Chapter 16 Aura
AURA
Somewhere on the South Sea
Aura’s stiff body sways in tandem with the rigid planks beneath her back. The motion of what feels like waves jostles her further into consciousness.
Am I aboard a ship?
Nausea rolls through her stomach as she shifts her position along the slick wooden boards that smell of saltwater. They must be sailing on the South Sea.
Haughty laughter fills her ears, and the fishy scent of the sea overrides her senses.
Her eyelids fly open, revealing the clear night sky. The events leading up to Rolf injecting her with Azure spiral through her mind. How had the realms overturned itself on her?
As she awakens, the ache in her chest throbs as she realizes how truly alone she finds herself.
Isabel ruined her only opportunity to become a Drengr, jeopardizing her future and her life as a Sigvidsson in Salt.
“I cannot believe you are my daughter.” To think she has failed her father so wretchedly.
Did he survive? Or will he join Grandpapi in the Depths and look upon her with all the disappointment she showed him in life?
“I could never be with someone like you. I don’t want you, Aura.”
The other gut punch from the one person she believed she could trust feels like a dagger to the heart.
Colorful green lights with a hint of pink dance across the darkness.
Lights of the Dawn.
The Gothi claim the rare colors in the sky signify a significant event.
Her parents always say the lights danced above Salt the night she was born to welcome her soul to the mortal realm—a superstition she always found to be a load of horse shit.
But now, lying on her back on an enemy ship bound for Skalor, she takes peace in the strange lights. Perhaps something good would come of the last several weeks.
If she could not escape Rolf and Isabel, they would sacrifice her on an altar from which even her godly grandparents could not save her.
“Wakey, Princess.” Isabel kicks her in the side with a chilling smile that cuts through the evening.
She clutches her stinging side while her fuzzy mind struggles to readjust from the Azure Blooms departing her blood. Questions arise as she glances from her position along the bow to the forty slumbering warriors resting in the hull.
“Where are we going?” Aura asks, knowing full well they are venturing to Skalor but needing the bitch to confirm.
Rolf appears, slapping Isabel’s ass. “Home to Skalor. You will be cut open and bled to death at the mercy of Her Majesty.” He crouches beside Aura and ties her wrists behind her back with a strand of thick, scratchy rope. “And I shall receive the biggest reward of my life.”
“Tell me of this prophecy your Queen thinks I fit. I deserve to know why you intend to murder me.”
Rolf only smirks.
“Calder will destroy you.” Aura hisses.
I know that much. He may have decided to uphold the blacklist of the Princess, but his loyalty to Treland and my parents far outweighs everything else.
Isabel sneers. “Trust me, Lavinia has a plan to deal with him. Even if he flees from his proper title: the Prince of Skalor.”
The Prince of Skalor?
Her nausea over the situation intensifies until she rolls on her side and vomits bile upon the deck.
There is so much she doesn’t understand.
Why did he not tell her of his identity? Or perhaps he thought she would piece together these mysteries?
In her heart, she still believes that Calder will not forsake her, if nothing else, because he owes her father.
“No need to concern yourself with the Jarl of Kaldrgataness. Your life will end soon enough when we reach Skalor.” Rolf adjusts his cloak against the frigid air of the South Sea as he saunters over to the steersman on the starboard side.
As Isabel watches him, Aura cannot help but wonder about her former lover’s involvement in this kidnapping and assassination plot.
What did she gain by killing Aura?
And then a thought strikes her.
“What did the country of Skalor promise the Manchineel Family?” She seethes, finding more hate in her heart for this deepening blood feud between their clans.
Isabel kneels with her head tilted. “My mother and the head patriarch of the Mancineels sent me to Skalor the day my grandfather appeared to me in a dream. He is not the only Draemonium lurking in the shadows.”
“Sir! You'd better take a look at this.” The lookout barks out to Rolf.
Through the darkness, she spots a discarded axe in the bow and scoots toward the blade while eavesdropping on the lookout. None of the resting rowers seem to pay heed to Aura
“A single longship behind us, sir.”
Grumbles and the rocking of the ship signal Isabel and Rolf’s movement as they shove their way to the bow.
“Awake! Awake!” Jarl Rolf commands his slumbering soldiers. “I want everyone in a seat, rowing!”
Aura’s fingers glide over the axe as she delicately pulls the rope along the sharp edge.
“Who is it?” Rolf snarls rummaging for a spyglass.
Aura slices her palm, clenching her teeth to keep from yipping at the sharp pain. This was her one chance to escape.
