by Melody Rose
My nose automatically wrinkled. “Are we sure that’s even water?”
“It used to be,” Yerti reported. “It runs throughout the whole island. If you can get this clear and drinkable, you will already take a large step forward to healing Teine.”
“Cool,” I grumbled to myself.
I crouched down into a squat and peered closer at the water, but it was like trying to look through a solid wall. The liquid was slimy and oozed rather than ran like water was supposed to. I gulped audibly and sat down in a cross-legged position. I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“I am right here if you need me,” Hannan assured.
“Got it,” I said with a definitive nod.
I closed my eyes and called to the light. I felt it spark between my fingertips and in the center of my palm. The warmth radiated up my arms, almost to my elbow. In my inner eye, I pictured the river how it should be. How it once was. I drew out the image in my head, filling the stream with clear water. It would be cold and fresh. I could see the pebbles shimmering at the base of the canal, wet and shiny from the continuous rush of water.
Then I extended out that vision as far out as I could imagine. I didn’t know the full path of the river, but I remembered the general shape of the island. I ran a clear, bright stream right through the isle, breaking through the blackness of the contamination.
Finally, I granted the river immunity from the contamination. This wasn’t something I had ever tried before, but during one of our many hours of flying, the thought occurred to me. Did my powers extend to making people and things immune from Reon’s contamination? Such as, if the king got contaminated once, was I strong enough to ensure that he never got it again?
Even if that hypothesis didn’t end up being true, I could at least test the theory on this river and maybe on other elements on the Coast of Teine. It would be incredible if I could make the whole island a refuge, safe from further onslaught by Reon and his evil.
With that picturesque river in my mind, I reached out a hand to touch the contaminated water.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a familiar voice warned.
My eye popped open, and everything around me was purple. A lavender tint outlined the scene I was in. Even Hannan and Yerti were bathed in the plum color. However, they stood frozen and seemed not to notice the change. There was another person in the hazy glow who hadn’t been before.
Queen Irena leaned against a rock protruding up from the ground, overly casual.
“I can never remember which are stalagmite and which are stalactites,” I commented because the question had been bothering me since I got into the cave, and apparently now was the time to ask.
“I never learned that in geology,” Irena said with a shrug. She pushed herself off the stalagmite or stalactite, whichever one it was, and sauntered forward. Her dress swayed behind her as if she were walking against a fierce wind.
“Fair enough,” I replied. I figured I spent enough time stalling and should ask the pertinent question. “What are you doing here?”
“Keeping you from completely killing yourself,” Queen Irena said, still keeping that irritatingly casual tone. She approached me and leaned over the river, sticking her nose out with her hands behind her back. “Pretty nasty stuff, if you ask me.”
“Well, they asked me to heal it,” I said with a head jerk behind me to indicate Yerti. “Otherwise, they won’t introduce me to the one woman who knows where the mermaid kingdom is where your stupid riddle says the piece is.”
“My riddle wasn’t stupid,” the queen said defensively. “I thought it was rather clever.”
“You know what would have been really clever?” I countered. “Just telling us where the damn piece was in the first place and not send us on this wild goose chase.”
“Have you never read a fantasy novel?” Irena said with a smirk. “That’s not how it works.”
I rolled my eyes. “I really don’t understand what you’re doing here.”
“Physically here?” Irena lifted an eyebrow. “I told you that. I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“I meant here in a general sense.” I waved my arms about. “Like everything with these pieces of this key, and the riddles, and the Library, and everything.”
“I am doing the best I can,” Irena said. For the first time, she dropped the casual tone and changed to something more strained and earnest. “My resources are limited.”
“Still,” I lamented, “I don’t understand why you couldn’t have just led us to the mermaid kingdom in the first place.”
“There is only so much I can do,” Irena said as she put her hands on her hips. “Like stop you when you’re about to do something stupid.”
“I need to heal this river,” I argued, pointing to the frozen sludge in front of us. The violet coloring didn’t make it any more appetizing. “I have to touch it in order to fix it. Unless you have another idea, that is.”
“This is powerful stuff,” Irena informed me. “It’s been contaminated for years. That’s a hard virus to terminate.”
“Okay,” I dragged the word out. “What do you propose I do then?”
“It’s going to take all of you to do this, you know,” Irena said nonchalantly.
“Like it’s going to kill me?” I asked with a lump in my throat. “Because if that’s the case, then I’ll find another way to get to the mermaid kingdom, thank you very much.”
“You can fight it, and I certainly think you’re strong enough to do so,” Irena said. “But it’s going to take more than your hand. You have to use your whole body.”
It was like her words hit a wall in my brain and fell down in a jumble of letters. It took me a minute to piece them all back together. I looked at her with wide eyes and an open mouth.
“I have to get in there?”
“If you expect to heal the whole thing?” Irena gave the black river a frown. “Yes, you will have to get in there.”
“Gross,” I said with a wrinkled nose. A sliver of cold ran down my spine at the mere thought of it, and I shivered openly. “I thought you said it was going to kill me?”
