The barest brush of their power slipping over me hints that this potion is wearing off. Seth’s calm confidence on my right. Killian’s pure protection at my back. Roarke’s bone-deep-wisdom on my left and Pax’s strength in front.
Just a tiny bit. A tease.
When Pax stops, I have to nudge forward and push past him to see what’s blocking our path.
They’ve been calling it stone, like a rough jagged cliff in beige and browns with hand holds. I pictured bits jutting out and scars from the land shifting and cracking. That’s what a cliff is.
They chose the wrong word to describe it.
This is sleek. It’s almost black, dark like it has endless depths, and if the water wasn’t cascading over it, I’m sure it would reflect the world. My world.
Seeing it makes my chest feel funny. Maybe it’s my soul, and it’s somehow lighter. Somehow happier. I can’t explain it – but I recognize it.
I recognize this.
“It’s not rock,” I whisper, moving closer to skim my fingers along the surface and through the ribbon of water. “It’s glass.”
“It looks shiny, but it can’t be glass. The water has polished it smooth, that’s all,” Roarke says.
“Why can’t it be glass?” Seth asks, and I’d thank him for supporting me, but I’m too busy being drawn into the song of something decidedly magical, and definitely Silvari glass.
“Because glass is made,” Roarke says. “It’s a product of chemicals and heat. Glass has no natural place in the world.”
“Silvari glass does,” I correct him, my voice an awe-filled whisper. “And this is Silvari glass.”
I press my palm flat to the surface. Instantly, the water stops flowing and moves like two curtains being pulled back.
There’s a collective breath among the guys. Every hand lifts to press to the glistening black surface easily three times my height or more, leaving silence around us. Feeling for themselves, I guess. Seeing that I’m right.
It reflects, but not the world, only us. Roarke, Pax, me, Killian, then Seth.
All of us in the wrong order, and each looking from one reflection to the next.
A flash of gold erupts to the top left, and suddenly, someone yanks me back. Killian partly steps behind me, and Pax wholly steps in front of me. Turning us into a Shade sandwich and staying that way even though nothing deadly unfolds. I have to shove hard to get Pax to move over so I can see.
A light on the other side of the stone is drawing across its surface – writing.
“Somebody better read that out loud,” I demand.
Roarke clears his throat. “The last breath of the one who does not belong. A shard from the barrier that protects us all. Return the soul to the place of its origin. The black depths. Five beats. And the water to wash the walls away.”
As soon as the last letter scrawls, the surface shatters. A million pieces all echo off each other. Then, before we can react, the glass sucks inwards, shards pulling inside, reforming and smoothing into a tunnel clean through what, a heartbeat ago, was a solid wall.
Wall gone. Door open.
“Aeons,” Roarke gasps.
“Fuck,” Killian counters.
I just swallow hard against pure awe and take my one step forward to stand in the threshold.
The thing is tall enough for even Killian and Seth to pass and wide enough for us to move as a group. The temperature is lower, the air smells fresher, and I feel more alive, more at home, more where I belong than I ever have before.
“It is glass. That’s why the other Seeds couldn’t make it budge. Silvari glass is impervious to almost anything. Apparently, it was never made – it was found. Eydis’ ancestors must have worked out the recipe to replicate it – but this is pure.”
The stuff is so thick that it looks black. Giant tree roots have grown through it, arching around us.
“Apparently, Roarke should stop assuming shit,” Seth mutters.
“They were educated conclusions, and it wouldn’t have mattered if she came here earlier. The magic apparently needed all of us in the same place, and until now, one of us has always been busy. We were the key, all five of us.”
There’s no other side in sight, and the floor gives way to a steep staircase that twists and spirals in a snake-like pattern, but there must be light somewhere down there because it bounces and ricochets enough to keep us from tripping.
The air cools further with each step we take, each breath refreshing and tinged with the scent of something sweet and smooth, sliding down my throat and over my skin. Not quite honey, though that’s the best word for it.
“Can you smell that?” I ask Killian.
“What?” Killian counters.
“I can smell honey.”
“It’s the glass.”
“The glass smells like honey?” I press, just to be sure.
“It smells like you,” they chorus.
“Me? I smell like honey?”
But the idea is lost as we step into a cave. Granite like the boulders outside forms the majority of the walls, making the space much darker, but still lit up by light through a doorway. Tree roots thread through the black stone, cracked and rough, with chunks fallen on the floor. A trickle of water about the same size as the one coming out from underneath the tree root on the surface flows over them and cascades gently out a stone archway on the other side.
“Is that the same water as on the surface?” I ask. It’s flowing in a strikingly similar way.
Roarke runs his fingers over the wet stones, feeling the water, then smelling it.
“Yes, this is the same as the one above. Just water flowing through lava tubes.”
“Are we in the right place, then?” I ask, my heart aching with the idea that we’ve found nothing more than drinking water and a pretty cave.
Roarke turns and points out the arched doorway and down the cascading steps. He follows his own pointing, his finger tracing the path of the water with a serious thinking face etched into his features.
