"No," Gabriel said gently, though his eyes were flintyhard. "Now that you've come, they're going to be expecting something. By the time the first-rates get here, our best opportunity will have already pa.s.sed."

She dropped her gaze; Father Nectarios noticed her hurt look and glanced at her in concern.

"Well, then, gentlemen, G.o.dspeed," she murmured. "If you will excuse me."

They bowed as she took leave of them and withdrew to her chamber-as if she could escape the parting that was about to descend on her like the hounds of h.e.l.l.

But it was inescapable.

Trembling, she sat on the edge of her bed and waited for Gabriel to come, with a sense of impending doom.

All too soon, he slipped into her chamber, closing the door behind him with barely a sound. She rose and drew in her breath when she saw him all dressed in black for his mission like he had been that night on the mountain, armed to the teeth once more.

She wanted to back away from him when he came toward her, as if her refusal to tell him good-bye could stop him from going. Her heart pounded and her stomach tied itself up in knots as he rested his hands on her shoulders and gazed tenderly into her eyes.

No words came.

Sophia threw her arms around him, ignoring various holsters and sheaths, and hugged him with all her might. Squeezing her eyes shut, she fought back tears and the horrifying awareness of the violence ahead and the very stark fact that she might never see her man again.

But if this was good-bye, then her parting gift to him would be her courage. If she never saw him again, the last image of her that she wanted him to take away was one of strength. She refused to cry.

She had given her heart to a warrior and now the moment had come to prove herself worthy of his sacrifice and his gallantry.

Gabriel would not flinch before his duty, after all; to honor him, she would do the same, even if the soul in her was dying. A wave of pain swept through her as she held him, like a cruel and blasphemous inversion of the pleasure they had shared.

She touched his hair, his shoulders, his arms. She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it lovingly, then looked into his blue, blue eyes with the threat of tears in her own. She willed them back and cupped his hard, beautiful face for a moment.

"I will always love you," she whispered calmly. "Always. And if there's a child, I will tell him-everything about you."

"Princess." He crushed her to him and claimed her mouth. His kiss seared her very soul with his fiery pa.s.sion. When he ended it, he lowered himself slowly to his knees and kissed her belly for a long moment, his eyes closed.

Sophia caressed his raven hair.

He rose again and took her gently into his arms, grazing his lips along her forehead with a low, burning vow. "I will come back to you."

She trembled. G.o.d, please. But though it took every drop of royal blood in her veins to do so, she held on to her composure.

"I will be here," she replied with her chin held high.

"You are so beautiful," he whispered with complete understanding of her gift glimmering in his eyes.

"Thank you, my darling, for what you're about to do," she said calmly, and then she did the hardest thing she had ever done in her twenty-one years.

She let him go.

As she stepped back, he bowed his head and brought both of her hands to his lips. He kissed them, looked one last time into her eyes, and then let her hands slide free of his light hold.

His cobalt stare burned into her heart forever.

Neither of them could speak, for the only word to be said, the one that neither could bear to say, was good-bye.

He took a deep breath, pivoted, and marched out with the grim, bristling air of a man on a mission.

A man with no fear of death.

That was what scared her. He should fear it. He should be careful. But he never would.

The moment the door had closed, Sophia crumbled.

Sinking to the floor, she put her head in her hands and wept.

Hours later, in absolute silence the longboats cut through the waves approaching the fortress island of Agnos, ten heavily armed men and several barrels of black powder to a boat. Navigating each light, fast craft were some of Kavros's ablest seamen.

Stealth was key.

Approaching the island from different directions like the five points of a star, they were setting up a coordinated attack. As soon as they landed, each jumped lightly out of the boats into the knee-deep water. Hefting the barrels on their backs, they sped the powder into place, rolling out the long fuse cords.

No doubt sentries were posted. They worked in total darkness to avoid being seen. The jagged outline of the fort loomed against the indigo sky.

