A Brother's Price

Chapter 15

Jerin never considered he’d fall asleep, not with the stress and fear of his situation. If he had thought it possible, he would have guarded against it. The day’s rigors, however, combined with the warm, soft bed. put him fully asleep before he realized the danger.

He woke to Kij’s voice, coming from across the room, asking softly, ‘“Is he still sleeping?”

“Like a babe,” Meza whispered in reply. There was a rustle of paper. “Sign here, and here.”

“We’re through the last lock. We’re going ashore here. See that he gets well cared for-something to eat, a chance to relieve himself. You’ll reach home within a few hours. Install him in the husband quarters-quietly. No one but family is to see him. We’ll have to handle this carefully for it to work.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Meza asked.

“The last fifty years have proved us cleverer than all. We’ll weasel out and land on our feet. Have we not time and time again?”

“We’ve never pushed our luck this close before.”

“This will work. It goes faster than I planned, but a nudge here, a nudge there, and everything will fall right. Trust me. Meza.”

There was a slight, tired sound from Meza. “I do. Please, be careful. I’d rather not have Alissa as Eldest.”

With a laugh, Kij said her good-bye and went out the door. Jerin lay with his eyes closed and forced his breathing to stay deep.

The duchy of Avonar lay upriver of Hera’s Step. Kij said they were through the last lock, so they were now above the great waterfall. He recalled the small town that supplied boats with coal, food, and entertainment while they waited their turn to move through the locks. The town was crowded with ship crews and passengers, people he could hide among and perhaps find aid from. While there were towns north of the falls, he would be a lone stranger in a place loyal to the Porters.

Now was the ideal time to escape. If he was to free himself, though, he needed to get rid of Meza.

Considering Kij’s orders, asking for food and water might force Meza to fetch it herself. If not, she’d at least undo his hands so he could eat.

He stirred then, making a show of waking and stretching, blinking with sleep befuddlement. Did Meza believe his act? She glanced up from her paperwork, fingers ink-stained, looking more an accountant than a murderous smuggler. Cira, on the other hand, glancing over the rim of the footboard, had murder in her eyes. Was that look of anger for him, for falling asleep, or just anger at the situation?

Trying to ignore the hate on Cira’s face, he whined, “I’m hungry, and thirsty, and I have to wee-wee.”

“I’m not surprised,” Meza said, methodically cleaning her pens and putting the desk aright before standing. “You’ve been asleep for hours.”

He felt a flare of guilt at her words. He should have tried to escape hours ago, gotten free and back to his wives. Every minute he spent away from them, the less likely he could ever return to them.

Meza came and unshackled his wrists. Holding firmly to his elbow, she steered him to the corner where there was a chamber pot built into a dresser to make an indoor privy. She kept hold of him while he relieved himself. though she averted her eyes. He chanced much, moving his stash pouch from his pocket to his loosely gathered sleeve.

Afterward, Meza led him back and handcuffed him to the bed again. “I’ll go get you something to eat.”

Even as she shut the door behind her, he slipped the pouch out, fingered through it, and pulled the lockpick free. From the foot of the bed, Cira’s eyes went large.

Minutes later, when he undid her gag, she whispered fiercely, “You have to be the slipperiest prince consort in history! I saw them take that from you. How did you get it back?”

“I picked Meza’s pocket,” he whispered, tempted to gag her again. “I wanted to be free of them before they decided that they wanted to be serviced.”

“What about your word of honor?”

“I lied.” Jerin struggled with her handcuff. “You meet people at their level, or the liars and murderers of this world will drag you under.”

Cira smothered a laugh. “I can’t believe you! Did Queen Mother Elder really agree for you to marry her daughters?”

“I don’t see how being raped would be preferable to lying.”

The cuffs came undone and she rose, rubbing her wrists.

“What should we do now?” he started to ask, but she caught him and kissed him. Her mouth was warm and sweet, and he realized that he was half in love with her.

“Why did you do that?” To his shame, he wanted to do it again.

“You’re teaching me never to give up.”

He wasn’t sure if this was a good thing. He pulled himself free, needing to put distance between them before he gave in to kissing her again. “So what do we do?”

“Get in the bed,” she said with a grin.

His heart leaped and a flame of arousal went through him. “What?”

“Pretend like you’re still handcuffed. I will too.” She glanced about, then picked up a heavy stone paperweight, and gave him an evil grin.

He sat down, put his hands back above his head, and tried to be calm. Cira settled at the foot of the bed, her eyes glittering with contained excitement. Minutes stretched out until they seemed unbearable.

Then finally Meza stepped through the door.

She carried a glass of lemonade and a bowl of biscuits covered with sausage gravy. Jerin’s stomach growled at the smell. In tense silence, he and Cira watched as Meza came across the room, unaware of the danger to her, intent on not spilling the nearly full bowl. As she set the food on the table beside the bed, Cira rose, drawing back the paperweight.

Meza must have caught the motion in the corner of her eye. She started to turn, and Jerin lunged out, grabbing hold of her hands. Her eyes went wide in shock, and then Cira struck her. It was a hollow noise. Meza’s eyes rolled back, showing their whites before they closed, and her knees folded.

