Page 115 of The Primal of Blood and Bone (Blood and Ash #6)

“Please. That’s not necessary,” I said, still keeping a hand on Kieran while making a mental note to get a message to all the guards and soldiers, telling them to knock off the bowing thing. “Especially not now.”

They halted and stared at us with open mouths.

Casteel strode forward and glanced down at Kieran. “Are you okay?”

Kieran dragged in a lungful of air. “I don’t think I should’ve eaten that biscuit.” He slowly straightened and turned to me. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“Sorry?”

“You do not sound even remotely sorry.” He wiped a fine sheen of sweat from his forehead.

“Walking would’ve taken too long,” I reasoned. “And you’re fine. Still in one piece.”

“It feels like my stomach is still sitting on the balcony.”

Casteel snorted and turned to the two guards. “Can you tell us what is happening?”

“A ship went down in the bay, Your Majesty,” the guard I nearly shadowstepped on answered.

“That’s it?” Kieran asked, stretching his neck from side to side.

“That’s all we know,” the guard said.

“That can’t be it.” I turned toward the sea. “We all felt it. Can still feel it.”

“I’m going to run ahead and see what I can find out,” Kieran said. “And I’m going to use the two legs the gods gave me.”

I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“We will argue about that later.”

Casteel smirked. “I think you’ve traumatized him.”

“Possibly.”

“Come on,” he said, and we began walking toward the section of the Rise that overlooked Lowertown and the Stroud Sea. “Do you have any idea what we’re feeling?”

I shook my head. “Just that something’s here that shouldn’t be.”

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Kolis?”

“I…I don’t think so,” I said. “We would feel him if he were here.”

“Here,” Casteel said.

I looked down to see the hair tie he’d slipped around his wrist earlier. “Thank you,” I said, taking it.

He winked.

Grinning, I gathered my hair, twisted it the best I could, and secured it with the tie just below the crown of my head. I had no idea how long it would last as several shorter strands had already slipped free, but I didn’t have time to braid the length.

We reached the westernmost section of the Rise.

I looked down at the guards and soldiers perched on the parapets, each crossbow loaded with three arrows.

The only difference was what they wore. The guards wore black, and the soldiers donned gold and silver armor.

None paid us any attention; their focus was on the dark sea.

My gaze followed theirs as the briny wind tossed my hair over my face.

“Fucking gods,” Casteel muttered at the same moment I saw what they were all staring at.

A merchant ship slowly sank beneath the eerily still water of the bay.

“What could’ve caused that?” I whispered.

“No idea.” Casteel’s stare lifted to the ships farther out, where men struggled against the wind to turn the sails.

I looked down. The streets of Lowertown were packed with mortals and guards.

Many stood near the piers while others hurried among the wagons of wares offloaded from the ships at the port.

The southern section of Lowertown, closest to the area of the bay where the vessel had sunk, wasn’t visible from where we stood, but I imagined the streets there were filled, too.

“Cas!”

We turned at the sound of Kieran’s voice. He was running toward us, Naill behind him. Naill pulled back, tension tightening the corners of his mouth as he turned to Casteel. “There’s something in the water.”

That vague yet creepy statement sent a chill down my spine. I turned back to the sea. The water was still calm, and there wasn’t a single soul in it. Whoever had been on that ship had either made it to land or ended up in a watery grave.

I had a sinking feeling it was the latter given some of the things I’d felt.

“Do we have any details on what’s out there?” Casteel asked.

“They…” Naill inhaled, looking out at the sea. “No one saw what did that to the ship.” He jerked his chin toward the barely visible vessel. “But something was seen in the water. And, honest to gods, I don’t think you’re going to believe it.”

“Try me,” Casteel stated.

“Ceeren.”

My head whipped around. “What?”

“Yeah.” Naill’s grip tightened around the hilt of his sword. “Several dockworkers said they saw…creatures that were part mortal and part fish in the water right before the ship was attacked. Sounds like ceeren to me.”

I turned to Casteel and Kieran.

“The ceeren are extinct,” Casteel stated. “They were killed off before the war when Saion went to sleep.”

The nape of my neck tingled as I faced the sea. “The ceeren descended from the gods.” My fingers pressed into the stone of the Rise as I watched some dinghies drifting toward the area where the ship was last seen, the men on the wooden boats peering into the water. “And the gods are awake.”

“Fuck,” Kieran muttered. “Let’s hope they were just seeing…dolphins.”

