Set Sail

I poked my head around the corner, squinting at the dim corridor ahead. Pipes, ducts, and wires lined both sides of the tunnel. A metal catwalk ran down the center with more ducting and wiring underneath it. It was empty ahead. Seriously, there’s no one down here?

“Clear,” I whispered and waved a wing at Vitali, darting to cover behind a pipe that jutted out from the wall and turned down into the floor. It wasn’t truly necessary, but best to be ready in case any yeti decided to make a surprise appearance. None did. Vitali followed along behind me, much less careful to keep quiet.

“Is there any way you can keep that clattering down?” I shushed as I popped out of cover and dashed down the last stretch of the corridor. It ended at a metal door with a small, dingy window.

“You’re welcome to carry some of this stuff, Artemis,” she shot back. The metal bits and bobs in her saddlebags made another clank as she came to a stop behind me.

“It’s hard to scout the way if I’m weighed down.” I peeked through the window into the next section of the underground maintenance tunnel. Rusty metal stairs led upward, bringing the subterranean portion of our route to an end. I listened out for anyone who might be above, but all was still, just the distant hum of machinery that permeated every corner of the compound. Maybe Captain Celaeno had the right idea to do this job in the middle of the night.

“And you’ve done such a wonderful job,” she sassed.

“Going up. We’re close, as long as we don’t give ourselves away,” I said with a glare, shoving the door open with my back to allow her through.

“I think I get why they call male birds cocks,” she groused through an eye roll. “How much farther until we’re in position?”

“The stairs should come out at dock level, then we sit tight until we get the signal.”

“Got it,” she said, her hooves ringing out on the metal stairs.

I winced with every step she took. The fact that Captain Celaeno had picked Vitali for this job was beyond me. Everything hinged on stealth, so naturally, bringing the zebra with a drum kit for feet was the right choice—and in her first month on the crew, no less. But what did I know? I wasn’t the one in charge of the plans. Celaeno and Mullet were the ones who hatched the entire scheme. And of course, neither of them was saddled with the four-legged percussionist. I was just lucky enough to be picked for suicide duty.

“Would it help with the noise if you moved slower?” I asked.

“Does it really matter?” Vitali sounded exasperated. “It’s a shipyard. There’s always noise. None of the yeti are going to notice.”

She did have a point. The tunnel we had come in through was totally deserted, but the rest of Arini’s shipyards were in full swing. I conceded with silence as we finished the last flight up to ground level. One more set of double doors with windows led outside. A long row of repurposed dry docks stretched off to the horizon, each bay filled with airships in various stages of completion. The docks were bustling with parrots of many sizes, but they were all consistently shaped: Thin. Hollow-eyed. Dirty. Many had patches of missing feathers. Some carried boxes and crates, others had tools and hard hats. The flashes of arc welders lit up the scene like lightning from a distant storm. Towering over the parrot workers, barking orders and brandishing spears, were conspicuously well-fed yeti bearing the Storm King’s sigil.

It was about twenty meters of open space to reach the drop-off, and in the dry dock bay was a large wooden airship. Moored, floating under the buoyancy of its filled gas bag. The latest product of Arini’s shipyards, ready for her maiden flight. The only work left was to load the supplies, which the workers were doing now.

They wouldn’t be completing that task tonight.We were in position, now all we had to do was wait.

“Once we take one of their airships, everything is going to change,” Captain Celaeno had said before we split our raiding party up. Celaeno and Mullet were to blend in with the other parrot workers to get aboard the ship. Since I was with Vitali, we would have to be a little more creative.

I ducked below the window and pressed my back to the door, letting out a sigh as I slid down to the floor.

“Artemis, is everything okay? Vitali asked.

“Swell.”

She didn’t seem to buy it from the way her brow quirked. “Nervous?”

“A little,” I admitted. “This whole plan is nuts.”

“I’m glad to not be the only one thinking that,” she said, undoing the button on her bag with her teeth before continuing, “Like my mother used to say: Wazimu ni kama mpira wa theluji unaoteleza chini. Madness is like a snowball rolling downhill.”

“She does what she wants,” I said with a chuckle. “And we’re just along for the ride.”

Vitali laughed. “I never pictured myself here when Celaeno hired me, but here I am. Lumped in with the crazy birds.”

“Then maybe you aren’t giving yourself enough credit. A sane zebra would have walked away from a job like this. You didn’t.”

“True. I never had a chance to truly hurt the Storm King before,” she said with a sigh while coiling the rope around her hoof. “After what his minions did to my home, I’m only too happy to make them pay.”

“I’d wager that every bird in this shipyard has a story like that.” I closed my eyes, thinking back to that night of the first attack. The constant crackling and roaring of the lightning barrage that preceded the ground invasion. The glow and heat of fires. The screams of the parrots caught in it all. It made my chest ache. “Captain Celaeno told me that this airship is the key to everything. If it goes well, we put the screws to the Lightning Yeti and get a nice ship to sail around in as a bonus.”

“I can’t wait to play around with this thing,” Vitali said, pulling out a pair of four-pronged metal hooks from her packs. “I heard they’ve been putting crystalline guidance systems in them now. Like, wow, how much money has to be coming through this place to afford all that?”

