Long ago, a great valley had stretched from the Velaross Duchies to what would one day become Ironheartshaven. Blessed with gentle winters and abundant fields, this paradise had followed the Miryam River across much of eastern Lanasia until idly reaching the Barrier Ocean. This sanctuary had been second only to the Sylvai Vale in its beauty, its serenity, and its population. War never came to this place, not in all the countless centuries of the Sylvai Empire. This corner of Lanasia was safe from Uldra violence, Khepri incursion, or imperial politics. The people who came to this gentle valley had sought a life without struggle, and the land had blessed them.
But then the Disaster at Nassinalia had broken the world. History and legend, often at odds, agreed upon the death of the Hiltia Plain. The destruction of that great city, that pearl in the Sylvai Empire, had resonated even this far away, causing the entire world to rend itself. Mountains crumbled to dust and the angry sea rose. Communities endured days of unending upheaval. And then, when the inhabitants of the Hiltia Plain had come out, thinking the worst was done, the stars themselves plummeted from the sky.
Later generations would call it the Starfell Plague. The tiniest particle of starfell was enough to disrupt magic, and entire mountains of the metal rained down. Adepts went mad, destroying themselves with uncontrollable detonations of the Winds of Magic. The air itself caught fire, quenched only when the Barrier Ocean swept in, consuming the valley. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, were destroyed.
But their spirits remained. Faced with horrors beyond imagining, consumed by the very land that had sheltered so many generations of their families, the wrathful spirits of Hiltia Plain could not abandon their homes.
Two more sailors screamed in unthinking terror as they were lifted into the sky to vanish within the maelstrom of angry spirits. Rogan, having only just arrived on deck, made a desperate grab for one of the men, who cried out for his prince to save him, but in vain. The two men were pulled up and away, out into the darkness of the Hiltia Sea.
“They’re trying to tip us!” Tomas roared over the unceasing moans of the hungry dead.
The Blue Lady shuddered and leaned far to one side. Sailors and passengers made desperate scrambles for rigging or railing, but several more of the crew were sent screaming into the frothing mass of wailing dead. The sea was not angry. The wine-dark waters remained calm and unbroken, with the white-capped waves that had threatened their journey little more than idle ripples. The night sky was clear and bright. Stars sparkled across the evening dome like jewels in some great Uldra treasure horde. The moon was a silvery crescent, illuminating the horror assaulting them.
No, the rage vented against the Blue Lady’s hull came not from the sea, but from the dead. A hellish, unnatural, unliving light of blue and green and white had arisen from far beneath the waves. Even as Tomas had watched through the White Lady’s eyes, pinpoints of light had begun emerging from the cratered ruins beneath them. These had gathered, growing in intensity and wrath, until they had become an unliving tide that hurled itself against the ship.
“There’s no steering!” Ahmed roared over the wails of the angry dead. Tomas looked and saw the old sailor pulling futilely at the whipstaff to no effect. The knight ran over and added his own strength, with no more success. The Blue Lady no longer rested upon the water, but upon a sea of spirits. Without warning, the long steering device jerked in their hands and lashed forward, catching Ahmed against his shoulder and forcing the shipmaster to the deck.
Tomas lunged forward and pulled at the great lever. Ahmed was pinned to the deck, all breath was forced from his chest, and the knight thought he heard the crack of bone over the wail of death. Blood spurt from Ahmed’s mouth and nose and the sailor’s frantic jerking became frenzied. Tomas cursed and drew Legacy, swinging his father’s reforged blade in a great, overhead arc, breaking the whipstaff and freeing Ahmed.
The old sailor sucked in as much air as his broken chest could allow, but spit up another gob of thick blood in doing so. Tomas moved to his side, dragging Ahmed to the dubious safety of a railing.
“Well,” Ahmed grinned through his pain and bloody lips, “there’s sure as Underworld no steering now.”
“What can we do?” Tomas asked.
The old sailor’s expression was all the answer needed. Without the whipstaff, there was no steering the Blue Lady. They were utterly at the mercy of the sea and the hungry dead.
A scream pulled Tomas’s attention away from Ahmed. A tide of angry spirits had gathered around Aebreanna, swirling around the Sylva in a growing, howling vortex. Claw-like hands reached towards her, dragging angry blue gashes across her golden flesh. The spy’s leather vest and bracers offered no defense; the thrashing attacks of Hiltia’s spirits passed through metal, leather, and flesh with ease. Aebreanna thrashed about with her fists and feet. Any mortal opponent would have been brought low by her skill. Her attackers now, though, were not of the body, and her strikes passed without effect.
