Page 71 of Waves
I stared out into the blue ocean, as blank and empty as the water that appeared to stretch out endlessly before me.
If only giving up was an option.
But then I’d be handing over thousands of innocent sea people to the mad djinn.
I had to fight.
How can I trap Raj?
Bloss had defeated him. He wasn’t indestructible. But he was so much more powerful than I was. My magic hardly stood a chance.
I chewed the inside of my lower lip as I pondered. It seemed as if Raj and his little company of criminals were following me from town to town and attacking all around me, trying to stir up hatred and dismay. That meant I probably wouldn’t have to wait long until they struck again.
But could I weave a web and trap them instead?
Turning from the window, my voice was low and harsh as I looked at Felipe. The mer stared steadily back at me, his navy eyes piercing as he took in the urgency of my posture.
“I need Lizza.”
He gave a sharp nod before throwing open the door on his side of the carriage. Without asking our driver to stop, he darted from the moving vehicle and slammed the door shut behind him.
“What are you going to do?” Mateo asked, head tilting, expression worried, as if he feared I was about to be reckless.
I opened my mouth to answer him but didn’t get a word out—an unholy, inhuman roar agitated the water, rattled the carriage, and jounced our bones.
Mateo and I shared a quick look of dismay before glancing out the window together.
My stomach dropped, pitching uncomfortably as all my hopes for planning my next move were dashed in a single instant.
Swirling through the sea, with scales black as pitch, was a hundred-foot-long water dragon.
Chapter 31
Avia
The black beast curled its body into loop after loop as it swam toward me, baring dagger-like teeth as long as my forearm.
Though he didn’t have wings like his land-faring counterparts, he did have massive spiraling horns and tiny fluttering fins along the plates on his spine that rippled with every movement. With dark spikes jutting around his head like a lion’s mane, he was something straight out of a nightmare.
A shadow cast from the gray clouds above slid over him with perfect timing, making the waves dim and everything grow colder—or perhaps that was because all my blood had frozen inside my veins.
Across from me, Mateo swore, and his hand found mine, squeezing. He muttered softly, “It’s not blue. It’s not him,” as if it was necessary to absolve his friend, the nixe.
Even if Taft could have transformed into such a monster, I doubted he’d ever be able to cast out a net of menace the way this beast did. Taft’s presence had been too small and unassuming. The lashing fins and tail of this dragon were wild, whipping up and down like banners in the wind—war banners. His angercharged ahead of him. No—this dragon had more ferocity than Taft ever had.
“It’s worse.” The words slipped from my lips though they shouldn’t have. I should have stayed stoic and pretended to be calm.
Ominous ocean waves rolled toward us as the dragon lashed back and forth. The sludgy water smashed into us and tipped the carriage where it had paused, our driver struck as dumb at the sight of a dragon as we were. The force of the waves thundered against the coach, pushing it, the metal groaning. Scraps of panicked braying from the seahorses filtered in as the waves ripped them from their reins. Mateo and I exchanged a wide-eyed look as the entire car tilted and the window slid up over us until it became a skylight.
The orange glow at the back of the dragon’s throat was the brightest thing in the ocean above us. An apocalyptic sun.
Our fingers knotted together so tightly that even the best sailor couldn’t have undone them. Mateo’s heartbeat seemed to make the water pulse around us, thicken until it was hard to breathe as the carriage slowly sank, unable to stay afloat without the movement of the seahorses.
“It could just swim past,” Mateo whispered, his hope as thin as the first ice of winter. Voice cracking. Even he didn’t believe that wishful lie.
I didn’t dare glance at him because I couldn’t stand for my terror to grow any larger. Like the moon, it glowed huge inside of me, rising and swelling and undeniably the master of the night sky. Of me.
Foreboding cinched my intestines. Even my knuckles ached with fear.
