Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)(11)
“You don’t say.” Merik was careful to keep his face impassive but, in his head, he was roaring his fury. The Hell-Bard Brigade—that elite contingent of ruthless fighters tasked with “cleansing” Cartorra of elemental witches and heretics—they were one of the primary reasons that Merik hated Cartorrans.
After all, Merik was an elemental witch, as was almost every person in the Witchlands that he cared about.
As Dom fon Grieg sipped from his goblet, a stream of expensive Dalmotti wine dribbled out the sides of his mouth. It was wasteful. Disgusting. Merik’s fury grew … and grew … and grew.
Until it was the final grain of salt, and Merik succumbed to the flood.
With a sharp, rasping inhale, he drew the air in the room to himself. Then he huffed it out.
Wind blasted at the dom. The man’s goblet tipped up; wine splattered his face, his hair, his clothes. It even flew to the window—splattering red droplets across the glass.
Silence descended. For half a second, Merik considered what he ought to do now. An apology was clearly out of the question, and a threat seemed too dramatic. Then Merik’s eyes caught on Guildmaster Alix’s uncleared plate. Without a second thought, Merik shoved to his feet and swept a stormy glare over the noble faces now gawking at him. At the wide-eyed servants hovering in the doorways and shadows.
Then, Merik snatched the napkin from the Guildmaster’s lap. “You’re not going to eat that, are you?” Merik didn’t wait for an answer. He merely murmured, “Good, good—because my crew most certainly will,” and set to gathering up the bones, the green beans, and even the final bits of stewed cabbage. After wrapping the silk napkin tight, he thrust it into his waistcoat pocket along with his own saved bones.
Then he turned to the blinking Dalmotti Doge, and declared, “Thank you for your hospitality, my lord.”
And with nothing more than a mocking salute, Merik Nihar, prince of Nubrevna and admiral to the Nubrevnan navy, marched from the Doge’s luncheon, the Doge’s dining room, and finally the Doge’s palace.
And as he walked, he began to plan.
*
By the time Merik reached the southernmost point of the Southern Wharf District, distant chimes were ringing in the fifteenth hour and the tide was out. The heat of the day had sunk into the cobblestones, leaving a miserable warmth to curl up from the streets.
When Merik attempted to hop a puddle of only Noden knew what, he failed and his new boots caught the edge of it. Blackened water splashed up, carrying with it the heavy stench of old fish—and Merik fought the urge to punch in the nearest shop window. It wasn’t the city’s fault that its Guildmasters were buffoons.
In the nineteen years and four months since the Twenty Year Truce had stopped all war in the Witchlands, the three empires—Cartorra, Marstok, and Dalmotti—had successfully crushed Merik’s home through diplomacy. Each year, one less trade caravan had passed through his country and one less Nubrevnan export had found a buyer.
Nubrevna wasn’t the only small nation to have suffered. Supposedly, the Great War had started, all those centuries ago, as a dispute over who owned the Five Origin Wells. In those days, it was the Wells that chose the rulers—something to do with the Twelve Paladins … Although how twelve knights or an inanimate spring could choose a king, Merik had never quite understood.
It was all the stuff of legends now anyway, and over the decades and eventually the centuries, three empires grew from the Great War’s mayhem—and each empire wanted the same thing: more. More witcheries, more crops, more ports.
So then it was three massive empires against a handful of tiny, fierce nations—tiny fierce nations who slowly got the upper hand, for wars cost money, and even empires can run out.
Peace, the Cartorran emperor had proclaimed. Peace for twenty years, and then a renegotiation. It had sounded perfect.
Too perfect.
What people like Merik’s mother hadn’t realized when they’d penned their names on the Twenty Year Truce was that when Emperor Henrick said Peace!, he really meant Pause. And when he said Renegotiation, he meant Ensuring these other nations fall beneath us when our armies resume their march.
So now, as Merik watched the Dalmotti armies roll in from the west, the Marstoki Firewitches gather in the east, and three imperial navies slowly float toward his homeland’s coast, it felt like Merik—and all of Nubrevna—were drowning. They were sinking beneath the waves, watching the sunlight vanish, until there would be nothing left but Noden’s Hagfishes and a final lungful of water.
But the Nubrevnans weren’t crippled yet.
Merik had one more meeting—this one with the Gold Guild. If Merik could just open one line of trade, then he felt certain other Guilds would follow.
When at last Merik reached his warship, a three-masted frigate with the sharp, beak-like bow distinctive to Nubrevnan naval ships, he found her calm upon the low tide. Her sails were furled, her oars stowed, and the Nubrevnan flag, with its black background and bearded iris—a vivid flash of blue at the flag’s center—flew languidly on the afternoon breeze.
As Merik marched up the gangway onto the Jana, his temper settled slightly—only to be replaced by shoulder-tensing anxiety and the sudden need to check if his shirt was properly tucked in.
This was Merik’s father’s ship; half the men were King Serafin’s crew; and despite three months with Merik in charge, these men weren’t keen on having Merik around.