Page 95 of Enchanted Crown
When it took more than a few moments for her to get herself together, I reached over and gave her as much of a side hug as I could manage. The result was more of a back pat and less of a hug. “You deserve to be happy.”
“I feel like Malachi deserves someone who is less damaged,” Amory admitted.
“We all have our scars,” I reminded her, using some words Esta once told me. “And you wear yours well.”
Someone from the crew called down the hallway to us. The docks were coming into view.
“Dammit, we were supposed to be prepping for landing in Corsha, not delving into my love life,” Amory bit out.
John gave her a hearty laugh. “We have no idea what we are walking into, so how prepared can we truly be?”
“Not entirely unlike my love life then,” she joked.
We stood on deck in our coats, the wind at our backs as more and more of Corsha came into view. Winter in Corsha was far more brutal than in Dra Skor.
“The docks look deserted,” Dex observed. “It’s... eerie.”
Yet, if Corsha truly was deserted, all her people gone for the past ten years, wouldn’t there be trash and destruction? The docks themselves were ready to be used, all the boards in place, looking like they were used just yesterday. “It’s too clean, though.”
Amory nodded. “I agree. I have half a mind to shift and go for a run.”
“I’ll fly with you,” I suggested. I would take any and every opportunity to fly on this trip.
As my boots hit the docks, I felt my veins burning. Not in warning of a threat, but in anticipation of whatever we would find. Rallying. It was a welcomed warmth.
The beaches of Corsha were rockier than in Dra Skor, covered in small pebbles. I knew the snow-covered mountains in the distance were truly volcanoes, not mountains, but it did remind me of Wylan.
In the distance there were some buildings not unlike those of Keld or the market street of Nerede. Yet instead of the hustle and bustle of a city on the shore, it was quiet.
The silence was deafening and made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. An entire country of people, gone quiet. There wereno people milling about. No creatures. Just stillness as far as the eye could see.
What had my father done to these people?
“Should we board back up and head to one of the other islands?” the captain called to us from the ship where he stood watch. “Keep checking them all?”
Something about the scene before me just didn’t feel right. I supposed seeing something deserted never would, but I still couldn’t get past it. We had even been warned that Corsha was this way. I couldn’t imagine stumbling upon this without warning. Investigating felt like the opposite of what we should be doing.
I thought I heard something, a voice, far off in the distance, as my head snapped that direction. Could it have been someone from our ship, their voice carried on the wind?
“Give us a moment,” I called back, not even sure what it was I was looking for, but thinking Amory was right. We should at least attempt to figure out what happened here.
Dex stepped forward a few steps, the small rocks crunching under his boots. “It’s quiet. I don’t particularly like hearing myself breathe.”
“You’re just used to how loud it is in Dra Skor,” Amory offered lightly.
“The stillness though,” John added as he began walking a short distance up the shore. “It is so still it almost seems... artificial.”
My mind flashed back to Archer telling us the blood in Morana’s room was in a pattern. So much so that it feltmanufactured. Could this stillness be somehow manufactured? I hadn’t heard of anything like that before, but I also hadn’t believed dragons to be real before a few months ago. I couldn’t explain why, but everything in me said that something here wasn’t right.
Because my father had caused it, I owed it to the people of Corsha to figure it out.
Dex crouched down, looking at things from a different angle.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked him.
“Can’t even explain what I’m thinking, other than it doesn’t seem real?”
“Exactly.”
