The seadrake towered before her, water cascading from its scales. Its throat began to glow with deadly fire, the heat almost singeing her eyebrows. The stench of sulfur stung her nose—like the volcanic vents near Emberfall, but fouler.
“By the tide’s grace,” Ellie said, clutching the crystals with trembling hands. The song Pipwhistle had sung seemed to fade like morning mist. “I know what you were . . . before they changed you.”
The seadrake’s head snaked closer, steam rising from its jaws. Its eyes held no recognition—only fury. Around her, the crystals began to crack from the heat, their surfaces splintering with the sound of breaking glass.
“Pip?” The Quibnocket had vanished into whatever space between moments he called home. Ellie backed away slowly, sweat trickling down her spine. “I’m not your enemy, great one.”
The creature’s roar shook the ground beneath her boots. Ellie turned and ran, feeling the scorching heat as the seadrake’s fire melted the stone where she’d stood moments before. The air behind her crackled, and she caught the smell of her own singed hair—like the time she’d leaned too close to the hearth at the Rusty Anchor Inn.
She pushed through dense vegetation, her boots slipping on crystal shards as she scrambled up the slopes. The heavy thud of the seadrake pushing onto shore echoed through the strange forest, each impact making the ground shudder. Branches whipped her face as she ran, but she didn’t slow until the sounds of pursuit faded.
“Ruddy depths,” she panted, slipping the useless crystals into her bag. Her hands shook as she wiped sweat from her face. “Some dragon blood I turned out to be.” She touched her wedding ring for luck, twisting it once as she caught her breath. She’d have to figure out the songs later—assuming she survived long enough to try again.
A sweet scent caught her attention—like honey, but with an undertone that reminded her of the poisonous sea moss that sometimes drifted into Crystal Shores harbor during storms. Through the twisted trees, she glimpsed something moving, something that belonged in her mother’s nightmarish tales rather than the waking world.
“A Sweetsnare,” she whispered. “By the lake’s depths, the old texts were true . . . .” Her mother’s botanical scrolls in Tidelore Hall had described these monsters.
The massive flower swayed before her, its petals deep crimson with veins of purple running through them like river tributaries. The bloom gaped wide enough to swallow a person whole. As she watched, mesmerized, the petals rippled with an almost hypnotic rhythm—like a jellyfish dancing in dark waters.
Something brushed her ankle. Ellie looked down to see a thick tendril wrapping around her boot, as strong as the mooring lines on the Blue Horizon.
“Not today, you ruddy plant!” She slashed with her knife, the blade barely cutting through the vine’s rubbery flesh. More tendrils reached for her, their movements deliberately slow, almost gentle—like seaweed caressing a drowning sailor. Sweet-smelling fluid oozed from the cut vine, splattering her forearms. Pain blazed where it touched her skin.
The flower’s petals spread wider, revealing row upon row of crystalline teeth. The honey-sweet scent grew stronger, making her sick. Another tendril caught her wrist, trying to pull her closer to that waiting mouth.
“I didn’t survive the ruddy Undertow Sea to end up plant food.” Ellie sawed at the vine around her wrist. Each cut released more of that burning sap, raising welts on her skin. Her knife arm struggled as she hacked at the thickest tendril, remembering Tyler’s lessons about finding the weakest point.
The massive bloom lunged toward her, petals spreading wide. Through the teeth, Ellie caught a glimpse of something half-dissolved in its depths—bones, she realized with horror. Animal bones, bleached white.
With desperate strength, she drove her knife deep into what looked like a central vine. The plant recoiled with a sound like tearing silk, its tendrils releasing her as it twisted in apparent pain.
Ellie stumbled backward. Her forearms felt like she’d plunged them into boiling chowder where the sap had touched them. She needed water—her skins were still on the ruined skiff, but with that seadrake patrolling the shore . . . .
“Think,” she said, forcing herself to keep moving despite the pain. Through the strange, twisting vegetation, she spotted something that didn’t belong in any natural forest—spires rising against the daytide sky like ship’s masts in fog.
Through the thinning vegetation, massive structures emerged, their crystalline towers catching the sunlight in ways that made her eyes water. An entire city spread before her, its buildings seeming to have grown from the ground rather than been built—like the limestone formations that rose from the depths of Lake Dragontide.
Crystal formations had overtaken much of the stonework, creating strange hybrid structures that defied description. Even the grandest tales she’d heard of Drakemere Island’s palace—with its dragon-sized corridors and carved spires—seemed mundane compared to this alien cityscape.
“Pip?” she called out. “A little guidance would be welcome right about now.” The burns on her arms throbbed in time with her pulse, reminding her of her urgent need for fresh water.
Only the wind answered, carrying the distant sound of waves. She pressed on, following what might once have been a road, now half-reclaimed by transparent growths that sparkled. Her boots crunched on fragments that might once have been cobblestones.
Movement caught her eye—quick, darting shapes between the buildings. Not quite human, they kept their distance but watched her with unsettling intensity. When she turned to look directly at them, they disappeared into the shadows.
“I mean no harm,” she called out, but the watchers remained hidden.
