by Lindsey Duga
Zach.
His name brought me comfort. The water around me lost its pull, and it became easier to move. My panic wasn’t as strong, although fear was still there. I moved slowly but didn’t try to breathe, not yet.
I kicked, and the water gave way to lighter consistency. My head broke the surface, and I gasped, blinking.
Now that I wasn’t drowning or consumed with panic, I was able to think clearly. Zach wouldn’t be coming for me. He was smarter than that—he’d get me out another way.
Then I heard a splash next to me.
Or maybe not.
He had jumped in to save me. Although he shouldn’t have—as dangerous and stupid as it was—I was happy he had. The thought was incredibly selfish and illogical, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking it, just like I couldn’t stop the sun from setting.
At once, he started to sink, made worse by his thrashing. He was consumed, as I had been, by the enchantment. I wrenched my arms free from the water, even though they screamed at me, and hooked them under his arms, trying to haul him up. I couldn’t. The cursed water was dragging him down. So I did the unthinkable—I ducked back under the water.
My senses were clogged, and ice gripped my limbs and insides. Still, I held on to Zach, clutching his head to my shoulder, burying my cheek in his short hair. His arms wrapped around me, like it was the most natural thing in the world, his palms resting on my shoulder blades and his forearms wrapped against my ribs. Together, we kicked, and our heads broke the surface.
We gasped and retched, our bodies heaving and convulsing together, but we never let go of each other.
“Where is it?” Zach gasped, his voice above my shoulder.
I blinked and tried to focus on the light from above. Distantly, Millennia’s calls drifted down to us. But she was too far up.
I coughed again. “In the water—it has to be at the bottom.”
The panic once again crept up my throat like the water lapping against my neck and jaw. As it did, the water squeezed itself around me, pulling me back down. “We’ll drown.”
Zach tightened his grip around me. “We won’t. We’ll make it.”
His heart thrummed steadily against his chest, and I willed my pulse to mirror his. The water loosened once again.
He pressed his forehead into my shoulder, hugged me, and then looked down into the black water. “There’s a rope around my waist. Tug on it if I stay down too long. Okay?”
I felt around for the rope in the water, my numb fingers grasping it. “All right.”
He stared hard at me, and for a moment I thought—hoped—he was about to kiss me, but then he dove under. The inky black water splashed onto my face as I began counting seconds.
Thirty went by, and I heaved on the rope. He came up, coughing and shaking his head.
“Nothing.”
Before I could stop him, he went under again, and I started counting.
I let forty pass by, then yanked hard. No response. Panic seized me, and the water felt like clay baked in the sun. I tugged and tugged.
There was nothing.
“No—” I sucked in a breath and dove. Expecting total blackness, my eyes stung by the sudden onslaught of bright green light. Floating, illuminated by something small and green, was Zach. His eyes were open and staring at the jewel at the bottom floor of the well. His hand was outstretched, fingertips touching the cursed emerald, while his entire body was encased in some kind of green glow.
Three enchantments dealing with three powerful emotions. The first had been peace, the second, panic, and the third… I had no way of knowing until I touched that jewel. If I did, I’d be sucked into the same enchantment Zach was now battling. Defeat the last enchantment, just like we’d beaten the water by pushing down our panic, and we’d break the curse.
Before I reached out to touch the jewel, knowing there was never a question of leaving Zach there, the only comfort was that we wouldn’t drown. The jewel’s curse would suspend us in time, keeping us there forever unless we defeated it.
But the little girl didn’t have forever. She had maybe ten minutes.
I squeezed my eyes shut, reached through the clinging, mud-like water, and my fingertips grazed the cool surface of the emerald.
…
The chill in my bones forced my eyes open, and I shuddered. The world was black but growing lighter by the second, changing from midnight to charcoal, then to the color of hazy smoke. I blinked and pushed myself up onto my hands and knees.
Where was I?
With focus, my brain cleared. Zach and I were stuck inside the final enchantment. Our real bodies were floating in that black liquid, trapped. Everything here was a projection, not truly real.
