Curse of the Forgotten City

by Alex Aster

  Tor thanked the universe for Grimelda Alexander. His mind was shattered into pieces he still hadn’t been able to gather together.

  But his family, Estrelle—they needed them.

  He couldn’t fall apart. Not yet.

  They all stacked their palms in a tower over the coin and scale, Captain Forecastle’s feeling very cold. Vesper held their ship in her other hand.

  And then, they spirited away.

  21

  The Boiling Sea

  Tor could feel the ground beneath his feet before the rest of his body joined him. He was a shadow, then a ghost, then full and real, the weight of him slamming into place in one swift movement that left him breathless.

  He opened his eyes and nearly fell to his knees.

  They were in his living room, in his family’s hut, built into the base of a tree. One with purple leaves, for leadership.

  Melda and Engle turned to him, and he rushed to embrace them. Their last journey had started in this very room, after Tor had discovered the curse on his wrist. And now, it was where their second journey had ended.

  He swallowed, taking a step back, watching as Vesper and Captain Forecastle looked around, confused.

  No—it wasn’t over yet. “I’ll send help,” Tor promised Captain Forecastle, leading him to a chair.

  The pirate looked too pale, too much blood coating his clothes. Still, he managed a smile and said, “Make the sea boil.”

  Tor turned to Melda, Engle, and Vesper. “Come on.”

  He led them out the front door, into the village. Its streets were empty, just like his house. He wondered if his mother had managed to evacuate everyone in time.

  Melda clutched the arenahora in her hand, watching as the final pebbles of sand fell through.

  Then, the glass shattered.

  “Tor!” she yelled, and he knew what it meant.

  Their time was up.

  The Calavera were thawing.

  They reached the beach, and Tor saw his mother at the head of a small crowd gathered at the shore. He recognized them all. His neighbors, the other members of the council. His father.

  All there, holding weapons. Ready to protect their home, even though they were outmatched ten to one. Even though Tor had never seen any of them fight a day in their lives.

  “Mom!” he yelled and saw Chieftess Luna’s back stiffen.

  She turned slowly. Her bottom lip was trembling, tears gathered in her eyes. “Tor?” she whispered.

  He rushed forward and threw his arms around her. “We have it, we’re here,” he said, just as something whipped right past his head and exploded against a palm tree.

  A cannonball.

  “One of them has thawed completely! The rest aren’t far behind,” Engle said.

  “Quick, we need a healer,” Tor said, finding Mrs. Herida in the crowd. He quickly explained Captain Forecastle’s injury, and she rushed toward his hut.

  Vesper had the pearl clutched in one hand and the scale in the other. She didn’t look at Tor or anyone else. Her eyes were angry and locked on a single Calavera ship—one that held hundreds of people with hair just like hers.

  Her people.

  She stepped into the same water that had washed her to shore just days before, bloodied and a breath from death.

  And she slipped beneath them.

  Fast as a rocket, she shot through the sea, then surfaced in a breathtaking wave, the water lifting her up in a glorious spiral beneath her feet. She was right in front of the head Calavera ship.

  “He’s there, the captain,” Engle said quietly. “And the spectral.”

  With a flick of her hand, she sent a wave right over the ship that held the trapped Swordscales, and Tor watched from afar as they used it as a bridge back into the ocean, toward their home. With her other palm, she used the power of the pearl to make a wall of water, blocking the Calavera, who had started to shoot their weapons at the Swordscales as they fled.

  After years of swimming in Sapphire Sea, Tor knew the bone boat was right below her. Vesper’s people could use its portal to go back to their home, unharmed. When the final silver head was beneath the water, Vesper brought both of her arms high above her head—

  And unleashed.

  She sent giant waves crashing against each Calavera ship, forcing them together, their wood groaning and shattering as they rammed into each other. With the pearl clutched tightly in her fist, she split through two ships with slices of sea that she had honed to cut as sharply as blades. Screams pierced the air as the Calavera fell into the water, their ships falling to pieces around them.

