Maybe just one sip?
Her fingers grazed the surface, and the salt immediately burned a scrape on her palm. She grimaced and yanked her hand away, droplets scattering across the ocean’s surface, sending ripples outward.
She stared up at the sky. The rain clouds chased away the pure, white puffs.
Her bound hands pressed against her breastbone. There, she felt the stirring of her power.
"Please. Please. Let it rain."
Rain did not come.
She had fallen back asleep.
Her dreams were a blessing and an escape from the sea-soaked horrors that surrounded her. The cut on her arm buzzed; the crusted blood was itchy against her flesh.
She licked her dry lips, unable to open her eyes as she awoke from her dream, hoping that this was the true nightmare she could escape from.
Tharen’s dream amulet was heavy around her neck, as was Vale’s charm bracelet around her wrist. She wished she could touch them both for comfort, but could not reach the bracelet with her bound hands, so she settled for rubbing her wrists over her thighs, feeling the roll of the chain against her forearm.
Everything in her called for rain. How desperate must she be for her magic to save her? It had come to her aid once. Why not once more, when now, she needed it more desperately than ever?
A distant rumble broke through the sky.
The sound was an answered prayer.
She didn’t open her eyes, scared to be let down.
Hope was a distant thing. A fraying thread.
When Luella felt sleep try to reclaim her, that was when she felt it.
A droplet against her cheek, sliding down to her jaw. She gasped, eyelids shooting open. The sky was dark with towers of clouds, grey and black, while the blue sky tucked behind them was a distant memory.
Luella smiled. "Rain."
The magic inside her answered, swelling and pressing against every part of her being, reaching outward and upward. And the sky broke free with her saving grace—rain.
A soft drizzle wet her cracked lips and clung to her lashes. The dried blood on her arm and gown turned deep scarlet, falling in rivulets to the wooden floor of the ship.
Luella all but fell back against the wood, mouth open as she drank each drop. A pleased, surreal laugh escaped her, and there, she lay, among the rain, among the sea, as the wind had calmed enough to not rock the boat or cause fierce waves—to keep her safe in her wooden cradle.
44
LILAC LIGHTNING
GRAVES
The sun rose and rose, and even through the clouds it seemed to burn Graves’s skin. The air whipped harder, fiercer, with every passing moment. Nothing but the sea, on all sides.
The clouds grew darker as he flew onward, wispy sheets reaching through the sky as if to converge on the Isles far behind him. He did not stop. Not when his back spasmed from overuse and his eyes blurred. And not when Vale quietly thought to him:
We’ve found the two Fallen who took her… They aren’t talking.
Graves merely replied,They will—if Tharen is the one asking.
Graves wished he could be there, but he was called elsewhere.
Thunder rumbled distantly. Behind the clouds, lightning lit up the sky, zigzags of electricity cascading down in a wash of lilac.
