Page 7 - UnderEarth

Fear and hatred squeezed the breath from her lungs as Storm saw that the predator closing in on Yanlin’s fleet was an enormous raft town! The Drowned Ones rode the waves only a few oar lengths away. The tribe of landless sea-dwellers had attacked Yanlin last year. Crews of ships captured by these sea pirates faced death, not mere robbery.
But surely it wasn’t the same raft town she had defeated in Yanlin Harbour. Because that would mean...
In that moment of doubt and disbelief, Storm saw her enemy. One face, among dozens. He, of all of them, was looking in the right place. Their eyes met, and Storm saw Nim, the Drowned One boy, turn the colour of ash.
Later, when she strove to record the attack in the drawings she had begun to make as a sort of journal, she could hardly order the events in her mind.
She remembered hate swelling her skin until she thought she must split in two. She jumped to her feet, readying her magic – the music of the Air. She would call the wind and punish those who had murdered her mother!
Nim shouted. His mouth was a circle of fear; his
eyes fixed on her. Later, she thought she remembered
hearing him calling her name, as if in warning. But that
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