  The Calavera captain yelled orders, and the shark at the helm of his vessel broke free, then made a path for Vesper. It was five times her size, a monstrous beast that could devour her hole without a single chomp of its teeth.

  But she controlled the sea. And, with a flick of her wrist, the shark turned, then launched toward its captain instead. The mammoth creature flew out of the water, mouth opened wide to devour him.

  He fell back, but the shark caught his hand—ripping it clean off before disappearing underwater.

  The spectral vanished in a flash of mauve, abandoning ship.

  Tor watched as Vesper shook. The ocean began to boil with her rage—her sadness. He wondered if she would drown them all with one close of her fist. If she would crush them from above with a tidal wave.

  But then the sea went still.

  Vesper lowered her hands. The scale burned brightly in her grip, the ocean held her in a high throne.

  She lifted a single finger.

  And what was left of the Calavera fleet vanished.

  22

  The Prophecy

  No—not vanished. Vesper had made the Calavera so small, they could fit in a fishbowl.

  And that was exactly where she put them. Engle watched, eye almost pressed to the glass, as the Calavera sailed the seas within the bowl, complete with tiny islands. They shot a cannon right at him—and it bounced off of the glass in a pathetic thump. Tiny yells roared from inside. Engle grinned wickedly, taunting them.

  “No chance of them ever rising again,” Tor said. Engle had agreed to keep the pirates at his house, locked in the orb.

  The Calavera were gone.

  Estrelle was safe.

  Once the ice had started to crack, his mother had moved her people to the nearby Troll Tunnels—with plenty of light. They had planned to go to the friendly Cristal Town for refuge, if the Calavera had succeeded in taking the village.

  Luckily, that hadn’t been necessary.

  A chill slithered across Tor’s shoulders as he wondered what would have happened if they had been just a few minutes late.

  What would have happened if the Calavera captain and spectral had gotten the pearl? He had seen its power firsthand—wielded by a villain; it could have meant the end of Emblem Island altogether.

  The pearl had been more useful than they could have imagined. After shrinking the Calavera, Vesper had used its power to shield Estrelle’s coast, enchanting the waters to block danger. She had shifted the current, so it didn’t lead directly to the village, and created special whirlpools just outside of its borders, that would only appear in the face of danger. Though they had stopped the deadly pirates, there were surely many more perils to be endured.

  Vesper had also used the pearl and its power over the sea to cloak Swordscale once more, healing the safeguard the Calavera had destroyed.

  “We’ll be off then,” Captain Forecastle said, wincing a bit as he stood. Mrs. Herida had healed his wound, but told him he needed bed rest for at least a week. It didn’t seem as though the pirate would be following those orders, however, as he hobbled toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Engle asked, frowning.

  Captain Forecastle smiled down at him. “We think we’l
l go try to find Bluebraid and her crew,” he said. Melda blinked at him, surprised. He shrugged. “Nearly dying puts things in perspective. We’d like to take a crack at breaking her curse.”

  With a final nod at Engle and promise to all of them that they would meet again, the pirate left.

  Vesper was standing in the center of Tor’s house, staring at the tree trunk that stood in his living room. He supposed she hadn’t ever seen a tree before she had washed ashore. “I’ll be going as well,” she said quietly.

  Engle approached her first. “Thanks for the snacks,” he said. “And also, for saving us…a few times. Definitely makes up for the times you almost got us killed.” He tucked the Calavera fish tank under his arm, the water sloshing violently from side to side, then waved goodbye.

  Melda stepped up to the waterbreather, her expression grave. “I’m sorry,” she said. “For not trusting you. And…for everything else.”

  Vesper lifted a shoulder. “You were right not to,” she said.

  “Here.” Melda pulled a gift from her pocket. “To match your hair.” It was a silver ribbon.

