The Midnight Star by Marie Lu Page B

His hair is slicked back out of the way, and he looks restless, eager for action. “Do you want me to give the order to change pennants?”
    I nod. “Do it.” I, too, am dressed for war. My robes have been replaced with armor, and my hair is tied back in a tightseries of braids, a Kenettran hairstyle. I’ve left my Tamouran head wraps behind. It was a tempting thought, flying over Alamour looking like a Tamouran girl—but I want them to know what nation is coming for them.
    â€œAs you say, Your Majesty,” Sergio replies.
    I glance at him. A deep crease has formed between his brows.
Is he thinking about Violetta too?
“This time, we will succeed,” I say.
At conquering Tamoura. At finding my sister.
    â€œWe will,” he echoes. He offers me a terse nod, his face expressionless.
    The sky above us, startlingly blue when we first left Kenettra, is now a threatening gray. Black clouds streak the horizon in front of us. Sergio gathers his cloak more tightly about him, his eyes trained in concentration on the approaching storm. He has been working on this tempest ever since we set sail, and now it is strong enough that I can sense the sparks in the air, the prickle along my arms.
    â€œBlack seas,” Sergio mutters, gesturing down at the dark waters. “A bad omen.”
    â€œYour Majesty!” Magiano’s voice shouts at us from the crow’s nest. We both look skyward. “We’ve sighted land!” His arm emerges from the side of the nest to point toward the horizon, and when I follow it, I see a sliver of gray land emerging underneath a dark sky. Even from this distance, the vague silhouette of a high wall can be seen, fortified by one side that is nothing more than a steep cliff.
    An instant later, Magiano drops down next to us. I didn’t even notice him making his way down the main masthead.“That is Alamour, my love,” he says, gesturing toward the cliff and wall.
    The last time my forces set our sights on Tamoura, it was to conquer their northwestern territories. Now I am going to set foot in their capital. Thunder rolls across the ocean, and flashes of lightning make the clouds glow. I wrap my arms around myself and shudder. My mother told me stories of this place, from where my ancestors came, and how many times armies had failed to penetrate its walls.
    But I will be different.
    If Violetta were here, she would be trembling at the thunder. Is she doing so right now, somewhere in Tamoura?
    Sergio rests his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I haven’t heard their bugles sound. But if they haven’t seen us yet, they will soon. Half of our fleet is going to sail into their western bay.” He draws an invisible image in the air, gesturing at the city’s two bays and the cliffs running along its northern border. “The west is their main harbor, difficult to enter because of the narrow passage in. The east is an easier bay to access, but full of sharp rocks. This is where the other half of our fleet—where
we
ourselves—will enter. We can sail in, but we can’t dock. So we’ll call our baliras instead.” Sergio pauses to look at me. “I hope you feel rested, because we’re going to need you to conjure one vast illusion of invisibility for us.”
    I nod. Even if the Tamourans can see a glimpse of our ships right now, they will not be expecting them to all vanish into thin air. Invisibility, despite all my mastery, is still the most difficult of my illusions—making myself invisible in acity usually requires a great deal of concentration, painting over my appearance with whatever is around me, constantly, as I move. But out here in the open ocean, all I need to do is weave an illusion of repeating waves and sky over our ships. Even if I make a few mistakes, the Tamourans will be watching from far away. It should be easy to fool them. If I can weave invisibility across the entire fleet, they won’t