I stood up fast, almost falling over, and took the notepad from his hands. He looked shocked at my sudden actions but I ignored him and quickly wrote down everything that Lily was telling me. It was coming from the North, it was about seven knots away. Approaching fast. It looked like a sand whale.

I saw his eyes light up with horror as he read the note. He jumped out of the carriage and sounded an alarm. I held my ears against it. It was loud.

When he hopped back into the carriage I stared long and hard at him. He was talking again. Probably a nervous chatter. Mother was like that. He was saying that I should hold on as we’re going to be heading straight into battle.

He was not kidding. I fell into the left side wall, hitting my head pretty hard. I held it in my hands. Phillins offered me a handkerchief and a worried expression but nothing more. I dabbed my head with the cloth, not surprised when it came away red. I did take a small chunk out of the wall.

Mother always said I had a hard head.

“Now’s not the time for that, tell him to heavily guard the south. It’s going to go under the caravan and pop up on the other side.” Lily was yelling harshly in my ear. I winced but wrote it down. He immediately sounded the alarm again, informing the guards outside of the situation.

The guards lined up, just as the surface of the sand rippled. A screeched pierced our ears, louder than the alarm, it shook the surface under us. The closer it got, the more the earth beneath us shook. The sound came closer, closer and almost matched the thud of our hearts in our ears. Until it suddenly ceased. Like a wind over the sea it had passed as quickly as it had come. The guards stayed tense as a powerful silence now enveloped the air.

I have bad luck when it comes to seas. Lily just rolled her eyes and nodded. I retreated into the carriage, watching the scene play out through the windows. No need for their future queen to die here.

“Where-” One of the guards began to say. The sand burst upwards into a colossal mountain of tanned skin that seemed to swallow the sky. The whale was a majestic thing, brown and gold, glittering in the sun light. Sand cascaded around it, dripping off it like water would. With another cry, the Sand Whale plummeted towards us- the air itself shaking as death rushed towards us.

“Move!” One of the guards shouted. The group scattered like insects. The men stood back for a moment, then charged as a group just as the whale’s teeth sunk into one of the carts. The wool horses whined, being lifted onto their sides as the whale dragged them under the surface.

I watched in horror. Will it go after the carriage?

“It prefers larger targets that contain food. And see as it’s a herbivore, you are not food.” Lily floated around without a care. “There’s no need to be worried about such a creature. They know when to take and when to stop.”

Oh good.

The sand now became like a tidal wave, sweeping towards us as though it was possessed. Two more screaming guards were caught in it and sank under the shifting earth, never resurfacing.

The whale broke the surface with it’s might head, the beast wasn’t even breathing hard after its first attack. I could only stand in awe at a creature so great and terrible. One of its amber eyes shifted to me with a kind of intelligence in it. As though it understood what I was thinking.

I am not food. I will be queen. I thought at it.

The silence was once more broken. This time by a guard with an axe who- with a shout- ran towards the whale. Axe raised and gleaming against the sunlight he swung at its side… only to watch the weapon shatter.

The whale’s gaze broke from mine and I released the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. With another cry that seemed to rock the very earth beneath us it twisted towards the man with a speed that a creature its size would not naturally have. It snatched up the guard in its jaws before leaping up once more; vanishing back into the sands. Its powerful tail smacked the sands before vanishing under them- creating another wave that we could not avoid.

“The seer!” One of the guards shouted as the wall of sand consumed the carriage and me along with it.

The glass shattered quickly, All at once the world became a blinding razor against any exposed skin. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. I couldn’t scream as the sand left little cuts on my bare cheeks and arms. It built up around me all at once, like a tomb. And I let the darkness swallow me.

I sucked in a breath, feeling the needles come down my throat, twisting and cutting. Piercing.

No, not here. Not like this.

I willed my eyes to open but all they saw was darkness. I could hear Lily’s voice from somewhere, somewhere far away.

“Don’t you give up, they’re coming for you.” Every word dropped worry like a liquid. “There’s no one to save you like last time. Hold your breath. They’ll make it to you.”

But I felt myself slipping, the pain becoming all of me. I tried to scream, I’m always trying to scream it seems. But the lack of my voice and the sand that enclosed around me made it impossible. My mouth quickly filled up with sand. I gagged, but even the contents of my stomach was sand.

I felt something though. That fire in my gut. That will to live. I took hold of it, used it. This was my time, my destiny, I would not die here.

I tried to burn away the sand, but more just came down to take its place. I tried to breathe, but my lungs were nothing but a part of this sea. I tried to move but the weight of everything coming down on me was too much to bear.