by Katrina Ryan
“You can learn,” Athelea said. She sounded dangerously close to begging now. “Please stay. Even one more day is enough to protect the most important buildings in Atlantis with a basic dex.”
Victoria felt like they were rapidly undoing the progress they’d made towards compromising. “Are you sure Caelan won’t come back?”
Athelea nodded earnestly. “I have a suspicion that Caelan won’t return for a few days. He will give the fire plenty of time to burn Atlantis first, and more importantly, he doesn’t think anything will have stopped it. This is our only chance to truly save Atlantis.”
Victoria glanced at Sarah and received a nod of encouragement. Atlantis is going to kill me someday, Victoria thought begrudgingly, but it needs me. With a sigh, she thought again of the beautiful, restored incarnation of Atlantis she’d dreamed about after leaving the Isle of Time. If she gave up on Atlantis now, she would lose that vision forever.
“A few more days,” Victoria finally agreed. “But after that, or if I can’t invoke dexes soon, Sarah and I are both going home.”
Athelea smiled, though tears had begun to well in her beautiful silver eyes. “I understand your sacrifice, and a few more days is all I can ask of you. Thank you.”
It means a lot to her that we’re staying, Victoria realized. It was her chance to do something meaningful at last. Returning to the Isle of the Gods, Athelea secured every lock on the main gate for the first time that week and invoked an extra dex for security. Victoria was sure it would only allow them an extra minute if Caelan did visit, but it was better than anything she could offer. She ate in somber silence with the others in the Garden and began to make plans for the rest of her time in Atlantis. “I want to try to Watch Gryffin,” she decided as the sun began to set. “If he’s dangerous or with Caelan, I want to know.”
“I can sketch in the Tower,” Sarah suggested. “I don’t want to get in your way.”
“Very well,” Athelea said. She led Victoria to the room with the mirror for Watching, and Sarah proceeded to the top of the tower. “I’ll stand guard on the steps to keep an eye on the Garden. The dex on the mirror should still work. Take your time.”
Victoria closed the door behind herself and walked to the mirror, praying this attempt would work. She wanted insight into who the handsome boy with the Sentence was. A second later, her reflection turned into the scene of a beach she didn’t recognize.
A cloaked figure sat on a bench at the end of a stone pier, his back to Victoria. A grid of shimmering bars surrounded him, the same style of prison that had contained Victoria on the Isle of Time, and he was brushing his long, brunette hair aimlessly with her fingers. He didn't seem to mind his situation or be in any hurry to get out. Victoria felt her heart race. Although she couldn’t see his face, she knew it was Gryffin.
He lowered his hood and then, so slightly that Victoria barely noticed, he made a movement in his shoulders that was barely more than a breath. The bars around him crumbled to the ground in a million glittering pieces, and he stood up. As he turned around, Victoria noticed the unmistakable smirk on his lips.
He had dust over his entire body and shadows of stubble on his jaw, but his beautiful, angular face was unmistakable beneath it all. Only his mane of hair, so similar Athelea’s, had misled Victoria. She felt a fleeting sense of smugness once she’d recovered from the shock. After all the warnings he’d given her, he was the one who had gotten into trouble. He should have listened to his own advice, she thought. But as she silently laughed to herself, she suddenly understood what she hadn't before.
He was looking for Atlantis, too.
When he finished stretching in the sun, Gryffin began to walk towards the sea. There was grace and nobility in his stride that Victoria hadn't noticed before, and she watched in fascination. He paused in front of the water for a second and then stepped in. After a few more strides, the surface of the water remained under his bare feet. Victoria gasped, barely believing what she was seeing. He was walking on water.
Without warning, Gryffin stopped walking and looked over his shoulder. Victoria stayed crouching behind the boulder, petrified, but it was too late. His silver eyes glared into hers. He had seen her, and the anger in his expression said enough. She had made a terrible mistake in deciding to search for Atlantis.
She stopped Watching him and called for Athelea.
