Chains of Fate

Chapter Six

A/N: Clarice's photo is the media picture!

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Chapter Six

“It was that bad, was it?” Lucan asked Clarice as we stepped off the boat and onto the pier that led to Atroph, the port city of Nor.

She nodded, her face solemn. “But Lannie kicked butt. You should have seen her. She told those sirens off and everything.”

I focused on the wood planks below me and continued walking. Colorful birds called to us from the tall, leafy trees dotting the sandbank as we crossed the pier. It hurt to think about what happened—and what I did. After the sirens retreated, the spell broke and everyone returned to normal. Titus and Lucan remembered nothing from what happened, and Clarice had been blabbering on about the sirens for three hours straight.

The men who jumped into the ocean were drowned by the sirens. Captain Patel held a small ceremony in their memory, and everyone on the ship had been put into a glum stupor.

I shuffled across the pier behind Clarice and Lucan, thinking about what I said to Katrina. What if I wasn’t able to uphold my promise to her? Besides, didn’t I hear Queen Katrina? Was she the queen of the sirens? She could very well kill me if I wasn’t able to honor my promise. What was I thinking, promising Katrina the safety of her people?

Someone patted me on the back, and I looked to see Mayra smiling at me, her amber eyes ripe with emotion. “You handled that very well.”

I tried to smile back, but my nerves somehow made me lips turn downward. “It would have helped if Eden had been there,” I said after some thought. Part of my comment was meant to provoke Eden to a response, but there was only silence in my mind.

Mayra’s only answer was to pat me on the back again and move forward. I sighed. All of us were in a dull mood, it seemed. If I had been any later, then Titus and Lucan would have been dead.

I spotted Titus a few feet behind me, and frowned when I saw that he had his hand against his forehead. My heart leapt. Was something wrong with him? What if the sirens cast a spell on him?

…we will kill the entire crew of your ship whether you are on land or not.

When I remembered Katrina’s last words, I shot toward him in a panic and grabbed his arm. “Are you okay?”

He looked at me with a startled expression. “Yes.”

A one word answer. There was something wrong with him. “You look sick.”

“It’s just the air.”

“Uh huh.” I narrowed my eyes. His forehead was sweaty, his face pallid—and I knew it wasn’t from the warm tropical weather of Nor. “Titus, what’s wrong?”

Before he could respond, Captain Patel called for us further down the pier, and Titus took off in that direction. Frustrated, I stomped after him, but every time I tried to inquire of his health, the blasted fiend avoided me.

Dang it, Titus! Just listen to me! I wanted to cry out, but I couldn’t. I saw too many people milling about the ramshackle streets past the pier, and I didn’t want to cause a scene. Various fishermen wearing chest-revealing vests avoided us politely as they moved about the pier. The wooden planks beneath us turned to gravel as we entered the city. I gaped in horror at the sight before me. People of all shapes, clothing, and appearances swarmed the streets of Atroph. Women wore colorful scarves and lavish jewelry, while men wore sleeveless shirts for the warm weather. Stray dogs bolted for the cover of dark alleys and stalls, barking their objections as we moved along.