When was the last time I'd had my period anyway?
Panic struck me like a lightning bolt, knocking my heart out of rhythm. Oh my gods, how long had it been? A month? Two? Was it even possible that...
No.
I couldn't allow myself to think about such terrifying things. I'd rather face a world war head-on than deal with pregnancy right now. My period would come soon, I was sure of it. Until then, I'd beg and plead for the blood to flow.
"What's the matter, Sweets? You look pale."
Ash took my hand in his as walked down the street toward the temporary healing clinic set up at the edge of town.
I shook my head, feeling the nervous sweat beading along my brow and the nape of my neck. "Nothing. Just—"
"Please don't lie to us, Lexi," Dan murmured, taking my other hand. "There's something wrong. You look petrified."
I swallowed hard and wished I was less of an open book.
"She prayed that the gods would bless our children," I muttered. "I'm not ready to be a mother."
Ash smiled warmly. "That's okay, babe. We'll deal with that when the time comes."
"Unless..." Dan began, clearly catching on faster than Ash. "Are you…?"
I shook my head, and tears welled in my eyes. "I have no idea. I can't remember the last time, I—"
Suddenly, Dan had me in his arms, his face flush against mine. "Hey, it's okay. Please don't cry. No matter what happens, you will always have us to help you though it. I swear."
Ash came over and wrapped his arms around us too. "We love you, Sweets. We're not going anywhere."
"But what if I am?" I asked as tears rolled down my face.
Dan chuckled almost happily. "We're a bit older than you, Lexi. I think you'll find we're not as terrified at the idea of fatherhood as you think."
"We're almost thirty," Ash agreed. "That's, like, ancient in the must-produce-a-royal-heir department."
I chuckled despite the tears and quickly wiped my cheeks. "Well, I'm like a baby in the I-have-so-much-more-life-to-live department. I'm not ready for my life to be over."
Dan sighed and shook his head as if my fear was kind of adorable. "Kids aren't the end of the world, babe, and certainly not the end of your life. It'll be okay if you are. And if not, that's okay too. We're here for you no matter what."
"No matter what," Ash agreed, and they finally put me back on my feet.
I sniffed out a laugh despite myself. "You guys are fucking amazing."
"No, you are," Dan assured me. "You've proven it over and over since the day I met you, and again today by coming out here to help our people. I couldn't ask for a better queen."
Ash smiled and wrapped his arm around my waist. "Neither could I—you know, as soon as I take my kingdom back from that dick-headed imposter claiming to be our father. Oh, and as soon as I can marry you like everyone else seems to have."
I cocked my head as remorse filled my heart. "I'm so sorry, Asher. I know you've wanted to marry me the longest."
He kissed my forehead and squeezed me tightly. "It's okay. I was gone. I get it. But as soon as this war's over, I'm making you mine too."
Happiness welled inside of me, filling me with hope and anticipation.
"I can't wait for that day," I told him, and I absolutely meant it.
At the clinic, things got intense once more. We ran around helping doctors and healers work their nonmagical "magic." Antiseptic here, antibacterial ointment there. A few stitches in that wound, a layer of gauze on that one. There were so many people with injuries to attend to, they must've felt like the patients were never ending.
I know I did, and I'd only been there a few hours.
We sterilized equipment and restocked shelves and bins. We changed sheets and made beds, disposed of trash, and spoke to each incoming patient, offering words of encouragement and praise.
By the time we had to leave, only a small dent had been taken out of the line. I felt awful that we couldn't help them all, and yet I was glad that we'd at least been able to help some. Some was better than none any day. Some would eventually add up to all. And that's what kept my spirits lifted as we moved to the camp where the homeless but uninjured had gathered.
We found a handful of unofficial leaders and approached them.
"Good afternoon, everyone," Dan said, smiling brightly. "You all know me, I would hope. This is Princess Alexis, and her guard, Adam. We're here to play a game with the children, if you don't mind?"
Mind? They were ecstatic.
