My brother closed his eyes, creating a complicated spell. With his magic, a longship conjured within the waves. It was wooden, with two oars and a large red sail. The front of the longship was carved like the head of a wolven, snarling into the waves. It was big enough to hold four people, but no more.
“Nice job, Arthur,” I praised. “Will it hold?”
“My magic is stronger here in Edinmyre. The illusion will remain solid, at least until we get to our destination,” Arthur said. “We might as well set off.”
We climbed into the longship, mounted the torches against the mast of the ship, and began to row out to sea. Vara and I had to row, as Ethan and Arthur couldn’t in their shifter forms. When we’d gotten far away from shore, I adjusted the sail. The wind surged us forward, directly to the west. Tygrys perched on the wolf’s head at the top of the ship, the wind blowing his fur back.
“Now what do we do?” I asked.
“We keep sailing west,” Vara said. “We’ll get there eventually.”
“How can you be so sure?” Anxiety was eating up my insides. Now that the shoreline was gone, the only thing I could see around me was the black Sea of Stars, so beautiful, yet so deadly. I couldn’t imagine what lurked beneath.
“We have to believe we’re going to get there, or we won’t. It’s how the magic works, remember?” Vara asked.
“But how do we know if we’ve gone too far?” I asked.
“We won’t miss it, I’m sure,” Vara said.
“How can you be so confident?” Her faith was unwavering.
“Because this is where we belong. This is Edinmyre. This is our home, and this land will respond to our magic,” Vara said, jutting out her chin. “It’s the way it’s always been.”
I loved her enthusiasm, but belief was always something that was a problem for me. I could do incredible illusion magic when I found the faith, but whenever it was lacking, my magic failed to provide. Here, on this dark night in this sea of stars, belief seemed silly and foolish. There wasn’t a guiding light to lead us anywhere, just the torches blazing against the black.
But all four of us had to believe we were going to get there, so I did my best to try. If I couldn’t find my faith, I could at least hope that we’d arrive there by morning, so we wouldn’t miss our chance to find the Seelie stone.
We sailed for about an hour. I knew our location had to be different, but our surroundings looked the same. Nothing had changed. I thought we’d never find this place.
Then there was a strange sound in the air. The beating of wings, and a screeching noise that sounded like nails grinding against steel.
My guts sank.Thatwas a monster.
“Look there!” Arthur pointed with his nose, and I spun around. My heart dropped as I saw a flock of large black birds the size of griffins flying toward us, letting out awful screeches. The rest of their features were shrouded by darkness. Tygrys let out a growl as he faced them, beating his tiny wings.
“Alkonosts,” Arthur growled. He was already bristling, ready to attack.
“What are those?” I hadn’t learned about them in my classes.
“Demonic spirits of women who murdered their children,” Arthur hissed. “It is the fate of every sorceress who commits such a crime, once she dies and her soul ventures to the Great Hunting Grounds. She is cast out of the afterlife and changed by the goddess Neva as punishment. They’ll feed on anything.”
“We should’ve known that the Spring Princess would have monsters to guard her island,” Ethan said. “We’ll have to fight them to get through!”
My sword sang as I unsheathed it. I quickly counted that there were five monsters. Not many, but they outnumbered us.
Ethan gave a growl, and jumped at thealkonostthat approached. It screamed as Ethan’s fangs sank into its belly, and jerked backward. Arthur snarled at a group ofalkonostswho had surrounded him, although his teeth missed. Vara sat in the back corner of the boat, an arm around her belly and a magical shield aloft.
Analkonostflew above me, illuminated by the torchlight. Now that it was closer, I could observe thealkonostmore carefully. It resembled a massive crow and had the upper half of a woman, breasts exposed, face jarring and pointed. Black, string-like hair ran down its gaunt face. The eyes were nothing more than empty sockets. In place of arms were dark wings, and the beast had spindly legs like that of a raven’s, talons curved and sharp. Thealkonostscreeched at me, and I saw within its mouth that its teeth were pointed, meant to rip apart flesh.
I had an immediate urge to kill it, and swung my sword. Thealkonostflew backward and let out a hiss. It attacked with its talons. One scraped me across the face, causing a gash. Wet blood oozed over my skin, and I cried out as some of it got into my eyes.
Thealkonostdove again, but Tygrys let out a fierce cry and flew forward. He hovered before me, letting out a fierce telekinetic blast. Once it hit thealkonostthat was attacking me, the bird burst into pieces, chunks of its body crashing onto the ship’s floor and into the sea.
“Good boy! Tygrys, protect Vara!” I told him.
Tygrys flicked his tail and zoomed to Vara’s side. He hovered in front of her shield, forcing thealkonostthat was attacking her to stay back with more telekinetic blasts.
One of thealkonostshad landed on the ship, and had Ethan backed against the side. Ethan darted out with his claws, but thealkonostavoided his hits, trading Ethan’s slashes with strikes from its talons. Ethan remained unharmed, but without room to move, he was cornered.
