Chapter 35 Lost
I ran toward the cliff, pain flaring deep in my rib cage with every step. When I reached the edge, my legs gave out, and I sank to my knees, physical pain, and despair crawling through me as I stared at the quiet horizon below.
My gaze drifted to the gem on my finger. There was no joy or excitement. I had earned the gem but I had lost the map. Or worse, I’d been careless, distracted long enough for Marla Yung to take it from me.
I could dwell on this longer and beat myself up or do something about it and continue to my next test.
I forced myself back onto my feet and stepped closer to the cliff’s edge. I had to find that map. Without it, I didn’t stand a chance.
I lit a small fire to see more clearly toward the cliff. It had to be at least a hundred feet down to the beach below. In the darkness, I spotted a faint golden dot on the sand. My mind or my vision, might have been playing tricks on me, but I had to try.
I took a deep breath, forcing my emotions down as logic took over.
Finding a path on foot to the beach below would take hours and I didn’t have that kind of time.
It was already midnight, and I needed to reach my second trial before sunset.
The test could be just beyond the cliff or hours away from my current position.
The realization struck hard- there was only one fast way to retrieve my map. I would have to use my fire as ropes and reverse-hike down the cliff.
It was madness but it was my only way forward.
I shaped a fire rope between my hands, secured it to a sturdy rock, then carefully wrapped it around my hips and legs. Where the rope touched my ribs, it hurt deeply, but I had to endure it. Without giving myself time to think it through, I stepped off the cliff.
My boots scraped against the rocky wall as I slowly fed more fire into the rope, lowering myself foot by foot toward the beach below.
If the fall didn’t kill me, the magic drain might. Sunlight wouldn’t recharge me until dawn. I shoved the thought aside and kept descending until my feet finally sank into sand.
It took nearly thirty minutes to reach the ground.
I scanned the beach. The shoreline was more than fifty feet away, the tide couldn’t have dragged the map out to sea.
Leaving the fire ropes anchored above me, I summoned another flame to see better.
Even then, the beach remained swallowed by darkness.
How was I supposed to find a piece of paper out here?
It felt impossible, like searching for a needle in the night.
I was done. That was it. Sunhearts didn’t see well in the dark. Moonlight didn’t recharge our magic. I had spent most of my stored power just getting down here for nothing. I had been naive to think I’d actually find it.
I sank into the sand, staring at the dark stretch of beach ahead of me. A tear slipped down my cheek, and I didn’t bother to wipe it away. I sat there in silence for what felt like hours.
When I finally checked my clock, I still had eighteen hours left to complete two trials. Not bad if I actually had my map.
I closed my eyes and took a steady breath. Get it together, Thea Solenhart.
When I opened them again, I forced myself to search once more, slowly, deliberately. As my gaze traced the rocks along the cliff wall, I saw it. A scrap of paper was wedged between the stones, about thirty feet away.
The light was dim, barely there. So faint it was a wonder I’d seen it at all. But I had.
I sprinted toward it before the wind could drag it away again and snatched it off the ground.
My fingers shook as I unfolded the map, revealing the mark for the second trial, the magical test.
My chest tightened at the location.
I knew exactly where it was. I could find it almost effortlessly. The problem was the distance.
It was hours away.
I shoved the map back into my pocket and let out a scream, raw and unfiltered.
“The meadow by the courtyard?” I yelled toward the sea. “Really? Solvir, you have to be laughing at me right now.”
I threw my hands up. “If I get there by dawn, it’ll be a miracle.”
The second trial was often tied to something personal to the student. Of course, mine was the meadow the place I retreated to when I needed silence, when I needed to think.
That didn’t make it any less infuriating.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone was doing this on purpose—stretching me thin, forcing me to fail by exhaustion alone.
Then a voice cut through the spiral in my mind.
Lorik Draventh’s voice. Calm. Controlled and annoyingly composed. “Breathe. Control the emotion before they control you.”
I exhaled slowly.
Fine. His lectures were finally paying off.
I forced the coiling anger down and turned my focus forward. I had to leave now if I wanted any chance of reaching the second trial and facing the Siren.
I extinguished the fire above me and retrieved the fire ropes I’d anchored to the cliff. Wrapping them around my hips once more, I commanded the flames to coil tightly around the rock above.
The fire pulled me upward, inch by inch.
The climb back was faster than the descent. When I reached the top, I didn’t hesitate and I turned toward the academy and started walking.
I walked for hours with the Osiris North Star guiding me. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t move any faster.
My body refused. Every step sent a dull ache through me—bruised, battered, especially along my rib cage. If I’d still had my healing potion, I might have used it. Nothing felt broken, at least. Just pain layered over pain.
It was almost dawn, and I still had at least an hour of walking ahead of me, but I had to stop to rest.
I stopped by the river to drink water and caught the first light of morning reflecting on the water’s surface. The sun was rising. At least, I would begin to recharge my magic soon. Not that I felt completely depleted, despite how much fire I’d burned lowering myself down the cliffs.
As I drank water, an unnatural wind howled in the distance.
Birds burst into the sky, startled, scattering in frantic waves. Somewhere nearby, someone was already deep into their second trial; that much was clear.
I’d heard it on my way here, too. A bursts of fire, sharp winds, the crash of water against stone.
