Page 144 of Daughter of the Dark Sea

“Just admit it.”

“Aryn,” Erick warned.What was that?Why were they acting so weird?

Waves crested in the sea as she pushed to her feet on the rocking pinnace. The ocean breeze stirred into a gust, and she wiped her hair from her face so she could assault the males with her deathly glare.

“Admit what?”

“Aryn.”

“It’s over, Erick,” Aryn turned to him, his golden eyes burning as bright as the sun. “It’sallover. Sam is a prisoner, and we’re fugitives, exiled from the empire. The war is returning. It’s happening all overagain.She needs to know. She needs to remember. We need herback.”

Kora’s jaw dropped with astonishment.

“No, it’s too soon. I can’t.” Erick’s glacial presence surfaced, but beneath, panic lingered in the flare of his eyes.

“We’ve waited years.I’vewaited years! You knew you had to let go of her someday.”

“What’s going on!” Kora waved her arms. “I exist! I’m right here! Stop talking about me like I’m nothing! I deserve to know what’s going on.”

“Kora,” Erick took one of her hands, his breathing unsteady, his warm, rough skin scraping over her palm. “It’s about your past. We need to tell you—”

A foghorn cut off his words, blaring across the horizon, and Kora gasped, her body trembling at the sound. Sheknewthat sound.

They all turned to the west as a second foghorn blasted through the skies.

White sails. Moonstone gems. A Pegasus figurehead.

“No, no, no . . .” She stumbled back into the sailing mast as an entire fleet of Galen warships rapidly sailed across the ocean, faster than any ship she’d seen—faster than her ownHell’s Serpent. Erick blanched, and he curled over, vomiting. Aryn remained silent, assessing the formation of the warships, his lips curving.

Panic seized Kora, freezing her solid as the warships headed directly for them. They wereimpossiblyfast.

No, no, no. Not now.

Another horn ruptured her ears, and she twisted her head to the north, in the direction of the sound.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Arynlaughedout loud, and she was sure sailor’s mania was settling in.

A massive fleet of majestic mahogany ships—with green sails branded with the golden four-pointed insignia—sailed in from the north. Every second that passed, the closer the two fleets converged.

And they were right in the middle.

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Erick’s head whipped back and forth between the two fleets as they advanced, and Kora peeled away from the small mast, her heart erratically thumping beneath her ribs. They had to move quickly, or risk being ripped apart by the hull of one of the warships that would easily tear through the pinnace.

They needed to choose the lesser of two evils.

“You both need to choose now! Which ship will we survive on?” She raised her hands.

“What?” Erick and Aryn echoed.

“Choose now—Galen or Talmon.”

It was like asking which way they would like to die.

“Talmon!” Erick barked. She supposed their chances of survival wereslightlybetter there—if not highly minimal. Better to face tyrants than blood-thirsty, mindless savages.

Aryn glared at him viciously, but his ire was quickly replaced with shock. Light bloomed from Kora’s hands, trailing up her arms like coils, and she gritted her teeth as the oceanwater pooled onto the pinnace, circling up their legs like a second skin. Resistance pushed back, and she trembled as she delved into her slumbering well of power, past an unknown barrier.