As Tomas watched, he saw a horrid darkness enter Aebreanna’s opalescent eyes, both the living one and the gemstone. It was, at first, only a shadow, perhaps a manifestation of her fear and frustration. This hardened, though, and the amber light of her magic and spirit was subsumed by the purplish haze of her wrath. A spectral claw drew across the unblemished side of her face, opening another blue gash and a line of her Sylvai blood. Aebreanna held a hand to this, tracing the newest disfigurement of her beautiful face, and hissed. Her right hand, profaned with streaks of her own blood, reached for the Darkshard.
“NO!” Beraht’s roar shattered the moaning gale of the horrid dead. The Uldra appeared as though from nowhere, landing upon the aft deck with such force that his impact cracked the timbers. In his hand, the warrior’s mighty waraxe blazed with the holy fury of the Allfather, arcs of divine wrath arcing amidst the offending spirits. With each contact, a howling ghost screamed anew in agony and retreated away from the Blue Lady, back into the safety of the wine-dark sea. Beraht swung his great waraxe in a massive sweep over his and Aebreanna’s heads, clearing the aft deck of all their attackers.
Tomas was forced back, staggering against the pure, holy energy thundering from Beraht and his divine weapon. Both he and Ahmed had to shield their eyes as the blessed light from the waraxe blazed with renewed fury, casting back the pitiful glow of the angry, hissing, moaning dead.
The light dimmed somewhat, enough for Tomas to blink away the spots in his vision. He saw Beraht kneeling beside his Sylva friend. “Stay with me,” he rumbled, his voice carrying the urgency, the undeniable force, of an avalanche.
Aebreanna hissed at him, but then bit back the venom. She blinked her eyes, both the one of her body and the gemstone, seeming to force the purplish darkness away. Amber opalescence looked up at her brutish Uldra friend, and she nodded, her hand moving away from the Darkshard.
The Blue Lady continued tilting to one side. Tomas looked out and saw the wrathful specters seething in their unliving tide. They were grabbing onto the ship’s hull, ripping at the wood and pulling with all their dead strength. As rigging came loose and dangled too low, the Hiltia spirits grabbed and pulled this as well.
“They’re trying to capsize us!” Ahmed barked. “They’ll pull us down!”
A sailor screamed as he lost his grip on the railing. He tumbled into the seething tide below. The spirits hungrily reached up, grabbing at the man even before he could reach the unliving waters. The doomed sailor could let out only one desperate, hopeless wail before he was pulled into the thrashing tide.
Another man also lost his grip, but Rogan was there, grabbing the sailor’s wrist and pulling. The prince already had two crewmen with him who were passing a rope amidst them. They were struggling to help others who cried out, even as more and more of their fellows lost their strength and went over, to be hatefully welcomed by the hungry dead. Tomas looked to his mentor, who looked back. Teacher and apprentice shared a glance that spoke of a hopeless fight.
Tomas’s attention was drawn up, into the thrashing maze of rigging. He saw Sarah dancing amidst the unstable ropes and platforms. She leapt from one impossible perch to another, slashing her short, long-handled blades at the howling dead each time they tried to grab another sailor. The Archaeknight’s flaming hair danced with the same grace and fluidity as did Sarah herself, and glowed in the failing light of the dying braziers. As Tomas watched, she leapt from sailor to sailor, disrupting the attacks against them and guiding ropes to each hand. The rescued men used these bits of rigging to swing to more secure spots of temporary safety. Sarah never hesitated, never paused, as she herded the crew together.
One glance, though, one quick tactical assessment told Tomas that all Sarah’s work was futile. Even as she gathered a group of five sailors, the Blue Lady shuddered against the ceaseless assault by the Hiltia spirits and shook further to the side. Those five men were sent screaming into the moaning tides. Sarah did not let the hopelessness of her work stop or even slow her. She kept leaping, kept struggling to save as many as she could.
“How can we save the ship?” Tomas demanded. The knight looked to Ahmed, whose eyes went to the broken whipstaff, the splintering mast, the collapsing rigging. More and more screams came from doomed men being pulled down to join the horde of wrathful dead. Ahmed’s gaze became increasingly desperate, increasingly hopeless, as he tried to force from his mind some way to save his beloved Blue Lady, and perhaps even themselves.
