Cursebreaker (Nightweaver #3)

Chapter One

I’m too late.

I hold my breath, my fist clenched around the hilt of my cutlass, as my brother, Lewis, moves about the ship like a phantom, extinguishing lanterns.

Fire dances on the surface of the pitch-black water, and though the fog makes it almost impossible to see, I note the roll of the waves—swift, and isolated, and all wrong.

Faster, Lew, I think, but I don’t say it aloud.

I gasp when the Starchaser jostles, and I think I hear someone curse.

“Quiet!” Charlie hisses from close by, and the panic in my elder brother’s voice roils my stomach.

It’s been only two days since we set sail from the Red Island in search of Morana, and though Orella must have given secret orders to her fleet not to intercept us, I knew when we embarked on this journey that no one could protect us from the Myths that call the Dire home.

Myths—monsters—hundreds of feet long that slither past our ship, attracted to the light of our lanterns and the sound of our voices.

By the time I feel the shift in the water, I’m already too late.

It only takes one look at Lewis and my older brother knows something is wrong.

The crew, taking their supper abovedeck, goes silent as Lewis moves swiftly about the ship, his years as the Lightbringer’s spymaster giving him the unique ability to act quickly and quietly.

In the seventeen years I called the Dire home, my family never encountered a serpent—one of the deadly, malevolent Myths of the Western Sea.

But Mother and Father had trained us for this very moment: drilling us on how fast we could put out the lanterns; how silent we could become; how long we could hold our breath and wait for the threat to pass.

My siblings and friends made me their captain. They trust me to lead us safely out of the Dire as we make our way to the Burning Lands, and already I deliver us up on a platter to a creature that can swallow the Starchaser whole.

You don’t know what it takes to lead. I hear Mother’s voice in my head, each word like a death knell, booming in rhythm with the thump of the serpent’s body against the ship, nearly causing me to lose my footing.

I take a deep breath as the last lantern is snuffed out, plunging us into total darkness, and wait.

And wait.

The fog, enshrouding our ship like night incarnate, seems to speak to me, whispering.…

A chill snakes down my spine. I move forward blindly, as if prompted by the fog, the creak of the weathered boards now drowned out by the thundering of blood in my ears.

Ahead, a light flickers in the distance, growing brighter with every step.

It appears to take the form of a ship. And there—a man, standing on its bow.

Has Morana’s general, the Shifter who cursed me as a child, found me again? Has he come to take me from my family—from Will?

The light flickers—dies out. But I can’t shake the creeping, unnerving feeling I’m being watched; hunted, not only by a serpent but by a man who declares I belong to him—that my life is his to claim.

A man who threatened my family. A man with whom I’d almost willingly left Castle Grim, even if it meant I would turn into a Shifter, because I thought it could save my brothers.

A few feet away, two red eyes burn like embers in the dense fog.

Jump, a voice in the back of my mind seems to say—a whisper unlike that of the sea but familiar to me still. I want you, Aster. Not your family.

I take another step, the deck slick underfoot.

Come with me, purrs the dark, gritty voice, and save them all.

I reach the railing of the ship.

Jump, the voice says.

As if compelled, I grab hold of the nearby rigging, pulling myself up and—

A hand seizes my shoulder. I whirl, cutlass drawn, my blade flashing.

The dark figure tilts his head, a smirk playing on his lips. “Easy, pirate.”