“Then it’s settled,” Tiberius announced. “Once we reach Avondale, we’ll do what we have to do, then set out to discover what is really happening with Leonosis and Queen Ariel.”
They all nodded in agreement, and Tiberius felt a sense of relief. He knew that the task before them wouldn’t be easy, but at least having it settled made him feel better.
“I’ll go tell the captain to set a course for Avondale.”
Chapter 2
Rafe
The ship began to rise up toward the thick blanket of mist that hung over all the blighted lands. The ship’s crew were called back to their stations, and even Olyva’s family quickly grew bored, preferring to return to the large cabin reserved for the earl. Tiberius and Lexi retired to a smaller cabin, but Olyva stayed on the main deck, lingering at the bow of the ship. She loved to soak up the bright amber-colored sunlight, and she looked much healthier than before. The time spent in the dreary area around the lost city of Devonyr had sapped much of her strength, but the color was returning to her cheeks, and she was smiling more.
Rafe wanted to spend every moment that he could with Olyva. He leaned against the rail while she stood with her face turned up and her arms outstretched, soaking up as much sunlight as she could before they entered the thick cloud bank. She was still wearing the dress that Desyra had found for her. It was short—the hem didn’t quite reach her knees—and Olyva had carefully cut away the sleeves. It had a scooping neckline, too, and Olyva enjoyed having as much of her skin exposed to the sun as possible. Rafe thought she looked ravishing, but he didn’t like the looks the sailors gave her; some were fearful, others lustful.
When they finally entered the mists, the amber sunlight faded, and the air around them was wispy white, like trying to see through a thick fog. Olyva let her hands down and leaned against the railing beside Rafe, just letting her shoulder rub lightly against his. It was flirtatious, and Rafe felt a thrill of excitement that he had let slip away over the last few weeks. His worry had almost wrecked their relationship, but he was happy that he hadn’t completely ruined things between them.
“You know you look a little ridiculous,” he said playfully.
“I don’t care how I look, Rafe,” Olyva said joyously.
“You don’t care that the sailors are frightened of you?”
“Why should they be frightened of me?”
“Because you’re different,” Rafe said. “They think you’re a witch.”
“But I’m not. Tiberius is the only one who wields magic.”
“But he looks normal. You do not.”
“Do you think I’m…” she hesitated, a bit of her old vanity reasserting itself. “…ugly, now?”
“No,” Rafe said. “I think you’re more beautiful than ever.”
Olyva laughed and smiled at him. “So what does it matter what anyone else thinks?”
“Perhaps it doesn’t,” Rafe said. “Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”
“About what?”
“About you. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“And what makes you think something might happen to me?”
“Well,” Rafe spoke more seriously. “Hamill Keep was difficult for me. I thought I was losing you forever.”
“Being out of the sunlight makes me feel weak,” Olyva admitted.
“Weak I can understand,” Rafe said. “But we couldn’t wake you up. It scared me. And then the fight with whatever had taken over the earl’s body. Seeing Tiberius captured. Since we left Avondale, I have felt more vulnerable than the rest of my life put together.”
“You grew up safe behind the city walls in Avondale,” Olyva said.
“True, but I was taught to be vigilant, always prepared for battle. My father drilled me for hours every day until fighting was as natural to me as breathing. I had no fear of fighting and never even contemplated the idea of dying. It was simply unthinkable then, but now…”
He let the idea hang in the air for a moment. He could imagine dying now. He had killed and been close to death himself, but what really scared him was losing Olyva. When he had been forced to stand on the sky ship and watch the rioting crowd in Hamill Keep capture Tiberius, he felt like a part of him was dying. In that moment his anger and grief were so hot within him that he gladly would have dropped into the middle of the crowd without any weapons or hope of surviving. Tiberius had escaped, he was becoming a powerful wizard and, while Rafe was still uncomfortable with magic, he was glad that Tiberius could take care of himself. Still, Rafe didn’t want to have to sit back and watch as something terrible happened to Olyva. If she were to get hurt—or worse yet killed—he didn’t think he could go on living. Just the thought pierced him with so much sorrow he felt tears welling up in his eyes.
