Page 120 of Lore of the Tides

Finn hesitated.

“I’ll be in the hall,” Hazen said before slipping out of the room.

Finndryl crouched so his eyes were level with Lore’s where she sat on the chair. He placed a warm hand on her knee. She leaned into his touch. “We will return to Duskmere in time to save them, Lore, I know it.” Lore nodded. How she needed to believe him. His gaze softened. “And we will save him.”

Lore nodded again, her eyes stinging. “You know I choose you, right? I will always choose you.”

“I know, my love.” Finn closed his eyes and kissed her gently on the lips. Lore’s heart swelled with the depth of his love. “Now let’s put our magic to use.”

Lore laughed as he stood to leave. Maybe she should rethink unleashing the overly powerful, grumpy fae on theWeaver’s captain. “Don’t burn the ship down,” she shouted after him as he slipped through the door.

“Don’t sink us,” Finndryl quipped over his shoulder before the door closed behind him. She heard a curse, followed by a peal of childish giggles.

Their first task would be surviving the horde of children in the hallway. Lore smiled as she closed her eyes, directing her concentration onto the ship.

Her senses extended once more, tracing the grain of each plank until she could feel every inch of the ship within the grasp of her magic. She felt the magnificent balance the ship held, how its design was true ingenuity. She felt the stitching in the sails, the pots of simmering water in the galley. The hull complained to her as it pushed through a particularly large swell. The keel showed her the barnacles that had attached themselves to its surface. The mizzenmast whispered its secrets to her. Lore and the ship were one.

She sensed the moment Hazen’s form changed within the water. His now-webbed fingers pressed onto the hull. Through his esthesia of the ocean, she saw water with a new light; it was no longer a terrifying force that would pull her under and drown her.

It was hishome. It was malleable. And Hazen was agile and fast. He was a prince of the ocean who drew power and life from the water itself; he would never tire, never slow.

She urged theConstellation Weaverto cut through the sea like it was a hot knife and the water, butter.

She heard bellows from confused parents as they called their children to come to them. Alarmed shouts as the crew ran to and fro overhead, trying to determine what, exactly, was occurring.

Lore shut them out. She ignored everything but her need for swiftness.

She urged the boat faster and faster. She could feel the wood asit stretched and groaned; it was not designed to reach such speeds, but she used her power to reinforce the joints and planks, and she pushed the ship faster and faster.

She used her second sight to delve deep into the sea, watching for obstacles, outcroppings of land, islands, low spots, rogue waves, and she steered the ship clear. They need not steer or navigate, for Lore was as the sea turtle using instinct to travel to a nesting ground thousands of miles away. She was the salmon jumping up waterfalls, driven by instinct.Home, home, home.She felt the pull and knew the way.

Chapter 39

The crossing should have taken them two weeks. They arrived in just three days. Finndryl must have been successful, because no one, not even the captain, had disrupted Lore’s focus.

Now she stood on the deck as the ship steered into the northernmost Alytherian harbor; Lore scanned the dock. She hadn’t slept the entire journey. As they approached, she’d found a pitcher of water and a plate of food set beside her, and she gulped the pitcher, scarfed the food, and ran up to the deck, though her muscles protested her every movement. Protested their neglect, their fatigue.

She had not been afraid of what she would find on the deck. Possibly a crazed sea captain and their crew ready to call the watch and have them imprisoned—they would have been delighted to find that there was already a reward on their heads.

She could deal with all that easily.

She was afraid the king already knew they were coming and a host of Alytherian soldiers would be waiting to capture her, Hazen, and Finndryl.

She was even more terrified of finding the corpse of a misguided noble who, despite her every attempt to harden her heart to him andexpel him from it, had never quite managed to vacate it. She was afraid she would see his body with sightless eyes, his wings fluttering in a breeze, never to fly again.

But the harbor was quiet, and the docks were almost empty at this late hour.

The captain of theConstellation Weaver, however,hadbeen waiting for her on the deck.

She was young, younger than Lore would have thought a captain to be. Her skin was a brilliant shade of blue. Her build was slight and short. Shorter than Lore even—though a vibrant set of dragonfly wings made up for it. They shimmered in the moonlight as they flicked with fury or fear. Lore didn’t know which.

The pixie stood with her arms crossed, her chin tilted toward the sky. She appraised Lore, her face giving nothing away. Behind her stood six sailors, a few of them taller and more muscled than Finndryl.

She tapped her foot, waiting for Lore to speak first.

“I’m sorry I took over your ship. My people, every last one of them, risk a fate worse than death if I do not arrive in time. I might be too late, as it is.”

Lore glanced between the pixie and the harbor. She still couldn’t see an army waiting for them. Could they really dock and walk to Duskmere?

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