Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“The rest of you should go, though,” Daziel said. “Every additional person Naomi has to take care of during the spell is going to weigh on her. And in case the river does flood through the caves…go to Naomi’s aunt. Let her know what’s happening.”
Gilli pressed her trembling lips together. “But you should have a healer.”
Daziel shook his head, and unease slid through me. How difficult did he think this would be if he didn’t dare risk including one other person?
Hugging tightly, our group split in two. Jelan, Gilli, Leah, and Birra dove back into the water, vanishing under the black surface. When the ripples from their passage vanished, the rest of us turned to the egg.
“Should we cast the spell on it now?” Gidon asked. “Or wait until it’s hatched?”
I shrugged. “Now? I’m guessing it’ll be easier to carve charaktêres on the shell than on the talons of a squirming baby bird.”
“Good point,” Stefan said hastily. We decided to split the spell into six and write it on the egg like we wrote spells on plywood, gauging space and size of the words so we could connect them.
But after ten minutes, the impossibility of the task became clear. The egg kept shaking, the sand shifting. The third time, Yael was almost sucked into the sand before Daziel flew her out.
“This isn’t working,” Yael said. “We need a new strategy.”
If we couldn’t stand on the sand and write…we would need something that wouldn’t move. Or that we could move with. “We could write the spell on the top.” The egg was so large and broad, all six of us could easily fit on the top of the hull.
We all considered it. The neshem crystals’ glow cast strange gold and silver shadows across the blue egg. “We’d need a way to keep from falling off when it shakes, though,” élodie said.
“The shell is thick. We could carve handholds,” Gidon suggested.
Everyone wore skeptical expressions, but no one offered a better suggestion. I supposed it could work. We’d have to make the handholds quick with our stylos, then keep one hand latched on as we set about writing the spell. It would be awkward and uncomfortable, and it might be our best bet.
“Okay,” I said. I turned to Daziel with a dazed smile. “Fly me up?”
Once more, he opened his arms, and I stepped into them. He flew me to the top, gently landing on the peak of the curved blue hull. Even knowing how thick the shell must be, I couldn’t help but be nervous I’d break it.
“Should I use your magic for the handholds?” I whispered to Daziel when we were alone. I was aware it would make these small things simple, but I was terrified to let it in until absolutely necessary.
He shook his head. Maybe he too was worried about how this would go. “Not yet.”
He flew up the others, and we quickly carved handholds and began writing the spell again. The rumbles came closer and closer together, and with each one, we grabbed our handholds, feeling as though the hatchling was trying to throw us off.
By the time we finished, the egg trembled constantly. “Do we cast the spell now?” élodie asked nervously, her knuckles white as she gripped her hold. “What if doing it causes the Ziz to hatch?”
“Maybe we try to move it first,” I said, like it would be such a simple thing. I felt sick. This seemed like an impossible task. “Daziel?”
Gidon raised his head, staring at the cavern’s roof and its glittering crystals. “The water won’t crush us when it pours down? The riverbed won’t—fall and kill us? And the Ziz.”
I looked at Daziel, hoping he had answers.
Daziel tilted his head. “You did learn about the human-shedim wars, did you not? You’re aware of what a bound pair can accomplish?”
“But you said the others shouldn’t stay, and I shouldn’t do the handholds,” I said, confused.
He moved to stand right before me, taking my hands in his. “Because I didn’t want you to handle the magic for longer than necessary. But I’m confident we can do this.”
I wasn’t confident, and I wasn’t convinced he wasn’t pretending to make me feel better, but I’d take it. I took a deep breath, steeling myself against the memory of the violent rush of power washing through me. “Then there’s just the binding left.”
He nodded. His wings canted forward, veiling us briefly from the others. “You can use my ring,” he whispered. “That’s part of why a shayd’s signet is so precious. Slip it on in the other direction and say both of our names as you bind me.”
Shock slid through me. No wonder he’d been so angry when I tried to take his ring. “Your true name?” I confirmed. “Cathmeus?”
He placed his palm to my cheek, his gaze as tender as his touch. “With you, Daziel is my true name.”
I closed my eyes and nodded, feeling overwhelmed and scared and hopeful. His warmth enveloped me, staving off the damp. I could hear my friends’ exhausted breathing; I could smell water and stone, heavy with minerals and the slight hint of petrichor neshem carried.
