CHAPTER FOUR

The scent of smoke clung to the back of Caledonia’s throat.

Donnally. She hated the casual way Remi had said his name, as if she knew him. As if she knew him better than Caledonia did.

The twist of nausea in Caledonia’s gut told her it was true: she didn’t know her brother at all anymore. She hadn’t known him in a long time, but in spite of everything, she didn’t know how to conjure a Donnally in her mind who was capable of what Remi claimed. Yes, Bullets killed. But not their own.

Or, that was the way it used to be. Things would be different now that Aric was dead and Lir was in charge. If Caledonia let her thoughts detach from her heart, she could see the purpose behind the strategy. Without Aric to control the Fivesons, what was to stop them from challenging Lir’s claim to the Bullet Seas? Perhaps they’d started to do just that, and he’d asserted his dominance and removed them from play.

She could picture him commanding Donnally to do it as a twisted test of loyalty. Donnally had almost been a Fiveson himself. Had he killed the others to show he was no threat to Lir? To his brother?

Caledonia closed her eyes as the freezing waters of memory swept over her. The moment she’d seen Donnally on the deck of the Titan rushed through her mind; the strong surge of her relief breaking against the firm edge of his resistance; the fluttering panic as her brother looked into her eyes and said, “I can’t abandon my brother.” The slow pain that had seeped in after and never left.

Her brother. Was he even that anymore? It was the word he’d used for Lir, and if he had truly done what Remi claimed, then perhaps he was more Lir’s than Caledonia had ever wanted to believe. Once, she’d had hope that she could win him back, but now, knowing this, that hope was all but gone. In its place, her anger burned like the sun.

A hand twisted softly in the back of her shirt, Pisces pulling Caledonia back to the task before her. “Your orders, Captain?” she prompted.

With a deep breath, Caledonia cleared the anger from her thoughts. Without Fivesons, there was no one to divide Lir’s power. No one to challenge him. He was consolidating his forces. Making sure there was no one left to stand against him.

No one except Caledonia.

She’d been determined to take him down before, when he was only responsible for the death of her family. Now that he was remaking himself in Aric’s image, Caledonia had no choice but to destroy him. And the only way to do so was to take all his power away from him. Then with it, create a world that wasn’t ruled by fear.

“You each have a choice.” Caledonia’s mind relaxed as she stepped into the increasingly familiar words. “You can come with us, or you can stay here. If you stay, we’ll leave you the bow boats and you can go wherever you like. If you come with us, you’ll have everything you need: food, shelter, a new life.”

Remi’s face twisted into a mask of disgust. “We know what you do to Bullets, Caledonia Styx. Give us an impossible choice, take our Silt and watch us die, or send us crawling back with nothing but failure to report. We see you exactly as you are: a killer in the guise of a savior.”

Caledonia knew from experience that every Bullet before her believed the lie they’d been fed their entire lives: from Silt comes strength. There was nothing she could do or say in a few short minutes that would convince them otherwise, and Lir had done a brilliant job of disseminating fear of withdrawal. Every Bullet she encountered said the same thing: she was a killer in the guise of a savior.

“You’re going to kill us one way or the other,” another Bullet said, eyes dull and fearless, emboldened by the drug in his veins. “And there’s no glory in a slow death.”

The Bullet was on his feet before Caledonia registered movement, but not before Pisces did. She spun around Caledonia, striking the man’s throat before he’d gone two steps. He dropped to his knees with his hands on his neck, his mouth stretched wide as he attempted and failed to draw a breath. Pisces stood over him, ready to strike again, but as air slowly filled his lungs, he made no move to continue the fight.

“There is no glory in any death,” Caledonia said. “It’s true that if you choose to come with us, you may die. It is not easy to recover from Silt.”

“Silt gives us strength,” Remi countered.

The words were now as familiar to Caledonia as her response: “You were strong before Silt. You can be strong again, but it is your choice.”

“Why should we choose you?” Remi asked, suspicion painted across her face. “When you want to take away the thing Lir gives freely?”

