Page 75 of Light and Shadow
With an ugly laugh, Jax says, “It’s more likely that Venora has found a way past the oracle’s wards.”
“She’s gone through Ifreann. Demons down there are beyond her control. How could she have managed such a feat?” Fancor looks up at Bert. “Does the sea churn? Do you spy any serpents?”
Climbing down, Bert goes slowly and carefully. When he sets his feet back on the deck, he says, “Nothing looks amiss besides the mountain puffing smoke. Maybe Aaran is right, and it’s a natural occurrence. We could sail past without incident.”
My gut tightens. “It’s an awfully big coincidence for it to happen now, after hundreds of years.” The skeptic in me isn’t buying it. Venora is involved. I can feel her tainted magic like soured milk fouling the air.
Bert sends Jarnol to the lookout basket to report if there are any changes. We plan to give the mountain a wide birth, but not so far as to put us into the monster-ridden northern sea.
The smoke grows larger as day turns to night. The hint of orange brightens Bolcán’s peak. “That looks like more than smoke.”
Aaran is shoulder to shoulder with me at the rail. “This is not good. I don’t suppose I can talk you into going below?”
“Not this time.” I draw a long breath to steady my fear and call out, “Get below and hold on.”
Jarnol yells, “The sea is capping!” He points.
“Come down!” Bert orders the teen. “We’re close enough to see from the deck. Get below.”
Like a cat, he scurries down the rigging. “I can fight.” He rushes to the bow of the ship.
A rogue wave crashes against the side of the ship. We’re pushed farther away from shore as we list to the starboard side.
Dark clouds gather, and a downpour begins.
Wrapping my arm through the rigging at the port rail, I keep my feet on the deck and my eyes on the mountain.
Bert stumbles up the steps and relieves Beran at the helm. He spins the wheel, which turns us into the waves. Another wave comes from the rear and swamps the deck. Bert turns us again. “It keeps shifting. I can’t get out of the trough.”
Waves hit us from every direction, tossing the ship around like a toy in a bathtub.
A fifty-foot wave hovers over my head. I’m going to die right here. I hope someone lives and will tell my mother what happened to me. My father’s smiling face flashes in my mind.
Aaran wraps his arm around me.
Still hanging on to the rigging, I take a deep breath and hold it.
Bert screams, “Hang on!”
Water pummels my head. Darkness and cold salt prod at me, floating and being pushed and pulled in all directions. It reminds me of the portal. My lungs scream as I have no choice but to exhale. I hit the wood hard, ass first. Sputtering and gasping, I cough out seawater.
Miraculously we’re still upright. Coughing and scurrying comes from every corner of the ship.
Aaran’s soggy hair covers his face, and blood runs down from a cut over his eye. “Are you alright?”
I touch his cut. “I’m fine. You’re hurt.”
Wiping the blood out of his eye, he says, “It’s nothing.”
Bert gets us positioned so we’re cutting through the wave rather than sunken at the bottom of a trough.
The sea tries to gobble the ship, but we continue to shift east, away from the boiling cauldron of saltwater and magma.
An explosion shudders the world. My ears ring with deafening bang.
The top of Bolcán flies off and explodes in ash and fire. Dirt pelts the deck despite several miles of distance. Fire slithers down the mountain, first one way, then the other, cutting a path.
Sound roars back into my head. The way the lava moves is different from any movies or documentaries I’ve seen about volcanoes. Its progress is too specific. “Does that seem alive to you?”
