Moonlight washed over the streets of Skyfell as Dayne, Alina, and the two Redstone guards raced through the city. With each step, vibrations jolted through Dayne's legs as his sandal-clad feet pounded against the smooth sandy-brown stone. His lungs burned, and sweat dripped from his brow.
He couldn't take his eyes from the back of Alina's head. Where was she taking him? What just happened? There would be plenty of time for questions once they got wherever they were going, but for now, he just had to trust her.
Taking a deep breath, Dayne urged his legs to move faster. It would not be long before somebody stumbled across Baren and the Inquisitor lying unconscious in the study with the dead Praetorians. Once that happened, there would not be a safe place in the city.
"We're almost there," Alina called back. "Try and keep up."
Dayne just grunted, glancing quickly over his shoulder to see if there was anyone behind them. The streets were empty, as they would be at that time of night. But there would still be patrols. And four people armed to the hilt sprinting through the city streets would no doubt draw their attention.
After a few minutes, the smell of salt water and fish permeated the air, and the soft susurration of breaking waves reached Dayne's ears. She was taking him to the port.
Even before they turned the corner towards the port, Dayne could see the enormous masts and white sails jutting up through the gaps in the buildings. Turning the corner at the end of the street, they stepped through a massive, sweeping red-stone archway.
The port stretched hundreds of feet in length and swept around in an enormous semi-circle, with enough mooring spots and docking berths to house over a hundred ships at any one time. A large area of smooth stone skirted the docks, interspersed with areas of gravelled rocks and flower beds. Wooden stalls covered by tarp canopies stretched the length and breadth of the port. Most of the buildings that faced out toward the water were fronted by colonnade porches or multicoloured awnings to provide some relief from the harsh sun during the day. There was barely a soul in sight except for a few dockhands and the occasional drunken sailor trying to find his way back to whatever inn he was staying at.
"This way," Alina said, tilting her head towards a mooring about fifty feet along the docks to the right. Dayne nodded and followed on her heels.
Alina stopped in front of a small ship that held a single sail and a solitary row of oars. "Get on."
Dayne hesitated, stopping just short of the mooring. "Alina, where are you taking me?"
"I will explain on the way. Just trust me."
"My trust is running a little thin right now."
Alina grasped the fabric at the neck of Dayne's robes, wrapping it up into her fist, and drew her gaze level with his. "You are not in chains because of me. Get on that damned ship now or I will kick you into the water myself."
Dayne couldn't hide the smile that spread across his face, which only seemed to irritate Alina even further.
"What?" she said, her jaw clenching.
"I'm proud of you," he said with a shrug, stepping past her and onto the ship.
Just as his foot elicited a creak from the wooden decking of the ship, Dayne yelped, something hard cracking him in the back of his head. It was not a strong enough blow to do any real damage, but it would certainly leave a bruise. He turned just in time to see Alina storming off towards one of the men who stood at the other end of the ship.
The smile didn't disappear from Dayne's face as he reached his hand back to feel the lump already forming at the back of his head. But he did throw a dark stare at the two Redstone guards who stood behind him, barely attempting to conceal their laughter. There had been a time where no man or women in Skyfell would have dared laugh at a member of House Ateres, though Dayne barely fit that title anymore.
After a minute or two, the deckhands began to move around the ship, releasing the moorings and getting the oars ready. The vessel lurched as it started off into the water. Dayne had missed the feeling of near weightlessness as the floor shifted beneath him and the feel of the spray drifting up into the air, dancing across his skin. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting the scent of the sea fill his nostrils and the wind roll over his skin. It had been so long.
"You might want to get some sleep. It will be a few hours before we arrive."
Dayne opened his eyes as Alina draped a blanket over his shoulder. "I would rather sit and talk."
Alina pulled her mouth up into a weak smile. "There will be plenty of time for that, brother. There is a lot we must talk about. But for now, rest."
Dayne pulled the blanket from across his shoulder, watching as his sister strode off towards the other end of the ship. He dropped himself to the deck, resting his back against the gunnel. Pulling the blanket across himself, Dayne couldn't help but stare at Alina. The last time he had laid eyes on her, she had been a child, constantly crying any time he left for longer than a day, clinging to him like a shadow. He barely even recognised the woman who stood before him, barking orders at one of the soldiers.
Then he saw it, at the back of her neck, the tattoo of a sunburst. The mark of one who had given the gift of life. She was a mother. A sickly feeling sank to the pit of Dayne's stomach, and he found himself praying to Heraya. Please, let it have been a girl. Please.
Dayne woke to the feeling of a hand tugging at his shoulder.
"It is time, brother. We are here."