With the explosives in place, they took up their positions for the second phase of their attack. Boulders on the beachhead would make fine cover for the rifle attack. Lastly, they would charge the fort itself and kill anyone who hadn't been shot or blown up already.

As for the sheik himself, they wanted him alive.

Gabriel waited for his men to signal they were ready. He glanced over his shoulder toward the sea, his mood keyed up. Though it was too dark to spy the smaller ships that Commander Blake had ordered to give them cover, he knew they were there. Good man, Blake.

Gabriel had also decided to leave Timo back at the palace to guard Sophia. Of course, the hairy fellow had been disappointed to miss out on the fun, but if things went wrong, Gabriel had wanted to leave her with at least one man she knew she could trust completely. Whatever happened, he knew Timo would look after her.

Hang it all, but these Greeks had grown on him, he thought. Then the long-awaited signal came.

Everyone was ready.

He nodded to his team and then struck the flint.

The spark he used to light the fuse cord was the first warning the Janissaries even had that they were there.

Gabriel smiled darkly as the flame caught and began to race along the wire toward the stacked barrels of explosives.

"Morning, boys," he murmured.

Then the men covered their ears and looked away as the first fiery crash tore through the night.

Sophia had tried to stay up waiting for news of the battle, but worn out from grief and from sheer exhaustion after the day's tour among her people, she had fallen asleep in her clothes a couple of hours before dawn.

Now, however, deep reverberations in the distance found their way into her sleep and shook her awake. Not thunder, not the deep rumble of an earthquake, but the sounds of battle.

It was happening. It had begun.

She opened her eyes and lifted her head from her pillow. How many hours had pa.s.sed? she wondered, but she did not wait to find out. The new day was only at first light as she jumped out of bed, rushed across the room to the balcony, grabbing her trusty knapsack along the way.

With shaking hands, she took out her folding telescope and tried to locate Agnos from her balcony. She struggled to hold the spygla.s.s steady despite her frightened trembling and searched the predawn sky until she saw black smoke rising in the distance. She gasped when an orange explosion flared out, so small with the miles between.

Oh, Gabriel.

Her heart thumping, she scanned the horizon for further clues about what was happening around Agnos. Blast, it was too far to make out much. Slowly sweeping the whole area with her telescope, she stopped in astonishment, suddenly spotting the first-rates.

Good G.o.d, they must've gotten the message faster than Commander Blake had realized. They were already sailing toward the strait in a ma.s.sive line like lumbering Leviathans. Before long, they would enter the narrow channel and pa.s.s by Ali Pasha's coast, reminding him, as ordered, of their protection of Kavros.

At first, Sophia was heartened to see them. With Gabriel's attack already under way, this was most felicitous timing. Their arrival was not too soon to tip off the enemy that something was afoot, and indeed, at this point, Gabriel's lesser forces, for all their courage, surely needed whatever fresh help they could get.

But then-studying the scene before her, a bit of movement on one of the rocky outcroppings caught her eye.

Puzzled, she focused the telescope on the tall, jagged clump of rock and suddenly gasped to spot a dark-skinned man in position there-with a carronade!

Bewildered, she trained her spygla.s.s on another of the seemingly uninhabited rocks. And again, she saw another turbaned foreigner lying in wait with a fatbarreled, short-range artillery piece.

And another, stationed on yet another cl.u.s.ter of rocks. As the sun made its first foray over the horizon, it glimmered over the mighty masts of the approaching British first-rates, and illumined several more of the enemy's un.o.btrusive positions.

Chills ran down Sophia's spine, and as she lowered her spygla.s.s from her, it all came clear.

It's a trap.

This is exactly what they want us to do. They're going to destroy the ships.

The fiends were lying in wait with their portable cannons, positioned to blast the mighty first-rates in the one spot where every ship was most vulnerable: its unprotected stern.

Any attack from the side was useless and would be met with a devastating broadside from the vessel's full a.r.s.enal of guns; the bow, too, was well protected. But the stern was every ship's Achilles' heel.

