“Shall we depart?” Insepth stared and my throat tightened.
I looked around at my friends. Cricket’s head was held high and she flicked her tail at a bug. Ivan smiled back, then pulled his ball cap down further on his head. Horas leaned against Lutz and winked at me. Eae stood at attention, his expression betraying no emotion. The tunic he’d borrowed from Lutz was brown wool and hung a little too big on him, but at least it covered the gruesome wounds on his back.
I reached down and touched Angus’ nose. “Are you ready, boy?”
Angus answered me with a bark and everyone laughed, although Youmi’s was the nervous kind.
“Please take good care of the critters. Ila loved them,” I told Sir Austin.
He bowed formally and then straightened. “Of course, my lady. Ila was my friend. I will not fail her—nor you.”
I felt better when I joined Insepth. I barely listened to his rambling instruction about loopholes, simply linking my Gaia with his earth, allowing him to create the portal. He worked quickly and a moment later a chilly, wet wind pelted my face. I zipped my corduroy jacket up to my neck and I caught the sight of crashing waves and a stormy sky through the opening in the air. A seagull cawed and I shivered. It was all too incredible to think about.
“Come on you blokes, this isn’t easy, you know,” Insepth shouted above the wind that whipped his hair back.
Horas and Lutz were the first through. The Demon clutched a dagger belted at his side and the bear swung his head from left to right, sniffing the scent of the ocean. Ivan stayed close behind Lutz, carrying his backpack and clutching his hat tightly to his head. Eae’s face was statuesque, but his eyes were bright as he followed them. A polite smile was frozen on Sawyer’s face. He tugged on Cricket’s lead rope, clucking to her. She shied to the side and reared up, striking at the spray of rain that gusted in her face. Sawyer twirled the lead rope and let it fly at the mare’s hindquarters. She bucked up and bolted through hole, dragging him behind her. If the situation wasn’t so strange, I would have laughed at the sight.
“You’re next,” Insepth coaxed, nodding at his shrinking doorway. “Never fear, Ember. That emotion could be the death of us all.”
I wasn’t holding back because of fear. I looked over my shoulder one last time at Ila’s valley. The sun was high and autumn wildflowers dotted the meadow. The goats bobbed their heads in the grass, their long ears flopping up and down, and chickens pecked the ground next to the barn.
Will I ever see this place again?
God willing, Insepth answered.
Taking a deep breath, I heaved the pack over my shoulder and stepped into another land.
I straightened and the loophole blinked out behind us. Insepth held his hair back off his face and smiled broadly. I wondered how he could be so enthusiastic, then let the thought go. I had no doubt that he was partially insane, so that probably explained it.
“There’s no cover here at all,” Sawyer shouted above the sound of the rolling waves. “We’re vulnerable.”
“Are you expecting an Indian party to swoop down on us?” Insepth dropped his bag to the ground and surveyed the bleak-looking beach. “Ember and I are more than capable of handling any surprises.”
I caught the roll of Horas’ eyes before he muttered something to Lutz and the bear ambled away up the beach. Horas noticed me looking his way and said, “If you would allow, I’ll scout the west side of the beach.”
“That’s a good idea.” I turned to Eae. “Why don’t you go inland a ways with Ivan?”
Eae’s brows arched. He remained rooted in place with his head tilted, staring back at me. I returned the stare as though it were a challenge.
Fire was my first element and even though earth, air, and even water were inside me, my essence seemed more flame than anything else. The element became volatile when I was angry, and seeing Eae’s defiance made it bubble just beneath the surface of my skin.
“Do you have a problem doing as I ask, Eae?” I went to him, dropping my head back to look up his great height. “If you do, there’s no reason for you to be here. We’re a team—we work together—or we’ll end up dying apart.”
A slight smile cracked Eae’s lips. “I am not afraid of death the way you are, and I’m not used to taking orders from human-Watcher girls.”
My cheeks burned and I dropped my gaze down to the pebbly beach. The sound of crashing waves boomed in my head. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m stressed.”
