Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 137226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
It’s hard to tell the time because of the glow from the volcanoes perpetually lighting up the sky while the fog and ash smoke darkens it. I know it should be the late afternoon but it could be the middle of the night for all I see. Though I’ve been to this part of the Midlands a few times before, it seems foreign this time. Probably because I’m not alone.
While Toombs is back at the helm, the rest of the crew are all gathered at the bow as we head into the harbor, with Kirney at the base of the ship’s bolt thrower. The giant crossbow was crafted specially to defend against incoming dragon attacks, with spears and arrows big enough to take down a flying beast. It’s an intimidating weapon and one that will safeguard the ship until we get ashore. For the first time, I feel like House Kolbeck knows what they’re doing.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Andor says, patting the gigantic crossbow with affection as he walks over to me. With the breeze blowing his dark hair back and the sparks and embers in the air behind him, he looks like he’s in his element, like he was born here on in this wild, inhospitable land and somehow survived—and thrived.
Just like earlier, a strange fluttering sensation happens in my chest, like I’ve forgotten to breathe for a moment.
I swallow it down and force a smile.
“She’s very dangerous looking,” I tell him. “I hope you won’t have to use it.”
After hearing Torsten blather on and on about the house and their history of dragon hunting, I know that killing the beasts is in Andor’s nature, even if it’s just out of survival, but there’s always been something about it that rubs me the wrong way. I fear dragons. I’ve escaped death many times. And yet all those times I did what I could to not kill them. Killing them out of anything but absolute necessity feels wrong, like killing a dog.
“Me too,” he says. He looks down at Lemi, and then his eye pauses at the pack I have on my shoulder. Something dark comes over his gaze for a moment, then vanishes before he looks back to me, his eyes seeming to glow in the firelight. “Are we ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
He nods and yells for the boys to get the rowboat ready.
They work fast and in no time, Andor, Lemi, and I and our gear are lowered to the sea. The waves are still rolling in, but at least we’re far enough from the shore that they’re not breaking over us.
Then we’re set loose from the ship and Andor starts rowing us to shore.
“Are you nervous?” he asks.
“I always get nervous before a raid,” I tell him. “Don’t you?”
“Every time. But then again, there’s nothing else quite like it. Nothing else that makes you feel so damn alive.” He pauses, his mouth curving up. “Other than sex, of course.”
He’s joking, so I laugh and ignore the heat flooding my cheeks. I blame it on the wind that’s blowing the fires off the distant volcanoes. “Other than that,” I tell him, staring at the artistic way that the lava flows have sculpted the shoreline and not at the heat in his own eyes. The last thing I need right now on top of everything I’m feeling and everything I have planned is to start thinking about sex. And especially not sex with Andor, someone I hopefully won’t see again after tonight.
I cough and pull up the extra fabric that’s sewn into the neck of my armor, having forgotten what it’s like to breathe the Midlands air. “So,” I say, my voice muffled by the cloth. “I suppose House Dalgaard has one of those bolt throwers too. And what about House Haugen?”
“House Haugen has their own ways of defense. They also have their own area. They take the west of the Midlands, we take the north. It’s the agreement between our houses. As for House Dalgaard? You should know better than anyone.”
“I’ve only done what they’ve told me, and on my own. I’ve never seen them in action, never met with them on any of my raids.”
“Well, while you’re on your raids, they’re out here with crews of their own, larger than mine. They seem to pick clean the entire southern coast every moon cycle. They work with great haste, something that doesn’t seem to bother anyone but me.”
I shrug. “Collect water while it rains, I guess.”
“No,” he says, almost to himself. “And, honestly, and I mean this with the greatest of respect for you, Brynla Aihr, but I don’t understand why they’ve gone out of their way to bother with you.”
I blink at him, feeling surprisingly dejected, just as the hull of the boat scrapes against the rough stones of the shore and Lemi shifts himself so he appears on the land, already chasing a bunch of black lava crabs.