“I’m not going to die,” Olyva said softly.
“It just scares me, that’s all. You’re different, Tiberius is different and I guess I just feel less confident in my ability to take care of you all.”
“Why do you feel like you have to?” she asked. “I understand that I was a different person before. I never thought I would ever be more than a lady at court, perhaps married to an earl if I was lucky. But then I met you, and even though it terrified me, I thought that perhaps we could share a life. I don’t want to be protected, Rafe. I want to be part of the adventure.”
“I guess I sound like an old woman,” Rafe said with a grimace. “The great warrior is now a worrisome ninny.”
“You care,” Olyva said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. You have given me so much, and I will be forever grateful to you for that. I know things haven’t turned out the way we imagined, but I think everything has somehow turned out good, maybe even better than it could have.”
“I agree,” Rafe said. “Even if it has taken me a while to realize it.”
He paused, wanting to say more but hesitant just the same. They hadn’t been intimate in their relationship. There had never really been an appropriate time in Avondale, and Rafe had been determined not to besmirch her honor. And after their banishment, Olyva had been changed by the Hosscum, and Rafe had been afraid. But he wasn’t afraid anymore. The changes had only enhanced what he loved about Olyva, and he saw her as more capable than ever before. She could do things now that were just as astonishing as Tiberius’s magic. She had even saved their lives more than once with her newfound abilities.
He was just about to propose that they retire back into one of the empty cabins on the foredeck when the sky ship broke through the barrier of mist. They were greeted at once by bright sunlight, and Olyva threw back her head and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Rafe asked.
“The sun. It feels so good it makes me giddy.”
“I wish I could feel it the way that you do,” Rafe said.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, focusing on the way the sun felt on his face. The air above the barrier of mist was much cooler than below, and the wind was chilly, but the sun did feel good. It was warm and bright; he almost felt better just being in the sunlight after the dreary nature of the cloud bank. He had no idea how the sun was able to pass through the thick mists and illuminate the world below, while inside the mist the light seemed to vanish.
“Ship to starboard!” came an urgent call from the rigging.
Rafe’s eyes snapped open, and he looked around. Another sky ship was close to the right-hand side of the vessel and only a little way behind. It was flying directly toward their ship and had a massive pointed prow.
The captain began shouting orders, and Rafe instinctively put his hand to the hilt of his sword. He had seen many of the ships from the other eight cities of Valana, but the vessel approaching them was different. It was smaller and obviously much more agile than the massive cargo ship from Hamill Keep.
“I think you should go inside,” Rafe said.
“What is it?” Olyva asked.
“I think we’re about to be under attack. Go! Quickly! Find Tiberius and get him out here
.”
Olyva hurried away, and Rafe hurried toward the stern of the massive vessel. The sky ships consisted of wooden hulls and large round sails that were filled with hylum, a strange gas mined in Avondale. The hylum-filled sails lifted the ships high into the air. On each side of the floating vessels were long masts with traditional sails to catch the wind that propelled the sky ships. There were ropes and nets stretched between the deck and the various sails, almost so many that it looked like a gigantic spiderweb. It didn’t hurt the perception that the crew crawled up the rigging so easily. There were men high above the deck and others out in the rigging to either side of the ship, manipulating the sails to give the sky ship steerage.
The approaching ship was smaller than the grand vessels that transported the earls from city to city. It had an angular hull and only one bulbous sail filled with hylum to support it. It was so close Rafe could see men moving about the narrow deck.
“What kind of ship is that?” Rafe called out to the captain, who was standing on the elevated command deck.
“That’s a war ship,” the first officer called down.
Rafe felt his stomach tighten, and a sense of dread filled him. He knew that the huge cargo ship was no match for a vessel built for war. The ship from Hamill Keep was slow and had no defenses.
