In book two of the Torrent Skies Saga, Katerin continues to find adventure she didn't ask for, and the answers she finds only offer her more questions to answer.
Itrea is on the brink of peril, but Katerin's dreams are growing restless, a dark voic...
Katerin watched in a tense horror as Fykes began climbing the shrouds, up towards the sails with a determined expression. Shrouds, she thought with a disjointed sort of pride. She was finally able to remember what everything was called. She focused on her spell, but now she was ready to drop in it a second, should she see Fykes slip.
In her focus on the spell, and her searching for a place to dart to get closer to Fykes, she forgot to hold on to something. And as the ship lurched again, this time rising up like a champion stallion in a jousting tourney, she lost her footing, and slid towards the obsidian colored waves. As tense as she was she could not find the sense of mind to scream, and the waves battered into her, and carried her roughly over the Mynyrri's railing in a blink.
Her numb fingers grasped for any purchase on the ship, and found something, as the water fell away. The waves pulled her with the strength of a dozen horses. But what she had found to hold onto held her back, and it took her a second to register that she had not grabbed the ship, but the breastplate that Roahn wore, as the woman grabbed her by her shoulders and hauled her back aboard the ship with a grunt.
"This trip is wasted if we lose the only soul that has a clue of how to find the damned city," Roahn said, an almost threatening look in her eyes.
Katerin only nodded, too shaken to speak as she righted herself.
Fykes was near the mast now and his hair was plastered to his face. Katerin gritted her teeth and darted towards the center of the ship, latching an arm around the mast and staring up at him, ignoring the sting of the water as it fell in her eyes.
Fykes maneuvered into an awkward crouch, his legs hooked around whatever purchase he could find. He pulled a thick piece of leather with buckles adorning it from his belt, and with a gritting of his teeth he secured it to the mast. He hesitated only a moment, before he let go with his hands and stretched the strap out to the boom, working to buckle the contraption together as a menacing wave grew ever closer. By the time he was finished, his legs were cramped and his fingers ached from fear. It was by no means a perfect repair, but it would keep them sailing long enough to get through the storm, or so he hoped. It would at least keep the ship looking as though it was capable of winning.
Fykes' holds were nearly lost as the newest wave found them. He swung out over the deck, his heart sinking to his stomach and his shoulders burning as he fought to pull himself back to the rigging.
The ropes were oiled and slick, and more than once his fingers slipped as he began his descent. He glanced to the deck, and he could see his fear and tension reflected back to him as Katerin's eyes met his.
Katerin was nearly sick as she watched Fykes fight his descent of the mast, as she watched him slip and drop several feet at at time, grasping for holds. But she watched regardless, and held her spell as steady as possible, not breathing for many seconds at a time as he came closer to the solidity of the splintering deck.
When his feet finally found the planks again, she swallowed back the bile in her throat, and stared at him. He wore no smile, but gave her a quiet nod.
*
No one slept that night. They fought the storm for so long it began to feel like a war on some distant world.
When they crested the final waves of the storm they could see the sun in the distance. It rose with a brilliant orange and lilac hue that ran across the waves like spilled paint, or an accidental masterpiece. But its beauty was lost on the crew of the Mynyrri, as they sat shivering, soaking-wet, and exhausted. The ship was crawling along, with only one sail able to function fully after the beating it had sustained.
Despite his soaked shirt, and pruned fingers, Magrum seemed in excellent spirits. And Jon rose back to the deck, laughing. He pulled Katerin to her feet, causing her to lose hold the only dry blanket she had found, as he twirled her.
"We survived! We made it!" He hollered, to a series of quiet, dismal cheers.
Katerin planned on scolding him about the blanket, but before she could speak, she was running for the railing, and retching into the sea.
Jon patted her back and pulled her hair from her shoulder with sympathy.
She groaned as she turned back to regard him. "You won't be so excited when you realize you're going to have to sail back through that."
Magrum shook his head. "Won't be. I'll find another path if takes me fifty years."
That drew a chuckle from Fykes. "That's a good plan."
"It's time for a change of watch," Magrum announced, looking across his crew and passengers with a regretful look.
"I'll take it," Katerin said, as she retrieved her blanket.
"Katerin, that's—" Jon began but she shook her head.
"I'll be fine."
"Short watches today. Someone will relieve you in half a shift," Magrum said with a nod.
She pulled her spyglass from her bag, and the bag with Brazen as she climbed to the crows nest, watching the people beneath her grow shorter, and watching the horizon stretch. It seemed no matter how much she took, the tincture in those ruby bottles could not keep her from being ill now. And despite the magic used to dry her clothes she was still cold as she sat huddled in the crows nest, fighting her urge to cry, or vomit.
She had assumed the currents here would be worse than on the crossing on her journey to Itrea, or even the first crossing on this journey, but it had been a monster all its own. Had it been a mundane storm, it would have been bad enough that sailors would tell stories of it for generations to come. But during the rain and the waves, the air had crackled with magic so powerful that she had felt like a child again, standing for her lessons in the Tower and marveling at the power of someone who had studied for years.
She could name few others with magical ability to match that of the people on this ship, and the storm had thrown them about like leaves. When she looked back to the dark scar upon the waters where flashes of lightning could be seen through the mist, it seemed like a nightmare that she had not yet woken from.
Another worry that kept her alert, was what she had seen, the last time she used the crystal orb to check in on the war. First, she had seen Avris' eyes change, and that had been concerning enough, but then, the next time she had looked on Graiden, she watched as he healed and bandaged a dragon. A dragon who morphed back into the form of Avris. Her mind could hardly process that information. Did Avris have magic of a caliber to transform herself? Or was it the other way around. With the wisdom she held, and the unnerving sense of power Katerin felt while around the Lady, she was tempted to believe that Avris was, in fact, a dragon.
But that thought only made her nervous.
Rất tiếc! Hình ảnh này không tuân theo hướng dẫn nội dung. Để tiếp tục đăng tải, vui lòng xóa hoặc tải lên một hình ảnh khác.