Jerin jerked his hands away from her as she crumpled, and covered his mouth to hold in the dismayed cry that was trying to escape. Cira bent over Meza, quickly and ruthlessly binding the woman. When Jerin trusted himself, he took his hands from his mouth and whispered, “Is she dead?”

Cira glanced up and her eyes saddened. “No! No. I’m sorry, honey, I would do anything to spare you this.” Cira undid Meza’s gun belt and strapped the six-gun to her waist, tying it down low for a fast draw, and then checked the pistol. “Let’s get out of here.”

The Destiny was steaming directly up the center of the massive Bright River, making it nearly a quarter mile on either side to the shore. The sun was in the final throes of setting, and the river reflected all its vivid blood reds and fire yellows.

Holding Jerin’s hand tight, Cira guided him through a maze of cotton bales and crates stacked on the Destiny’s decks to the railing. There they crouched in the growing shadows.

“Can you swim?” Cira asked him.

Jerin looked uneasily out over the quickly moving water. “Some. I-I don’t think I could get to the shore. It’s too far and the current’s too strong.”

Cira nodded as if this was a fair assessment. “Truthfully, I don’t think I could either. We’ll have to get up to the pilothouse and take control of the ship there. I wish I knew how many women Kij left on board.”

“Why do you think Kij got off?”

“I’m afraid to guess, honey.” Cira patted his hand absently.

Waved ashore by the Queens Justice late the morning after she left Mayfair, Ren heard her first news of Jerin. A whore matching Jerin’s description and a scarred woman had been taken from the docks at gunpoint earlier that day. Investigating gunshots, the Queens Justice had found the kidnappers freshly murdered. There were signs at the murder site that a paddle wheel had tied off there, and the Destiny had been one of four ships spotted that morning. Seven women dead, river trash, used and disposed of.

Raven asked questions of her own, but Ren stood numb, barely hearing the replies. She knew everything that mattered. Jerin wasn’t one of the dead, the Porters had recaptured him, and the Destiny had several hours’ lead on them.

“She was riding high and fast, full steam,” the region captain of the Queens Justice shouted as the Red Dog made to cast off. “You can burst your boiler and still not catch her.”

“This just gets worse and worse,” Raven growled beside her. “I pray to the gods that Kij does not murder Halley out of hand.”

Ren swung around to face Raven. “What? When did Halley enter into this?”

Raven lifted an eyebrow. “Jerin was with a scarred woman.” Raven ran a finger down her face.

“Pearl-handled six-guns, riding a big roan.”

Ren gasped. “Halley! How in the gods did she free Jerin?”

Raven lifted her shoulders. “If she’s been tracking your sisters’ killers, then she might have infiltrated part of Kij’s networks. She wasn’t one of the dead. Kij must have both of them.”

Ren cursed quietly. Marines packed the gunboat, allowing her no room to vent anger or fear. “The Destiny is the safest place for Kij to commit this treason. It’s a floating island, easy to defend. I doubt she’ll be taking them off until they reach Avonar. We’re hours behind them, but they’ll have to stop for the locks.”

“Kij most likely has things set so the Destiny won’t have to wait for the queue.”

“Even Kij has to wait for the locks to fill with water. It takes several hours to work through the locks.

On horseback, we could reach the end of the locks before the Destiny steams out.”

“Your Highness.” Raven used her title like a whip. “Kij knows that’s when she’s most vulnerable and where you’re most likely to catch up with her. She’ll have the trap there.”

“She has Halley and Jerin!”

“If you get yourself killed, Your Highness, no one will be able to rescue them. You’ve got the gunboat.

Put it to best use!”

Ren let out her breath in a long sigh. “You’re right. You’re always right. We’ll keep to the gunboat.”

Halley! Jerin! Sweets gods above, protect them!

The pilothouse sat on the topmost deck of the Destiny, a shack perched at the center of the vast flat space. A lone Porter sister stood at the wheel, gazing out over the bow of the ship as Jerin and Cira crept from the stern. As planned, Jerin crouched outside, hidden behind the half wall. Cira drew her pistol, quietly worked the door latch, and then stepped inside.

Instantly things went wrong. There were multiple startled cries, a crash and splintering of wood, and a gun went off, the bullet whining into the night. Jerin risked a glance over the wall.

There had been a second, unseen Porter in the room, apparently lying on the back bench. She had rushed Cira, knocking the pistol from her hand. The two now grappled in the tiny room, smashing back and forth. The pilot gripped a hand to her arm, blood seeping between her fingers.

As Cira and the other crashed through the door, the pilot lifted a flap on a wall-mounted tube. “Koura!

Mitzy! Get up here! We’ve got trouble!”

From the tube, a tiny startled voice queried urgently. The engine crew shoveling coal had been alerted!

The pilot awkwardly drew her pistol and hurried out after Cira and her sister.

“Cira, watch out!” Jerin shouted, standing up.

