“This magic is so sudden, as if it were dormant and then just…”
I looked out to the sea. Nothing seemed amiss. But it was.
“You sense magic near?” Marek asked. “Maybe a pelagor? I’ve not seen one but?—”
“No.” I shook my head. “I can differentiate between different… types of magic. It is unlike any other I’ve ever sensed before. As if something…” I tried to grasp it once again, but the feeling was gone. “Awoke.”
It was the only way I could describe it.
Marek took the wheel. He could have used magic to steer the ship, but I understood why he did not. There was something comforting about it. A false sense of control, perhaps?
Moments ago, I’d have shoved him off the side of the ship, if I could have managed it, if for no other reason than verbalizing the truth. I had been jealous, unreasonably so. But it was uncharitable of him to say it, not that proper decorum was high on Marek’s list of attributes.
But now, the way he looked at me, his eyes full of concern… I could easily fall back into his arms, and that was precisely the problem.
“Mev,” I whispered.
Marek saw her at the same time as me, racing toward us with Kael on her heels. They scrambled up to the quarterdeck, which became quickly crowded.
“Lyra,” she blurted, “just whispered to me.”
“Out here?” I asked. Though skilled Aetherian whisperers could communicate the length of Elydor, it was still a surprise their whispers could travel across the sea.
She cupped both hands over her mouth, as if still processing what had happened. Moving them to her cheeks, Mev appeared as surprised as I was at the communication.
“Lyra was the first one to teach me how to whisper,” she said, dropping her hands. “Maybe that’s the reason… I don’t know.”
“Tell them,” Kael prompted.
“Rowan sent word to her, hoping she could get to me. He had a vision.”
I didn’t believe in coincidences. Though the feeling of a powerful, dormant, magic was gone, it must have been related.
“It was disjointed,” she said, lifting her hand into the air, as if not even realizing she was doing it. With one flick of her wrist, the sails caught a stronger wind andTidechasermoved more quickly through the water.
Marek and I exchanged a glance, likely thinking the same thing. Mev manipulated the air as if she’d been born in Elydor, raised to wield it.
“Mev… the Depths… they remember. Not safe. Not meant to be disturbed. Tell them.”
Kael cleared his throat. “I believe you left something out?”
She stared blankly at him, as if trying to remember. “Oh, yes.” Mev made a face, as if it were painful to repeat the next words. “A sacrifice must be made…”
She looked at Marek. We all did.
He shrugged. “I’ve no notion of what that means.”
“I felt something,” I said. “Just before you came up here. A magical presence unlike anything I’ve felt before.”
“Unlike anything?” Kael asked. “How so? Stronger?”
“Maybe,” I admitted, unsure how to put it into words. “But more than that. The awareness of it began differently. It was as if something… awoke from a slumber. It slammed into me, making its presence known, and as quickly as it came, it was gone.”
“A sea animal, perhaps?”
“I said the same,” Marek admitted as I shook my head.
“Wait.” Mev leaned against the rail, into Kael’s side. It was still strange to see him, my friend but always the stalwart Gyorian prince, this way. She had changed him. In a good way.
