Chapter 19
Q uin is still in his saddle, arms trembling with effort as he channels vivid, crackling energy. His magic clings desperately to the massive cliff, barely holding back the bulging dam. The closer I ride, the more detail I get: Quin sagging under the weight of his spell, sweat dribbling down the back of his neck, the overpowering scent of fatigue. Tendril after tendril, shrinking. Water sluices down the crack and thuds to the ground, splashes misting over him.
My horse whinnies as I slow to his side. Quin’s head quirks a fraction in my direction, but otherwise he is motionless, unaffected. His eyes are closed, his breathing steady under the torrent of magic running through him. “Why are you here?”
“The villagers have been evacuated. We need to find a way—”
The ground jerks sharply, spooking the horses. Quin’s rears upwards, breaking the connection of his spell; he hastens to regain control. His magic sticks to the rockface, but it’s dimming. “Quick!” He turns his mount, and I whisk mine into a frenzied retreat alongside him.
An ominous CRACK splits the air, and I make the mistake of looking over my shoulder. Water surges from the dam like a pack of beasts bent on devouring all life, spitting chunks of rock ahead of it. It chases us, giant twisting waves, pounding down on the earth with a deafening roar.
No way to outrun it.
Quin’s horse swerves sharply, nearly unseating him as water surges beneath us, lifting our steeds off the ground. In an instant, he’s out of the saddle, his body colliding with mine, dragging me into the violent current. Panic surges through me, and I cling to him.
The world becomes a chaotic swirl. I choke, the icy flood filling my lungs as the current drags us down. But then a blinding light bursts around us—Quin’s magic, forming a protective bubble that evades the flood’s deadly grip. We sink to the ground, Quin atop me, eyes closed in concentration as his magic anchors itself, leaving a dome to protect us. My unsteady breaths skate over his shoulder, and my fingers dig into his waist as water rushes over the dome, vicious and treacherous with debris.
Quin’s spell braces against it, but each impact shudders through his body. Another tree glances off the dome, and he hisses.
The shimmering curve of protection. The faint thrum of magic pressing close around us. I’ve experienced a shield like this before. When I’d been with Prince Nicostratus in the woods, about to be buried in falling branches, too slow to jump out of the way, he’d cast a dome just like this one. The same quick action. The same glow. The same defiance against the forces of nature.
It was the first time I’d felt protected. And now... I was being protected again.
Quin’s bitten-back pain calls me to my senses; carefully, I roll him off me and check his pulse.
“I’m... fine.”
He unclenches his eyes, slowly. His palms press against the ground, magic pulsing from them—his connection to the dome.
I stubbornly drag my fingers between flattened grass and his clammy skin to more deeply read his condition. He’s expending his spiritual reserves. Not only is it exhausting work, but it’s also excruciating. Magic is forced from the deepest nerve endings. The blockage in his leg is throbbing. I wince. “How are you still... anyone else would have passed out already.”
“I’m not anyone else.”
“The arrogance. You wear it like a crown.”
“Some would say I was born with it.” He grunts as a carriage bowls into our shelter.
I call up my last remnants of cloves, capsaicin, feverfew—not nearly enough—remove his boot, and force the pain-relief spell through the acupoints in his sole.
Quin’s breathing eases slightly, and he stubbornly pushes himself into a sitting position, resting against the dome wall. The glow in his hands shifts up over his shoulders and down his back. His tight, grimacing gaze holds mine. “Why did you come back?”
“You thought I’d leave you behind?”
“How did you imagine you could help?” Quin’s voice is low, but it quakes with effort.
I grimace. “Taking action is better than dreaming for a miracle.”
“My own teachings used against me.” He laughs, but it turns into a hiss as his magic falters and a shudder ripples through the dome.
I shuffle off my knees to sit opposite him. The space is tight; our legs are stretched side by side, his feet near my thigh. “What were you planning?” I ask.
He closes his eyes briefly and rests his head against the dome.
I suck in an exaggerated breath of shock. “No plan either?”
His eyes narrow. “I would’ve done this—a smaller, less magic-consuming this—and prayed my aklos would find me.”
“I hope they find us both.”
“No promises they’ll find you in one piece.”
He shifts, nudging me slightly; my hand slides off my thigh to the ground, palm up. Quin’s gaze latches onto my raw, blistered skin, and his lips flatten. I quickly flip my hand and steer his attention to the water settling and clearing around us. Above, the air will be full of sound—the rush of new rivers and streams beginning at the passes that led into this valley. We can see the pinks and purples of the sky through the muddy water left behind.
Night is coming.
I shiver. How long can Quin maintain this?
“I don’t know how long,” he murmurs.
“How did you—”
“It’s what I’m afraid of, too.” Sweat pearls at his temples. His shudders vibrate through me.
“What if we hold our breath to the surface? Swim until we reach higher ground?”
Quin glances away. “I can’t...”
His leg.
“But you could...” He gestures skyward.
Even if I make it up there, the hills could slip into the lake at any moment. No. Here is the only option. “How do you gather energy?” I ask.
“My meridians are connected to air. I meditate in the freshest breezes of dawn, dusk, and during the night.”
“A certain lack of fresh breezes in here.” I bolt upright, patting the insides of my cloak.
At a raised brow, I brandish the glimmering opal I was given. “I have my root in earth magics.”
If I were to cultivate to become a warrior or such, I’d have to absorb magics from rich soils and rocks—plant roots. I haven’t used earth magic much, other than the odd blocking spell. It’s weak and useless. Luckily, vitalian spells work with any base—wind, fire, water, earth. As long as some spiritual blood courses through the veins, and the right herbs are absorbed, anyone can cast curative spells.
Theoretically.
There is still the issue of being allowed to. I squeeze the opal, cursing our king.
That king is Nicostratus’s brother.
Quin stares at me.
“What?” I say.
He hums.
“Right. I’ll channel its magic to you.” I stare a long time at the opal, inspecting it from all sides.
“You don’t know how to access its magic, do you?”
“I suppose fondling it like this isn’t enough?”
“Control and discipline are vitally important. Impulsive, emotional absorption will affect the reliability of the magic. Or worse.”
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.”
“You should be resting,” I say.
“Plenty of time for that once you’re safe.”
Quin props himself into a sitting position and takes us all in through the curtain of his dripping hair. He gives an exhausted grunt and quickly reties his braids, glancing at me.
I curl my fingers under his chin, cheekily patronising. “If you’d like lessons on how to maintain loyalty...”
He bares his teeth and nips at my fingers, teeth grazing my skin. I jerk them away with a startled laugh.
Azula points across the lake. “That boat has been searching too.”
Quin pushes himself onto a seat and huffs as if this was expected. “My men.”
Assured of our safety, he stills in meditation, drawing energy from the early morning air.
When he reopens his eyes, I ask, “Are you returning to Frederica’s?”
“I’ll be heading back to the capital.”
This is where we’ll part, then. “See a vitalian as soon as you can.”
He hesitates. “Thank you.”
“Th-thank you, too.”
“Was that very hard to say?”
“Yes.”
We look at one another, the long day and longer night replaying between us. He raises a hand, acknowledging the scarred aklo at the helm of the approaching boat.
“Goodbye,” Quin says to me.
“Until next time, you mean.”
He raises a brow.
“I’ve surrendered to it.” I shuffle back to give him more space. “Something about us is fated.”
“You must’ve done something exceptionally good in your previous life.”
“Or exceptionally bad.”
Quin laughs, a rare, booming sound that lingers in the air. With a final, assessing look, he kicks off, his figure cutting through the dawn light as he soars into the sky.