by Evelyn Skye
She did as he said, but she was also distracted by something else. The shimmering emerald path now branched off in three different directions.
“What the hells does that mean?” Sora said aloud.
“I can’t see what you see,” Broomstick reminded her.
“Right, sorry. I don’t know which way to go. There are three paths.”
“Then I think we just choose one, before the owls find an alternate path to us or something else decides to chase us.”
She gave herself another moment to catch her breath, then chose the third route, since three was her lucky number.
The tunnel wound down endlessly. Just when Sora was convinced that it would never end and that the Lake of Nightmares didn’t exist, the tunnel stopped abruptly and spit them out into a colossal cave.
“Good gods,” Sora murmured.
The ceiling was hundreds of feet high, and the other side of the cave was so far away it was almost out of sight. But there were definitely two other tunnel openings over there. That must be why there’d been three emerald paths, because there were three different ways to get here.
And most important: in the center of the cave was a vast pool of glacial water clear as glass.
“Wow,” Sora murmured. “Let that be a lesson in perseverance.”
“It’s not all good news, though,” Broomstick said, pointing.
They could see straight down to an iron trap door at the bottom, likely where Zomuri’s treasure was buried. But the door wasn’t the only thing in the water. There were corpses, about a hundred of them suspended in the water, frozen at various depths and none decomposed. They were mostly men; some must have been centuries old, judging by the ancient robes they wore and their plaited hair, and others drowned perhaps only decades ago. The one unifying feature, however, was their gape-mouthed horror. Sora’s stomach turned.
“Do you think they froze to death?” Broomstick asked.
Sora was staring at the water. “Or they were tortured by the lake,” she said, remembering that those who dared to step foot in the water would be met with visions of horrible imagined futures.
The hallucinations are so vivid, people either drown as they get lost in them or drown themselves out of despair for who they think they’ll become in the future, Mama had said.
And their suffering was preserved for eternity in their underwater grave.
“This is a bad idea,” Broomstick said.
“I know,” Sora said. “But we still have to do it. If we don’t retrieve the Dragon Prince’s soul, we don’t stand a chance. Maybe we’ll die today trying to do this, but if we don’t, then we’ll die for sure.”
“That’s not much of a pep talk,” Broomstick said.
“It’s the truth, and at this point, it’s the best motivator we have. We have a chance at surviving the lake. Remember, I have magic more powerful than what those who came before us had.”
“And what about the snow monster?” He set his bag down on the ice. “We haven’t seen it yet.”
Sora frowned as she picked up some of his waterproof bombs. “You’re right.”
“What should we do?”
She fastened the explosives to her belt with metal clips. “I’ll go in the water. You stay onshore.”
“No way! That’s not what I meant.”
Sora held out her hand to stop his protest. “Hear me out. Suppose the monster doesn’t show up until after we enter the water. What if it’s a trap and that’s how people end up drowning there?”
“Because the snow monster won’t let them onto shore . . . ,” Broomstick said.
“Exactly. And maybe it’s smarter to have you act as the sentry on the shore while I swim to the vault. That way, if the lake is as bad as the legend says it is, only I lose my mind. You’ll be our backup plan to find another way to get into that vault.”
“No. I should be the one to swim,” Broomstick said.
But Sora shook her head. “My ryuu magic is stronger than your taiga magic, though. And Daemon and I have connected before in a similar situation.”
“That was genka related.”
“I know, but still. It has to be me.”
Broomstick sighed. “I don’t like it.”
“I’m not arguing,” Sora said. “You know this is the way it has to be done. One of us has to keep watch onshore for that monster, if it’s real. And if I fail, you have to be here to give the kingdom a second chance.”
He clenched his teeth. But she was right and Broomstick knew it. He sighed and gave in. “I’ll keep watch over you from here; the water is clear, and I’ll be able to see you the whole way down. And I’ll make sure nothing disturbs you.”
“Thank you.” Sora tried to look fearless as she stood on the shore. But there was no way it was going to be as simple as reminding herself that the lake was enchanted. If it were that easy, more people would have survived to tell about it. That’s why she needed Daemon to keep her tied to reality.
She reached out to him through their gemina bond, and her fear filled their connection. It was like falling off a rock face without a belay.
It took only the space of half a heartbeat for Daemon to catch her.
His presence washed through Sora like an embrace encased in gold. She closed her eyes, and she could practically feel his arms around her, strong and unyielding, and his whisper in her ear that he was there, that he would never leave her. Sora sank into the feeling, letting him hold her from afar, just for a moment.
Just in case this was the last time.
Then she opened her eyes, cast a whale spell on herself, and dove into the lake.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was the middle of the night, but Daemon and Fairy sat wide awake. Sora’s message had told them to be ready to help her and Broomstick, and now Daemon knew she’d jumped into the Lake of Nightmares, because her shock chilled their gemina bond like a blizzard.
His entire body rattled, both her fear and his own engulfing him. Did Sora know what she was doing? She hardly had any information to go on. And while she was risking her life to swim through cursed waters, Daemon was hundreds of miles away, helpless to do anything for her.
