward one of the Nurian ships and pounded rounds into the night. Open deck lay between the men and the weapons racks, and the intermittent lightning illuminated much.

Tikaya crouched low to approach the backside of the racks, and she sensed rather than heard Rias behind her. The booms of the great gun would have drowned out the approach of howler monkeys.

Much of the exercise gear had been stowed when the ship was cleared for action, and she worried she would not find what she wanted. But, no, there they were. The heavy sand-filled balls sat in the bottom row of a rack.

She slung one to the deck and found Rias’s ear. “Sword, please.”

He handed her the cutlass, and she sliced open the ball. She stuffed sand into the two hip pockets in her dress until they bulged, then returned the blade.

A fiery projectile the size of her cabin slammed into the side of the ironclad. Ineffective against the metal hull, it bounced into the water, but the energy that had hurled it coursed through the air. Tikaya’s skin hummed. She had never been so close to so much power.

Rias tapped her shoulder and they moved away from the forecastle. With an uncanny knack for avoiding the marines running up and down the deck, he led her past masts, funnels, and vents. They rounded the smokestacks, and he headed toward the after bridge. The captain and senior officers relayed orders to the gun deck and barked commands to the men controlling the wheel.

Tikaya grabbed Rias’s arm. “Where are you going? We’re hiding, remember? And escaping if possible, right?”

Lightning flashed, revealing him gazing toward the Nurian vessels. “If this ship sinks, we’re in trouble too.”

“ And what would we do to stop that?”

A long moment passed before he said, “All right. We can hide between the launches and still see what’s-”

The aft chaser gun blasted, stealing the rest of his words, but she nodded, and Rias led her through the shadows.

Lightning flashed again. Rias ducked between the boats mounted a couple feet above the deck in the center of the ship. The space between them offered a shadowy place to hunker down. The smokestack rose behind them, belching coal plumes and further hemming them in. A determined search would reveal them, but the darkness and chaos offered camouflage-from the marines, anyway. The Nurians had other means of searching for her, but at least lanterns were mounted across the deck from them and would silhouette someone approaching. Assuming that someone wasn’t invisible. She touched her bulging dress pocket.