They moved like thieves but dressed as militia: coats buckled, boats oiled, hands steady. Midnight smelled like wet hemp and iron. It made people honest in ways daylight never did—either you acted or you froze. Aminah preferred the first.
"Check lines," she told Dzeko. "Two knots on every oar. No shouting. No bright lamps until I say."
Dzeko checked a coil of rope like a man checking a promise. "If we get seen, we'll be a story," he said. He didn't try to dress the truth in fancy words. He'd learned the language of bluntness and used it when the room needed it.
Hasb moved through the men with quiet orders. "Row slow. Row deep. Keep the hull low," he said. He spoke like a man who measured distance by how much a thing could hurt; it made the crews listen.
Meren, pale and fidgeting, carried the locked satchel with the token and the photograph. He kept glancing at the manifest pinned to Aminah's chest like it was a map out of a maze. "If the Empire decides to stop us," he said, voice thin, "it'll claim cover. They'll paper it up and make it holy work."
"Then we're the unsaintly problem that gets solved," Aminah said. She didn't say it loud. Not a boast. Just a fact to put under their teeth.
They pushed off in a hush. Oars slipped, water whispered, and the city slid away in long, dripping lines of light. They aimed for the Northstar's last known course—the bay where the ship would slow for the shallow channel before turning to gulp open sea. It was a place with blind spots and tides that could hide men if you used them right.
Halfway across, as the lanterns on the shoreline fell behind them and the Northstar's hull grew like a dark wall ahead, Dzeko's whisper came up through the little boat like breath.
"Aminah—" he said. "We've got trouble."
She didn't like the sound of his voice. It had the small, high hitch that people get when they carry bad news too long.
"What now?" she asked.
"There's a man on the quay. A look-out. He had a scrap—" Dzeko's hands were quick, restless. "We took him at the west gate earlier. He had our schedule in his pocket. Times, tide, rower names. Someone sold them our plan for a coin and a scrap."
The world narrowed like someone closing a lid. Aminah felt cold and furious all at once. "Who?"
"Small-time," Dzeko said. "A petty boss named Corin. He swore he was selling to a buyer who wanted to know when militia would be away. Said the buyer pays well. He led us to a broker called Mace."
Hasb cursed under his breath. "So someone inside knows our men and our hours."
"Rell could've been set up," Dzeko said. "Or someone in our lists sold the time. Or—" he let the sentence hang. For the first time since the ash started, Dzeko sounded raw.
Silence in the boat is a dangerous thing. It makes room for thoughts that eat at you. Aminah weighed the options fast—abort, fight, bluff, stall with a decoy. The tide didn't wait for councils.
"Row on," she said finally. "We make the approach. Keep the bow covered. We'll try the starboard side where the shadow holds."
They changed course a sliver. The Northstar's hull loomed; lanterns blinked along rails like dull eyes. For a breath it was only them and the dark.
Then a trumpet bellowed, thin and official.
"Boat to the north!" a voice called from the Northstar. "Identify yourselves!"
Aminah's stomach hit the boat bench like a fist. The voice had the welled authority of a man speaking for institutions bigger than fear. Oars froze. For a moment, the sea felt like a skin—tight, too thin.
"We're militia," Hasb said. "Qazkar. Going to inspect—"
"By order of the Empire, halt," came the bark from above. "Any attempt to board will be considered an act of aggression."
Aminah's mouth hardened. The imperial dispatch had been a blade; now it had been raised. She counted options like a man counts coins: little and exact. To push forward meant a fight with men who carried imperial stamped warrants; to hold meant watching the Northstar sail away with whoever was in her hold.
"Row to the lee," she ordered. "We make it look like we were blown off course. Keep it calm."
They drifted toward a notch in the rocks. The crew bent like reeds. Men's breaths were small in the dark. They hugged the shadow of a promontory that hid them from the Northstar's main deck lights. For a long minute they had nothing but the sound of each other and the tide.
Then Dzeko hissed, voice a thread. "Someone's moving on the quay. Torches. Not their men."
Across the water, flares bloomed—small lanterns being threaded down the Northstar's side, then lights at the quay where figures with heavier coats moved with a discipline that made their shoulders tight. Men in uniforms they didn't have letters for.
Hasb's hand found Aminah's forearm like a warning. "They've got reinforcements."
Aminah felt the clock again; twelve hours had narrowed to minutes. She could call the boats back, make a scene of it, and lose sight of Nina. Or she could risk everything and try to board faster than the Empire could drag out its paper. Both choices had teeth.
Dzeko's face had gone stony. "They set up a cordon," he said. "Someone wanted to pin whatever's on that ship under imperial protection."
"Or someone with power ordered them to," Hasb muttered. He knew politics smelled like coin but acted like a blade.
A light bobbed near the Northstar's stern. A small launch eased away, and in its bow a figure stood like a dark statue. He raised a lantern and the light painted his face—an officer's face, shaven, that didn't belong to Qazkar. The officer's coat bore the Empire's braided sun—clear as a command.
Aminah's throat tightened. The Empire had sent a hand in person. If they wanted the Northstar's cargo, they'd bring it. If they wanted to press claim, they'd press with paper and soldiers.
She felt the tiny, private pull of rage—an old thing that wanted to burn a paper and the hand that delivered it both. She breathed out and told the boys to stay low.
The officer's launch came near their shadow. He lifted his lantern; the beam found the little boat like a searchlight finding a hiding place. The men around them flinched.
"By order of the Empire," the officer called across the black water, loud enough to carry, "Captain Theodore, I command you—identify yourself and stand down."
Aminah looked at Hasb. His face was the map of a man who'd chosen stepping stones that could cut. She saw in his eyes the same question—do we obey or do we make ourselves a story?
She breathed, steady, and pulled her cloak tight. "We're staying," she said. Not arrogant. Not dramatic. Just clear.
The officer's voice softened as if he spoke into a void of civility. "Then we ask the Empire to take this burden from you."
Something moved on the Northstar's deck—a shadow that bent like a person—and in that small motion Aminah thought she saw the flash of a familiar braid. For half a beat, when the lantern slanted, she thought she saw Nina's shoulder, the small shape she'd thought she'd seen from the rowboat earlier.
The lantern swung. The shadow vanished.
A cannon boomed somewhere farther out, a deep note that made the water shake under the oars. The Northstar's rigging creaked. Men along its rail began to shout as orders landed like small axes.
Aminah felt the world change into action. The Empire had shown its hand. Their options had thinned to less than one.
She lifted her voice in a shout meant for her crew and not for the officer—a simple thing, a short command. "Row!"
They cut across the water—fast, silent as a blade. Behind them, lanterns flared, men called, and the Northstar's deck erupted with movement. The officer's lantern swung wildly and then fixed on them like a crosshair.
As they closed, something that looked like a rope ladder dropped from the Northstar's rail. Hands gripped. The ladder fell toward them, swinging through the night like a hand reaching.
Aminah reached out to grab it.
At the same instant, a voice—sharp, inside the rowboat, one she knew like a knife—said, "Don't. It's a trap."
She froze, hand midair, as the lantern light painted the faces of the men around her. One of them had his mouth open as if to speak and then closed it, eyes wide.
Someone behind them laughed once—a thin sound that didn't belong to any goodwill—and the sea took the sound and swallowed it.
The ladder brushed the water between them and the Northstar, bobbed, and hung like a choice.
Aminah's fingers were still clenched on the oar.
She had a sliver of time. One second to choose the thing that would decide everything.