The bits of her armor rained down around her, along with the orb of storms that was now barely pulsing power, as if it had been drained just by being near the knights.
Finally, she hit something solid and stilled. She was on her back, the breath stolen from her lungs. Slowly, she opened her eyes—
And saw trees.Trees. She might have thought she had traveled to another world entirely, that her theory about the portal had been wrong, if it wasn’t for that strange swirling color of the sky, distinctive to this place.
Her entire body ached. As she took inventory to make sure nothing was broken, she sensed something strange about this forest—an energy of some kind. An old, deep-rooted ability. It circled her, as if in curiosity. She felt it like a finger stroking her cheek.
She tried to reach for it...but without a storm, she couldn’t. Somehow, Cronan must have put a sheen on this entire planet.
She stood. A voice sounded nearby. She whirled around—nothing.
There it was again, like someone had run past her, whispering directly in her ear but she couldn’t make out the words. She spun again, and this time, she saw something.
She saw—
Herself.
GRIM
There he was. The lost king was just a man sitting by himself at the bottom of the sea, far from any other prisoner. His back was to them, but Grim could see a flash of silver hair and luminous skin.
He was tied down not by one single chain but ten.
They snaked around his ankles, his wrists, his neck, his waist. Even so, he wasn’t fighting to get loose like the others. No, he seemed perfectly at peace, as if he hadn’t even noticed that he wasn’t drowning anymore.
This was him. Grim was sure of it.
They didn’t waste a moment. They hurried closer, and when Grim could finally get a look at him, he observed that unlike the other prisoners, he was perfectly intact. His skin had not pruned and decayed over time. Sea creatures had not burrowed into his hair and skin.
The man’s eyes, however, were open and unblinking—and missing their pupils. There was only swirling, misty white. His spine was straight. His legs were crossed in front of him. He made no indication that he knew he was no longer alone.
“How do we wake him?” Oro asked.
Grim shrugged and snatched the dagger from Oro’s hand. He trained it against the prisoner’s neck.
And the man’s eyes rolled down from the back of his head. His pupils were silver, gleaming. Otherworldly.
He looked up at Grim and seemed almost disappointed.
“It’s time, then?” he said in a voice that echoed along the tide-swept walls.
Grim frowned. “Time for what?”
“For my story to come to an end,” he said simply. He gazed past Grim, at Oro.
“Three kings. Reunited,” the man said, under his breath. He huffed a strange laugh. “I suppose it came true after all...”
“What did?” Oro demanded.
The man ignored the Sunling’s question. He seemed unconcerned by the blade Grim still had trained at his throat. He just groaned as he stood, as if he had been sitting for a long while, even though he must have been floating before, when the water hadn’t been swept away. He stretched his neck with a crack.
Grim finally threw the dagger down. He didn’t have time for riddles, or games. “We—”
“I know who you are,” the man said, matter-of-factly. “I’ve seen everything.”
Grim wondered how that was possible, when this bastard had been stuck sitting by himself beneath the ocean for who knows how many hundreds—or thousands—of years, then decided he actually didn’t give a fuck. He said, “Good. Then you know why we’re here.”
The man nodded. He looked them both over. “You want to reach her.”
