She wasn’t going to let the storm win.
She wasn’t going to let Iovar win.
She was going to fight the whole universe if she had to.
No one and nothing was going to drown her or Dax or Ree. Or hurt Perri. Or breakSilver. She was going to save her boat and save her crew. Hands gripping the helm, Marin steered them between the waves as the sails strained and collapsed and then strained again.
She positioned her boat and let out the sails, allowing them to fill with wind. They shot across the boiling sea as lightning skittered over the surface. Her skin tingled with its nearness. She could barely see—water streamed into her eyes, and she had to blink and squint to glimpse the water roiling around them.
As she fought to control her beloved boat, her muscles ached and shook. Her lungs burned. She felt as if they’d been within the storm for hours, days, forever. It was impossible to imagine anything before or after the storm. It encompassed her. It consumed her.
Ahead—was that a patch of pale blue?
Marin aimed for it.
And then the lightning kraken descended. Everything blared white. She felt the waves surge beneath them, and they were tossed into the air.
They didn’t fall.
A second later, the white faded, and all she saw was purple everywhere. Spinning, they soared higher within the lightning-choked purple clouds. Marin couldn’t see the sea. She couldn’t see half the boat—the mast was swallowed by clouds. “Dax! Ree!” Her shouts were instantly silenced by the howling winds and the crashes of thunder.
Her hands clutched the helm, but she couldn’t feel it. The sails were ripped. She saw the tatters of the sails streaming toward her, flapping uselessly, still anchored but torn into strips.
She heard a snap—the mast? Had it broken? “Dax! Ree! Answer me!”
The white lightning kraken was suddenly there, its maw open wide in front of her. She threw her hands up to block her face…
Everything went black and silent.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Marin woke to Dax leaning over her. She was lying on her back and coated in sand. She felt it clinging to her skin. Blinking, she saw Dax silhouetted against the brilliant blue sky, his crystal horns sparkling in the sunlight.
“Don’t move,” Dax said. “You might be hurt.”
She felt as if she were bruised from the top of her scalp to the end of her toes. On the plus side, that meant she could feel her arms and legs. Experimentally, she moved her feet and hands. No shooting pains. “I’m okay,” she tried to say. Her voice rasped out, and she turned her head to the side and spit out sand and salt water. She repeated, “I’m okay. Are you okay?”
“I’m in one piece.”
“Ree?” Marin tried to push herself up to sitting, and her arms wobbled. Supporting her, Dax helped her sit. She noticed that he hadn’t answered the question. “Is Ree okay?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and she heard the worry in his voice. “I haven’t found him yet.”
That stabbed Marin through the heart. Lurching forward, she struggled to get to her feet. He caught her as she fell backward. “I can do it,” she snapped. “I’m fine.”
“I know you can. Just give yourself a minute.” Arms around her, he held her steady.
“What…” She had a thousand questions, but she knew the answer to most of them: the storm. It had ripped them from the sea. “Perri?”
He shook his head. “I’m sure he’s all right.”
“But you haven’t seen him either,” Marin guessed.
“I haven’t been awake much longer than you,” Dax said. “Just long enough to know that I don’t know where we are, where Ree is, where Perri is, or where your sailboat is. But I know I’m alive and you’re alive, and yay for that?”
“Yay for that,” she repeated dully.
She should be grateful. They could all be dead.Shouldbe dead. The storm had plucked them out of the sea and tossed them through the air like a dead leaf in the fall. By all rights, they should have been ripped to pieces, or shattered when they landed. “Why aren’t we dead?”
