Book 2 | Chapter 10 | Lillia of the Colossus 3/3

With a second, doubly enthusiastic ‘eep,’ Lillia was plucked out of the crab’s eye by one of the previously wide billowing sleeves of the spelldress. Outside of the claw closing, there was no change in its momentum; she weighed nothing to it, even as she was extricated from the eye. The goopy, broken mess she left behind was enough to make Lillia turn away and look out into the infinite abyss of dark water and grey storm she was probably going to be thrown out into.
At this point, she was hanging by her sleeve and didn’t have the strength left to climb anything else. She’d scrambled all over this damned crab while swinging a sword and princesses only had so much adrenaline in their systems. Once it dropped her, she could figure out what she was supposed to do, but until then she was stuck.
Or at least, she was stuck unless she dropped out of this dress. She’d used the tactic on Eisel, but she didn’t know what she stood to gain here. Yes, she was stuck, but the other option was plummeting down to the sea and—
Well, she didn’t want to figure out what it felt like to hit water at terminal velocity. Even if that was fine, the exhaustion that kept her from climbing would have drowned her. She wouldn’t suddenly get energized by trying something she was worse at.
The claw dragged Lillia through the sky fast enough that each of the raindrops hurt, slapping against her skin in a quick stinging pattern. One hit just below her eyes and she learned her lesson, squeezing them shut and waiting for the crab to make a choice.
After all, if it dropped her, she’d know, even if she couldn—
“AHH!”
Embarrassingly, the scream lasted longer than the fall. Lillia rolled to a stop on a pile of wooden planks before she opened her eyes or closed her mouth. She lay there for a moment, her hair and dress stuck fast to her skin with freezing rain water. The wind screamed past her, but even if it wasn’t enough to make her anything other than a pile of wet rags and eye goop.
The claw was coming next, wasn’t it? It was going to crash down on her any moment. It was going to—
Well, if it wasn’t going to do it quickly, she’d better move, shouldn’t she?
Lillia cracked open her eyes to warm light. The claw hovered above her, shut, as if it were trying to point. The heaving claw motioned toward a massive billowing fire that, despite everything, triumphed over the storm.
The Hearth.
She wanted to spring up. She’d expected to jump to her feet and run towards the Hearth as soon as it was in reach, but in that moment there was no strength left to do it. The sight of victory within reach sapped everything out of Lillia. She lay there on the ‘deck’ of the crab, a thousand ignored injuries and strains catching up with her all at once. As the rain pounded down, she reached a hand out toward the Hearth, but it was all she could do for the moment.
Come on! What the hell was this? A moment ago she was boiling a crab eye and now she couldn’t even manage to stand? Was this seriously how it was going to end for this life? She would go back to the first floor. She’d have to figure out her way past Nennia again. And all after she’d been this close?
The crab shuddered under her, the wooden shell creaking under its movements. Somewhere under the cacophony of the wind, the battering rain and the crashing sea, Lillia heard a tremendous explosion.
The last time she’d heard cannons was a funeral display for a lord of the Southern Seas.
A second boom and the crab shuddered again, then moved its gargantuan claw back out to sea and down…towards the ship.
Gerand and Caelum were using the cannons, and the crab was going to try and grab them. They weren’t going to know how to fight the crab.
Well, Lillia hadn’t known how to fight the crab either, and she’d done a pretty good job, but regardless she had to get to the Hearth. That might save them and ‘they’re in mortal danger’ was much better motivation than ‘they’ll probably figure it out.’
Lillia snapped chitin in her fingers and the battlegown snapped out around her, replacing the soaked spelldress with layered scales that were quickly soaked. The thin fabric under the scales stuck to her skin. It wasn’t much, but some insurance was better than none and this was better armour than nothing.
Wood scratched against the scales of the chitin as Lillia pulled herself forward. Her arms screamed, and her legs wailed, but with a deep breath between each pull, she yanked her limp body towards the Hearth. She was battered, by the sea, by imprisonment, by getting shaken around in the crab, but she wasn’t broken.
The Hearth wasn’t far now, but it also hadn’t been far in the first place. At this point the cannon fire had stopped, but that didn’t mean she was out of time. Either way, Lillia summoned Vianaffir to use it for its second best use—as a cane.
