Sealed within Kealie Gothalis are the secrets of a magic destined to flood her kingdom.
Trading her Mortality to disguise the heritage her mother fears most, Kealie is gifted with a blessing. She need only do one thing; keep her kingdom in the dark...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The ship groaned underfoot, wood threatening to give beneath the weight of each step. Tables and chests were lightly coated in dust, suggesting perhaps a few weeks but no longer.
Kealie held onto the thick beams along the wall, sure to test every place she walked before following through. The oak pricked her fingers as they slid from plank to plank, the old, damp surface splitting from the wreck.
"What happened here..." she murmured to herself.
The whispers intensified, brushing into the air like evaporating steam. Thousands of tiny ghosts drifting up, flickering over Kealie's eyes, a vision fading in and out.
Wreckage. Fatality.
The storm.
She felt the wind slicing against her cheeks from the sheer cold, saw boards snapping and falling into the water.
Millions of images fluttering through her mind all at once.
And then nothing.
Kealie gasped for air and braced herself on the table, taking deep, drawn out breaths as pain radiated through her.
She didn't understand.
It was not her choice, the voices were showing her. Speaking to her.
Chanting in her ears.
Louder and louder.
An uproar of screaming voices refusing to be silenced.
She had to get out of here.
Kealie started running back the way she came, sliding past fallen beams and keeping her knees high as she cleared the wreckage. She ignored the groaning and creaking, launching herself for the gaping hole she'd crawled in through.
Her eyes locked onto the first cleaving in the floor, the length of a royal carriage and took a deep breath.
She just had to be fast enough.
Jump high enough.
So she gave everything she had to that final leap.
Kealie kicked her legs out in front of her, aiming to land on the nearest lip of jutting wood. Only one took hold. The rushing weight of her body snapped the plank like a twig, gashing her cheek and forehead with force.
The pain piercing her skull was unbearable.
She lost seconds of time to the darkness.
She barely felt the water swallow her frame, cradling her arms and legs. The cold waves held no temperature at all, her eyes open in thin slits.
