Dark Tides (Kingdom of Bones #2)

Original Edition: ◇ Chapter 12 ◇ Stolen ◇

LORELEI

Silver Sea

Mid-Rainrise

Thunderstorms used to frighten Lorelei when she was still small enough to curl into her mother's lap. The raging winds that blew in from the sea always hit the coast hard, and high up on the hill above Port Barlow, near the cliffs, they struck even harder.

Storms might be unpredictable, but one thing was for certain—they always brought darkness with them. Every time dark clouds rolled in, they draped over the windows, reaching into their home and into her heart. During one rainrise, a storm with clouds nearly the color of charcoal hit their harbor town with wind and thunder that shook the walls of their cabin. Her mother had always told her that fire brought destruction, but Lorelei had seen the chaos of what storms left behind. The storm that had hit that night many years ago had left the docks and rooftops in such a mess, they'd needed to be rebuilt.

Lorelei didn't know when she'd fallen asleep, but her dreams were filled with lightning and thunder. Rain and tears. A biting wind.

A different breeze blew across her cheeks, almost warm. Cerulian winds.

The storms in her dreams ripped away, the copper spires of Baltessa emerging from the clouds. Her vision flew between the spires like a bird in flight, narrowing in on the palace. The sun stretched in an arc across the sky, racing like someone had sped up time, the moon chasing daylight until stars splattered across the black and she was standing on the terrace with Kane's eyes reflecting the night.

A moment later he crumpled to the ground, body twitching as lightning swam through him, but unlike the last time, the sparks didn't die.

"Please," Kane rasped. "Stop."

"I—I can't!" Lorelei looked down at her hands, watching in horror as the gold on her fingertips bled up her arms, up to her shoulders. She coughed, struggling to breath as it reached her neck, squeezing.

"Why?" Kane shouted between shocks. "Why are you—doing this?"

"I can't control it!" she screamed, her voice breaking as the gold continued to crawl up her neck. Coldness crept over her jaw, along her cheeks as she clawed at it, her fingernails scraping against the hardened gold.

Is this what her magic would do? Devour her whole?

She glanced down at the ground, trying to see if Kane was still hurting, but Kane wasn't there. The molten gold sealed her lips closed; a scream caught in her throat. Her gaze trailed to see someone else standing in front of her, a red mask like flames hiding his face. Two empty holes sat where his eyes should be. A too-wide smile peeled across his lips as fire flickered to life behind him, burning across everything like the gold trailing up her face. Smoke filled the last breath she took.

Lorelei opened her eyes, blinking once, twice from the blinding sun. Everything was so bright, she couldn't see anything yet, but she could smell the brine of the sea and hear the whip of sails.

Where am I?

Lorelei bolted upright, hair sticking to the side of her face. She shielded her eyes and cracked them open, glancing down at the black dress she still wore from the masquerade. She sat in the middle of a small deck that was no wider than the small cabin she'd grown up in.

The first thing to pop in her mind was the man in the mask. Him standing in the hall with her was the last thing she remembered. The flames in the lanterns had blinked out, then it all went black. She thought she remembered a glimpse of the night sky and someone with a bow—was it Nara?—but it all seemed hazy, like it was another scene in the nightmare she'd just woken from.