"Are you?" Ulrich asked with a very suspicious stare.
Perhaps she was a sea mercenary, yes, but by now Ulrich knew she was hiding something else, and certainly not a small matter.
Meera just raised an amused brow.
"I am whatever the room requires." Her eyes gleamed. "Now. That is the ninth. There is a tenth, and it is not a condition. It is a fear."
"Say it."
"The Crown."
Meera let the word sit.
"You asked me once whether the Crown knew what you were building, and you did not answer when I asked it back. I will tell you what the Sea Lords know. They know that the royal galleons have doubled on this coast since the summer. They know that three months ago a press gang out of Port Callan took forty men off the Grayhaven docks in a single night and the magistrate called it lawful. They know that the Crown has hanged nobles before for raising swords the King did not sanction, and that the Crown does not much care whether those swords were on land or on water."
She leaned forward.
