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“Indeed. They devised a plan to kill the Kraken with thousands of arrows and spears and even fire. In the meantime, the Triumvirate decided Calista’s powers were growing too great, and she was using them only for evil, so they sentenced her to die by fire. Together, they rendered her temporarily helpless against the chains they used to bind her. They didn’t waste time. A stake was set up and kindling and wood piled high around it. Calista heard about the plans to destroy the kraken, and as they tied her to the stake, the sorcerers’ spell began to wear off. As the fire consumed her, she cast one more spell to turn her monstrous kraken into a million tiny man-eating fish.”

Metaphorically speaking, my chin was just inches off the floor by the time she finished. “Much harder to kill a million small fish than one giant target. Kind of impressive actually, to hold onto that brilliant evil streak even as you go up in flames. Do the other regions suffer the same terrible, deadly tides?”

“Solamere sits south of us, and their land is a good thousand feet above sea level, so tidal floods are not a problem. Regnamoor sits across to the southwest, so it’s not near the sea. Calista was mostly angry with Norvale because Gregor was a Valian.”

My feet grew cold sitting on the sofa, so I stretched my legs out and put them closer to the fire. The light glinted off the metal anklet. “So, these anklets are used to quickly identify remains since the Krakatow clean their victims down to bones.” My stomach dropped just saying the words. It was nothing short of horrifying. One moment, polite, shy Worlo was smiling at me, and the next, he was nothing but bones in a ditch.

“Before the anklets, it took hours to figure out who was missing, and people agonized over the unknown.”

“Is there nothing that can be done to stop it?”

“The coastline is too long to build a wall. They tried a few things to block the surge, but it was almost as if Calista’s spell had made the Blackforge Sea a living, evil entity. During especially strong surges, shops get swept away. That was why we built the towers. Nothing stops that wretched sea. Very few ships and boats try to cross it.”

“Can’t the lookout men warn everyone earlier? They should ring the bell sooner, so everyone has a chance to climb to safety.”

Raina shook her head darkly. “There’s no way to sense the tide coming in. The lookouts watch for a ripple near the shore. The Krakatow stay low, near the sea bottom, until it’s time for the tidal surge. Then they surface briefly, and it’s that movement that signals the tide is coming in.” Raina reached over and patted my hand.

My head felt heavy, and I wanted nothing more than to climb back under the soft blankets on the lumpy bed and sleep away this whole nightmare. I rested back against the sofa. “In the human world there were always possible dangers—a car accident”—I looked pointedly at Raina, though I was having major doubts about my mom’s death—“food poisoning, a crazy person climbing on the afternoon bus with a knife—but I never had to worry about being swept away by a raging tide and eaten by a school of man-eating fish. I really want to love living here, Raina, but right now everything feels really dark. I’m homesick for my cottage and my garden and my dull, invisible life.”

Thirteen

I sat straight up with a gulp of air. A terrible dream had sent me careening toward a vortex of swirling black water, but I managed to wake myself before getting sucked away. The familiar shadows in the room and the mouth-watering aromas seeping under the door relaxed me. I’d tossed and turned all night with visions of toothy fish and raging tidal waves crashing through my sleep. Yesterday morning I’d felt cautiously optimistic about the outrageous turn my life had taken. I’d landed in a very foreign place, only everything about it felt right, as if I’d come home. But today that home came with a dark secret. The townsfolk went about their days, socializing, working hard and trading for the things they needed. It seemed like a simple and humble way of life I could learn to love, but always in the background was the threat that any one of us could be chewed down to bones by a school of monstrous fish. It was a curse they’d lived with since the evil sorceress Calista turned her menacing sea monster into something far more sinister.

Wonderful Raina had washed the breeches, cloak and shirt I’d worn on the trip through Ironfall Wilds. I’d grown rather fond of them and was happy to pull them back on for the day. After yesterday, I planned to stick around the cottage and possibly never venture beyond it again. I got dressed and walked out to the kitchen.

The table was piled high with freshly-picked, soil-dotted potatoes and carrots. Raina turned around with a steaming cup of tea. “Thought you might sleep forever.”

“It was a rough night. Lots of Krakatow swimming through my dreams.” I took a bracing sip of the tea. I closed my eyes wishing it was coffee. “Honestly, Raina, I don’t know how all of you can stand having that hanging over your heads. It’s so frightening.”

“I walked down to see Tildy this morning, to bring her the stew. She is in such a state, and as I predicted, her husband has taken a turn for the worse.” Raina carried over a plate of fry bread and a bowl of something that smelled and looked like plum jam. She sat with her cup of tea. “We have such a nice life here. As of late, there have been few wars, our crops do well and the trained healers have kept diseases and illnesses down to a minimum. In every way, it’s an ideal life. True, we don’t have the riches of the Solamites or even the Regnas, but it’s a satisfying existence. Yes, the unpredictable tide and the Krakatow are a major blight on our daily lives, but for years, we tried to stop them until we just resigned ourselves to live with them. A large gulley was carved out, bridges built and, of course, the towers. Twice, the gulley has been carved deeper, but that monstrous sea just finds a way to fill it. It’s infinitely vast and our gulley is not.”

I spooned the sticky jam on the fry bread. “Why didn’t you just move the village away?”

“To where? The Avion Mountains, which are nearly impossible to cross and even more impossible to live in, are to our direct north. Solamere lies past the hyrdra tree forests to the south, and the Ironfall Wilds are to the west. We are wedged in here, and frankly, no one is anxious to leave. Our soil is superior to the other regions. Before Calista’s tantrum, our village provided fresh fish for all the regions, even for the lands across the way. The Valian were expert fishermen.”

“That sorceress really took heartbreak and revenge to a whole new level.” I took a bite. “Hmm, delicious? Plums?”

“I think that’s what you call them in the human world. We call them gornans.” She reached over and picked up a potato. “These are klopf and”—she picked up a carrot—“these have a silly name—witch fingers.” Raina chuckled. “Took me a while to learn the human terms when I arrived at your cottage. I once walked into the market and that nice man …” She looked at me for the name.

“Sam?”

“Yes, that’s him. I asked him if he had any witch fingers, and he looked at me as if I’d grown horns.”

“Sam still asks about you,” I said.

“Does he?” A blush covered her cheeks. “Isn’t that nice of him.”

“Raina, you mentioned something about healers, and I saw a pharmacy—human term—in town.”

“Yes, trained healers study the old books and learn how to help people with herbs and plants and other techniques proven to cure afflictions.”

I nodded. “So, it’s not a magic power. It’s a learned practice passed through generations.”

Raina tilted her head at me. “What’s on your mind, Rafi?”

“While we were still in the Wilds, I was washing up at the river. Revel was there. He said something that sparked a glitch. It was the night Mom left me.”

Raina’s face dropped.