Kai, some feet away from them, had gone uncharacteristically quiet.He tilted his head, his energy sharpening as it did sometimes, and peered up the summit behind them towards Oseidos proper.
“What?”Ione demanded as well when he offered no explanation.
He hummed, not sounding particularly pleased.“Someone,” he began, closing his eyes, “is trying to get into the ward.”
Silence, dense and cold as fog, settled over them.Lina’s breath quickened and Ione clasped her hand, her own heart pounding in her ears.
Was this her time?Had Sowelan’s Moths finally come to Oseidos?
“It’s all right,” Ione whispered, leaning into Lina’s line of sight.She had gone pale, her eyes wide and haunted.
Protect her.All of them.
She could do this.
“Ah.”Kai waved a hand at her, that sharpness dulling somewhat.“Panic over.For yous, anyhow.”He patted Ione’s shoulder and moved past her.“It’s the Leviathos.”
Ione frowned, searching his profile for more information.The Leviathos was the Mahina clan’s largest ship, captained by Kai’s eldest brother – but Kai looked grim, his eyes stormy.
River stirred.“That’s good, then, isn’t it?”
Kai scoffed.“I’d nearly rather a couple of flaming comets,” he said brusquely.“Anyhow, if Etan and Nalu are here, it won’t be with great news.”
He straightened his jacket, his hair.Peered at his pocket watch.He looked more like a captain himself, now, darkness roiling beneath a callous surface.
“Sit tight while I let the ship in.”With that, he pivoted and strode up the narrow expanse of beach towards the promenade.
River stared after him, his posture tense, as he disappeared up the path leading to the plaza.
“It’s fine, River,” Ione said, nudging him onward.“You can go.”
He started, looking sorry.“You’ll be fine?”
“Of course not; long walks on the beach are famously treacherous.”
Smiling apologetically, he withdrew, leaving them to wonder what had happened to bring the Leviathos of all things to their tiny isle.
Another desecrated shrine, doubtless.Ione closed her eyes, breathing through a haze of guilt.With Lina’s help she was growing by leaps and bounds, but not fast enough.Never fast enough.
Lina still hadn’t spoken, her knuckles white as she gripped Ione’s hand.“I’m sorry,” she whispered finally, swallowing another shaky breath.“I’m sorry, just – I thought it was…”
Ione rubbed her back.“We’re safe,” she soothed, although it sounded so hollow.Baseless.“It’s not the Moths.”
A gust of sea breeze passed over them, bringing with it the scent of hydromancy, bracing and wintry.Similar to Kai’s, but swelling with malice – his brothers’.Ione shivered, felt Lina curl closer into her.
“Come, before the tide gets too high.”Ione tugged her along.“We’ll go inside.Visit Cynthia at the library – or see if Ami can get a break from her lessons.”
“I’m sorry,” Lina repeated.She shook her head hard as though to clear it, her hands fussing at the sleeves of her dress, pulling them as she often did to cover her burned wrists.“It was enough of a shock thinking he – the Moths were here.”She mustered a weak laugh.“Etan and Nalu Mahina aren’t much better, though, are they?”
They rounded a bend, the turquoise sea between Oseidos and the mainland stretching before them.An enormous black streak marred the jewel-blue waters – the Leviathos, menacing even with its sails furled.Another icy wind ghosted past them and Lina screeched to a halt.
“What’s wrong?”Ione asked, frightened when Lina merely stared, a hand clamped over her mouth.She fumbled for her monocular and scanned the mainland, her vision jittery, nervous.Even with it she struggled to focus, to parse building from land, sky from distant slate-blue mountain.She located the ship first, its ebony figurehead carved into the shape of an albatross, its deck teeming with crewmen in midnight uniforms.
Lina edged closer, fingertips guiding Ione’s wrist, until –
There.
There, jutting out from Lodestone’s low skyline, shrouded in bitter white mist.Storeys-high spikes of ice glistened in the sun, cracking out of the shell of a ruined building.