“Who is Gryffin, if he’s not your son?” Victoria asked. “He’s got the Sentence on his wrist, and I’m sure it’s not a tattoo. I’m pretty sure he used dexterity to disappear the first time I met him, and he was walking on water when I Watched him. Everything suggests that Atlantean, but I don’t see how it’s possible.”
Athelea shook her head. “I feel inclined to follow your thoughts. It seems unlikely that someone born outside of Atlantis so long after the Destruction could have dexterity, but you must trust your instinct.”
“What should we do about him?”
“He doesn’t appear to pose any threat to Atlantis. As far as I am aware, has no knowledge of its location and no means to get here if he did.”
“Apart from a mirror to the Reflector.”
Athelea nodded. “What did he say about Atlantis?”
“He said it’s dangerous and warned me to stay away.” A silence followed, and Victoria suspected she and Athelea had the same thought. Either he genuinely meant it, or he was trying to keep me away so he could have Atlantis to himself.”
“Do you suspect he has some connection to Caelan?”
Victoria shook her head. “If they know about each other, they’re not working together. I doubt Gryffin knows where Atlantis is, and even if he did, he’s not got any way of getting here."
“We should not worry about him for now,” Athelea suggested. “Caelan will get him first if he gets too near to Atlantis.”
Victoria wondered why she hadn’t realized that sooner. Feeling slightly more reassured about the situation, she followed Athelea to the Neutral Room. Now, all that mattered was her time remaining in Atlantis. “I want to learn how to make objects fireproof,” Victoria said after a few meditation exercises.
“The dex is inflamana,” Athelea said. “One of its many counterparts is reflamana, to allow the object to burn again, but don’t worry about that right now.”
Victoria nodded. After working so hard that week to protect her own thoughts from intrusion, it felt strange yet wonderful to be protecting objects instead. She tried for nearly half an hour to invoke the new dex on blank sheets of paper, but with each unsuccessful attempt, her optimism dwindled. She and Athelea had burned through a sizable stack of paper, but as Athelea held a new sheet up, the pile didn't seem to be getting any smaller.
“Inflamana,” Victoria said.
Athelea snapped her fingers, and a bright fire consumed the parchment in her hand in a matter of seconds.
Victoria sighed. Athelea produced a fresh sheet of paper and held it up in the air. “Inflamana,” Victoria repeated.
Athelea snapped her fingers, and the paper burst into fire.
“This is never going to work,” Victoria sighed. “What am I doing wrong?”
“It will never work if you have that attitude,” Athelea said, sounding maternal, though her tone was firm. Victoria resisted the urge to laugh, her determination only fueled by her frustration. “You must believe in the dex and desire to invoke it. The energy won't move if you don't care enough to move it.”
Victoria raised her eyebrows, surprised. Athelea had never talked to her that way that before. For a brief second, the lonely woman who hid her emotions behind her beauty disappeared, and Victoria saw a true commander, fierce and determined to save her country.
She took a breath, provoked by the insinuation that she didn't care. She would not let the paper burn again. Atlantis would never burn again. “Inflamana,” she growled.
Athelea snapped her fingers, and the fire sprung up around the parchment.
But this time, the paper didn't burn. The dex had finall
y worked.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
FORTA
“I stayed up until sunrise practicing dexes,” Victoria told Sarah over breakfast on the balcony the next morning. It was a beautiful, warm day, and for the first time since arriving in Atlantis, the possibility of restoring the island was real. She couldn't wait to begin. “I’ve definitely got the hang of it now. I don’t know why it took so long to master dexterity.”
“That's bloody great news,” Sarah said, helping herself to juice and fruit. “Does that mean we are going to protect Atlantis today?”
“I hope so,” Victoria said. Despite her long night of studying, her excitement meant that she didn’t feel tired. She forced herself to eat a good meal, suspecting she would need the energy later. “Athelea left a note asking us to eat and get ready without her. She will probably be here soon and give us a plan. The note is definitely from her.”
“It’s strange not having her around,” Sarah mused. “I really like her.”
