Graztie smelled of salt and smoke.

  The first scent hit me before we even reached the stone streets. The seaside town carried that smell like a badge of honor. The second settled into my fur the moment we stepped onto them.

  Cobblestone clicked against my claws. Magic lanterns hummed on top of wooden posts, outlining the wide roads in warm amber light. The town was smaller and much quieter than I remembered.

  The heavy fog that had rolled in early in the morning hung low. It was thick enough to bead on my fur. The stone paths glistened like they’d just been washed, and the wooden beams and iron fixtures of the town square carried their own dampness. The scent of the ocean was muted slightly by the heavy moisture.

  My throat tightened.

  Focus. Focus on the hunt, not on the last time I died. Don’t focus on the feeling of my body being frozen.

  I shook myself hard enough that some fur stood on end.

  “Lucia?” Keagan’s voice was soft. “Hey. You okay?”

  “No.” It came out sharper than I intended. Absolutely not. But “no” wasn’t going to get us closer to Luther. “I smell the ocean.”

  Nieve clanked up beside us, her icy mist trailing like steam in the cooling evening. “That’s good, right? Luther studied a map near the coast.”

  “We’ll ask around. Maybe someone saw Luther,” Keagan said.

  My hackles twitched. “If he boards a ship, he’ll get too far ahead.”

  Keagan rested a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll find him. Just breathe.”

  “I am breathing,” I snapped. The kid pulled his hand back instantly. I flattened my ears. “Let’s just keep going. Standing here talking isn’t getting us closer.”

  We stepped into the town square, and Graztie’s heart, the fighting stage, came into view. Stadium seating, carved oak beams supporting the platform, and metal shields hanging from posts around it, each dented and scarred—it was just like we had left it.

  The notice board by the guild hall had one person in front of it. They were someone from the Association. They hung something up and hurried back inside. Off to the side, a small collection of people talked in hushed, tense voices. One of them pointed to windows and said something, and they each went separate ways.

  Something was wrong here.

  Keagan looked around. “It’s quieter than usual.”

  “Is fog like this normal?” I asked.

  “Couldn’t tell you,” Nieve chirped. “It does make this place look a lot eerier than I imagine it should.” She pointed to a building. “Are those windows boarded up?”

  I looked at where she pointed. She wasn’t wrong. Someone had barricaded the window and the door.

  “Kid, this feels a lot like that night with the lang ren.” I heard footsteps approaching us from around the other side of the arena.

  Yaz skidded into view, colorful feathers puffed out, claws scraping on the slick stone. His eyes—big and glossy as marbles—locked onto me. Then he bounded towards me.

  I sighed. Oh boy. Him again.

  “You.” He jabbed a tiny claw toward me. “Again.”

  Behind him, Dillon trudged through the haze, his hands in his pockets. “Morning,” he mumbled. “You’re the last people I’d expect to see here.”

  On his shoulder was a small figure. Her blue, thin, translucent wings lazily flapped behind her. Water droplets clung to her hair, dripping down her pale blue curls. A faint halo of mist circled her wrists and ankles like she were standing and holding in her own tiny rain clouds. If she stood, she would’ve been the same height as Dillon’s head. Her big round eyes were the bluest blue I had ever seen and made her cherubic face cuter.

  Keagan waved. “Hi, Yaz. Hi, Mister Dillon.” He hopped off me. “A nymph? Is this Ferndella?”

  “Yessir,” Ferndella chimed in a voice that mimicked a bell.

  Yaz hopped in place. “Why are you here, Lucia? Did you come to challenge?”

  “No. I’m just passing through,” I muttered.

  The nymph hopped off Dillon’s shoulder. She flew over and hovered eye-level with me. “Hi. So you’re Lucia?”

  “Excuse me?” My tail bristled. I blinked. “Yes.”

  She squealed. “Oh, thank glimmering tides, finally! Yaz will not stop talking about you. It’s—well, it’s kind of adorable, actually. And exhausting. Mostly exhausting.”

  Yaz flared his tail feathers more. “Do not tell her that!”

  Nieve tilted her helm like she was trying not to laugh. Keagan tried too but failed.

  Dillon sighed. “Ferndella, what did we talk about?”

  “Don’t gossip,” she said sweetly.

  “And what are you doing?”

  She pressed her hands together and held them against her cheek. “Sharing information relevant to the social dynamics of the group.”

