The clouds had parted during the raid, and now a silver moon hung in the sky, mirrored on the bck waves. Araam’s raedrs greeted him with proud gazes as he climbed aboard his ship.

  “e about,” Araam ordered as if he were not about to burst apart at the seams. “Full vas home.”

  As the meo work, Araam listeo Ruell’s report of the battle abovedeck. Then the plunder had to be ied and each sword taken decred as belonging to the man who had won it. Thankfully, there were no disputed prizes that night to slow the proceedings. After a quick check of the stars to make certain of their heading, Araam dispersed the pearls from the bride’s bribery amo’s new crew.

  Finally, with the st of the ship’s business handled, Araam turhe helm over to Ueat a below in search of his wife.

  Raiding ships like Haelbringr were not meant for the long-term berth of a full crew, and so did not have a crew quarters. Raedrs kept perma s oribe’s greatships. The raed ander and his wife alone lived on the smallship.

  Araam fou in the , iing her new home.

  He stopped ohreshold. The breath stu his lungs.

  She was turned away from him. She’d ged from her wet wedding garments into the daily silks of a chieftainess, but she had yet to re-cover her fad head.

  Even sodden and bedraggled by the swim, her hair was the color of a te summer sun. The women of Araam’s tribe could hardly dream of a gold so pure to craft. It seemed to fill every inch of the , to edge out her new loom and push back the desk and his cases of charts and books, to e and reflect the light from the stormmp she’d lit.

  Where Raen women were known for their goldsmithing, Mehet’s tribeswomen were weavers. Most of the silks and lihat he had stocked had probably e from the Hael in the first pce, so those were sure to meet with her approval. As they were going into winter, however, he’d also added several of the best furs he’d taken in his childhood raids.

  She ran a long-fingered hand over their softness, still not fag him, though she must have heard the door open.

  Araam swallowed. When he had taken them, he thought those furs were a treasure; now he wasn’t so certain. He’d been a child then. His immature ideas of wealth might have led him to see pearl dust where there was only white sand.

  He stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind him.

  “Is Haelbringr to your liking?” he asked. If not, he would rebuild her. It wasn’t unheard of for a raed ao restruct the entire ship if his new wife found it g. At the moment, that seemed like a meager price to pay to please his bride.

  “She is a vessel well worthy of the o,” Mehet said.

  “But is she worthy of her mistress?”

  Mehet turned, her face lit with a smile.

  She was more beautiful than he had imagined. High, proud cheekbones kissed gold by the sun; thick, dark lips; teeth as white as a ut heart. The thin gold nose he’d sent as a betrothal promise dangled from one delicate nostril to the shell of her ear.

  Until Mehet replied, Araam had fotten he’d asked her a question.

  “The vessel is as worthy as the man who built her, but sp siderably more fihan he does.” The golden swayed against her cheek when she spoke, and her brilliant teal eyes sparkled as she studied him.

  Araam had a vague idea what he looked like, having spied himself in calm waters and in his mother’s silvered mirror when he was a child. He remembered gray-green eyes, sandy brown hair streaked lighter in pces by sun and salt, and tely, brown whiskers that had yet to spread past his upper lip and .

  He had never given much thought to these features, but suppose she approved of the ship and not of its raed ander?

  Mehet smoothed a hand over the breast of his drying roughspun shirt. Practical clothing for building a ship or leading a raid, but perhaps not for weling home a beautiful woman aced to the fi orion.

  She reached up and touched the hair he had only retly been allowed to start growing out. Her firaced the gs pierg the top of his ear, each lovingly crafted by his mother. One for his naming, one for his first successful navigation, one for his first raid. When they returo the greatship and he presented his wife, his mother would add the fourth ring, signifying his first successful and.

  Araam had dreamed of earning this earring since childhood, but a few simple tris of braided gold must look like nothing to a daughter of the Hael, where the men decorated themselves as gaudily as the women and jingled with every breeze.

