"I'm a little busy at the moment!" Dante called back, in a surprisingly good impression of the captain's voice. "What is it?"
"There's a problem in the furnace room."
"Is the mechanic on hand to fix it?"
"Yes, but he wants your opinion."
Delilah was afraid to breathe in case they heard her.
"Tell him I trust him completely," Dante said. "And while you're here, tell the rest of the crew I do not want anyone to visit the prisoners."
"Why?" There was a faint thud as the man pressed against the door to listen.
"I have already ordered a group of men to go down there to guard them. So if anyone reports them missing, they're on guard duty and you are all forbidden to enter the room. I want no distractions. These people are dangerous."
"Yes, sir." The soldier sounded confused. "But -"
"Do you doubt my orders?" Dante barked.
"No, but -"
"Spread the word, then. Make sure the whole crew knows, and if anyone disobeys me, I will hold you accountable."
"Yes, sir."
"Now go! I've got a route to plan, so I need leaving in peace, unless you want us to go astray."
There were hurried footsteps as the soldier practically ran down the corridor.
"That was brilliant!" Delilah breathed. "Good thinking."
Dante gave her a mildly amused look before returning to watch the river. "If I wasn't clever, I'd have lost my throne to my own treacherous council as soon as I was crowned. Remember, you must be cunning above all else."
She nodded, realising he was giving genuine advice, and looked back at the chart she held. "When the river splits into two tributaries, take the left one."
"You mean port."
"Yeah, port, whatever."
"They're strange, these warships," Dante murmured, and Delilah tensed a little, recognising the way he narrowed his eyes. It meant he was thinking furiously, perhaps devising ways he could use the information to help Vale. "They're much more advanced than anything I've seen."
"Pelenan engineers are always experimenting," Delilah said. "These three ships are probably the only ones operational. Whenever there's a breakthrough, Gaol gives it all to the military. He spends thousands on things like this, rather than feeding the poor." She scowled. "I don't know why you look so interested - Vale doesn't have the space, resources or money to make any."
He whipped around to glare at her. "You don't need to remind me. When war comes, I'll melt these metal contraptions along with the men inside. See how far they get. No army or navy will match the Opals."
Delilah blinked. "Where are the wraiths?"
They scanned the empty room, frowning.
"We've been fighting," Dante said. "We must have been able to block them out."
"So it is possible."
"By the way... you never told me Mala was your mother."
Delilah swallowed and turned away from him. "Well, she is, and she's dying as we speak."
"How do you know that?"
"I know where I cut her," she said bluntly, trying to push away the pain that crept through her. "She was in our way."
Silence fell. Dante kept his eyes on the river, steering the ship. They didn't know whether the other two were following, and didn't want to risk leaving the safe room to find out.
"I was right," Dante murmured finally, and Delilah jumped. She'd become accustomed to his silences. "You are like me."
"Like you how?" She instantly felt defensive.
Dante's black eyes met hers. "Better."
"And it took you this long to figure that out?" she challenged, but warmth bloomed inside her.
Delilah and Dante were better than the rest. More ruthless, more ambitious. Surely that meant they would succeed?
They reached the Steel Sea without any problems and Delilah kept an eye on the compass she'd found. With her mediocre charting skills, they'd have to go in what was hopefully the right direction before they saw the Pelenan coastline - only then would they know where they were.
Endless blue surrounded them. They steered south, hoping to give Rhydderch and the prosperous northern towns a wide berth to avoid soldiers and bounty hunters.
"Ready to get lost in the Southern Desert?" Delilah asked glumly. "I've never been south."
"We won't get lost. All we have to do is take that compass and keep travelling east until we reach the Landian Sea, then head north to the ravine, back into my territory. We cross at the bridge, then go find the Earth Opal."
"It'd be quicker just to sail across the Sea."
"I'm sick of water," Dante said bitterly. "And boats."
Delilah nodded. She could whole-heartedly agree.
Mala Starcatcher. Thoughts of her mother invaded her mind whenever the silence stretched too long. Dead, or dying? The soft, warm way she had spoken - even after all Delilah had done - filled her with rage. The forgiveness in her voice. Gaol and Marko, too. Come home, her father had said. It had made the tiny shred of softness in her heart cry out in anguish.
They were so good, so noble, Delilah's family. They were so willing to accept her, the murderer, with open arms, and she hated them for it. She wanted them to despise her.
