Read Chapter 31: The Vengeance of Ash

The fortress still burned behind them, smoke boiling into the grey sky like a wound in the clouds. Elias stood at the helm of the *Vesper*, watching the flames consume what remained of the French stronghold, while his crew scrambled to patch holes and count the wounded. Sable lay on a cot near the rail, a splint on her leg, her dark eyes fixed on the distant firelight.

"You lost it," MacReady said, coming to stand beside him. The old bosun's voice was flat, not an accusation, just a statement of fact.

"I lost Amelia," Elias corrected. "The meteor's just an object."

"Tell that to London when it burns."

Elias had no answer. The wind carried ash across the deck, gritty against his jaw. He thought of the ring on his finger, still warm, and wondered if Amelia had felt anything at all when she'd sold him.

"Captain!" Hollis's voice cracked from the crow's nest. "Signal light, port bow. Coming fast."

Elias's hand went to the wheel. "What flag?"

"No flag." Hollis paused. "She's dark. Running without running lights. And she's big. Bigger than us."

The *Vesper* was a privateer sloop, built for speed, not for a fight with something larger. Elias scanned the horizon, and there it was: a black silhouette cutting through the low clouds, engines growling like a waking beast. She was an ironclad frigate, bristling with guns, her hull scarred by years of war.

And on her deck, Elias could make out a tall figure in a grey coat, arms folded, standing like a monument.

"Ash," Elias breathed.

"Captain?" MacReady's hand drifted to his cutlass.

"Take the wheel. Keep us clear of her broadside." Elias was already moving, shouting at the crew. "All hands! Battle stations! Gunners to the stern chasers!"

The ironclad closed the distance with terrifying speed. A voice boomed across the water, amplified by some mechanical horn. "Captain Thorne! You've led me on a merry chase. But I'm afraid your part in this little drama is over."

Captain Ash's voice was calm, almost friendly. He stood at the prow of his ship, the meteor glowing faintly beside him, encased in a brass cradle. Amelia stood at his side, her face pale, her arms crossed.

"You've got what you want," Elias shouted back. "Why are you here?"

Ash laughed, and the sound echoed across the water. "What I want? My dear Thorne, you misunderstand entirely. I'm not here for the meteor. I'm here for the one who hired me to retrieve it."

A cold feeling settled in Elias's gut. "The Bastion."

"The Bastion is a name for street thugs and informants." Ash's tone turned sharp. "I work for men who write the future. Men who understood what that meteor could do long before you or your French friends stumbled upon it. Men who paid me a fortune to ensure the weather control mechanism never falls into the hands of anyone who might use it against their interests."

"So you're a mercenary," Elias said. "You already have the meteor. Take it and go."

Ash's smile was thin. "The meteor is half the prize. The control mechanism is the other half. And from what my associates tell me, your little crew made off with a rather interesting piece of that mechanism before the fire took the fortress."

Elias's hand went instinctively to his coat, where a fist-sized chunk of brass and glass was wrapped in oilcloth. They'd scavenged it from the meteor chamber before the energy field collapsed, thinking it might be useful for counter-research. He'd had no idea it was the control mechanism's core.

"Turn it over," Ash said, "and I'll let you leave with your crew intact. You have my word."

"You have no word," Elias said. "You're a man who sells loyalty to whoever pays the most."

"We have that in common."

The irony hit Elias like a slap. He'd taken syndicate coin after his disgrace, becoming a privateer to pay his debt, and now the syndicate's enforcers were hunting him. He'd tried to be better. He'd tried to serve. And here he was, still a puppet dancing on someone's strings.

"Last chance, Thorne."

Elias looked at MacReady, then at Sable, then at the rest of his crew — young Hollis, pale but steady at his post, the gunners waiting at their stations, the riggers ready to adjust sail. They were tired. Wounded. Running on fumes and wilful ignorance.

He looked back at Ash and smiled.

"Blow them out of the sky."

The *Vesper* turned hard, bringing her port guns to bear. Ash's ironclad fired first, a broadside that tore through the rigging and sent splinters flying. Elias's crew answered, their smaller guns spitting fire at the ironclad's weak points.

And then the fortress, still burning, chose that moment to finish its collapse.

A massive explosion rocked the sky as the fortress's powder stores ignited. The shockwave hit both ships, sending them careening toward each other. Elias fought the wheel, shouting warnings, as the two vessels collided side by side with a screech of tearing metal.

Boarding planks were thrown before Elias could stop it. Ash's men swarmed across the gap, cutlasses glinting in the firelight. Elias drew his own blade and met them at the rail.

The fighting was desperate and close. Elias lost track of time, lost track of his crew, lost himself in the rhythm of steel and survival. He caught glimpses of MacReady bellowing orders, of Hollis firing a pistol with shaking hands, of Sable propped against a mast, using a rifle as a crutch and still dropping Ash's men with deadly precision.

And then he saw Amelia.

She was climbing over the railing of the *Vesper*, a pistol in her hand, moving toward the quarterdeck where the control mechanism sat in its oilcloth wrappings. She moved like a ghost, silent and purposeful, and Elias knew she'd been sent to retrieve the piece.

He broke through the press of bodies, reaching her just as her fingers closed around the wrapping.

"Stop."

She turned, and for a moment, her face was unreadable. "I'm sorry, Elias. Truly."

"You said that before."

"Because I meant it before." Her eyes flickered with something — regret, or perhaps a ghost of the woman she'd once been. "But this is bigger than you. Bigger than both of us. You have to understand."

"Then tell me." He kept his blade between them. "Tell me who you're really working for."

"I can't."

"Then we're done."

She moved — blindingly fast. Her pistol came up, and Elias was certain she meant to shoot him, but she fired past his shoulder, and the shot took down one of Ash's men who'd been sneaking up behind him. Before Elias could react, she'd scooped up the oilcloth and vaulted back over the rail to the ironclad.

But she'd moved too fast. The oilcloth caught on a shard of broken rigging, and as she pulled it free, something tore. The brass-cased mechanism split, and half of it fell to the deck, clattering at Elias's feet. Amelia stared at it, then at him, a strange expression crossing her face.

"Take it," she said, her voice barely audible over the chaos. "Run."

Then she was gone, and Ash's ironclad was pulling away, engines thrumming, carrying the main meteor and Amelia with it.

Elias stood amid the wreckage of his ship, holding the half of the control mechanism that Amelia had abandoned. His crew surrounded him, battered but alive. The fortress was gone. The meteor was gone. Amelia was gone.

But he had the key to the device that could control the weather.

"Captain?" MacReady's voice was rough. "What are we going to do with that?"

Elias stared at the brass and glass in his hands. It pulsed with a faint blue light, humming with a power that made his teeth ache.

"I'm going to find out who really built this," he said. "And I'm going to make them pay for every life this war has taken."

But as he spoke, he felt the ring on his finger grow warm, and a cold certainty settled over him. Amelia's ring. Amelia's gift. And now, with the control mechanism in his possession, the Bastion would know exactly where to find him.