Island of Glass (The Guardians Trilogy #3)(90)

The boat reared up on a wicked wave, crashed down. Wind and water whipped and churned.

“I can swim if I need to,” Annika shouted. “But—”

“Hold on.” Sawyer held on to her as the next wave threatened to swamp the boat.

Riley fought her way to the wheelhouse where Doyle stood, feet planted, muscles straining. “Get back with the others, and hold the hell on.”

“I’m with you.”

He glanced at her, saw the raw marks on her throat. “What the hell—”

“Later.” She braced herself as the sea tossed them like rags.

“She’s coming!” Sasha shouted. “And the stars . . .”

Not pulsing now, Riley realized as the next wave drenched her. Beating faster and faster, and beams of light shot from them like beacons.

To show them the way. And showing them would show Nerezza exactly where they were.

“Ten degrees starboard,” she told Doyle.

“Christ. Do you see what’s out there?”

A waterspout, swirling up, black against black. And the rain again turned to flames. Arrows of it sparked in the air, hissed like snakes in the sea.

As Bran lifted his arms to form the shield, Nerezza dived out of the sky.

Her lightning crashed against Bran’s, and power screamed through the storm.

“Take the wheel,” Doyle ordered as Sawyer’s shot went wide when the boat tipped. He yanked Sasha and the stars into the wheelhouse. “Take us where we need to go. They need help.” He kissed Riley, hard and brief. “Don’t lose it,” he added, then fought his way back to stand with his friends.

“Heart to heart, light to light.” Sasha struggled not to fall as the vision flowed through her. “This moment in all the moments in all the worlds. Risk the storm, ride the storm, and open the curtain.”

“Doing my best here.” Teeth gritted, Riley wrenched the wheel, doing what she could to ride the mad curl of the next wave. And with her heart, and her faith, in her throat, set course for the waterspout.

Madness. Like an uncontrolled shift, a dive off a cliff. The whirling water caught them, spun them. She lost her grip on the wheel, nearly went flying before she managed to curl the fingers of one hand on the wheel again.

She glanced at Sasha, back braced, arms cradling stars like babies, and her face luminous with their light. “The guardians ride the storm, guided by the stars. The curtain opens, the storm dies. The sword strikes. And it is done.”

“Your mouth to all the gods’ ears,” Riley screamed. “Because I can’t hold it much longer.”

“Look, Daughter of Glass, and see.”

Dizzy, half sick, Riley squinted through the wall of water, the sheering wind.

It gleamed. Clear, shining, still in a beam of moonlight. The door to another world.

When the bow pitched up, she clung to the wheel, looked back.

Doyle stood in water nearly to his knees. Sawyer all but sat in it as he braced his feet against a bench and fired at the Cerberus.

“I can’t get a shot at her,” he shouted as Bran struck lightning against her shield and Annika attacked the beast.

“I can.” Doyle leaped onto the bench even as the sea rocked. He struck the Cerberus, all but cleaving the center head.

And his sword met Nerezza’s with a clang that shook the air.

Shook the worlds.

One of the heads snapped out toward him, and met Bran’s lightning. Doyle thought nothing of it, nothing of the mad sea, the gunfire, the slash of power.

His eyes, his thoughts, his all centered on Nerezza, and the need that had lived in him for centuries to end her.

He feinted, saw the triumph in her eyes as her blade slid past his guard, gashed his shoulder.

And on that triumph, he thrust his sword into her heart.

Those mad eyes wheeled with shock. Her shriek joined the third head’s howl as Sawyer’s next bullet hit home.

She fought to fly up, escape, but with the beast, she tumbled into the black, boiling sea, and was swallowed.

With her fall, the storm died. Stunned and breathless, Riley guided the boat through the door where the Island of Glass floated like a quiet dream.

Then she collapsed.

“Riley!”

At Sasha’s call, Doyle whirled, bloodied sword raised.

“No, no, it’s the moon. It’s changed. And so am I. Damn it, damn it.”

“I’ve got her. Somebody start bailing or we’ll sink before we make shore.” Doyle dropped down, helped Riley pull off the slicker, her sweater.

“I’ve got you.” He pressed his lips to her temple as she began to change. “I’ve got you, ma faol.”

She let it take her, let him lift her above the swamped deck. And when they glided to shore as if over a quiet lake, she let him carry her to the beach where she took her first steps on the island as a wolf.





CHAPTER NINETEEN




In all her life, Riley had never regretted her lycan blood. She’d never cursed the moon or resented the change. But finding herself standing on the Island of Glass, a place of mystery and magicks, of age beyond the knowing, and not being able to speak had her cursing the damn timing.

She smelled flowers and citrus, sea and sand, the cool green of grasses, smoke from torches flanking a path winding up a high hill where a castle stood, shining silver, beaming with light. Felt the warm, soft breeze—a balm over the chilly wet.