  Vesper blinked down at it for far too long. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  Tor led her out of his house. A few people were in the streets now, only vaguely aware of how close they had been to losing everything they had known.

  Like Vesper, who had lost so much.

  Tor offered to see her back to the sea, and they walked to the beach in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. It had been the longest day of Tor’s life. Though Estrelle was always warm, he still felt shards of ice in his chest.

  They reached sand, and Vesper turned to him. “I don’t think the prophecy was ever about you,” she said.

  He hadn’t expected that. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m the one who ripped the paper, and I knew what it meant when I saw the words: Your quest will prove useless, and one of you will perish.” Her breath was shaky. “I knew it was meant for me… My quest to save my brother would prove useless.” The last word cracked, and she looked to her feet, tears spilling freely. “I knew when it said one of us would die, it was either him or me.”

  She took a deep breath, filling the entirety of her lungs with air. When she breathed out, her shoulders shook with a silent sob. It took a few minutes for her to meet his gaze again.

  “I know it was cruel not to tell you. I could see that the prophecy weighed heavily on you and your friends. But I just hoped it was wrong. Speaking the truth of it would have felt like fate was locked in place, like I couldn’t change it…”

  “That’s why you took the skull,” Tor said softly.

  Vesper nodded. “I used up every inch of its paper tongue, hoping the prophecy would change.” She turned to face the endless horizon. “But it never did.”

  She took Tor’s hand. In it, she placed the pearl; they had agreed to hide it somewhere no one else could find. It was Tor’s job to get it there. She added the anchor, attached to the Night Witch’s ship, no bigger than his thumb.

  Before she could hand him the sundrop salmon scale too, he stopped her. “We want you to have it,” he said. “To rebuild Swordscale to what it once was.”

  Vesper bowed her silver head in thanks. The last of her tears fell, and Tor watched her expression transform. She held her head high. Her shoulders rolled back. Her eyes narrowed. “I told you that I came here because I had seen you before. And I knew you could help me. Thank you for proving me right.” She closed his hand with her own, trapping the charms inside. “Thank you…for being a friend.”

  With a final nod, the silver-haired waterbreather disappeared into the sea.

  Lune

  One of Estrelle’s original charms was a moon. She gave it to a girl named Lune, who became her closest friend.

  With her moon emblem, Lune found she could control water with just her movements. She could curve it in the air in wide streaks, like a whip. She could make whirlpools, with half a thought. She could tame a storm or make it rain.

  One day, far out into the sea, she created a wave as tall as a mountain, just to test her abilities, just to see how big she could make it.

  Little did she know, a ship sailed not far. It tore the vessel in half, and all were dead before Lune realized what she had done.

  For years, she refused her gifts, believing them a curse. She moved far into Emblem Island, and lived in isolation, tormented by the guilt of the lives lost because of her carelessness.

  Then war came. And she was forced out of solitude.

  Estrelle needed her.

  So Lune made a promise: she would work to master her gift, to wield it with such precision that she would never make a mistake again.

  Lune learned to control every inch and stitch of her abilities, practicing each day from dawn to dusk, perfecting her movements and technique. She became one of Estrelle’s greatest warriors and saved thousands of innocents.

  For the rest of her life, she lived on a ship, where water was always nearby.

  But, ultimately, it was in the water where she died.

  23

  Purple Flames

  Tor gripped the teleport’s coin, falling forward as he landed. The wind howled in his ears as he gritted his teeth against the throbbing between his bones and stood.

  Before him sat the Night Witch’s castle. He took a step toward it, and all of its lights flickered on. Expecting him.

  The door opened as he neared. A fire lit when he entered, warming him from the cliff’s chill. He had the pearl in his pocket.

  They had agreed that this place, guarded by the darkness of the Shadows and the Night Witch’s enchantments, would be the only location where they could keep the Pirate’s Pearl from ending up in the spectral’s hands. Its power was too great to keep anywhere else; they had seen its potential firsthand, thanks to Vesper.