Every Bullet she encountered used the same language: glory, strength, family, service. They believed their lives were caught up in the web of lies started by Aric and continued by Lir. It was never enough to tell them they were wrong. All she could do was be honest. Show them that her words meant something different. Even if that meant sending Bullets back to Lir’s ranks.

“Lir murdered his brothers. That’s what you’re choosing if you choose him. But I don’t want you to choose me instead,” Caledonia answered, voice calm and level. “I want you to choose you.”

With that, Caledonia and Pisces left the survivors to make their decisions while the crew salvaged what they could from the barge and set charges to send the rest to the deep. Caledonia watched from her tall perch on the Luminous Wake as evidence of the battle and Fiveson Decker were slowly pulled apart or sank beneath the murky blue chop of the ocean.

“Nearly done, Cala.” Pisces pulled herself up the ladder and joined Caledonia on the platform where they’d started the morning. “Most of the fleet has moved out. Just a few more and then we can get underway.”

“Reports?” Caledonia asked.

“Piston took a direct hit and we lost six souls in all, no ships.”

The two of them had grown so used to this conversation that they no longer struggled to have it, but it landed just as heavily on their shoulders. Just because they had grown used to discussing their people in numbers didn’t mean they had to think of them that way. She’d have the names later for the Parting Ceremony, which happened all too frequently now.

Nodding, Caledonia asked, “And recruits?”

“Remi chose to stay.”

Caledonia’s jaw nearly dropped at the news. “Suspicious.”

“To say the least,” Pisces agreed. “All but one other from the barge chose to go and seventeen from the surrendering vessel chose to stay as well.”

“More than usual,” Caledonia said. “How many are we releasing?”

Bullet recruits were never easy news. Their surrender was suspect, their recovery brutal, and after all of that their loyalty was never certain. Bringing them back to Cloudbreak was like returning with a basket of poisonous snakes, all poised to strike. Sending them back to Lir was almost as bad. But the war was bigger than an individual battle, and they wouldn’t win this fight with guns alone.

Pisces hesitated before saying, “One hundred and thirteen.”

“So many.” The number was always discomfiting, but this was more than usual.

“The silencers worked exactly as we’d hoped. Nearly everyone struck by them survived. And nearly all of them are going back. That’s a . . . good thing.” Pisces sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than Caledonia. When they’d first discussed using a weapon that didn’t kill Bullets but only incapacitated them, Pisces had been skeptical. She’d argued that sparing them now only meant killing them later.

But Caledonia had responded, “We can’t save the world by killing it first,” and Pisces had reluctantly ceded the point.

“It is a good thing. Our goal right now is to diminish Lir’s fleet, not decimate his army. They have to know that we aren’t just like him.” Caledonia reached for her sister’s hand and squeezed. “How many ships did we get?”

“Eight, bringing the standing fleet to fifty-four.”

Caledonia frowned. It wasn’t enough. Lir had nearly two hundred, and if they were going to sail against a fleet of that size, they needed to be gathering more than a handful of battle-ready ships every other moon. At this rate, all she’d ever manage to do was hold her perimeter.

“Hey, these are the bright bits,” Pisces admonished even as she smiled.

“You’re right.” Caledonia shrugged the glower from her face and returned the smile. “Every ship we gain is a victory.”

“I know you want to be ready now. But we’ll get there. We are getting there. And we’re a hell of a lot closer than we’ve ever been.” Pisces looked at the place where the massive barge had been this morning. A single spearing tower was all that remained of the ship and even that was slowly sinking beneath the waves. “And if Lir is taking down his own Fivesons, then he’s worried. About something.”

Caledonia doubted that Lir would ever admit to being worried about anything. Lir’s view of the world and his place in it didn’t leave room for doubt. His was a narrative of self-assurance, one that constantly repositioned him as a destined, all-powerful leader. Lir did everything out of ambition, not worry. He’d killed his brothers not out of fear, but for power.

“Maybe,” Caledonia said, always uncomfortable with how naturally she imagined Lir’s mind. “We’re going to need more of Amina’s silencers. Tell Nettle to resume course to the Braids.”

As Pisces left for the bridge, an even darker thought ghosted through Caledonia’s mind. If it was so easy for Lir to kill those he called brother, how long would it be before Donnally shared the fate of the Fivesons?