“Mullet would know,” I said. Celaeno’s first mate had been a worker at these docks before the Storm King. He knew a lot about them, specifically the layout and the ways to sneak in—hence our underground path to get here. So far, things had gone as planned.

In the distance, a whistle blew two long peals. I poked my head up again, watching as all of the workers and the yeti guards began moving to the right, toward the exits. The shift change had begun. It was time.

“Let’s go,” I said, sliding the door’s latch open and shouldering it gently. We were near the bow of the airship, at the far end of the dock where things were somewhat poorly lit and would be deserted for a few minutes.

“Here,” Tali said, passing me…

“Is that a necklace?” I asked.

“Relax, I’m not proposing. It’s enchanted,” she said.

Carefully, I grabbed it. “What does it do?”

“Not quite an invisibility spell, but it makes the user seem unremarkable even when they should stick out like stripes on a lion.”

“Smart,” I said. “Why didn’t you just use this to walk through the front gate?”

“They aren’t foolproof. If you’re up close or talking to someone, it breaks the effect.”

“Makes sense.” I slipped the necklace on and signaled with a wing to follow me. Had the necklaces been part of the plan? We ran out the door and across the open concrete dock. The airship loomed like a titan whose back we had to climb onto, and fast.

Vitali was already in motion when we reached the ledge over the dry dock pit. Holding a coil of rope in each foreleg, she swung the hooks over her head like lassos. The momentum built with each swing until she let go, tossing the hooks upward toward the railing. Her aim was true, and both hooks cleared over the railing. With a tug, she pulled them until the grapples caught the railing and held fast.

“Nice shot, Vitali.”

“I practiced,” she dismissed, passing me a rope that ended at a small metal box. “Here. This will help you climb. And call me Tali.” She hooked her forelegs through a strap attached to the box and jumped over the side, swinging down until she bumped against the ship’s keel. “Last one up is a pile of hyena dung!”

She had guts, I had to give her that. Following her lead, I jumped off the ledge and swung down. It hurt my talons to catch myself against the ship’s hull. Tali was already climbing. The box in her hooves clicked as she pushed herself up, the rope disappearing into it with each click of the ratchet.

I followed suit, dragging myself up the side of the ship, every bit of progress I made saved by the device. Click, step, click, step, click. It was impressive. Scaling the vertical face was rather easy, thanks to Tali and her pack full of clanky equipment.

We swung ourselves over the railing to find the main deck empty. Our timing was perfect. The one time the ship was left without guards on post, and we had the whole thing to ourselves. The door to the wheelhouse opened, and Celaeno and Mullet dropped down the ladder to the main deck.

Captain Celaeno had a devilish glint in her eyes and a grin to match, but her brow was still stitched with concentration. “Tali, on me. Mullet, Artemis, you two get the mooring lines. Let’s bust this thing out of here.” She returned to the wheelhouse, bounding up the ladder and skipping over the rungs as she went. Mullet and I nodded at each other and immediately set about our work. I took the starboard side while he took port, unwrapping the thick ropes that held the ship in place.

There were six per side, and each knot took about twenty seconds to unravel. Every second that ticked by was another second closer to the yeti guards coming up the gangplank and discovering us. I ripped the knots free and sent the ropes whipping over the side. Two, then three. I checked the ramp below and noticed that some of the guards were beginning to move in our direction.

We had less than a minute.

I sprinted to the stern where the last line was tied. This knot was a little tighter than the others. It wasn’t loosening. I grabbed it and pried with all my might, but it did not budge. Panic gripped me. If I could not get this last rope undone, that was it. Mission failed. Certain death.

“Heads up!” Mullet called. I stepped back as he came in from the port side with his sword drawn. For a moment I thought I’d been snuck up on, but he went for the rope, hacking at it so hard he couldn’t help grunting with the exertion. Show off. His sword was sharp, biting through the rope in three hits. The ship bucked upward as the last rope came loose, dropping over the side with a quiet hiss. I felt the slight pressure on my feet. We were rising.

Almost instantly, the piercing shriek of alarms rang out through the docks.

“Now the party begins,” said Mullet. He just had to be the one to swoop in and save the day. If the stakes weren’t so high, I would have glowered at him, but I swallowed my indignance. A few yeti were running up the ramp toward the ship, but they would not make it before the gangplank fell away.

Mullet gave a cheerful whoop over the side. “Catch us if you can, ice monkeys!”

“I’ll give it a shot,” said a new voice from behind me.

My head jolted to the side. A large, powerful, shockingly cold paw wrapped around my neck. In the chaos, I got a glimpse of the open hatch to the lower decks. One of the guards had been down there.

Everything turned into a blur as I was whipped back and forth by the massive creature. I thrashed, but I was powerless against his grip. The pressure on my neck was unbearable. I couldn’t breathe. Mullet was shouting, but I couldn’t make out what he said.

I kicked. I clawed. Nothing did any damage to the hulking creature. My limbs began to tingle. My lungs screamed for air. A gurgle escaped my beak as I futilely attempted to suck in a breath.

A sword sliced through the air near me. “Nice try, little birds. The Storm King is going to make me a lieutenant when I stop you from stealing this ship all by myself!” the yeti guffawed as he swung me around like a toy. Mullet, Captain Celaeno, and Tali were all yelling at the yeti simultaneously now. I punched at his arm, but my swings were weakening. Darkness crept into the corners of my vision.