He opened his eyes to see Alina crouched in front of him, her left hand resting on his shoulder. He would have stayed there forever if time would have allowed it. I will never leave you again. I promise.
With a sigh and a half-smile, Dayne pushed the blanket off and rose to his feet. Night still dominated the sky, and the waters around them were lit by nothing but the light from the moon and the shimmer of the stars. In front of the ship, a sheer rock face rose for thousands of feet into the dark, stretching off to both the left and the right. Dayne knew this place. There was nowhere else they could have travelled to in that time. "Are you going to tell me why we're at Stormwatch?"
"You will see," Alina replied, not taking her eyes off the rock face that stood about two hundred feet in front of them.
"I'm getting tired of you saying that." Looking up, Dayne took in the jagged peaks of the cliff that were illuminated by the silvery light of the moon. The fortress city of Stormwatch had once been the focal point of Valtara's dominance of the seas. It had allowed them to control the flow of trade between the northernmost and southernmost regions of the continent, while also being a powerful tactical location. So high and so thick were the walls, no army could summit them. Bedded into the mountainside, with the sea at its front, it was impenetrable. The only access point was the port, which sat thousands of feet below the city walls. But when the empire quashed Dayne's parents' fledgling rebellion, they had no need to get inside the city. They had not wished to capture it, only to destroy it.
The empire made them watch – Dayne, his father, and his mother – from the deck of a Lorian ship as the Dragonguard bathed the city in dragonfire. It lasted for hours. Most of the men and women within the city did not die from the fire. They died from the heat and the smoke. Cooked alive and suffocated. He had always tossed up in his head which he would have preferred. The fire seemed quicker. Dayne still heard the screams at night when he slept. He still heard the blood-chilling howls as the fire stripped skin from bone and set men's lungs ablaze.
Now, the city lay empty. Not so much as a solitary flame could be seen in any of the windows, the only exception being the flame of the lighthouse that sat at the very top of the keep, warding off ships from the rocks.
It's not a city. It's a grave. Even when the ship began to tack right, Dayne did not take his eyes from the outline of the enormous fortress that stood empty in the side of the mountain, illuminated by nothing more than the light of the moon.
The ship skirted the rock face in silence for just over a half hour, the only sounds being the oars as they dipped in and out of the water and the grunts of the men as they heaved back and forth.
"There," Alina said, pointing out into the dark night towards a patch of moonlit rockface where the waves seemed at their most furious.
Dayne squinted, using his hand to keep the spray out of his eyes. "Alina, what are you…" He almost hadn't seen it. Just where Alina had pointed, precisely where the waves crashed against the rocks like they were trying to break through, sat the mouth of a small cave, only just managing to catch the light of the moon. "You're joking? You can't sail that close to the rocks, not by moonlight. It's suicide."
A smile spread across Alina's face, breaking into a slight laugh.
Dayne stood back to his full height, his eyes opened wide. "You're not joking."
"I am not."
"Alina, we are going to die."
"You have been away too long, brother. Where is your sense of the sea? Are you even Valtaran anymore?"
He knew she meant them in jest, but Alina's words stung. "Valtaran or not, that cave mouth is barely any larger than this ship, and it's near impossible to steer."
"Then you better hold on to something," she said with a shrug.
Dayne puffed his cheeks out and tilted his head backwards. "Let's get this over with. I have skirted death for too long anyway."
"That's the spirit," Alina said, laughing as she clasped her hands down on Dayne's shoulders. "Trust me, it will be worth it."
Dayne gave his sister a placating smile before grasping a rope that was tied around the mast. He gave it a tug to ensure it was fastened securely, then set his feet, firmly considering the possibility that Alina had lost her mind entirely.
It didn't take long before the waves began to push against the hull of the ship, lifting it up and carrying it closer to the sheer rock face. The waves were small at first, and the captain was able to adjust his course without too much difficulty.
But as they got closer to the cave mouth, the waves increased in both size and ferocity, crashing against the hull, one after another, each time threatening to capsize the ship. The ocean rose as the ship swung from side to side, dark water flooding the deck.
Dayne looked over at Alina, thinking he could discern a touch of worry on her face, but it was gone in an instant, replaced with a cold glare as she stared down the ocean.
As they approached the cave mouth, a tangible fear made its home in Dayne's heart. They would not make it. The water level in the cave rose and fell in massive vicious sweeps. There was not a doubt in his mind that any ship caught within would be dashed against the walls, and its crew would be lost to the bottom of the ocean.
"Alina," he roared, trying to raise his voice above the crashing waves. "We need to turn back!"
