Page 73 of The Demon Tide

“Show me from here,” I coldly reply.

“No, I’ll show you fromhere,” he insists, still smiling, and I sense a threat that’s likely to escalate.

I imagine Lukas pulling his wand and encircling the bastard in vines without a moment’s deliberation.Throw him overboard, Elloren,I can almost hear Lukas’s voice prodding.

I rise, crouching for balance, and move toward the Kelt. Then I take a seat beside him and meet his leering stare, my tangled power leaping toward the wood beneath my palms.

“You’re a curious one, aren’t you?” His hand snakes onto my thigh.

Revulsion ripples through me. “I am. So, show me how it works.”

He gestures distractedly at the hull rune. “The navigation is set into that rune,” he tells me, his fingers squeezing into my flesh as he leans close. “It pulls this boat east against the tide.”

“So, the boat just...gets there on its own?”

“That’s right,” he croons. “So you’ll haveplentyof time to find a way to make up the rest of your payment. Pull off that tunic, and I’ll shave five guilders off.”

Now I imagine Lukas bashing his head in with an oar.

“All right,” I tell him agreeably as he fondles my thigh.

I stand up and begin a slow swivel toward him as I reach under my tunic’s hem, sliding my hand around the Ash’rion blade’s hilt to find the air rune, my tangled wind line rippling to life. I mouth a spell, the rune quickly siphoning up a portion of my power.

“Take it off,” the Kelt encourages, his voice thickening with aggressive want.

Elemental power ignites in my bound lines. In one lethal motion I unsheathe the blade and whip back my arm, the Wand’s glimmering-green guidelines lighting as I hurl the blade at his shoulder.

The blade finds its mark, its fierce roar of wind catapulting the man clear over the boat’s side and into the sky. Barking out a cry, he arcs over the water before plunging below the river’s surface with a violent splash.

My heart hammering, I touch my retrieval rune. The blade erupts from the river and flies back to my palm as the Kelt’s head surfaces, gasping and sputtering. His eyes meet mine.

“Come near this boat and I’ll kill you,” I call out, leveling the blade at his head and readying the fire rune.

He throws me a hateful look and ignores my threat, starting for the boat, his uninjured arm beating out a powerful stroke as I grit my teeth and prepare to blast his damned head off.

His neck gives a sudden jerk, and he lets out a strangled cry as he’s yanked underwater. I draw in a hard breath of surprise as the Wand buzzes against my calf.

Pulse spiking, I scan the water.

A large shadow flows under the river’s surface. Much bigger than a man.

Fear spikes.Holy Ancient One. No. No. No.

“What happened to him?” Nym’ellia asks, fright in her gaze as the wind picks up, and rain starts to pelt down on us.

Our boat gives a hard tilt, as if punched from below by a great fist, and I cry out along with my companions, all of us tossed to one side as the boat nearly capsizes and water courses over us in an icy sheet. My blade falls from my hands and my feet skid out from under me, my shoulder painfully absorbing the impact as I slam into a wooden bench. I grab firm hold of Nym’ellia’s arm, Emberlyyn blessedly having kept hold of both a rope and Tibryl as we all exchange looks of stark alarm.

“Kraken! Kraken!” a man’s voice yells in Elfhollen from some distance away, his voice muffled by the strengthening wind and rain as additional cries of alarm go up all along the river.

“Get down,” I order my companions as I retrieve my blade. “Stay low and hold tight to the side ropes.”

A dark head explodes from the water, and my breath seizes in my lungs.

The distant kraken is horrific, like some unholy fusion of squid and insect, with an oily black serpentine head, massive jaws with glistening teeth, multiple limbs, and tentacles bursting up to wrap around the prow of the Kelt family’s boat, the children screaming, the adults’ cries unintelligible through the wind.

Nym’ellia throws herself in front of her mother and sister, her back to them as she grabs the rope handholds, her eyes bugged out. I pull back my arm, preparing to throw the Ash’rion, but the Wand’s gleaming-green aim-tracks only flow out half the span, disappearing before they can reach the beast.

It’s too far away, I anguish, the family screaming as their boat is yanked underwater.

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