  Dillon rubbed his face. “Gossiping.”

  Yaz puffed his feathers. “Do you want to fight?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No. That’s not why I’m here. We don’t have time for this. Let’s go.”

  Yaz’s feathers flattened instantly. “Why? Is it because I’d win? You can’t go. Who’s better now?”

  Dillon swallowed. “What he means is, you shouldn’t leave the town. There’ve been attacks, and a wild monster surge is likely to happen.”

  Keagan blinked. “A wild monster surge? Here?”

  “Oh! Yes! Sorry—got distracted.” Ferndella zipped back to hover next to Dillon. “Something’s coming from the sea. From what I can guess, tritons.”

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  “Tritons?” I asked.

  “Tritons.” Dillon gestured towards the nymph. “There was a vicious attack yesterday. A fishing crew barely made it to shore. Out of the three kalands and three monsters, only one kaland returned.”

  Nieve covered her faceplate with her hands. “That’s horrible!”

  I clicked my tongue. And we need a boat. The timing of this is horrible. Could they have attacked Luther? Something twisted inside me. I wish they didn’t. They aren’t allowed to deny me my hunt.

  Keagan fidgeted with the strap of his bag. “Tritons are usually reclusive. They don’t usually go near the surface.”

  Dillon nodded. “Yeah. That’s the real mystery. Something has them riled up. After reports of them coming to the surface to examine the shore, they pulled all the trainers and farmers into the town. Someone told me that the last time there was a triton attack, a fisherman accidentally caught one of them in their net. But that was an isolated incident.”

  I turned my head. “It’s a problem, but it’s not our problem.”

  Keagan frowned. “Lucia…”

  “He’s getting ahead,” I growled. “We don’t have time for detours. We need to get on a boat and figure out where he went.”

  Ferndella floated in front of me and wagged her finger. “Ah, ah, ah. I wouldn’t do that. If you think the fog here is hard to see through, the fog over the water is ten times thicker.”

  “Yeah, with the tritons around, you’d never see them coming,” Dillon added.

  Yaz pranced around. “Stay, and fight me. Or you could fight with me. The one who takes down more enemies is the winner.”

  “Let’s ask the guild if anyone saw him,” Keagan said. “We don’t know if he took a boat from here.” He tugged gently at my mane until I unclenched my jaw.

  “Who are you looking for?” Dillon asked.

  “Luther,” I answered curtly.

  Keagan stepped between Dillon and me. “He’s an older gentleman. You’d probably recognize the storm reaper he travels with more likely. Given the timeline of us following him, he should’ve been here yesterday afternoon or last night.”

  Dillon scratched his chin. “I can’t recall seeing a reaper recently. Yaz and I weren’t in town and at our ranch.”

  Ferndella smirked. “A reaper? Are those the scary cloak monsters without a face?”

  I leaned close to her. “Where did you see one?”

  She shot up into the air. “Yesterday, after working at Burt’s farm and watering his potatoes, I wanted to take a rest and soak my feet in the ocean tide. That’s when I saw a fishing boat carrying a monster I’d never seen before. They were headed northeast. I thought they were out doing some fishing training.”

  I turned to the boy. “We’re going. Please tell me you know of an island in that direction.”

  Nieve shifted on her feet and looked to the coast. “There wasn’t anything on the maps we looked at in that direction. At least nothing close. The Flirdellea continent is two weeks of sailing away. You’d never make a journey like that on a fishing boat. There’s another island five days due north from here, but it’s completely uninhabited. Actually, it’s better to call it a giant rock sticking out of the ocean rather than an island.”

  “Nieve, we get the picture,” I interrupted.

  “Leaving on a boat right now is suicide,” Dillon added. “There are still the tritons that need to be dealt with.”

  I snorted. “And how long is that going to take?”

  He shrugged. “A couple of days. They’re boarding up some of the houses just in case they come ashore. But we’ve got to get a monster strong enough to handle them and that can fight in underwater conditions. Ferndella isn’t strong enough to handle this.”

  I tilted my head. “Huh?”

  “Tritons are purely aquatic monsters.” Keagan held up his hand. “They can hold their breath when they come onto land, but only for an hour or so. Tritons are usually deep-water hunters that hunt in packs and go into a frenzy at the smell of blood. They’ve got four-barbed claws that break off.”

  “So why the surge?” I asked. “If they are aquatic monsters, why are you worried about it?”

