Page 145 of The Shadowed Oracle
“Wake up!” she screamed.
The captain stared blankly back at her.
“The sea is your home. Don’t let them invade your home. Don’t let them get in your head. This is your fucking domain, damnit!”
Still wide-eyed, the captain nodded, shaken but no longer lost. He stepped back up to the helm and gripped the wheel. The sails began to align again, the wind catching at just the right angle.
But the Wranes had caught up now, dropping onto the deck and clashing head-on with the unsuspecting and unarmed crew. Two sailors fell hard to the wooden planks, overwhelmed and fully in the grasp of the flying wraiths, choking back tears as the very life was sucked from them. Raidinn swooped in just in time and separated the Wranes with a glancing blow to their backs, allowing one of the sailors to dash for the safety of the cabins below, while the other stumbled, crawling on all fours until he was impaled through the throat by those knife-like fingers of the Wrane.
“Lucilla!” Ingrid shouted. “Anything?”
The maiden dropped her hand defeatedly to her side. The same hand that held the viseer stone. “I can’t!” she said. “It won’t work!”
“Keep trying!” Ingrid pleaded, gesturing to the chaos on the ship as if she needed any reminder.
The Wranes had formed a deadly wall. They rammed into Veston and his soldiers stationed in the very center of the deck. The wraithy warriors waved their daggers wildly, combining them with slashes from their long blade-nails. But the Maradenn soldiers held them off, feeling out the lanky movements of their opponent and grunting with every offensive heave. Sent by theirprincess, their true queen to restore order to their home, they fought with total recklessness concerning their own safety.
The sound of clashing and clanging rang out, drawing Raidin in like a siren call. He immediately joined Veston’s side. To counter the long and sporadic strikes, he pulled his sword close to his chest and gained ground on them, whirling and shuffling with razor-sharp precision. Like a dancer, in a form not dissimilar to the one Tyla taught Ingrid, he effortlessly glided in close to his wraithy foes—so close that they couldn't attack with their full strength. At this range, he greatly outmatched them, cutting one Wrane down and forcing the other two to flee back into the sky.
He looked to his sister proudly. “Been a while, but not bad, right?”
Tyla frowned. “Eh. Your footwork could use some—well, any kind of improvement at all. Because that was horrible.”
“You’re kidding me.” A blast from a Shade-strike erupted, cutting into the deck just beside Raidinn. He didn’t so much as flinch. “I was like a bloody gazelle. As graceful as a?—”
Raidinn halted. His eyes went dark, his mouth agape as he stared at what was creeping up from the sea behind his sister.
“You can’t name another graceful animal, can you?” A laugh built in Tyla’s throat until she darted her eyes down to him, noticing something was severely wrong. “Rai? What is it?”
Raidinn shook off the nerves and lunged for his sister, dragging her far from the edge of the ship. He called out to the others frantically, warning them in half-sentences and rushed thoughts. It all came out like nonsensical grunts.
Tyla’s face went white, seeing her brother so terrified, so shaken.
“There! Right there! It was just peeking over the ship!!” Raidinn screamed out finally. “The… the Hydra!”
That terrifying beast he’d only heard about from his companions. The story he’d had trouble believing as his sister recounted it to him the next day. Yet, here it was. Three-headed, golden-skinned, and large enough to swallow half of their boat in one snap of its many jaws.
Ingrid ran to the edge of the ship to look. She was still near the stern, still grouped with the captain, a few of the crew members, and Dean, who’d flocked to her as the Wranes descended on them. She didn’t see the submerged monster there, but she knew it was near. Waiting. Circling. She could feel it. Feel the assessing eyes of a creature so far beyond her in power and size. It was a sensation so unique she’d never forget it.
“It’s here!” Tyla called out. “Starboard!”
Glistening scales reflected in the dark water. Dean quickly took aim at the Hydra, but Ingrid told him to wait. The head was the indicator, she said, if it kept its gaze on them and meant to attack, or if it was only curious like it had been on their journey to the Isles. The last thing she wanted to do was agitate the monster.
“Do you see?!” A manic cry sounded off from somewhere on the main deck. “Do you see now!?”
Ingrid ignored the voice. She couldn’t get distracted. Shades still toiled and tinkered around the ship, and although she was highly sympathetic, she didn’t even have time to snap another crew member out of their own waking nightmare. She shielded her eyes from the rain, narrowing in on the beast below.
“Iposed a question, Oracle!” The shout rose and shook. “Do you see my queen in all her glory now?! Do you see her power?!”
It was Arryn, she realized. That sick cackle of his sliced through all the noise surrounding them. Ingrid dismissed it as madness, the spell digging its claws into the cursed male as he drifted further from Enitha. Because of course she saw his queen’s full power. She was looking right at it. Wranes wereperched on the sails, tearing them to pieces, and Shades still haunted the deck like poisonous gas.
“Oracle! Answer me!”
Then again, louder this time: “Answer me!Do you see her strength?! Do you!? Do you see it!? Tell me! Do you?—"
“Shut up!” Raidinn silenced him with a swift kick to his chest. He’d been nearby, fighting off the Shades that were trying to free the shouting king from the restraints. “Or I’ll cut out your fucking tongue, hear me!? Not one more fucking word!” He was still clearly shaken by the Hydra, unable to watch the sea below.
“Any sight of it!? Did it leave?”