We shadow him, disturbing a swarm of some kind of glowing bugs that flit about us wildly before settling against the glass dome over our heads. I lean back into whichever Elorsin is behind and just stare.
“Firedragons,” Seth whispers in my ear. “Not much better than flies, but they glow.”
“And they’re not supposed to live in the north at all,” Roarke mutters.
Their wings are delicate like a dragonfly, but their bodies are almost too small to make out features – helped by their bright glow. Not all of them are glowing, though, and one darts past my face looking ready to bite.
With a tiny forked tail and little spines down its back, it is a little dragon-ish. “They’re cute.”
I hold my hand out, but Seth wraps his fingers around it and quickly closes my fist.
“Nope, not sure mortals and firedragons would get along,” he says, pushing me down the wide steps.
The water trickles steadily over a series of long shallow steps, over moss-covered rocks, and into a well.
Roarke stoops down and runs his fingers through the surface of the well. “This is the Spring.”
“How can you tell?” I ask since it looks like ordinary water to me.
“Come here,” he says, taking my hand and leading me out through the arch. I turn in a circle, piecing together my surroundings.
My bare toes brush over the moss-covered rocks, triggering a flash of memory – of me as a baby, right here on these stones.
“This is it,” I whisper. “The Spring she put me in.”
Roarke guides me to the big round pool’s edge. The thing is black with depth and completely still, almost giving the illusion that it’s also made from solid glass. I squat down and dip my fingers in just to check – yep, water.
If it wasn’t scaring the crap out of me, it would be the perfect size for us all to sit back and relax in.
Naked.
Preferably naked.
Killian crouches on the other side of m
e, chuckles, and taps the side of my head. “Shhh.”
“Agreed,” Roarke adds. “What does the water feel like?”
“It feels like water,” I say.
“It doesn’t feel, ah, foreign to you?”
Seth kneels on the other side of the pool, cupping some water and then letting it trickle from his fingers. “It feels... hostile.”
“How can water be hostile?”
Pax kneels and leans forwards to lick the surface.
I screw up my brow and try not to laugh at him.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He turns his head, and I realize I’m talking to Thane.
“Right, sorry, go ahead, drink the water.”
He dips his tongue in once then straightens, saying, “It’s alive.”
I close my eyes and breathe deeply, trying to feel beyond the Power Blocker and beyond the bubble, if that’s even possible. Everything is muted, like functioning in the middle of having the flu or someone has stuffed the world with cotton-tufted wool.
I reach out and ask, Are you there? Are you alive?
The walls around us feel like they could be humming, but I can’t be sure. All I’m getting through the layers of magic is a prickling sensation down my spine.
But that’s not good enough. We’ve found the spring, but I’m down to one step. Do I even have enough time for Roarke to experiment with potions?
Hear me – speak to me, I beg and get a sharp pang of pain for my efforts. Obviously using Allure the wrong way, again.
Roarke releases my hand, and instantly, my wall throws me against him, hard enough to topple us both over. Landing with a hard thud on the steps.
He lands sprawled on his back, and I’m draped over the top of him.
“Sorry,” I begin, losing the last syllable when Killian leans down, wraps an arm around my waist, and yanks me to his chest.
There’s a little stiffness to the way Roarke gets up, but all of his attention is still on me.
My feet brush the stone, then Killian commands, “Move.”
He unwraps his arms from around me, and my wall smacks into my cheek, smooshing one side of my face flat.
“Bad news,” I say.
Killian shoves me in the back, the motion first giving me more space, then sends me hurtling into the solid surface. It’s unrelenting and chuckin’ hurts, and I’m not at all comforted by the fact that Killian catches me before I land on my ass.
I groan and rub my cheek. “No steps.”
In all of that, Pax has rushed over, and suddenly, he has one hand on the back of my neck, pressing me into his chest, the other gripping Killian’s arm with white knuckles.
“No steps,” he whispers, disbelieving.
“The last breath of the one who does not belong. A shard from the barrier that protects us all. Return the soul to the place of its origin. The black depths. Five beats. And the water to wash the walls away,” Roarke mutters.
“And the water to wash the walls away,” I repeat. The solution almost knocks the wind out of me. “I have to go into the Spring.”
“We don’t know when, or if, she’ll come back out,” Roarke argues, not with me but with Pax. “We might not see her for another hundred years – if ever. She died the last time, and there’s no well on the mortal side to let her out anymore.”
I dig my toes in and manage to turn in Pax’s arms, looking across at Seth, his face drawn and eyes glossy. Roarke is mustering every argument he can think of. Killian might actually shatter his own teeth. And Pax.
Pax is shaking.
His fingers are trembling, breath skimming over the top of my head in shaky gasps.
Roarke keeps talking, arguing for and against the idea at the same time.
None of them notice me angling towards the Spring. Shifting Pax slightly. Finding a paver in the path to wedge my foot against.
Setting myself into the exact position I need before I interrupt them, “Right, guys. This is how it is – you saved my life that day at the Manor, and I love you in this crazy deep way that I can never explain, but I’m going into that Spring –” I launch myself before the words have left my mouth.
I’m expecting Pax to pull me back, and maybe the only reason he doesn’t is because his hands are shaking so badly. My toes slide into the water, falling through without any resistance.
