Page 49 of Lightningborn

Swooping up, they dodged the last piece of falling ship, and Remy could suddenly see the hulking black mass of theWindsharkahead of them. It hovered above the center of the Vortex, its grinning hull lit up by the flashing lights and black sails flapping in the wind. Shipwrecks and chunks of vessels drifted around it, slowly rising and falling with the pull of the Vortex, but theWindsharkwas a rock in the center of the chaotic sea.

At the sight of the massive ship, fear curled in Remy’s stomach, along with a fierce determination.I’m coming, Storm. Just hang in there.

“Come on,” he told Gem as impatience rose up to join the resolve. “There’s Jhaeros’s ship. Get closer.”

Gem frowned back at him. “That’s not the plan,” she said. “We have to find a place to wait for the signal. If we get too close, they’ll spot us, even in this debris field.”

“Well, we can’t keep flying in circles.” Remy gazed around and saw another ship drifting slowly toward them, tattered sails snapping in the wind. Unlike most of the vessels circling the Vortex, this one’s upper deck looked mostly intact. Groaning and creaking, it floated eerily through the sky, the figurehead of a white stag angled toward the sky. Remy tapped Gem on the shoulder and pointed. “There. Can Cloud land on that ship?”

“He should be able to. Let’s go, Cloud.”

The dragon’s wings flapped, and they rose swiftly toward the drifting boat. Swooping up the side of the hull, Cloud glided over the dilapidated railings and touched down lightly on the deck. All around them, the entire ship groaned, planks creaking and shuddering, sails flapping in the wind. For a moment, Remy wondered what had happened to the sailors. Had they all been lost to the Maelstrom? Or had something even more bizarre happened? The ship struck by mysterious lightning, its crew turning into winged snakes and flying away? He would never know.

“Okay,” Gem whispered. She seemed worried for some reason. Maybe the eerie, creaking ghost ship was making her nervous. “From here, we should be able to see the signal.”

But minutes passed in silence, and no signal came. The Vortex howled below them, a constant roar that made Remy’s ears throb. The wrecks drifted around the edges, rising and falling and breaking apart, but Cutlass and theQueen’s Bladewere nowhere to be seen.

Remy shifted impatiently in the saddle. TheWindsharkfloated tantalizingly in the distance, taunting him with its leering smile. “Come on,” he muttered. “Where are they?”

“They’ll be here,” Gem said. “Just be patient.”

Remy clenched his jaw. He was normally a patient person. He had to be patient when waiting for the perfect moment to swipe something, for someone to leave a room, for pirates to stop looking for him, or just for something to happen. Remy knew how to be patient.

But his dragon was in trouble. And he knew pirates. He had grown up around them; he knew how they thought, what they were capable of. Captain Cutlass and the crew of theQueen’s Blademight have good intentions, but they were still pirates at heart. And no pirates he knew of would ever put themselves at risk to help him. The only person who had ever helped him after his mother died was Bart, and Remy was failing him, too.

“We should try to sneak aboard,” Remy whispered. “There are other ways to get in. We could probably crawl through one of the gunports.”

Gem frowned at him over her shoulder. “No. We wait for the captain’s signal.”

Remy scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Let’s hope she hasn’t turned her ship around and left us here,” he muttered.

“The captain wouldn’t do that. We had a deal.”

“You don’t know much about pirates, do you?” Gem glared at him, and he raised his hands to show he wasn’t trying to pick a fight. “I’m just saying. It doesn’t matter if they’ve made a deal, or a promise, or any kind of bargain. Pirates only care about gold and saving their own skin.”

Gem’s voice was flat as she stared back at him. “You could say that about thieves, too.”

He started to answer when, across the Vortex, there was a streak of light that didn’t come from lightning. It shot straight into the sky, a ball of blue-white luminance trailing a tail behind it, then exploded like a firework against the darkness.

Gem gasped. “That’s the signal!” she cried just as theQueen’s Bladesoared between two drifting hulls and fired a barrage of cannons at theWindshark.

Even with the wind and roar of the Vortex, Remy heard the explosions as columns of smoke billowed into the air from Jhaeros’s ship. TheQueen’s Bladewheeled away, turning to circle the other ship, and Remy could imagine the chaos taking place on theWindsharkwith the sudden attack.

“They’ve launched the distraction,” Gem gasped. “This is our chance. Cloud,” she cried, and Remy quickly grabbed her waist as the dragon crouched. “Up!”

The dragon sprang off the deck. A gust of wind caught him as he did, lifting them into the air, and they soared away toward theWindshark.

Remy’s pulse pounded, his stomach doing somersaults as they glided over the Vortex. The roar sounded in his ears, and vicious blasts of wind tugged at them, trying to suck them down into the swirling clouds.

As they approached theWindshark, he saw pirates scrambling around on deck, frantically trying to respond to the sudden attack. Along the side of the hull, gunports were being opened, the dull black mouths of cannons starting to poke through.

“Get below the ship,” he told Gem. “We have to go in from underneath.”

She nodded, and a moment later, Cloud abruptly dropped from the sky, so quickly Remy’s stomach shot up and lodged itself in his throat. As they swooped toward the bottom of the ship, he saw a basket dangling beneath the hull, with a ladder leading up to a small, square trapdoor in the wood.

“There’s the bilge hole,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Overhead, there was a roar as theQueen’s Bladelaunched a second round of cannon fire into theWindsharkfrom her starboard side. The huge ship shuddered, its hull smoking from the attack, but Remy didn’t see any cannons pass through. Its armored hide seemed to be preventing any real damage from the opposing ship. His blood chilled. They had to find Storm and Bart quickly, before theWindsharkcould recover and launch its own counterattack.

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