“Help me,” I whispered, half dragging myself on the side without a blade in it.
The water started to rush around me in unusual swivels and swirls until it formed a barrier under me and pushed me along the rocks. When I was probably about halfway through the waterfall, a shadow fell over me, and I flinched.
“Maddi!” I hadn’t heard his voice in so long. For a second I thought I was dying and this was my last nirvana moment before darkness. Asher’s arms wrapped around me; he lifted me with ease. “Hang on, baby, I’ve got you.”
“My power,” I mumbled. “It will kill you.”
He shook his head. “Your power saved me. It broke my chains and restored my energy. And now I need to get you into the water; it will help.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. All I could do was continue to ride out my energy release, hoping like hell I wasn’t about to be exploded into a million pieces. Asher ran, ignoring the waterfall that still surrounded us. He might have had a shield, I had no idea, but whatever he was doing, he was not slow or weak any longer.
He pulled me closer, and the moment we burst from the falls he threw us into the rough ocean that surrounded the bridge. Water closed over our heads, tossing us around for a moment until Asher sank deeper. When we were completely engulfed, some of the echoing screams in my head faded. The pain was less intense, and my power release slowed. The water seemed to absorb my energy, lessening the fissuring of energy in my center.
Asher’s face came into view; he was watching me intently, like he was afraid to look away.
I felt the same way.
It was fucking insane, considering I was stabbed and bleeding power and fluids everywhere, but I moved to be closer to him. I pressed my lips to his. It was a need that went beyond normal hormones. I was driven by something I couldn’t explain. A primal force.
Fire erupted between us, not literally, but it felt like it could be. The energy exploded, crashing out in a visible wave, and then the world started to rumble around us. This time for real.
I pulled back from Asher, my eyes wide as I looked around.What the…?
This was either an underground earthquake or we’d done exactly what Shera wanted.
Atlantis was rising.
My power had finally stopped its insane eruption and was now swirling strongly inside of me, and as I registered this, I noticed something else:I was breathing underwater.No bubble over my mouth. No shield around my head. I was just breathing as if I was above the water, and it didn’t even seem weird to me.
Asher was doing the same thing, and I stopped to think if I’d noticed him do that before. Was it something all strong Atlantean bloodlines could do once they tapped into their powers?
The blade in my gut distracted me when it started to glow. The Atlantean symbols etched across it turned a shimmering aqua color, mixing with my blood.
Asher tugged on my hand, and I rose to the surface with him, both of us popping our heads up to see rocks sliding from the caves into the water. I coughed up water, my lungs expelling the liquid so I could breathe oxygen again.
Asher did the same.
“How?” I said when I could finally speak. “We can breathe water?”
Asher nodded. “Yes. It’s something I’ve kept secret for many years, because it’s not a power any Atlantean descendant has these days.”
Holy fuck.
“And that explosion when we kissed? The ground is still shaking?”
He tugged me so that we were moving through the choppy water toward the lowest cliff.
“I don’t know what that was,” he said, voice deep. “But we need to get out of here.”
He launched himself out of the water with ease, leaning over to pull me up, careful not to dislodge the blade.
“You’re going to have to pull it free,” I said when my feet hit the shaking ground.
Asher shook his head. “No, it’s Atlantean steel. The wound will bleed you out. I need to get you back to the Academy right now. The herbalism department has a special tincture that will remove the blade and clot the blood.”
“We’re hours away from the Academy,” I whispered. “I can’t have a blade sticking out my stomach until then.”
It was still hurting me, but it wasn’t as painful as it had been initially. My newly released power was acting like a balm, soothing some of the hurt away. Our attention was forced to the water then as Shera rose from it, and I wondered if she’d been down there searching for us. Or was she doing some other asshole thing under the water? Torturing sea creatures or something.