The pilot turned, bringing up the pistol, then recognized him and froze. Cira twisted suddenly, the Porter sister’s pistol in hand, and fired. In the gathering dark, the muzzle flare bloomed bright again and again.

The report echoed, bank to bank, repeating up the river hollow.

He and Cira faced each other, gun smoke swept off by the stiff wind. A moment of silence passed between them, and then Jerin said, “The engine crew is coming.”

“Everyone on the ship is coming.” Cira snapped into motion. Holstering the pistol, she muscled the younger Porter sister up and over the railing edge. There was a distant splash. “We have to steer the ship to shore.”

But the wheel was broken, smashed in the fight. Cira swore. The great paddle wheel was slowing down, the untended engines were dying, and the thud of heavy boots thundered up the many flights of stairs toward them.

“We’re going to have to swim anyhow.” Cira caught his hand and they headed for the stairs, hoping to beat the oncoming crowd. Two coal-blackened women appeared at the top of the stairs. Cira wheeled in front of them, racing back toward the pilothouse, cursing softly.

Like black wolves the women came, splitting up to run them down. One snatched up Jerin, lifting him from the ground, while the second tackled Cira to the floor. Jerin struggled in his capturer’s grasp, reaching over his head to try to gouge out her eyes. She jerked her head back from his questing fingers, and shifted him into a choke hold. As grayness rushed in. he heard a splash, and then Cira was there, pistol in hand.

If the woman had thought, she could have kept him as a shield. She threw him. instead, at Cira. Cira caught him with her left arm, firing as soon as she was sure he was clear of the gun. His ears rang from the retort, and he clung to Cira, trembling. Cira panted, nose running with blood. She swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, clearing the blood, wincing at the pain.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Jerin nodded.

“I’m out of bullets with this gun.” Cira tossed the pistol aside. “Let’s get Meza’s pistol-I dropped it in the pilothouse^-and get out of here.”

Jerin nodded.

Cira led him back to the small structure and hunted through the wreckage to find the pistol. Jerin saw a flicker of shadows and called out a warning too late. Alissa Porter struck Cira with a short pole. Cira fell, unmoving.

“You!” She pointed at Jerin with the pole. “You, I’ll deal with later.” She switched the pole to her left hand, freeing her right hand to pull a long knife. “Right now I have a serious mistake on Kij’s part to correct.”

“No!” Jerin scrambled to the pistol on the floor. His hand closed on the gun and he started to bring it up when Alissa backhanded him with the pole. The pistol went clattering across the floor.

“I will kill you if you don’t stay put!” Alissa shouted, bringing up the knife in warning.

“Leave her alone!”

“Stay out of this!” She moved toward Cira, eyes on him.

Jerin remembered then the derringer in his hidden pocket. He scrambled backward, out of her striking range, clawing for the tiny gun. “Leave her alone!” he shouted again, pulling it out and aiming at Alissa.

Alissa’s eyes went wide at the sight of the pistol. “How the hell-put it down!”

“Get away from her!”

“Put it down!”

“Get away from her!”

Alissa made a sudden motion, one he recognized as the start of throwing her knife, and he pulled the trigger. In the small enclosed space, the tiny gun sounded like a cannon. Blood sprayed the glass behind her. She looked at him, surprised, made a slight mewling sound, then collapsed.

Suddenly the night seemed too still, too empty. Jerin stood, a wisp of smoke coming from the derringer’s barrel.

I’ve killed her.

For several minutes he stood, unable to move, the violence of his action shocking him to his core. Then, desperately, he wanted to go home.

He glanced about the room, filled with unconscious and dead bodies, guns, knives, and broken ship parts. The wheel spun freely, the boat giving no indication that it connected to anything anymore. If they couldn’t turn to follow the river as it wound its way through the hills, they would crash on the shore.

Jerin looked out through the pilothouse windows. They were drifting downriver, stern first. The stern lantern marked the back of the boat. The water shimmered black, reflecting faint starlight. A thicker black marked the trees on the right and left banks. The boat rode roughly in the center of the river.

Downriver, he could make out nothing but a faint frill of white cutting across the darkness ahead of him.

He stared at the line for a minute before he realized what he was looking at. It dawned on him that there was no horizon. No hills. No trees. As if the world suddenly ended a mile downstream-and he was rushing toward that edge. Like a sleepwalker, he opened the wheelhouse door and heard the deep endless roar.

The waterfall!

He glanced again to his left, downstream this time. Glimmering on the shore like evening stars, the lights of the lock and the town of Hera’s Step shone at once dangerously near and yet unreachably far.

“Oh, Holy Mothers,” he breathed as the thunder grew louder.

His mind raced from point to point on a straight line. There was no one in the engine room who could start the paddle wheel turning. The current was taking them downriver. The steering wheel was broken.

The ship was going over the falls. He and Cira had to get off the ship.

He knelt and shook her. “Cira! Cira, get up! Get up!”

“What is it?” Cira asked groggily, getting to her knees.

“We’ve got to get off the ship. It’s Hera’s Step! We’re going over the falls!”

Cira stared out at the lifting spray, and then glanced to the shore. “We’ll never make it in time. The current will take us over before we swim ashore.”