What if he lost her?
And if he did, it would mean she was damned to the hells, because she had ryuu magic.
The thought was like swallowing a hundred swords all at once, and Daemon gasped.
Fairy reached for him and held his hand, even though she was focusing on her connection with Broomstick. “We have to be strong for them.”
It was as if Daemon didn’t hear her, though. He hardly felt Fairy’s fingers against his. The only thing that mattered was the throbbing cold of his gemina bond with Sora. And how to make it warmer.
He wrapped his cloak more tightly around himself, as if the heat would travel through their connection.
The first time he tried to protect her with their bond, Sora had been under the effects of genka, and Daemon had taken the hallucinations from her through their connection. But now he understood that he didn’t actually have to go so far in order to help her. What Sora needed most as she entered the lake was to remember the real world. Daemon was her tether to it. Instead of taking on the nightmares like he had the genka hallucinations, his job was to manipulate their gemina bond to keep a constant flow of reminders to Sora that the enchanted water wasn’t everything. His actual thoughts wouldn’t transfer through their connection, but the emotions associated with them would.
So Daemon began to think of the happiest memories he had of their lives together.
When he was first brought, snarling and biting, to the Citadel by the hunter who’d found him in the woods, and Sora had pushed her way through the crowd of scared tenderfoots, the only one of them who approached him and smiled.
The apprentice initiation ceremony when they were seven, when Luna’s moonbeams lit up the Citadel’s amphitheater and the silver swirls on Daemon’s and Sora’s backs glowed at the same time, pairing them as geminas.
Daemon pumped the feelings of these memories and more, one after another, through their connection. The recollections felt like curling up against his wolf cub brothers and sisters—toasty comfort and safety and the knowledge that you were right where you belonged.
Gods dammit, he missed her. There was something about the way Sora made him feel—how thinking of their shared past made Daemon smile so broadly, it could illuminate the forest—that he didn’t have with anyone else.
He turned his head and looked at Fairy. She was focused on her own gemina bond with Broomstick, her nose scrunched as she concentrated. Her intensity and courage put an additional glow on her beauty.
And yet Daemon’s attraction to her didn’t feel nearly as strong as his connection with Sora; it was like a string compared to a thick nautical rope. Would it always be this way?
Our relationship will deepen, Daemon thought. He couldn’t compare it to his and Sora’s, because they were geminas and knew each other inside and out. He and Fairy hadn’t had the chance yet to develop the depth that he and Sora had. But it was nothing to worry over. He and Fairy just needed time.
Foggy confusion—not his own—spilled through Daemon’s gemina bond.
Sora.
He tossed his other thoughts aside and sent her the feel of another memory—of when they were twelve and he couldn’t sleep, and she broke curfew to join him on the roof of the boys’ dormitory so he could be closer to the night sky. Daemon could still feel how she’d lain next to him to keep warm, how her head fit right into the crook of his neck like Luna had always known they were a matching pair, and how Sora had nuzzled closer to him when the sky filled with shooting stars.
“You can do this, Sora,” Daemon said, even though she couldn’t hear him. “If anyone can steal from a god and get away with it, it’s you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The water was unnaturally frigid, frosting against Sora’s skin as soon as she plunged into the lake. She opened her mouth in shock and almost gasped out the precious air she needed to conserve for the dive down; her whale spell would help only if there was oxygen in her lungs.
Daemon launched a dose of calm through their bond, and not a moment too soon. Like when she’d gone diving with the eagle rays, Daemon’s presence helped Sora come to her senses, and she clamped her mouth shut, swallowing the air back where it belonged. She’d swum herself upside down in the pain of the freezing water, but now she settled back into position to swim toward the trap door.
Sora kicked downward. She would need to blow open the door, find the golden soul pearl, replace it with a decoy, and get out of there, all before her air ran out.
But as she pushed deeper into the lake, her vision began to turn milky white at the edges. Am I low on air already? The whale spell was supposed to give her about twenty minutes underwater, though, and it had only been two, maybe three. Panic rose in the back of her throat.
The milkiness in her vision persisted, oozing in like a spilled bottle of cream until she could see nothing else. Sora rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her palms. It didn’t change a thing.
A sharp tang, like vinegar, suddenly filled her nose, which made no sense, since she wasn’t breathing in. And the water seemed to thicken like jelly. The muscles in her arms and legs strained as she tried to keep swimming.
Oh gods . . . I’m really going to die in here.
Then, all of a sudden, the milkiness in her vision and the vinegary smell cleared. The thick gel of the lake was gone, too, replaced with solid ground.
What in all hells?
Sora looked down. She stood on top of a pile of dead soldiers wearing uniforms that belonged neither to the taigas nor the ryuu but to a foreign army. All around her, a battlefield was littered with corpses, and the air was tinged with the smells of steel and blood.
But instead of fear or horror, pride inexplicably swelled in Sora’s chest.
She took in the scene around her, and the drunken heat of victory began to course through every vein in her body, filling her with delight. All this death was my work, my power! A flagstaff suddenly appeared in her right hand, and she impaled its sharpened end through the bodies at her feet. Another wave of satisfaction surged through her as the pole pierced through lifeless flesh.
