In the Shadows~zayn au~Completed ✅EDITING

~Chapter 96: Ubia and Ill Preparation~

"Get us turned about!" he bellowed! "That girl has a ram-bow! We can't let them broadside us!"

He took the wheel, knowing they would need all the luck and skill available.

"Is there any way we can outrun them?" Mahir asked uneasily.

"You know better than that," Zayn replied, marking their slow movement. "Look at her sails, half again the size of ours. The best we can hope is to outmaneuver them. The Eminence is a built for heavier seas so perhaps she won't be able to cut like us. She's bulky." Really, their only hope existed if they weren't carrying tons of gold.

At that thought: "Start emptying the hold!" he shouted.

"Captain?!"

"Pitch it or we die!" Zayn yelled. "Get the crates overboard and ready the canons!"

Mahir repeated the order and assigned men the task. It took four men on each crate to toss the gold. And it wasn't enough. The Eminence was bearing down on them and she would hit port stern.

"Are those canons loaded?!"

"Aye, Captain!" came the call.

"Fire! Fire midship canons!"

"Captain, there's no chance we'll hit it!" Mahir protested.

"FIRE!" he bellowed. It was a hopeless cause, but he couldn't give up.

Just as Mahir had said, the canons sprayed water up on either side of the advancing ship.

Zayn swore again, watching as the Eminence picked up speed. "Brace for impact!" he yelled. Even without the gold, the Partheos wasn't going to move in time. His first love was doomed as certainly as his second.

The letter! It was still in his quarters! He had no time to retrieve it. He would never know what Kalysta had to say.

It was this thought that held in his mind as the ramming spike on the Eminence ripped into the hull of the Partheos.

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Zayn was brought to by a slap to the face. He turned on his side and coughed up a minimal amount of water.

"I don't believe my lucky eyes," a voice gasped. "We've captured the favorite Royal bastard. To think, I almost let you drown! You would have, too, if it weren't for Sizwe here."

Zayn sat up and would have wiped his eyes to clear them of the saltwater, but his hands were bound tightly behind his back. "You don't sounds familiar," he quipped blindly, "so you must not be important."

Another blow laid him flat on the deck once more.

"Silence!" the voice hissed.

"No!" another voice protested. "You do not strike an unarmed prisoner." This voice was deeper and carried an accent that Zayn not only recognized, but dreaded.

"Ubian?" Zayn called to the second speaker. He blinked furiously to clear his vision.

"I am," the deep voice rumbled.

Eventually, Zayn's eyes stopped watering enough for him to sit up again and see the predicament he was in.

A Mullingan naval officer stood before him, alongside a man the likes of which Zayn hoped he would never see again. The second man, owner of the deeper voice, was tall, broad, and richly dressed, but that was not what intimidated Zayn. The man's skin was so dark that even Zayn would look pale beside him. No one in Dalitrise had such a complexion.