A Land Of Fire (Book 12) by Morgan Rice

the shore, and beyond that, the Canyon. At least he
still had his soldiers here, the ones he’d left behind; at least he still had
one million men occupying it, and at least he had razed it to the ground. At
least Gwendolyn and her people could never return here—and at least the Ring
was finally his. It was a bittersweet victory.
    Romulus turned his gaze back to the sea,
and he realized that now, without his dragons, without a fleet, he would have
to give up chasing Gwendolyn—especially with his moon cycle coming to an end.
He would have no choice now but to return to the Empire—with a partial victory,
but with the shame of defeat, the shame of a vanquished fleet. Humiliated yet
again. When asked where his fleet was, he would have nothing left to show his
people—just the one measly ship he had left on the Ring to transport him back
to the Empire. He would return as conqueror of the Ring—and yet deeply
humiliated. Once again, Gwendolyn had escaped him.
    Romulus leaned back, held his fists out
to the heavens, and shook them, the veins bulging in his neck as he shrieked in
rage:
    “THORGRIN!”
    His cry was met by a lone eagle,
circling high, that screeched back, as if mocking him.

CHAPTER TWELVE
     
     
    Thor opened his eyes slowly to the light
sound of lapping waves, bobbing up and down, not sure where he was. He squinted
at the daylight, and saw that he was lying on his stomach, bent over a plank of
wood, floating in the middle of the ocean on a piece of debris. He was
shivering, cold in these waters, and he looked up to see dawn breaking, and
realized he had been floating here all night long.
    Thor felt a light nipping on his arm,
and he looked down and saw a fish and brushed it away. A light wave wet his
hair, and he lifted his head, spit out the seawater and looked all around him. The
sea was littered with debris as far as Thor could see, thousands of broken planks
from Romulus’s fleet blanketing the ocean. He was floating right in the middle
of it all, with no land in sight on any horizon.
    Thor tried to remember. He closed his
eyes and saw himself on Mycoples, diving down, fighting Romulus’s men. He remembered
being underwater, pierced by arrows, then rising up; he remembered summoning the
storm. And the last thing he remembered was the immense tidal wave coming down
on them all. He remembered being caught in the wave, and about to crash
hundreds of feet into the ocean below. He remembered the screams of all Romulus’s
men.
    And then all was blackness.
    Thor opened his eyes fully and rubbed
his head, his hair caked with salt; he had a tremendous headache, and as he
looked around, he realized he was the only survivor, floating alone in the
midst of an endless sea, surrounded by nothing but debris. He shook from the
cold, and his body stung all over, littered with arrow wounds, and scratches
from the dragons’ talons. He was injured so badly, he barely had the strength
to lift his head.
    He searched every direction, hoping for
a sign of land, maybe Gwendolyn and her fleet—anything.
    But there was nothing. Just vast,
limitless ocean in every direction.
    Thor’s heart sank as he lowered his head
again, half submerged in the water, and lay there, bent over the plank. The
small fish returned, nipping at his skin, brushing up against it, and this time
Thor didn’t care. He was too weak to brush it away. He lay there, floating,
realizing that Mycoples, whom he had loved more than he could say, was dead. Ralibar
was dead. And Thor himself felt like he was dying. He was weaker than he had
ever been, alone in an empty sea. He had survived the storm, had saved Gwendolyn
and her people, had taken vengeance on the Empire, had destroyed the host of
dragons, and for that he felt immense satisfaction.
    Yet now that the great battle was over,
here he was, injured, too weak to heal himself, with no land in sight, and no
hope left. He had paid the ultimate price, and now his time had come.
    More than anything, Thor