“There is something you should know about her,” Victoria said. She took a deep breath and hesitated, suddenly nervous for her big revelation.
Sarah looked up from her juice. “What’s that?”
“Athelea is my biological mother.”
A long moment passed. Victoria could tell words had failed Sarah and decided to help. “The other day, when we were in the Castle library, I found the royal family tree open on the table. It said Athelea is my mother.”
Understanding dawned in Sarah's eyes. “That's why you two argued?”
Victoria nodded. “I didn't tell you sooner because I barely believed it myself. It seemed so impossible, but I've had time to think about it since I talked to Athelea, and most of it makes sense now. It's just a shock to learn the truth after all these years.”
“I understand,” Sarah said, and the balcony fell silent. Victoria stared at the city across the sea, wondering when Athelea would return. After a minute, Sarah turned to Victoria. “It's kind of funny,” she said. “You and Athelea are so similar. Same hair, same eyes, same fiery stubbornness. I should have seen it sooner.”
“To be fair, neither of us was expecting I would find my mother in Atlantis.”
“True,” Sarah agreed. “Do you have any idea how old she is? And what about you? Atlantis has been a myth for thousands of years, but you’re seventeen and she only looks a few years older.”
Victoria shrugged. “Atlantis must have invoked some sort of dex on her to keep her frozen in time. Even Athelea doesn’t know how it works, but we could probably ask her. I'm sure she wouldn't mind.”
“Rather you than me,” Sarah said. But when Athelea arrived twenty minutes later, they left for the main island without much delay. They stopped to lock the gate to the Isle of the Gods, and Victoria told Athelea about her conversation with Sarah as they walked through the city. She wasn't surprised that the first building they visited was the Grand Library. Inside, Athelea led them across the floor to the furthest row of shelves on the ground level.
“This dex should be pretty straightforward,” she began, addressing Victoria directly. “All you have to do is place your hands on the wall every few paces and invoke the dex. Meanwhile, Sarah can lock the windows and internal doors with her key and sketch in her free time. When we're finished inside, we'll move on to the outside, and then on to the next building.”
“What's the dex?” Victoria asked.
“It's forta,” Athelea said. “It's a generic fortification dex.”
Victoria nodded, instantly liking that word. It sounded strong and hopeful, which was exactly what Atlantis needed. “Should we do every floor?” she asked.
Athelea shook her head. “If we just protect the ground floor, the Atlan stone should transmit it throughout the rest of the building. The foundations are the most vulnerable, anyway.”
With a reassuring smile, she turned towards the wall and ran her hands along the stones between the bookshelves. “Forta,” she murmured, and pure white light burst from her fingertips, illuminating the stones she touched. The light then trickled up to the ceiling and down to the floor in a thick stream before it began to fade. Repeating the dex every few seconds, Athelea walked along the wall, the trail of light following in her wake like a wave.
Victoria hoped the dex was as easy as it looked. Taking a deep breath, she walked to the point where Athelea had started and brought her hand to the unmarked wall. She imagined her fingertips bursting with the immense strength to fortify stone, and she said the dex when she felt ready. A gentle warmth like starlight filled her hand a second later, and her own sapphire dexterity burst from her fingers.
Behind her, Sarah gasped in amazement. Even Victoria felt a surge of relief that she’d managed a dex outside of a Neutral Room when it mattered, and she couldn't understand how it had taken her so long to find her dexterity. It seems so simple now, the thought. Her dex trickled up and down the wall more tentatively than Athelea’s, but it eventually reached the ceiling and floor. Feeling rather pleased, Victoria began to work her way around the building. Sarah followed her for a minute before locking windows and doors, then sat down to sketch.
“Could Caelan ever undo these dexes?” she asked quietly after a few minutes.
Victoria felt her concentration and confidence falter, and Athelea’s carefree laughter from across the room surprised her. “Never,” she said. Victoria could hear the triumphant smile in her voice. “The royal Atlantean blood that runs through our veins places our dexes at the very top of the dexterity hierarchy. There is no way Caelan could ever interfere with our work.”