“Go down!” Rafe shouted as he sprinted up the wooden stairs to the command deck. “Take us back down into the mists.”
“We would be flying blind,” the captain argued.
“So would they,” Rafe said, “if they were even brave enough to follow us.”
“They’re on a collision course, captain,” said the first officer grimly. “That prow looks like it could snap our steering masts.”
“It would be caught in our rigging if it tried,” the captain grumbled. “It might take us down, but she’d be brought down with us.”
“You can’t outrun it,” Rafe said. “Can your crew fight?”
“Every man in Hamill Keep can fight,” bellowed the captain.
“But what happens if half your crew gets killed in the process?” Tiberius said as he dashed up the stairs and joined the conversation.
“Ti, can you work some magic?”
“Yes,” Tiberius said, “but I’m not sure what to do. I can blow the ship back away from us, but the wind will be against us and might even blow us back toward them. I can set it on fire, but if it crashes into us while it’s burning, we could all be killed.”
“Well, we’ve got to do something!” Rafe said.
“Take us down,” the captain said angrily. “Get us in the mist, and then we’ll change course.”
“Aye, Captain,” said the first officer, who then began shouting orders at the crew.
Rafe moved over beside Tiberius and spoke quietly.
“You really have nothing?”
“I didn’t say that,” Tiberius said with a smile. “I just didn’t want the captain depending on me to save us. He needed to take evasive action. I don’t like the idea of working magic in front of the crew. You saw how the people of Hamill Keep reacted.”
“Well, you do what you need to do, and let me worry about the crew,” Rafe said, drawing his sword.
Chapter 3
Tiberius
“Specula Fulsi,” Tiberius chanted softly under his breath.
The portal to the magical world opened, and Ti felt light building up on the other side. He focused the light down into a tiny, powerful beam and then pointed it at the other sky ship. The vessel from Hamill Keep had almost caught up to them, even though they were slowly descending back down into the fog.
“Specula Fulsi,.”
The light was invisible, which Tiberius was glad of. He could still feel the light, still direct its path. He could even sense the power of the focused beam. That same power had cut through metal and stone when Tiberius had been taken prisoner in Devonyr. Now he was using it on the approaching ship’s bulbous sail.
The beam shot out and immediately burned through the other ship’s sail. The holes were tiny, and Tiberius moved the beam around in a circle in order to make the holes bigger. He wanted the ship to lose its ability to stay in the air, but he didn’t want to send it plunging down to the ground, either.
“There, that should do it,” Tiberius said.
“Do what?”
They were drifting into the clouds, and Tiberius smiled at his friend. Rafe hadn’t been able to see what Tiberius was doing, which meant that no one on their sky ship would know Tiberius was working magic. And it would take their adversaries a long time to discover the hole in their sail; meanwhile, they wouldn’t be able to keep their ship in the air.
“I burned a hole in their sail,” Tiberius said. “Not a big one, just enough to make them lose altitude.”
“Why not send them plummeting to the ground?” Rafe said. “They’re the enemy, after all. They won’t have mercy on us.”
“They’re pawns, Rafe. If we have to fight them, we will, but there’s no sense in killing them for no reason.”
“Might as well kill them,” Rafe said. “They won’t survive long in the blighted lands.”
“Maybe, but at least they’ll have a chance to live.”
Rafe sheathed his sword and grimaced. Tiberius understood that Rafe preferred a straight fight. He didn’t mind Tiberius using magic to help, but he was ready to exact some revenge and release some of the pent-up frustration he felt. Tiberius had just robbed him of that.
They were completely shrouded in the mist now, and Tiberius allowed himself to relax as the captain shouted orders to his men. They were altering course, and Tiberius was just about to tell the sky ship’s first officer that they could rise above the clouds again soon, but before he could say anything, a huge mass of flame came hurtling toward them. It streaked through mist, arcing over their stern and leaving a trail of oily black smoke.
