The frozen icicle provided us with an extra barrier.

  Ether moved away from the ice. That provided us with cover in two directions. Nakten moved to my left and Fray went to my right as the group of monsters attacked all at once.

  Aelin pulled Justia into the middle, then began shooting over Fray’s shoulder. I glanced at my CB to see if Miel had answered me, but there was nothing. I knelt down and touched the deck, then focused on the area in front of Nakten.

  “Freeze.”

  The wet deck iced over from the Anubis all the way to the side of the ship. The lizards slipped, their legs flailing out to the side as they slid across the ice. I sighted the closest one as I stayed kneeling and shot twice. One shot wasn’t enough to bring one of them down, but two in rapid succession were.

  Nakten kicked out, knocking the next closest lizard’s head up, then she twisted, coming up under the exposed neck and burying her blade in its throat. Her spin continued as she pulled the blade out, then swiped a kick across its face, knocking the dead body out of the way.

  The monsters didn’t let up, but we fell into a rhythm. I shot the ones on her right, and she kicked, stabbed, and slashed at whatever got close to her. As much as I wanted to check on the others, all my focus was on the enemies in front of me.

  I emptied every clip I had. I still hadn’t bought extra clips, which was something that I’d forgotten to check in Jyscor if they had any that I could use. I made another mental note to buy some in Iver once we got there.

  Once I was out of clips, I had to cast the shot spells normally. I wasn’t sure what element the blue-scaled lizards were, if they even had an element, but Pebble Shot seemed to work, so that’s what I stuck with. I drained my mana twice, forcing me to top it off with mana potions. Halfway through my third mana bar, the monster wave finally slowed down.

  Nakten was breathing hard as the monsters backed away from us. Our jackets provided us with a little protection from the rain, but we were all soaked all the way through.

  “Here.” Justia put a yellow vial in the Anubis’s hand. The Healer turned to me. “You need one?”

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  “I’m good.” I gulped down a breath of air. My lungs burned from the shallow, rapid breathing that I’d been doing. I knew a stamina potion would help, but I didn’t know how many she had, and Aelin, Fray, and Nakten needed them a lot more than I did.

  “What are they doing?” Ether adjusted her grip on her shield.

  “Giving us easy shots!” Aelin fired another pink arrow through one of the monster’s eyes.

  The lizards scattered, scurrying as fast as they could off the side of the ship.

  I watched the monsters flee. Aelin took a few more shots, but none of them were lethal.

  There were bodies of lizards everywhere. I’d killed hundreds of monsters in the Dungeon, but their bodies always disappeared, leaving behind only a crystal. I’d never seen this many bodies anywhere.

  It was chilling to see the carnage that we’d caused. Cold rain beat down on me as the dark clouds squeezed on the ship. Lightning cracked in the distance, which pulled my attention. Hope flared for a moment that it might have been Trent, but there was nothing but rain and a little wind.

  “Is it still out there?” Fray kept her sword up as she looked around.

  “Yes.” Ether and I said at the same time.

  Justia eyed me. “How do you know?”

  I swallowed. “It’s like I’m being watched.”

  “By something very hungry.” Ether added.

  “So what do we do?” Justia looked between us. “We can’t go out there and fight it in the water.”

  “I…” I took a deep breath. “I don’t know. Maybe once we get close enough to Iver—”

  The ship groaned and lurched as the engines died.

  “That’s not good.” Nakten glanced over her shoulder at me.

  “It’s trying to sink us, isn’t it?” Fray shivered as she turned around. “Do any of you know how to swim?”

  “Won’t matter in this water.” Nakten shook her head. “We go down and that thing is going to eat us one at a time, unless either of you has a domain?”

  “No.” I shook my head. Having a domain that was water-related would have been very helpful right now, but I doubted that even my bloodline would grant one of us a domain. Those were something that Gods got when they claimed a city and none of us had one of those Mantles.

  The ship shook as the Sea Dragon slammed into it again. Everyone looked at me while we braced against either the icicle or Ether. I checked my CB again, but there was still no response from Miel. I began to worry if something had happened to her, but there shouldn’t have been anything or anyone on the ship that could have touched her.

  I ran through our options. We were dead in the water and unless we had some way to fight in the water, the boat would eventually sink. I thought about all the battles we’d been in before and I had another idea, but I wasn’t sure how good of one it was.

  “Justia…” I turned to my Priestess. “Do you think you can overlay my Mantle?”

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