This was it. I was going to die. How was that fair? I had done everything right. Right?

Maybe I should have checked the below decks before I got comfortable—foolish mistake. But Mullet had made it too! He wasn’t getting the life squeezed out of him right now.

Would any of them mourn for me? Was I merely an expendable henchbird to them, or did they consider me a friend? Truthfully, I didn’t know. It wasn’t like there was anyone else to do it, but had I left enough of a mark on my crewmates to be remembered? Did it even matter?

There was a loud bang, then everything lurched. Something warm splattered over the back of my head. The grip around my neck relaxed. I gasped as the giant hand slipped away. That breath was the best thing I had ever felt. My lungs were sated. My vision began to clear. Wind whistled through my feathers.

I was falling.

Somehow, there was a gaping, bloody wound to the yeti’s chest. He had gone over the side and pulled me down with him. How had they done it? The brute plummeted like a stone just below me, shrieking like a banshee. The bottom of the dry dock pit was mere seconds away. My wings sprung out, catching the wind and arresting my fall.

I laughed as I swept upward, not bothering to watch as my attacker’s life ended with a sickening crunch. I was free, and soon we all would be. Eat my tail feathers, Storm King. I did a series of loops to bleed off my speed from the dive, whooping with excitement.

But my celebration was short-lived. “Artemis, watch out!” Tali screamed from far behind me. A new, lower-pitched whistling grew louder. I opened my eyes just in time to see the silhouette of a flying net skim over my head. I reached up to my neck. The enchanted necklace was gone.

This was why we didn’t simply fly into the shipyard. Arini was a city full of parrots; an aerial approach was the most obvious. On every high ledge of the complex’s buildings, net launchers stood ready to take down anyone who dared.

And now they were trained on me. I pulled up to a halt, gathering my bearings. I had flown too far out. Water glistened in the moonlight far below. The ship was behind me. I was right in the zone where all of the sentries could draw a bead on me.

The whistling came again, and I tried to flap hard in reverse to drop out of the way, but the nets came from all sides. It felt like being snatched out of the air by a massive predator. They hit hard as they enveloped me, wrapping my entire body in layers of stinging, heavy ropes. My wings were bound to my sides.

Again, I fell. Without recourse this time. I thrashed against the ropes all the way down, but it was pointless. I was doomed.

What a stupid way to die. Not much of a blaze of glory, not much of a point to it. I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like any other nameless minion throughout history, I was giving my life for my boss.

No one would write a song about my plunge to my death. Maybe my crewmates would miss me for a time, but they would move on. I would be forgotten.

I let out a throat-shredding shriek as I made my final descent. Fear, despair, anger, it all boiled over. It was my fault. But it was more their fault. They had put me up to this. I was here on someone else’s wishes. My blood was on their feathers. They would—

My thoughts derailed as I crashed into the water. The pain of the impact was indescribable for a brief moment, then everything went still. Dead calm. The sea met me with a cold, total embrace. Fading away into the darkness, I let the ocean claim me. The rushing, writhing sound of bubbles faded from my ears. Sensations bled away one by one until everything was empty.

“Artie?”

Tali?

“Artemis! Can you hear me?”

“Dive team, status report.”

“What was that thing? Where did it go?”

The voices came to me from behind the veil of ringing in my ears. Distorted. Echoing. There was no light, but I could breathe. Where was I, again?

A deep, warping thrum echoed through my helmet, rattling my bones.

Oh. Right. The Kraken.

I was supposed to be dead, was I not? That was what I thought, anyway. A big tentacle had come out of nowhere and hit me head-on. That should have been it. If I didn’t get swallowed whole, then the dive suit should have been compromised. Either the Kraken or the ocean itself should have had their prey.

My head throbbed. I felt dizzy. I should have been dizzy, at least. In the absence of light at the ocean floor, there was no reference point to see if the world was spinning. I felt around with my wingtips, coming to the realization that I was face down, half buried in the silt on the ocean floor.

Was I dead? I didn’t feel dead. Death was supposed to bring an end to pain, but everything in my body hurt. I sucked in a breath, which was still crisp and clean, smelling faintly of salt. Air hissed through the valve behind my head. My connection was still solid.

Loud static pierced my ears as the intercom sounded again, this time much clearer. “Did you see which way he went?” It was Delian’s voice.

“I can’t see anything through the silt cloud,” said Tali. “It looked like he got thrown farther down the slope.”

“Still waiting on that status report, dive team,” commanded the even tones of Nela, our dive tender.

“Code red. Something is down here with us,” said Delian, his typically calm voice tense and quick. “Artemis was knocked away from us by… what was that? A tentacle?”

“It’s a Kraken! It has to be,” Tali said. “I can’t see it, but it’s definitely here!”

“Copy that,” said Nela. “Preparing for extraction.”

“No!” Tali shouted. “Not yet! I can’t leave him down here.”

“And for that matter, he had the spear with him when the tentacle struck,” Delian added. “Did you see where it went?”

After a short pause, Tali answered, “The strongest signature is to the south. It’s probably not far away. Artie, say something!”

