Page 23 of I Summon the Sea

A little too late to ask yourself if this was a bad idea, I chide myself.You have no choice anymore. Not unless a kraken sinks the boats, ending your mission here and now, taking your life, returning you to the death you’re used to.

But no kraken obliges.

Instead, we get a charybdis. Careful what you wish for, right? A damn charybdis, a water sucker monster creating a deadly whirlpool.

And it’s sucking us right under.

Cries, screams.

The maelstrom churns the sea with a sound of echoing thunder.

Chaos.

I faintly hear Tru yelling, “Where is Athdara? Get Athdara here! Now! Where in the hells is he?”

The deck slips from under me as the barge tilts in a way it’s not made to tilt: forward, its prow going under.

I grab for whatever handhold I can, sliding across the aged wood planks, my dress snagging here and there—but not enough to stop my demise.

Not again, I think.Do something!

I want to scream, alert someone as I slip toward the water, but no sound escapes my throat. With the noise of the whirlpool, nobody would have heard me anyway.

And Athdara is not here to save me.

A howling guard slides past me on his back, the weight of his armor lending speed to his fall. He drops off the end of the barge with a cut-off yell.

Holy ghosts.

My fingertips dip between two planks, and I jerk to a halt before I fall off the edge. Pain shoots from my wrist up to my elbow, but at least I’m not sliding anymore.

The whirlpool is shrieking underneath us, a dark hole, the huge monster at its end swallowing and swallowing, hoping to get us down its gullet.

My arm is agony.

Straining, I pull myself an inch up. Then another. None of the guards have noticed me yet, busy pulling on ropes and helping the rowers push the boat backward—not that it’s working.

I’m frozen there, holding on for dear life, wondering if this is indeed the end. A return to the womb, to the deep, to that existence I barely recall.

How could Athdara even help? This isn’t a dragon he can cajole or command.

I remember him saving me last time, and then the memory of the blood dripping from his fingers hits me. Is that why he isn’t here, saving people? Is he that badly injured? Not that it matters, and he’s probably at the back of the convoy and taking too long to?—

Shadows swirl on the deck before me, thickening, and he steps out of them, brows drawn together in a thundercloud. Around us, guards scream, more screams coming from the barges behind us and from the ornate boats at our sides, all of us teetering on the edge of the whirlpool, and all I can think of is…

He’s anumbrashifter.

Surprised? I shouldn’t be. I just don’t know the extent of his powers, but I should have realized. That’s how he patrols the barges, shifting from boat to boat, walking the shadows between them.

He lifts a gauntleted hand, and screeching comes from above.

Draks.

After a moment, the flapping of their great wings joins in. I don’t see the drak with the rider, but these ones fly lower and lower until they’re hovering over the barge.

One of them, a black and silver one, is now so low that its huge claws grab the stern of the barge, offering a welcome counterbalance to the tipping prow.

As for me, I’m still hanging on for dear life from the gap between the deck planks.

---