The ropes burned against her wrists as she tore free. For one impossible second, Marina Skylar balanced on the slick rail of the Thorn of the Sea, rain slicing across her face like glass.

  Below her — nothing but black water, the sea itself heaving and roaring as if daring her to jump.

  Azalea Petalcrest’s voice cracked through the storm. “Don’t you…!”

  Marina leapt.

  The world vanished into the cold.

  The impact was a hammer blow, driving every gasp and thought from her lungs. She sank fast, a streak of pale cloth swallowed by the ink of the storm. The light of the lightning above fractured, scattering in wild, trembling shards across the deep.

  Her body screamed. The shock of it all, the icy water, the weight of her soaked clothes, the bite of the storm, it was too much, too fast. She hadn’t breathed. She’d been running, wrestling, bleeding, and then suddenly, water.

  No, not like this.

  Her mind clawed at the thought, desperate. She couldn’t die here. Not now. Not when she’d been so close. The treasure, the map, the proof she’d risked everything for, it was still waiting down there, below the waves, below all this madness.

  She thrashed weakly, eyes open to the blur of bubbles and stormlight above. The surface felt impossibly far. Her lungs convulsed, begging her to inhale, just once.

  No.

  If she opened her mouth, it was over.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Her heartbeat was thunder in her ears, louder than the cannons that were surely loading above. Every nerve burned, every instinct screamed at her to breathe, to do anything.

  Not like this. Not yet.

  The darkness pressed closer, curling around her like velvet. Her hands reached upward but her body was betraying her, sinking faster than she could fight. Her thoughts blurred. Her chest spasmed. A final, ragged plea echoed through her mind, not to the heavens, not to the city, but to something older, something wild.

  And then, a shape moved in the dark.

  A flash of silver. A whistle. The faintest shimmer of light through the gloom.

  A dolphin, her dolphin, bursting from the blackness like a living arrow.

  Relief and disbelief tangled in her throat. She recognized the smooth curve of its dorsal fin, the scar along its left flank. Keiko. Always Keiko. The only one who ever listened when the others swam away.

  The dolphin circled once, then darted beneath her, letting her hand fall against its side. Instinct took over, she grasped the slick skin, and Keiko surged upward with explosive power.

  The pressure in her chest felt like it would tear her apart. She couldn’t hold it. She couldn’t…

  And then, air.

  They broke the surface with a shattering splash, Marina coughing, gasping, the sky above alive with chaos. Lightning danced over the horizon where ships loomed like ghosts, their silhouettes flashing through sheets of rain. She caught a glimpse, just one, of the Tanzanight fleet, gleaming blue in the stormlight, engines roaring like beasts.

  But she couldn’t linger.

  Keiko dove again, pulling her under before another cannon flash could find them. The water closed over her head once more, but now it was different, not panic, not death. The dolphin’s movements were sure, purposeful, drawing her away from the noise, from the iron, from the storm.

  The rhythm of its heartbeat hummed through the water. She let herself trust it.

  Her last sight of the surface was a chaotic blur, storm, fire, and the faint glow of ships colliding in fury. Then the darkness swallowed it all.

  And Marina Skylar, survivor of the Azalea’s kidnapping and keeper of secrets untold, let the sea take her toward safety, and, perhaps, back to the treasure that refused to let her die.