I opened my beak, but a strangled cough came out first. My mouth was parched. The metallic taste of blood lingered on my tongue. “I hear you,” I managed to croak.

“Oh thank the stars,” she said. “Do you see our lights?”

“No.” It was difficult to tell which way was up in absolute darkness. I hauled myself up from the sandy muck, the pain in my wings flaring but relatively dull. Hopefully, that meant nothing was broken. Twin pinpricks of light appeared high above me, illuminating the slope I had fallen down in a faint silhouette.

“Are you hurt?” Tali asked.

“I’ll live,” I answered through a gritted beak. “I think I see you.” The lamps on my suit had been crushed in the impact, so I was left without a way to signal them. Fighting through the pain, I pushed myself up on all fours and climbed toward the lights.

It was no small miracle that my dive suit hadn’t ruptured and the air line hadn’t been ripped away. I should have been grateful not to be drowned under thousands of tons of water, but a white-hot nugget of pure rage burned that feeling of reverence to ash.

I had it in my talons. The key to everything. The Spear of Vulcanis was mine. Mine! And what, some overgrown tentacled freak from the deep was going to take that away from me?

No. I was not resigned to my fate. I had a chance, and I would be damned if a mindless monster were to be my undoing. If that thing wanted to toy with me, it would suffer the consequences.

But first, I had to get the spear back—a task complicated by the silt cloud that had been kicked up in all the commotion. Tali and Delian were maybe thirty meters above me, but I could barely make out their spotlights.

“Did you two see where the Spear went?”

“No, it flew off with you.”

A loose rock slipped out from under my foot, and I dropped to the sea floor to keep from tumbling down the slope. “Find it. Before that thing comes back.”

“On it!” said Tali, her light turning brighter as it shone across my path.

Everything hurt as I worked my way upward toward the shipwreck, crawling on my wingtips. Everything was calm. Too calm. Where was the Kraken? Why was it holding back?

Another mind-bending thrum answered my question, warbling and twisting as it pierced my skull from every angle. It was the same one I had heard in the distance during our descent. It had to be a call from the Kraken. And it was close.

Ice ran through my veins, but I pushed myself to go even faster. I had no idea when it was coming back, but I felt certain now that it would. In the deep, we were on its turf. Maybe the Spear of Vulcanis could save me. It was my only chance against a monster like that. Every moment that passed without it was another moment closer to certain doom.

But where was it? If I had been knocked so far from Tali, there was no telling how far the spear could have been launched. It could have gone farther than I did. Deeper. Maybe past the depth limit of the dive suits.

“There you are!” Tali was bounding toward me, the spotlights on her suit cutting through the swirling silt and sand. Finally, I could see my surroundings. The wreckage of Intrepid Zephyr looked different now. Smaller. Fresh debris littered the sea floor over where Delian was. The remains of the ship had been crushed. “Your lights are broken! Is the suit damaged? What—”

“I’m alright,” I pushed out of my beak despite the pain. “Where is the spear? Can your detector find it?”

“Yes, but we need to make sure—”

“I don’t care!” I shouted over her. “I don’t care if my suit is okay. I just want the damned spear. Help me find it right now or all three of us will die down here.”

Maybe it was for the better that I couldn’t see her face if the moment of silence that followed said anything. Tali looked down at her hoof, the little plate glowing green. “It’s close,“ she said, her voice much more subdued. She spun in a circle and watched as the brightness of its glow ebbed and flowed. She pointed to my left. “That way.”

Wordlessly, I turned and pushed forward, steadying myself with my wings as I picked my way along the steep slope. Tali’s lights lagged behind me a bit, the way ahead faintly visible. For a few moments, it felt like another voyage into an unknown void, but then something shimmered. My stomach leaped into my chest. Just ahead, sticking out of the sediment, the metallic handle with embedded crystals protruded.

“There!” I shouted, my voice echoing in my helmet so loudly that it hurt my ears.

Another rumble pulsed through the water, somewhere behind me. I whirled around. All I could see was the blinding rays of Tali’s flashlight. Everywhere else was pure darkness, and that thing was lurking just out of view.

“Artie! The spear!” Tali urged, and I bolted, all but sprinting the final distance to my own salvation. The blade had embedded itself deep in the sand. It almost felt like a page from an old storybook as I heaved the blade free. A weapon that only the worthy could wield.

There was nothing worthy about me, and yet I wielded it anyway.

“Yes!” Tali cheered. “We’ve got it! Nela, reel us in!”

Now I wished I could have seen the grin on her face through the helmet.

“Copy that, dive team. Hold on tight, get ready to feel a tug.”

A few seconds passed in silence, allowing me to admire the embellishments on The Spear of Vulcanis. The shaft had been engraved with a texture to resemble a dragon’s scales, coiling around until it reached the foot of the blade, where it widened out to the shape of a dragon’s head. Mouth open, the blade protruding from its maw like the fire it breathed was made of a silvery metal that didn’t quite look the same as silver. Platinum, maybe?

I thought I felt a wave in the water, like something big had just swum past. I looked the spear over again, desperately hoping there might be some sort of activation switch somewhere on it. No luck. How were magical artifacts used? Was there some sort of magic word I needed to say?

