Reyna stood at her ship’s bow, watching Cinderhold warships cut through the waves like angry knives. The trader’s beads in her hair clinked together in the wind, each one a memory of a deal made, a port visited, a secret kept. Her water-marked neck tingled – something big was stirring beneath the waves.
“Three more ships joining the fleet, Captain,” her first mate called from the crow’s nest. “Making seventeen total. All flying war-flags.”
Seventeen ships. All headed straight for Maralyd. The Cinderhold Empire didn’t deploy that kind of force for a social call.
“Any word from our friends below?” Reyna asked, fingers absently tracing the water birthmark that wrapped around her throat like a necklace. The mark that shouldn’t exist, according to everything the element-priests taught. Tempest Isles traders weren’t supposed to have water magic. Then again, they weren’t supposed to be able to steal fire either.
“Nothing yet,” the first mate replied. “But the currents are acting strange. Like they’re talking to each other.”
Reyna knew all about strange. She’d been living it ever since that night in the Burnt Wastes, when she’d first reached out and… borrowed… a Cinderhold patrol’s campfire. Fire wasn’t supposed to listen to water-calls. But it had. And now her little trick had sparked a movement that was spreading faster than any flame.
The Element Dancers. Land-dwellers whispered the name like a prayer or a curse, depending on who was listening. But out here on the open sea, with salt spray in her face and revolution in the wind, Reyna called them something else.
The future.
A flash of orange light caught her eye – warning fire from the lead Cinderhold ship. They’d spotted her vessel.
“Orders, Captain?” her crew waited, hands on their water-skins. They were all Element Dancers now, whether they’d planned to be or not.
“Maintain course,” Reyna said, pulling a small coral sphere from her pocket. One of many she’d acquired from her Maralyd contacts. “Let’s see if our friends from the Empire want to dance.”
The warship drew alongside, close enough to see the fire-marked soldiers lining its rails. Their birthmarks blazed against their skin like brands, marking them as true fire-wielders. Pure. Traditional. Everything Reyna and her dancers weren’t.
“Trader vessel!” a voice boomed across the water. “You’re interfering with Imperial business. Change course or be burned.”
Reyna held up the coral sphere, letting it catch the sunlight. The patterns etched into its surface matched the ones she’d been seeing in her dreams – the same patterns that had started appearing in fire-marks across the realms.
“Funny thing about fire,” she called back, feeling the familiar tingle as her water-mark responded to the Empire’s flames. “It’s getting awfully chatty these days. Almost like it’s got secrets to share.”
On cue, the torches along the warship’s rails flickered and swayed. Not from the wind – toward Reyna. Like eager puppies straining at their leashes.
The Imperial commander’s face darkened. “Element thief,” he spat. “Abomination!”
“Element dancer,” Reyna corrected, as the coral sphere in her hand began to hum. The same song she’d been hearing in the fire, in the water, in the very air around her. “And I’m not the only one who knows the steps.”
The sphere’s song grew louder, harmonizing with something deep beneath the waves. Something that made both water and fire marks pulse in recognition.
Reyna smiled, shark-bright and storm-wild. “Tell me, Commander – what secrets are your flames whispering these days? And why are you so afraid to listen?”
The warship’s torches danced higher, and in their light, Reyna saw the future spinning out like a song made of fire and water and change.
The elements were choosing their partners.
And this dance? This dance was just beginning.