I’m below decks when I hear armored men coming up the gangplank in rank and file. The sound shoots a jolt of alarm down my spine, and I drop the jars I’m carrying to hustle up onto the deck of the ship to see what’s going on.

I find Arcadia standing next to the young captain, Posca. She’s scowling. Probably because we’re surrounded by a phalanx of legionaries in white cloaks, their ornate steel armor polished to a mirror shine. First Legion Honor Guard. Wonderful. But just when I think it can’t get any worse, two of them open ranks to let their leader stride up the gangplank to face us.

General Metellus Albinus is a mountain of a man. Head and shoulders taller than his subordinates, even I have to look upward a little to meet his eyes. His face is helmet-scarred, weatherbeaten, with beady deep set eyes, a wrinkled brow, and a chin like an anvil. Despite his age, his physique is lean and hard, the build of a soldier who marches and drills every day without fail.

He also happens to be the longest-lived Ecean military officer still in service today, having served for over forty years of war and peace. During the second Norgardian war, he was captured after the Battle of Kiergaard, tortured without mercy for twenty days, only to escape on the morning he was to be executed. Then he dragged his broken body across nearly a hundred leagues of inhospitable tundra, before finally being rescued, elevated to the rank of Tribune, and given command of the First Legion. The Emperor’s finest.

He fixes his gaze on Arcadia, and when he does so he grimaces, his eyebrows lowering and pinching together. “Your Majesty,” he says.

Your Majesty. Ah. This makes more sense. The First Legion wouldn’t be here to avenge an officer’s broken jaw. It isn’t good news, but it makes sense.

Arcadia’s hands are balled into fists at her sides. I see her trying her best to put her politician smile on, but there’s too much tension at the corners of her eyes to sell it.

“General,” she says.

And then it’s quiet. For several tense moments. If I’m guessing correctly, Cyrus Cato went crying to his commanding officers, then somewhere up the chain they realized Arcadia and I were absent from the palace, and they put the two together. People at the party must have given them ‘updated’ descriptions of us. Terrific.

Metellus puts on a strained smile. “The Empress sent me,” he says. “I have orders to bring you home.”

“I won’t,” says Arcadia. “I’m never going back there.”

The General sighs. He opens his mouth to speak, hesitates for a second, goes for it anyway. “Why in the name of the gods do you look like that?”

Arcadia looks downward with a tight frown. Her fingers fidget with her outfit as she tries to bring herself to speak. "Do you remember when I was little? And you used to take me to the old creek to learn to rough it and train?"

“You never really took to it,” says Metellus.

“But you remember,” Arcadia says. “You knew I was different. Everyone’s known, for years. Is it so hard to understand?”

Metellus’s expression is as neutral as he can force it to be. “I don’t understand any of this. All I know is that your mother is worried about you. She just wants to help you, as I do.”

Arcadia’s eyes flash dangerously. “Help me with what?”

“With your…” He releases another pent-up sigh, waves his hand at her vaguely. “Your condition. Whatever this odd ailment is.”

“It’s not an ailment. This is who I am.”

Her words make him wince. He takes a big breath, releases it slowly through his nose. “I know you think that, but it isn’t true. It’s a sickness, Arcadius.”

I can see the fury in her eyes, even though tears are forming at their edges. “You don’t know a thing about it,” she says, her voice shaking. “Tell mother I’m done being her pawn. I’m not the Prince, I never was, and I never will be.”

Metellus frowns, his whole expression sagging a bit. He looks at her like a disappointed father. “We thought you might say that. So let me say it another way.”

He points at Arcadia, then me, and then the bewildered Posca. “We’re all going to the palace together. If you don’t come along willingly, your friends here are not going to have a pleasant visit. If you resist, things will get ugly for them right now.”

Arcadia’s eyes widen, then harden like emeralds. The anger that was so quick to rise in her seems to have crystallized into an icy calm.

“Taking hostages. I see. Yes, you've convinced me this is about what's best for me,” she says, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

Metellus has a pained expression on his face, as if resorting to threats hurts him a little. I find that I can’t muster any sympathy for him though. A similar state of calm has fallen over me, knowing how this confrontation is going to end. Too bad I’m unarmed, unarmored and outnumbered.

Ah well. They deserve a fighting chance.

Arcadia stares at Metellus defiantly. Then her gaze lowers, and she says, “Fine. You win.”

I feel a brief thrill of panic, my gaze snapping onto Arcadia. She’s still looking at the ground as she takes her first steps toward the gangplank. It’s difficult to believe what I’m seeing, until she walks past me, and I hear her muttering arcane words under her breath. When I hear it I understand immediately. She’s not surrendering.

The two soldiers standing in front of the gangplank turn to lead her away, and two more step in to follow behind her. That leaves eight soldiers on the deck, plus the General, to attend to poor Posca and I.

They close ranks around us. Posca is as pale as a ghost, glancing between the stone-faced legionaries, panicked, his hands held up in entreaty. “Listen, I just met these people right now! I’m not involved with… W-whatever this is! If it’s a matter of payment I can--”

He is interrupted by a deafening blast of wind. The cloaks of the soldiers all flap violently in the same direction. I wheel around to see Arcadia standing at the middle of the gangplank, her arms stretched out to her sides, palms out. Mist and dust lift from the floor of the deck and docks in a giant funnel. Her four-man escort struggles to keep their footing against the battering wind. They have their arms raised against it, their cheeks wobbling and flapping, the flesh threatening to peel off of their faces as if it were loose fabric.