Less than a half hour later, we were in a field with a couple fallen logs separating us into teams—Ash and Dan had carried them over from the woods. I was on one side with quite a few hearty teens and a handful of little ones, while Dan and Ash were on the other side with mostly uncoordinated toddlers—to make it fair.
"All right," Ash yelled, gathering everyone's attention. "The goal is to hit as many opponents as possible."
One of the kids on his team tugged on his shirt. "What's an o-po-men?"
Ash smiled wide and put his hands on his knees, getting on the kid's level. "People on the other team. They're you're opponents, okay?"
The kid said nothing, just grinned and nodded.
"If you get hit," Ash continued, standing back up, "then you're out. If one of your teammates catches a ball, you can get called back in. The last team standing wins." He glanced around the group with a playful smile on his face. "Any questions?"
Dan raised his hand, making me giggle.
"Yes, Prince Daniel?" Ash asked with a grin.
"What if you're hit by your own team member by accident?"
Ash chuckled and most of the kids giggled. "Then you're safe."
Dan raised his hand again. "What if you cross over the logs in the middle?"
"Ooh, good question," Ash commended. "If you cross the logs, you're out."
Dan raised his hand yet again.
Ash sighed. "Last question, Dan."
The Sea Prince chuckled. "Can I use my magic?"
"No way," Ash decided right away. "That'd be cheating, and cheating is a definite no-go, okay? If you see someone cheating, you better call their asses out."
The kids thought that him swearing in front of them was the funniest thing ever.
"All right," Ash said, grinning, "battle starts on the count of three. One... two... three!"
Suddenly balls were soaring all over the place. People were being hit like crazy and dropping like flies. I dodged balls sent from both Dan and Ash, sticking my tongue out as they missed me. Which, of course, made them want to take me out even more.
The longer we played, though, the better people got at understanding the game. Kids were soon catching flyway balls and calling their sidelined team members back into the game. Shouts and giggles echoed off the trees and the soot-covered buildings beyond. Adults gathered to watch the game and cheer their children on. Even tiny toddlers were tossing balls a few feet then picking them up and trying again.
By the time night fell, neither team had won, but both teams had thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I watched as Dan ruffled the hair of a five-year-old boy and said good night. Then I turned to watch Ash high-fiving a group of kids as they headed back to camp. A few of the children even came over to me, offering me quick hugs before shyly running away.
The joy that filled me at the end of that day would never be replaced. What we'd done for the people had affected more than just them—it'd affected us. The act of giving, of helping, of coming together and uniting as one was powerful.
I hoped they'd remember this day for as long as they lived...
Because I knew I would never forget it.
Chapter 27
The following afternoon, we were ten ships strong and sailing down the channel of Glite.
It'd been a strange trip up till then, full of tension and eerie silence. It made me nervous.
I glanced up at the tall, rocky cliffs on either side of us and held my breath. It was a very narrow channel. We supposedly
had the element of surprise, but something still felt off. I kept waiting for everything to go wrong. I imagined getting ambushed from a above or hitting a rock at the bottom of the channel and ruining the boat or the walls caving in and burying us alive.
Every ten minutes or so, we'd have to pause and allow Dan to catch his breath, and every time we stopped, the water levels lowered drastically. The more he used his power, the more it cost him, and at that slow rate, we'd already been in the channel for three hours. Luckily, the end was near. I could see up ahead to where the channel widened out and met with the sea once more.
Birds flew through the dreary gray sky, but they never chirped or cawed. The wind didn't blow, though it seemed like a storm might be moving in. All I could hear was the soft lapping of the water at our ship's hull and the nervous breathing of our crew.
And again, that sense of fear and nervousness gnawed at me.
I thought about vocalizing my concerns, but I didn't want to cause any unnecessary panic. Just because I was scared didn't mean I needed to freak everyone else out too.
As our ship slowly drifted out of the channel and into the ocean, a soft rumbling met my ears, like a far-off roll of thunder. Only, it didn't feel like thunder. The vibrations didn't seem to be coming from the sky or even the ground; they seemed to be coming from the sea, as if the water beneath us were trembling.
