Page 38

HENRIK

Einar, a shade away from death, hauled Henrik onto the sand with both hands. Malcolm, with only one arm and teeth gritted, pulled him farther from the ledge. Henrik dropped to the inky earth, breathing deep.

The island shredded itself. Sand collapsed. Trees toppled. Branches hurtling by threatened to slice open his cheek. The three of them scrambled away from the widening whirlpool lip, twice as big as before. All wind slipped into its center as the ground drew to a single point of collapse where Oliver and the vittra had disappeared.

Over the shrieking wind, Henrik shouted, “We need to get to the beach!”

Einar gestured to the side. “We need to take her!”

Henrik’s stomach sank.

“Her?”

Einar grimaced. “Britt.”

Malcolm and Einar tripped toward a tree away from the whirlpool, one without signs of uprooting. He caught a glimpse of two ankles and the realization made his blood run cold.

“Shite!” he shouted. “What was she thinking?”

Malcolm stumbled behind them, a distinctly greenish hue around the edge of his cheeks. One arm lay mangled at his side, white chunks of bone sliding out of the edge of perforated skin. He held it close, but bits of dark earth and blood sprinkled it. The glaze in his wide eyes spoke to shock, but at least he stayed upright.

Henrik put a hand on his uninjured shoulder. “Can you run?”

Malcolm grimaced, nodded.

Henrik ran a hand up Britt’s invisible leg and to her shoulders. Her body shook with dangerous intensity. He scooped her into his arms. Her ice-cold skin, but feverish head, permeated the slime thickening his clothes.

How much venom had Denerfen injected?

Einar stood at Malcolm’s uninjured side, an arm around his waist. His already swollen eye had doubled in both size and bruising. He’d be lucky to keep the eye. Malcolm cradled the broken arm to his chest, wrapped his other arm around Einar’s shoulders, and gritted his teeth.

They plunged into the tearing jungle, which clawed at them with whipping vines, soaring branches. Ikons melted off the trees, their lime, metallic gleam descending down the trunk and forming metallic pools at the bottom. The trail wasn’t hard to follow. A path of destruction led away from the whirlpool, all of it fomented by ikons. Had Britt activated each one on her way back to the fight?

Foolish woman.

Brave, too.

He braced himself against the wind, gratified that he could see her knees. Her thighs appeared a hint at a time, and a filthy, tattered dress. No blood thus far. They pressed on, into the dark night. As they hurried away from the vittra’s lessening funnel, the wind ebbed. Hints of an opening in the trees lurked ahead.

Ever ahead.

Henrik dodged a flying tree branch. Malcolm shouted as Einar whipped the two of them to the side, narrowly avoiding a dropping tangle of vines. A warm squelch of something drew Henrik’s attention down.

Blood.

It coated his arms, and Britt’s dress. Her waist and elbows appeared. Crimson smeared all of it. The whip wounds seeped over his arms again. He’d never shake the horror of seeing it a second time—and all to save his life. Not in a thousand lifetimes.

“Shite,” he muttered.

Henrik pressed harder, moving too fast to know if she breathed. Einar and Malcolm staggered to keep pace. Malcolm, shouting directions, guided them through the worst of the windy torrents and onto the beach.

Henrik skidded to a stop.

A pitch black sky swilled overhead, spiraling into a single, horrifically dark point behind them. No lightning or thunder accompanied the unnatural funnel, which pointed at the island and grew higher. Moonlight stained flying bones. Trees. Branches. Vines. Everything wheeled through the air, higher. The noxious tar odor had faded, and so had the worst of the wind, but they weren’t safe yet.

Above it all, the vittra screamed.

“Bloody idiots!” a voice shouted. “I’m over here!” Lars raced toward them, cutting through sand. A terrified expression distorted his white face. “Get out of there! The vittra is destroying all of it.”

Not far into the ocean bobbed a rowboat. The small vessel slipped around the beach, steered by no one. On the ship farther into the bay, a man with a brilliant, bright red beard and hair to match stood with one leg propped up.

“Pedr,” Malcolm breathed. He fainted.

Lars sprinted over, slowing. He paused, looked at Malcolm, Einar, Henrik, the visible half of Britt, and swore under his breath.

“Get to the rowboat! I’ll carry the Major. Can you make it?” Lars asked Einar.

Einar nodded through a grimace, one arm clutching his ribs. Lars picked Malcolm up and darted away, lithe as a rabbit for a man his age. Einar stumbled in the sand, but stayed upright. At the rowboat, he collapsed.

Henrik stepped into the rocking rowboat with Britt in his arms. Blood trickled down his elbow, dripping as he carefully lowered. The rowboat jarred off the sand and into the water, pulled by unknown arcane. Waves slammed into the little hull, but the rowboat splashed quickly through with impressive adeptness.

Britt tight in his arms, Henrik watched the swirling cloud consume the island. Britt had overwhelmed the arcane, likely, by activating so many ikons at the same time. From farther away, the full measure of the Unseen island sprawled left and right. It was a U-shaped place, thick with jungle, white beaches, and the sinister growl of ancient rage. The destruction widened. Steam hissed. Waves clashed. Trees vanished into waves. Frenzies, the sailors would have called them.

A righteous sea storm.

Hovering above it all, the horrific, cinereal cloud localized over the top. The vittra’s distant, drawn-out keening sang amidst the whistles and swirls of the storm.

From the ship, Britt’s brother Pedr laughed and laughed.