When I raised my head to look at Eae, his face had lost its tightness. “My purpose has changed. I must adjust.” He dipped his chin and flicked his hand at Ivan. “Lead the way, wolf-boy.”
Ivan’s eyes were round as he shot past me. I watched the odd pair until they disappeared over a grassy dune. Angus pressed against my legs and I entered his mind, telling him to go with Ivan. He seemed happy to have the opportunity to explore and charged over the dune without hesitation.
“I’ll take Cricket for a ride. I can cover more ground that way.” I reached for Cricket’s lead that Sawyer was still holding.
“No!” Sawyer and Insepth said at the same time.
I looked between them. I’m sure my face showed my displeasure the way Insepth shrank back. Sawyer didn’t care. He had no qualms about bossing me around like I was a child.
“You’re not going off without me,” Sawyer said, his voice scaling higher.
“It really isn’t wise to set off alone on this island. I’m sure Adria has it warded with water magic—the one element you have no experience at all with,” Insepth piped in.
I was about to argue when music drifted across the wind. I squinted my eyes and searched the waves. The thunderous roar of the ocean calmed and the song became louder.
“Do you hear that?” I asked.
“A woman’s voice…so rich in feeling…so beautiful.” Insepth stepped into the tide, tennis shoes and all.
I caught my breath. “Stop, Insepth!” I tugged on the lead and trotted with Cricket into the surf. “What are you doing?”
The melody on the wind grew louder. It was a soulful tune, but hardly enchanting enough to make a man walk into the ocean with his clothes on. Cricket stopped, planting her hooves into the flooded sand. I pulled hard, glaring up at her, but she stood firm, shaking her head. A gob of her drool splattered the side of my face and I gave up.
“Sawyer, stop him!” I shouted over my shoulder.
My heart plummeted into my stomach when I saw Sawyer take a wobbly step into a wave. Insepth was waist deep and Sawyer was advancing with steady determination. To where, I didn’t understand. “Not you, too,” I yelled.
Cricket snorted, nudging me hard with her nose. My gaze followed the direction she was prodding me and I screamed, “Get out of the water! Sharks!”
Insepth kept moving forward in a trance-like state. His mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear him above the music. I pushed into his mind and listened. So beautiful. They are the loveliest creatures imaginable.
His gaze was fixated on a place in the water where the enormous dorsal fins skimmed the surface, only yards away from him. He thinks the sharks are beautiful? No, this is magic—Adria’s magic.
Realization smacked me into action. I let go of Cricket and bolted to Sawyer, throwing my hands against his chest. His dull eyes didn’t see me. He continued to walk deeper into the water, shoving me aside with the swipe of his arm.
I called out to Cricket and she responded, leaping in front of Sawyer. The Demon was strong, but the Thoroughbred was equal to him. She moved sideways and stalled his forward momentum.
When I turned back, the water had crept up to Insepth’s neck. A wave sloshed over him and he disappeared for an instant. Three large sharks circled him.
I didn’t have time to think of a grand plan to save him. I could barely breathe as I watched in horror as he reached out to the closest dor
sal fin.
Fire was the one element that always rushed through me. I opened myself up to it and shot flames from my hands at the fin. The orange-red streak hit its mark, sending the beast under the water. I let more fire fly from my fingertips, but when it entered the water, it fizzled, sending clouds of black smoke sputtering into the wind.
I stood paralyzed as the last fin submerged, disappearing into darkness. I expected the water around Insepth to become a fountain of spurting blood. There was only one way to save Insepth—and it was the same as declaring war on the water Watcher, but I didn’t care. Hot anger coursed through me. Cricket fought to hold Sawyer in the shallow water, but he was determined and I saw her strained muscles. I wouldn’t allow this bitch to kill Sawyer.
Opening up to my Gaia, I let it all in and aimed it into the dry, sandy beach. A hole opened up and turned into a crater. Water rushed into the channel, leaving exposed earth where the pounding ocean had just been. I forced another blast and that hole filled with water, then another and another until I reached Insepth. The water fell away from him just as a great white shark came up below him like a torpedo. The ocean around the shark disappeared and it twisted, slamming sideways into Insepth and catapulting him back into the water.