A column of blue and green and white erupted beside the aft deck and several spirits lashed out towards Tomas and Ahmed. Before the knight could even raise Legacy, though, Xaemus appeared from the shadows. He spun Queltuasor, his horrid, double-bladed weapon, and swept the ghosts away. The spirits, for all their moaning need to drag new souls to join them, feared Queltuasor. They flinched away from the noxious blades, and screamed in agony upon any contact. Xaemus leapt with much the same grace Sarah and Aebreanna often displayed in combat, but with far more lethality. His hood was thrown back and his colorless hair reflected the horrid glow of the wrathful dead. His pale flesh had taken on the same color as the spirits, and he moved amongst them without fear of their claws. Only his eyes of burning blood stood against the undead light assaulting them, and they flashed with a cold hunger. The Xeshlin assassin was an instrument of Death, having not one shred of mercy or even hesitation, and his whirlwind of spinning limbs and blades cleared the immediate area of any threat.
Xaemus spun amidst the attacking spirits, dodging and striking in a constant whirl of controlled violence. For all his skill, though, for all his impossible will and deadly training, no warrior could possibly stand alone against that unending tide of ethereal vengeance. The spirits imprisoned within the Hiltia Sea reached for his arms, and he cut them away. The creatures tried to claw at his covered face, but he ducked and spun and slashed. The undead grabbed at his legs, and Xaemus flipped and rolled out of their clutches. The assassin fought on, but his enemy were without number.
First one, then another, and still another clawed, spiritual set of talons reached his body. The Xeshlin did not scream as his clothes were ripped and his colorless flesh turned blue and then red. Xeamus did not call out as more and more of their attacks reached him, overwhelming his speed and skill. Not until a dozen ghostly claws grabbed at his legs and pulled did the assassin cry out as his eyes of burning blood looked out and saw that they were dragging him towards the hungry sea.
“No!” the Xeshlin screamed in mortal terror.
“No,” Tomas echoed. He sheathed Legacy and opened himself to the Wind of Fate. He saw that this was Xaemus’s destined end, that he would die with his lungs full of seawater, crushed by the impossible weight of the ocean. Even as much as the Hiltia spirits were dragging the Xeshlin towards his watery grave, so too was Fate pulling him. Tomas rebuffed that. He forced his will through the Wind, scattering the particles of certainty until they became once more only possibility.
And then Sarah was there. Her short blades with their long handles flashed in the spectral light of the Hiltia spirits. She slashed at the claws, dispersed the attacking ghosts, even if only for a moment. She grabbed Xaemus’s outstretched hand and, together, the warriors briefly joined their incredible dexterity to leap and spin away from the roaring hunger of the curse forever upon the Hiltia Sea. Sarah and Xaemus threw themselves against the railing upon which Tomas leaned, breathing their moment of rest and looking at one another.
Xaemus did not blink his eyes of burning blood. He only regarded Sarah. He said nothing to the warrior who had every reason to hate him, to rejoice at his watery death, but had instead saved his life. The assassin nodded to her, and she nodded back. “The ship is lost,” he said to Tomas and Ahmed. “As are we if we do not find an escape.”
“Can you get us out?” Tomas asked as he tore Legacy from its scabbard and slashed at a pair of howling faces lunging at Ahmed. “That shadow trick of yours?”
The assassin shook his head, swirling Queltuasor at more ghosts. “I walk the Shadows alone.”
“Aebreanna?” Tomas asked, continuing his defensive strikes at the attacking spirits.
The Sylva shook her head, not even able to open her eyes. She was cradling her temples, kneeling and whispering prayers to the Lady of Light while Beraht stood over her, protecting her. All Aebreanna’s effort and will were dedicated to holding off the purplish wrath that wanted nothing more than to be unleashed.
Tomas looked to Beraht. “Can you open us a path to shore? Can we take the boats?”
“No,” the Uldra grunted. Another wave of spirits reared up to attack Aebreanna, seemingly focused upon her, rather than her mountainous protector. Beraht scattered them with his holy waraxe. The wave, however, immediately began reforming from another direction to resume their hungry lunges for Aebreanna.
You can dispel them, Alexia’s advice whispered into his mind.
“How?” he demanded, swinging Legacy at a howling spirit that was drawing close. The blueish light became like vapor and dispersed amongst the howling gale of spiteful ghosts, only to move away from the Blue Lady, reforming as it went.
Call upon the Wind of Death, Alexia insisted.
“Cover me!” Tomas barked to Xaemus and Sarah. The pair nodded and stood over both the knight and Ahmed, slashing at any of the wrathful spirits that tried to draw close.
