Empire of Storms
Page 74

The water became clearer, brighter. Lysandra shot straight for the reef looming up out of the deep, a pillar of life and activity gone still. She curved around the sandbar—
The other wyvern appeared in front of her, the second still close on her tail.
Clever things.
But Lysandra threw herself to the side—into the shallows of the sandbar, and let momentum flip her, over and over, closer and closer to that narrow spit of sand. She dug her claws in deep, slowing to a stop, sand spraying and crusting her, and had her tail lifted, her body so much heavier out of the water—
The wyvern that had thought to catch her off guard by swimming around the other way launched itself out of the water and onto the sandbar.
She struck, fast as an asp.
Its neck exposed, she clamped her jaws around it and bit down.
It bucked, tail slashing, but she slammed her own onto its spine. Cracking its back as she cracked its neck.
Black blood that tasted of rancid meat flooded her throat.
Dropping the dead wyvern, she scanned the turquoise seas, the flotsam, the two remaining ships and harbor—
Where was the second wyvern? Where the hell was it?
Clever enough, she realized, to know when death was upon it and to seek an easier quarry.
For that was a spiked dorsal fin now submerging. Heading toward…
Toward where Aelin, Rowan, Gavriel, and Fenrys stood atop the reef, swords out. Surrounded by water on all sides.
Lysandra plunged into the waves, sand and blood washing away. One more—just one more wyvern, then she could wreck the boats…
The remaining wyvern reached the coral outcropping, gathering speed, as if it’d leap from the water and swallow the queen down whole.
It didn’t get within twenty feet of the surface.
Lysandra hurled into it, both of them hitting the coral so hard it shuddered beneath them. But her claws were in its spine, her mouth around the back of its neck, shaking, yielding wholly to the song of survival, to the screaming demands of this body to kill, kill, kill—
They tumbled into open water, the wyvern still fighting, her grip on its neck loosening—
No. A warship loomed overhead, and Lysandra dug down deep, rallying her strength one last time as she spread those wings and flapped up—
She slammed the sea-wyvern into the hull of the boat now above them. The beast roared its fury. She slammed it again, and again. The hull snapped. And so did the sea-wyvern’s body.
She watched the beast go limp. Watched the water rush into the cleaved belly of the ship. Listened to the soldiers aboard begin shouting.
She eased her claws from the beast and let it drift to the bottom of the sea.
One more ship. Just one more…
She was so tired. Shifting afterward might not even be possible for a few hours.
Lysandra broke the surface, drawing down air, bracing herself.
Aelin’s screaming hit her before she could submerge again.
Not in pain … but warning. One word, over and over. One word for her.
Swim.
Lysandra craned her head toward where the queen stood atop the reef. But Aelin was pointing behind Lysandra. Not at the remaining ship … but the open water.
Where three massive forms raged through the waves, aiming right for her.
 
 
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Aedion’s queen was on the reef, Rowan beside her, his father and Fenrys flanking them. Rolfe and most of his men had made it to the opposite side of the narrow bay mouth—atop the reef there. And through the channel between them…
One warship.
One sea dragon.
And three sea-wyverns.
Adult sea-wyverns. The first two … they hadn’t been full-grown.
“Oh, shit,” the sentry beside Aedion on the watchtower began chanting. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”
The sea-wyverns that, Rolfe had claimed, would go to the ends of the earth to slaughter whoever killed their offspring. Only being in the heart of the continent might save you—but even then, waterways would never be safe.
And Lysandra had just killed two.
It seemed they had not come alone. And from the cheering of the Valg soldiers on that remaining warship … it had been a trap. The offspring had been the bait.
They had been only slightly bigger than Lysandra. The adults—the bulls—were thrice her size.
Longer than the warship now sitting there, archers firing at the men trying to swim ashore in the channel that had become a death trap for the green sea dragon.
The green sea dragon who now stood between the three monstrous creatures and his queen, stranded on those rocks with not even an ember of magic left in her veins. His queen, screaming over and over and over at Lysandra to swim, to shift, to run.
But Aedion had seen Lysandra take on the two offspring.
By the second, she’d been lagging. And he’d seen her change shapes so often these past months to know she couldn’t shift fast enough now, perhaps might not have enough strength left to do it at all.
She was stranded in her form, as surely as his companions were stuck on the reef. And if Lysandra even tried to climb onto shore … He knew the bulls would reach her before she could so much as haul her body out of the shallows.
Faster and faster, those three bulls closed in. Lysandra remained at the mouth of the bay.
Holding the line.
Aedion’s heart stopped.
“She’s dead,” one of the sentries hissed. “Oh, gods, she’s dead—”
“Shut your rutting mouth,” Aedion snarled, scanning the bay, slipping into that cold, calculating place that allowed him to make decisions in battle, to weigh the costs and risks.
Dorian, however, got the idea before he did.
Across the bay, hand uplifted and flickering bright as a star, Dorian signaled Lysandra again and again with his power. Come to me, come to me, come to me, the king seemed to call.
The three bulls sank beneath the waves.
Lysandra turned, plunging down—
But not toward Dorian.
Aelin stopped shouting. And Dorian’s magic winked out.
Aedion could only watch as the shape-shifter’s shadow soared toward the three bulls, meeting them head-on.
The three wyverns spread out, so huge Aedion’s throat went dry.
And for the first time, he hated his cousin.
He hated Aelin for asking this of Lysandra, both to defend them and to secure the Mycenians to fight for Terrasen. Hated the people who had left such scars on the shifter that Lysandra was so willing to throw her life away. Hated … hated himself for being stuck in this useless tower, with a war machine only capable of firing one shot at a time.
Lysandra aimed for the wyvern in the middle, and when only a hundred yards separated them, she veered left.
They broke formation, one diving low, one keeping to the surface, and the other falling back. They were going to herd her. Herd her to a spot where they’d surround her from every angle and then rip her to shreds. It would be messy and vicious.
But Lysandra shot across the channel. Headed—
Headed right for the final remaining warship.
Arrows rained down on her.
Blood bloomed as some found their mark through her jade scales.
She kept swimming, her blood sending the bull closest to her, the one near the surface, into a frenzy, pushing himself faster to grab her, bite her—
Lysandra neared the ship, taking arrow after arrow, and leaped out of the water.