Despite her distaste for this system when they’d discussed it previously, Victoria didn’t feel it was so unfair. Nothing else was protecting Atlantis from Caelan. With Athelea, she invoked the fortification dex upon the outside of the Grand Library before moving on to the Hall of Divinity, and then down the street to a building Victoria had never paid much attention to before. It looked more severe and less elaborate from the outside than its neighbors, and Victoria was surprised to find a grand reception room when she entered through the massive wooden doors. Stepping through a smaller set of doors into one of the most commanding rooms she’d seen in Atlantis, she sensed that the building had once been incredibly important.
“This is the Courthouse,” Athelea said. Victoria could imagine a judge sitting at the enormous podium at the front of the room and the rest of the court listening in rapt silence from their rows of smaller tables, the room demanding absolute respect. Behind the judge's desk, Victoria noticed a single door.
“What's through that?” she asked.
“That is the judge's office,” Athelea said. She crossed the courtroom and opened the door. Peering into a small room, Victoria was surprised to see that one entire wall was a window. Through it, she could see that a passageway linked this room to one in the next building. The desk in the middle of the room was covered with a thick layer of dust, and the other walls were lined with shelves of documents.
“Are these all the court records ever made?”
Athelea shook her head. “These are the unsettled cases. All the older, settled cases are in the Hall of Verdicts next door, and most other legal records are in their own building, the Hall of Records, across the street.”
Nothing could have prepared Victoria for the size of the archives when they entered the beautiful building across the street. It was nearly the same size as the Courthouse, but instead of housing benches and tables, the Hall of Records contained hundreds of shelves that reached from floor to ceiling. Each shelf housed scrolls that someone had rolled tightly and tied with ribbon, making the inside of the building looked like a paper honeycomb. “Wow,” Victoria breathed. “These are all the civil records? How many Atlanteans were there?”
Athelea nodded. “These are the government copies of birth, death, and marriage certificates. The number of Atlanteans ever born must have been recorded somewhere, but I do not know where or what the number is. All the military recor
ds are in the military district, and all the settled legal records are next to the courthouse, in the Hall of Verdicts. The three buildings are nearly identical in design and function.”
“There are so many great buildings here,” Sarah interrupted. “Could I draw this one, too, once I’ve locked everything?”
Athelea looked around. “That should be fine. I don't believe you need to check Victoria's dexes any longer. She seems to be doing beautifully.”
Flushing at the compliment, Victoria walked to one of the walls, and Athelea went to the opposite. They worked their way around the room while Sarah sketched, and Victoria felt another wave of satisfaction with her decision to stay in Atlantis. The dex seemed simpler every time she used it, and it no longer felt like work. She was enjoying seeing the most special places in Atlantis. Caelan's attempts to scare us away have backfired, she thought smugly. Atlantis is stronger than it has been in centuries. Athelea would never have been able to do it all on her own.
“Would any of Aiden and Andrea’s family records be here?” she wondered when she’d finished invoking her share of dexes.
“Possibly,” Athelea said. “If they kept their Atlantean surname, we could look for them.”
“It’s Etsema,” Victoria said. “I’ve never met anyone in England with the surname.”
Athelea’s eyes sparkled with delight. “The Etsema family was one of the oldest and most powerful in Atlantis. I have a feeling you might be in luck.”
She walked through the Hall of Records and stopped in front of one of the many honeycomb shelves. After a second, she pulled out a roll of paper and gently untied the ribbon which bound it. “Aiden and Andrea were married in Atlantis,” she said, handing the paper to Victoria. “They must have used powerful dexterity to leave Atlantis days before the Destruction.”
Victoria didn’t bother to look at the dates, torn between hurt and wonder. Aiden and Andrea had walked through the streets of Atlantis and had probably lived in one of the houses or apartments she’d passed in the city. “There is so much I don’t know about them. I wonder if they are Forever Loves.”