“If you used just your hand, yes, it would,” the queen explained. “But if you use your whole body, you actually stand a chance.”
I moved my head back and forth, so my neck cracked audibly. “I hate this. I hate this,” I chanted to myself like a mantra.
“This would be the unglamorous part of being queen,” Irena said with distaste. “I do not envy you for this one.”
“Is it going to hurt?” I asked, closing one eye apprehensively.
“Probably,” Irena replied honestly. “Like I said, I don’t envy you.”
“Shit,” I muttered to myself. I thought about it for a moment and then made up my mind. “I’m just going to keep my clothes on, I think.”
“Whatever works for you,” Irena agreed. “I don’t believe it will matter one way or the other.”
“Good to know,” I grumbled.
I kicked out my legs, straight as boards, and let them hover over the dark river. I took a couple of deep breaths before I lowered my feet into the water.
It felt like sticking my feet over hot coals. I immediately retracted my limbs from the boiling substance.
“Holy shit!” I cried out. “You have got to be kidding me!”
“It’s the contamination, Eva,” Irena said obviously. “It’s not supposed to be pleasant.”
“It would be great if it weren’t like stepping into a volcano,” I said but then quickly corrected myself. “An active volcano.”
“I knew what you meant,” Irena said as she waved a hand at me. “You’ve got to go in, Eva.”
“I know, I know,” I whined.
I closed my eyes and bounced a little on the dirt beside the river. “You can’t push me, can you?” I asked the queen, hoping for a little assistance.
“No.” Irena held up her hands and turned her wrists like she was a magician showing me she had nothing up her sleeves.
“Only talking, no touching.”
As she put her arms on display for me, I could see that they weren’t completely whole. There was a slight transparency to them, which would absolutely make things difficult to move.
“Damnit,” I muttered. I turned my attention back to the river and took the biggest inhale I could.
Then I pushed myself into the tainted water.
Fire erupted all over my body. I trembled about for a little while until I regained control of my limbs. The water was so hot, it bit through my skin and seemed to gnaw me down to the bone. I sunk down into the blackness. As if I needed another sign that this wasn’t pure water. It felt like dozens of hands dragging me down. They kept my body stiff and flat like I was lying in a coffin.
Through it all, I squirmed and wanted to scream, but didn’t dare open my mouth. I held my breath because, even though Myels had gifted me with the ability to breathe underwater, I didn’t know if that would work in this contaminated sludge. Plus, something told me I should avoid inhaling the blackness at all costs.
Despite the pain, I managed to call to the light. I begged for it, screamed internally for it to rise and help me out. I focused my attention on the image I had created of the healthy river to counter the contaminated one.
Since I couldn’t see a thing, I trusted my remaining senses. I felt the warmth of the light counteract the burning fever from the contamination. It began at my fingertips, as it always did. However, instead of stopping at my elbow, per usual, it continued up. I felt the light soar up my biceps and around to the tops of my shoulders. It continued down my back and chest until it reached my toes. Every crevice of my body, from armpits to belly button, felt the warmth of the light as it emanated from me.
Never before had I allowed the light to consume me like this. It was one of the most pleasant sensations I ever experienced. The light protected me, like armor, from the contamination. I didn’t even have to call upon Lucien’s crystal scales.
I found that when the light reached my eyes, I could see through it. I knew my eyes were physically closed, but still, I could see from the light of my gift. It gave me a first-person account of the attack on the contamination.
The light spread out like a fast-growing tree. The branches expanded and grew thicker as they stretched from one another. Some blended together to make thicker trunks that could spread and sprout their own strands of light. It continued in two directions, one above me and the other below me. They traveled along the already lain path of the river, eating up the darkness as it went.
Instead of a river of black, the Coast of Teine slowly but surely got a river of white light.
After several minutes, however, I noticed the first signs of strain. It began in my chest, a tight spot that made me wheeze. Then it moved to a tickle at the back of my throat. From there, the strain caused my muscles to seize. I twitched beneath a layer of white light. Even though the light had given me the gift of air, I found myself short of breath.
Still, I pushed through to get to the end of the river. I wanted to cleanse the source and force clean water throughout this whole island. If I could prove to them that I could do it, maybe they would let me speak to Opala earlier. Then I could come back when I was stronger, better able to heal the island, and wasn’t on a deadline.
But the people of Teine wanted proof, Yerti specifically.
My mind lost itself for a moment, trying to remember what space I was in. The violet, the white, or the real world. My body seemed to suspend between the three, unable to keep a limb solidly in either location. My ribs cracked under the pressure of being pulled in so many directions.
I wanted to throw up. I didn’t know how much longer I would be able to endure the light pulsing through my body. What once felt like a warm hug now escalated to something more sinister, like being in a frying pan.
Suddenly, fear convinced me I was back in the darkness. That all of this was an illusion, and I never actually healed anything. It was so hot, boarding on boiling. I thought my skin would melt right off.
Hold on for one more minute, the light seemed to say.