“Well done, sister,” a voice said from behind her. Sora turned to face Hana.
“Is this the future?” Sora asked, part of her still conscious that the battlefield wasn’t reality, that her body was somewhere else . . . although she couldn’t remember where.
“Yes,” Hana said. “This is us, destroying the Faleese army.”
“So this is Fale Po Tair.” Sora looked past the battlefield to get a glimpse of the kingdom, but it was just a flat expanse with a mountain in the distance and seagulls hovering over the ocean.
Hana laughed, and it was like iron nails on crystal. Sora cringed.
“Fale Po Tair? No, sister. This is Kichona. Look more closely at the mountain. I think you’ll recognize it.”
Sora squinted at the distance, and this being a prophecy not governed by the ordinary rules of the world, the mountain came into sharp focus. It was purplish-blue against the sea, its scraggly trees clinging to the steep cliff faces, a tiny building halfway up the switchback passes. Sora gasped. “Is that Mama and Papa’s house?”
“It was,” Hana said without emotion. “They’ve been dead since the first attack on Kichona by the Southern Alliance.”
Sora’s giddiness from standing on a pile of vanquished enemies petered out. “The Southern Alliance?” She was afraid to ask, but she had to.
“The united armies and navies of Fale Po Tair, Xerlinis, and Vyratta. But don’t worry. You’ve slaughtered thousands. Including that ex-gemina of yours.”
Oh gods. Daemon?
Horror shuddered through Sora’s body. Her consciousness was fighting back now, reminding her that she was actually swimming in an underground lake in Naimo Ice Caves, not here on a battlefield in the future. But that also meant she was beginning to process what this all meant—that she would become part of the Dragon Prince’s bloody pursuit of the Evermore. That Kichona would be razed by the Southern Alliance. That Sora would kill Daemon.
“This can’t be true,” she said.
“But it is,” Hana said with a smile. “Aren’t you happy we’ve been successful together?”
“Yes. I mean, no!” Sora shook her head to try to get her thoughts straight.
Something shot through the back of her mind like a spear and hurtled to the forefront. It pierced Sora’s consciousness, and a sensation of unbreakable connection washed over her, as if she were tethered by the rope on a harpoon.
Daemon!
He sent surges of confidence to her, and she held fast to their bond, feeling him tugging to extricate her from this so-called prophecy.
She remembered clearly now that she was swimming in the Lake of Nightmares.
Sora grabbed hold of their gemina bond and hauled herself out of the vision, hand over hand as if climbing a rope. Future Hana scowled at her. But Hana was already blurring, and milky white poured out from the center of the scene until it filled all of Sora’s vision again.
She blinked, hard, and the cloudiness dissipated. The vision of the battlefield disappeared, and Sora saw the water again. She was twenty feet down from the surface, still another thirty or so to go to the trap door at the bottom.
Sora clung fiercely to her gemina bond as if it were a lifeline so she didn’t lose her mind.
Daemon Daemon Daemon.
He must have been concentrating intensely, because his emotion soaked her as if she were caught in a rainstorm. It reminded her of ryuu magic, but while that was intoxicating, this was something more, like drinking lightning and the night sky, their brightness and darkness filling her at th
e same time. These were Daemon’s rawest feelings, unfiltered, and even though Sora didn’t know the thoughts that lay behind them, this was still the closest she’d ever been to anyone, even him. She wanted to keep drinking in this feeling of being one with somebody else, where it wasn’t just about him or her but about them, together.
I’ll find my way back to you, she thought.
But that would happen only after she finished this mission. So with Daemon holding on to her through their gemina bond, Sora refocused on one thing alone—getting to the trap door.
Instead of swimming through the thick water and using precious energy, she tucked her legs into her chest, released a little bit of air from her lungs, and let herself sink slowly like a rock. She swallowed to clear her ears as she descended deeper into the lake. Only when she stopped sinking did Sora jackknife herself and start swimming to the door.
She grabbed on to the heavy iron ring on the front and planted her feet against the lake bottom, which was as frozen as the ice caves above. She allowed herself a couple seconds of rest. I made it. I defied the Lake of Nightmares. I’m still alive.
But that was only half the plan—there was still important work to do.
Broomstick had invented a super adhesive that was waterproof, and Sora smeared it onto one of the bombs. She glued it right next to the trap door’s top hinge, then stuck another one on the bottom hinge. There were four bombs left on her belt.
Matches wouldn’t light underwater, but thankfully she didn’t need to rely on traditional fuses. Sora swam a safe distance away and commanded the ryuu particles to ignite the bombs on the door.
There was a pause, then dual hisses as the magical flame traveled down the length of the fuses.
One of them sputtered.
Light it again, Sora ordered. The emerald particles obeyed swiftly.
The first fuse was nearly at its end. Sora braced herself. The bomb exploded, and the shock waves threw her backward along the glacial bottom of the lake. For a second, she lost her hold on her gemina bond, and the vision of her power-hungry smirk leeched into her brain.