Page 4 of Another Damned Storm
“Hold on!” I yelled, hoping she could hear me over her own horror.
The ground around us shook and cracked. Across the yawning crater—one that had been as cold and dead as my father’s petrified heart since the day I’d been cast into this realm—an enormous slab of solid ground broke free and slid into the fiery pit. It sank in slow motion, but the glowing wave climbing through the sea of lava moved much quicker.
Never’s fear spiked, which sent my own wildly beating heart into overdrive. I hauled her into my arms and flashed us back to the light side of the island just as the ground beneath us gave out.
The ship likely would have been safer, but the last thing Never would want was every soul on my ship witnessing her fear on full display.
We crashed to the ground. Only, instead of landing in soft, ivory sand, an explosion of icy powder detonated around us. It crept down my neck and melted in my hair.
Snow again?That couldn’t be right. I hadn’t missed the mark on a flash in eons.
I held Never to my chest and twisted my head to make sure I hadn’t miscalculated. Sure enough, we were on the beach. The sun was shining on this side, and yet, somehow, snow was falling from the blue sky.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She peeled away from me and settled to her knees in the snow dusted sand. “Honestly?” She breathed. Her chest was still rising and falling with the remnants of her fear. “I don’t know.”
“How about physically?”
She looked down at her body, running shaky hands over the soft denim clinging to her thighs. “Yeah, I think so.”
That was good enough for me. If she’d been injured, she would know it. Of course, every injury she’d sustained thus far had healed quickly, but that didn’t mean the pain, even for the short while it lasted, wasn’t still very real.
“I believe the game is over for today,” I said, tamping down the pang of disappointment that struck me.
She nodded, looking more worried than anything. “What the hell is happening?”
“Damned if I know,” I lied.
Nerebis, the nosey fate who had dropped in uninvited shortly after we’d dispatched Petra to the bottom of the eddy, had warned us that Never’s existence outside of the Alius would cause the fabric of the human realm to slowly unravel. If my suspicions proved true, what we were experiencing in the Nassa—the storms and unexplained anomalies—were also linked to her.
That was one of the many reasons I’d been putting so much energy into training her and protecting her.
Her eyes narrowed and she pulled herself to her feet, dusting off her knees as she went. “You are a terrible liar for a pirate.”
I couldn’t tell if she was reading the look on my face, or if she was just getting that good at interpreting what I was feeling through our connection.
“I would like to do more research before I share my thoughts on the subject,” I hedged. “While I do that, however, I could use your help with another task.”
She perked up a little. “Like what?”
“I think it would be helpful to confer with Leo.” He might have his own insights into the recent changes in our realm, but he’d returned to live on his family’s island where I was not welcome.
Never chewed on her bottom lip. “Is that a good idea? For me to go get him after what just happened?”
She had been improving at wielding her magic. She’d also expended a fair amount of energy with our game, so I could understand her hesitation. Fatigue could lead to mistakes, but I had a feeling she was hiding behind that excuse. Unintentionally flashing herself to the edge of a volcano had shaken her confidence in her abilities.
“I believe you are perfectly capable of flashing to Nidus and returning with Leo, but if you’re not up for it...” I started.
She glared at me. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”
Challenging her in order to kick-start that defiant streak of hers? That was precisely what I was doing. “Is it working?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Yes.”
“Good.”
“And what will you be doing while I’m fetching Adonis?”