The giant predator thrashed in inches of water and three more crested the surf, heading straight towards Insepth. Rational thought left me. Consequences meant nothing.
The flow of power built within me and connected to the ground. I drove everything down into the earth. I blinked and the world turned in slow motion. The explosion beneath the ground roared, booming into my ears, blocking out the sound of the wicked music.
Insepth screamed and swam for his life, breaking free from the trance.
Sawyer called out, “Ember!”
But it was too late. The shore groaned, heaved and split. The fissure stretched as far as I could see and water rushed into the opening. I was on the precipice of the devastation, but my feet remained planted on a hill of sand I’d created. Insepth was swept with the current towards the abyss, but I kept an eye on his blond head, hoping he could hold his breath for a long time. The sharks were right beside him, their mouths open so wide I saw flashes of their razor sharp teeth.
Two of the sharks met the opening and one lurched over the other, breaching the surface of the water in a jump that took it over the fissure and onto dry sand. It landed only a few feet from where Sawyer and Cricket fought to keep their balance in the aftermath of tremors still shaking the ground.
The shark’s mouth snapped at Cricket and she turned and kicked both feet at it, making contact with a sickening thunk. I only caught a glimpse of the huge black bear bounding across the sand and straight into the fish, ripping and tearing at its flesh with the impact. As Insepth washed into the opening, I extended the crumbling sand, catching him. I pushed the earth back where it was supposed to be and water rushed up in a long, narrow spout. The sand carried Insepth above the remaining water, depositing him in front of me.
In horror, I gasped, covering my mouth with my hands. His left leg had been bitten off at the knee. His painful wail brought me back to my senses and I dropped to the ground. When I tried to touch him, he flailed, knocking my hand away. Not too far away, Sawyer was fighting alongside Ivan, who’d changed into a wolf, with one of the half dozen sharks washed up on shore that were still mindlessly attacking anything in their path. Eae grabbed one by the tail and with a mighty heave, sent it flying back into the ocean with superhuman strength.
I was running out of options when Horas appeared at my side. He knelt on Insepth’s chest, holding him down. Grabbing Insepth’s leg, I forced my Gaia into him.
“I can’t regrow a limb,” I sputtered, saltwater burning my tongue.
“I think you can,” Horas said calmly. I glanced at him to see if he was serious, and he was.
I turned back to the task, swallowing down the hot juices that rose in my throat when a spurt of blood hit Horas in the face. My stomach lurched, but I remained focused, pouring the healing power of the earth into the wound. I closed my eyes, imagining the pulsating veins, corded muscles and solid bones of Insepth’s leg.
“Very good, it’s working,” Horas urged.
Insepth cried out again and I lost my concentration, jerking my Gaia back into me. The leg had regrown some, but blood flowed freely again.
“Shhh, Insepth! I can’t even think with you carrying on like that,” I pleaded.
Horas’ fist shot forward, hitting my patient in the face. Insepth’s head lolled to the side.
“That ought to keep him quiet for a while.” Horas grinned, dropping his voice and leaning in. “Actually, I’ve been wanting to do that.”
For all the peril of the situation, I couldn’t stop a little laugh from bursting out. “Thank you.”
I called the earth back into me as Sawyer strode up the beach. Cricket pranced freely beside him and Eae followed between Lutz and Ivan. Behind them, the white sand was stained red with the blood of dead sharks. The wind continued to gust and the afternoon sky grew even darker as clouds billowed on top on each other. This beach trip was very different from the last time I’d seen the ocean. On that occasion, it’d been a sunny, warm Australian beach. This lonely, windswept Scottish island was definitely not an ideal tourist destination.
The minutes ticked by until nearly an hour was spent. Sawyer’s fingers kneaded the back of my neck and shoulders as I slumped forward.
