It was pitch back, the sky obsidian. The moon was hidden beneath a thickening layer of clouds, the usually comforting bathe of its grey light absent tonight.

Archer glanced up at the sails, invisible against the roof of the world. No stars tonight, no snow tonight. He leaned silently against the rail of the ship, watching the rowboat as it was lowered from above. It splashed into the swirling water below.

Denver and Lyra climbed eagerly down the later like they couldn't wait, dragging Kerian along with them. Archer could wait. He didn't move, just watched.

They'd been up at the rail together, silhouetted there at the bow of the ship, but now they came down the stairs from the topdeck, speaking in hushed tones to each other. Bardarian glanced up as he passed by Archer, all sure and debonair, but Silta did not. Archer wondered what lies she'd fed to Bardarian about Archer's purpose on this mission, how she'd spun her web of manipulation to prolong his realization of the traitor as long as possible.

He wanted everything to be over, that's all. He wanted to be through with today. When he was given the order, he climbed into the rowboat with Denver and Lyra, waiting for their captain and first mate. Finally, they settled into their spots with everyone else.

Above them now, Britter gave them a firm salute and unhooked the boat, letting them go.

They met with the water silently, the glass ocean rippling out from their weight. Archer picked up his oars and helped move the boat across the quiet water, the small diameter cutting through the stillness and leaving behind soft waves in its wake.

The Kingsland glinted before them, the shining lights bouncing off the motionless water. The reflection was so clear in the black water that it was hard for Archer to tell where the lights really stopped and morphed into a mirror.

It was no coincidence that Kerian had been placed in the middle of the boat, with Silta and Bardarian on either side of him. Kerian was the one that couldn't be shot, and the closer they were to him, the less likely they were to be aimed at. Archer, Lyra and Denver took the ends, where they could be shot easier.

Loyalty. Wasn't that the word?

They approached slowly and calmly; the King expected them. He might not know it would be tonight, but he was ready. There would be someone waiting for them.

The imposing gates became larger and larger, the Avourienne disappearing behind them into the water and sky. Archer saw every scratch in the metal bars and every contour in the rock spires, even big up close. The boat lurched to a stop as Bardarian cut his oars in. He nodded to Silta.

She turned sideways, steadying herself on the sides of the boat as she slid into the water. She bit down on her knife as she lowered herself in with both hands, not a wave or noise to indicate her entry. For the first time since she'd become the first mate of the Avourienne, she looked at Archer. Expressionless to some, perhaps, but to him, there was the slightest prick of excitement to her gaze.

"Halleveire monere," she whispered through the metal, disappearing into the dark water.

Once she was gone, Lyra followed her quickly, leaving only the four of them aboard their small vessel. They rowed up to those gates, right up until the metal clanged against the front of their rowboat.

"Quite the warm welcome," Denver quipped quietly.

Archer watched Bardarian roll his shoulders in anticipation. "He's a man that likes to make you wait," he said back.

Kerian, who was gagged, muttered something in agreement.

From the inside shadows, a tall figure materialized from the darkness aboard a boat only slightly larger than theirs. He stood on the bow as four men rowed him to the closed gate.

Kerian raised his head to glance at the newcomers. He turned his head to look at the water—gauging his chances, perhaps—but the Captain placed a firm hand on his shoulder.

The men gazed silently at the pirates, looking for ways to aim without clipping the Prince. When they came up short, the gate started to open.

It ground loudly on its hinges as it rose, the metal climbing higher into the sky. Bardarian pushed them through with one stroke of his oar.

Once they cleared the gate, it immediately began to sink back down, ensuring only the four of them got through. But right before the gate descended back down into the water, it stopped with a dramatic clank.

Archer didn't look behind him, for he knew why the gate had stopped. He imagined them under the water, jamming the track the gate slid on. Then he imagined them slipping through the gates themselves, concealed by the darkness.

"The Prince," the tall man said, his voice grave and simple as if the pirates intended to toss the Prince over as easy as that. He did not notice that the gate had stopped short.

Kerian made some noise of frustration.

Denver was the first to toss his knife at the front, and he was followed by two others from somewhere in the water. They each hit their respective marks, bringing down three of the men. The two left, including the tall man, ducked down.

Silta pulled herself over the lip of the royal boat, soaking wet. She hooked her leg over and rolled, disappearing behind the lip. There were no sounds, no screams, but when she stood, the other men did not. She took an elegant bow, drawing a snort from Bardarian. Death still amused them, even now, when it could be them next.

They pulled their boat next to the royal one, helping to dump the bodies into the opaque water. As Denver and Archer stayed in the first boat, Bardarian moved his prisoner to the second and helped Lyra up from the water, as soaking as Silta. She shivered, the water in her hair glistening.

