“Forgive me,” he bit out, and he dove through the stern windows of his cabin and into the sea.
“Dilys!” She ran to the shattered windows. Wind and rain pelted down, whipping her face. The ocean below should have been a churning froth of angry waves, but there was a marked circle of calm radiating out from theKrackenon all sides. The crew must have been using their seagifts to calm the area around the ship and keep them steady despite the storm she’d generated. The only visible sign of turbulence below was the small area of froth where Dilys had dived into the sea.
“Myerialanna!”
“Princess Summer!”
Behind her, the door to Dilys’s cabin burst open. Commander Friis and Dilys’s first mate, Kame, rushed in.
“Princess!” Friis exclaimed. His sword was unsheathed and held before him, ready to slay whatever threats he found within the cabin. “Are you all right? What happened?”
Kame was not armed, and he looked more concerned than aggressive. His bright golden gaze swept swiftly across the battered remains of Dilys’s cabin, taking in all the signs of destruction. “Myerialanna,where isMyerieluaDilys?”
Her mouth started to tremble. She was verging on tears again and the power she’d just expended was starting to build back up. She’d done something to Dilys when her grief had made her lose control. He’d told her once that she couldn’t hurt him, that of all people, he would be entirely safe around her even when her emotions got out of hand. But clearly that wasn’t the case. Those blazing white-gold eyes... that steam rising from his flesh... the frantic way he’d dived through the glass windows to reach the sea far below. Oh, yes, she’d done something to him all right.
“Myerialanna,answer me,” Kame prodded. “Where is Dilys?”
She clenched her jaw and wordlessly pointed a finger towards the broken window.
“Alive?” Kame barked.
She nodded. Then felt her soul quail.
There was a strange surge of power, muffled so that it felt like the pop of a soap bubble on her skin. Yet it made every hair on Gabriella’s arms stand on end.
Kame’s eyes suddenly went wide. “Shoto!” he cursed. “Grab something and hang on.” Not waiting to see if she and Friis obeyed, Kame spun and ran back out onto the sterncastle, shouting in Eru so the White Guards would understand, “Rogue wave! Rogue wave! Brace yourselves!” Then, in Sea Tongue, “Calbernari! Spotters to the rigging! The rest of you to the rails, quickly!”
Gabriella grabbed one of the support posts and wrapped her arms around it.
Friis did the same. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
Even as he spoke, they heard the shout from up above. “Astern! Astern!” Gabriella looked out the stern windows and in the distance, maybe a mile or two from the ship, the storm-tossed ocean surface rose as if being lifted by a tent pole. It grew higher and higher until it filled the entire expanse of windows along the back of Dilys’s cabin
“Calbernari!” Kame’s voice rang out. “Hard about! Quickly! He’s sending it away from us. Don’t let it get beyond our reach!”
She swelled of magic that had felt like a soap bubble popping on her skin grew exponentially stronger, and her mouth filled with a sharp, salty tang as every Calbernan aboard theKrackendirected his seagift into the ocean. The ship began to roll and toss as the Calbernans turned all their magic away from calming the ship’s path and towards calming the monstrous wave that was racing away from them.
The ship heeled hard about, and she lost sight of the enormous wave. Ignoring Commander Friis’s sharp cry of alarm, she released the support post and staggered across the now pitching deck towards the cabin door.
They were in the full fury of her storm now. The sails were whipping wildly as the wind gusted from multiple directions. Waves were crashing over the sides of the boat, forcing the deckhands to constantly stop and grab the nearest mast or railing to keep from being washed overboard.
The monster wave was in front of them, racing away faster than they could chase it, and all the efforts of the Calbernans didn’t seem to be doing much either to shrink it or to slow it down.
One of the Calbernans spotted her in the doorway and tapped Kame on the arm, pointing and shouting over the noise of the storm.
Kame staggered across the deck towards her. “Myerialanna,get back in the cabin! It’s too dangerous out here for you.”
She shook her head. Rain plastered her hair to her face and soaked her gown. “The wave. It’s going too fast. You’re losing it.”
“Tey,the storm is slowing us down.”
She looked at the angry clouds overhead, the sheets of rain pelting down. “I can help with that.” She pried one hand off the doorway to show him the red Rose on her wrist. “I am a Summerwitch, after all.”
He grinned, and the heavy rain sluiced over his dark skin and dazzling white teeth. “So you are,Myerialanna.” He waved a hand at the roiling black sky. “By all means, then, your help is most welcome.”
She didn’t grin back. There was too much fear roiling in her belly. She wasn’t nearly as confident of her abilities as she’d just implied. The barriers keeping her magic in check were utterly shattered, its full power unleashed for the first time in her life, and she had no idea how to wield it safely.
But this situation was all her fault—the storm, the wave, whatever she’d done to Dilys.
