Already, nature’s own winds were fierce, rivaling what breeze Fynn could conjure.
But perhaps if he pushed himself to his limits, Fynn could put enough distance between his ship and this storm to ride out the worst of it from afar. He’d barely touched his Magic since they’d drifted into Taesean waters, but it had been so long since he’d navigated these currents that he was not sure he could steer the Refuge to safety. It would be easy to get turned around backward, to lose themselves in the heart of the Emerald and spend days trying to correct their course.
Lightning pierced between the clouds, diving into the sea and flickering out beneath the waves. Fynn cursed and gripped the wheel. “Get below deck,” he told Sol. “Send Amael and Riel up on your way down.”
Sol frowned at him. “I want to help.”
“You are helping,” he said. “If I know you’re safe below deck, that’s less I have to worry about. Besides, Draven and Indyr will need you. Gracia, too, if she’s panicking. She’s afraid of thunder.”
Fynn could sense her hesitation, could taste it on his tongue as surely as he could taste his Magic. She wanted to argue, wanted to spit at him that she could be of some use as the ship began to rock beneath their feet. More than three months on the Refuge, and Sol’s disposition had morphed her into some unruly tyrant who dared put Fynn in his place.
He enjoyed it, the fight and confidence still slowly emerging from the Princess.
But not today. Not in this moment. Not when she was not safe.
“I’m a Water-Wielder,” she reminded him. “If you need my help—”
“I’ll send for you,” he vowed. “But it won’t come to that.”
Before she could sulk below deck—she only ever pushed him so far—Fynn abandoned the helm and held Sol’s face between his hands. He brushed his thumb across her cheek, and Sol took it upon herself to rise onto her toes and press her lips against the Captain’s. He would never get used to this, the way his Magic sang in her embrace, the way it howled a symphony beneath his skin.
“Be careful,” Sol murmured against his mouth. “Please.”
Fynn pulled away and pressed a kiss to her brow. “As you command, your Majesty.”
Sol punched him lightly in the chest. “Don’t call me that.”
He chuckled and stepped away entirely. “Get below deck.”
The Princess sighed and kissed his cheek. “Be careful,” she said again, concern lining her eyes. “I’ll send up the heathens.”
Fynn tracked her movements as she left, as she slipped down the quarterdeck stairs and staggered to Riel and Amael, the latter gripping her arms to steady her. Fynn watched as they spoke in hushed tones, as Amael nudged Sol towards the stairwell that led below deck. He watched her until she disappeared, Draven in tow and Indyr cowering in her arms.
His Quartermaster and boatswain quickly joined him at the helm, Riel’s face drawn with grim resolve. “What are your orders? This storm is going to be a nasty one. Even my Magic is restless, and we’re so far from land that it shouldn’t be.”
“Sol said the same thing,” Fynn sighed, wincing at a clap of thunder. “Drop the sails and tie down the supports. Tie down anything that can be tossed overboard, and send the rest of the crew below deck. Tell Luca I want him on standby.”
Amael placed his hands on his hips. “What about Sol?”
The Captain shook his head. “She stays below with the others.”
“She’s been practicing with Luca every day, Fynn. She can handle this if we let her help.”
He gripped the helm so hard his fingers ached. “Not this time,” Fynn said. “She’s not ready, and I won’t have her getting tossed into the Emerald.”
Riel snorted. “She’s a Water-Wielder. The sea would throw her back.”
“I said no.”
Riel groaned, rolling her eyes to the wicked sky above. “I hate when you’re this infatuated with someone,” she complained. “If I didn’t like Sol, and if I didn’t think the wolf would eat me, I’d toss her overboard myself just to snap you back into your senses.”
Thunder clashed loud enough it rattled Fynn’s teeth, and a slow, cold drizzle began to patter against the planks. Fynn blanched. He could argue with Riel later. “Drop the sails, tie everything down, and get the others below deck. Now.”
Fynn heaved the wheel to the left, using his Magic to fill the sails while he still had them to fill. He sailed west, angling the ship against the oncoming storm and praying that the masts held strong. Without the added pull against the main and mizzenmast sails, Amael rushing to crank them down and tie them off with rope, they might stand a chance against the wind beginning to sweep over the deck. But if the foresail split or the mast snapped in two, the Refuge would be dead in the water.
The ship rocked beneath Fynn’s feet, teetering over the waves that lapped at the groaning hull. Riel had just finished ushering the crew below deck when the first onslaught of saltwater crashed over the ship’s banister, slicking the planks with seafoam.
Amael cursed, wrapping a line of rope around his wrist and anchoring himself to the mizzenmast. Already, the boatswain was drenched, his clothes clinging to his body as a second wave rose and curled over the deck.
Bracing himself against the helm, Fynn drew in a breath through his nose. He exhaled, and a blast of icy wind speared for the wave that would likely have swept Amael out to sea, rope and mast be damned. Water exploded where air struck, droplets raining down over the ship, and Amael looked at Fynn and smiled gratefully.
“Fynn!” Riel called to him, hugging the threshold leading below deck. She’d split the wood with her Magic, barricading the stairwell to keep water from flooding down the steps. “What’d you do to piss off Thymis?”
“Harbor a runaway Princess!” He yelled back to her. “She’s the patron goddess of Dyn, and I stole away the Crown Prince’s bride!”
Even over the howling wind and deafening roar of the sea, Fynn heard her groan. “Why that one?” she cried. “Why not the god of mountains when their whole godsdamn kingdom is built around them.”
“There is no god of mountains.”
“Well, there should be!” Riel snapped. Her hair clung to her face, braids limp over her shoulders. “Had you pissed off that one, we wouldn’t be near drowning in the Emerald!”
“No,” Amael agreed, gritting his teeth as he dug his nails into the mast. “But we’d have been crushed by a rockslide in Arrowbrook.”
Fynn tuned them out, the deck of his ship illuminated with a flash of lightning that forked into the water below. Close—these strikes of lightning were too close. If they struck any part of the Refuge, Fynn and his crew were as dead as—
“Fynn, look out!”
The Captain whirled on his heels, Riel’s voice like a physical blow knocking him away from the helm.
A tidal wave barreled for his ship, the ocean’s wrath charging from the wrong direction. Water crested high above the stern, taller than the ship’s mainmast, and there was nothing that Fynn could do to stop it, no Magic he could summon that would blast that wave into oblivion.
Thymis had certainly grown to hate him. Had cursed him. Had chosen this fate with his love for her waters in mind.