Together, Anara and Dante crossed the islets until coming upon a fishing village. From there they found passage to Marsen.

Unable to keep away from one another, the Amalfi magician and the Wind Steppe princess had rented lavish rooms in the finest building they could find in the seaport city as they waited for the Mariel, the ship they had booked passage upon that would take them to Amalfi.

When that time came, together they walked the streets of the city, making their way to the port to board the vessel. But when Dante’s coin purse was stolen by a street urchin, he ran after the boy, Anara following.

They soon found themselves in an alley, the port and all its ships visible just beyond as their escape was cut off by six men with canted eyes and blue tunics. Their curved swords and long mustaches were another sign of who these men were.

“Iizuhlian tribesmen,” she said as Dante surveyed both ends of the alley. Anara was pushed up against his back, her arms surrounding him for support.

At the other end of the alley where the port could be seen, were five more tribesmen. One of them was Ulshar, the other, their leader, was none other than Saul, her father.

Swords drawn, they were already advancing upon them. “What is this?” Dante snarled as he unsheathed a rapier from his back, the long thin blade flicking about with expert ease. “Come at me if you dare, but I demand you state your intentions!”

Anara did not remember Dante being armed. His sword was a ruse, a magician’s trick. “It’s my father,” she said in his ear. She pointed, giving him away. Her motion actually seemed to shock Saul, as if she were betraying him for revealing to Dante who he was.

“Anara,” Saul called. “I’ve come for you, my daughter. To take you back to the Wind Steppe.”

That wasn’t going to happen. She wouldn’t allow it. “And you think I wish to come back with you, father?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” He and his men were inching closer, still.

“Because she’s with me,” Dante declared, unafraid that he was outnumbered eleven to one. “I’m not keeping your daughter with me against her will.”

“As if that has anything to do with it,” Ulshar said.

She felt annoyed that he was even here, but that her father let this crony talk for him was even worse. “What does that mean?” She asked, speaking more to her father than to Ulshar.

“You were to be wed to Duke Korr,” he said pointedly. “Not this Amalfi brigand.” He said the words while looking Dante up and down, as if he were a commoner, despite his fine trousers and bright white shirt with laced cuffs. “If you won’t come back with me, Anara,” he continued, “I will take you by force.”

“Try it,” she challenged.

Dante glanced back toward her, clearly surprised that she was egging him on when Dante didn’t even have a sword.

Saul shrugged, and with a smug smile, he said, “Kill the Amalfi pirate and bring me my daughter.”

“No!” Anara bellowed, but her father’s men didn’t listen.

The first man came in for a strike at Dante, but he sidestepped it with ease, then grabbed the man by the wrist and the back of the head and slammed him into the alley wall.

His sword dropped, providing Dante with a weapon, which is wasted no time in snatching up, giving him the impression of two swords—one in each hand.

Anara couldn’t see what was happening with him anymore with his six opponents as Ulshar and her father’s other cronies came for her.

“I said I won’t come back with you.”

Ulshar laughed. “You have no choice.”

Calling on her Whirlwind magic with deft movements of her body and the correct hand strokes, she funneled the air in the alley to lift Ulshar and toss him over her father’s head.

He screamed, landing heavily on the cobblestones out of sight. She felt good, especially when she saw her father gape in surprise. Surprise at the level of her magical ability—the value she could provide him.

Saul took a step back, wary of her, then made to use his own Whirlwind magic, but Anara pushed him back.

He, along with his four other men landed ten paces ahead of her in heaps. Quickly they got up and made to run as Anara turned to assist her love.

But she found that Dante had no need. He had already taken care of all six of her tribesmen. No. Not her tribesmen. Her father’s tribesmen. She was glad to know that Dante did not wound them deeply, and four of them were already retreating out of the other end of the alley as the last two made to do the same, albeit, slowly but as fast as they could.

Anara turned, ran for the street where Ulshar was still recovering and kicked him in the teeth.

The brute screamed, clasping his mouth. He got up, touched his hand to his bloody face gushing from his three missing teeth. He looked at her then as if she had destroyed the whole Wind Steppe way of life, and ran like a coward.

Breathing heavily, she watched him disappear behind the other bodies outside on the docks. “You were never pretty to begin with, you flaccid fool!”

Dante’s large hand squeezed her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said. “I am. But this worries me, Dante.”

“I’m no riffraff,” he said. “It’s likely your father doesn’t know who I even am. He probably thinks I’m some pirate captain that raids Atalayan ships.”

“You are.”

He laughed.

“I will send a correspondence to him when we reach Amalfi,” Dante said. “There’s nothing he can do. You’re mine now, so he will have to come to amicable terms with Amalfi—that or risk another enemy.”

“Not the bargain he wanted,” Anara said. “He wanted an Atalayan ally.”

“Perhaps. But we don’t always get what we want.”

“You seem to,” she said, smiling up at him.

“For now.”

“Indeed,” Anara said. “Now, come.” She clasped his hand. “We have a ship to board and I wish for you to make love to me in those silk sheets you told me about.”

Dante smiled. “The Mariel is the most luxurious ship in this part of the world. You will not be disappointed, Princess.”

“Ship or no, I would let you take me in a cave, Dante.”