It showed me the end. I would see them both simultaneously. We had almost reached the entire river and sucked all of the contamination out of it. We were so close.
But I was so close to passing out, I wasn’t sure I could make it. I forced a breath out of my lungs, which felt as though they were collapsing under the weight of the river.
Still, I shoved. I dragged the light out as far as it would go and kept the picture of a clean and bright river firmly in my mind’s eye. It wasn’t easy, and my mind continued to wander about, focusing mostly on the pain that rocketed throughout my body. However, I returned again and again to that image.
Finally, we reached the edge of the river. When the light confirmed that it had touched every inch of the canal, I released a visceral scream. It came from somewhere inside of me, somewhere buried deep.
My voice burst from the water as my body floated up to the surface. The light rushed back into me, snapping like a measuring tape. I jerked upward when everything coiled back into me and coughed.
Pounding thudded inside my head, the only relief the cold water on my head.
Cold water…
I sat up, albeit too quickly, and found that clear water flowed around me. It trickled about just as I had seen it in my mind’s eye. The pebbles were smooth against my hands but poked out uncomfortably as I sat on them.
With a triumphant laugh, I looked around at my work. The river was a proper river now, without a speck of black insight. Not only that, but the lavender light was gone. The world resumed its normal coloring, and Yerti, Hannan, and Gideonia were none the wiser.
“Eva!” Hannan called out, surprised when he saw me in the actual river.
The caretaker rushed to my side and offered a hand to help me out. I took it gratefully and pulled myself out of the river and onto the bank beside it. We collapsed against one another as my energy gave out just then.
I was soaking wet in my heavy winter clothing. The cold was a familiar sensation, one that I knew would pass. I only needed a warm fire and a warm body to hold me.
As if Hanna could read my mind, he wrapped his arms around me and held me close as we sat next to the newly cleaned river. I leaned into him, not bothering to consider my wetness. Hannan didn’t seem to mind. He simply continued to keep me near and hold me tight.
My energy was nonexistent. I barely had enough to keep my eyes open. I locked them onto Yerti, who stood a couple of feet away and stared, mouth agape, at the newly restored river.
“I told you I could do it,” I grumbled up at her. I twisted my face into what I hoped was a menacing expression though none of my facial muscles wanted to respond at the moment. “Drink it, it’ll be the best water you ever tasted.”
Before I could see if Yerti did as she was told, my eyelids snapped shut like broken blinds, and I passed out.
24
We spent more time than I wanted on the Coast of Teine with its people. Every day, I would heal a different element on the island. If it was something small, like a grove of bushes, I could often push myself to heal another item. However, the majority of the elements were large and permanent fixtures of the isle. They had been contaminated for a long time and usually cost me all my energy for the entire day to heal it properly.
Luckily, my friends and dragons took good care of me. First, we stayed in the volcano with the original citizens. We used our own bedding and supplies so as not to impose on them. My body didn’t seem to care where it slept because when I collapsed, I was out.
I was grateful for my comrades because I had to trust them implicitly. Many of my days passed by in a blur. I would have to heal a certain part of the island, complete with the pain and the heat, pass out, and then wake up only to do it all over again.
After a couple of days, I managed to clear out enough space of the jungle outside of the volcano for us to inhabit that area. My friends, along with the citizens of
Teine, moved camp and began building more permanent structures with the wood from trees I healed.
It was nice to see their progress as a community. Freja, Hannan, and Julei got to know them well. I, unfortunately, had to keep my distance. As much as I wanted to explore this kingdom and its customs, there simply wasn’t the time or the energy. Everything I did focused on healing the Coast of Teine. I barely had enough time to talk to my own group, let alone get to know an entire group of strangers.
The most consequential part of this was losing time with Monte. I knew that every time I was out, he was hanging with Arabella. My jealousy never went away. It was something that plagued me constantly, even when I passed out. Sometimes I had visions while I was recovering and recharging of Monte and Arabella taking flights together or laughing over some old joke.
Hannan had a point. It was a little like seeing a boyfriend fall in love with someone else. Or watching your middle school best friend start sitting at a different lunch table than yours. I was losing a friend, and that was an underrated hurt that I didn’t quite know how to process.
During the few hours when I was awake, Hannan, Freja, and Julei kept me as informed as they could. Like the day they discovered that not everyone on Teine died from the contamination.
“He did what?” I blinked in astonishment at my friends.
We sat around a campfire, eating a stew of sorts reheated from the night before. There was an early morning chill in the air, as the sun had not yet risen fully into the sky. We were still waiting for it to make its full entrance and provide some much-needed warmth.
“Reon gave everyone a choice,” Freja repeated. She held her stew mostly for warmth, not having taken a bite during the whole time I sat down. “He told them that they could either die by contamination or work for him and stay alive.”
“That seems so unlike him,” I commented absently. “I thought he would just force them to do it.”
“Well, you would be the one to know, considering you are the only one who has met the false king face to face,” Freja said as she clutched the bowl with white knuckles.