CHAPTER FORTY-THREE #2
All around us, similar island clusters dotted the water like emeralds dropped onto a sapphire sheet.
Above, the sky was a bruised purple, lightning arching through clouds that looked heavy with blood. The Ocean Passage.
"Aether!" I screamed, but the roar of a crashing wave swallowed my voice.
A massive swell hit our little shore, the water surging up to our knees. Aether, whose onyx fur was still singed from the fire wolves, scrambled for purchase on the wet sand.
But the tide was too strong. With a panicked yelp, my protector was swept off his feet and plummeted into the freezing, dark surf.
"No!" I lunged for the water's edge, but a hand caught the back of my jacket, yanking me back just as another wave detonated against a nearby palm tree, snapping it like a toothpick.
"Look!" Asher roared over the storm.
Zya was already a blur of midnight shadow. She didn't hesitate, diving into the white foam after her partner.
For a heart-stopping second, both panthers vanished beneath the waves. Then, Zya breached the surface, her jaws clamped firmly onto Aether’s scruff. With a strength that defied her size, she swam through the riptide, dragging his shivering, sodden bulk back toward our small beach.
“Stop thrashing, you overgrown hearth-rug,” Zya’s voice hissed through the bond, sharp and commanding even over the roar of the ocean. “The water won’t kill you, but your panic might.”
She hauled him forward until his paws finally found purchase on the gritty sand.
Aether coughed, spitting out a mouthful of brine, his golden eyes wide and blown with a rare flash of vulnerability.
“I had it under control,” Aether growled back, though his legs were shaking.
“Clearly,” Zya retorted, shaking the water from her black coat, her silver eyes flickering with a dry, feline amusement. “Next time, try staying on the land. I’m not a tugboat.”
Through the bond, something sharp and electric crackled between them. Aether looked at her, truly looked at her, and for a second, the prideful protector seemed utterly captivated by the shadow at his side.
We didn't have time to dwell on panther politics. A team of second-years materialized on a neighboring island only twenty yards away, their hands already raised to summon the tide against us.
Asher didn't even break a sweat. He leaned back against a surviving palm, his daggers spinning lazily in his grip.
"Oh, look, darling. A group of Tideris who think they’ve found a swimming pool. Someone should tell them I prefer my water in a glass with a cube of ice."
He didn't wait for them to respond. His shadows solidified into jagged harpoons that pierced through the tropical canopy to shred their water shields, while I used my fire to flash-boil the wave they were trying to build.
The resulting steam explosion sent them flying off their island and into the dark water, their names flaring red on the dome above.
"Refreshing," Asher remarked, checking his nails. "But I think they lacked form."
Across the channel, on a larger island dense with palms,
I saw them. Zaria and Maddy were locked in a dance with an ocean beast—a multi-tentacled horror. I watched in absolute wonder as Zaria—no, Nerida, the sea queen herself—dove straight into the churning surf.
A second later, the creature's neck snapped with a sound like a thunderclap from the inside out. She emerged from the foam like a vengeful goddess, her hair slicked back, her eyes glowing with a terrifying blue light.
"Gods," I whispered. "She's incredible."
"Focus, darling," Asher’s voice cut through my awe. "We've got company, and it looks like it hasn't had lunch."
A giant water lizard, its scales the color of drowned silt and its eyes a sickly, pale yellow, lunged from the surf and onto our sand. I threw a wall of white-hot flame at it, but the mist and the salt-heavy air dampened my magic instantly. My fire hissed and died against its slimy, wet hide.
The beast didn't slow down. It lashed out with a thick, muscular tail, sweeping Asher off his feet and sending him crashing into a coconut tree. Before he could recover, it lunged, its massive jaws clamping around his torso.
"Asher!"
He snarled, his shadows boiling around the lizard’s head, trying to blind it, but the creature was relentless. It started dragging him back toward the surf.
I didn't think. I launched.
I leaped onto the creature's back, my fingers digging into the gaps between its wet scales. I pulled my obsidian dagger and drove it deep into the soft tissue of its throat. With a scream of effort, I didn't just stab—I carved.
I rode the beast down as it thrashed, my blade opening a jagged, red canyon down its neck as as I slid down its body, slicing it open from chin to chest.
A torrent of hot, fishy blood erupted, soaking me from head to toe, dyeing my clothes and hair a gruesome crimson. The lizard gave one final, shuddering gasp and collapsed on the sand, releasing Asher.
I stood over the carcass, gasping for air, drenched in the lizard's lifeblood. Asher scrambled up, his chest heaving, his silver eyes dark as they tracked the blood dripping off my chin.
"Gods, you're a vision in red, my flame," he sent through the bond, the dark, naughty promise in his mental voice making my toes curl despite the freezing spray.
“Remind me to thank that lizard. The things I’m going to do to you when we make it out of these Trials... you won't be walking for a week.”
My face flushed hotter than the Fire Realm, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I opened my mouth to retort, to tell him exactly what I thought of his "thank you," but the air around us began to hum with the heavy, pressurized vibration of the transport runes.
"Time's up," Asher rasped, his hand finding mine and gripping it with a fierce, grounding strength.
I held on tight, the blood on my skin already beginning to cool in the rising wind of the warp. The tropical islands and the midnight sea dissolved into a smear of indigo and gold.
"Next round," I whispered, just as the world vanished entirely.