I took off his ring and returned it to my finger in the opposite direction, but the words lodged in my throat.
I didn’t want to do this, to have Daziel’s burning magic rushing through me again, but I would.
I would open myself up to it instead of fighting.
By feel, I brought my hands to Daziel’s, brought his hands to my heart.
Okay, I told myself. Told him. Okay, I’m ready.
“Daziel, son of Cathmeus, son of Khasmodai. I, Naomi bat Yardena, bind you.”
Heady, swift power filled me, burning like fire, flowing like a river. Yet it didn’t feel as reckless as at the Rocks. My shoulders relaxed. Maybe this would be fine.
“Make a shield.” Daziel’s voice sounded like it came from far away. “Against the water, around us and the egg.”
I nodded. “Shield us, our friends, and the egg against water or rock or anything dangerous.”
I could feel the magic pulling out of Daziel, channeled through my words into a force snug over us and the egg. When I opened my eyes I could see a hint of it, a screen of golden light around us.
“Get rid of the roof. Let in the river.”
The magic flowed through me, strong and steady, but not so horrible this time.
Yet I hesitated to use it. To remove the cavern’s roof, to let the river’s water flood down upon us, seemed ludicrous.
What if it didn’t work? What if the force of falling water crashed down and I couldn’t stop it, and it crushed us?
What if it knocked us off the egg—smashed the egg—and drowned us all?
Daziel squeezed my hand. “You can do this.”
I wasn’t sure I could, but I didn’t see what other options we had.
“Remove the roof of the cave to let the water in so it lifts the egg safely to the top of the river, and don’t let the water go past this cavern. And let’s extricate the egg from the sand safely too, please.”
Daziel looked slightly amused, but specificity seemed like a good idea.
Then the magic ripped through me.
It hurt. It hurt worse than it had at the Rocks. I was pulling so much more of it, so much faster. I threw myself at Daziel, who seemed like the one solid, real thing in the world, clinging to him with all my might. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t do even that.
Water rushed in.
I noticed the sound first, a sonorous roar crashing over and around us with such totality the others shouted.
Sheets of water slashed down. It felt like it came from everywhere, like a suffocating curtain had fallen.
It fell in a tidal rush directly onto us but slid off in a bubble around the egg.
I looked up, mouth gaping, and saw nothing but black water.
If the cavern still had a roof, it was obscured.
But there was no roof anymore. I’d gotten rid of it.
“Don’t look at it,” Daziel said. “Look at me. Hold on to the magic. Hold on to me.”
I tried. I tried to look at him, at the boy who I loved. But it was hard to concentrate with the roar of water, with the thick darkness, with the surge of magic whirling within me. Daziel stroked my face, his own pained.
Then I felt the egg start to sway.
“It’s working!” I heard Gidon call, thrilled. “We’re rising!”
We were. Wrapped in our safe golden cocoon, we were rising atop the egg as water filled the cave below it, buoying it up and out of the sand.
This was, without a doubt, more bizarre than anything I’d ever imagined.
A floating magical egg? Hardly the stuff of legend to make people take you seriously.
As the egg rose, I wobbled, losing my footing. My concentration smudged, and I lost my grasp on a small piece of the magic. Water sluiced through the shield, and I heard screams.
“Ignore it.” Daziel gently tugged me into a cross-legged seat on the egg. “Ignore everything. You’re doing great. Everyone’s fine; they’re just wet.”
I wrapped my arms around Daziel’s shoulders, digging in hard.
I pulled on his magic, channeling it through me, picturing the way he combed his golden magic at home.
I tried not to focus on anything but the magic.
I was combing his magic, I was the comb, it was too much, but it was okay, I could breathe through it. I had to.
Around us the water poured in torrential black streams, flooding the cavern and raising the water level, and the egg with it.
We bobbed back and forth, everyone hunkered down and holding tight to their handholds.
Everything around us was dark and strange, the sound slowly fading, then stopping, the rush of water vanishing as we reached the top of the cave and the waters met.
The cavern had been completely filled—now we floated serenely from it into the bottom of the river itself, protected in a bubble of air.
Everything was completely silent now, no rush of water, and the visibility grew as the water calmed.
Light filtered down from the sky far above as we rose through blue-green darkness.
Startled fish darted around us, streaks of yellow and orange and silver.