“We have to try!”

“It will be safer to go over with the ship.” She caught hold of the whistle cord and pulled. “Find something to weigh this down!” she shouted over the howl. “We need to bleed off steam before we go over, or we might be scalded before we’re drowned!”

He tugged the coat off of Alissa. tied one sleeve to the dead woman’s wrist, and then stretched the other sleeve up to tie the whistle cord down. Cira gave him an odd look, then nodded. Then they hurried out of the pilothouse to the center of the two-hundred-foot boat, opposite the great side wheel. Cira shouted something, unheard over the endless howl of the steam whistle.

“What?” Jerin shouted.

Cira pulled him close and shouted directly at his ear. “It will go stern first, but then it will spin toward the side wheel! Hold tight to the rail, but let go toward the bottom! Don’t let yourself be trapped under the boat as it flips over! Do you understand?” When he nodded, she hugged him fiercely. “Jerin, I love you!”

And there was no time for anything more. The roar of the waterfall drowned out even the howl of the steam whistle. The spray enveloped them like a cold rain. The stern speared out over the vast empty darkness, and then, as Cira had predicted, the weight of the great paddle wheel slued the boat sideways.

The deck canted as the whole ship tipped, and they hung from the railing as if from an overhead tree branch. For a moment, they dangled over the chasm, the foaming water at the foot of the falls hundreds of feet down, and then the ship dropped.

For almost a minute it seemed they fell, weightless, the river’s roar louder than their own screams. Then, with a brutal smash, they hit the cold darkness. Jerin tumbled over and over in the freezing black water with no sense of up, his lungs aching. Finally he broke surface. There were stars above, so he wasn’t under the Destiny. Huge forms glided around him, parts of the boat rushing with him downriver in disjointed confusion.

“Cira!” he shouted, flailing and striking wood. “Cira!” In front of him, something had caught fire, and flames danced liquid down to the waterline. He realized the blaze was growing larger, that it was caught on the rocks or something, and that he was rushing toward it with all the mass of the Destiny behind him.

Dusk was falling as the Red Dog made its way the last few miles toward Hera’s Step. The banks rose until the gunboat steamed through the gorge cut by the waterfall into the escarpment over thousands of years. Slowly the river narrowed, and seemed to change to a place of menace, the granite cliffs throwing shadows over the boat, and huge boulders, lining the shores, blocked any landing. Amplified by the towering gorge walls, the low rumble from the distant waterfall sounded like the roar of a great beast.

Ren paced the top deck at the edge of the pilothouse shielding. “We’ll close with the first ship in the lock queue and use it to unload half the marines, then back off to safety.” She nervously covered the plans they’d laid, looking for a weakness. “The marines will cross to shore and take control of the locks. When they give the clear signal, we move into the locks.”

It would, however, be full night when they arrived at the locks. The marines faced a battle on unfamiliar ground in the dark. More of Kij’s damnable luck and careful planning, no doubt.

“Ship to starboard! Ship to starboard!” The shout was followed by a deep boom and the scream of grapeshot.

Ren ducked behind the wood shielding. The sharp metal tore open a marine beyond the shielding, her blood spraying the wood decking.

There were shouts of dismay. Ren risked a look over the wood shield. A gunboat steamed out of the shadowed creek mouth, a wall of woven tree branches screening it from casual glance. A gout of black smoke rose from the ambusher’s smokestacks, indicating Kij’d banked her fires to hide her trap, and now was frantically stoking up her boilers. Black, low, nearly featureless, the Porter gunboat glided like death toward them. It was an ironclad gunboat, its decks and hull covered with iron plates several inches thick. Ren had seen one only on paper, and now realized her own gullibility and naivete. Kij had talked her out of building the ironclads, said they were a waste of money in a time of peace. In all the speculation of what Kij had prepared as a trap. Ren had not once recalled the conversation, not even after the attempt to steal the heavy naval guns.

In the massive gunports, the barrels of the Prophets looked like oversized rifles. It would be a close battle- Ren without heavy armor. Kij without heavy guns.

“Hard to starboard! Bring the forward cannon to bear! Sink the bloody bitch!” Ren shouted.

The forward gunners ran out the bow cannon even as the ironclad spat another screaming round of grapeshot. Their distance was such that the grapeshot had time to spread over a wide pattern before striking. It peppered the decks, chewing away planking where the wood thinned. Screams of pain came from all quarters, mixing with the moans of those already wounded.

With a thunder that vibrated to Ren’s very core, the forward cannon fired. On a column of smoke and fire, the ball hurtled the gap and struck a glancing blow along the ironclad’s stern.

“We’ll have to hit them dead on to punch through their plating!” Raven shouted.

“Lieutenant!” Ren called to the marines’ commander, then paused as grapeshot roared from the other ship. Kij was firing her cannons in series, trying to keep Ren’s soldiers from sharp shooting the gunnery crews. “Have your women fire at will!” Ren shouted into the relative silence. “Aim for the gunports!”

