Page 135 of The Queens and the Kings
Her nose.
She screamed as the pressure of cracking boards gave way. Cold rain battled with hot droplets streaking her cheek until finally, finally, a torrential burst of rain sluiced down her back. The sky thundered.
Rushing freedom.
Growling sky.
Thirty seconds of wind-swept torrents, driving rain, and chilly wind passed before Britt comprehended that they’d escaped. She coughed, clearing the detritus of that awful, confined space.
“Den?” she shouted.
He wriggled his wings against her breastbone. Relief felt like chaos. She pasted herself to the wyvern’s spine, clinging to the top edge of beating wings. There was nothing else to hold, nowhere to sit. The up-and-down bobbing motion, combined with driving rain, was far from comfortable. Winds tossed the wyvern with bold ferocity, uproarious. The clatter disoriented her until she didn’t know what was sea and what was sky.
Britt longed to scream back.
Eyes watering from the storm, from relief, from the swells of rain sweeping past, she peered over the top of the wingspan. Regretting it instantly—she saw nothing but incomprehensible midnight and the alarming sense of death in the waves—Britt slid back down the wyvern’s back.
One mighty gust of wind, and both her and Denerfen would pitch off the side of the creature and plummet to their deaths in the depths.
Water streamed down her cheek as a cold, resolute sense of acceptance settled over her. She’d forgotten their plans, saved the wyvern all right, and damned herself in the process.
Chapter Thirty Seven
PEDR
Pedr’s jawworked as he stared at the sky with a bitter surreality.Unleashed,he thought. It was the only word to explain it. No matter how hard the current swept west, the storm pressed the Rosenvatten back. They didn’t move at all, locked in position by wind and waves.
That ship would drown.
Pedr slammed his hand into the wheel. “Stupid!” he shouted. “Shite pieces of bastid . . . stupid!”
Whatever descriptors he came up with, none covered the extent of his self-rage. He never should have sent Britt to the ship. The mission had been foolish from the beginning. He should have gone. Should have fought harder against the blasted curse. His eyes flickered to the sand dial.
Over half her time was gone, and the storm was almost a full hurricane. Onlythishurricane wouldn’t gradually calm and move away. The Siren Queens would hold it as long as they must in order to subject or harm another wyvern. Having long ago killed the Father King, the recognized leader of Wyvern Kings, he didn’t doubt the Siren Queens thirsted for another wyvern in their clutches.
Twitching, nose ruffled, he swiped the draining water off his face. The merchant ship of the line remained ahead of him by sheer arcane instinct. The sea and the thrumming power of the Arcanist told him there was nothing he could do right now. Not against the Siren Queens. He justknew, and knowing didn’t always require sense.
Five minutes passed.
Five more.
Nothing changed. Not the intensity of the storm, the power of the wind. He waited it out, held his breath. He commanded the arcane to the edge of consciousness. A single nudge and it would wash into life like a paintbrush, drawing across the sea and sweeping Britt to him.
One minute left.
The moment the last sand granule dropped to the pile, he released his boundaries around the hungry sea. The sea and winds rushed for his sister. Arcane moved past him, through him, toward the mighty ship bobbing uselessly in the storm. A minute passed, and the arcane didn’t immediately return.
Another minute.
The storm waged.
Pedr frowned.
A third minute.
A fourth.
Seven.