Tiberius heard Olyva scream in terror, and the ship’s crew cried out at the sight, but the firebomb didn’t hit the ship. Instead it raced past, boiling through the mist and scorching the ship’s sails.
“They’re using fire bombs!” someone shouted.
“Tiberius?” Rafe said worriedly.
“I’m on it,” Ti said as another flaming bomb suddenly came into view.
“Scuti Incantatio,” he shouted, raising both hands as he lifted the shield spell.
The magic wasn’t difficult, but Tiberius missed his staff. The wooden shaft had no inherent magical power, but it acted like a lens, focusing his magical prowess. Unfortunately he’d lost the staff in his efforts to escape the mob in Hamill Keep.
The shield spell wasn’t intended to protect something as large as the sky ship. Tiberius had to maneuver the spell into the path of the fire bomb. It was a lot like hitting a small ball with a wooden stick. Tiberius had never been good at those types of games, but he managed to get the spell in place. The fire bomb exploded just before it hit the sky ship’s bulbous hylum sail. It exploded in midair, which only increased the size and destructiveness of the weapon. Fire bombs were made of brittle clay pots that were filled with oil mixed with wax. The lip of the pot was then sealed with a thick layer of wax. Into the wax an oil-soaked wick was adhered. The pots, depending on their size, could then be hurled by a catapult or trebuchet. The oil was very thick and highly flammable. When the bombs hit their targets, the clay pots would explode, and the oil was ignited from the flaming wick. The fire could be put out, but extinguishing the flames was difficult. Just one hit from the firebombs would destroy the Hamill Keep sky ship.
“We need to get out of here fast,” Rafe shouted.
“Flabra!” Tiberius shouted.
He didn’t try to keep the portal closed but rather let the wind come suddenly hurdling out of the magical realm and into the physical world. Tiberius was directing the wind to speed them forward when another firebomb appeared.
“There’s another one, Ti!” Rafe shouted.
“Scuti Incantatio,” Tiberius managed to say, flinging
up the shield just in time to keep the bomb from crashing into the sails and rigging along the sky ship’s port side.
“Should have sent the bastards crashing!” Rafe cried.
“Keep watching,” Tiberius said. “I can’t see them until they’re almost on top of us.”
As if to illustrate Tiberius’ point, a flaming bomb came streaking through the mist straight toward them. Tiberius threw up another shield, but this time the exploding oil fell straight down toward the stern of the ship. Tiberius had to swing his magical shield down under the falling flames and angle them away from the ship. The fire was close enough to the command deck that Tiberius felt the heat from the flames.
“That was too close,” Rafe said.
“Flabra!” Tiberius said, ignoring Rafe’s comment.
He could only hold the magical portal open for a moment before he had to cast his shield spell again. The fire bombs were becoming more frequent but less direct. Still, the Hamill Keep sky ship was so large that it was hard to miss. Tiberius’ wind spell made the ship lurch with each gust of wind Ti was able to conjure. Then suddenly the enemy ship appeared out of the darkness. It was almost directly behind them and still losing altitude, but the ship was employing a small catapult with deadly intent.
“They’re right behind us!” Rafe yelled.
“They must have guessed which way we would turn,” the captain cursed.
“We can’t outrun them,” the first officer said grimly.
“Then we’ll fight,” Rafe said with just as much determination.
But Tiberius had a plan. He summed the shielding spell.
“Scuti Incantatio,” he said, then pushed the shield forward with his mind.
The further away he tried to wield the spell, the more difficult it became. It was like holding a heavy weight with his arms extended away from his body, but he managed it. The next fire bomb was met by the invisible magical barrier just after it was launched. The force of the bomb impacting the shielding spell sent Tiberius flying backward as if he’d been kicked by a horse.
He landed hard on the rough wood planking of the command deck with the wind knocked out of his lungs. He struggled to suck in air, his body heaving and his head spinning. He heard the crew of the Hamill Keep sky ship cheering, but he had no idea what had happened. And worse still, if their attackers got off another fire bomb, he was helpless to stop it.
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