He rushed back outside without answering. Sara was climbing to her feet, holding the table for support as the ship tilted more. Brice wobbled to the door and pulled it open. Through the windows, they saw others were crowding to the rail, passengers, and crew. All were watching something in the distance.
They found a vacant place at the rail. People were pointing. Crewmen shouted orders. Prin’s eyes found a speck floating in the water, a person. Someone else had fallen overboard. The ship was turning, and a small boat was being lowered with four crewmen holding oars.
The ship had slacked its sails, and the double-ended boat dropped into the water before the ship came to a stop. The sailors pulled hard on their oars and the small boat surged towards the figure splashing and waving with the frantic efforts of a non-swimmer, or one who could barely swim.
Not one of the crew. Prin couldn’t tell who it was in the water, but all sailors she knew could swim. Therefore it was a passenger. Another man overboard! It might be funny in other circumstances, a cruise where all the passengers were thrown overboard one by one, before reaching port. However, she watched the faces of the other passengers as well as the rescue.
People were scared. Not just excited, as they might be for a rescue of a passenger on another ship, thankful for the saved life and curious as to how he had fallen. But their expressions told a different story. They were scared and too quiet. Fear was turning to anger.
Prin let that idea digest and realized there had been fewer people eating in the dining room, less of them on the promenade deck, and instead of the excitement and gaiety of an ocean cruise, there was a subdued air on the ship she hadn’t noticed. A quiet. Not exactly a calm, but more like a shroud cast over the entire ship.
“It’s a woman,” someone said in a hushed voice.
Prin dragged her attention back to the rescue. Two crewmen pulled the swimmer into the small boat and the rowers turned and headed back. It was a woman, one of the few on the ship. It was a lady Prin had seen in the dining room a few times. Why would she fall overboard? Had she slipped, or leaned too far over a railing? Or had she been pushed?
Fear touched Prin, like a winter’s breeze on a cold, sunny day after snow. The woman was about the age Prin’s spell projected, somewhere around fifty. Mages knew that water dispersed many enchanted powders sorceresses used, especially salt water. The thought seized her as if a bear had wrapped paws around her chest and squeezed.
The salt water probably wouldn’t completely disperse the entirety of a spell, or spells, but it would weaken them, or wipe out parts, as the powder used to apply the enchantment dissolved, thereby revealing the true existence of the swimmer. Prin took a step away from the railing and looked to the aft of the port side of the ship, her eyes scanning each person until she came to the Young Mage. She had known he would be standing there.
He had positioned himself at the davits for the small boat where it would be lifted back to the ship, the one place where he could examine the woman in close detail as she came aboard. If there were any spells cast upon her, the water, danger, and excitement might have weakened them, giving her away. He was there to inspect her as if she was a prime slab of meat. In some manner, the mage was responsible for the woman falling.
The mage took one step away from the railing and turned slowly, as if he felt her attention on him, which he might have, considering he was a mage. Who knows what powers he held besides making rain and flashing lightning? But he knew she had watched before he turned, she believed. His eyes met hers without looking to any others. Instead of looking away, she waited. A twitch at the corners of his mouth gave way to a smirk.
Oh, no. I just gave my identity away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Prin didn’t try to conceal herself or turn away. It was too late. He knew. The Young Mage had found her out with one of his tricks.
“Sara,” Prin hissed between clenched teeth.
“What?” Sara turned, realized there was a problem and her eyes followed Prin’s. “He knows, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Brice had also turned to look but maintained his place at the railing. He remained calm. “Time to change plans.”
“He’s a mage,” Prin snapped, drawing unwanted attention from those passengers nearby.
“He’s not alone. There are others. Not as well trained in mage studies, but who knows what else might happen?” Brice turned back to watch the boat lifted to safety. A drenched, tearful, and terrified woman clambered from the boat to the deck where a man of similar age, and a crewman, helped her move to her cabin.
When Prin turned back to the mage, he was gone. The identity of the woman in the water no longer interested him. He has what he wanted.
Prin exhaled, taking in the event and realizing the mage had certainly been responsible for the woman’s accident, even if nobody else suspected him, she knew. Her fall had the effect of eliminating one of the few women on board from his suspicions. True, Prin could have dressed and acted like a man, but changing gender is hard to maintain. Aging a person older or younger is common and fairly easy, but too many subtle things prevent pretending to be the other gender.
A thousand small things give gender-change away. A man bumps a woman on the street and unthinkingly touches the brim of his hat in silent apology, even if not wearing one. A woman reacts to an object dropped into her lap by opening her knees to catch it in her skirt, while a man closes his knees to catch it. A man’s eyes unconsciously follow the sway of a young woman’s bottom. A thousand differences, too small to change, but subtle enough for people to notice. Especially if being paid to locate a missing princess.
None of that mattered now that the mage recognized Prin was his target, the one he’d searched for nearly six years. She’d led him on a merry chase from Wren, over mountains, across an ocean, but in the end, he’d won.
The three of them returned to their cabin. For the first time in years, none had anything to say. They sat on the lower bunk side by side. The ship had turned around and was sailing on course again, the smooth rise and fall of the deck soothing. The wind held, and the ship made good speed.
Brice said, “Will he try to kill you?”
Prin shook her head, “Not if he can avoid it. He needs to display me before Eleonore to prove I’m who he says. If he claims to have killed me, there is still room for doubt.”
“What if we allow him to capture you and I follow and free you when the time is right?” Brice seemed buoyed by the idea.
Sara said, “I appreciate your idea.”
“But?” Brice asked.
“Too much can go wrong. Suppose you lose sight of them? Or they stop you and place you under arrest? What if their swordsmen are better than you when you attempt the rescue? Or you step on a slippery dead fish and fall, turning your ankle?” Sara had never raised her voice or sounded upset. She just stated facts.
Prin said, “He could kill me today and use elemental mage magic to freeze me until he presents me to my cousin. Remember, I can make fire with my finger, but also chill a mug of ale. A better-trained mage could turn my dead body into a block of ice and keep me that way for years.”
“Anyone else got any ideas?” Brice asked.