“Any idea how to work this thing?” I asked Tali.

“I’m not sure. Most magical artifacts are tied to the emotional states of their users, but it’s not like there’s an owner’s manual.”

I glanced down again, silently hoping it would respond when I said, “Hey spear, it’s me. Sternclaw. I’m terrified. Can you shoot fire for me?”

Nothing.

When the slack in the tethers reached us, it arrived in grand fashion. At once, my field of view went dark as it spun me around and jerked my head upward, the force smacking my face into the sidewall of the helmet. The spear was nearly wrenched from my grip, but I held on.

“Ow,” I complained. “You weren’t kidding about the tug.”

Delian snickered. “I should have warned you to face away from the ship. It would have lessened the whiplash. My apologies.”

I quietly rolled my eyes. As quickly as the yank had come, the extraction became a peaceful ascent through calm waters, weightless and serene. I held fast to the spear with everything I had. The last thing I needed was to drop it back into the abyss.

Blackness in the viewport gave way to a dim blue as the surface drew nearer. Tali and Delian were a few meters above me, silhouettes against the increasing sunlight. We still had a long way to go, but now we were out of the void. Another warble-thrum echoed up from the depths.

“I wonder why it didn’t finish the job,” I mused.

“What?” Delian and Tali asked at the same time.

“The Kraken. It knocked me out with one hit. Why didn’t it just kill all three of us? Seems like it had plenty of chances to.”

“Perhaps it was an accident?” Delian suggested. “Sea creatures are curious. Not all of them are monsters bent on killing.”

“Maybe it was just playing with us,” said Tali.

I chanced a look down toward the abyss, and a subtle shifting in the darkness sent a lance of fear through my guts. There it was.

“Maybe it isn’t done. Below!”

Three tentacles shot in from the deep, one bound for each diver. Tali and Delian screamed in unison as they were grabbed. As the tentacle closed around me, I panicked, jabbing out wildly with the spear. It connected, the blade digging deep into the slimy, muscly tendril.

The Kraken shrieked, and the tentacle receded away from me. That had surprised it! I smirked.

“We can beat this thing!” I called out, trying to swim up toward Tali. “Fight back with anything sharp. Stab the arms!” Tali was kicking at the tentacles with abandon, though her powerful equine legs were no match for the massive tendril of flesh around her. At my suggestion, she pulled out a small multi-tool from a pocket on her suit and drove it in. Delian had done the same. The tentacles flinched, then retracted.

“Is that all you got!?” I screamed, a little cackle escaping my beak. We were fighting a Kraken. And winning. “Get lost, you overgrown squid!”

“Is everything okay down there?” said Nela.

“We are fine, just continue reeling us in,” said Delian.

The tentacles receded down and out of view, and I felt like I could take on the entire world. Pure euphoria. No parrot had ever gone toe to toe with a Kraken before! This spear was—

Another set of tentacles darted in like striking vipers. Only this time, they reached past us and grabbed onto the air lines above our heads.

Oh great, it’s smart. I bristled and slashed out with the spear. To my surprise, it sliced all the way through the tentacle like it was made of tofu. A cloud of oily black blood exploded around me, and the mostly severed tendril flopped backward. Another agonized, warbling shriek pierced the water.

The others faced a similar attack. Delian managed to fend it off with his harpoon, but Tali’s multi-tool was nowhere near enough of a weapon to stop the fleshy tube as big around as she was.

Tali screamed. “No no no! HELP M—” Horror took over as the Kraken latched onto her air line, pulled tight, and then ripped her away from her tether. Her scream cut to a burst of static the moment the connection was severed. She continued kicking and flailing as a cloud of bubbles exploded out around her. The tentacle began to drag her downward, toward the depths.

She was going to die. All because of me.

“Tali!” I screamed, trying to push myself forward but just kicking uselessly at the water. She was sinking fast. I only had a moment before she was gone. I thrashed at the water in desperation, but I couldn’t get there. She slipped past me and began to fade into the depths below.

The Spear of Vulcanis began to glow a bright orange.

I had felt powerful a few times in my life— the first time I had boarded a ship, the time I had broken out of Black Skull Island prison, the recent victory over two hippogriff ships. Those paled in comparison to what I felt as that spear lit up in my grasp. Strange voices whispered to me in a long-forgotten language. For a brief moment, I understood.

You will not take her.

Power surged through my claws, energy flowing from somewhere deep within. It was like some outside force grabbed hold of my talons and aimed the Spear downward.

A column of orange light burst forth, illuminating the dim waters in a brilliant glow. For the first time, I could see the entire Kraken. It was enormous. At least the size of the entire Ornithian palace in Arini. It could fit an entire ship in its jaws. A huge bulbous head from which eight arms protruded, half of them extended down toward the sea floor for balance while the others reached toward us. Its eyes were wide black pools, staring upward with the cold, uncaring gaze of a beast bent on catching its prey.

And then it exploded.

I had seen death take many different forms. Most of them involved a knife or a gun. Never before had a creature just…detonated. The head rippled, then burst outward in a violent column of bubbles and sinew. One moment it was a living creature, the next moment it was a cloud of turbulent, incandescent gas.

