He barely braces for the rocking waves while I’m here tearing through the mist like my life depends on it. I keep my eyes dead ahead, hoping each stroke will scrape away the frustration twisting in my chest. But no—by the time we hit the shoreline, it’s still there, digging deep.
“If it were up to me, I’d leave you here,” I mutter, just loud enough. The mist thickens as we near the land, but I see it—the flash in Rancour’s eye. He heard me.
“Oh, I’m sure you would,” he says, slipping from the boat and into the knee-deep water without a care. “But lucky for you, it’s not.”
He scans the shore, his gaze sharp, simmering with a bottled-up fury I learned to recognize. It’s the one he keeps for the goddess. Her and her only. Then he snaps his eyes back to me, lips twitching.
“Besides,” he says, voice dripping with mock sympathy, “maybe it’s time we buried a few grudges, don’t you think?”
I narrow my eyes. “And what twisted notion made you think I’d be interested?”
His laugh is low, razor-sharp, no humor in it. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because one of us should start acting like there’s more at stake than some petty feud.” He leans in, voice dropping to a hiss, his eyes burning with a dangerous spark. “I figured you’d hate that goddess as much as I do by now. Enemy of my enemy, and all that.”
My hands flex around the oars, even though we’re beached. I force a smirk, cool and careless, letting it settle on my face. “If you’re looking for friendship, Rancour,” I purr, “you’ll need to work a lot harder. I don’t pick best mates off the scrap pile.”
I step onto the shore, head high, chin tipped, eyes narrowed just enough to send the message that he is not shaking me. But then I glance at the sky, noticing something off, something wrong, and that smirk falters—just for a second.
The sun had been sliding down the horizon a moment ago, dipping toward dusk. Now, though, it halts mid-descent, reversing course to climb back up, a fierce glare casting down over the beach. I glance at Rancour, and he’s staring at the sky too, brows knotted, just as baffled.
The heat presses down, thick as the mist we just left. And though the sun shouldn’t be directly above us, it feels like noon on the hottest day up north.
It’s all kinds of wrong. It’sunnatural. It defies every law of nature I’ve ever known.
“What in the…?” I murmur, stepping further onto the beach, barely trusting my own eyes. I spin around, taking it all in.
The sea, which we left as a shadowy abyss, is now a shimmering turquoise, almost too bright to believe. Even the skiff looks different—a pale brown, like wood freshly sanded and warmed, still carrying a faint scent of the forest. And the sand? It’s practically glowing.
Above, the sky stretches in an actual blue, not that gray navy color we were stuck under. It fades at the edges into a foggy white haze, blurring where sea and sky meet. I squint, half-expecting it all to shift back any second.
“Rancour,” I call, a laugh slipping through my breath, “please tell me you’re seeing the same witchcraft I am.”
Rancour scowls, his lip curling like he’s trying to spit out something foul. “I see it, alright.”
We both turn in a slow circle, eyes roving over the island that just moments ago was nothing more than a shadowed, ordinary jungle. Now, it’s transformed—something straight out of tales.
The terrain’s a blend of jagged cliffs, shimmering with heat that blurs their edges, and stretches of desert sand dotted with stubborn, spiny plants. It’s like someone tossed bits of desert and jungle onto the rocks just to see what would stick. And in the midst of all this raw, wild grit, dense patches of jungle burst up, green and tangled, like they’re defying the bare earth around them.
It’s unnatural, that much I know.
Bright yellow-orange flowers spill over the rocks, their petals almost glowing like embers, and deeper in, there are fruit trees with leaves shining like molten gold. The whole island is drenched in sun—heat rising off the cracked ground, off the sand, off the sea itself.
Not only it’s bright as hell, but it’s also scorching hot.
I glance over at Rancour, rubbing a hand through my hair. “You got some buzzing in your head or something?” I ask, remembering he tends to hear it whenever the Lady’s powers are involved.
When we sailed in, I could’ve sworn this place was just a typical island, mostly jungle, and night was creeping in. Now? It’s like we’re somewhere else entirely.
Could this be another gateway? Another realm, like that cursed island that kept growing around us?
But Fabien just shakes his head, and that throws me off even more.
“No,” he mutters, brows furrowing. “I didn’t hear a damn thing.”
Well, shit.
As we stare out at this blazing landscape, the air thickens with heat, shimmering off the ground. I squint, feeling my skin prickle, like the sun itself is pressing down on us, claiming every inch.
Sweat trickles down, and it feels like I’m roasting alive. “Fuck,” I mutter, yanking off my shirt.
