“The writhing and agony you feel in your legs is nothing compared to the sensation of your flesh being torn from the bone as it’s consumed. Keep running, Home-lander. If you fall here, you’re a walking food source below.”

  The Chief yells from the middle of his ship’s massive top deck as the blaring afternoon sun seeps into my skin. Every step feels earned on a half-empty stomach. My legs are stone pillars now—each stride heavier, slower. The cold steel of the weights fastened to my shins doesn’t help. I glance back and see Antarc barely holding on, gasping for every breath. Alexandria is struggling too, though her pace hasn’t broken since we began two hours ago. Sevilla was excused—she showed no signs of slowing even after an hour of weighted laps.

  The Chief shifts his drill instruction toward Charlie.

  “Faster, Home-lander! I sense dormant power in you, yet you’re hopelessly clinging to weakness.”

  The weights on Charlie’s legs look heavier than any of ours. Leniency isn’t a word in the vocabulary of the Bloodfrost Imperator. Despite that, something’s different about Charlie today. There’s an energy around him I haven’t felt before,

  The sunlight reflects off the deck, illuminating glistening pools of sweat. I nearly slip, legs trembling, heart pounding. I’m close to collapsing.

  Then the horn blares.

  “Halt! Here is your respite. Savor it. Release your weights—momentarily.”

  I collapse to the ground, followed by Charlie, Antarc, and then Alexandria. The breeze kisses the raw skin beneath the shackles as I loosen my weights.

  “What’s happening?” Antarc wheezes between labored breaths.

  “Not quite sure, but I’m definitely relieved that it is,” Alexandria says, wiping sweat from her brow.

  Raeis rushes to the ship’s edge and stops dead. The air shifts. A cloud drapes over the sun. The temperature drops.

  “For better or worse,” he says, “it seems the drowned gods are eager to grant your wish, Zadahn Vali.”

  “Huh?”

  I stagger to the railing beside him.

  A portion of the ocean churns violently in the distance, directly in our path. Every boat in the fleet begins to tremble as something begins to surface. The sea erupts as a colossal mountain of blue rock and coral emerges from the raging waters—an unknown force seemingly propelling it from below. Even from here, sea spray hits our skin. The ocean buckles beneath its weight.

  I clutch my pendant, stunned.

  “How is this possible? How can an island just appear?”

  Raeis turns to me, meeting my eyes with a grim look.

  “Everything that lies beneath bears a connection to the lands of our surface. If it lies below, it yearns for above. Eventually, a boiling point is reached, and sometimes, the malice under our feet peeks its head above the surface, bringing its cacophony of anguish and death along with it. This is a fragment of The Depths, the land surrounding Celtor.”

  Adrenaline floods my chest. Atop the rising island, a cave looms—shaped like an all-seeing eye. Then I see them.

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  Broodlords.

  Eight-foot-tall, spike-covered monsters. I’ve read about them. The stories didn’t do them justice. Their jagged teeth are made to tear flesh slowly, prolonging the agony. Their heads are crowned with spikes—symbols of violence and ruin.

  “We’re too close to steer away,” Raeis growls. “This is it, Home-lander. Let’s see if you’ve learned anything from these trials.”

  Soldiers spill onto the top deck, drawn by the noise. Sevilla and the Elders are among them.

  “What’s happeni—” She stops cold, locking eyes with the mountain.

  “Was that there before, Charlie?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, whatever it is, it’s clearly bad news. We should steer clear—”

  “No, Sevilla. This is it. A fragment of Celtor. The reason we’re training. We can’t pass this up.”

  “She’s right, Home-lander,” Raeis starts, “you’re not strong enough ye—wait!”

  His voice sharpens. A nearby ship is already docking at the island’s shore. Around five young Navaen recruits leap down, their boots pristine—no blood, no scars. Their first war. I know that hunger for recognition. It almost never ends well.

  Everyone watches in silence—except Raeis and the Elders.

  “ADVANCE THE BOAT FORWARD! THEY WILL DIE!”

  The oldest recruit charges first, sword trembling in his grip. He lets out a war cry.

  The Broodlord doesn’t flinch. It leaps forward with cruel indifference.

  The boy vanishes beneath a mess of spikes and muscle. Moments later, his upper and lower halves are hurled in opposite directions like meat discarded at a feast.

  We stare, horrified. Our ship surges forward, but not fast enough.

  Another recruit panics and bolts. The Broodlord lunges in pursuit, wrapping its massive hands around the boy’s shoulders—and pulls. He’s torn in half. Organs spill from both halves like broken fruit.

  Only two remain—a boy and a girl, no older than nineteen. She grabs his face, presses her forehead to his. He’s frozen in terror.

  We’re close now. Close enough to see the tears.

  She whispers something and pushes him toward the ships. He runs, sobbing.

  She stays still, blocking the Broodlord’s path. She turns around facing the boy, letting out a faint smile.

  Then—

  Our ship lurches. I’m thrown to the floor. Charlie is floating, with a pale green aura swirling around him. Wind dances at his fingertips. His eyes blaze with white light, and without a word, he launches toward the island.

  “Charlie?! What are you doing?!”

  I scream, reaching for him. No response. Is this even Charlie anymore? I glance at Raeis and the others. They’re frozen—just like me.

  The wind howls so fiercely, it becomes silence. Charlie reaches the island, but he’s too late. A spiked purple fist bursts through the girl’s chest. She doesn’t stop smiling, as she collapses to the floor with a thud. The boy turns around, watching the Broodlord retract its arm, slow and deliberate, then turn to him.

  Just as the Broodlord blitzes in his direction, Charlie lands.

  He quickly throws his arms around the boy, enveloping him in a shield of wind—a living armor, before quickly returning to the sky. My chest twists. He’s risking everything. I’m doing nothing.

  He steps forward, arms outstretched, palms toward the mountain. The world shakes. What could he possibly be doing?

  Above him, a massive orb of gale forms—blades of wind spinning like a divine weapon. He screams, deep and primal. The mountain wavers.

  The Broodlords pause. They fear him. They fear Charlie.

  He ominously looms above the island, a typhoon incarnate. I feel it. A weight in my chest. Not dread. Pride. He’s always had a way with words, and as the Elder said; words are but wind. The orb crashes downward.

  The mountain explodes. Wind razors carve through stone like a butcher through meat. Debris erupts in every direction—including toward us.

  “SHIELD POSITIONS!” Raeis roars.

  The Navaen army raises their shields in unison. I duck under a nearby shield, joined by Antarc, Sevilla, and Alexandria.

  Clank. Clank. Clank.

  Chunks of rock slam down. Viciously shuddering the boat. Then—stillness.

  “AT EASE!”

  Dust clouds the air. Bits of Broodlord flesh float alongside broken stone.

  Charlie stands, balanced on a drifting slab of rock.

  He raises a fist, then shifts it into a thumbs-up.

  I laugh, wiping a tear from my cheek. Even after leveling a mountain, Charlie is still Charlie.

  For years, he’s struggled to prove he’s more than someone’s heir. But to me, he’s always been more.

  Charlie Bykof. The boy I starved beside in the legions. The one with the pointy shoes and studious spectacles. But today, I saw something else.

  The storm fades as quickly as it came. The clouds shift. Silence falls. Charlie collapses onto his back, grinning. The sea itself quakes at the roar of Raeis’s legion.

  My ears ring, but I scream anyway—so do Alexandria, Antarc, and Sevilla. I glance at Raeis. He doesn’t cheer, nor speak.

  He nods.

  “I was wrong, Charlie Bykof. You are something more.”

  That’s my brother. The Heir of the Skies.