The gray around me had faded into a blurred scene, like looking through a foggy window. I was in a field with an orange hue, as if the world were stuck in the autumn season, the ground growing cold under my hands.
“Zach?” I called out, scanning the umber landscape, desperate to find him.
Not ten paces in front of me was a young boy. He was breathing hard as if he’d just sprinted a mile. He stared through me, hazel eyes wide with terror, his brown hair swept away from his forehead by a rush of wind.
Then there was a great black blur and a splash of red. A woman suddenly lay next to me, blood pouring onto the dying grass.
The boy fell to his knees, screaming…screaming.
Under the screaming I caught the dying woman’s final word: “Zach.”
The blurriness shifted around me and then I was inside a tiny dirty house. The same young boy was huddled on the middle of the floor, shaking.
My heart went out to him. This emotion was all too familiar to me. An overwhelming oppression that I knew well from my childhood. A feeling that made even the smallest movements seem as though the sky was collapsing.
Loneliness.
I stared at the child on the grimy floor, his lone figure small and weak, then gently touched his back. “Zach.”
The child stopped shaking, his back still to me.
Kneeling next to him, I prayed I would find the right words to save him. At that moment, I wasn’t even thinking about the enchantment and how to break it. All I could think of was how to console a boy whose mother had just died before him.
“I know it hurts.” My voice was barely a whisper as my fingertips brushed the thin fabric of his tunic. It was worn, washed over and over again by the hands of someone who had loved him. “And it feels like there’s no one else in the world…”
I thought of all the times I had to be logical. To be strong. Did it ever help, or did it only bury the pain and let it fester?
“But you can’t give up.” My fingers curled into his shirt. “It’ll get better. Not tomorrow. But it will. I promise. Because I’ll be with you soon.”
At my last word, the world around me twisted, but not before I caught a glimpse of the boy’s surprised face as he looked over his shoulder and stared at me.
Now I was sitting at a large desk, in a chair that was much too big for me, with my feet dangling above the floor. Everything was much crisper than before, like a brand new oil painting. With a throb of sharp pain, recognizing the maps on the wall and the books on the shelves, I knew this must be my memory. This office was forever ingrained in my mind, as much as I wanted to forget it.
I lifted myself up to look at the papers on my mother’s desk. She was writing spell words, a practice I’d seen her do many times to help with memorization. They were all long and complicated, and I struggled to read them, to sound them out, hoping to feel the tingle of magic on my tongue.
Maybe if I memorized this spell I could surprise her. She’d be proud of me.
But I was too small, and I had to stand on the chair to see the top of the spell. As I tried to lean over farther, I accidentally knocked over a bottle of ink, and it spilled black across the table. I let out a squeal of fear and desperately tried to stop the ink from running down the wood and onto the plush cream carpe
t. Frantic and fumbling, I used my hands, but it only made it worse. I scrambled to open drawers—maybe there was a rag I could use.
But I froze as I caught sight of a beautiful white velvet box within the top drawer. It was so pretty, my little fingers couldn’t be stopped from picking it up and opening it, covering it in black stains that would never be removed.
I managed only a glimpse of a beautiful silver ring within the box before a shriek froze me in place.
My mother stood in the doorway, shaking with rage. She ran to me, snatched the box from my fingers, squeezed my cheeks together with one hand and hissed, “Foolish, useless, clumsy child. Get out.”
She grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my skin, and dragged me to the door—I was so scared I was sobbing heavily already. “The only reason you are alive is because the Council promised me you’d be useful. You’ve yet to prove them right.” Then she almost threw me into the hallway. “Get out!”
I scrambled over the carpet to reach for the closing door, my mother’s furious face red with anger and her eyes…her eyes full of tears?
I tried to slide my hand in—to stop her from shutting me out. Shutting out another daughter she never wanted. Another daughter who had been born from an ordered conception.
Don’t close it. Don’t leave me alone.
Just before the door slammed, a large hand pulled mine out of the way. “Don’t let your fingers get caught.”
