13. 13
thirteen
Sarah
Orion lingers across from me with an outstretched hand as he waits for me to take that final step toward the truth. But fear prickles beneath my skin.
What do I want? Do I want the truth?
I’ve spent my life chasing answers, digging through wreckage and the unknown, asking questions no one else dared. It was something Leo always said he admired about me. The fact that I never take no for an answer. And yet, now that one might be within reach . . . I’m frozen.
I hover at the threshold of the chamber we entered, leaning toward exiting. Half in, half out. Half believing, half bolting.
You could swim away. You should swim away.
Get away from him—from this relentless, unspoken pull he has on me.
Orion declares he needs me. Says he can’t save his kingdom without me.
But I don’t owe him anything. None of this is mine.
This entire mess with the scroll and the powers fell into my path by accident.
I wasn’t chosen. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it all sounds like utter madness.
Still . . . something gnaws at the edge of my doubt. Not trust. Not yet. More like curiosity. The same thing that’s driven every expedition and risk I’ve ever taken. The same curiosity that has brought me here.
I look at Orion, this maddening, mysterious king with the ocean in his eyes, and I realize I have to know.
Curse my need to always need answers to the unknown. Even if the truth breaks me.
My fingers twitch at my side. I reach forward and place my hand in his. It’s the first time we’ve touched, except for, of course, when he carried me here and to his kingdom. And somehow, this is also the first time I notice it.
His warmth.
The moment our skin connects, something shifts. Like a piece that’s been missing—quietly, painfully absent—is no longer gone. An emptiness that seemed to always trail behind me . . . feels whole again.
I don’t acknowledge it. Not aloud. This isn’t the time or place to unravel whatever that was.
I let go, abruptly, gliding past him, moving closer to the scroll. Whatever truth is waiting, I’ll face it on my own. Nothing has deterred me in the past; I definitely won’t let this scroll or anything else stop me from getting home.
The scroll rests atop a raised coral podium, torn at the edges and frayed like fabric left too long in the tides. Its surface, no longer pristine, is now warped and curling, the kelp-leaf thinned with age, despite the faint glimmers of magic that glow along the seams, possibly meant to preserve it.
I trail my fingers across its surface, the material deteriorating right before my eyes. Not just from time, but from something deeper. A quiet unraveling, like whatever once held it together is slowly bleeding out, dissolving under the pressure of the sea.
At the bottom, etched in fading silver, a symbol catches my eye: a three-pointed trident driven into stone, the tips facing downward. Power restrained. Violence paused.
Above it, there’s a message, one that feels like a confession. Or a warning? Maybe both.
I was young when I crossed the boundary between sea and shore.
What I left behind there, I cannot undo.
But I know this: magic tied to pain will only breed ruin.
Should the day come when the mistakes of my youth return in flesh and fury, let this be the record.
The magic will not answer to blood, but to worth.
Not to anger, but to purpose. It will awaken only in part, for choice is not a one-sided rite—the chosen must also choose.
Only when belief takes root will the magic rise in full.
Let it choose one worthy and strong—not one born of vengeance and destruction.
The message presses into me like a truth I can feel in my bones before I can name it. I didn’t expect it to feel steady, willful, and impossible to ignore.
Another thing impossible to ignore? Orion.
His silence is louder than words, pressed close behind me.
I can feel him leaning in as he tries to read what I’m reading.
Curiosity hums off him, taut and impatient, and the longer I stay quiet, the thinner his patience stretches.
It slides down the back of my neck like warm wax drifting through water, pooling into my nerves.
Each imagined drop is a quiet reminder to hurry up.
“Can you read it?” Orion’s voice breaks the silence, low and brushing the shell of my ear. I’ve been so focused on the warmth of his presence, on the way his nearness coils like a snake along my spine, that I don’t notice the internal whisper at first.
Accept me.
The words echo in the back of my mind, soft as breath against water.
For a moment, I think it’s just my nerves.
My fear. But it doesn’t sound like me. It spreads through my thoughts like a thread of music I can’t quite place, not spoken in sound but in sensation.
It’s asking me to accept it. To believe in the impossible, and if I do . . . everything could change.