It was a slaughter, her women trying to sharp shoot in the deadly hail, dying before they could get their shots off. The aft gun was useless. As the fore gun was run out to fire, the ironclad turned, forcing them to take another glancing shot. The ball careened off the thick plating. Beside Ren, the pilot fought the fast current to try and close with the ironclad while keeping clear of the boulder-strewn shores. They circled, wary as knife fighters, moving upriver as they cut each other with cannon fire.

“There’s the Portage River mouth!” the pilot shouted. “But I can’t get past her! She’s forcing us up the Bright River, toward the falls. It runs shallow from here on up! Either we’ll run aground or we’ll be forced under the falls!”

Ren swore. The ironclad’s steep side offered no purchase for her marines to board, and closing with Kij’s ship would only increase the damage that the grapeshot would do. They were running out of river, though, and soon would be at the foot of the falls itself.

“Do you hear something?” Raven shouted.

How can you hear anything over this hellish noise? Ren tried anyhow. Over the thunder of the cannons and the endless roar of the waterfall, there was a high-pitched sound, ceaseless, growing louder.

A steam whistle, she recognized suddenly, blowing without stop, and coming closer.

“Where is that coming from?” Ren asked.

“Look!” A marine on the deck suddenly cried, pointing upriver toward the white curtain of water. “The falls!”

Half a mile upriver, and hundreds of feet up, the underbelly of a boat speared out over the edge of the falls. It came and came, unending, its steam whistle screaming a death keen that was now being caught and echoed back by the granite cliffs of the gorge. A hundred feet of hull showed before the side wheel appeared at the brink, and the whole mass pivoted on its weight. Sluing sideways, the boat started to fall, and the cannon fire picked out the lettering on its side wheel. Destiny.

Ren shouted in wordless protest. Jerin! Halley!

With a curse, the pilot swung the wheel hard, turning suddenly without regard to the ironclad. “‘If that hits us after it comes over the falls, it’ll take us under!”

The ironclad too was turning, trying to escape the massive ship now tumbling over the falls.

“‘No!” Ren caught the wheel and jerked it back. “Kij’s giving us her broadside! Ram the bitch! End it here! Kill her now!”

The pilot threw her a panicked look, and then shouted into the tubes, “Full speed ahead! Full speed!”

The Red Dog leaped forward, its bow arrowing through the dark waters. Ren ducked down low behind the shield, bracing for the impact. They struck with a great splintering crack, the braced bow of the Red Dog cleaving deep into the ironclad. Ren was slammed forward into the shielding, striking her head, eclipsing the world with a flash of dark and pain. Then the fore gun fired, more felt than heard, the muzzle apparently buried in the guts of the ironclad. The ball punctured one of the boiler engines of the ironclad, and the shriek of escaping steam and screaming women joined with the crack of rifles.

Raven had her by the arm then, and was hefting her up, crying, “It’s going to hit us!”

Ren turned, and saw the shattered decks of the Destiny rolling toward them, out of the night, tumbled by the fast shallow rapids. Her mind only understood flashes of what she saw: a railing here, an open doorway there, a hanging flight of stairs breaking off in mid-tumble.

Raven dragged her backward, back along the Red Dog’s top deck to the stern gun. There Raven pushed Ren down and caught her by the foot. “Strip! Get your boots off! We’re going to have to swim for it! The nearest Queens Justice is Annaboro. When you get to shore, stay low. Kij might have backup troops!”

They went into the dark, fast water then, Ren stripped to only a shirt while Raven was still fully dressed.

Caught in the icy current, Ren struggled to keep afloat. She looked back. The water was littered with bodies, some thrashing, some still. The wreckage of the Destiny struck where the two ships were joined, and the river forced it up, rearing above the gunboats. Borne down by the weight of its plating and the water filling its bowels, the ironclad sank quickly. The Red Dog, still caught by its ram, rolled as the ironclad sank, the Destiny toppling over its dipping bow.

Oh, Jerin, love, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I took you away from your mothers’ farm where you were safe. I’m sorry I let Kij take you as bait. I’m so very sorry that I’ve gotten you killed.

Ren came ashore downriver of the Portage River confluence, teeth chattering from the cold, bone weary and heartsick. Raven had vanished into the waters, and Ren could not remember if her captain even knew how to swim. Two guards kept faithfully to her. The sergeant, Buckley, apparently swam like a fish and had helped Ren keep her bearings as they struggled for shore. The other was a young private whose face Ren could not recall, and in the dark could not see, by the name of Cherry. For miles the fast current had carried them, and they could only keep their heads above water. Then the river turned, and in that bend, the water deepened and slowed and they thrashed ashore.

The wind had kicked up, tossing the trees and cutting cold as sharp as knives through their wet clothes.

Buckley knew approximately where they were, and knew too of a nearby mansion laid to ruin in the last war. It would give cover and shelter well away from the exposed river-bank. Ren wanted only to lie in the mud and grieve, but dragged herself up anyhow. She couldn’t give up until she was sure Kij was as dead as her father, her elder sisters, Halley, and Jerin. She had to be sure Kij paid.