The pressure wave felt like a sucker punch to every square inch of my body. It buffeted the suit so badly that I was sure the glass in my helmet would burst, but it held. A great cloud of red and black water enveloped us as what had once been the Kraken erupted toward the surface.

The pressure wave had slowed Tali’s descent, and now the tentacle dragging her down was limp, but still had her entrapped and sinking. She kicked and thrashed, more bubbles escaping from her helmet. The spear glowed again, this time in a gentle green. It encircled Tali with that soft light and instead of exploding, she began to levitate toward me. The remaining arm of the Kraken sloughed away from her and continued sinking out of sight.

“Am I controlling this thing now?” I asked aloud, and no sooner had the words left my beak than the glow faded. Uh oh.

The power left me as the spear went dark. Tali was drifting upward toward me, but already slowing down as gravity whittled away at momentum. I kicked hard and swam toward her to close the gap. It was going to be close. I managed to snag her hoof with the butt end of the Spear’s handle just as she reached my height. I hauled her closer to me, locking a wing around her barrel.

I breathed a small sigh of relief, but the air was still pouring out of her suit. It wouldn’t be long before it was all gone. I tried to shove one of the fingers of my glove into the opening, but the pressure was too great to seal it off. Then, I remembered the pre-dive briefing.

“There’s a valve where the line connects to your helmet. Whatever you do, don’t close it.”

Of course. The air line had been ripped free, but the receptacle it plugged into was still there with a little red knob on its side. Tali thrashed again, and I gave her a reassuring squeeze, reaching up with my free wing and giving the knob a turn. The flow of bubbles slowed. Another twist and the leak had stopped.

“What in the name of the gods was that?” Delian’s voice was small and flabbergasted.

“Dive team, are you all okay? Was that an explosion?”

“We’re okay,” I answered. “Tali’s air line was severed. I managed to stop the leak but if you can reel us in any faster, do it.”

“Copy, throttling up.”

I redoubled my grip on both Tali and the Spear. It would be awful if I dropped either of them and they were lost to the depths. But at least now there was no tentacled monster trying to drag us back down there. The rest of the ascent was quiet and serene.

Too quiet. Tali had stopped thrashing, and now she felt limp. How much air did she have in there? Was she going to make it all the way back to the surface? Every second that ticked by felt like an eternity. Was she suffocating in there? Had she already drowned? Was the pressure enough to kill her?

In those moments, I came to a realization. I was not ready for her to die. So much death and destruction had surrounded me for years. Faces came and went all the time. I had grown accustomed to it, playing a dangerous game for a living as I did. Sometimes that meant killing those who stood in my way. Sometimes my own crewmates would die in raids. Death was something I had lost my fear of long ago, but right there I knew that if Tali didn’t make it…

Well, I didn’t know what would happen. But she had to live. Through everything, she was the only real friend I had.

The light grew brighter. The surface neared. She just had to hold on a little longer. We breached the surface, and suddenly gravity returned. I had to squeeze with everything I had to keep Tali from slipping back into the water.

“Get her helmet off, now!” I shouted as we were hoisted over the ship’s railing. The deck crew immediately went to work, unbolting her helmet with a pneumatic tool. Even that didn’t feel fast enough. Water poured out as her helmet lifted away. Her head was limp. She wasn’t breathing.

The deckhooves quickly removed the rest of her suit, laying her out flat on her back. She didn’t move. One of the zebras whose names I hadn’t bothered learning began chest compressions.

Nothing. He listened for her heartbeat, a worried grimace crossing his face. Another round of pumping her ribcage, another kiss of life to blow air back into her lungs. Nothing.

I wanted to rush over and render aid, but I was still trapped in the heavy dive suit. Every sensation in my limbs turned to static. All I could do was watch the scene unfold. My vision blurred as tears welled.

At long last, a fountain of water burst forth from her mouth. She coughed, ragged and heavy, and sucked down a desperate breath.

She was alive. I gasped. She was alive. Relief flooded through me, radiating out through my wings and talons. An uneven, desperate laugh escaped my beak as I blinked away the excess moisture in my eyes. Tali was alive.

The mission was a success. The Spear of Vulcanis was mine, and all of us had come out alive.

“Well done, my friend.” Delian’s voice pulled me from my reverie. He clapped a hoof over my back.

Friend? No. At best, tolerated acquaintance. Perhaps if I hadn’t been on the way down from a massive adrenaline rush, I would have told him off and put him in his place. He had done little to earn that title.

Not like Tali had. A few of the zebra crew gathered Tali up from the deck and carried her below deck. She didn’t have to help me. She could have left me to founder on my own, but she dropped everything to help. If I had one friend in the entire world, it was her.

I gave the handle in my grasp a squeeze. The Spear of Vulcanis was mine. Thanks to Tali.

Another set of hoofsteps approached. It was Nela, the dive tender. “What happened down there?” she asked, her brow knitting with concern. “What was all that about a Kraken?

“There was one, yes,” I said.

“How did you deal with it?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. There was a bright light and a big boom, then there was no more Kraken.”

Nela and Delian both looked at me, then down to the spear. She tilted her head. “That’s it?”

“How much of the other treasure did you get?” I asked Delian.

He smirked and patted the large pouch slung over his shoulder, dropping it to the deck where it landed with a heavy, twinkling thud. A few gold coins spilled out alongside a constellation of multi-colored gemstones.

