Chapter 1
Sun. Sun and sea. I was getting a little tired of both.
I sat on a crate near the bow of the Tempest, a soft sea breeze wafting over me. The horizon was a plain picture of blue-green seas and a few scrags of uninhabited land that stuck out of the waters. A few of the masses were large enough to plop a house, if that house didn’t mind being slightly larger than an outhouse. Otherwise, the view was water reflecting the bright sun above my head.
I shifted on the crate and winced when my ribs complained. I set my hand on my stomach and felt the stiff bandages that kept me from moving too much.
“You look a little lost.” The voice came from behind me, and I twisted around in time to watch Marc saunter up to me.
I looked him over. “And you look a little tired. Shouldn’t you get some rest?”
He chuckled. “You sound like Doc. As for that rest, I’ve had enough of that over the last week to last a lifetime.”
I found my attention pulled toward the patch over his left eye. “How’s the patch holding?”
Marc wrinkled his nose, and the cloth wrinkled along with it. “I’ll be glad when it’s put in its proper place again.”
I leaned forward and examined the patch. “How was Jaeger able to pull it off if magic stuck it on?”
“Jaeger has many nicknames,” he mused as he took a seat on the large wooden box. “Hunter is his most well-known one, but he also goes by the name ‘Glintgrip.’”
My eyes lit up. “Like the light that came from his left hand?”
“That’s the glint. He had a spell cast on his hand to be able to dispel most any magic.”
“Do a lot of people have that ability?”
“No. All magic has some sacrifice to it,” he mused as he stretched himself up. “For Jaeger, he can’t use that hand, not even to pull a rope. Not many sailors would make that sacrifice for something they couldn’t use more than once in a while.”
I nodded at his patch. “You lost an eye for that magic?”
A faint smile played across his lips. “Yes, but it was worth it. The Tempest is the fastest ship on the sea when I’m aboard.”
I cocked my head to one side. “What is that, um, eye that replaced yours? It looked like a storm.”
“The eye of the worst sea storm mixed with the fury of the gods,” he told me with a wink. “And some of my own passion, of course.”
I snorted. “I’m surprised I haven’t seen the roads paved with women who are waiting for you.”
“The cart drivers wouldn’t like that,” he quipped as he turned his attention back to the sea ahead of us. A particularly large outcropping rose in front of us. “There are stories about this place and these stones.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t you want to brag about his conquests?”
“Never talk about another woman when you’re with a woman,” he scolded me as he stood. “The stories go that the giants had a great battle here. They tore the rocks from the ocean floor and hurled the stones at each other.”
“What were they fighting over?”
“Mankind.”
I blinked at him. “Come again?”
He turned to me with a smile. “They were fighting over who would rule over us.”
My face drooped. “Did the good guys win?”
“No.”
My heart sank into my stomach until I remembered something. “This really is a story, isn’t it? There aren’t really gods in this world, are there?”
