Then the sea rose from their knees to their chests.

Hagris tried to turn and flee, but couldn't. "My feet are stuck to the deck!" he blurted in horror.

Skyreach tried to move her own feet, and found that Hagris's predicament was hers as well. She glanced at the rest of the ship, finding pirates and elven warriors and ship's crew likewise adhered to the deck. Everyone aboard was doomed, held like flies in amber.

Fear swelled within her, but she kept it at bay, accepting the fate that lay before her. It was all part of keeping her duty to her great-grandfather. Then the sea closed over her head, at first cold to the touch and leeching the warmth from her body. Instinctively, she struggled against it, fought against drawing the briny liquid into her lungs.

The time came when she could no longer fight the impulse to breathe. She drew in great draughts of the salt water, filling her veins with ice.

And she began to change, to become something both stronger and weaker, something that would hide her great-grandfather's legacy forever.

1

We've been followed.

Resting his shovel in the dark, fresh-turned earth of the tree-covered hillside, Baylee Arnvold gazed up at his companion. We weren't followed.

I told you back at Waymoot that I thought it was a possibility.

Yes, you did, Xuxa, Baylee replied calmly in the telepathic communication that his companion excelled in, and the candle maker that you believed to be following us had the scare of his life when I jumped him in the alley behind Beruintar's Bone Warmer. If I hadn't been worn out from doing without sleep over the past days, I would never have fallen for your paranoia.