The water was eerily still, a deceptive mirror reflecting the faint starlight of the graveyard watch hours of Ryxe. The skiff drifted, a tiny speck of wood and sail on the vast, dark expanse of the Undertow Sea.
The silence pressed in, far more unnerving than the seadrakes’ roars had been. They had vanished beneath the surface as quickly as they had appeared. Where are they now? she wondered, looking at the water around her. She felt a lurking dread, a primal awareness of unseen predators beneath the waves, as if she was a small mouse in a room full of cats.
With no compass to guide her—the darned Dragonkin had taken that—Ellie focused on the distant silhouettes of the jagged volcanic islands on the horizon. Just reach the shore, she told herself, and then you can worry about the next step. She relied on the feel of the wind on her face, the subtle push and pull of the waves against the hull, as she steered toward what she hoped was safety.
The skiff moved through the black water, her only source of light was the lantern casting a dim circle around the boat. She shivered, not entirely from the cold. Then, a subtle ripple broke the water’s surface, a reminder that she was not alone, and the seadrakes still lingered. She tightened her grip on the tiller, as she scanned the darkness for any sign of the beasts below.
The rocky shoreline loomed before her, and she maneuvered the skiff towards it.
“Almost there.”
The vessel shuddered as it scraped against the jagged rocks, the noise jarring. The hull groaned as water began to seep in. Ellie scrambled to drag it further up the shore, ignoring the pain in her shoulders as she heaved. She knew that the skiff wouldn’t last long and that she had no other way to leave the island.
No. Don’t think about it, she thought, as she pulled with all of her might. Just get through this night.
As far as she could tell, the island was a desolate landscape under the dim starlight. Volcanic rock and loose gravel stretched out before her, a barren wasteland. The air was humid, a suffocating blanket clinging to her skin. A thick fog from the sea and the dark night clung to the land, obscuring everything beyond her small pool of lantern light.
It was difficult to see, her vision limited, making the island appear more terrifying than it already was. She strained her eyes, trying to look through the gloom, but the fog seemed to swallow the light, rendering the world into a series of shifting shadows.
Thirst became an insistent ache in her throat. Ellie knew she had to find fresh water soon or she wouldn’t survive long. She could see no sign of life until her gaze caught on a slender vine clinging to a rock face—a water plant. Its leaves holding droplets of the morning dew.
She drew her knife and cut the vine, and carefully coaxed the water from the plant to her lips, letting each precious drop linger on her tongue. “Just enough to get me through.”
The fog that clung to the island, creating a sense of isolation. She wrapped her arms around her body. “What was Grandpa Joe’s saying for staying warm?” she asked herself, but she couldn’t remember. Never mind, that’s not important right now. Shelter first, she thought, trying to be practical.
The limited circle of light from her lantern and each rustle of the damaged sail made her jump. Ellie tried to shake off her unease, her hand instinctively moved to the knife at her belt. Okay, Ellie, she said to herself, Just breathe and think. She had to focus on finding shelter. She had to survive.
Using the ruined sail, she managed to create a crude shelter, shielding herself from the night’s chill and the unseen dangers. It offered minimal protection, just a few layers of tattered canvas secured to rocks and broken pieces of the skiff. She worked quickly, not wanting to spend any longer in the open than she had to.
As she worked, her fingers brushed against a strange shape—a peculiar crystal embedded in the rock, unlike anything she’d seen on the mainland. It seemed out of place on the volcanic landscape, and she made a mental note to examine it later, when survival wasn’t her immediate concern.
As the fog swirled and the night settled around her, Ellie became acutely aware of the feeling of being watched. The darkness was alive with movement, faint whispers and rustling leaves. Just the wind, Ellie, she thought. Just the blasted wind. They sounded like murmurs from the rocks. Something felt familiar about the place, like a forgotten dream, a whisper of an old song. It was as if the island itself was watching her.
A deep unease settled in. She’d felt this before, a strange familiarity that made her uneasy. She looked at her finger, to the simple silver ring that rested there, a reminder of home and family.
Then, as she huddled beneath her makeshift shelter, she heard it: a single, chilling sound. It was a cry, almost human, and yet something about its tone suggested something not quite of this world. It was distant, but clear, and echoed eerily across the rocks, seeming to come from everywhere at once. Was someone else on the island, or was this just a trick of the night?
