Seth had saved her with a pull of her hair, and now the boat was destroyed and washing away with the tide. They’d been anchored not far off the coast, and as burning and smoldering timber shattered around them and was pulled to the depths Skie was sure she’d never imagined drowning so close to land. It would be immensely less terrifying if she could see.

Her eyes had been burned by the evil child’s breath. Don’t go stumbling around like a pair of drunken fools, Talen had warned. Aww, it was almost like he cared mere moments after he’d tried to murder her. One thing was for sure, Skie didn’t know who Talen Shadowwalker was but she’d never forget his face. His open mouthed scream was the last thing she saw before she’d been engulfed in pain and the lights went dark.

Now blind and waist-deep in swirling ocean, Skie was unsure what to do. Seth had gone for his bag where his gauntlets lay. She tried to move against the tide and find where the water was coming in from. If she opened her eyes, light exploded with massive pain that reverberated through her skull. The once-demon swordswoman could vaguely tell where it came from and so she blindly stumbled. The seawater was at her ribs as she flailed over bodies and stools, more than once colliding with one of the rafters that was bowing and creaking under the weight of the deck above.

Somehow, she’d gotten out of the galley and leapt from the flooded bow of the ship into the water. Hints of light and blurry shoreline in her pained sight sort of guided her, but it was the waves that mostly carried her to shore. She washed into waist-deep waters and struggled through the sand that sucked at her feet until she could stumble coughing onto dry land. Brush and rock jutting from the coarse beach scratched and cut her hands.

Even though he’d gone to the dark below, Seth had made it to shore before she had. She heard him coughing not far away. She heard chains and thought they were his, the weapons he liked to pull from the gauntlets. It didn’t take long for her to realize that she was wrong as a collection of hands hauled her up and put her in irons. The sun was too bright for her damn burned eyes to be of much use, but she could smell a spiced cologne, hear the boots of many. More than one man was talking at her, at Seth, but she was so tired.

Eventually, it sunk in as they were cast into a dinghy and began to bob along waves towards a larger ship.

They were under arrest for the destruction of the Cudlitz Pride and the death of the crew on board. Bound for Terrinore, bodies burdened by saltwater and lost intentions, the pair had sought out Lornius forgetting that they weren’t the only predators circling the shores.