Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
The stone slips out of my grip and I chase after it as it bumps down my body, catching it before it hits the ground. I blow a speck of dust off it and freeze at Quin’s blank-faced disbelief.
I nod sombrely. “Control and discipline. Got it.”
“You’re used to consuming magical properties and filtering from the inside to the out. This requires leeching from the outside, in.” Quin talks me through the process, and when it’s time for me to follow his instructions reminds me to keep my breathing steady, my heartbeat calm, slow.
It’s harder than I expected, especially with Quin’s tight gaze scrutinising my every move. I close my eyes. “Stop looking at me.”
“Don’t blow us up.”
“A more likely prospect when I’m under scrutiny.” I wait until the ticking of my pulse is even, call my earth magic to the surface, and press the opal between my hands. Cool, refreshing energy inches through my veins, more and more and more until I can’t possibly hold any more.
Carefully, I break my connection with the opal and slip the drained stone into my cloak. Quin has pulled his legs into a meditative sitting position. He holds his hands out, and I slip my earthy-cold ones atop his fiery warm ones. Magic sparks between us, a shivery jolt through my abdomen; hurriedly, I push my energy out while he draws it all in.
His eyes are closed. Mine are glued to his calmly concentrated expression. When he’s like this, he doesn’t look half as proud and prickly.
Quin’s eyes snap open, sharp and alert. I flinch, startled by the intensity in his gaze, but his fingers close around mine, grounding me. The contact sends a jolt through me—something more than . . .
I slap him away, and in moments I’m back against the dome wall.
“Powerful opal,” he murmurs. “Your meridians, though . . .”
It doesn’t matter if they’re weak. I’ll protect my meridians with my life. They are my life. “It’s everything I need to do my work.”
Quin glances at my waist, to the soldad I’m unconsciously gripping.
I release it. “Will it be enough?”
“To reach dawn, maybe.”
I laugh humourlessly. “I hope you haven’t annoyed your aklos lately.”
“They won’t let me down.”
I cross my arms, and Quin shakes his head at me. In silence, we stare at the brilliant starry sky magnified through a lake-ified Castorvra.
I shrink into my cloak and close my eyes. The day’s events creep over me in a wave of fatigue, and my eyelids grow heavy.
I sag into slumber and wake hours later to Quin calling my name, shaking my leg. “Cael.”
Grey light funnels into our bubble, and I blink in an approaching shadow above. “They really are loyal.”
“A little less surprise,” he rasps.
I sit up. A cloak, blanketed over me, rumples to my waist.
Quin is staring up at the underside of a boat.
I gather the cloak up and hand it back to him. He takes it with cold, trembling hands—his aura is fluctuating. The bubble around us is . . . thin.
And thinning.
I grab his wrist—his pulse is sluggish. This bubble—
He hisses with pain. “Get to the surface.”
“Can you—”
“Go,” Quin rasps, voice a weak shadow of its usual authority.
I hesitate, glancing at him as the bubble flickers. His knuckles are white against the ground, his breathing ragged.
His head lifts slightly, eyes struggling to sharpen. “I’ll drag you down. Get help, then get me.”
The dome trembles violently, and he cries out in pain and clutches his bad leg. His face is pallid—eyes drooping closed. He’s—
I grab hold of him around the waist. “When you’re collapsing,” I snap. “I’m the one who gets to be in charge.”
The bubble bursts. Water crashes into us, wrenching and twisting. I hold him tighter, lungs burning, as the current tries to tear him from me.
My foot strikes something solid. I push upward, muscles screaming, toward the light cutting through the deep water. Quin’s braid loosens, tangling with mine, the strands fluttering before my eyes. I kick harder and drive us on until the boat’s shadow sharpens.
Almost there.
Almost there—
We burst out of the water, and I suck in a deep, gasping breath.
“There!”
Hands reach towards us and haul us out of the water. Faces are a blur, but Akilah’s voice is a warm fire in my chest. I scramble over Quin, laid in the bottom of the boat, and punch his stomach—magic could’ve dealt with the water in his lungs, but I have none left.
He coughs, twisting.
I collapse onto my haunches, water spilling out of my boots, and take in our saviours.
Akilah, crouched beside me, throwing a dry blanket around my shivering back. Two familiar faces: Coralus and Azula. I can’t speak my relief, my gratitude. I expected Quin’s aklos, not . . .
“Akilah was beside herself when you weren’t on the last boat.”
Coralus adds gently, “This is the least we could do.”