The voice started after the rift hit me—so faint I convinced myself it was only a dream.
It lingered at the edges of sleep, slipping away the moment morning came.
Now it doesn’t fade. It spoke the moment I finished reading the tattered scroll.
The timing is too precise to dismiss. It feels as if the magic woven into those worn lines recognized something in me .
. . and dragged this voice to the surface of my mind.
The mysterious riddle lady cuts in, her voice resonating through my thoughts. “Relaying the message is your choice, land-dweller. All truths will be revealed in due time. Trust one another, and all will be clear.”
That’s not ominous at all. Is she referencing Orion and me? Or speaking about the magic within? Or both? It is times like this when I wish I could take some Advil.
“I don’t have any experience with prophecies,” I mutter, eyes still downcast, focusing on the words before me, “but I’m pretty positive this isn’t one. It feels more like a confession . . . or a warning.”
There’s hesitation in my voice because I’m not entirely sure this message is even meant to be shared aloud. I turn slowly, facing Orion. And his . . . chiseled chest.
Freaking gargantuan ass. Great. Focus, Sarah.
I drag my gaze upward, slowly, and find his eyes.
They’re dark blue now, with a faint violet ring at the edges.
Almost like a storm waiting to break. He doesn’t move or speak.
He just watches me with the kind of stillness that makes the world feel quieter.
His shoulders are relaxed, but there’s some tension in the way his jaw ticks.
His hair shifts gently in the current, the ends curling ever so slightly, catching the dim glow of the room we’re in.
There’s something unsettling about how calm he seems. Leo's is the same way in moments of chaos.
On days when paperwork piled high and deadlines closed in, he'd swoop in without hesitation, before I could drown beneath it all.
He never expected gratitude. Never made me feel guilty for needing help.
He simply carried the weight until I could breathe again.
He always made the endless meetings with investors feel manageable, somehow turning impossible situations into problems with solutions.
The truest partner someone like me could have asked for.
If Leo were here right now, he'd panic first. He'd have a dozen questions about Velmira, and at least one very colorful comment about how Orion managed to become so unbelievably massive. But, once the shock wore off, he'd think it through. He always did. And somehow, he'd know exactly what to do.
“Alright. Here’s the deal. I’ll relay the message.” I lift my chin. “But I have questions.”
“Anything, Snapdragon,” Orion’s voice is steady, but his eyes reflect something else. Something desperate. As if he wants me to trust him. “I will share whatever you want to know.”
“Since the day this all happened to me,” I reveal slowly, “there’s been a voice—a man’s voice. At first, it only came to me in dreams. But . . .” I glance over my shoulder at the scroll, still open like some ancient wound. “It speaks to me even now.”
“A man’s voice?” Orion echoes, his expression tightening. “Velmira, what does this mean?”
I glance between the two of them. I thought Orion would have all the answers, but he looks as confused as I feel. Velmira tilts her head ever so slightly, her white eyes catching a glint of unseen magic.
“Magic speaks when young,” she says, her voice lilting like a song. “Tidelets will accept the magic within, becoming a part of them, at a young age.”
I blink at her, completely thrown. Tidelets?
Orion sees the confusion on my face and steps in.
“It is how we refer to young ones—those still growing, still being shaped by the tides. Similar to how land-dwellers speak of children or youth.” His voice is soft, careful, like he’s trying not to overwhelm me.
“Those who are gifted with magic usually do so early. But I have never heard of someone hearing a voice with theirs. But Virellan has few magic wielders as is, so is it safe to assume it could be a possibility?”
He angles his head toward Velmira without shifting the rest of his body.
Velmira speaks again, this time clearer. “Magic answers at its own free will. It can be unpredictable. No one will ever fully understand its reasons for choosing the ones it does.”
“So you’re basically saying,” I state, processing it all out loud, “the magic chose me for a reason?”
Velmira doesn’t answer.
I look back at Orion. “And it’s speaking to me now, outside of my dreams, because I know it chose me?”
“What exactly is it relaying to you?”
I stare at him, mouth open, ready to speak. But no words reach my lips.