Bardarian made the gesture to move forward. A few days ago, they'd all sat down in the strategy room and memorized a list of gestures and symbols to use during the silence. Denver glanced expectantly at Archer, obviously having forgotten which signal was which.

Archer shook his head and nodded forward, picking up his oars again. Bardarian's boat led the way down one of the waterways to the left, for they wouldn't dream of taking the one down the middle. They couldn't be sure nobody had been informed of their presence, and it wouldn't be wrong to say the whole army could be looking for them.

Denver and Archer followed the main boat slowly, careful not to dip their oars too loudly. They passed by the silent houses on their little islands, rusting away at the edges and peeling at the doors. The dark windows were still and quiet, all the slaves of the King either fast asleep or too terrified of repercussions to summon the courage to lift their starving heads.

Bardarian took an unpredictable path through the village, leaving Archer struggling to keep up. His arms burned with the strain of hard work, and his heart beat like a drum in his chest. If he looked down, he was sure he would find his shirt rattling from being so close to the organ.

He didn't look down. He kept his eyes narrowed and focused, glancing behind him every so often. The night was dark, invisible.

From a leadership standpoint, the King should've been more careful. Guards should've been at every intersection, scouts disappearing around every corner—but the King didn't care about the safety of his makeshift village. He only cared about his castle, which Archer guessed would have plenty of security. It was awfully ironic that the King's own selfishness would lead him to hell.

The grand doors of the palace were firmly shut, guards on either side. That wouldn't be a problem for them, though. They had a far less convenient way in.

Kerian began to mumble as they came up to the side of the castle, the walls dark and imposing. Light poured from the window higher up and the guards at the front gate stood tall and oblivious to the two rowboats pulling up to their right.

Silta stepped off her boat and onto the little slice of rock between the water and the castle walls. There was just stone for almost ten meters up, where the windows started. She dug her knife in, but it didn't hold, just skimmed off the inescapable walls. She tossed it back into the boat. Plan B, then.

She leaned forward as Bardarian strung the end of a thick rope over her neck. He gave her a look Archer couldn't decipher, and she began to climb.

It took a long time for her to even get a few meters, considering she was working with nothing more than her hands and feet. The stones were almost completely polished and she was forced to divert around particularly difficult parts. She followed a small crack most of the way up, using her forearms and elbows to dig into it and hold her position. Archer nervously glanced around them. There was no one to be seen, but he knew it wouldn't stay that way forever. His eyes scanned the houses, still in proximity but not quite close enough for a villager to see them scaling the walls.

Archer turned to the rock spires, now only meters away. He examined their jagged points and thick bases. There was no way to get through those. Or over them, for that matter. They were the perfect wall, a brilliant barrier.

He turned his attention back to Silta, now almost four meters up. She continued to climb, lithe limbs pulling her up, closer and closer to the window. The thick rope blew softly in the wind out behind her.

He glanced around nervously again. He watched Bardarian, his cold blue eyes firmly on the wall. If she fell, even Miller wouldn't be able to put her back together. That would be it.

"Captain," Lyra whispered, as quietly as possible. She nodded down the side of the wall, where a boat was approaching.

Bardarian turned back to Silta and gently tugged on the rope. She looked down, following his gaze, then stopped moving, pressing her body against the stones and remaining still.

Denver and Archer paddled backwards ever so slightly, making their way around the back of the castle. Bardarian's boat followed, leaving Silta exposed on the wall. But as long as she didn't move, the eyes of the men in the boat wouldn't be drawn to her. They all just had to freeze for a moment.

The royal boat drifted around the corner slowly, pushing out waves. They splashed against the castle and dribbled back out.

Archer held his breath as the men came into view. They appeared to be simple scouts making the rounds, but he still didn't let go of his nerves; he just bundled them up and stuffed them down. He felt them swirling around deep in his soul, turbulent and distracting. He'd been near death before, but this was different. It was so close and imposing, now. This was the Kingsland, where one does not enter and if one does, one does not get out.

Archer glanced up at the wall, where he could just see the rope dangling out from the dark shadow that was Silta. He looked quickly from the scouts to her, his eyes rapidly flicking between the two. The scouts looked left and right and forward and backwards but they did not look up, and they did not bother to round the corner where the pirates were positioned.

In front of him, Denver's shoulders lowered as he let out a long breath. The scouts disappeared around the next corner.

Bardarian held his hand up to signal them to reposition, and Archer paddled forward until he could see Silta again. She had already restarted her climb as they rounded again, rapidly reaching hand over hand, finally near the less polished stones. A long time passed before she reached the window.