I glanced at Dan, who's pale green eyes were squeezed shut in concentration as he held his breath. Then I turned to Cal, who was standing at the front of the boat, his hands clutching the rails tightly as we slowly crept forward. Ben, Rob, Ash, and Criss were the only ones sitting nearby, and they all looked as solemn as I felt.
"Did you feel that?" I whispered to them.
"Feel what?" Rob asked, standing up and instantly becoming more alert.
I shook my head. Was I imagining it? I mean, there was clearly a storm brewing on the horizon, so the probability of it truly being thunder was likely.
Then the sea rumbled again, and I felt a tiny pulse in the deck beneath my feet.
"That," I hissed.
Suddenly, Dan's eyes snapped open wide.
"Turn back!" he shouted to the ships following us. "Turn back and follow the backup plan!"
The backup plan? Sailing close to the Rubian isles and hoping that Hydratica didn't see us? But we were already at the very end of the channel. If he was telling them to turn back, then...
"Something's here," Dan said as he and Cal ran over to us. "Something big. In the water. If we can't get back to the shallows immediately, then I don’t know what the fuck's going to happen."
"What do you think it is?" Ben asked. "A whale? A shark?"
Dan shook his head and swallowed hard. "I don't know. It just feels... bad."
He then sucked in a huge gulp of air and began pushing all ten of our ships backward through the channel. But it wasn't fast enough. At least, not for us. We were now the last ship in the line, so when a motherfucking sea creature reared its ugly head out of the water, we were the first target it laid eyes on.
The creature opened its razor-like jowls and screeched so loud it rattled stones loose off the cliffs. The rocks plunged into the channel behind us, splashing water high into the sky. Then another head emerged from the murky depths, and another, and another.
My jaw dropped to the fucking floor as I stared, wide-eyed and terrified, at the four-headed creature that I was pretty sure was a godsdamned hydra. Its skin was scaly like a snake or lizard, but its eyes—all eight of them—were opaque, almost as if they were blind or something.
I turned around to see how the other ships and their passengers were faring, but I found a wall of rocks separating us from them. The hydra's roars had apparently collapsed the channel walls behind us.
I prayed to the absentee gods that none of our sailors had been caught in the landslide.
When I turned back around, I was just in time to see one of the hydra's massive heads crashing into the side of our ship, busting it into splinters.
"Jump!" Dan shouted as he raced to the opposite end of the boat and dove overboard.
He didn't have to tell us twice; we were all too panicked to do anything more than obey.
I crashed into the sea below, sinking a few feet underwater before frantically kicking and clawing my way to the surface above. Air filled my lungs as I gasped, followed immediately by water as I slipped back under the waves. I coughed and spluttered, alternating between bobbing up above the water and sinking down below. It was a fight I knew I wouldn't win on my own, since I'd never learned how to swim.
Suddenly, the sea itself pushed me forward, and I was once again taking in deep gulps of air while coughing and gagging on the sea water pooling in the bottom of my lungs.
"It's okay, Lexi," Dan called to me from across the choppy surface of the sea. "I got you. We just need to get to shore, and it'll all be okay."
The water pushed me over to a broken piece of ship and deposited me on top.
"Find some debris!" Dan shouted at the guys. "I'll do my best to float you to shore!"
"Shore?" Rob cried as he scrambled onto a chuck of wood. "There's nothing but mile-high cliffs as far as the eye can see!"
The hydra leaned its heads back and screeched into the sky as it pummeled into the remaining half of our sinking ship, obliterating it completely.
Dan pointed to some distant chunk of brown on the horizon. "That's Brineton Port! If we can get there, we might have a chance."
"Brineton is in Hydratica," I protested as I clung to my makeshift raft. "If we wash up there, we'll be taken as prisoners of war!"
"Better than drowning at sea," Dan shouted back.
And I guessed if those were my only two options, then Brineton it was.