All they had to do was time it right, let the ships pa.s.s to the fore and then hit them from behind.

With the first-rates crippled, foundered in the strait, Kavros's defenses would be severely compromised.

Then the Order of the Scorpion could take the island.

Gabriel's dire warning of the greater threat echoed in her ears. Not just Kavros was in danger. Those first-rates kept the peace throughout the Mediterranean.

Oh, G.o.d. Her heart in her throat, she realized she had to keep those warships out of the strait! They had to be warned to stay back immediately. But how?

On the beach below the palace, the fishermen were already out and stirring, readying their boats for the morning's catch. Her eyes narrowed as her gaze homed in on them. Why, if that was the only navy that Kavros could boast of its own, then it was hers to lead.

The next thing she knew, she was running out of her room.

"Timo, wake up! Come with me!" Her trusty guard was seated on a chair outside her chamber door. She shook him back to wakefulness but did not wait for him, dashing off and rushing through the palace with a few sleepy attendants scrambling after her.

He leapt up, still groggy, and came bounding after her. "What's going on?"

"The first-rates have come! We've got to keep those ships out of the narrows! Hurry up!" Tearing out of the palace, she went barreling down to the water.

The atmosphere was tense down on the slowly lightening beach. The fishermen could hear the distant cannon-fire coming from the direction of Agnos and did not know what to make of it.

When Sophia came tearing down into their midst, calling to them, they turned and looked at her suspiciously, unaware of who she was.

"Fishermen of Kavros! To your boats! Your country needs you!"

They turned and looked at her in question, not quite sure who this young woman yelling at them was.

Timo came rushing after her.

"Will you take me aboard?" she cried, racing over to the s.h.a.ggy captain of the largest boat. She stared eagerly at him, out of breath.

"Your Highness!" Timo exclaimed, but he could not stop her as she zipped up the ladder and jumped onto the boat.

"Highness?" the men murmured. "It's the princess?"

"Indeed, it is!" she cried, grabbing hold of a line and jumping up onto the rails. She addressed them at the top of her lungs. "And I implore your service now! We must into the straits at once!"

"Princess-what is going on?" the captain exclaimed.

"The British ships are coming into the narrows, and if they advance much farther, they'll be destroyed! We can't let that happen! They are our allies, and if they're destroyed, they can't protect our country. It's a trap! Don't you see? Oh, there's no time to explain! Are you with me or not?"

They hesitated, probably unsure if she was a madwoman.

"Don't you hear the guns?" she cried with an angry, sweeping gesture toward the sea.

"Is it really the princess?" someone yelled.

"Can't you tell?" Timo retorted loudly.

"Hurry, for the sake of your country!" Sophia shouted. "Get this boat moving! Please!"

"Your Highness, what do you want us to do?" asked the captain of the boat that she had commandeered.

"Follow me!" she shouted, pointing pa.s.sionately toward the straits.

And to her sublime amazement...they did.

The men flooded into their boats with a hearty cheer.

Moments later, they were yanking up anchors, letting out sails, speeding their vessels into the current.

Sophia's fishing-boat captain led the way. The longfamiliar crews were shouting back and forth to each other as they fanned out across the strait, a ragtag flotilla forming a little line across the narrows, and advancing bravely toward the mighty first-rates.

Hurry, she thought, desperate to ward the ships off. She only prayed the first-rates would not interpret their approach as threatening and blow them all out of the water.

Meanwhile, in the distance, the guns still roared.

Her heart pounded as they neared the hidden enemy positions. The fishermen realized that something was afoot, of course, but had not noticed the concealed men on the rocks.

Sophia knew that the warships were the enemy's prime targets, not them. Still, she hoped these Scorpion blackguards did not change their minds about that. She knew she was playing roulette with the fishermen's lives, but Leon had taught her to know that, sometimes, that's what a leader had to do. Decisions made for the fate of many were not easy.