Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,14

floor bursting as if something were trying to escape from within. I poured air magic out of my hands, wrapping it down the side of the ship and into the crack, flooding the inside of the ship with it, just as Isis and Mordred did the same. The ichthyocentaur and Viv jumped over the rail, and she turned to water before she hit the ocean.

The half of the ship we were on began to lift, and all three of us dropped to our knees but continued to pour magic into the wounded ship, trying to fill the gap.

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to do this long,” Mordred said as sweat poured down his face.

“We’re powerful, but not enough to hold hundreds of tons of ship together,” Isis said.

I looked back at the front of the ship as it lifted further and further off the ocean. “You’re right; we need a better plan,” I said.

“Can you fly everyone off the ship?” Isis asked, clearly nearing exhaustion. Even sixty seconds of trying to keep a ship the size of the Harmony of Oceans in one piece was too much for the three of us. “Because I’m not sure we have a better plan.”

Viv appeared beside us. “The stern is fucked,” she said. “It’s almost broken away from the bow, but when it fills, it will drag us all under.”

“What’s stopping it?” Mordred asked.

“The ichthyocentaurs are essentially water elementals,” Viv said. “They’re keeping it all together, but there’s only so much they can do. A third of this ship is going to come apart, and then the rest will go down too. There’s nothing any of us can do to stop it.”

The ship listed again, and I wrapped myself in a shield of air as I was thrown across the deck into the outside wall of a medical room. The ship almost immediately listed back, and I dropped to my knees.

“How long do the ichthyocentaurs have before they can’t do any more?”

“They’re fighting the sirens and doing this,” Viv said. “You have a few minutes at most.”

“Mordred, Isis, get back to Tarron. We need to—” I was interrupted by the bow of the ship lifting high into the air.

I wrapped myself in magical air, anchoring me to the metal posts that were nearby as Isis and Mordred did the same. I dared to look back at the stern, the rear of which was now under water. The groaning increased from the pressure it applied on the fractures that had already been caused.

“We need to go,” I shouted over the noise of the ship ripping itself apart.

Viv, who had vanished into water the second the bow had lifted, reappeared next to me. “Everyone is gone. Tarron is waiting on you three.”

“Tell him to go,” Mordred shouted. “We’ll figure something out.”

“You will die here,” Viv said. “The ship will drag you underwater, and there’s no escaping that in time. Not with the cold too. You’re not elementals; you can’t breathe underwater. Even Mordred, with his power to breathe anywhere, can’t keep that up forever.”

The ship was almost completely vertical when it snapped in two, the bow dropping back to the ocean with a huge crash that I felt through my entire body. Followed quickly by enough water to drench everything, even as high up as we were.

“Run,” I shouted as the remains of the ship began to list to the side. It wouldn’t be long before we were in the ocean.

No one needed to be told twice, and I saw dozens of ichthyocentaurs in the sea, firing jets of water at the side of the ship, trying to keep it upright for long enough to let us escape.

“Get the ichthyocentaurs out of here,” I said to Viv as we reached the ballroom.

“You took long enough,” Tarron said, getting back to his feet. He’d used two daggers to drive into the wood just outside the realm gate he’d made, giving himself something to hold on to while the ship destroyed itself.

“You coming?” Isis asked Viv.

“I’ll see you all soon enough,” she said. “I’m going to help the ichthyocentaurs finish this fight.”

“Take care,” I said as we all stepped into the realm gate and appeared in the realm of Shadow Falls a moment later.

“I do not wish to do that again,” Tarron said.

“This realm gate pays for itself,” Mordred said, hugging Tarron. “Have I ever told you how awesome you are?”

“I bet you say that to all the people who save your life,” Tarron