Ice crawled down the giant monster’s body.

  The scales cracked and splintered as the giant monster strained against the stiffening that my spell was doing to its body. Pieces fell off, but the violence of the thrashing slowed down as the monster simply strained to keep its skin from freezing solid.

  Fray and Nakten took full advantage of the open targets, stabbing their blades into the monster’s side wherever a scale fell off. The size of the monster meant that all their cuts were superficial, as their blades weren’t long enough to reach any vital organs. While it would be possible for the creature to bleed out, unfortunately, the freezing that was restricting it was also slowing the bleeding.

  Aelin focused on the eyes. It wasn’t until they crystallized over that I realized that there was a clear eyelid covering the eyes, because of the line that formed vertically in front of the irises. The monster kept its outer eyelid open as it breathed frost out of its bruised nostrils. I felt my mana waning, but the monster was only partially frozen. I let go the moment my head began to buzz and reached into my CB for a mana potion.

  A low roar rumbled in the giant creature’s throat, then a flash of lightning tore across the sky.

  I had thought it had been raining hard before, but the storm intensified, dropping water in such thick sheets that it was like a wave falling from the clouds instead of rain droplets.

  Unlike the earlier rain, this precipitation was warm, too warm to be normal. Before I could get the mana potion to my lips, I could tell that the Sea Dragon was thawing.

  Thawing meant the bleeding resumed and blue liquid oozed out of the massive creature, but that also meant that it was no longer as stuck. It struggled in earnest as I hurried to get my mana topped back off.

  “It knows it’s dying and it’s trying to take us with it!” Ether slammed her shield into the giant serpent’s nose again. “It doesn’t care how bad it hurts itself now!”

  One of my vines holding the front half of the monster in place snapped. Scales were falling off the monster by the handful, which loosened the grip my vines had on it. Some of the scales were upended and created enough of an edge that the Sea Dragon was able to start sawing through some of the other vines.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  At this point, even if I rebound the monster, the rain was too thick and warm for me to do much freezing at all. It might buy us a little more time, but I didn’t want to think about what would happen if it flipped the ship.

  I took a deep breath and shoved my hand back into the monster’s side.

  I hope this works.

  “SIPHON!”

  The world went dark.

  I knew that the way the spell was intended to work was for the user to be able to pull something out of another person. Some people used it to drain mana, others could leech off stamina, while a Healer might use it to draw out poison or some other toxin from an ally. I’d used it to eviscerate a Giant Slime once, but the main thing I’d found that I could do with it was to pull someone else’s mind into my own.

  I felt motion in the darkness. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on how I wanted this space to transform. The area around me lit up, revealing the giant blue serpent swimming in the other direction. We weren’t suspended in water, but things moved differently in a mind space.

  ROAR!

  The giant creature turned around and opened its giant maw as it surged towards me.

  My heart beat faster as I tried not to focus on the teeth that were almost as large as I was. This was my mindspace, which meant that I was in charge. I tried to force the creature to stop, but nothing happened. It appeared that while I was in my own mind, I wasn’t able to reshape or control other beings that were there.

  But I could still modify myself.

  I focused on making myself larger, much larger than the creature hungering to consume me. By the time it reached me, I was able to get my arm up in between us. The creature’s jaws closed over my arm, sinking its teeth into my flesh. I saw the look of surprise in its yellow eyes as its prey was suddenly larger than it.

  With my free hand, I grabbed the creature at the base of the skull and squeezed. Its tail lashed out and wrapped around my injured arm as it struggled to shake its head from side to side. I pushed my arm deeper into its mouth, forcing the jaws to part as my arm moved past those large front fangs.

  My black blood ran down its body. I was bleeding profusely, but at the moment, I didn’t care. This mighty serpent was nothing more than a snake in my hands and in my mind, I was going to be able to crush it long before anything happened to me because of a lack of blood.

  In fact, why did I have to worry about bleeding at all? With a thought, the wounds closed over, leaving the gagging creature straining against me.

  “THE GOD CHEATS!”

  I almost dropped the snake as its words filled my mind.

  This creature could talk.

  Rating, Review, Follow, Favorite, or Comment does wonders to boost my morale. If you want to help support my writing or check out advanced chapters, head over to my .

  RR Writer's Guild