The words came as if from a great distance, across the Seas of Glyll, trying to reach me on my island of solitude.
My loneliness was a mother who saw her daughters as tools. Weapons.
I knew that, to her, the world of Royals was nothing but a plague of responsibilities and sacrifice. She fulfilled her duties, had gotten pregnant with each prince the council threw at her, and risked her life fighting the Forces as any queen should. But she hated the kingdom’s walls and her title that felt more like a collar. Even more so, she couldn’t stand to look at her daughters, the products of those nights she was forced to endure.
The only reason I was born was to be a soldier in the Legion’s army. In my mother’s army. If I failed at anything, I’d no longer be necessary. She never wanted me, and now she’d never need me.
Don’t try to feel anything, and you won’t get hurt. Don’t expect anything, and you won’t be disappointed.
“You’re wanted, Ivy.” A voice cut through my mantra. The mantra that had helped me survive years at the Legion. “For just being you.”
It was Zach’s voice.
The world around us shattered.
Like the emerald jewel at the center of the amulet.
…
A brilliant gold flash. Zach and I were under cold but now-clear water. The jewel was in fragments, each piece of emerald shining a brilliant golden light.
Zach tugged at my wrist and we kicked upward, our heads breaking the surface and our mouths sucking in the glorious air.
I opened my eyes and couldn’t believe what I saw. Showers of gold fell around us like it was raining liquid fragments of the sun. It fell into the well, creating ripples. The gold rain hit my cheeks and my hair. Dazed, I looked at Zach.
He was beaming at me, treading water, gold light illuminating his wet face.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
The Swordsman’s Theory
The entire village seemed to have gathered around the well as Zach and I were pulled from its icy waters. Millennia and Bromley were the first to grasp our wet hands and pull us over the wooden ledge. Bromley squeezed my hand so hard I thought my fingers would break off. Zach still had hold of my upper arm.
I was numb.
My mind barely registered the growing crowd of villagers as they emerged from their homes, some staggering as they adjusted to walking after days in bed. Rochet hugged me tightly, tears flowing down her cheeks. One old woman dropped to her knees and grabbed my other hand, kissing it.
But I was oblivious to everything except the gold rain that fell from the sky. The brightness reminded me of the miniature gold explosion that happened in the forest with the griffin. And like with Zach’s fatal wound suddenly healed, a miracle had happened here.
The curse was broken. The sick were cured.
In my life, I had seen eleven curses lifted from villages. In all those times, never before had I seen golden rain afterward. When a curse was broken by a Royal’s Kiss, the sickness just went away. Never anything elaborate. It just…stopped, leaving its patients disabled and disfigured, as Zach had said. It never healed, not like this.
Everything about this was different. The atmosphere was light, the air felt clean, and even the healthy looked healthier. Almost like the entire village had been reborn.
The difference was more than astounding…it was unbelievable.
As people pressed against us, I leaned in to Zach, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. He pushed past them all, practically dragging me. Bromley and Millennia hurried after us while I stumbled along.
Zach was steady in his gait and clearly not as shaken as I was. In fact, it was almost as if…almost as if he’d known this would happen. Which was ridiculous—how could he? But if he had, it would explain why he’d been so desperate to go after the amulet once he knew of it, rather than Kiss me.
Zach shook off the parade of villagers and helped me upstairs to one of the rooms Rochet had prepared for us.
He lowered me onto the bed as Bromley rushed forward. “Milady, are you all right?” he asked, covering me with a blanket. But Millennia stopped him.
“The princess needs dry clothes or she’ll catch a cold. Get out, both of you.”
Neither Zach nor Brom protested. Zach swung his bag over his wet shoulder. With a glance back at me, he closed the door behind him and Brom.
Millennia knelt and opened my bag, shifting my clothes around, then shoved it away. She dug into a large cabinet and pulled out a cream dress with a faded pattern on it. It was loose and thin, but it was also dry and clean.
“What’s wrong with my c-clothes?”