Tomas breathed deep and closed his eyes. He once more sheathed Legacy. The nascent sorcerer did not have to reach out to the Wind of Death; the White Lady knew his heart and welcomed his presence. Tomas opened his eyes and looked not with those mundane orbs through which most people viewed their world, but through the compassionate gaze of Death Herself. He saw through the deadly illusion of the wraith storm. He saw the pinpricks of light, the miniscule shreds of souls, leftover and forever trapped by the horrific nature of their deaths. Tomas looked about, past the great cliffs bordering the Hiltia Sea. He saw the massive crater in which the Uldra had built Ctharaq Turin. The cursed fortress, a beacon of evil within the Winds of Magic, was a stain of treachery and slaughter still potent after a thousand years. Tomas looked down, through and past the Blue Lady’s hull. The White Lady’s gaze illuminated the horrid patchwork of craters created by the Starfell Plague. Through Her, Tomas saw the ruins of homes, temples, farms, workshops, and theatres. He saw the devastation left behind by the great cataclysm following the Disaster at Nassinalia. Most importantly, the White Lady revealed the faint lines, the tethers connecting each soul to its place of death, forever bound and forever eager to force others to join in their imprisonment.
“I see it,” Tomas whispered. “I see what’s holding them.”
That is their curse, Alexia instructed. They died in pain and anguish, in horror and sorrow. The Starfell Plague disrupted even the Wind of Death, so that the White Lady could not grant Her mercy to its victims. They are forever bound by the starfell and their horrid Fates.
“I can see it!” Tomas exulted.
“Can you dispel them?” Xaemus hissed as he forced away another wave of hateful dead.
“Can you free them?” Sarah asked, an almost perfect mirror to the Xeshlin, just as dexterous, just as inflexible, and just as undefeatable.
“Just send them away!” Aebreanna insisted. She was still sheltering under Beraht as the mountainous Uldra used the holy arcs of his faith to hold back the vengeful spirits.
Feel the binds holding these poor souls, Alexia said. Reach out to them.
Tomas focused. He reached out, through the Wind of Death, calling on the White Lady’s aid to free these cursed souls trapped in their unending torment. He grasped one of the tethers and wrenched at it. He pulled and sawed and chewed. He and the White Lady worked with the full force of his mind and Her will to break or sever that hateful curse. The spirit at the end of the tether writhed in agony, feeling the sundering of its very soul. The starfell to which it was anchored was impervious even to Death. The wraith’s hateful face, no more than a shadow within the spiritual gale thrashing and pulling against the Blue Lady, turned to Tomas in supplication. The fledgling death mage could not break the line. He could not free the soul.
“I can’t!” he panted, collapsing back onto the deck. “I can’t free them! The curse… the starfell… it’s all too strong!”
“Can you return them?” Aebreanna yelled. “As the Xeshlin said, can you drive them back into the sea?”
Tomas glanced up at Xaemus, and the assassin returned his grim look. Even without his own magic, still Tomas thought the outcast of Davenor understood what was being suggested. “Damn,” the knight swore and called once more upon the Wind of Death. The White Lady answered, and the sorcerer’s magic swelled. “How do I do it?” he whispered to Alexia.
She guided him. Not bothering with words, the fallen matriarch of House Calonar let her knowledge flow into Tomas’s mind. More than facts, more than experience or simple data, she shared with her young student the truth of what he must do, no matter how distasteful.
Tomas swore again and acted. He called upon the White Lady, and She filled him with all the power of the Wind of Death. The sorcerer began channeling that magic into the tethers, binding those unfortunate souls to the depths of the Hiltia Sea. He strengthened the curse, empowered it, so that the punishment of the innocent people, caught in a disaster beyond their knowledge or control, was made all the more binding.
The howls of the vengeful dead increased in their ferocity. They sensed what he was doing. They felt their curse pulling at them with renewed power. They clawed at the Blue Lady, tearing great chunks from her hull. They pulled at the loose rigging, forcing her further to the side until the sea crashed over the ship’s side and water began filling the lower decks.
A chorus of screaming filled the air, nearly drowning out the terrible moaning and shrieking of the cursed dead. Sailors were sent spinning and tumbling, shrieking in terror as they fell and were swallowed by the Hiltia Sea. Rogan cursed, grabbing at screaming men as they tumbled to their deaths. Ahmed leapt from the aft deck, able to grab at handholds and footholds without looking, as though the Blue Lady herself kept the captain secure. Both men worked frantically, and yet with an unbreakable determination. They saved many, though most were lost.