“The museums are going to love that,” said Nela.

“Yes they will,” I agreed, following along with the original lie Tali and I had told.

Delian laughed as he scooped up the spilled loot. “We will discuss who gets what when Tali wakes.”

The small gathering on the top deck dispersed once I had been helped out of my dive gear. The ship began a broad turn toward the east to head back towards Bandari, the Zebrican port town where we first met the zebra divers. It was all the way across the South Sea from the wreck site, which was near the Ornithian coast. At least a day’s journey to get there, and then we had to figure out what to do with all the stuff.

But now I had a new path forward. A new way to stay ahead.

I sat for a while at the ship’s bow, watching it break through the waves. There wasn’t much chop on the waters today to make it interesting, but it made for smoother sailing.

I missed Green Haze. My darling flagship, perhaps the only thing I could say I truly loved in this world. She was safe in the harbor down at The Keep, but I missed how she handled. The past two weeks of puttering around in cargo barges and trawlers were starting to cramp my style.

A whistling chirp high above caught my attention, and I looked up toward the sky. Lesser birds like gulls were common, often using passing ships as resting perches, but this was no gull call. Was that an osprey?

Squinting against the bright sunlight, I found the small black and white dot circling high above our ship. Definitely an osprey. It was in a dive, like it was zeroing in on a fish to catch, only it didn’t dive into the water after prey like I expected. Instead, it landed on the ship’s railing.

A slip of paper was tied to its foot.

I stared at the osprey for a moment, and it stared back at me before preening its wing feathers, unbothered by my presence. I inched closer, expecting the bird to startle at any moment, but it stood steady. I reached out gingerly for the message.

The osprey hopped onto my outstretched arm. Its talons poked at the flesh underneath but did not pierce the skin. It allowed me to untie the string and let the paper free. The moment the paper was in my grasp, the bird spread its wings and flew away.

I held out the note and, which contained a single word.

Aeolia.

The pit stop on Greenfin Island. The one with a hippogriff navy base in the harbor. A week ago, it would have been a suicide mission, but with the spear?

I laughed, crumpling up the paper and tossing it overboard. I would show up when I was damn good and ready.

There were a lot of amazing days on Mount Aris. Most were good, some were great, a few were perfect. One of the days that always made it to that upper echelon was art supply day. There was not a permanent place to buy paints and brushes here, at least not yet. Maybe one day when enough hippogriffs had come back. Once every few months, a traveling merchant pony would show up with the goods. Palette was her name. I liked Palette. She was an abstract impressionist just like me! We always had plenty to talk about and show off to each other when she visited.

As I flew home from the market, the anticipation was insane! My satchel hung heavy around my neck, stuffed with a fresh batch of paints—the good oils that came in the silver squeeze tubes, not just any old student-grade dribble. There was one new color in there that I hadn’t tried yet, a metallic silver that I just knew would come in handy somewhere. New brushes, a fresh can of gesso to prime my canvas. I was all set to ride the creative waves, baby.

Painting feelings was a lot more fun when the feelings were good. The canvas that had come to symbolize Gallus was no longer faced against the wall in shame; instead, it was now the centerpiece of the room! Since the illuminating conversation with Gallus a week before, I had added several new shapes to it. A big piece of electric blue coral, waves crashing onto a shoreline, a trash can in the background to add a little humor. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice right away when I finally showed him.

But it wasn’t done yet. I needed more to complete the picture, but now I was in the best position possible to get that information. He was my boyfriend now!

A little rush of warmth fluttered through my chest. Gallus. Me. A thing. Who would have thought? I wrote a letter to Ocellus the day after that little kiss on the cheek. Her letter would be coming in any day now! Ocellus always gave the best boy advice. I didn’t guess it right away when I first met her since she was so meek, but changelings literally had to go through training on how to understand relationships so they could better manipulate them. That carried over to her having a weird kind of confidence and wisdom around matters of romance.

Well, at least she was great with the theory behind it. She still hadn’t put it into practice much. Poor thing.

I missed the rest of the gang. Smolder was probably out tearing it up in the dragon lands like she always did. Yona was surely loving being back in the mountains with her family. Sandbar—well, not a lot changed for him, but I knew he missed the rest of us—especially Yona. The worst part about the summer was that we all had to go back home! It was extra exciting to have Gallus here since it meant I got to keep at least one small part of my friend group together, still making memories.

I landed gracefully on the path just outside of my front door. I couldn’t wait to get in there and create!

“—And I told him a million times, keep your wings tucked in close when you’re in the middle of a dive! But no, he doesn’t listen to me and it cost him ten whole seconds on the last lap,” came Dad’s voice as I opened the door. I had heard this story before. One from his competitive flying days that he loved to throw around. “But what do I know?”

A short pause, then a second voice. “Oh yes, Sky Beak, you’re so smart.”

My heart lurched to a halt in my chest. Oh no. What was she doing here? For the briefest moment, I thought of how I could stealth my way up to my room, but then the door gently bumped against the wall. The conversation paused. I grimaced.

“Hello, Silverstream,” said Ocean Flow.

My mouth went dry. “Hi, Mom,” I croaked.

