Page 44 of Birthright

I huffed out a nervous laugh. “I guess nine gold buttons don’t buy much around here. You got everything?”

He was still scowling at me. “What? You got a better idea? Want to go ask Doran for one of hers?” He snorted as he tossed a bag into the rickety vessel and handed me a backpack. It was really heavy.

“Giving me the light one, huh?”

“It’s got cold iron chain in it.” You can’t bind Slaugh with ropes or other metal, they would just slip out—but cold iron holds them tight. I wasn’t planning to hold any of them anyway. I was planning on taking out as many as possible, if I ran into them at all. We were going during the day, and few of them could do much in the daylight.

Secretly, I was hoping that meant Nessum and Bran as well, but I couldn’t be sure. The tales of creatures and protectors and traps on the island worried me more than sleeping Slaugh.

But my first worry was the ocean—and we had to cross a lot of it in this little boat. I was hoping Feldema wasn’t as good at reading me for my plans as Manus and Tynan. It did look choppy out there, but no more than usual.

I held my breath and stepped onto the tiny sailboat, the wood groaning beneath my feet. Manus made a groan of his own. “I hope this thing holds us for the trip back,” he said.

Trying to be an optimist, “So you think we’ll need it for a trip back?” He huffed a stiff laugh. He shoved off, climbed in, pulled the sail in the right direction, and we started moving. The breakers threatened the vessel, and it creaked and groaned, and we both released a sigh of relief when the little boat made it past. The waters on the other side of the reef were choppy but not strong enough to overturn us.

I held tight to the side as Manus maneuvered us toward Thule. Salt spray and cold gusts hit my face, and my stomach started to disagree with the rhythm of the boat’s motion. I decided not to fight it and just let go. I vomited over the side violently, more than once.

“You okay?” Manus was trying not to laugh.

“Go ahead and laugh. I deserve it.” After all, I was a warrior Witch who couldn’t even hold her cookies on a boat. I had forgotten about my seasickness in planning this dubious adventure. Dumb again. “We all have our weaknesses.”

“Here.” He held out a small leather band with a tiger’s eye bead tied to the center of it. “Tie it around your wrist. Pirates used pearls, but that should help. Put the bead on your pulse point, but not too tight.”

I followed his instructions. After a few minutes, my stomach started to calm some. “Hmm. It’s helping.” He looked back to the direction of the island while I kept my eyes peeled on the waters around us. I could only imagine the creatures Feldema could call from the depths of the dark ocean to stop us in this tiny boat. I didn’t want to dwell enough to frighten myself, but I wanted to be prepared.

The boat lurched hard. I braced myself, but my stomach only made a small protest. I would make it.

It was cold and I was glad for the sun beating on my skin. The sounds of the wind and the flapping, tattered sail were comforting. I tried to concentrate on that, not on the rocking of the boat or the water just under the worn wood of the floorboards. “How long?” I asked.

“A few hours at least. Relax. We’ll need our energy.” Manus crawled over the bags and around the pole that was acting as a mast and sat beside me. The wooden plank I was using for a seat bowed under our combined weight. He didn’t try to hold me.

We sat silently as time seemed to pass at a crawl. Manus eventually stirred and from the depths of one of the bags, found an apple, which he handed to me. It felt warm and real in my hand. I didn’t eat it. I just held it, as if it were a piece of WildLand I could carry with me.

The sail snapped suddenly—and the mast bent in the stress of the wind, splintering.

Manus cursed an oath under his breath as he used one of the chains to do what he could to secure the mast back into place. He leaned back to see if it was going to hold but another blast of wind came and it started to bend again.

I quickly cast a binding spell and it held. I prayed it would hold for the remainder of the trip.

“I shouldn’t have brought you,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. “Turn us around. I’ll come back on my own.” He ignored the comment completely by adjusting the sails. “I mean it, Manus. I put Abbey in danger and now I’ve done the same thing to you. I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Too late.” He didn’t even look up. “I would just follow you when you came back and I wouldn’t get to enjoy this wonderful yacht.” I barked out a little laugh and watched as he fumbled with some rope.

We saw the island come up out of the horizon. I figured from the position of the sun it was well after noon. After getting a late start, I was worried about the time. I didn’t want to be on that island when the sun went down. It looked like a pile of rocks from a distance, but I knew better.

Manus stayed silent as we watched the island get bigger.

When we reached the shore, stepping out of the boat took my breath away—and with it, my power. It drained away from me like a fading shadow. I could neither stop it nor call it back. The earth under my feet was utterly lifeless. I knelt and put my hands to the dead soil. The black, crusted earth beneath my hands was totally without life. The energy that I always felt in the soil of WildLand was missing.

I looked across the cold, bleak landscape. From the ocean to the base of the mountains was a frozen forest. The stumps and trunks of a thousand dead trees stood out against the sky. They weren’t just dead. The circle of life and death is a part of every forest’s essence. These trees were like stark, blackened bones, lost to some unearthly battle long ago. It hurt to see them still standing, unable to be saved or taken back to the earth that had borne them.

That very earth was as dead as the trees, so they would stand frozen for an eternity.

“You’ll be okay,” Manus said, dropping the backpack next to me. A cloud of dusty earth rose in an unnatural protest of the disturbance. “It’ll be similar when you go into a big city. All the steel and metal will drain you, but in a city, you’ll adjust. Here, our magic isn’t really gone, just too weak to help us.”

I had a hard time standing back up on my own. Once I got over the feel of the dead forest, I realized just how cold it was. Not cold enough to freeze us to death, but enough to make us ache if we stood still too long.

Then it dawned on me that we were indeed on the mythical island of Thule. I was suddenly terrified.