Page 41 of Renegade Kingdom
“Deal with a thirty-foot sea creature from a wooden ship?” I looked at him. “No. We sail faster and hope it’s just curious.”
“Fizzle?” Alyssa turned to the owl griffin. “Do you know what it is?”
He tilted his head, considering. “Without seeing it, I couldn’t say. But many of Nymeria’s sea creatures were guardians in their own right. Protectors of the deep waters. If one has returned to these seas after so long...” He trailed off, his talons clicking against the windowsill. “It may not be a threat. It may be an escort.”
“Or it may be hungry,” Dean added flatly.
“Yes,” Fizzle conceded. “There is that possibility as well.”
Alyssa shook her head, but I caught the faint smile she was trying to hide. “All the more reason to plan our route carefully. Let’s focus on what wecancontrol.” She turned back to the maps. “Ryder, you were saying something about the western approach?”
Ryder set aside his unease with visible effort and leaned forward, pointing to a section of the map. “If we’re still making port here, at the Spring Court, we can resupply and take the forest road west before cutting through the plans and entering the Wilding Forest on this side. It would be quicker to follow the forest edge South and follow the river into the centre but then we’d be entering the Summer Court and we’re not exactly welcome there.”
He traced the path with his finger, circling around landmarks and marking areas with quick, confident gestures. He spoke about the terrain as if he’d walked it himself, noting elevation changes, water sources, places where the forest canopy thinned enough to navigate by the stars. After a few minutes, Dean held up a hand.
“How do you know all this?” he asked. “You’re reading that map like you drew it yourself.”
Ryder held up the leather journal. “I’ve been reading this. Alyssa’s father’s journal. The one we found in the study back at the Spring Court.”
I’d forgotten about the book entirely. From the expressions around the room, so had everyone else. Alyssa’s face shifted at the mention of her father, a complicated mix of longing and pain that she quickly masked.
“I picked it up hoping to find something about the nightmare,” Ryder continued. “Information about what it is, where it came from, how to kill it. Haven’t found that yet. But there’s a lot about Nymeria’s geography, the old pathways, the places her father explored before the courts fell.” He flipped through pages, stopping at one covered in tight, elegant handwriting. “He knew these forests better than anyone. Mapped routes that aren’t on any of these charts. Hidden paths. Safe passages. Places where the wild creatures rarely go.”
“What about the nightmare?” Maddox pressed, leaning forward. “Are you sure there’s nothing?”
Ryder’s expression sobered. “There’s a reference to an ancient power rumoured to be buried deep in the Winter Court.” He found the page which had been bookmarked with a scrap of paper, running his finger along the text. “Alyssa’s father suspected that was what drew Arik to the Winter Court in the first place. Why he took it before any of the others. He writes about hearing stories from the Winter fae, old stories passed down through generations about something sealed beneath the court. Something that should never be disturbed.”
“The nightmares?” Dean asked.
“Could be. There’s no way to know for certain. He never confirmed it. But it fits.” Ryder looked up, his expression troubled. “If the nightmares were sealed away in the Winter Court, and Arik found them and figured out how to use them...”
“Then Damon wasn’t the first,” Maddox said quietly. Horror crept across his face. “How many others did he test it on? How many others are out there?”
The room went silent. The kind of silence that was heavy with implications no one wanted to examine too closely. I thought about Damon in chains below deck. About the thing living inside his head. About how many other people might have suffered the same fate before Arik found a method that worked reliably enough to use on someone he actually needed alive. Then my mind went to the worst realisation; how many others there could be on the ship, hiding in plain sight?
The bear growled, low and dangerous. He didn’t like that thought either.
“We’d better hope that’s all Arik found down there,” I said, not wanting to think about nightmares anymore. “Because if the nightmares aren’t the ancient power Alyssa’s father was worried about, then Arik has a weapon we know nothing about.”
No one had an answer for that.
Alyssa stared at the map for a long moment. Her fingers rested on the forest road Ryder had traced, and I could see her mind working behind her eyes. Calculating distances, weighing risks, making the kind of decisions that no one should have to make at her age.
“We get to the Spring Court,” she said finally. “We resupply. We enter the Wildling Forest. And we get to the Fifth Court as fast as we can, because every day we waste is a day Arik uses to get stronger.”
“And the sea creature?” Ryder asked weakly.
“We sail faster,” Alyssa said, echoing my own words with a look that dared anyone to argue.
No one did.
The bear rumbled approvingly in the back of my mind.I like her too.
On that, at least, we agreed.
Chapter Twelve
Alyssa