They were past the escarpment, and the land was flat here, smoothed by countless floods. They kept to the cave-black shadows of the windbreaks, hedging fields of freshly cut hay. The night was full of distant cracks of rifles, faint echoes of shouting, and the rolling thunder of racing horses. The gray of false dawn touched the sky as they reached the mansion sitting alone on a hill, the short summer night fleeing before the sun. In the silence before dawn, the dark, broken structure, surrounded by shorn fields, seemed ominous.

They paused in the windbreak at the foot of the hill, shivering, scanning the fields.

“How close is Annaboro?” Ren asked.

“Another ten miles south. Your Highness,” Buckley murmured, then cocked her head, listening intently.

“Riders are coming.”

Ren swore. In their white shirts and red uniform pants, they stood out in the scanty cover of the windbreak. “Let’s try for the mansion.”

They ran. The sharp stems of the cut hay stabbed like a thousand needles in their bare feet as they raced for cover. The riders broke out of a woodlot behind them, and came sweeping toward them. A glance was enough to show the riders weren’t the Queens Justice. Even as Ren and the others reached the old front yard of the mansion, the riders cut them off. looping around them in a rough circle of lathered, blowing horses.

Kij looked worse for wear, at least. Her beautiful face was cut and bruised. Part of her shirt had been torn off, and a bloody bandage showed beneath. But she was alive, damn her soul, when everyone else was dead.

“Don’t you know when to die?” Ren asked her.

“I could say the same for you. I’ve been trying to kill you for six years,” Kij growled.

“So, how did you find me?” Ren asked, wondering how she had ever thought this woman to be her good friend.

“You washed up where all the dead bodies come to shore.” Kij gave a bitter laugh. “You just don’t have the decency to realize you’re dead.”

“Give it up, Kij. Killing me will only dig your grave deeper. My sisters know of your crimes. I’ve blocked all your plots in Mayfair. I’ve sunk your gunboat and your cannons. The Destiny is gone, and Jerin with her, damn you. Shooting me will get you nothing.”

“It will make me feel better.” Kij raised her pistol.

“Don’t even think about it!” a woman shouted from high above them.

Ren glanced over her shoulder, startled.

From the mansion’s second-story balcony, a shooter stood mostly hidden behind a support column, a sniper rifle aimed down at Kij. “Drop your guns!”

“Who the hell?” Kij shouted.

“I’m Eldest Whistler!” the woman shouted back. “Unlike you nobles, ‘sisters-in-law’ means something to us. We Whistlers have an unbreakable rule-you mess with one of us, you mess with us all!”

Like thorns growing from a rose, the long slender barrels of rifles emerged out of the broken windows of the mansion.

“Now, put down your guns!” Eldest shouted. “Or we’ll be finding out who gets the orphaned estate of Avonar!”

The moment froze in time, and then Kij made a show of dropping her pistol. “Put them down,” she commanded her sisters. “We’ll live to fight another day.”

Don’t count on that, Ren thought savagely, but held her tongue.

The other Porters threw down their weapons. A lone Whistler came out of the mansion to collect the guns while her sisters covered her. Ren recognized the black hair, and the blue-eyed, steel-jawed look of the woman, but not her individually. The reason why became apparent as the other Whistlers stalked out of the mansion once the weapons were secured. Ren picked out Eldest, Summer, and Corelle easily, then Jerin’s other elder and middle sisters too, leaving a whole host of Whistlers she had never seen before. They were, she realized, Jerin’s cousins, the Annaboro Whistlers.

“Your Highness.” Eldest nodded to Ren as she flashed hand signals to her family. “It’s mighty hard to hold a wedding when you half drown most of the wedding party.”

“What?”

“We spent half the night plucking people out of the river. We would really like it if you took better care with our brother from here on in. He doesn’t swim all that well.”

“You’ve found Jerin! Alive?”

Eldest grinned. “Aye. We fished Princess Halley and Captain Tern out too.”

“They all are all right?”

Eldest sobered. “We sent Jenn home with my aunts. He’s chilled to the bone, addled, and took in lots of water. He should be fine, with bed rest. Captain Tern has a broken leg, else she’d be here. Your sister-we had to all but sit on her to keep her back where things are safer. A hard thing to do with a royal princess.”

Ren laughed. “And how did you find me?”

“Oh, we just followed Kij.”

The Whistlers secured the Porters and then escorted Ren back to the river to wait for a hastily commandeered steamer to pick them up. Halley arrived with a guard of four Whistler cousins. Despite the six months and the night of hardship, Halley looked younger than Ren remembered, bruised but grinning. She had stained her red hair black, but the night in the river had washed much of it out, leaving only her roots dark.

Ren hugged her hard, glad to finally see her alive and well. Releasing her younger sister, Ren swatted her on the shoulder. “Don’t ever do that again!”

“What, go over Hera’s Step? I won’t, I promise! Once was enough!”

Ren blinked at the answer. This was the Halley she remembered from years ago, not the solemn woman who’d haunted the palace for the last six years and sto-len away eight months ago. “I meant disappearing. You’re more important to me than petty revenge.”

