Page 78 of Daughter of the Dark Sea

The rebels were close by—close by where? She was here, and nowhere else.

“No—wait!” She couldn’t be left alone here. In this emptiness. Kora surged, delving deep into herself, beckoning that slumbering beast in a panic. “Don’t leave me!” she begged.

“I’m always here with you . . .”

The voice had a hint of sadness. It sounded so familiar, and its melancholy tone caused sorrow, guilt . . . shame to rise within her. Why did she feel so sad?

She tugged on the faint, lingering thread of the voice. Pushing herself to follow it through the ether. She visualised it as a burning, bright, white unbreakable string, and the harder she tugged, the more her water beast growled, scratching at the walls to be released.

The brightest blue light shone from her, taking the form of a rippling, water humanoid. The voice gasped in response, and she blinked as the thread shone brighter, almost blinding her.

“Remember.”

“I don’t remember,” Kora’s voice cracked. “I can’t remember you!”

She halted at her own words. Who was this voice? How did she even know that, at the end of the voice, there was a person to remember? Someone from her past, that was potentially alive? Or was the void playing tricks on her, haunting her with a ghost of her broken memory?

Why was it trying to force her to remember? Her past was forgotten. Gone. Inconsequential. She would never retain her memories. She needed to focus on her life of—wait. What was her life? Where was she? How did she get here?

“Who are you? Please tell me.” Her liquid form bubbled from the overwhelming emotions roiling within her. “Where am I?”

“Remember, and you’ll be set free . . .”

A force swept towards her, propelling her away from the white, burning lifeline she desperately clung to. Her water form dissolved, and she was once again a floating existence in the plain of the void. There was no sound, no air, no light. Nothing but inky, black darkness, as thick as tar.

And the enveloping scent of rain after a storm . . . and the sleek metal of weapons.

“Kora!”

She knew that voice.

“Kora,wake up!”

Her body violently shook as large hands bit into her flesh, and with a groan, her eyes fluttered open to Blake knelt over her, shaking her shoulders, his face panicked.

“Wake up!” he snapped again. His emerald eyes blazed.

“I’m awake!” Her voice came out raspy as she shoved him off.

Her face stung, and her body was stiff . . . and damp. She squinted against the blaring sun filtering through the flap of her tent. The air was already warm, and her short hair was plastered to her scalp with sweat.

“It’s the morning? Why did no one wake me for my watch?”

She stepped out of the tent. The camp had been packed away, the fire doused, and a large ship, with grand purple sails listed on the glittering, cold-blue ocean in the distance.

“What the fuck is that?” Lethality dripped from her.

“The royal ship already arrived,” Blake huffed as he began breaking down her tent with quick precision. “We couldn’t wake you up. You slept through the whole night. I thought maybe you needed rest,” he paused. “But then you slept through breakfast, and through our early morning scouts. It wasn’t until I saw the sails that I came in to wake you.” A sharp exhale followed. “I even slapped you. Nothing was waking you up!”

Kora pivoted to regard him. The right side of her face burned, laced with a stinging sensation, and she fingered her cheek.

“I guess I needed some rest . . .” Shock vibrated through her from her smarting cheek down to her feet. Blake hadslappedher.

“You guess?” His face was stricken. “I thought you were dead at one point!”

She was taken aback by the quiver in his voice. Concern bared down on his shoulders, and his muscles tensed through his clothes. She reached for him, but quickly reared back as heavy footsteps approached. Samuel strode down from the palm trees lining the desert, with a bronze and brass spyglass in one hand, his face hardened like a boulder.

“I’m fine,” she replied, gesturing to herself. Blake ran his sharp gaze over her with a frank assessment. It was so eerily similar to Erick’s observant eyes it made her shudder.