I arch a brow at him. “Fill it with water, and it’ll drop like rain?”
Fabien steps forward, eyes narrowed, locked on the pillar like he’s dissecting it. “Water’s too simple,” he says, voice clipped. “Look at the pool beneath us—it’s already part of this whole mess. Her domain, the sea goddess’s mark. She’d hardly call water ‘common.’”
“Air?” Zayan offers, though the doubt lingers in his voice. “She doesn’t own it. Everyone needs it. You can fill a space with it, technically…”
“Not this,” I mutter. My frustration spikes again, and I turn the phrase over in my head. “What’s common, yet claimed…?”
Vinicola’s voice breaks in again, tentative. “There’s a lot of sand here…”
“Yes, we all see that,” Zayan snaps, shooting him an irritated glance as he resumes pacing, kicking at the sand with each step.
But then Vinicola’s voice rises again, louder, more insistent. “No, it is the sand,” he says, conviction settling in his tone. “Think about it. It’s everywhere. We claim it. And if you fill something with sand…”
I stop, turning to look at him, considering. The pillar is hollow; we’d all seen that. And as absurd as it sounds, he might be onto something. I glance at Fabien, and then Zayan, catching the spark of realization flashing in their eyes. All three of us face Vinicola, a look of unexpected agreement passing between us.
“So, sand…” I say, skeptical but curious. “It’s under the sea, Vinicola. Wouldn’t that make it hers?”
Vinicola shrugs, but he’s got that earnest glint, the one that says he thinks he’s stumbled upon something big. “But think about it—sand is everywhere. It’s what we walk on, what we ignore, but it fills every gap, slips through every crack. It can fall like rain if you drop it. It’s common, ours by habit, maybe, but something we claim as our own. Likeshedoesn’t have a say over it.”
I glance down, kicking at the sand below my boots, watching it scatter in the sunlight. Miles of it stretch out in all directions, an endless, golden expanse. And for a moment, the sea feels… far off, distant, like a memory just beyond reach.
“Hold on,” I mutter, frowning as a strange prickling sensation spreads through my chest. “Does it seem like there’s… more sand than when we got here?”
The others look around, eyes narrowing as they take in the landscape. Sure enough, the line where the sea once hugged the shore has shifted, creeping back, as if the ocean’s decided to take a few steps away.
“Is the shore… stretching?” I ask, that prickling sensation sinking into something colder.
Zayan’s eyes narrow as he follows my gaze. “You’re right. The water’s pulling back. There’s a hell of a lot more sand now.”
A cold sweat breaks out along my neck.
Vinicola, wide-eyed, stammers out, “Please, don’t tell me this is one of those things where you try running to the water and never get there, like it just keeps… stretching.” His voice drops, and he clamps his fist against his mouth.
I force myself to shake off the dread creeping up my spine. Letting Vinicola’s fear sink into me is about the last thing I need right now. It’s just sand. Endless stretches of it, sure, but still sand. Not some mystical trap… right?
But here, where reason feels like a suggestion and not a rule, where the Lady’s influence warps reality like clay, the impossible feels less… impossible.
She could trap us here for as long as she pleases.
Fuck.
Suddenly, Zayan drops into a crouch, digging his fingers into the sand. “Look at this,” he mutters, swiping away sand to reveal a dense stone block, half-buried and smooth as bone.
I stop dead, watching the unease in my gut crawl into something sharper. This is no time to start poking around, yet, seeing the object clutched in Zayan’s hands, I can’t shake the feeling thatthis—whatever it is—demands our attention.
“It looks like… a stone cube,” Vinicola breathes, fidgeting as he inches closer.
Zayan lifts the cube, holding it up, and I can see his muscles tense with its weight. The thing’s heavy, denser than it looks, smooth, and utterly blank. No markings. Just a chunk of deadweight stone.
Something about it is off, though.
Fabien steps closer, brow furrowed as he reaches out. “I’ve seen something like this in old journals on the Trials,” he says, tracing his fingers over the surface. “It’s a mechanism. Think of it like a chest—there’s a lid we’re supposed to pry off.”
With a grunt, Fabien runs his thumb along the stone’s edge until he finds a thin seam, pulling the top open with a crack. Inside, nestled like relics, are four seashells, identical in size, each peppered with tiny holes along its length.
Fabien reads aloud the inscription on the lid, “One for each.”
Four shells. Four of us. I don’t like the symmetry of it.
