She could see nothing but thick, grey-white mist. It was cold and damp, soaking through her clothes and into her hair. Water began to drip off the end of her nose. Storm sat, heart thudding, fingers clenched around the oar shafts, listening to the slap of the waves against the hull. The boat moved steadily through the water, as if pulled by a rope. She closed her eyes and waited.

Her boat slid to a stop and magically floated in one spot as wave after wave passed beneath it. Storm’s heart pounded harder; she readied herself. The Albatross’s wind whistled towards them from the direction she knew instinctively was north. It blew away the mist.

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 was impossible – she knew the worth of the Drowned One boy. She had trusted him once and betrayal had been her reward.

It was in that moment that disaster struck. Storm’s head flooded with memories of her dead mother – images and thoughts she had tried to bury with Dain. She struggled to focus. She searched for Air-music, but all she could hear was a white buzz of loathing. Storm looked into the eyes of the boy who had caused her mother’s death and knew she was about to die.

Nim’s cry had warned them. He looked horrified, orange freckles stark in a sweaty face. Twenty-four arrows were notched, aimed, loosed. The shafts rose into the air as one, like a flock of startled birds. Storm thought of her mother. She would see Dain soon.

Not if your body is lost, fool! shouted her mind-voice.