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larger
than a pea.
    "They look like pomegranate
seeds," Erry said, lifting one in wonder. It glowed in her
hand.
    "Or like droplets of
blood," said Leresy.
    He grabbed a few and held them
in his palm. They felt unnaturally cold. He raised them to his eye,
scrutinizing them. Each stone seemed made of glass, and red liquid
swirled within. Their surface was angular as cut gems, though each
pebble had a different shape.
    "What are they?" Erry
asked. "Some kind of crystal?"
    Leresy smiled and closed his
palm around them.
    "Magic," he said.
"Our big weapon."

 
 
SILA

    He stood upon the deck of his
ship, stared at the cove that surrounded him, and clutched the
railing until his knuckles turned white.
    Sila
didn't know why he still came here. His ship, a three-masted carrack
named the Golden
Crane ,
had not raised its anchor in eighteen years. Its planks had begun to
rot, and barnacles covered its hull. Its hold still whispered with
ghosts. Dragonfire had blackened its starboard, and though the sails
were now folded, Sila knew that burnt holes still peppered them.
Only the ship's figurehead, a flying crane of giltwood, still bore
some former glory.
    And
what of myself? he wondered. Did he too bear any lingering glory, a golden
figurehead for his people? Or was he but a rotting hull, as captive
on Maiden Island as his ship?
    Once Sila had captained this
vessel through storms and battles. Once he had led refugees out of
fire and into new life. Once he had been a leader, a savior, a man
who made his father proud.
    "And now I linger, a relic
like the rest of this wreck," he said to his ship.
    And now his people needed him
again. Now two of their ghosts had washed ashore with the old man.
Now two demons of the past, mere nightmares for so long, breathed
upon Maiden Island, this sanctuary Sila had protected for so long.
Now he needed to decide. And yet he only stood here upon his deck,
far from his people and their tormentors—a place of solitude, of
memory, of thoughts that whispered like the sea.
    Cliffs
rose above the surrounding shores, topped with palms. Nestled into
the small of the maiden's back, the cove faced south, hidden from the
northern enemy. Five other ships rose around him, each as barren as
the Golden
Crane .
Often Sila thought of burning these ships. Should the dragons scout
these seas from the south, the masts would reveal their sanctuary.
Yet for eighteen years, Sila had hidden his people among the trees
and kept his ships alive. He had watched his daughter born and
raised into a woman on this island. He had watched his people, once
ragged refugees, build a new life. And he had kept these ships. He
had kept his vengeance burning.
    "Because I have to
believe," he whispered to the cove. "I have to believe
that we can go back. That we can still fight the enemy. That we can
still rebuild our desert home."
    Tiranor, his land of dunes and
oases, had burned in the fire of the red spiral. But those dunes
still whispered inside him. He kept that memory as alive as his
fleet.
    "Father! Father, why do
you do this?"
    The voice came from behind him,
and Sila turned to see his daughter emerge from the hull. She joined
him on the deck.
    "Miya!"
he said and a frown twisted his face. "How long have you been
here? What are you doing on the Golden
Crane ?"
    Miya glared at him, fists on her
hips. "And why shouldn't I stand here? I'm your only daughter,
and this ship is my birthright. She's as much mine as yours."
    Eighteen years old, Miya had
been only a whisper in her mother's womb when Frey Cadigus had burned
their kingdom. She had been born in the shallow waters of this very
cove, shaded by cliffs and palms, and grown wild along the beaches
and among the trees. Today she stood before him as a golden-skinned,
scabby-kneed island girl with fiery blue eyes, long platinum hair,
and a shark-tooth necklace. While the older folk Sila led still wore
the traditional robes of the desert, Miya was a wild thing, dressed
in leaves and