And still, mine was not close. I removed the dangerous and threatening comparisons from my mind. They would only hurt me more. So I continued my walk toward the marked spot on the map again.
I walked by the river for an hour towards the academy.
When I was almost at the meadow, the air shifted in a second, and rain started pouring, heavy and dense.
Given the violent change, this was another student in their second trial.
I could barely see ahead, but I knew which way I was going.
I had swum in this river just a few weeks ago.
As I hit the meadow, rain was still heavy above me.
I stood in the middle, grass high above my knee.
It was empty, but I knew I was unmistakably right about this location.
I turned around towards all angles in the meadow to look for the siren, but I didn’t spot her.
The rain was heavy, making it impossible to see beyond a few feet away.
Then, my skin started itching—my hands, my arms, my shoulders, just everything exposed.
Then the itch quickly turned into a burning sensation, but the skin did not peel.
I looked up to the sky, clouds and rain pouring, but the color of the rain had changed.
It was a shining green liquid. It was not water, it was acid.
One of the storm's wielders was able to control wild acid, and I was in the middle of an open field in the forest.
My fire magic couldn’t shield me from water or acid, for that matter. My fire would get extinguished in an instant. So I ran towards the sequoias for shelter.
Branches tore at my arms as I dove beneath the canopy of an ancient tree, pressing myself against the trunk as the downpour turned violent. The leaves offered some protection, but drops still slipped through, striking my shoulders, neck, and hands.
I hissed in pain. I looked down to examine my body. My green uniform had holes everywhere from the acid, but I could barely see. My nerves screamed, my vision blurred. I had to close my eyes as the burning sensation washed over me.
The rain came harder, louder, pounding the meadow with relentless force. The ground beneath my boots grew slick, the scent of scorched earth rising around me. My heart slammed against my ribs as panic clawed up my throat.
I pressed myself deeper into the tree’s shadow, teeth clenched as another wave of pain tore through me.
“Please,” I whispered, unsure who I was speaking to—the god of the sun, the professors, or the forest itself.
The rain answered by intensifying.
My knees buckled. I sank to the ground, curling inward as the drops struck my back and arms. My breath came in ragged pulls, my vision narrowing to pinpoints of light.
“Thea Solenhart.”
The voice slid through the storm like silk through water; melodic and ancient. I opened my eyes but couldn’t see anyone. Then, I remembered. I knew that voice.
The Siren spoke again, from somewhere and everywhere at the same time. “Come out to the meadow.”
I shook my head, pressing my back harder against the tree. This couldn’t be part of the test. This had to be some trick meant to kill me.
“I won’t go out!” I screamed into the rain. A long silence stretched.
“Then don’t,” the Siren whispered.
My heart pounded with the debate raging inside me.
I opened my eyes and looked down at my body.
It still burned everywhere the acid rain had touched me, pain flaring sharp and relentless but I couldn’t see my skin peeling away.
My mind felt unsteady. My body was reacting to something my eyes couldn’t see.
Perhaps I didn’t have mental magic. Possibly, someone was coercing my mind, bending it, twisting reality around me.
Control your emotions. Think. Use your greatest strength—your mind.
The thought anchored me. Those words, wherever they came from, gave me strength. I took a deep breath and forced myself to think through the details.
This was the correct location on the map. I was certain this was the spot of my second trial. The voice luring me out wasn’t imagined. I knew that in my bones. It was the Siren. No one was inside my head. And I was immune to mental magic, another fact.
This had to be the test.
A cruel one. One I didn’t yet understand.
A trial I didn’t know how to defend myself against, with the sky itself turned into a weapon.
But this was my second trial. If I didn’t leave the shelter of this trunk as the Siren demanded, I would never retrieve the gem.
I would fail the Dragontail trials and the island.
I stood, my gaze ahead, and I took a step into the rain.
Each step towards the meadow hurt more than the last. Pain tore through my body raw and relentless, stealing my breath and blurring my thoughts. Still, I forced myself forward, eyes fixed ahead through the curtain of rain.
“I’m here,” I screamed into the storm. “What do you want from me?” No answer came. The rain fell just as hard.
“Please, make it stop,” I cried, collapsing to my knees. I pressed my face into the mud, trying to shield it from the burning drops.
The Siren didn’t respond.
This was a trap. Someone had lured me out here to die. And I was going to die. I was sure of it.
I screamed again, pain ripping through me, and with whatever strength I had left, I wielded magic to create a dome around myself, even knowing the fire would be extinguished within seconds by the rain.
Fewer drops struck me now; I was sure of it. But the pain remained everywhere.
I didn’t look up. My hands dug into the mud beneath me, my screams filling the fragile dome I’d created.
Then I felt it, and I heard it.
The wind was howling above me.
It tore through the meadow in a violent burst, ripping the rain from the sky itself. I dared to look up, twisting to face the horizon. My fire dome was gone. Air surged outward, forcing the rain and clouds south, deep into the forest.
Silence slammed down.
I lay there staring up at a clearing blue sky, rainwater dripping from my hair, my clothes plastered to my skin. The pain ebbed slowly, leaving behind a deep and heavy exhaustion.
My vision blurred. The world tilted.
I tried to push myself up, but my arms gave out. Darkness closed in, and I fainted.