  “A wife has mufluence over her husband’s dress and bearing,” he said. “A woman as gifted as the one who wove Haelbringr’s sails could easily improve a man to her liking.”

  “If I had wanted a decorative husband, I would have married within my own tribe.” She rubbed her thumb over his , testing the rasp of his whiskers. “It was a raedr I sought and a raedr I caught.”

  Aloh his wife, in the privacy of their quarters, it table to show a small measure of the joy billowing through his soul. Grinning, he swept her from the floor and pressed his lips to hers.

  ***

  “Raeship on the horizon!”

  The cry brought man and wife relutly from below.

  Among the O Rovers, it was the duty of every raed ander’s wife to assess the vessels they approached, whether for war or profit, a did so with an eye as quid clever as her weaver’s fingers.

  The night had cleared enough to give her a superb view of the greatship’s s sextuple masts, powerful bowsprit rammer, and handsome trailboard. Iorm season, the greatship and her crew would rest at Cryst’holm, that great floating refuge. During the raiding season, as it was now, the massive vessel housed the Raen tribe’s raedrs, and if they were childless or their children were grown, their wives as well. A raedr never sailed without his woman if he could help it.

  The waters surrounding the greatship were poputed by twenty… thirty… forty… forty-two smallships ying by. Forty-three ting Haelbringr. Even assuming that some vessels were absent on other raids, they well outnumbered her tribe’s two dozen auxiliary crafts, but none were as dark, sleek, or beautiful as the predator she stood aboard, the ship outfitted with sheets she’d woven herself.

  Mehet realized that, out of habit, she had called the Hael her tribe. She was Raen now. The Raen’s ships were her ships, their plunder was her plunder. Beh her silken scarves, she smiled. She had chosen a husband who would one day and this formidable fleet. On that day, she would beehet, Chieftainess of the Raen, First Tribe of the O Rovers.

  All this passed through her thoughts in an instant.

  It was not until the moment that she saw the unseasoorm clouds rolling in from the dire of the nd.

  She frowhose clouds were not clouds. They raced against the wind, toward the Rae, a wall of bck smoke, devoid of lightning or billow.

  “Raed ander, silenen,” she said, gripping his arm.

  Araam sighe order. The shouts of men bringing them to the field of smallships turned seamlessly to gestures. Half the crew tiheir work, while the other half stood with ons ready, watg the advang wall of smoke.

  Through the veil of perfumed silk, Mehet smelled a stench that pushed back the salt breeze. The wrinkling of her husband’s nose said he’d caught a whiff of the same stink. Filth. Blood.

  Dirters.

  Araam read the signals as she gave them. Unnatural. Danger. Blood magic.

  Wasting no time, Araam drew his cutss and sigo his helmsman to guide Haelbringr wide of the greatship. The dirters would focus their efforts on the rgest target, and when they did, the smallships would tear them apart from the fnks. He sent four raedrs plunging overboard to fan out and spread the word of the attack through the fleet.

  Mehet grabbed Araam’s sleeve and pulled him back to look at her signals.

  This attack had none of the marks of the chaser ships the dirters sent after them along the coast. They were well into Raen waters, where none of the nd-loving blood drinkers dared to stray.

  Mehet gestured to the ing cloud of bck. It stretched from one horizon to the other and was quickly g inward like a looped thread pulling tight. This was magi a scale not leveled against them sihat legendary era whewelfth Tribe was lost.

  Araam pressed the hilt of his swordbreaker into her palm until, bewildered, she took it.

  We are Raen, he told her. We do not fear death or dirters.

  The First Tribe held the most dangerous waters as their territory for a reason. The blood drinkers had long ago given up any hope of ever stomping out the O Rovers because of the Raen’s mighty warriors. Renewed warfare was the dirters’ folly.

  We are Raen, he had said.

  We.

  It was a raedr she had sought, and a raedr she had caught—and so, a raedr’s wife she must be.

  Mehet released her husband, switg the swordbreaker into her non-signing hand, and gave him a silent and to send the dirters to the o floor.