She wanted to feature in their worst nightmares.
Dante nudged her after what seemed like a full day had passed. They'd started taking it in turns to hold the wheel while the other rested.
"The Western Peninsula," he said.
Delilah groaned in relief at the sight of it, all browns, ochres and yellows under a blinding sun. "As soon as we get there, I'm going to bury myself in sand."
To her amazement, Dante made a noise that actually sounded like a chuckle.
They waited until the shore was very, very close before unlocking the door. With Delilah in the lead, they sprinted through corridors and down stairs until they reached the deck.
Delilah pelted past soldiers, ignoring their shouts of alarm, Dante on her heels. They vauled over the side of the ship and plummetted towards the water before anyone could stop them.
The fall took her breath away and set her alight with its exhilaration.
The water hit like a punch - still cold despite being in Pelenan territory - and Delilah went under. But she'd braced herself, and struck out for the surface, her honed muscles responding well despite the way her head spun with hunger and thirst.
Her head broke the surface and she started swimming towards the nearest beach, her ears full of the soldiers' clamouring behind. Dante was a little ahead, and she saw him swivel around in the water.
"Dive!" he commanded, and Delilah didn't need to turn to know the soldiers had arrows.
She took a deep breath and plunged deeper, forcing strength into every stroke to propel herself well and truly out of sight. Arrows whizzed through the water around her, bubbles streamed past her eyes, but she kept going.
Her whole body was screaming for air by the time she finally returned to the surface, and the dry, warm Pelenan wind was the best thing she'd ever felt.
They didn't slow down until they hit the beach and crawled into the shelter of a clump of palm trees.
There they collapsed on the sand, and burst into hysterical laughter.
"Did you see their faces?" Delilah choked as her ribs burned. Tears rolled down her cheeks. What was wrong with her? There was nothing funny about the situation.
"I don't care about their faces, I'm happy to be alive," Dante replied, and the grin looked alien on his face. "Wait until the fools find out their captain's dead."
Delilah dug her hands into the gritty sand with relish. She loved Pelenu - loved it with every fibre of her being, and she hated seeing what Gaol and Marko were doing to it. She would enjoy turning it into a powerhouse country, a force to be reckoned with, when she finally ascended the throne.
They rested on the sand until they caught their breath, pulled their sopping wet and useless parkas off, then went in search of better clothes after digging their knives out of their coat pockets.
"Give me the Water Opal," Dante ordered.
She rolled her eyes before passing him the stone. It looked dark grey when not in use.
They hurried to the nearest village, knowing they had to blend in before the soldiers came looking for them. They were on the border between north and south, and the villages here looked like massive termite mounds. The rocky, barren landscape was honeycombed with houses carved into pale stone, and sandy paths wound erratically between them. The scent of spice was sharp in the air, and the people were clothed in thin layers from head to toe to protect their already-dark skin from the worst of the sun.
"Is it summer? I'd forgotten," Delilah said. In their dripping Anloch tunics, they were attracting a lot of confused looks.
"Nearly autumn," Dante replied as they swiped some clothes from a market stall while the owner's back was turned. "You know, this reminds me of Vale's towns."
"You mean caves?"
"No, I mean towns before the Treaty," he snapped. "Most of my citizens lived in vertical settlements carved into the mountainside. They all had to leave, of course, so most of them will have fallen into ruin." He looked unbearably sad for a moment, while they ducked into the shadow of an alleyway to change.
"I'm sorry," Delilah said.
"It's all my father's fault, for starting a war he couldn't win. My people have suffered for long enough."
Delilah edged a little further around a bend to hide from Dante while she wriggled into the new clothes. He let out a bark of laughter when she reemerged.
"Shut it." Fuming, she placed her hands on her hips. The baggy trousers with cuffs at the ankles, the shirt and the long white cloak which could be draped around the body, wrapped around the head and even pulled up to cover the nose and mouth in a sandstorm... were a few sizes too big. Especially the cloak. She looked like she'd drowned in fabric.
Dante grinned, and to her surprise he reached out and smoothed a fold of the cloak back to uncover her face, one of his fingertips grazing her forehead. She shivered.
Delilah sat down in a huff while she tied her new stolen sandals, the straps of which wound up her calves in a new fashion. Then she tucked her precious remaining daggers into the cloak folds, which also acted as excellent pockets.
"Let's go steal some swords and food, and get the hell away from civilisation," Dante said.