“A little more, Ember. You’re almost finished.” Horas was my cheerleader through the ordeal. Sawyer didn’t say anything and Eae quietly leaned over the scene with rapt curiosity. Ivan sat a few yards away with Lutz. He didn’t even glance our way. The last time he had looked up, his face was ashen white, like he was about to throw up.
Fatigue made my eyelids heavy and my belly lurched with nausea from using the power for so long. Angus leaned against me, helping Sawyer to keep me upright, and I tried to ignore the smell of rotting seaweed in my nostrils. Insepth’s eyes fluttered and his breaths deepened. The bottom of his new foot was puffy and red, but intact. I filled the foot with a final burst of power, which joined Insepth’s own healing power, to fill in the last gap.
I fell back into Sawyer’s arms with a grunt. “If it wasn’t for his own earth helping out, I don’t think it would have worked.”
“I was betting on that,” Horas said, slapping my thigh.
When Insepth’s eyes opened, they looked at me first and then at his legs. His smile was as wide as his face. “Well done! I never had a doubt you’d fix me back up. That was a nasty big bugger who took it off,” he exclaimed.
“Yeah, we got that one for you. Your old leg is on the beach—” Sawyer pointed “—that way.”
Insepth wrinkled his nose. “Not necessary.” He extended his hand to Horas, who took it, pulling the Watcher to a standing position. Grasping Horas’ shoulder, he squeezed and added, “The next time you punch me I’ll drop a boulder on your head.”
Insepth grinned, but Horas stepped back with a curt nod.
“How does it feel?” I asked.
He stretched his leg out, tentatively putting weight on it. I held my breath as he took the first and second steps.
“A little wobbly and weak, but the muscles will strengthen soon enough,” he replied.
“That’s a good thing. You may need use of that leg sooner than expected,” Eae said. Our heads turned in the direction he was looking—out to sea.
Water spurted into the air in a dozen places where a pod of orcas skimmed the surface. Dolphins leaped in groups of three and large, dark patches of water were filled with jumping schools of fish. All that was fantastic enough, but it was the sight of the dark-skinned woman emerging from the surf that caused me to suck in a breath.
Clumps of purplish seaweed covered her private parts and shells weaved through her long coiled hair. Her steps were slightly awkward, as
if she hadn’t been on dry land in a while. But with each step she took, she gained momentum. The dolphins that had been leaping a moment ago burst into men with the same spray of colors that erupted around Ivan whenever he made the change. They wore seaweed loincloths and their bulging muscles were gray tinged. My fire surged to life as more and more of the dolphins transformed. I elbowed Sawyer and we stood up together.
“This doesn’t look promising,” Sawyer breathed into my ear.
Ivan changed into a wolf and Lutz bellowed out a challenge to the newcomers. I wanted to tell Lutz to shut up with my mind, but I didn’t have time because tentacles from an unseen creature sprang out of the water, only to slide back down with splashing force. If it was a show to scare us, it had worked on me.
Once again, the fleeting thought that mere months ago, I lived in a world where none of this existed struck me. Now, seeing monsters was the norm.
The female ignored my friends, aiming straight for me. Her dolphin-men fanned out around her with uniformity that reminded me very much of a school of fish.
She stopped a few feet away and I met her liquid gaze. It was difficult not to look away. The color of her eyes startled me. They were mottled gray, like pebbles under water. Unlike Ivan and Lutz, who looked completely human when in that form, she carried some of her animal characteristics with her.
“May I—” Insepth stepped forward, but the dolphin-woman’s hand whipped toward him.
“No. I speak only with this one at this time,” she said in forced English.
I straightened, letting go of Sawyer’s hand, but I didn’t even attempt a friendly handshake with the woman.
“You must be Adria. We’ve traveled far to meet you,” I said carefully.
Her strange eyes flicked to the carnage on the beach. “You killed my pets.”
Sawyer snorted, but didn’t say anything. He was still covered with shark blood.
“I’m sorry. We were just protecting ourselves. If you hadn’t sung your siren’s song, turning the men’s brains to mush, none of this would have happened.” I raised my chin.
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