The ocean turned the color of coagulated blood as High Executioner Vane-Korr leaped from the prow of his flagship.
His iron-shod boots smashed into the outer reef with a concussive boom that sent fifty-foot geysers of red foam into the sky.
He stood atop the coral crag, his twin five-foot serrated cleavers resting on his shoulders.
His bloodshot eyes swept over the narrow entrance of the caldera, locking onto the two women standing side by side upon the terrace.
“An indentured slave with a refurbished polearm,” Vane-Korr sneered, his voice scraping like an iron rasp across bone. “And a little girl playing in the snow. Did the coward third son hide behind women because his knees turned to water?”
Neither Sera nor Mina offered him the dignity of an answer.
Sera leveled Storm-Pike at his chest, the thirty-six silver Saint-thunder runes humming with lethal, quiet intent.
Beside her, Mina adjusted the collar of her white fur cloak, her azure eyes colder than deep-sea ice.