Havoc would never approve, but she managed to wedge the tip of the blade between the boards of the ‘shell’ and slowly, but surely, prop herself up. She forced herself up onto her feet, water pouring down her back as her soaking hair flopped around in the storm winds as a single hefty brick. Even once she was up, it took her a moment to find her footing. To finally get to a point where, if she moved Vianaffir, she wouldn’t tumble immediately.
As soon as she was fully upright, the crab groaned again and leaned to the side. The footing that she’d battled for vanished as boards shifted under Lillia’s feet and she lost balance, crashing down onto the boards. Falling, she scrambled to hold onto Vianaffir as the massive crab continued to lean, forcing her ‘deck’ further and further sideways. She started to roll.
Lillia couldn’t find where to hold on. Each board she tried to grab shifted inward as she tried. Her heels kept catching on gaps that disappeared, and the roll turned into a tumble as the princess threatened to fly out to sea.
She snapped a second piece of chitin in her hand, and the scales of the dress bloomed outward into sharp knives that stuck and scratched along the board, tearing through wood and splintering across Lillia as she rolled. Even with the extra grip, she continued to slide. With each turnover of the roll, she could see the gray expanse of the sea horizon coming closer and closer.
“No no no no!”
“Hold on!”
Just as Lillia was about to tumble off the edge and out into the ocean storm, a hand snatched hers from the fog. Calloused fingers wrapped around her gloves and snapped her to a stop. The force strained her shoulders, and her saviour grunted as one of the knives from the second level dress cut into him around the hem.
“Fuck me what are you—”
Hanging halfway off the edge of the crab, with her dress billowing out in the storm below, Lillia looked up to see a soaked but mostly fine Gerand.
“Gerand!”
“Your sleeve is stabbing me.”
“Oh,” Lillia let Vianaffir fall back into her inventory and grabbed two ambusher feathers. The first made her less stabby—though not nearly warm enough—and the second offered more coverage. The feathers of the petticoat stuck to her skin immediately, the Ambusher was certainly not a Seabird.
Now only slightly bleeding, Gerand heaved Lillia up onto the top of the crab. She splatted down beside him, face down on the soaked ‘deck’ of the ‘ship.’
After most rooms she wanted a bath. After this one, she never wanted to see water again.
Lillia peeled herself off the floor and shoved her dripping hair back out of her eyes. Gerand was sitting down beside her, catching his breath after pulling her onto the ship. Caelum was pacing back and forth beyond.
“How did you two get up here?” Lillia asked. She had fought for so long. How had they caught up?
“Crab threw me here the second it caught me,” Gerand said. “Thought I was a goner once it grabbed me by the leg, but it was…gentle really.”
“Why would it do that?” Lillia asked.
He shrugged. Caelum continued to pace.
“Help me up?” Lillia offered her hand to Gerand and he stood first before pulling her to her feet. At this point, the seawater had washed off most of the dirt that had been caked on his face, leaving black streaks running down his cheeks and sticking in his stubble.
Outside of how gross he was, he wasn’t horrible to look at. A bit common if anything.
“You mentioned a Hearth, Princess. Is that what you were speaking about?” he asked as he pointed his borrowed Captain’s Sabre toward the flame. Once Lillia nodded, he continued. “If that’s what you want, then I guess the crab gave it to us. What did you do to it?”
Lillia didn’t particularly want to explain that most of the ‘wet’ on her right now was a slurry of eyeball and seawater as opposed to just the rain. “I’m feisty.”
“Well, colour me impressed. Never met a princess with a decent grasp on a blade before.”
Decent grasp was pushing it, but she’d never turn down a compliment. “I’ve been practicing.”
“Course you have, don’t think you would have done much of that back at whatever castle you were in before this,” Gerand said. As he spoke, he looked past the still-pacing Caelum to the Hearth. “Well, Princess. It’s right there.”
Lillia shook out her head again, letting her soaked brick of hair slap against her neck as she did. “So it is, Gerand. Let’s—”
Just as she took her first step forward, Gerand’s hand was on her shoulder. He gripped her tight, hard enough that she couldn’t get away.
“Princess.”
She didn’t like that tone.
“Would you mind showing me that sword you had as I helped you up?”