“It wasn’t just revenge, Ren. It was the fact that everyone kept looking to me to be the Eldest when I wasn’t. Six years, and Barnes would still come to me five times out of ten. I thought if I disappeared for a while, people would look to you like they should.”

Ren felt a flare of anger at all the worry and trouble she had dealt with since Halley had vanished. “Don’t you think, as Eldest, I should have decided how to handle it?”

It was Halley’s turn to look startled, and then she grinned. “Well, I don’t think eight months ago you would have thought it was your due.”

Perhaps.

By unspoken agreement, they turned away from their escort and walked along the river.

“I’ve been worried sick about you,” Ren said. “You could have written more often. My nightmares started back up after you vanished.”

“Ah! Sorry.” Halley stooped to pick up a handful of stones, then hurled one into the river, grunting. “I suspected someone close to us, even the Barneses. I wasn’t thinking high enough. I didn’t dare write.”

“They fooled us all.”

Halley flung another stone and, while watching it skip away, asked, “So, what do we do about Eldie?”

In all the confusion, Ren had forgotten about her niece. “What do you mean?”

“We can’t let her live.” Halley flung another stone, but it sank on the first skip.

“What?” Ren felt like she’d been punched.

“Holy Mothers, Ren.” Halley picked up another handful of stones, avoiding her startled gaze. “We’re going to execute her mothers and grandmothers. They killed our father, our sisters, and stole our husband. We can’t let them walk away from this.”

“What the hell does that have to do with killing Eldie?”

“Face the truth, Ren. She’s the incestuous fruit of the man who poisoned the prince consort and the woman who blew up half the royal princesses! Do you think any of even her most remote noble relations are going to take her? Do you think we’re going to take her? You would ask our youngest to be raised with her? Her father murdered ours. Do you think our babies would be safe around her once she realized that we executed her mothers and grandmothers?”

Ren shuddered at the image of a smothered infant, a baby “accidentally” dropped, a killer lurking amid all the dangers a young child narrowly missed, from the fireplace to the fishpond. Still, she recoiled at the thought of executing the golden-haired five-year-old so proud of her missing front teeth. “She’s just a child.”

“Now she’s a child. In eleven short years, she’ll be the age Keifer was when he killed Papa. Kij and Keifer had no good reason to hate you and me, except for deeds of our grandmothers. Do you really want their child, with better reasons for hating us, anywhere near our children?”

“Stop it, Halley! This is our niece. This is Eldie!”

“She isn’t our niece,” Halley said coldly. “Keifer didn’t father any children on us, thank the gods, and he died before she was born-severing any connection between our families.”

“I have spent five years thinking of her as my niece, Halley. I can’t think of her in any other manner.”

“If we don’t take her, she’ll have nowhere to go. She’ll have to make her way like the river trash. Do you think that’s kinder to a child her age?”

“We could take her,” someone said behind them.

Ren and Halley turned, surprised, as Eldest Whistler came out of the darkness.

“We could take Eldie,” Eldest said. “Our great-grandmother Elder was executed for treason. The judges, though, were merciful. They let the rest of the family live. Our grandmothers could have been bitter, but they had been raised knowing you made your choices and paid for them when you were wrong. Twenty of my thirty grandmothers gave their lives in the War of the False Eldest, fighting for the very people who put their Mother Elder to death. There is redemption for the innocent.”

¦‘I don’t understand why you’d offer.“ Ren said, though she was glad for it.

Eldest shrugged. “You’re marrying my brother. That makes us sisters. It sort of makes her our niece.

She’s not yet six, and since your youngest were her only playmates, the Porters couldn’t leak any poison into her heart. She’s not even really incestuous fruit-Kij and Keifer had different fathers and mothers, which normally would have made them cousins at most. It would be a shame to shoulder her with her parents’ blame.”

“You’ll raise her like a sister?” Halley asked, obviously surprised.

“I’ve got fourteen youngest sisters under the age of ten; what’s one more?”

“What happens when they marry?” Halley pushed. “How could you expect them to share their husband with her?”

“It will be up to them to decide. After looking at my family records, I suspect that my family started when a group of women banded together and called themselves sisters. We’re not ones to worry about bloodlines. If you’re willing to run the risk, we’d be willing to raise her.”

Ren glanced to Halley, saw her willing, and nodded. “Have someone go now, though, and get her away from the Porters. I don’t want them to have a chance to plant any murderous thoughts in her before we execute them.”

Jerin woke in a strange bed. in a strange room, wearing a strange nightgown. He sat upright, panicked.

Someone had taken off all his clothes to put new ones on him! Who? What else had they done to him?

His head ached; there was a bandage on his head and the flesh underneath felt tender. Snatches of his adventure swam up through his memory, but nothing was complete or sensible. He had been kidnapped, had been on the Destiny, and had been in the river. If he had been on the Destiny, why had he been in the river? Had Kij thrown him overboard? Where was he now?

He threw back the sheets and swung his bare feet out of the bed. A quick check showed his stash pouch was missing, and so was his derringer. There was a wardrobe beside the bed. He opened it to find men’s clothing, good in quality, in his size, and vaguely familiar. He fingered them, then looked about the room again. He knew this place. Relief poured in as he realized where he was. Annaboro. His aunts’ house. His cousin Dail’s room.