There should be resistance – there should be a wall.
But there isn’t, and as I slip beneath the surface I realize it’s because all four Elorsins have dived into the Spring with me.
Pax smashes into me, basically pushing me further under and managing to knock the air from my lungs at the same time. The water sucks us down, and in an instant, we’re too deep. Surrounded by endless black. There never were any walls, like the edges of the Spring on the surface fail to correspond to any sides underneath. It could go on forever down here – not that it matters.
Seth and Roarke and Killian reach out, wrapping their arms around us in a ball and almost crushing me. All of them are kicking and struggling toward the surface.
And all of them fail as we sink endlessly.
The light fades to murky shades of gray, then black. I don’t realize my eyes are still open until there’s a light – silver and pulsing – in the distance, floating towards us. All of my guys give up trying to kick for the surface and turn to stare at it. I can’t make out their features, just sense their silhouettes. Sense the way we’re suspended in the water too far down to even know which way is up anymore.
My lungs burn, and the last bubble of air escapes my lips.
Then nothing, and the weird little light thing isn’t enough to keep my body happy without air, no matter how curious I am as it begins to bob and dance in excitement. Not Seth-style excitement, more like Killian-style excitement. A little hesitant and a lot like this is going to end in pain.
Pax lights up in my mind first. Or not my mind, my senses. Killian explained it once, long ago, but the important thing is I can feel Pax again.
Commander. One. Holding my right hand and alive with rushes of static and strength. The urge to bury my nose in his shirt and smell his vanilla scent is very real – and also very impossible.
Two. Seth, my Sethy. He’s behind my right shoulder with a fistful of my shirt in one hand and a tight grip on my waistband in the other.
Three. Roarke is beside him, alive with the weight of knowledge and wisdom and regret.
Four. Killian is on my left and angled a little in front of me, with his hand reaching back and pressing flat to my stomach as if prepared to push me away from the little light thingy.
All four of them.
All in their order.
I’m completely weightless. The bubble’s gone. The potion is gone. In a strange way, I’m free.
My lungs collapse.
My eyes close.
And my mind holds one last thought for the guys I love before failing to think at all.
She jumped into the Spring!
So we jump in after her.
Time fails to hold, even as I struggle with it. Slowing it, slowing it, but not halting it, and then slipping from my grip entirely.
As soon as I’m in the water, I pull myself close, grab Seth’s arm, and secure us both in a tight ball around her. Killian even grabs her hair and tries to kick with us to the surface.
But we’re sinking like a magnet is pulling at our feet. He lets go of her hair and forces an arm between us all to press firmly against her abdomen, all of us trying to be close.
As grief rips through me, my power locks on to her soul. The potion is wearing off. I’m grateful that I can feel this close to her, and I hope that she can feel me too – then guilt kicks me in the chest for assuming we’re not going to survive this. My power has already begun to slip through my grip, so I let it. Releasing the holds so it can spread and stretch. Filling the space around Kitten.
And knowing without a doubt that her only desire right now is to be with us.
Ther
e is no way I wouldn’t want to feel her last breath. To savor each second. No matter how painful. No matter if it kills me to be here.
We stop sinking and suspend in the darkness. None of us can manage to kick to the surface – the Spring won’t let us.
Alone – except for the spark of a small light in the distance. Which is strange. It advances, and all of us shift to watch it. It hovers, watching us too.
It’s a Silvari soul.
Kitten’s heart pumps its last beat. The final moment of her life. Her body limp in our arms. Her desires gone.
Leaving her hollow and empty.
Killian screams, the sound eaten by the depths. He tries desperately to kick, thrashing and pushing toward what would be the surface. We all do our best to help him, just one last time. But it’s no good – Kitten is stuck here. Held in place by something more powerful than us.
Once again, we stop and hover.
The soul edges closer. Tiny – like that of a child’s – and swirling in an odd half moon shape – like it’s broken. Stopping about an arm’s length away, and it doesn’t look particularly happy. My lungs are burning, and my head is pounding from the pressure. I’m pretty sure none of us are going to try to reach the surface, and the pretty light acts as a nice distraction on our way to our deaths.
The thing flits left, then right, then smashes between us and right into Kitten. Throwing us back.
I tumble and immediately start kicking and reaching for her. I can’t see the others, thrown into the darkness too, but I can see her – because she’s glowing with silver light from fingertips to toes. Her body is splayed out and motionless.
Then her chest lifts, struggles, trying to inhale, and her desire for air slams into me so hard that I curl up against the ferociousness of her feelings before I can get myself together and swim for her.
Desire fills my world again. All of us rushing. Struggling. Knowing the surface is so far up. Knowing that she’s alive right this second and in another second she could bloody drown – again.
As soon as we reach her a current of water wraps around us. It twists and pushes us all to the surface so hard and fast that we’re suddenly in the air – then crashing back down. The water splashes under our weight, but this time we float. Which is ideal. Sinking would be counterproductive right now. I clamber to Kitten’s side first, Pax a second later, both of us seizing her and pulling her to the edge.
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 116