Chapter 52 #2
“Can I remind you I still have no fucking idea what I’m doing? I mean, I just found out I can close the portals, but it’s not like I was given an instruction manual.” Camryn rubs her hands together.
Isolde rolls her eyes. “For fuck’s sake.”
I look at my friend. “You can do it. Just focus on your magic and let your intuition take over.”
She gazes back at me, and I see a hint of sorrow in her eyes. “You know what this means, right Rory? If I dry up the pool, it closes the portals. Forever. That means never going back home.”
My chest aches. I know what it means. I’ve thought about it since coming up with our plan the day before. And I’ve asked myself if I want to go back. I’m not the same person I was there. I wasn’t happy. Not truly. I understand there is no going back. And I don’t want to.
“There’s nothing left for me there, Camryn. I have everything I want and need right here.” I give her a weak smile.
A grin streaks across her face. “Yeah, fuck that place.”
I laugh, letting the sadness flow out of me a final time. Then I give her a single nod and call on my magic.
Heat burns at my fingertips, flames roaring to life in my hands.
Isolde watches me with disgust, and I swear I see her shiver. “Oh, good. Your fire,” she murmurs.
I hesitate, looking at the king’s headless corpse and the lump beneath my boot. “Um, where should I start?”
Camryn frowns. “Start with his head. I don’t like the way he’s looking at me.”
I tilt my head to gaze into the glassy eyes of the dead king.
“Sounds good to me.” I pull my foot away in time to shoot a burst of flame at the king’s face.
My magic takes hold, engulfing his head like kindling.
As it burns beneath my feet, I shoot another round of flames at his body, fire bursting to life across it like an eager storm.
Isolde shrugs, rubbing her hands over the flames that burn the king’s body. “At least he isn’t completely useless. I was getting a little chilly in this blasted cave.”
She looks over her shoulder. “You’re up, Dream Demon.”
Camryn casts her a nasty look, but I know she probably likes Isolde’s little nickname for her. She blows out a long breath. “Okay. I’ve got this.” She closes her eyes and stretches her arms over the pool, her palms faced down, her fingers splayed out wide.
Silence falls over the cave, the only sound the crackling flame as it turns the king’s body to ash.
Suddenly, the pool at my feet churns, moving slowly in a clockwise direction. Isolde peers over the edge to watch the liquid silver spin into a whirlpool, as if a drain had opened.
But instead of flowing downward, I watch wide eyed as the pool of magic rises out of the hole. My heart beats faster as the water rises, swirling now like a waterspout.
Camryn’s face is a picture of serene as her lids stay closed and she breathes steadily. As the swirling magic reaches closer to her fingertips, my heart rate keeps pace with it.
When the first trickle of liquid meets her waiting hands, the room pulses with heavy energy and I hold my breath. All I can do is watch as the magic flows into my friend’s body, vanishing beneath the skin of her hands as she calls it to her.
With a loud sound as if being sucked through a straw, Camryn absorbs the last drops of magic, and the air crackles before her eyes fly open.
I keep my gaze on her while Isolde looks into the empty pocket below where the raw magic had been. She whistles through tight lips. “I was not expecting that.” She eyes Camryn from head to toe.
I stare at my friend, releasing my breath. Camryn glances at the crater at her feet before looking at me with wide eyes. My heart stops as I gaze into the eyes of my best friend. Where they had once been a warm, deep brown are now smaller versions of the silver pool she just absorbed.
“What?” she asks in panic. “What’s wrong?”
I swallow. “Your eyes …”
“Oh my god, Rory, you’re freaking me out! What’s wrong with my eyes?!”
“Um, they’re silver. Like, really silver.”
She laughs in disbelief. “Well, that’s great. Now I’m a freak.”
I squint at her. “They’re not that bad.” I hold back a shiver. She looks otherworldly with her pitch-black hair and eyes that shine like quicksilver.
Isolde tilts her head. “Well, you’re in Silverveil, so now you actually look like you belong here.”
I jerk my head to her in surprise. “Is that … a compliment? A compliment from you?”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Oh, don’t kid yourself, Fireball. I’m still every bit the icy bitch you believe me to be.”
I look down at my hands, still pulsing with my fiery magic. “Yeah, about that. I have another idea.”
Isolde narrows her eyes at me. “I don’t know how I feel about another one of your ideas.
I think this is one for a lifetime.” She looks down at the dwindling fire beside her.
The king’s body has been reduced to a pile of ash.
“We have to finish this first and get back to the real world before everyone flips the fuck out.”
“Right,” I reply. I file away my idea and think of Soren, desperate to get back to him and let him know I’m alright.
Isolde’s icy magic ripples between her fingers.
I step out of the way in time for her to collect the small pile of bone fragments and ash at my feet.
With a sweep of her hand, she encapsulates the king’s cremated remains into a tightly packed block of ice.
She tucks it under her arm and looks at me and Camryn. “Shall we?”
We converge in the center of the empty pool and clasp hands. Within a moment, my eyes shut, and I’m floating with Camryn and Isolde through darkness.
When my eyes open again, everything will be irreparably changed.