“They smell of smoke.” Millennia helped me out of my clothes and into the dress. Then she sat and started braiding my hair without a word.
“I’m sorry,” she said while her fingers wove in and out of my wet locks.
I tensed. “For what?”
“For…saying what I said earlier.” When she finished my braid, she laid a hand on my shoulder. “I was wrong about you two. You’re different from other Royals. You actually care about people, and I…I don’t think you would actually use a curse as an excuse to…”
I drew away, her previous words coming back to me like the ache of an old wound. I’d been so consumed with finding the amulet, breaking the enchantments, and the golden rain, that I’d forgotten what she’d said about my motivations to Kiss Zach.
The worst of it being there was a part of me that wondered if what she’d said was true. And if it was, how could I bear the shame? Using monsters or curses as an excuse…it was beyond contemptible.
I couldn’t afford to think about it. If I did, I’d start to second-guess everything, and I had a dragon to defeat. Like my mother said, there was no time for doubt or weakness.
“What are you doing here?” I asked finally.
“I told you: I was looking for the witch, and I—”
“No,” I said sharply. “I don’t believe you. Your master just leaving you alone, you happening to be after a witch that places a curse on a village. You run into us, not once but twice. What are you really looking for?”
Millennia stood so fast the old bed rocked me backward into the wall. She played with a curl hanging around her shoulders, twisting it in her pale fingers as she faced away from me and stared out the window. “My master can read the signs just as well as any of your Royal mages can. There’s something dark brewing in these mountains, and we’re looking for it.”
My pulse jumped. Could Millennia and her master know about the Sable Dragon, too?
“It?” I asked.
Her face still set toward the window, fingers twisting her curl, she said, “Get some rest, princess. You’ve been through quite the ordeal.”
Before I could inquire further, she crossed to the door and opened it. Zach met her, his hand poised to knock. They both took a step back. “Sorry,” Zach said.
Millennia rubbed her temple. “Don’t be. I was just about to leave.” She turned back to me and smiled. “Thank you, both of you, for saving this village.” She gave a small bow, bending slightly at the waist, then left.
I returned her smile but made a mental note to ask her more in the morning about what she and her master knew.
Zach hovered awkwardly in the doorway, wearing dry clothes but his hair still wet.
“Where’s Brom?” I asked, breaking the silence.
“Getting something to warm you up.” Zach sat down next to me on the bed.
There were a million things I wanted to say. What was the golden rain? What did he really suspect was the cause of it? Had he seen something like this before? Was it connected to the golden explosion of light when the griffin had died?
I wanted to ask him everything, but he beat me to it.
“That was your mom.”
Because of the enchantment, he had seen my childhood memories of my mother. Before, I might’ve felt shame that he had seen something so personal and intimate, but knowing he had been through the same pain of loneliness, I didn’t.
“I could say the same.”
He winced. “Yes. But you first. If you want to talk, I’m listening.”
After what he’d seen, he might as well hear the rest of it. “When I arrived at the Legion in Myria, I heard many stories about the great Queen Dahlia. My mother was famous…for things both good and bad. Apparently, she was a rebellious youth in her time at the Legion. She skipped patrol, she escaped the castle, and spent nights at the taverns. There was even a rumor that she went to a Romantica camp. But she was powerful. Her Mark of Myriana made all her partners practically invincible, so the Legion put up with her.
“When it came time to send her to Freida, she tried to run away—with a man. He was rumored a commoner, and the Council wouldn’t allow her to waste time or children with a man of no magical blood. They didn’t get far. A wraith came upon them, and my mother had no partner to Kiss. No Royal to help her beat the wraith. The Royal party sent after her managed to save her just in time, but the man had already died in her arms. After that, everything changed. She went straight to Freida, and nine months later, Clover was born. She hated the Legion for making her fight and sleep with men who were practically strangers, but she hated the Forces more. Every one of her children she gave birth to was a duty, an obligation, but also another soldier to take down the Forces. So she was that much harder on us.