Still, we were miles away from the coast, and we had a giant fucking hydra attacking us. Our odds for survival did not look good. And this time, all six of us were in peril. There was no Chrissen waiting in the wings of Blackwood Palace taking on the brunt of keeping us alive—he was there, right beside us. If we all went down, then we all went down... for real.
As soon as we all found boards to hold onto, Dan held his breath and propelled us through the water. We started gaining speed and distance, but the hydra didn't seem to like that. It screeched and dipped underwater, resurfacing a few seconds later right at our heels. One of its heads smashed into the water between us all, scattering us in turbulent waves.
I barrel rolled through the sea, eventually resurfacing with my raft still clenched tight beneath my fingers. As I coughed and gagged, Dan floated over to my raft, facedown in the water.
"Oh my gods!" I shrieked, scrambling to paddle over to him.
I tried to lift him onto my raft, but I damn near slid off into the water beside him.
"Stop!" Cal shouted. His raft was the closest one to mine. "He's okay, because we're okay, remember? And as the Sea Prince, he can breathe the water with no ill consequences. He just got knocked out."
"Well, what are we going to do?" I shouted back. "We can't leave him here, and we have absolutely no chance of paddling back to shore with this hydra on our asses."
Rob climbed back onto his piece of wood and ran a sopping wet hand down his face. "I say we kill the fucker. It might be the only way to make it out of here alive. Running from it clearly isn't going to work."
"You mean swimming from it?" Ash asked with a grin, trying to lighten the mood.
Rob glared at him. "Why don't you turn yourself into something useful and counterattack?"
Ash thought for a moment before his amber eyes lit up. "On it."
Then he sank beneath the sea and his golden magic took over. When he resurfaced, he was in the form of a massive hydra with white and gold scales and giant copper dots under each of his four heads.
"Yes!" I screamed in excitement.
Talk about fighting fire with fire.
"Now, let's go!" Cal shouted. "Swim for shore while Ash has it distracted!"
I scrambled into ac
tion, paddling as hard as I could while the hydras clashed behind me. Their fight kicked up monstrous waves that threatened to overturn my little board at every chance, forcing me to hold on for dear life instead of rowing.
I turned toward the guys and found they weren't faring any better. "This isn't working!"
"Fuck it," Rob decided when he realized I was right. "Let's help Ash take it down. As soon as it's gone, we'll be able to get to shore easier."
At that, the Spirit Prince closed his eyes and eventually started shivering.
Ben followed suit, reaching down below and pulling up a rope of seaweed and winding it around the bad hydra's legs.
"Careful," Cal warned him. "If you lose all five senses, you're fucked. Dan's not awake to give you fresh water."
Ben rolled his chocolaty eyes. "It's almost as if we're surrounded by water."
Cal glared. "You know as well as I do that you can't drink saltwater."
"Not to survive," he agreed, "but to sustain my magic for a few extra minutes? Possibly."
"It's a risk," Cal stressed.
"A risk I'm willing to take." Ben yanked on the seaweed rope, and the hydra was forced a few feet back away from Ash. "I don’t know how long I can hold it though, so you guys better work fast."
Suddenly, Rob started talking to some spirit we couldn't see. "Hey, so glad you and your crew were nearby. Do you think you could lend us a hand?"
Whatever the spirit's reply was, I couldn't hear.
"That's the one," Rob said in agreement, making me think the spirit must've dealt with this hydra before. "Yeah, don’t touch the white one though. That's my brother." There was a pause and then Rob chuckled. "No, I'm not crazy. He's a shifter." He nodded as he listened to the spirit's silent words. "All right, I'll tell them. Thanks."
He blinked his gray eyes a few times, adjusting his vision as he came back to the real world from the astral plane. Then he turned his gaze toward us.
"Captain Brinewurst says to aim for the eyes. They don't enable the creature to see, but they do provide it with its energy and lifeforce. If we can dislodge all eight of them, it'll die."
"And how does the good captain know this?" Cal asked a bit sarcastically.
Storm Chaser (Storms of Blackwood Book 3) Page 22