She was far up there now, so much so that he had to squint to see her silhouette. She elbowed the window, then moved to the other side when it didn't budge. She gently pushed the far side, just in case it was open. When it wasn't, she took out the tiny contraption Britter had made them with the leftover dynamite. She took off her jacket and covered it to minimize the backsplash, then lit it close to the window, her spider-like grip the only thing holding her to the wall.

The contraption wasn't meant to explode, necessarily, just melt away enough of the glass for Silta to get her hand through so she could pull out the rest. When she did, bits of glass rained down from high above, indicating it had worked.

She took out enough to slip through with the pane still on, then disappeared into the room.

Again, nothing but silence. She reappeared—or rather, her foot did as it came down on the pane, snapping it outwards so they could fit through. She poked her head back out of the window, tying off the room, then made another bowing motion.

Lyra tested the rope with her weight. She made the symbol to Bardarian, then began her own climb, the soles of her boots parallel to the wall.

Denver and Archer tied off the boats to the rocks, hoping they would stay steady. Unless they wanted to swim out, they were going to need them later.

Denver started up when Lyra was a good way up. Bardarian glanced at Archer, as if warning him to do his job right. It was warranted perhaps; Archer had the most difficult job. He was to connect Kerian to the rope after Bardarian was up, then take Silta's unconventional route up. He only hoped he wouldn't fall.

Once Bardarian was nothing but a dot on the wall, Archer tied the end of the rope around Kerian's middle, sinching it tightly. The Prince let out an annoyed groan beneath his gag and rolled his eyes.

Archer shrugged in response and tugged on the rope. Bardarian and Denver began to lift the Prince up, leaving Archer to scramble up after their prisoner.

He raced up the wall as fast as he could, using the rope to help him at times. He followed the line he'd seen Silta take and without the trial and error, he ascended the wall much faster. A few times he stopped to gaze down at the distancing village and water below, morphing into one dark shape. He kept his eyes on the window after one of his boots lost its grip. He wasn't afraid of heights. He wasn't afraid of heights.

Once he reached the window, the broken edges bit into the soft palms of his hands and cut through the skin. He helped lift Kerian through as Denver and Bardarian hefted the Prince unceremoniously into the room. Archer followed.

The room was some sort of library, dusty and disused, by the look of it. There was a crisp splayed out on the floor, which Archer saw as odd—not that Silta had killed the man, but that the guard had been there at all. Archer wondered if the King had placed guards at every window of the castle. He might've been rather slack about them entering the Kingsland, but he was not going to proceed that way when it came to his castle.

He landed silently on the ground, taking in the scene. Silta had opened the door to his right and was now peeking her head out and looking both ways. She closed the door once more and turned to the group.

"We split up here," she whispered, her silky voice staying in the confined room without drifting too far.

"Split up?" Bardarian whispered back at her, clearly unaware of the whole plan.

Silta pointed to herself, then her head, giving him a who's the smart one here look.

Bardarian believed she had their best interest in mind, so he handed a pistol to Lyra and dispensed out a few knives. Archer watched them all carefully, noting their weapons. Lyra had the pistol to hold the Prince with, and Bardarian had his at his hip. Silta had plenty of knives, and so did Denver and Archer, as well as their own pistol. At this point, pistols were loud in these quiet halls, and calling on more guards by using them might've been worse than fighting out of whatever situation they were in with their hands.

Lyra and Bardarian stood behind Silta as the door was opened again, leaving Denver and Archer to scramble out into the hallway after them.

Bardarian pulled away to the right, where the throne room would be. Denver and Archer stepped to the left.

Silta gestured to Archer before they split. She put a hand around his neck and whispered, "Head around the corner, then find another window; they open from the inside. Drop Denver as soon as possible. Send him back to us."

Archer didn't respond for a moment.

"Understood, Kingsley?" she whispered.

"It's Archer," he muttered back.

She trained her bright gaze on him, her expression unreadable. She held the back of his neck still, her thumb brushing over his hair. "I'm sorry," she breathed. "I really am." She looked over at Bardarian, whose gaze was trained on the hallway, making sure they weren't ambushed. "You're not meant for any of this, Archer," she told him.

She stepped back, but he reached out to take her wrist and hold it there. He wasn't going to ask her to come with him; he wasn't going to drag her along. But he just couldn't leave it like that. Could he?

"I—"

She shook her head, cut him off, "No, Kingsley. I don't need to hear it."

"Say it back," he begged.

She smiled, but it reeked of tragedy. Her eyes darted down to her wrist, then back up to him. She shook her head, then pulled her wrist away. She didn't say goodbye, didn't give him another glance. She turned down the hallway, back to Lyra, back to Bardarian.

They disappeared around the corner mere seconds later. And just like that, she was gone.

Denver came up beside him and nodded to the corridor.

So Archer led the way.