The deck was a mess.

  Three of the turrets to my right were gone and two of them on my left were missing as well. I knew that there were technical terms for the sides of a ship, but coming from a landlocked city, I’d never learned them.

  Rain hammered the deck, obscuring my vision, but I could tell that there were a lot of people hurt. Ken was in the middle of the deck, blasting electricity at the shadows that swam in the clouds around the ship. Each bolt of magic lit up the area around the middle of the ship.

  I took a step towards him, then saw my father floating in the air in front of the ship. I wasn’t sure how he was flying, but I knew that I wanted that spell.

  Trent summoned a tower of swirling air, pushing back the large shadow. With his other hand, he blasted the ship with a second gust of stiff wind, pushing it further from him.

  I’d seen him fight against Sipher, but that had been a defensive fight. Knowing what I knew now, he had probably been dragging the fight out until the Enforcers arrived and could arrest all of the Bandits that Whisper had brought out of hiding.

  He wasn’t dragging his feet now. Lightning bolts wider than his body hammered at the shadow as another column of air rose out of the water. The clouds darkened, making it harder to see what was happening as we moved farther away from the fight.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” Ken grabbed one of the downed sailors and dragged him over to us. “YOU NEED TO GET BELOW DECK!”

  A lizard the size of a horse jumped on the deck and pounced at the older man’s back.

  Miel blurred around me, her sword taking off the monster’s head in a single swipe.

  “Get down below.” Her voice had a hard edge, one that dared him to defy her.

  “You don’t know what’s out there!” Ken pointed towards the front of the ship, where my father was getting smaller.

  “It’s a Sea Dragon.” I cleared my throat.

  “How do you…” His eyes widened as he looked between us, then he hit his knees and bowed his head. “Your eminence, why?”

  At first I thought he was talking to me, but then I realized that he was addressing Miel. I suppressed a chuckle. He wasn’t far off, but that worked to our favor.

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  “Just get your people below deck.” Miel straightened. “Now.”

  “As you wish, my lady.” He bowed again, then pulled his unconscious crewmate the rest of the way across the wet deck to the stairs.

  Miel shook her head. “I’ll get the others off the deck…” She wiped rain off her face, then turned to where Trent was even smaller. “You know, he might be able to handle this on his own.”

  “He’s sacrificing himself.” As much as I wanted to believe in our teacher, I knew better. I could feel the power coming from what he was fighting. His mana was going to run out long before he could kill it. He was trying to wound it badly enough that it wouldn’t be able to chase after us once it got him.

  “He’s…” Aelin picked up her bow and sighted it on the large shadow.

  I put my hand on her arm. “It won’t work.”

  “But if I can make it come after me…” The blonde wiped her face with the back of her sleeve.

  “It has to clear combat.” Nakten confirmed. “Until that thing can’t find Lord Trent, its power isn’t going to reset.”

  “So we came up here to fight a Tier Seven—” Aelin’s eyes bulged.

  “I was hoping that by Trent going below deck it would drop in strength.” I shrugged. “It was a gamble.”

  “A GAMBLE!” Aelin lowered her bow. “So how are we going to—”

  A scream cut her question short. The three of us turned around to see Fray decapitating one of the blue lizards. Three more climbed onto the deck, each moving to form a circle of stalking monsters around our teammate. Ether and Justia were busy with another pair of monsters and they weren’t making a lot of headway.

  “Aelin…” I drew my pistol.

  “MAGIC ARROWS!”

  The blonde dashed across the deck towards the pair, shooting as she ran towards Ether. I sighted the nearest lizard to me from the group around Fray and shot it in the head.

  The lizard’s head snapped to the side, but it didn’t go down. The angry monster slowly turned its head, slitted eyes glaring at me as it opened its toothy mouth to hiss.

  Fray took off its head as she ran past it, out of the circle of monsters. She slipped on the wet deck as she tried to stop in front of me.

  I knelt down to break her slide, steadying her with my free hand as she rolled over on all fours. The other two lizards raced after her, angry hisses filling the stormy air.

  Nakten appeared on top of the one to my left, her twin daggers sinking into the monster’s neck. I sighted the other one, shooting my first Pebble Shot into its open mouth. When its head snapped back, I fired two more into its exposed throat.

  Both monsters collapsed on the deck.

  I stood up as lightning cracked around the ship. Aelin and Ether had taken care of the monsters they’d been fighting, leaving only us on the stormy deck. We gathered together near the front, watching the intensity of the storm, then the lightning and wind stopped, leaving only the clouds and rain.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. It felt like a pair of giant eyes were looking directly at me from out in the darkness. I sent a silent prayer for Trent’s safety but feared the worst. I hadn’t told him my plan, which meant that he’d been fighting to either kill the giant monster or keep it occupied long enough for us to get away. If it was focused on us now, that meant nothing good had happened to Trent.

  I shook the thought from my head. “Get ready.” I swallowed. “It’s coming for us.”

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