He thought about her parting words to him,‘You are my Emperor’. Those words pierced through something deep within him. He rubbed at his chest as if still feeling them in his aching heart. She believed in him, even though they didn't share the same views, and so he would show her the same respect. He would believe in her, too. She would find the answers they needed, and she would come back to them. To him.
But he couldn’t shake that sense of unease gnawing at him, twisting his insides until he felt sick to his stomach. They still hadn’t seen Forcina since the night Cormac shot her. She wasn’t the type to ignore that kind of attack. Doraan felt like a sitting duck floating in the middle of the ocean, just waiting for a shark to bite.
Each gust of wind that whipped around him furthered the tension coursing through him like a molten liquid, setting his blood boiling. It was the waiting that made him most anxious, knowing that she could appear at any moment, and there was nothing they could do about it. He was even more afraid of what she might do to Kamira if she got her claws in her. Forcina would definitely force her from the ship or, worse, kill her.
Doraan paced the length of theCursed Soulas his men prepared the ship for the coming storm. He looked out over the endless sea behind them where gray clouds gathered, growing darker with each passing moment. There was something strange about it—the unnatural way the clouds moved sporadically, almost like a giant flock of birds following one another through the wind streams.
Doraan jumped at the sudden clap of thunder, startling when lightning illuminated the horizon.
He squinted into the looming storm. A dark form floated toward them at a frightening speed. With another blinding flash of lightning, Doraan’s heart leapt into his throat. Panic overtook him and he gasped for breath, a choking wheeze gushing from his lips as he desperately tried to warn his crew. Grabbing his throat, he finally called out, “All hands to quarters!” stumbling as he rushed toward the helm.
Each of his crew turned to him, confusion etched in their features.
Doraan pointed to the quickening storm. “Forcina! Weigh anchor! Unfurl the sails!” That was all they needed to hear before they scrambled into action. Doraan joined them, sprinting as fast as his limping body could take him to the helm.
Cannons were readied and pistols were loaded for the impending onslaught that was drawing closer with every clipped breath. A thick blanket of darkness enveloped them like a falling shadow, blocking out sun and sky, bringing with it the bitter tang of sorcery. “The lanterns! Light the lanterns!” Doraan heard Cormac yell from somewhere below. Tiny lights flickered to life one after the other at his command, but it still wasn’t enough as the wind swept around them, howling like a pack of hungry wolves, extinguishing the flames.
Fog wrapped around them like a sheet, sucking the air from their lungs. Doraan’s heart raced to the point of pain in his chest as an ominous silence drowned out the ever present song of the sea. They each stood frozen, squinting through the mist, attempting to find Forcina in the darkness that surrounded them. Doraan wasn’t sure anyone was actually breathing until there was a slip of a finger sparking a pistol to life, quickly followed by theboomof cannon fire ringing out through the haze. Doraan turned the wheel of theCursed Soulsharply, sailing blindly while his men shot at air.
A violent gust of wind rocked the ship hard to the left as water sprayed across the deck and drowned out the yelps of the crew drifting toward him. Doraan spun the ship's wheel as fast as he could, saving them all just before theCursed Soulcapsized.
Suddenly, everything stopped. TheCursed Soulrocked back, flinging a few of the men overboard with its sudden force. The seas had calmed and the clouds parted to reveal a blue sky, the sun shining down on them, illuminating the damage the unnatural storm had caused.
The foremast of the ship had snapped, splintered wood scattered across the deck. The black sail and its mast were barely a shadow beneath the waves as they slowly sank to the bottom of the sea. The entire portside railing was gone, and the sail of the main mast sported a giant hole, making it completely useless and leaving them vulnerable, unable to fight back.
Doraan scanned the sky, but Forcina was nowhere to be seen. The air around him grew thick, sticking like sap to his skin, seeping into his lungs and clogging his pores until he could no longer draw breath. He was choking on air.
Doraan gulped in frantic rasps of the heavy air unable to pull it into his lungs. He tore at his chest and throat, stumbling as he desperately tried to breathe.
She was here.
She wouldn’t kill him, but she would let him get as close to the brink as possible. That moment of wavering between the living and the dead.
Doraan coughed, spit sputtering from his lips as he pointlessly rubbed at his throat trying to work the clog free. The only thing that could fight against sorcery was sorcery, and Doraan had none. He cast a glance down to the main deck where Cormac, Jorne, and multiple other crew members lay unmoving. He tried to call out to them, wanted to go to them, but he could feel himself losing consciousness.
Pressure built along his forehead, as if someone had wrapped a belt around his head and was pulling it as tight as they could. That same build up of tension traveled down behind his eyes, blurring his vision. Just as darkness crept in from all sides, tunneling his sight, he saw a figure dressed head to toe in inky black leathers, gleaming in the sunlight. A cape billowed behind her like the obsidian wings of a raven as she floated down toward him, as graceful as a bird herself.
With a snap of her fingers, the thickened air evaporated, and Doraan fell to his hands and knees, wheezing with painful gasping breaths, coughing uncontrollably from the sudden rush of air back into his lungs. It burned through him as if a fuse had been lit, the flame traveling and scorching through every corner of his being. He bit hard against it, clenching his fists, nails biting into the rough wood below, flesh scraping against the splintered bark.
The distant creak of shifting wooden boards steadily drew closer as Doraan felt the vibrations of someone approaching beneath him. He didn’t look up until Forcina’s shiny black leather boots came to a stop just in front of him.
“Where is she?” the witch growled.
Doraan ignored her, pushing back onto his knees, finally looking up at her. The burning within him eased as he glared into her seething gray eyes. He always thought they looked like swirling pools of liquified silver—almost mesmerizing in their uniqueness.
Doraan had often thought about the strangeness of Forcina’s features. The deep red of her hair was unlike any color he had seen on a person. It was unnatural, the color he imagined the Salamanders from the War of the Four Kings fairytale to have. But that was just a story and Forcina was real, standing in front of him with murder etched into the furious lines of her face. The silver of her eyes looked almost as if it was moving, shifting, and shimmering beneath her stark black lashes. He bit back against the shiver that threatened to rake through him. Forcina was most definitely unnatural. When she was near him, there was always a nagging in the back of his mind telling him she didn’t belong here.
A memory suddenly flashed before him of something Kamira had said only days before.‘A Sorceress can’t curse someone.’The more he thought about it, the more he realized he had never heard of such a thing. Over the years, he had spent time off and on attempting to learn more about Sorcery and how it worked. He had never once read about a Sorcerer cursing something or changing the course of a person's life entirely. They dealt in the elements—fire, water, air, and earth. Suddenly, nothing made sense. His entire life flashed before his eyes and he had no idea of anything anymore.
“Who are you?” he heard himself ask just before cold air rushed toward him, whirling around him so fast it sliced his cheek. He reached up to touch it, biting back against the sting of the open flesh. His hands came away red with blood.
The swirling air picked up speed, howling as it closed in. And then he was no longer on solid ground. He floated, rising higher and higher as if he were no more than a feather caught in a draft. Forcina rose with him until they were both suspended in the air, held by nothing more than her sorcery.
“Who amI, Doraan?” She scoffed. “Well, I am your keeper, of course. Your owner. Your sovereign.”
The wind wrapped around him tighter, his arms pinned to his sides until he was no longer able to move. “You are nothing but a depraved coward,” he ground out. “If you really wanted revenge on my father, why don’t you just kill me and be done with it?”
Forcina’s nostrils flared, eyes like silver spitting flames. “Because I’m not done playing with you yet. Now, where is the girl?! I searched the ship and she isn’t here. What did you do with her?”