The cursed souls of the Hiltia Sea thrashed at Tomas, abandoning their attacks against the others and focusing on this sorcerer who was worsening their curse. He was only vaguely aware of Sarah and Xaemus standing above him, using their enchanted weapons and mystical skill to defend Tomas as he desperately sought to save those still living.
With a final great effort, the sorcerer channeled all the power of the Wind of Death through his fragile body and into the tethers. The wrathful ghosts howled in despair and were pulled down, grasping and clawing for any purchase, but finding none. The tragic, cursed souls of the Hiltia Valley were pulled back into their cold, watery graves, now bound even tighter by an empowered curse.
Slowly, the Blue Lady righted herself. The sleek ship rolled back, away from the cold sea and leveled herself. The rigging and sails hung limply. The survivors breathed, shocked that they could still draw breath. The wails of the cursed dead faded beneath the water until they were forever silenced. The few sailors who survived, a paltry handful of the ship’s company, gasped for breath and looked at one another. Aebreanna buried her beautiful face against Beraht, mystically aware of what Tomas had been forced to do, and the horrid temptation that still called to her from the small of her back. The Uldra glanced down at his Sylva friend, but could say nothing, only put a massive hand on her shoulders in useless comfort. On the main deck, Rogan and Ahmed untangled themselves from rigging and wreckage, and gave aid to those sailors too weak, too injured, or too shocked to free themselves. Sarah and Xaemus looked at each other and grimly nodded, both letting their weapons fall to rest. The world paused a moment, giving them one brief second of peace.
And then, the approaching storm shattered the sky with lightning.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Rogan snarled.
The first great wave crashed into the Blue Lady, jarring those aboard with such force that most were thrown to the deck. Seawater lunged over the railings, soaking and freezing every body it pummeled. The braziers were extinguished, plunging the desperate voyagers into darkness broken only by the angry flashes of lightning. The furious wind made a mockery of the gale the attacking spirits had unleashed. The ship was thrust first this way, then that, as she was made a helpless toy in the hands of an angry sea.
A great surge of water crashed over the deck of the Blue Lady, sending several crewmen to their screaming deaths. Tomas’s legs were pulled out from under him as the surf took hold of him and pulled. The knight scrambled for anything, but the water was determined. The retreating sea dragged him across the deck and towards the railing. Slipping over, Tomas made a last, desperate grab, clutching to the Blue Lady with all his strength. Below, the angry sea thrashed and growled, a predator eager for his body and soul. Tomas tried to scream for help, tried to call upon any of his friends, but the raging storm swallowed his pleas. His fingers slipped, and he felt himself fall.
A hand was there. Gripping with impossible strength and unyielding determination, a single hand caught him and kept him from the growling waves. Tomas looked up and saw eyes of burning blood. Xaemus had grabbed him and was keeping him from a crushing death beneath the Hiltia Sea. The Xeshlin pulled, but could only keep Tomas from descending further, and even started to slip himself.
“Let go!” Tomas roared. Xaemus was losing his own footing in his determination to deny the storm its victim.
The assassin did not let go, though, but tightened his grip even further. He was pulled against the railing, and the scrambling of his boots upon the deck became increasingly desperate. Still, he refused to let go.
But then Sarah arrived. The Archaeknight reached over and added her strength to the Xeshlin’s. Together, they pulled, heaving Tomas back onto the relative safety of the Blue Lady. “Thanks,” the knight said to them both, but held his gaze with that of Xeamus. He sensed that, for all his surprise at the assassin’s help, the Xeshlin was perhaps even more surprised.
“We’ve got to get control!” Rogan roared over the crash of thunder and the roar of the rising water.
Ahmed was cursing orders to his surviving crew. The old sailor had one hand against his ribs, yet the pain and the blood of his obvious wounds did nothing to slow him. He worked with his few remaining sailors, desperately pulling at whatever rigging still functioned and trying to help their Blue Lady combat this newest attacker. “The whipstaff’s broken!” Ahmed cried. “We’ve got to get below the half deck to the tiller! But without the lever, we’ll need a dozen men to steer her!”
“Or one Uldra!” Beraht declared, heading for the stairs.
“Ahmed!” Aebreanna cried, pointing out from the ship towards the jagged coast they had been following. The old sailor looked, and his roaring curses found even greater heat.
The coastline was now terrifyingly close and growing closer. Everyone aboard could see an angry white tide crashing against jagged rocks, seeming like the salivating fangs of a titanic predator. An impossible cliff rose so high it was lost in the gathering clouds, looming over them in evil anticipation. Bits of ships, broken hulls, torn sails, and the remains of unlucky travelers adorned the vertical graveyard like the bits of old prey, only half devoured. The sea crashed against the Blue Lady again and again, forcing her ever closer to those hungry cliffs.