Their eyes close tight and their jaws clench, as they begin to lift from the ground and circle upward like the mist. They yell. They flail. They whirl around in circles. One of them is flung out into the harbor, the arc of his fall sending him over the deck of the ship and into the water with a great splash. Another shoots straight down onto the back of the wagon I spent the morning loading, and destroys a series of jars, burying him in grain.

The other two fly back onto the ship. The first collides with the mast, and I barely hear the sickening snap of his spine breaking against it because the wind is so loud. The other one tumbles through the air at Metellus, who ducks, letting him sail past and crumple against the ship’s railing on the far side of the deck.

The wind dies down, and then it's quiet again. For a moment everyone around the docks is still, and staring at Arcadia, fear in their eyes.

It’s now or never.

I break into a sprint toward Posca, skid to a halt when the legionaries form up around him. They move as one. Posca’s terrified face vanishes behind a wall of shields. Behind those shields I hear the rasp of four blades being drawn near simultaneously.

I could pull them apart with my bare hands, but I don’t have time. Sunlight glints off an upraised blade an instant before it cuts me. I jump away from the blow, turn to face the men advancing on me with their weapons drawn. They have more than enough manpower to threaten me and protect their captive at the same time. I’ll have to worry about Posca later.

These men aren’t just the best trained, they’re blooded. The bonds between them are forged from real battles. They’re going to outmaneuver me, attack where I’m vulnerable. My strength won’t scare them. But right now it’s all I have, so I use it.

They advance on me, and I meet them head on. My fist puts a dent in a burnished breastplate. Two lunge at me, thrusting with their swords, and I feel a sharp pain as I’m slashed on the shoulder. The pain heats me up inside, makes me roar. I pick a legionnaire up over my head and hurl him into his comrades. He lands across two of them with a satisfying clamor of metal on metal as they all topple to the ground.

But there’s more. Many more.

A wall of shields crowds in against me, blades jabbing out from the spaces between. I grab a shield, rip it away from its owner, bash his helmet in with a fist. I’m rewarded for the effort by cuts across my stomach, my leg, my forearm. A glancing slash nicks me over my eye. Each little wound stokes the fire in my belly. They shell up, closing the gaps to protect their fallen comrade. Like turtles. Scared, defensive animals. I’ll bowl them over like a charging bull.

“Get the Prince!” barks Metellus, and two legionaries disengage from me to run toward the gangplank.

The General turns his attention to them, and I try to circle around and lunge at him while his attention is elsewhere, but I’m cut off by his men. I can’t see Arcadia. Instead I hear a clap loud enough to make my ears ring, followed by yells of alarm and two distinct splashes. She comes into view an instant later, running up the gangplank and onto the deck, her body sheathed in a cloak of living water.

Arcadia rushes to engage the men holding Posca, but I can’t spectate. I have General Metellus Albinus striding grimly toward me, two legionnaires at his sides. They strike first and I evade with less than an inch to spare, rolling backward on the deck. In mid-roll I spot a sword in the hand of a fallen soldier and I snatch it up, coming to my feet armed. At last.

Metellus stands back, letting his lackeys close in to soften me up. They circle out to either side of me but they don’t make a move. Smart. They know what I can do now. They’re waiting to counter whatever I throw at them. Tactically sound, but it won’t do them any good.

I beat back the one on my right with a flurry of slashes. When his companion shoots in from the other side, I spin and throw a kick that lands squarely on his gut, sending him backpedaling. They advance again, but I don’t give an inch of ground. I am the eye of the storm. They’ll break themselves against me long before I’ve given in.

The man on my right swings too wide, so I stab through the gap in his armor at the armpit. My sword comes free, sleeved in dripping blood, just in time for me to duck his comrade’s swipe. I answer by striking his head from his shoulders.

And then the General’s sword cleaves deep into my shoulder, shearing through muscle and tendon alike.

A scream tears from my throat. His armored boot kicks the wind out of me, and I go tumbling across the deck. I’m gasping, drenched in sweat. Blood from the cut over my eye runs down my face, blurring my vision. My left arm is a beam of pain, throbbing hard with every beat of my heart. I can’t move it. Trying to makes it hurt more.

I struggle to my feet, switching the sword to my right hand. My useless left arm hangs limp. Metellus advances, his face calm, blade held in front of him at the ready. I understand, in this moment, that if I don’t beat him here and now I’m going to die. He may care for Arcadia in his own misguided way, but I’m nothing to him.

When I grin at him I can taste the blood on my teeth. “It isn’t too late to surrender.”

Metellus’s face is stony, but his eyes are sad. “You have your orders. I have mine.”

He slashes downward and I parry it. Another comes and I twist away. My flurry pushes him back, but he sets his heel, plants himself. We lock swords, break loose, circle each other and dive in again. I can’t overwhelm him with raw aggression. His technique is patient, defensive, solid as a rock. Another lance of pain shoots through me as his sword bites into my hip.

I need an answer. I’m stronger than him, but I need to make my strength count. Come on, think.

I’ll walk back, toward the railing. Let my grip on the sword slacken a little. He’ll feel it. It’ll tempt him to disarm me, take off my head on the backswing.

It all happens in the space of a second. There’s a sharp clang. My sword spins through the air, and the instant before his blade goes through my throat I duck down, widen my stance. Grip my one good arm around his waist, then scream in agony as I will the other arm to do the same.

My muscles flex hard. I arch my body backwards, and heave him overboard.

He flies out of my grasp. In the distance I hear a splash, but it sounds so far away. The world begins to blur and spin. I think I’m on my back. I hear something else, a cry of alarm in a familiar voice. It sounds like Arcadia. That’s her face, hovering over mine. Seeing it makes me smile, wrap my good arm around her.

As the darkness takes me, I wonder if we won. Doesn’t matter. I have her. She’s safe.