  He climbed the staircase, and a light pattering of rain began to thrum against the castle’s glass ceiling. Just like before, a thread of power led him forward, down an empty hall, past dozens of shut doors and through an arch that led to another staircase, one that curved. He followed it until he reached the library, full of miniature enchantments.

  It had felt like an eternity since the last time he had stood here with Vesper, who had been a complete stranger. A stranger who had ended up being their savior.

  It was here that he had told Vesper about his powers and how much he resented them.

  He still did, but things were different now. Whether or not Tor wanted the Night Witch’s powers made no difference. He wished more than anything the Night Witch had chosen someone else, but his fate had been sealed, and, just like the blood queen had told him, there was no escaping it.

  Tor placed the anchor, attached to the miniature Cloudcaster, on the shelf. He was surprised at the pang of sadness he felt, leaving it behind. The pearl went next to it.

  His task completed, he left the library and turned down the corridor, ready to teleport back home.

  But something made him stop.

  He followed the tug down the corridor, and soon, he was in a hall with storytelling tapestries, the characters glancing at him briefly before returning to their enactments. He traveled deeper and deeper into the castle, the walls thicker than they were near its entrance, the stone older, as if the Night Witch’s castle had been built over time, over and around itself, new layers added over the centuries.

  It was enormous, so big that Tor thought to himself he could live in its walls for a hundred years without discovering every room. As the floor dipped, he wondered if the castle was built into the other side of the cliff or even below the rock.

  He reached a door. Tall and sturdy, made from a single slab of stone. When he opened it, a fireplace in its corner lit in blue flame.

  It flickered wildly, crackling and hissing. Tor knelt before it, and, without waiting to wonder i
f it would hurt, reached a hand inside.

  His fingers grasped something solid, buried within the ashes. He pulled it from the blue flames in a flash. It was a journal.

  He opened it and then nearly dropped it.

  It was her journal. The Night Witch’s.

  Tor flipped through the pages, wondering why she would want him to have it, until he saw something that made him stop dead.

  A drawing of purple flames, just like the ones he now wore on his wrist. With a warning.

  Dread pooled in his stomach. And Tor realized there was much more to learn about the Night Witch’s powers—and his.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing the Emblem Island books is an adventure—and I’m on it, just like you, reader. Unlike any other stories I’ve told, these seem to unfold themselves, without much prodding from me. Soon, I’m left with characters that have minds of their own and places I desperately want to visit. But it doesn’t end there. My first draft only turns into what you have read because of my incredible editor, Annie Berger, who has believed in this world from the start and always knows how to make the story better—thank you for everything. Thank you to my publisher, Sourcebooks, who delivers the most amazing covers, and has an incredible team I love to work with. A huge thank you to Heather Moore, who definitely has a marketing emblem and who I’m glad to have in my corner. Special thanks also to Cassie Gutman, Ashlyn Keil, Katie Stutz, Lizzie Lewandowski, Caitlin Lawler, and Valerie Pierce. And to my incredible team, Eric Greenspan, Laura Bradford, Michelle Weiner, and Berni Barta.

  Thank you to my family, who has put up with me on my own wild adventure. My mom, Claudy, who has always believed in me, and is the reason I’ve made my dreams a reality. My dad, Keith, who taught me that the harder you work, the luckier you get, and is the funniest person I know. My twin sister, Daniella, the second funniest, who read my first books, and didn’t tell me they were terrible—I’m so proud of you. My love, Rron, who is unbelievably supportive, and keeps me smiling every day—I love you. My grandma, Rose, who ignited my passion for storytelling. My grandpa, who doesn’t say much, but is the wisest person I know. My aunt, Angely, who has given me some of my best memories, and my uncle Carlos. JonCarlos and Luna, my star and moon—I hope you read and love these books one day, because they’re for you. My early reader, Sean. My aunt Maureen and uncle Julio. Leo the poodle, for being so cute.