The door swung open; almost as if summoned by his name, Dail came in, a slightly younger reflection of Jerin, carrying a load of folded towels. “Oh, good, you’re up!”

“Dail!” Jerin caught his cousin in a hard hug. “Oh, merciful Mothers! I didn’t know where 1 was!”

Dail laughed, patting him on the back. “You’re safe! Mothers brought you home last night, looking like a drowned cat. Eeeew, you still stink like river water. I’ll have to change my sheets before tonight.”

“What happened? How did I get here?”

Dail shrugged, nonchalant. “I don’t know. No one tells me anything. Aunt Erica, Cousin Eldest, and the others showed up on lathered horses yesterday just as a royal messenger did too. There was a big war council, without us men, and then everyone but Lissia and Kaylie and my youngest saddled up on fresh horses and rode out. A few hours before dawn, some of my mothers showed up with you, looking like they’d fished you out of the river. I was told to keep an eye on you since Papa’s busy with the babies and see that you had a bath once you woke up, if you felt up to it.”

“I feel up to it,” Jerin said, while his mind raced. Eldest had written that they were coming. Apparently a messenger from Ren had reached Annaboro at the same time his family did. They had come looking for him, and found him in the river.

His aunts had a bathhouse much the same as his mothers‘. Dail led him down to it. chattering on about meeting Cullen. Jerin’s sisters had stopped on their way home in order to lay plans for their wedding.

With only eight months before his sixteenth birthday. Dail was starting to consider wives. Apparently Cullen thought a Whistler cousin married to his sisters was as good as a Whistler brother.

“It would be a step up. Cullen says they have servants and he’s never had to cook before.” Dail rolled his eyes. “Cullen’s looking forward to cooking-can you imagine? He says having servants do everything is boring. I think once he has to wash diapers for seven babies at once, he’ll be wanting a servant!

You’re so lucky to be marrying into a wealthy family. Here are towels-I’ve got to go help with dinner.

We eat in a hour.”

With that, Dail left him to ponder his missing memories and his future. Would he actually be able to marry Ren and the others? Disturbing memories were starting to rise. Cira holding him close. Cira kissing him. Cira taking off her shirt. Cira lying on top of him, grinding against him. What had happened? Had Cira taken him? If she had, how could he return to his wives?

He bathed in agony over the lost memories, trying to scrub away the feeling of being used and ruined. If he had been ruined, though, he couldn’t return to his wives. He had no way of knowing what diseases Cira might carry; he couldn’t subject them to those risks.

He was toweling his hair dry when Dail came running down the hall.

“Jerin! Your wives are here! Princesses Rennsellaer, Halley, and Odelia! Three of the royal princesses, here!”

His heart sank. From what he could remember, there was little chance that he was still fit to marry. He would have to tell Ren the truth, and worse, tell her in front of a stranger, Halley. He dressed slowly, and went down to the parlor, shaking. He cracked the door and peered inside. Odelia sat in a chair, leaned over her knees, worrying at her thumbnail. Ren absently turned her hat in her hands. Halley, the missing princess, stood looking out the window, her back to the door, the sun in her royal red hair.

Ren noticed the opened door and went still. Soundlessly, she lifted her hand to him, entreating him with her eyes. There was such pain in them that Jerin couldn’t deny her. He slipped quietly inside, for it seemed making a sound would trigger words, and with words, he would have to confess, and it would all come to an end.

He clung to her, reveling in her softness one last time.

“I’m so sorry,” Ren whispered finally. “I never wanted for you to be a target.”

So it ends. “I’m the one that’s sorry, Ren. I don’t think I’m clean anymore. I think I slept with another woman. She helped me get away from the river rats, and we were alone in a barn together-I-I-don’t remember what happened. I’m so sorry. I failed you.”

“If that was your idea of sleeping with a woman,” a familiar alto voice drawled, “then we’re going to have problems coming up with babies.”

He jerked out of Ren’s arms to stare at the familiar scarred face, surrounded by a nimbus of flame red hair. “Cira?”

“Halley, actually.” She grinned as she came to join Ren and him. “Your wife. Cira was just a name I used to get close to those river trash, so I could get my pretty new husband back.”

Jerin could only stare as the events of the last few days turned themselves onto their heads. All at once he recognized the Moorland stamp on Cira’s-Halley’s- features; no one had ever told him that Halley alone took after their father.

“Personally, I would hit her,” Odelia said, “but then I’m not a boy.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jerin asked.

Halley spread her hands. “I tried at first, but you didn’t believe anything I said. Later, I thought you knew. I guess, looking back, Kij and the others never did actually name me in front of you.”

“You’ve done nothing but make us proud of you,” Ren said quietly, clasping his hand. “You’ve been brave, clever, and selfless.”

“Kij would have won the day without you.” Odelia covered Ren’s hand with her own.

“We love you.” Halley cupped his hand and her sisters’ hands between her two. “And we’re not going to lose you again.”