Dance of a Burning Sea (Mousai, #2)

Niya was fighting with the lost god Helvar, master of the sea, and it felt incredible.

“Here! Tie yourselves in!” she yelled to the pirates who were beginning to crowd around where she and Bree clung to the mainmast. They seemed to think she was the safest place on deck. Niya almost laughed at the irony—only sand falls ago they’d still avoided her like a plague.

Grabbing the extra rope from Niya, they threaded it around their waists.

Out of the corner of her eye, Niya caught Saffi along the port side attempting to push against oncoming waves like she had, her powers coming out silver and thick from her fingers. Though the master gunner was gifted, her magic did little when the giant waves descended.

The water punched onto the deck with an angry roar, surging and knocking most off their feet.

“Saffi!” yelled Niya as the woman tumbled against the deck, before hooking an arm around the wheels of a tied-down cannon.

A breath of relief whooshed out of Niya at seeing the master gunner safe, at least safe enough for Niya to turn her attention to the rest of the ship.

Therza clung to netting near the bow, head thrown back as cackles of delight echoed out of her, as though the storm were an old friend telling her a joke. Another crack of lightning flashed overhead, highlighting the rivulets of rain racing across Therza’s round cheeks, but the woman merely laughed harder.

“She’s crazy,” muttered Niya, wiping hair from her eyes.

Sparks of green had her turning to see Alōs next to Boman by the wheel. A giant bubble of his gifts expanded out and around them, lighting up with every punch of the storm, no rain or wind or wave penetrating in.

As if sensing her watching, Alōs turned to pin his glowing turquoise eyes to hers. A bright beacon in the dark storm.

“Don’t fight the waves!” he called to her over the roar.

“What?” She blinked against the rain, which was pelting like hail against her back. Her wounds screamed in agony, but she ignored them.

“It’s more energy to fight!” Alōs shot a bolt of magic from his palm, through his shield, to catch the head of an approaching threatening wave. He extended its crest, elongating its neck so it broke on the other side of the ship, back into the sea.

Less damage.

Niya turned back to the bow, watching the front of the Crying Queen surge up and up along a mountain of angry sea. The movement had her stumbling back, the ship nearly made vertical.

It would most assuredly break apart on the way down.

Don’t fight the waves, Alōs had said.

Swinging herself from the rope tied to the mainmast, Niya slid across the deck and jumped to the bow.

She dug her heels in as the Crying Queen angled precariously perpendicular and began to move her body to the sounds of the storm. She rolled her hips to the crashing water, felt the movement of the sea beneath, the waves surging. Niya pushed her arms out and out and out. Flow more. Flow forward. Streeeeetch, she told the Obasi Sea. Her skin sizzled with her intentions, steam lifting off her clothes as she wove her magic into a slowly descending bridge that flew from the topside of the wave. The water pulled farther out, tangling easily in the orange liquid of Niya’s created current. She was not fighting the storm but working with the energy already in motion, molding it softer. The ship reached the lip of the wave, and it rode along her magic until it glided, almost gently, back into the sea.

They made it through the next wave, one much smaller, and the storm was suddenly at their backs; the Crying Queen had sailed through.

Niya breathed heavily, her ears ringing with the echoes of retreating thunder, and peered out at the tranquil gray water and overcast sky that greeted them. If she hadn’t been able to turn to see the evidence of the shrinking storm behind them, she would have believed it all a dream.

Though her magic still hummed through her veins, her head still abuzz with the adrenaline of all the recent movement, Niya’s shoulders drooped as a swarm of relief entered her chest.

She left the bow to walk along the main deck. The ship was drenched, parts of the banister splintered from the storm, crates broken, sandbags spilling out, one sail ripped. But it was still sailing, still floating. The Crying Queen was strong.

“Well, that was fun,” said Niya, walking to Kintra, who knelt by the port side, handing Mika bandages as he wrapped the few pirates who were cut and bleeding.

Kintra glanced up at her, a pinch to her brows. “How are you dry?”

Niya glanced down. Her clothes were no longer clinging to her skin from the storm. In fact, they looked rather perfectly washed and laundered. Her hair wasn’t a soaked mess, either, but felt warm and full in its braid. Her back even seemed renewed. Oh! she thought with surprised glee, looking back at Kintra. “Magic?” said Niya with a smile.

Kintra harrumphed as she stood, her wet boots squashing with the movement. “Mind sharing the gift?”

“All right.” Niya rubbed her hands together, gathering her magic into a glowing red ball. She reached up and dropped the mass of heat onto Kintra. It flew down her in a puff, dissipating at her feet and leaving her brown tunic and trousers bone dry, her skin shining like she’d just had a good steam.

“By the lost gods.” Kintra twisted around, gazing at herself in wonder.

Niya smiled before the prickling sensation of being watched had her turning to find Alōs standing above them on the quarterdeck.

He was imposing in his black coat, hands gripping the banister before him as the chill of his energy mixed with the already-cool air. His gaze swung from her to Kintra, who stood by Niya’s side, then to the gathering group of soaked pirates who were poking the quartermaster’s dry clothes like it was a miracle.

When Alōs looked back at Niya, something in his eyes softened ever so slightly, and he gave her a nod.

One that could almost be interpreted as a thank-you.

Despite herself, a warmth seeped into Niya’s chest, foreign and uncomfortable, but she didn’t have long to analyze these feelings: wet sailors were beginning to line up in front of her.

It appeared she had just been put on drying duty.

Biting back a smile, she waved the first one forward.

Niya had just finished drying off the last pirate when a horn blasted from the crow’s nest.

“Prepare yeselves!” yelled Bree from above. “The Mocking Mist approaches!”

Niya walked to the banister along the starboard side, peering out.

She had heard whispers of this mist from the crew, but given they’d still been ignoring her at the time, she had yet to learn what about it had these usually formidable pirates muttering in fright.

Niya watched the mist slowly grow up from the gray water, as if hands from the Fade were reaching to snatch an unlucky sailor into its depths. Vapor filled the air, clogging the view forward and slowly erasing the ship as it pierced into the cloud. The Crying Queen no longer sailed through sea but floated in a world of nothing. Niya squinted into the whiteout, hardly able to see two paces in front of her. The wooden boards beneath her feet fell out of existence, as if the lost gods had begun to erase this part of the world.

Green Pea and Felix, who stood nearest Niya, began to back away, frantically shoving their hands into their pockets to retrieve items to push into their ears. Others cupped their hands and crouched into balls on deck before the mist covered them from her sight. Pirates who had just rushed into a storm’s mouth now scrambled and cowered away at the enveloping mass.

Kintra approached her, extending two small wax balls. “Best be clogging your ears now.”

Niya took them. “This is the Mocking Mist?”

“Mmm.” Kintra nodded. “And it is as it sounds, but worse. Now go on—plug your ears. If you can hear me, you can hear it, and no one leaves the mist the same if they listen.”

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