  Dillon crossed his arms. “The fish harvested from the ocean feeds most of this town. Not being able to go into the water will end a lot of people’s livelihoods.”

  Ferndella’s expression turned serious. “That’s the other problem. Something is driving them inland. Something scarier.”

  I frowned. “And you saw this?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. I smelled it. With my udine ancestry, I can smell as good as a triton in water. And the coast smells wrong. It smells like iron—or blood.”

  Dillon hung his head. “And that’s why we’ve been patrolling the coast. Any creature that scares tritons is something the guild doesn’t want near Graztie. We’re not even supposed to be on the front lines of the fighting.”

  Yaz puffed out his chest. “But we will. I will show I’m strong.”

  He strutted up to me, and then he jabbed me in the leg with a single claw.

  “Fight!” he demanded.

  I looked at the claw. Then at him.

  “No,” I said flatly. “Don’t you dare touch me again.”

  Yaz chirped furiously. “Coward!”

  Dillon sighed. “Alright, come on, Yaz. Let the big wolf have space. If you start a fight again, the Association will fine me. Besides, we need to keep up patrols. We have an important job to do, remember.”

  Yaz turned to walk away but turned his head back again. “If there is danger, I want to see you fight. Only weaklings run from a fight. My rival isn’t a weakling. And I’m not running. I have something more important—more brave—to do.”

  Whatever you need to tell yourself, idiot.

  Dillon waved as he turned to leave. “Just stay in town until this all blows over. We’ve got plenty of food at the inns to last a week or two.”

  Dillon followed after Yaz and Ferndella landed on the raptor’s back.

  “You know that direwolf will eat you if you fight, right, Yaz?” Ferndella teased. “She’s way stronger than you are.”

  “Don’t say that!” Yaz screached.

  I ignored the rest of their banter as I headed to the coast, but not in the same direction they were going.

  “What now?” Nieve tapped her finger tips together as she shuffled behind me.

  “We find a boat,” I growled. “I don’t care if we sail on our own. It can’t be that hard.”

  Keagan groaned. “Shouldn’t we stay and help? What if the tritons attack?”

  I snorted. “They were planning on making it through without us. We don’t need to stay.”

  “What if they attack us while we’re on the boat?” Keagan asked. “You can’t fight in the water, you’ll just sink to the bottom and Luther will get away. Nieve will sink faster than you.”

  I turned and bared my fangs. “Then stay here and I’ll go alone.”

  He smirked. “And how do you plan on rowing the boat?” He held up his thumbs. “You don’t have thumbs, remember?”

  I growled, then huffed and puffed, and then I sat down. “I hate you and your logic.”

  He patted my head. “Someone has to think logically. I’ll do it until you can start thinking like yourself again. This isn’t like you, but once this is over, you’ll back to being your old self again.”

  Nieve tilted her helmet at me. “You are a little too fixated for your own good. But maybe if the triton problem is dealt with today, you’ll get to follow after Luther sooner.”

  “Yeah, and how am I supposed to do that?” I flicked my tail. “It’s not like I can get them all to walk on land and fight them here.”

  Keagan froze. “Wait, maybe you can.”

  I blinked. “Are you serious?”

  He bit his lip. “Yeah, but I don’t want to do it without asking everyone in the town if they’re okay with it. Because it could attract all of them.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t care. Tell me what I need to do.”

  The boy headed off to the Association branch office. “I’m not going to tell you. You’ll just have to follow me to find out.”

  This again?

  I looked at my status.

  — — —

  Name: Lucia Silverbreeze

  Species: Fenris (Dire Wolf/???) [Ice Subtype]

  Level 5 [80%]

  Power: 323

  Agility: 207

  Speed: 250

  Arcane: 179

  Toughness: 132

  Resilience: 136

  — — —

  Traits:

  Clawed

  Fanged

  Wrath Demon Ancestry

  Ice-born

  Gorging

  Mana Meditation

  — — —

  Special Attacks:

  Ice Shard

  Frost Shield

  — — —

  I’m almost level six. That will mean I can get another special attack soon. If I can kill fourteen tritons that will get me to level right and give me two special attack upgrades plus a trait. The trait doesn’t matter right now. Keagan will probably have some idea of something good. But if I can get Ice Armor, then I can make it so I can cover my ears. That whistle won’t work on me again.

  “Fine, lead the way.” A smile grew on my face. “I could use some levels.”

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