Chapter 7 #2
“You want to enter through the river,” Corbin said in understanding, but Eviana still had no idea what he meant. “We could go a few miles upstream where the river isn’t guarded. Slip in there.”
“Precisely,” Lange said. “We can go as far as we can before our magic runs out, and we need to come up for air.”
Everything clicked into place then as Eviana said, “You mean to enter the kingdom underwater where we will not be detected.”
“Exactly,” Lange said.
“How long will your magic hold?”
“We haven’t been using it much,” Corbin supplied. “Our reserves are full. We should easily be able to get into the kingdom before we need to surface. The river current will be a factor though.”
She nodded as she listened. It wasn’t the time to tell them they needed to make it to the Dreamlock Woods. She would wait to reveal that bit of information until they were well inside the territory.
“I think this plan is sound,” she finally said.
Lange snorted a laugh from the backseat. “None of what we are doing is sound, bellana.”
She frowned at the nickname again, but said nothing.
She supposed it was fitting he referred to her as the plant that was stunning on the outside and produced poisonous berries.
They tasted delicious but rendered one lifeless within an hour of eating them.
Instead, she only nodded once at Corbin’s questioning look before he started the vehicle.
They rode in silence for several minutes until they were far enough upriver with no one and nothing around.
Parking in a somewhat sheltered area of trees, he shut the vehicle off, and Eviana wasted no time exiting and rounding to the back where their supplies were.
They wouldn’t be able to take everything, and she methodically began moving items to a backpack.
She felt Lange and Corbin approach, and they silently began doing the same.
Within minutes, they were hoisting the packs onto their shoulders, and Corbin reached up to close the back hatch. Sharing a look with Lange, he turned to Eviana and asked, “Are you ready?”
Eviana only nodded, adjusting a strap.
“When we get to the water, I’ll use my magic to create a dome of sorts. We’ll enter it to keep us dry and protected. Lange will supply the oxygen. Once we’re submerged, I’ll take us down, and we can walk along the bottom of the river,” Corbin explained. “I’ll do my best to mitigate the current.”
She nodded again, clasping her hands before her as she studied the churning water.
A crystal blue, it was the opposite of the Night Waters.
Even still, she was sure beneath the surface it was just as dark.
She’d been forced to keep others submerged beneath water on Valter’s orders numerous times.
Twice, he’d done the same to her, and while she feared nothing after everything she had endured, her heart rate still picked up at the idea of willingly going beneath the river.
“Eviana? Are you all right?” Corbin asked, pulling her from the path she had started to spiral down.
A little girl in the Serafina Kingdom. That was what she needed to focus on. She would and could do anything for that tiny soul.
“Yes,” she answered primly, stepping to the water’s edge. She felt more than she saw the two males exchange another look before they stepped to her side.
Corbin stood between them, and he lifted a hand.
Water immediately rose in tendrils at the same time as the lapping waves split, as if flowing around a large boulder.
He wove the tendrils higher until they indeed formed a dome, just as he’d said would happen.
The water’s edge jutted out now, muddy earth sloping down the farther out it went.
“Let’s go,” Lange said, stepping forward and looking at Eviana.
She followed, the boots Tessa had given her sinking into the silty river bottom.
Pausing for a moment, she sucked in a shuddering breath, closing her eyes.
Then fingers were wrapping around hers, and her eyes flew open, finding Lange holding her hand.
Corbin had moved to his other side, his face twisted in concentration.
“We’ve done this before,” Lange said quietly, as if trying to coax a spooked animal.
“You’ve moved beneath a river?” she questioned, taking another step as he gently tugged her forward.
He huffed a laugh, pulling her along another step and another as he said, “Not here, bellana. But we got into our fair share of mischief, especially when we had more freedom at the Acropolis after the Emerging Ceremony.”
“That’s fitting,” she murmured, tension easing as he guided her farther and farther into the center of the river. Walls of water towered over them on both sides as they made their way deeper.
“Why is that?” Lange asked, and she could swear there was a teasing note to his tone.
“No reason,” she replied, glancing at Corbin. His hazel eyes were brighter, as if they had shifted some.
“Ready, Lange?” Corbin asked.
“Yep,” Lange answered, the air around them thickening when the male rotated the fingers of his other hand as though calling the winds to him.
“Eviana?” Corbin questioned.
She glanced at him once more. “What?”
“Are you ready?”
“It is a little late to turn back now, don’t you think?”
He gave her a small smile. “That it is,” he answered, and as he lowered his hands to his sides, the water closed in.
As if encased in an enormous bubble, the water closed in around them, and she stumbled as the river current took hold. But Lange was still holding her hand, and he let go only to snake an arm around her waist and tuck her into his side.
“Sorry,” Corbin muttered, and Eviana could feel his magic around them working to keep the water at bay.
Everything around them grew darker and murkier.
The river was swallowing them up, and there was beauty in the depths.
What she could make out anyway. The light was quickly fading, unable to reach so deep.
Fish swam by in schools. Various creatures skirted around them.
The water plants beckoned and called to her magic, even if she couldn’t see them fully.
She knew they were there. If only these godsdamn bands were gone.
Flexing her toes in her boots, she slipped her hands into her pockets, fingering the makeshift weapons in one side and the dagger from Valter’s desk in the other.
Next to it was the phone she’d forced Corbin to give her.
They didn’t know it, but she’d kept it charged.
It was powered off, of course. She didn’t want to leave any possible opening for Valter to track her.
“How long do we have?” Eviana asked, feeling Lange’s grip loosen as they all got their footing.
She turned in a slow circle, taking everything in, but it was far too dark now.
Only faint traces of sunlight filtered this deep, and she squinted, trying to adjust to the darkness.
Sound was muffled, and the dome of water did nothing for the chill this far down in the water.
“Corbin’s reserves will wane faster than mine,” Lange answered. “It takes more power for him to keep us below the surface, fight the current, and keep us dry.”
“But you must conjure air,” Eviana countered. “Out of nothing.”
“Not out of nothing,” he said, moving to the edge of the dome and dragging a finger through the water. “There is oxygen in it. I just have to draw it in.”
“How long do you think we can make it?” she asked again, pulling the coat tighter around herself. She needed to figure out how to prepare for their next moves, and to do that, she needed an idea of where they were going to surface inside the Serafina Kingdom.
Lange glanced over his shoulder as Corbin came up behind him, wrapping an arm around Lange’s waist and resting his chin on his shoulder.
“I should be able to last a couple of hours. As long as we keep moving, we should make it into the Serafina Kingdom. I’ll let the current push us without overwhelming us and sweeping us away. I don’t want to lose control.”
“How deep into the kingdom?” she pushed, already knowing it wouldn’t be nearly as far as she wanted to be.
“I think we should just start moving,” Lange said. “We can all agree we want to get as far as possible. None of us want to be discovered, bellana.”
She rolled her eyes at the nickname the male had apparently latched onto, but he had a point.
While she’d had decades to learn her limits and could tell them exactly how long her power would last, they were still discovering theirs.
They were still figuring out the depths, and from the brief time she’d spent with them, she knew not only had they not discovered their full capacity, they also didn’t understand just how powerful they were.
That was fine. She’d force them to learn it.
She’d drag it out of them, because they would all need to be at full strength to survive the Dreamlock Woods.
But again, they’d learn that soon enough.
She let them have this moment of peace as they started moving along the river bottom. Half listening to the two males discuss a Chaosphere game, she wished she had the capacity to care about something so trivial. Truly she did.
Unfortunately for them, the Fates had made their paths cross, and she was a poison that spread to everything she touched. Maybe bellana was a fitting name after all.