We could hope that, but the three of us knew better. We could still feel the unnaturalness in the air.

Casteel leaned against the stone beside me. “Where is Emil?”

The sunlight vanished instantly, drawing our gazes upward to see thick, heavy, inky clouds suddenly appear along the horizon. Their edges didn’t wisp or shift with the wind whipping along Wayfair’s ivory walls. They remained eerily rigid as they slid across the sky.

“That can’t be good,” Casteel commented.

Stepping back, I focused on the clouds as they unfurled, seeping across the sky like spilled ink.

I turned as the shadow fell upon the terracotta roofs of homes and businesses, most stacked upon one another with tight, winding alleys between them.

The Garden District dimmed, as did the area farther east, toward the Cliffs of Sorrow.

The Shadow Temple loomed like a dark void, sucking in any and all light.

“Godsdamn it,” muttered Casteel, snapping my gaze to him. He was staring toward the base of the rocky area where Stonehill had been built. “He’s supposed to be in the stables.”

Finding the tall, sandy-brown-haired Malik on the streets below took me a second. He stood with two soldiers near the narrow inlet that cut through Wayfair’s grounds, between the castle and the manor.

Naill peered over the ledge. “He’s probably trying to figure out what’s going on.” He leaned out and shouted Malik’s name.

Down below, Malik’s head cranked around. He stepped away from the soldiers, his brows furrowing and then smoothing out when he saw us. His lips moved, but I didn’t get a chance to hear what he said.

Shouts erupted from the southern border of Lowertown—shouts that quickly turned to screams, causing my heart to lurch.

A sound like thunder came from below, rising up from the businesses and cramped apartments that crowded Lowertown. I leaned out, squinting. The streets looked alive, except they weren’t. It was a mass of—

Fear slammed into me, causing me to jerk back as a horde of people barreled through the narrow streets, some on foot and others on horseback or in carriages.

Oh, gods.

Horror seized me as they pressed forward, pushing and falling, clamoring overtop one another as they ran—away from the southern border of Lowertown and the harbor, toward higher ground and Wayfair.

Soldiers spilled from the inner Rise gates, shouting orders and trying to calm the people and restore some semblance of order, but they ended up swallowed in the panic.

The cries of pain were sharp, and I flinched as I backed away from the disaster unfolding on the streets.

Eather hummed inside me, pulsing intently.

Panic and fear rose, bearing down on me. Red-hot pain scraped my senses—

Casteel was suddenly by my side, clasping my cheeks, his face inches from mine. “Poppy, you need to shut it down.”

“I know.” My breath was thin and pained as I flinched at the deeper, aching pulse I now knew was a harbinger of death.

I struggled to breathe around the onslaught and not cave to what the essence demanded—to intervene and snatch back the lives lost. It hadn’t even been this intense while I’d been in the Continents.

The wind howled, tugging at the strands of my hair and whipping them around our faces as I closed my eyes, blocking out the chaos below.

I quickly erected a wall in my mind, piling stone upon stone until it was taller than any Rise.

Until the panic and fear, the stinging bite of pain, and the ache of souls leaving bodies faded away, and the need to bring them back went with it.

Mouth dry, I opened my eyes. Casteel stared down at me. A silver-streaked gold gaze searched mine. “You good?”

I nodded, dragging in more air.

“Need to hear you say it.”

“I am,” I said, my voice hoarse.

“Good.” His gaze held mine for a second longer, and then his hands slipped away.

Feeling a bit steadier, I turned back to the scene below. The mass of people was getting closer to the area below us, where the land narrowed.

“Look.” Naill pointed to the dinghies in the bay.

One of the wooden boats had drifted farther away from the other two and was now over the area where the ship had sunk. Men slowly stood as they stared into the water.

Everything happened within seconds. The men…gods, they had no chance.

The sharp crack of splintering wood rang out, and the boat shattered beneath them, sucking the men under the surface of the still water as if the sea had swallowed them whole.

The frantic paddling of the other men in the second boat ended as the entire vessel was dragged under, as well.

My gaze flew to the third boat as I summoned the eather.

The essence rushed to the surface as my will formed—

The dinghy disappeared.

There one second and then gone . No shouts. No screams. Not even a single paddle or splinter of wood floated in the water.

“What the fuck?” growled Kieran.

The flood of people reached the area below as Casteel twisted to the ledge, searching for his brother. I found him near the inlet—