A few of the men take turns observing their pursuer through the spyglass.
Blood trickles through her fingers from the multiple nicks. Without a notion of how she will flee along the frigid waters, she hopes she can stow away in the approaching ship.
“I can’t see anyone on board, sir.” The steersman throws his hands up in confusion.
“It’s not just an empty bloody ship! Someone is aboard.” Rolf signals to the other two ships to prepare for attack. Some lazily ready their weapons with a yawn, while others arm themselves to the teeth.
The rope around her wrists continues to fray and snap, and the tension in her body only grows.
Suddenly, cracking rings through the air.
She whips her head around to find that all three of Rolf’s ships have abruptly stopped along the current.
Frost creeps over the sides as thick ice sheets grip the hulls in an immovable anchor.
Rolf, Isabel, and the Pike Hold soldiers scramble to prepare themselves for attack. Aura ceases her cutting just before she can free herself, choosing to sit on the axe, concealing the blade from the warriors so she can use it against them.
She peers over the stern to see the longship bearing the Wicked Wyvern helm coated in jagged ice spikes.
So it is Calder.
Mist from the cold mingles with the summer air, trailing behind and giving the illusion that it is gliding across the water.
“How the shit has he caught up to us?” Rolf bellows in the face of the steersman.
“His ship is smaller, sleeker, my Lord.” A soldier points toward the Wicked Wyvern.
She can barely see the contents of the hull, but it does appear empty.
“He coated the entire ship in seidr ice.” Isabel appears genuinely impressed.
“I want every damn warrior prepared to fight!” Rolf stomps back to the bow, digging around in a pack and withdrawing a mace and a shield.
“You seem nervous, Jarl Rolf.” Aura feels a thrill in her gut at the terror evident on every face aboard.
He twists his head to glare at her. “You should be nervous, too, Princess. If you’ll recall, the man pursuing us has little issue murdering friend or foe.” He nods toward the other end of the ship, where the wyvern's head is nearly upon them.
He has never harmed me. Why would he now?
A whoosh and thud cut through the air. The Steersman drops to the hull—a small throwing knife quivers in the center of his forehead.
As two more Pike Hold soldiers drop to the deck, chills glide up the back of her neck.
She crawls across the floorboards, careful to avoid the soldiers' legs as she examines the blade embedded in the Steerman’s head. Etched into the wooden handle is a tiny rune.
Thora? It can’t be.
The Wicked Wyvern sails onto the ice, crashing into their ship. Two figures dart away and ascend into the other equally manned, frozen vessels.
Rolf brought an entire battalion of his Hold’s warriors.
Ear-splitting screams and the clashing of weapons fill the eerie silence of the night.
The ship rocks against the ice as a larger-than-life figure descends upon them. Her heart pounds as Jarl Calder Avardsson’s boots thud upon the deck. In one hand, he clutches his massive great axe, Freyja, as spiked ice crystallizes across the steel.
One brave, albeit dim-witted, soldier attacks, only for Calder to cleave his head in half with one swing.
“Jarl Rolf!” He bellows through the frigid air, now so cold that everyone aboard convulses violently. “You have taken something that belongs to me.”
As their ship falls silent in response to his words, she hears the screams and splashes coming from the other two vessels.
“Guard the Princess,” Rolf instructs Isabel, whose narrowed gaze fixates unblinkingly on Calder.
Aura manages to free herself of her bindings. Beneath her hands, the axe handle slides into her grasp.
Rolf meets Calder in the middle of the ship with his arms outstretched. “You came to Treland for the same reason I did.” He cocks his head with a smirk. “Everyone knows the real villain of Skalor.”
The boards beneath the Iss Drengr’s boots freeze, spreading like tendrils along the decking. “I came here to defend the Princess from the likes of you.” He growls, towering over Rolf.
The ship sways as two figures climb over the side to flank Calder.
Aura’s mouth falls open. If someone were to join Calder in a rescue, she would expect her father, Uncle Grim, and possibly even her mother. All were far more understandable than Thora and Edmund.
She leaps to her feet, brandishing the axe she now realizes is the mate to her father’s blackwood-handled dual axes, which she took from the carriage.
“Sister!” Thora yanks a pendant from around her neck and flings it across the ship.
Aura snags the nautilus shell from the air. A wicked grin slides over her lips.
As she tugs the silver cord around her neck, she turns on Isabel.
Grandpapi, I wish to wield air! I want to destroy Isabel with her own Sacred Stone ability.