The smile on her face as she turned toward him was unsettling. "Have a little faith, brother."
She has gone mad. They would be smashed to pieces if one of those waves caught them. Dayne could not see a scenario where the ship actually made it through in one piece. I need to do something.Just as Dayne began to reach for the Spark, he felt someone else do the same. By instinct, he dropped his right hand to his sword belt, where he grasped at nothing – his sword still lay on the floor of Baren's study. He pulled even harder at the Spark, drawing in threads of Water and Air. He let their cool touch wash over him. Who is it?
Dayne cast his eyes across the crew of the ship, but he couldn't sense the Spark in any of them. He should have felt it earlier, when he boarded, but maybe they had masked themselves.
It was at that moment he realised it wasn't coming from the ship – it was coming from within the cave. He could see them now: the threads of Water, Air, and Spirit. Whoever it was, stood within the cave, out of sight, weaving their threads into the water around the ship. The waves began to calm, only a bit at first, but after a few moments they were no more than gentle swells.
Straightening his legs and standing up to his full height, Dayne threw a questioning glance at Alina.
"I told you to have faith," she said with a knowing smile. She seemed to smile a lot, but it was never a smile that held any happiness.
Dayne ran his hands through his hair, feeling the water as it built up against his fingers and dripped down onto the deck. He could already feel the salt bedding into his skin. It was comforting, in a way. Familiar.
Shaking out his robes, he stepped up beside Alina. "I think there may be a few things you are not telling me."
"I hold no more secrets than you," she said with a blank look in her eyes. Sighing, she let a frown touch the corner of her mouth. "I'm sorry. It's been a long time. There are a lot of things I always told myself I would say to you if I ever saw you again. I just…"
"I understand."
They stood there in silence at the front of the ship while the mouth of the cave swallowed them whole. The cave's mouth was fifty feet across at its widest point, and the ship's mast barely cleared its rocky roof.
"I'm only going to ask one more time, what—" Dayne stopped mid-sentence as the ship passed through the cave mouth and entered into an enormous open cavern, the largest he had ever seen.
The cavern stretched hundreds of feet up into the air and two or three times that again either side, illuminated by braziers and the pale moonlight that drifted in through openings at the very top. In front of them were several ships about the same size as the one they were on, and a few even larger – warships – sat tied to the moorings of a newly constructed dock. Past the dock, throngs of people hustled about stone streets, moving in and out of a series of colonnades that supported larger structures – homes, shops, halls.
Above the first layer of colonnades, running in broad sweeping strokes across the cavern, were terraces carved straight into the rock, each tier rising up and up, stacking on top of the next. It took Dayne a moment to notice the windows set at regular intervals along the terraces. They were homes. Enormous staircases snaked upward through the terraced mountain homes, breaking off at multiple points, feeding into what Dayne presumed was a web of tunnels.
Two long walkways jutted into the middle of the water, extending out from the docks. Each of the walkways ended with a small platform, and on each platform stood a hooded figure in orange robes. Dayne could feel the Spark radiating from them.
"How…"
Overhead, a series of ferocious roars resounded through the air. Way up at the top of the cavern, beyond the highest terrace, soaring between alcoves set into the cavern walls, were wyverns. Hundreds of them. He knew his mouth hung open, but he didn't care.
He watched as one of the wyverns leapt from an alcove, dove for fifty feet, then unfurled its wings, changing direction in an instant. The beautiful creature was covered in scales of gleaming red, about twelve feet from head to tail, with two powerful hind legs, and forelimbs that spread out into its wings. Its neck was thick and muscular, while its head was slightly flat with an arrowhead-like shape.
Dayne stood there, just watching the wyverns swooping across the roof of the cavern. Every now and again, he caught sight of a rider sat astride one of the creatures. He had grown up dreaming of becoming a wyvern rider – the vanguard of the Valtaran army. But for whatever reason, wyverns only ever accepted female riders. There were logistical reasons, of course. Most wyverns were not large enough to take flight with a fully grown man on their backs. But even outside of that, there had never been a male wyvern rider, something his younger sister had always reminded him of.
With a floating feeling in his stomach and a tear welling in his eye, Dayne turned to his sister. A smile sat on her face, and for the first time, he saw unbridled happiness. "Alina… how is this possible?"
"I never stopped believing you would return, and Valtara will never stop fighting. As I said, we have much to discuss."
Without a thought, Dayne wrapped his arms around Alina. He held her so tightly his muscles ached, but he didn't move to stop the tears that ran down his cheeks. "I love you, little sister."
Dayne felt the laughter in Alina's chest before she pulled him in tighter again. "I love you too, brother. Now, show me that letter.