A Land Of Fire (Book 12) by Morgan Rice Page B

is he?” Kendrick asked. The
bells continued to toll as they headed south, further out into this sea. “I see
no sign of Mycoples.”
    “I do now know,” Gwen replied. “But even
if Mycoples is dead, Thor might be alive. If there is debris, Thor might be floating
on it.”
    “My lady,” came a voice.
    She turned to see Aberthol standing
close by.
    “I love Thorgrin as much as anyone here.
But you do realize we are sailing closer and closer to the Empire. Even if
Romulus’s fleet is destroyed, surely his million-man army remains on the
mainland of the Ring. We cannot head back to the Ring. We must find a new home,
set sail in a new direction. You want to find Thorgrin, and I admire that. But
it’s been days, and still we have no sign of him. We have limited provisions.
Our people are starving. They’re homeless, have lost loved ones, and are mad
with grief. They are desperate for direction. We need food and shelter. We are running
out of provisions.”
    She knew he was right. Her people needed
another direction.
    “Our people need you,” Srog added.
    Gwen stared out into the horizon, holding
the baby, and still there was no sign of Thor. She closed her eyes, wiping a
tear, and she willed God to answer. Why did life have to be so hard?
    Please, God, tell me where he is. I will
give you anything. Just let me save him. If I cannot save my son, let me save
him. Please, don’t let me lose them both.
    Gwendolyn waited, very still, hoping for
a response. She opened her eyes, hoping for a sign, anything, something.
    But none came.
    She felt hollowed out. Abandoned.
    Resolved, she finally turned and nodded
to her men.
    “Turn the fleet around,” she said. “We
shall sail this time for land.”
    “Turn the fleet!” echoed up and down the
ships.
    Everyone turned and looked in their new
direction, except for Gwendolyn. She kept herself facing the direction they
were sailing away from, her heart breaking, hoping for any sign of Thor.
    As they began to drift further and
further away, the debris getting smaller, Gwen felt every good thing left in
the world being stripped from her. Was that what it meant to be Queen? Did it
mean you cared more for your people than for your family? For your very own
self? At this moment, being Queen was what Gwendolyn no longer wanted. At this
moment, she hated her people, hated everything about being Queen. She wanted
only Thorgrin and her son, and nothing else.
    But as they set sail in a new direction,
as the bells tolled on the masts, she knew it was not meant to be, and they
felt like bells tolling on her heart.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     
     
    Thor tried to grab onto something,
anything, as he felt himself sliding down a slimy tunnel, in a gush of liquid
and seawater—but there was nothing to hang onto. As the world rushed by him in
this cacophonous tunnel, he realized he was being washed down into the belly of
this beast. The blackness deepened, and he braced himself for death.
    Thor slid deeper and deeper down the
contours of the beast’s endlessly long throat—it felt like hundreds of feet—until
finally he found himself ejected into a huge cavernous space. He went flying
through the air, shouting as he plummeted a good twenty feet, until he finally
landed in a pool of water, up to his knees, on a soft surface. He realized he
must have landed on the whale’s soft stomach.
    As Thor lay in the shallow water,
wondering if he was dead, he heard his own breathing echo in the blackness; water
swished gently back and forth on the whale’s stomach as it moved through the
sea. Thor imagined the whale swimming through the ocean, turning side to side,
diving up and down. He could faintly hear all the sounds of the ocean outside, dim
from here, muted.
    Thor tried to stand but stumbled as the whale
raced along the ocean. There came a loud gushing noise, and Thor looked up and felt
a gush of water come down on his head, along with several fish flying down
through the air, landing in the belly with