Broken Veil (Harbinger #5)(73)

“They’re trying to pull us alongside her,” Juliana said with gritted teeth, her knuckles white against the wheel.

“Is Lord Welles still the Minister of War?” Cettie asked Adam, who quickly shook his head.

“No, he was relieved of command days ago.” Anger flashed in his eyes. “His disgrace was in all the gazettes. This is an insurrection.”

The zephyrs had closed in around the tempest. She could see some of the dragoons’ faces. A few had shouldered their arquebuses and were now aiming at Serpentine. But not all of them had fallen into line. Cettie glimpsed the concern, the hesitation to obey the order.

“What do we do?” Juliana whispered. She looked ready to defy the command.

The last of the passengers, all except Prince Trevon, were filing down the steps belowdecks. Cettie watched them go. Caulton then returned on deck.

Cettie stared at the much larger ship with determination. “Maybe Welles allied himself with Montpensier after being stripped of command.”

“Then I don’t think we’d be wise or safe to board the Farragut,” Juliana said.

“You would be unwise not to,” came Lord Welles’s voice from the Leering. That meant Welles was listening to them.

Cettie looked at Juliana. “Do as he says,” she said, but she slowly shook her head no.

Juliana smirked and nodded. The tempest leveled off and began to head straight for the hurricane. Cettie saw the huge polished length of its side, the massive masts that jutted out like dragon wings. “We’ll come. But where is Prime Minister Durrant? We were acting under his authority.”

“I understand. All will be explained upon your arrival. Wise decision, Captain. I don’t think you’d want your ship destroyed around you.”

Adam looked at Cettie, his eyes wrinkling in concern. She put her finger to her lips.

“I’m sure you have a fine explanation,” Juliana said in a tone that indicated otherwise. She watched the zephyrs, one on each side of them, the other trailing behind. Some of the crew had already been killed in the previous skirmish. She wished she could communicate with those who were hesitating. But there wasn’t time. Cettie unfastened the pin that Captain Dumas had given her.

“What are you doing?” Welles bellowed in surprise. Had he felt a loss of connection?

They were almost at the hurricane when Cettie nodded vigorously.

“Grab onto something!” Juliana shouted.

Cettie reached out with her mind and took control of all three zephyrs at once, blocking their pilots from the controls. It taxed her mind, but her sudden move had surprised them. All three began to drop from the sky, the dragoons shouting in fear. Cettie felt them wrestle for control, but she repelled their attempts. The Mysteries coursed through her again, the power swelling.

The Serpentine banked sharply and began to pick up speed. Cettie heard the discordant strands of music from the other ship as it sought to control their vessel. She released her grip on the zephyrs and countered those on the hurricane by blasting their minds with a stronger chord of power. The big ship began to list.

“Into the gap!” Cettie said, pointing.

Smiling fiercely, Juliana increased the speed of the tempest. Now that Cettie had released her hold on the zephyrs, the pilots reclaimed them and stopped their fatal dives toward the ocean below. Two of the zephyrs immediately resumed pursuit. The third had stalled in the air, the soldiers vying for control.

“You are mad!” Lord Welles thundered at her. “We will shoot you down. A tempest cannot defeat a hurricane!”

“That’s true,” said Aunt Juliana. “But a hurricane can’t outrun a tempest!”

As the tempest shot past the hurricane, cannons began to fire at them from their nests along the big ship’s hull. Juliana banked sharply, then arced up and above the other craft. The sky ship was designed to attack ships below, especially those in the waters. Its strongest vulnerability was from other ships above itself.

One of the cannonballs struck a zephyr, which had come in pursuit. The sky ship’s hull shattered, and the dragoons plummeted toward the ocean. Cettie felt sorry for them, but there was no time to help.

Sera’s disappearance must have been revealed to Lord Welles. So too, perhaps, had word of Montpensier’s imminent attack. Had her theory been correct? Had he truly made an alliance with the enemy?

It was treason. But perhaps, in his mind, he’d justified it.

Serpentine passed through the prism cloud, and suddenly all was dark, all was night. Lockhaven gleamed like a jewel in the sky. Other sky ships hovered around the floating city, illuminated by Leerings on board. Behind them, the lumbering hurricane began to turn, to swivel in pursuit.

Cettie reached out with her mind and quenched all the Light Leerings aboard the Serpentine. She hurled the pin she’d been wearing overboard, lest they use it to track her.

“Where next?” Juliana said.

“The Fells,” Caulton said. “There’s no other choice now. If Welles has seized authority over part of the military, then he can stop us from reaching Lockhaven. The only person who can countermand him right now is the empress herself.”

“Fly low,” Cettie said. “They’ll have a difficult time following us in the dark. They may know we’re going to the Fells. But they won’t know where. We have hours until dawn.”