Empire of Storms

Aelin and the Fae males had made it to the reef and now stood knee-deep in water atop it.

Whatever had happened … it had gone horribly wrong. So wrong that Lysandra could have sworn the feral, wild presence who had never once forgotten her had ducked into her long shadow as the world above exploded.

She’d tumbled off the coral, the current cleaving and eddying. Wood and rope and canvas rained onto the surface, some plunging deep. Then bodies and arms and legs.

But—there were the captain and his first mate thrashing against the flotsam that tangled them, trying to drag them down to the sandy floor.

Shaking off her shock, Lysandra swept for them both.

Rolfe and his man froze at her approach, reaching for weapons at their sides beneath the waves. But she ripped away the debris surely drowning them, then let herself go still—let them grab on to her. She didn’t have much time…

Rolfe and his first mate latched on to her legs, clinging like barnacles as she propelled them through the water—past the now-scorched ruin. The work of a minute had her depositing them onto a rocky shelf, and she emerged only long enough to gulp down a breath before diving.

There were more men struggling in the water. She aimed for them, dodging debris, until—

Blood laced the current. And not the puffs that had been staining the water since the ship exploded.

Great, roiling clouds of blood. As if massive jaws clamped around a body and squeezed.

Lysandra launched forward, mighty tail snapping back and forth, body undulating, racing for the three boats bearing down on the survivors. She had to act now, while the wyverns were distracted with glutting themselves.

The stench of the black boat reached her even under the waves. As if the dark wood had been soaked in rotted blood.

And as she approached the closest ship’s fat underbelly, two mighty shapes took form out in the blue.

Lysandra felt their attention lock on her the moment she slammed her tail into the hull.

Once. Twice.

Wood cracked. Muffled shouts reached her from above.

She drifted back, coiling, and slammed her tail into the hull a third time.

Wood tore and ripped into her, peeling away scales, but the damage was done. Water sucked in past her, more and more, tearing through the wood as its death-wound grew and grew. She backtracked out of the water’s pull—flipping down, down, down as the two wyverns feasting on frantic men paused.

Lysandra raced for the next ship. Get the ships sinking, then their allies could pick off the struggling soldiers one by one as they swam to shore.

The second ship was wiser.

Spears and arrows whizzed through the water, lancing for her. She dove to the sandy floor, then shot up, up, up, aiming for the vulnerable belly of the ship, body bracing for impact—

She didn’t reach the ship before another impact came.

Faster than she could sense, slipping around the side of the ship, the sea-wyvern slammed into her.

Talons tore and sliced, and she flipped on instinct, whipping her tail so hard that the wyvern went tumbling out into the water.

Lysandra lunged back, getting an eyeful of it as it stared her down.

Oh, gods.

It was nearly double her size, made of the deepest blue, its underside white and speckled with paler blue. The body was almost serpentine, wings little more than fins along its sides. Built not for speed or cruising through oceans, but … but for the long, curving talons, for the maw that was now open, tasting the blood and salt and scent of her, revealing teeth as narrow and sharp as an eel’s.

Hooked teeth. For clamping down and shredding.

Behind the wyvern, the other fell into formation.

Men were splashing and screaming above her. If she did not get those enemy ships down…

Lysandra tucked her wings in tight. She wished she had taken a bigger gulp of air, had filled these lungs to capacity. Fanning her tail in the current, she let the blood still leaking from where the ship’s wood had pierced her hide drift to them.

She knew the moment it reached the wyverns.

The moment they realized she was not just an ordinary animal.

And then Lysandra dove.

Fast and smooth, she plunged into the deep. If they had been bred for brute killing, then she’d use speed.

Lysandra swept beneath them, passing under their dark shadows before they could so much as pivot. Toward the open ocean.

Come on, come on, come on—

Like hounds after a hare, they gave chase.

There was a sandbar flanked by reefs just to the north.

She aimed for it, swimming like hell.

One of the wyverns was faster than the other, swift enough that its snapping maw rippled the water at her tail—

The water became clearer, brighter. Lysandra shot straight for the reef looming up out of the deep, a pillar of life and activity gone still. She curved around the sandbar—

The other wyvern appeared in front of her, the second still close on her tail.

Clever things.

But Lysandra threw herself to the side—into the shallows of the sandbar, and let momentum flip her, over and over, closer and closer to that narrow spit of sand. She dug her claws in deep, slowing to a stop, sand spraying and crusting her, and had her tail lifted, her body so much heavier out of the water—

The wyvern that had thought to catch her off guard by swimming around the other way launched itself out of the water and onto the sandbar.

She struck, fast as an asp.

Its neck exposed, she clamped her jaws around it and bit down.

It bucked, tail slashing, but she slammed her own onto its spine. Cracking its back as she cracked its neck.

Black blood that tasted of rancid meat flooded her throat.

Dropping the dead wyvern, she scanned the turquoise seas, the flotsam, the two remaining ships and harbor—

Where was the second wyvern? Where the hell was it?

Clever enough, she realized, to know when death was upon it and to seek an easier quarry.

For that was a spiked dorsal fin now submerging. Heading toward…

Toward where Aelin, Rowan, Gavriel, and Fenrys stood atop the reef, swords out. Surrounded by water on all sides.

Lysandra plunged into the waves, sand and blood washing away. One more—just one more wyvern, then she could wreck the boats…

The remaining wyvern reached the coral outcropping, gathering speed, as if it’d leap from the water and swallow the queen down whole.

It didn’t get within twenty feet of the surface.

Lysandra hurled into it, both of them hitting the coral so hard it shuddered beneath them. But her claws were in its spine, her mouth around the back of its neck, shaking, yielding wholly to the song of survival, to the screaming demands of this body to kill, kill, kill—

They tumbled into open water, the wyvern still fighting, her grip on its neck loosening—

No. A warship loomed overhead, and Lysandra dug down deep, rallying her strength one last time as she spread those wings and flapped up—

She slammed the sea-wyvern into the hull of the boat now above them. The beast roared its fury. She slammed it again, and again. The hull snapped. And so did the sea-wyvern’s body.

She watched the beast go limp. Watched the water rush into the cleaved belly of the ship. Listened to the soldiers aboard begin shouting.

She eased her claws from the beast and let it drift to the bottom of the sea.

One more ship. Just one more…

She was so tired. Shifting afterward might not even be possible for a few hours.

Lysandra broke the surface, drawing down air, bracing herself.

Aelin’s screaming hit her before she could submerge again.

Not in pain … but warning. One word, over and over. One word for her.

Swim.

Lysandra craned her head toward where the queen stood atop the reef. But Aelin was pointing behind Lysandra. Not at the remaining ship … but the open water.

Where three massive forms raged through the waves, aiming right for her.

37

Aedion’s queen was on the reef, Rowan beside her, his father and Fenrys flanking them. Rolfe and most of his men had made it to the opposite side of the narrow bay mouth—atop the reef there.

And through the channel between them…

One warship.

One sea dragon.

And three sea-wyverns.

Adult sea-wyverns. The first two … they hadn’t been full-grown.

“Oh, shit,” the sentry beside Aedion on the watchtower began chanting. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”