“The storm’s pushing us in!” Ahmed roared to Beraht. “You’ve got to turn us away!”
There was then a horrid grinding. Splintering wood and screeching iron wailed the imminent death of the Blue Lady. The entire ship rocked again and shuddered and jerked as stony claws seemed to reach up from beneath the angry waves and rip at the vessel. Xaemus danced to the right edge of the aft deck, but leapt away as a large piece of it was torn away, shattering into wreckage amidst the whitecapped waves. “The rudder is no more!” the Xeshlin announced, fear for the first time making itself known in his shadowy voice.
“There’s a way!” Ahmed roared over the wind and the angry storm. “My Lady will not fall to some gale!” He pointed to the opposite side of the ship, further ahead than the rudder had been. “The whipstaff was connected to two levers! There’s a second rudder!” He looked to Beraht. “If you can turn us away from the cliffs, we have a chance!”
The Uldra nodded and made to go, but another horrid lurch of the ship sent him stumbling down the stairs.
“This isn’t right,” Tomas whispered. “This is too much.” A terrible thought occurred, one from which, in the silence of their shared mind, both he and Alexia recoiled. The nascent sorcerer closed his eyes and breathed, opening his mind once more. This time, however, he did not call out to the Wind of Death. Instead, he made himself open and welcoming to the Wind of Fate.
Tomas saw the truth. All the infinite grains of destiny floated through the Wind of Fate. The sorcerer did not reach out to them, knowing they would scatter at his slightest touch. Instead, he only held open his mystical senses, stroking Fate as he would the coat of a timid horse, ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. He beheld the sparkling points and saw the subtle differences between possibility and inevitability. He perceived, if only in the most basic way, the separation between what might be and what must be. And through that, within the glittering maelstrom of all possible futures, he saw a face, terrified and determined.
“It’s Fak’Har!” the sorcerer roared over the wind.
“What?” Sarah called back.
“The shipwreck! He’s forcing this!”
Aebreanna moved towards Tomas, but stumbled as another angry wave shoved the Blue Lady closer to those murderous cliffs. She briefly lost her footing, but managed to roll across the aft deck into Tomas’s lap. “You are Fatetouched!” she reminded him. “You can change it!”
Tomas looked about through the Wind of Fate. He saw both he and Aebreanna combining their mystical power to combat the storm, and he saw them both fall into the angry sea. He saw them divide their efforts, but swept together to die in the cold water. Tomas saw Ahmed order them to the boats, and he saw bodies swallowed into the waves. The sorcerer saw their captain go down with his ship, to be followed by them all. Tomas saw Beraht below the half deck, struggling to steer according to Ahmed’s shouted commands, only for the Blue Lady to be torn apart, her shattered body crushed against the cliffs. He saw the Uldra pinned and drowning, then crushed, then starving when trapped on a lone outcropping of rock. Tomas desperately searched across the Wind of Fate for any hope, any possible chance. He saw Rogan broken by a falling mast. He saw Xaemus once more swallowed by the waves. He saw Sarah dying alone on the cliff, eaten by carrion birds. He searched and probed a thousand, thousand possibilities, but found nothing but the White Lady’s welcoming embrace.
Then, an impossible idea occurred. Tomas looked away from the angry sea and towards the cursed, murderous coast beneath the ruins of Ctharaq Turin. “We’re going to wreck!” he declared. The sorcerer leaned over the rail and shouted to Beraht. “No matter what, we’re going into the cliffs! We have to control where! Turn us into the cliffs!”
“Kid!” Rogan shouted. “Have you lost your-” his words were swallowed by another wave crashing onto the ship.
Beraht looked to Tomas for only a single heartbeat. Then, the Uldra nodded and went below. Tomas felt, more than heard or saw, when the great warrior took hold of the second rudder and pulled. The Blue Lady shuddered and heaved. She was dying, and the ship seemed to know this. And yet, amidst her death, the flagship of House Calonar refused to yield. With Beraht lending all his mountainous strength to her aid, the noble Blue Lady turned and shot ahead. She ignored the savage attacks by the angry sea. She shrugged away the brutal strikes from the vicious storm. She held to her course, desperate to save as many of her crew and passengers as she could before she must fall.
“All hands!” Ahmed roared, giving voice to his final command as captain of the Blue Lady. “Brace for impact!”