Page 80 of Clash of Storms
"They've left?" Sirius's features sharpened.
"They slipped aboard a ship," the boy said earnestly, pointing out to sea. "They went down onto the beach and built an enormous fire. Not long after, a longboat rowed ashore and carried them out to a ship. You've missed them by barely an hour. If you squint, you can still see the ship."
Malin refused to contemplate the sharp, sudden flood of relief that swept through her, as Sirius scowled.
"Well, what now?" she demanded.
"This way," he growled.
* * *
They were too late.
Sirius stared across the ocean as the ship threatened to vanish into the blur of the horizon. If he reached out with his senses he could feel Árdís's presence flaring bright gold. The princess was on that ship.
All he had to do was take her.
Unable to stop himself, he turned to glance back at Malin, behind him on the beach. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering a little as if cold. And he couldn't escape the feeling she wasn't telling him something.
That moment in the village....
He wanted to know what had put that look in in her beautiful brown eyes, and stolen the laughter from her lips.
"Well, go on then," Malin whispered, tipping her chin up as if to defy him. "There she is. You'll catch her within minutes. Árdís can't escape you if she's trapped aboard that ship."
He felt ill.
Utterly wretched.
"There's your princess," Malin's voice roughened. "There's your chance to save your brother. All you have to do is capture her and return to court. You'll be mated to her within days. You'll have all the power you've ever wanted. You'll be named the queen's heir and all thedrekiat court will cower at your feet."
Sirius couldn't breathe.
He looked down at Malin's face; those scattering of freckles, and the dark, determined eyes. The soft pillow-shaped lips that beckoned him.
Then back to the horizon.
Andri's life lay on the line.
Árdís wassoclose.
Within grasp.
But the second he exploded intodrekiform, he lost Malin forever.
"You don't want to capture her, do you?" Malin said in faint wonder.
Sirius turned toward her, steeling himself. "What are you going to do? I can't just leave you here. Roar's still out there somewhere—"
"I daresay if you capture Árdís, then I won't have to worry about Roar," she replied tersely. "As to what I shall do, I don't think that's your problem anymore, is it?"
Like hell.
His hair whipped around his face as he turned toward her. The fury of the growing storm whispered down his spine, but it was the heat in her eyes that roused him.
"Will you stay here while I fetch her?"
"No." Malin tucked a strand of copper-brown hair behind her ear. "We always knew it was going to end here. There's no point dwelling upon matters." Her lips thinned. "And what is the point of waiting? What would I be waiting for?"