It was strange to see her in her hippogriff form. Her mane was a reasonably close approximation of her dorsal fins, a tightly wound shock of pink and purple feathers that lolled over and bobbed to one side of her head. She had only used it a couple of times since hippogriffs began repopulating the mountain. It practically took a decree from the gods themselves to get her out of the water.

But now, here she was! Sipping tea and sitting on the couch a cordial distance away from Dad. A stack of paper filled the void between them. For his part, he wore his usual chipper smile and waved at me as I hesitantly entered the room. “Hey, Silver. Get anything good from the paint pony?” From his reaction, it was like this was totally ordinary.

“Yeah, she had the cornflower blue I needed,” I said, trailing off at the end as I sheepishly rummaged through my satchel. There was a long list of places I would rather be than right here, but maybe I could excuse myself to my room before—

“Come, sit with us,” said Mom. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.”

“And whose fault is that?” was what I wanted to say, but I had already withered under her stare. When Mom hit me with that little quirk of the brow, I lost all my nerve. Obediently, I took my place on a cushion off to the side.

I expected a lecture. A grilling. Maybe a grounding. There was definitely some ire in that stare of hers, but as I sat down, she masked whatever she was thinking as a cool smile crossed her beak. “How was your semester?”

“Um, good. Great!” I said, internally cringing at my awkward response. “Really just fine.”

She turned a side eye to Dad. “Good marks in all your courses?”

I nodded while Dad took up the slack for me. “Top of the class, straight A’s all the way!” He beamed with pride.

Mom nodded approvingly. “I figured as much. I mean honestly, friendship school? Silverstream? Pssh. She could start teaching there tomorrow.”

“There’s a lot more nuance to it than you would think,” Dad defended, “and there’s still the usual math and science that everyone has to take. Not exactly a cakewalk, but she got her brains from you.”

“It went well,” I said, opting not to object to the way Mom dismissed my schoolwork.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” said Mom before taking a sip of her tea. “And how are those friends of yours?”

“Oh, they’re great!” I said, this time smiling a little bit more sincerely. “I’m sure they’re all happy to be home with their families, but I sure have been missing them. Well, except for Gallus. I just saw him yesterday.”

Mom smiled. “I take it that he is adapting well to life here?”

I nodded with vigor. “Oh yeah, he’s happy as a clam! Totally loving it here.”

“I’d like to meet this griffon sometime. I still haven’t gotten to meet any of your friends.”

“If you stayed until tonight you could meet him when he gets off work,” I offered, knowing full well what her answer would be.

“Oh, I’m afraid I can’t today. I have to be back at the palace to meet Novo when she returns from the rulers’ summit.” At least her excuse sounded legitimate. The conversation lagged for a moment, and with every second I was increasingly aware of how much I didn’t want to be there. How long had I been drumming my claws on the cushion?

Dad was playing nice like a champ. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was actually happy to see Mom. Even after everything she had done. I had no idea how he was doing it. I wanted to get up in her face and scream, “How dare you walk in here and act like you own the place! You don’t anymore! You were the one who walked out, remember?”

But I couldn’t just unload on her like that. She was my mother. “Well, it’s good to see you, Mom. I really want to get up there and try these paints out so I’m just gonna—”

“Before you leave,” she halted me. “The Seaquestrian Summer Ball is in two weeks. Have you thought about who you’re taking this year? And have you been practicing your dances?”

Oh, clams. “Uh huh, sure have!” I lied. I hadn’t remembered that party at all, even though it happened at the same time every year. “I know the routine like the back of my fin.” Less of a lie. I had done the dances dozens of times, but I was a little out of practice.

“Good, and your partner?”

“Oh, um,” I stammered. Somehow, breaking the news that I was now dating my griffon friend didn’t seem like the best idea. Sure, Dad would probably be fine with it, but Mom? No idea. Better to play it safe. “Yeah, I’ve got a few ideas.”

“I think you should bring Coulee again,” Mom offered. “You two did such a good job in the dance last year.”

I fought the urge to gag. The ex-boyfriend that had lasted two whole weeks. Coulee was a good dancer, yes, but he had the personality of an unsalted peanut. “Oh, uh, I don’t know. I think I’d like to try going with someone new.”

“I’ll keep him as a backup, then. Now give Mama a hug, baby.”

I shuffled over and gave her a quick, obligatory hug. Just enough enthusiasm to seem genuine and not a smidge more.

“Okay, run along,” she dismissed. “Where were we, Sky?”

“Separation of assets,” he read, donning his reading glasses and picking up the top page from the stack between them. “Item number one…”

I flew up to the balcony and shut the door to my bedroom with force. Mom came up here to tell me to partner up with my ex-boyfriend and give Dad more divorce paperwork. What a great way to break the ice. Why else would she bother coming to see me?

I yanked my satchel over my head and tossed it onto my bed, scattering the new paint tubes and brushes.

The easel stood dutifully in the center of the room, ready and waiting to accept the turmoil in my head. I grabbed my paint palette without even looking at it, jabbed my biggest brush into whatever color it found, and swiped across the empty canvas.

A big, bright streak of crimson, like a trail of blood from a monster dragging its prey. That felt good. I grinned and loaded up my brush with more paint.