A thud rattled the door next to Alyss’s, shaking ice from its coating. Noelle turned her flames there next, revealing an even less dressed Cullen. He was in nothing but a loose-fitting pair of shorts and halfway to turning blue.
“I could use more of that fire,” he grumbled, wrapping his arms around himself. His hazel-gold eyes swung to Eira. “Are you—”
“This isn’t me!” Eira snapped. Other doors were beginning to rattle as their occupants woke. “You two put on something warm.” She pointed to Alyss and Cullen. “Noelle help anyone else who needs it.”
“Commanding me? I thought we hadn’t decided on who the team leader would be?” Noelle folded her arms and arched a dark eyebrow.
“Just do it!” Eira started for the stairs at the end of the hallway that led to the main deck. A commotion was rising. “I’m going to see if I can figure out what is going on.”
She was gone before any of them could object.
Eira grabbed the railing of the stairs,hard. She pressed her magic into the ice coating it that was trying to block her entry upward. Magic battled against her own. Whoever was doing this was strong. But she was stronger.
Glaring, Eira turned the ice into harmless steam, emerging onto the dark main deck ofDaybreak. Sailors were running about, slipping and fighting against the frozen surfaces. Rigging clattered in a frigid gale, shaking snow from the sails.
It was nearly summer. The weather should be temperate. Eira turned her gaze over the dark water and, in the distance, made out the haze of what looked like a massive ghost ship.
Deneya emerged from another set of stairs that led into a different region of the hold. Her eyes were fraught and panicked; rage twisted her brow. She swept her gaze across the deck and out to sea, ignoring Eira.
“The witch.” Deneya cursed loudly and rushed to the deck railing by a dinghy. “Drop this boat,” she demanded of a sailor. “We have to go after her.”
The sailor shook his head, eyes wide. “We’re not going after the pirate que—”
Pirate queen. The words echoed in Eira’s ears.The Pirate Queen Adela—the woman who might have given birth to Eira. Who might have some idea as to how to control the depths of her powers. She stared out at the massive ship slipping between the shadows and past the edge of her cognition.
“This is an order!” Deneya roared. The sailor nearly wet himself at her ferocity.
“I’ll help you!” Eira rushed over. Speaking only to Deneya, she said, “Cut the lines when the water rises.”
“All right.” Deneya gave her an approving nod as Eira lifted her hands. Seawater heeded Eira’s commands, lifting to meet the keel of the small vessel. “Mysst soto sut,” Deneya murmured and an axe woven from light appeared in her hands. She made quick work of the ropes and stepped into the boat. Eira was close behind. “You—”
“You need me to move this boat, unless you intend on rowing?” Eira cut off the woman.
“Carry on, then.” A wild and somewhat approving smile snaked across Deneya’s lips. As Eira lowered her hands, easing the dinghy back to the waves rocking theDaybreak, Deneya shouted up to the sailors, “Light a beacon for us to find our way back!”
Eira didn’t wait for a reply. The ocean had been calling to her from the first moment they’d embarked from Norin in the west of the Solaris Empire. It called to her power with a ferocity Eira had ignored until now. With a pull of her fist, the dinghy was sent speeding forward, racing through the waves as the water itself propelled them. All the might of the sea was at her command.
“Yargen bless.” Deneya stumbled with a hard thud and a groan. Luckily, she wasn’t thrown over. “You really can make this move.”
“We have to catch up to them.” Eira squinted ahead. There was only the ghostly outline of the vessel, striking between black waves in a moonless sky.
“I know.” Deneya grunted, working her way to her knees. Eira had found she had natural sea legs, something Alyss had been bemoaning for days as she upturned the contents of her stomach. The ocean whispered to Eira, telling her of every swell and dip right before it happened. “Mysst soto gotha.” Deneya held out her hands and a bow condensed from strands of light. She pulled and released an arrow that sped ahead like a ribbon of sunlight over the dark waves.
Eira blinked several times, not from the sudden brightness, but because of how the magic light shone on the dark water—just like her dreams, just like on Marcus’s face when he died. Right before the sight returned her mind to that nightmarish place, the arrow was eaten by the darkness. Deneya fired another as the boat slowed to a stop, drifting in the water.
“You’re right,” Deneya said. Eira didn’t think she’d spoken. “We can’t catch up to them, not with them sailing the infernalStormfrost.”
“Stormfrost?” Eira shook her head, trying to banish the ghosts that haunted her. She had little success. But she did jostle a memory from one of her early meetings with Deneya. “Adela’s flagship?”
“Unfortunately.” Deneya let out a string of curses that Eira didn’t recognize, each angrier than the last. “She hasn’t been spotted in these waters for decades. She’s not supposed to be here,” Deneya growled.
“Was it an attack?” Eira continued to stare at where the ship had left, wondering what secrets it carried with it. Was her birth mother on that vessel? Did she really want to know the answer to that question? Eira still wasn’t entirely sure.
“No, it was a targeted strike.” Deneya frowned, her expression barely visible in the darkness.
“What did they come for?” Eira finally sat. The air was beginning to warm, already becoming balmy in the absence of the ice-coveredStormfrost. The summer heat worked its sticky fingers uncomfortably up Eira’s spine, wrapping themselves around the back of her neck with a grip more unwelcome than Death’s personification in her dreams.
“Not what, butwho.”
