Dax whispered in Marin’s ear, “Are the moorings alive or enchanted?”
“Is there a difference?” she whispered back.
By the time Perri reached the dock, a tight crowd had gathered. Marin didn’t blame them—this had to be an unusual sight, even on an island packed with dragons.
Untying their ropes, she lifted Ree onto the dock first and then she balanced on Perri’s back and gripped the edge of the dock. She hoisted herself up and then reached a hand down to help Dax. “You’re amazing,” she told her serpent friend. “Please rest, play, eat, whatever you need to do.”
Ree and Dax echoed her, thanking Perri profusely, telling him how marvelous he was.
The serpent chirped at them, pleased with himself, before ducking beneath the water, leaving only a ripple that spread out, rocking all the moored boats. Marin coiled up the vine ropes and hefted them over her shoulder.
The three of them walked down the dock toward the waiting crowd of gawkers. Marin was aware her clothes were soaked, her boots were squishing as she stepped, and her hair was as knotted as a bird’s nest. Probably all of that paled beside the fact that they’d arrived on the back of a sea serpent. She wondered whether the villagers were impressed or appalled or a mix of both.
A woman stepped forward out of the crowd. She was clothed in gold fabric from neck to ankle. Her wrinkled cheeks were painted with swirls of gold, and her hair had been braided with so much goldthread that it was impossible to tell what color her hair actually was. She pressed the palms of her hands together and bowed. “You ride to us on a dragon of the sea. You are most welcome here, cousins! I am Surot, headwoman of Ilreka.”
Marin mimicked her gesture and bowed back at her. “Thank you, Headwoman Surot. We’re happy to be here and honored to meet you.” She had no idea if there were any ritual words she was expected to say, but she hoped that was polite enough to suffice. “I’m Marin. This is Dax and Ree. The sea serpent is Perri. You don’t have to worry—he won’t harm your boats.”
“We have long suspected that sea dragons are as noble and intelligent as our sky dragons,” Surot said. “It is wonderful to have confirmation of that. You and your beast will be added to our songs.”
Dax perked up at that. “Songs?”
“Boat first,” Marin murmured to him.
Surot asked, “Can we offer you food? Clothes? Supplies?”
“Yes, thank you. That would be amazing.” She wondered how to broach the subject of her boat and the golden dragon. She didn’t know these people’s culture, but it was abundantly clear that they venerated the dragons.I should tread carefully.She considered how to frame the question so it wouldn’t immediately put Surot on the defensive.
Ree hopped forward. “Hi! I’m a sailor.”
“Ahh,” Surot said, clearly not knowing what to do with that bit of information.
“Our boat is stuck on the mountain with a dragon,” Ree said. “Can you help us get it down? Can’t be a sailor without a sailboat, you know.”
Well, that solved the problem of how to ask.
Startled, Surot looked behind her, up the mountain, but the sailboat wasn’t visible from this angle—it was farther to the east on a ledge a mile or so up. Marin wondered if the hull had been damaged and what she was going to do if it had.
“There was a magic storm,” Marin explained before Surot asked.She launched into a description: “We were crossing the sea between the southern isles and Alyssium when the purple clouds gathered on the horizon.” She described how they’d tried to outrun it. “The swells grew around us, and the sky howled… and then we saw the lightning kraken.”
Gasps echoed through the audience.
Hopping up and down, Ree added, “It was enormous! Lightning everywhere!”
“It filled the sky,” Marin said.
“The captain tied us to the mast and herself to the helm,” Ree said, “but the seas—”
“When the winds tossed the boat into the sky, I lost consciousness.”
“I thought it would devour us,” Ree said. “But it threw us—its tentacles were whips of lightning, and it threw us as far as it could, out of the storm and into the sea.”
Dax took up the story, describing how he’d untied them all to keep them from drowning and how they were saved by the silverbacked turtles.
“Perri saved me,” Ree said. “He’s my hero.”
Surot asked, “Perri is your sea serpent? He brought you here?”
“To retrieve my sailboat,Silver,” Marin said.