The ancient city opened into what must have been a marketplace, its stalls now partially merged with the crystal formations. Dried fountains stood in empty squares, their basins etched with scenes that made her pause. Humans and seadrakes, dancing together through waves that curved up into the sky. Not fighting, not hunting—celebrating like the festivals of her childhood in Crystal Shores.
“By the old kings . . . what happened here?” she wondered aloud. “The Dragonkin must’ve done this.”
A sound drew her attention—the splash of water, as welcome as a freshening breeze to a sailor. In the center of the marketplace, a spring still flowed, its water clear. Ellie approached cautiously, remembering Finnegan’s warnings about drinking from strange waters. But the spring looked pure, and the pain in her arms had become nearly unbearable.
Kneeling beside the fountain, Ellie pushed up her sleeves to examine the damage. Red welts marked her skin from wrist to elbow, some already beginning to blister like a bad scald from the cookfire. She cupped the cool water in her hands and let it run over the burns, sighing with relief as it eased the stinging.
As she drank deeply from the spring, her peripheral vision caught movement. One of the watching creatures had ventured closer—a child-sized being with skin that seemed to shift between flesh and crystal, like sunlight playing on waves. It studied her with eyes like polished moonstones before vanishing again into the shadows.
A weathered map caught her eye, preserved behind a sheet of crystal that had grown over the wall like ice on a winter pond. Despite its age, she could make out familiar landmarks—and there, marked among the intricate routes through the Dragonspine Reaches, was Drakemere Island. It wasn’t far at all.
“Thank you,” she said to the hidden watchers, though she wasn’t sure they understood. “I need to find my son before the eveningbell.”
Following the streets toward the sound of waves, she emerged into a harbor unlike any she’d seen in all her years of sailing. Crystal growths had consumed most of the docks, creating a forest of translucent spires that chimed softly in the breeze.
But there, nestled between two crystalline formations, lay a lone fishing vessel. The ship’s weathered hull was bleached gray from countless suns, but its lines were as familiar to her as her own reflection—the kind of craft she’d grown up sailing on Lake Dragontide.
Two masts still stood, their rigging intact though stiff with age. Nets hung like forgotten spider webs from the railings, and rusted hooks dangled from weather-worn lines. The vessel had the deep hull of a fishing boat, but the sleek lines of something built for speed—the kind of craft that could outrun a storm or slip past seadrake patrols.
“The Tidedancer,” she read from the faded name on the bow.
“Please be seaworthy,” she said, climbing aboard. The deck planks creaked but held her weight. She moved methodically through her inspection, checking the rigging as Tyler had taught her, testing the rudder’s response, examining the sails stored below for signs of rot.
The ship’s hold yielded unexpected treasures—preserved supplies, dried fish that looked as fresh as if it had been caught during last tide’s run, hard biscuits sealed in waxed paper. Even an old compass that still pointed true, as far as she could tell. In the captain’s cabin, she found charts marked with safe passages through the Dragon’s Maws, though the paper was so delicate she barely dared touch it.
But taking the boat without asking felt wrong, like stealing from her own kin. “Hello?” she called out, voice carrying across the harbor. “I need this boat and supplies to reach my son at Drakemere Island. Please . . . is anyone here who can grant me passage?”
The strange inhabitants remained hidden, though she caught glimpses of forms moving between the spires. They neither helped nor hindered as she prepared the vessel.
She hauled fresh water from the spring, washing out the old waterskins she’d found before filling them for the journey ahead. Every movement was watched by unseen eyes—she could feel them.
In the boat’s small cabin, Ellie spread the fragile charts across the mounted table, comparing them to the compass readings. The workspace reminded her of Tyler’s cabin on the Blue Horizon—cramped but efficient, with a narrow bunk built into one wall and storage compartments beneath. She traced possible routes, her father’s lessons flooding back like a rising tide.
“Keep the whirlpools to starboard,” she said, following the faded ink lines. “Follow the deep water markers where the old ships rest.” Strange symbols marked certain passages—warnings perhaps, or signs only the ancient mariners would have understood.
Back on deck, she checked the rigging one final time, testing each rope as methodically as her mother had taught her to mend nets. The ropes were old but sound, and the sailcloth, though weathered, showed no tears. She hoisted the mainsail partway, testing how it caught the wind. The boom creaked but held steady.
Finally, she untied the mooring lines, using a pole to push away from the crystal-encrusted berth. The Tidedancer’s hull groaned like an old sailor rising from his chair, but then the vessel slid smoothly into deeper water.
Ellie looked back at the shore as she guided the boat toward open water. For a moment, she glimpsed the watching creatures gathered at the harbor’s edge—dozens of them. One raised a hand in what might have been farewell.
“Thank you,” she called back, though the wind carried her words away. Ahead lay the Dragon’s Maws and beyond them, Drakemere Island.
She adjusted the sails, feeling the familiar thrum of wind and wave through the deck planks. The Tidedancer responded eagerly, like an old horse remembering its youth. Together, they set course for the treacherous waters ahead, leaving the mysterious island to its secrets.
