KINGSLAYER

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The huntresses did as she asked, craning their bows up as high as they could. The arc of the arrows had to be intense just for them to reach so high above. They were so fast with their hands that most of the arrows struck around the same time. She knew they did, because the water beneath their ship rippled unnaturally at an explosion above. Flaming debris flew over the edge and crashed all around them.

"Get us out of danger," Jaylah commanded her captain, still watching remains be blown high into the clouds, emitting trails of smoke. It was like a volcanic eruption, but manmade.

They moved into the open sea as the water splashed with pieces of the city. Shingles from a roof peppered it like bullets. Jaylah could hear the screaming too. Well, she heard screams all the time now. But she knew these were in the present, because the huntresses' heads snapped up at the sound.

"What...is that?" the redhead asked, raising her hand to point. It stopped halfway.

There was movement in the peak of the city, which was perched upon the side of the mountain opposite the sea. It was crumbling off the mountain's face, wreathed completely in flames, and gaining momentum as it plummeted toward the brunt of the city.

"Gods," the captain said, the moonlight making his smile glow. "They're fucked."

Jaylah had to agree. Dust and smoke and fallen parts of the city had combined into a catastrophe the size of an avalanche. When it hit, flames shot high enough in the sky to rival that of the Kalingi navy's destruction. She felt the impact within her organs, rebound off her spine. It made her wonder how many people she had managed to crush.

The entire coast as far as the eye could see was burning so brightly it might as well have been daytime. And this was nothing compared to what it would be. Fas Kaling was twice as big as Oceana. The fire would only spread and spread.

It got even better than Jaylah anticipated. She was pleased to just allow the whole city to burn to death, but just then, the wall holding the city up began to shake. The collision had been too much for it to withstand. It happened slowly—individual stones falling from widening cracks—and all at once. The wall shifted, and it was over. It crumbled completely, sending the entire city of Jarrelah crashing into the ocean.

A great splash was sent up. Jaylah thought of her mother's stories of glaciers in the north. Oceana may have eventually bounced back after Kalingi occupation, but this their enemies would never, ever recover from.

The boat rocked under their feet as the swell came and went. "We did it," said a crewman, torn between shock and exuberance. "I didn't think we'd manage it but we actually did it."

"No," said the captain, turning from the wheel to Jaylah, "our Empress did it. Just as she declared she would."

"I would have done it alone if I had to." Jaylah could not tear her eyes from the smoking crater. "We deserve to be the victors this time, and every time to come."

Some of her men in the other ships were shouting in glee. They had come here with minimal knowledge of what would be done, but this was far worse than anything they ever imagined. She could tell by their dumbstruck faces. That was when she knew she would do anything to keep them this happy.

The boat was still rocking with the aftermath. Though she normally hated that sensation, Jaylah was too pleased to notice or care. Along with the others, she watched parts of the city resurface from the choppy water with no intention of immediately leaving.

Things began to move under the surface between Jaylah's ships. She narrowed her eyes to see through the black water. White faces, limbs, heads, torsos. The parts of a million dead enemies.

Some floated to emerge from the water, their soaking hair smearing across their faces frozen in death, but most were too bogged down. Many were crushed into inhuman positions, the current of the water bending them in ways they should not have been able to. Though it was night, she could see the tinge of crimson. The Kalingi had murdered enough of her people that the rivers began to grow red with the bodies they dumped there. Jaylah shed enough blood to change the ocean's color.

A dead baby on a piece of dilapidated wood floated by them as it was whisked away with the current. She knew it was dead because it had been shifted facedown and made no move to save itself. Some mother or father's desperate last resort had been futile. Good. Jaylah could not allow these devils to raise any more devilish children.

When Jaylah looked through her rejoicing men, she saw the brunette huntress had covered her mouth with a shaking hand. The redhead had discarded her bow and instead gripped the edge as if it was the only thing holding her up after seeing all those bodies. Jaylah's lip curled. How dare they act as though some atrocity had occurred when she was only doing what had to be done? Did they want more of her people to be raped and tortured? Of course they were the only ones without smiles on their faces; they were foreigners who lived in a country where monsters did not live in human bodies. They had never felt the whip on their backs, so they sympathized with the fall of the abusers.

Jaylah had half a mind to pitch them overboard to join the butchers they were crying over.

She did not, partially because Zensa would never forgive her, and partially because one of the soldiers jerked his chin to the shore further north. "Look at them try to run." There were indeed several groups of survivors pulling half-burned others from the water. She only saw the shorter outlines of women and children.

Fire was moving in on either side. The survivors had begun to beg her for help across the water. Panic laced their cries.

They would become mothers that birthed engineers and strategists who would invent new ways to torture her people. Those children would grow up into the same soldiers that assaulted all her innocent women.

Wordlessly, they turned their fleet back to Oceana for the victorious travel home. Seeing that they were leaving, the cries for mercy grew louder. They did not curse her as she expected. Only begged.

Just a few moments went by before the fire closed in and their cries were extinguished.