House of Night

chapter 1, part 1

By this time of year, the islands in the bay of Singtsu should have been lush with greenery. Instead, as they sailed past, the islands looked as grey and lifeless as the sea below them and the sky above them. The suns had never managed to emerge from behind the thick grey clouds that hung ominously low over their heads. The water was calm but dark.

It had been like this almost the whole journey from Vulfholm. After spending a few weeks in the Norrlish capital to recover her strength - which had been decimated after quelling her brother - Lumi had joined a Norrlish fleet of trading vessels seeking to establish a new route of trade between Vulfholm and Singtsu. It was a route that hadn't been traded, officially, for over ten years, and the merchants and sailors on this trip were eager to be pioneers.

Lumi was aboard the Sjóhundur, a name that still didn't fit well in her mouth, with Captain Dymor Glevinskiy, who spoke the fire tongue because his grandfather was from Sredsibirsk. The captain was a huge man with tattoos all over his body, including his face, which bore the tentacle of some sea monster beside his eye. The captain was a winter starrling, although he did not have a winter wolf, but instead kept a gyrfalcon as a companion.

Lumi had spent every evening of this trip dining with the captain. He was a gruff sailor and hardly spoke, but he fed his falcon little pieces of meat directly from his plate, and then petted the bird with his wide callused fingers. During the day, Lumi had spent her hours on the ship reading and practising her Norrlish with some of the sailors, who taught her swear words and sailing terms, so that she now had an unnecessarily large Norrlish vocabulary of different types of knots. She loved to hear their laughter as she stumbled over their words.

Not so long ago, the idea of talking to rough Norrlish sailors on a ship would have terrified the fire princess. She had been so shy that even talking to her own people was impossible. She'd hidden behind her brother and her aunt, afraid of the world. She had been terrified to go to Lombardia. But it had given her the ability to talk to strangers, and although the first few days on this ship had been slightly awkward, now it felt natural to talk to the sailors.

As Lumi stood at the rail of the ship, looking across at the grey shapes of islands across the bay, she noticed the gyrfalcon, the captain's companion. Its spotted white wings stretched wide as it glided alongside the ship. The bird's reflection on the calm sea water was almost perfect, like a mirror image.

And then the surface of the sea erupted in an explosion of white water. The sea spray parted to reveal a huge creature. She caught a glimpse of rows of teeth, and then it had disappeared below the surface again. Lumi yelped and gripped the rail as the boat rocked beneath her. Jinni let out a roar as he lost his balance and used his wings to beat into the air instead of going overboard.

In the chaos, Lumi hadn't seen where the gyrfalcon, and now she scanned the sky, hoping to see the white bird, but it was gone.

Around her, the sailors were yelling out in Norrlish and jumping into action as the ship rocked beneath them. She didn't yet know the word that they were shouting, but she thought she could figure it out.

Sea monster.

Echoing cries came from the other ships in their fleet, and Lumi saw the dragon that was accompanying their vessel spill into the water. There was a splash of the dragon's tail, and then the water dragon was in the sea. Lumi caught a glimpse of a tentacle, and then a huge spray of foam as the dragon attacked.

"Get back from the edge!" the captain yelled at her, and pulled her back roughly. Lumi scrambled to stop from falling, and stared at the captain. He was staring in horror at the water.

"Sea monsters this close to shore," he said. "It's a bad sign."

"A sign of what?" Lumi asked, but there was no time for the captain to reply as the boat gave a huge lurch underneath them. The captain managed to keep his footing, but Lumi was thrown to the ground.

Jinni made a sound, and Lumi knew what he was thinking. She grabbed onto his fur and pulled herself onto his back just as the three-legged tiger launched himself into the air with a beat of his black wings. The tiger swooped into the sky, narrowly missing the sails. From up here they were out of harm's way, but it was only now that the true terror became apparent.

There was one dark shape in the water under the Sjóhundur, but she could see other dark shapes surrounding the fleet. There was one blue-violet dragon in the water, fighting against one of the sea monsters, but as it fought, other sea monsters attacked the other boats. The situation seemed helpless to Lumi. There was no way that one dragon could defend their fleet against all of those creatures.

Jinni swooped low, and just as a tentacle came from beneath the sea to curl around a ship, Jinni sent forth a blaze of flame. The tentacle retracted, slapping the water and creating a wave in its wake. Jinni swooped again, sending burning flames towards another tentacle. The shouts of the sailors below grew into terrified screams as one of the sea monsters constricted a tentacle over the deck of their ship. Jinni dove towards it, breathing flame.

The tentacle retracted, but the flame had caught onto the sail and erupted. Smoke filled the air and Lumi felt her eyes stinging as she watched the sails burn rapidly. Fire caught onto the mast. Burning embers dropped onto the deck of the ship. The sailors dove out of the way as the mast fell.

"Stop, Jinni, stop!" Lumi cried out, realising their error. There were still too many sea monsters in the water, but Jinni couldn't attack the sea monsters without also risking setting the ships on fire.

The water dragon burst from the ocean and into the sky, and sent a jet of water down towards the burning ship. The crew of the ship were trapped, unable to jump into the monster-infested water to escape their burning vessel. The dragon sprayed more water, but the fire spread faster than the dragon's water was able to quench it.

Lumi gritted her teeth and concentrated on quelling the fire. It was more difficult than quelling magic from a starrling, but she knew she could do it. The flames, rather than licking up the side of the ship, now sputtered and died. One final burst of water power from the dragon was enough to set out the last of the flames.

But while the dragon had been occupied with fighting the fire, more sea monsters were attacking the other ships in the fleet. Lumi looked on hopelessly, too terrified now to let Jinni attack with fire, and yet desperate to do something. The dragon attacked, but it was so much smaller than the sea monsters. They were outnumbered.

Sailors threw spears into the water, trying in vain to hurt the monsters. Lumi watched in horror as one of the ships began to take on water. It was sinking, and its crew would sink with it if she didn't do something.

She urged Jinni to swoop down to the deck of the sinking ship. Lumi jumped free of Jinni and onto the deck, and then grabbed at two of the sailors who were clinging to the rail, their feet already submerged in water.

"Ride tiger!" she commanded them in terrible Norrlish.

She didn't have to ask twice. Two sailors struggled to pull themselves onto Jinni's back. She shoved them on and then Jinni flew up and over to the Sjóhundur. As soon as they were on board the ship, Jinni flew back to Lumi. She was gripping onto the rail of the ship as water lapped greedily at her feet. The deck was already covered, and soon the ship would sink, but there were too many sailors on board. There were more than Jinni could ever possibly carry from ship to ship.

Lumi screamed again as a tentacle slammed onto the deck. The ship was going down, and if she didn't get onto Jinni right now, she was going down with it. But if she left these people here, they would all die.

... to be continued

She's here! Lumi is back, ready for Book 3, which in my opinion is the most exciting book of the series. I really hope you enjoy!

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Tell me in the comments - what movie have you watched more than any other movie?

elle