Tress’s designs though—they would work. Ann’s hand trembled anyway as she rammed the firing stick into the cannon and launched a cannonball. The metal men didn’t flinch. In part because the cannonball went wide, smashing through a tree, bouncing along the stones, then vanishing into the spores in the near distance.
Sweating profusely from the stress, Ann loaded another cannonball. She didn’t turn around and look at the crew. She knew what they were thinking. It wasn’t only eyesight that had been Ann’s problem. Something else was wrong with her.
And she was right.
But it wasn’t bad luck, or some mystical curse. It was something far more mundane, but equally pernicious. Ann didn’t miss just because she had poor eyesight. She missed because of momentum.
There’s an opposite force in life to the avalanche Tress was feeling. There’s always an opposition, you see. A Push for every Pull, an old adversary of mine always says. Sometimes the moments in our life pile up and become an unstoppable force that makes us change. But at other times they become a mountain impossible to surmount.
Everyone misses shots now and then. But if you become known as the person who misses—if you internalize it—well, suddenly every miss becomes another rock in that pile. While every hit gets ignored. Eventually you become Ann: arm shaking, sweat pouring down your face, clutched by the invisible but very real claws of self-fulfilling determination. Then you start missing not because your aim is bad, or your eyesight is poor, but because your arm is shaking and sweat is pouring down your face.
And because missing is what you do.
Dreading what she’d once loved, Ann raised the stick to the side of the cannon. A calm voice interrupted her.
“Hold your fire, shipmate Ann,” Laggart said, one hand on the forestay rope to keep his balance as he squinted at the shore.
Ann hesitated.
“Three degrees to aft and one up, shipmate Ann,” Laggart said, his voice calm and firm.
She hesitated only a moment, then began cranking the cannon as he indicated. The ship continued to rock in the shallow waves of the bay, moving alongside the shore.
“Hold,” Laggart said as she put the firing rod in place. “Hold. FIRE!”
An explosion of spores and force blasted the cannonball on its way. As she’d imagined, it hit one of the metal men in the chest and knocked it down, but didn’t destroy it. However, the vines that burst out grabbed and enveloped all the metal men nearby.
They, in turn, were completely flummoxed. On the ship, Ann took one step toward her mountain and found it quite a bit smaller than she’d imagined.
“Reload and reset,” Laggart said.
“Reloading and resetting, sir!” Ann said, moving with an efficiency that would have impressed any naval officer.
“Two degrees up,” Laggart said.
“Two degrees up!” she said. “And one to port!”
“Aye,” Laggart said, surprised. “And one to port. Now hold. Hold…”
“Fire!” Ann said at the exact same moment he did.
This shot flew true as well, catching another group of metal men.
“Reloading and resetting, sir!” Ann cried before he could give the order. She had the next blast off in quick succession. She looked to him, breathing quickly.
“Damn fine shooting,” Laggart said, with a nod. “Damn fine. Assistant Cannonmaster.”
And standing there on the summit of her mountain, Ann wondered at how tiny it suddenly seemed.
THE HERO
Back in the tower, Tress was still a captive.
It was humiliating, yes, but somehow…also gratifying? In that this was what she had expected to happen.
From the moment she’d launched from the Rock, she’d anticipated grand failure. She had gone not because she’d assumed she would succeed, but because something had to be done. And though many things had gone wrong on her quest, she’d somehow always managed to make them go right too.
She had found her repeated success almost uncomfortably consistent. In the same way that if you keep rolling sixes, you start to worry that something is wrong with the dice. Failing here, getting captured, being immobilized and unable to help…
Well, she wasn’t happy about it. But a part of her was relieved. It had finally happened. As it should have. She wasn’t a King’s Mask or a pirate. She was a window washer. With hair that really needed to be pulled back into its tail, because she could barely see through it at the moment. Unfortunately, the Sorceress’s bonds had locked her hands in those glowing bands of light, pressed to the wall.