“It worked,” she shrieked, her body hovering just above the water.
Asher pulled me closer, and I finally noticed that he was bleeding too. His wrists looked like they’d been rubbed raw from those manacles. I gently brushed my fingertips over them, and he tightened his hold on me.
Shera glided closer, her eyes darting between Asher and me. “It was both of you,” she whispered, looking freaky with her hair flying about her face. Her voice had that very deep tone to it again. “The blood of the god children.” She clucked her tongue. “Connor was right.”
Asher pushed me behind him, stepping toward her. “You’re not going to get a chance to find out.” His eyes flashed. “All this time you’ve been trying to break me, I learned of your weakness, Shera. It’s time for my mother’s body to rest with her ancestors.”
I stumbled as the ground rocked again and water started to pour into this area. Asher murmured two words. They sounded short and simple, but they were not familiar to me. Shera screamed the moment he spoke and tried to lower herself into the water again, but Asher held her immobile with his power. A red spot appeared in her chest, spreading across her skin, and she screamed as it consumed her.
I felt Jesse and Rone’s energy a moment before they reached us. They pressed close to my back. Rone’s eyes were black as he took in the blade still hilt-deep in my heaving stomach.
“Mads…” he said softly.
I wanted to reassure him I was okay, but I couldn’t look away from Asher and whatever he was doing to Shera. “Stop!” she screamed. “You need me. I’m the only one who can control hi—”
She was cut off, Asher’s power burning right through her. It was only when Asher stumbled forward that I realized he’d weakened himself greatly to take her out.
Shera exploded then in a puff of smoke and ash that drifted into the water below. “Is she gone?” I asked, watching the black mist.
Asher nodded. “Yes. The gods who take a vessel have one weakness. Atlantean fire. Funnily enough, it’s a spell that was lost to history long ago, no doubt a deliberate move on the part of Sonaris and the others, but it was here, etched on the wall. It’s taken me months to find the entrance and weeks to translate the words, but I finally figured it out last week.”
I could have cried with relief. We’d all made it just in time.
Asher watched me closely. “I was so weak by the time I did though, I didn’t think I’d get the chance to use it,” he murmured. “I’m glad you ignored my orders and came for me.”
“Yo,” Axl shouted from where he stood on the end of the barely visible bridge. “We got to get out of here. This entire place is about to be crushed under the water.”
Asher scooped me into his arms, somehow not jostling the dagger. The three of them sprinted, and over his shoulder, I watched as large chunks of rock fell, crashing into the rising water. I didn’t want to think about the consequences of what we’d done here—we’d initiated something to do with Atlantis. Maybe it was its rise, I didn’t know for sure, but it was definitely something.
Axl and Calen were waiting for us at the entrance, and Asher took the lead, leading us back along the pillared path. I tried not to think about the heat of his body pressing along mine. I focused on the fact I had a knife in my stomach. Nothing like a mortal wound to cool the hormones. I was also pretty sure it was the only thing keeping my power at bay, because the heat blazing in my center was starting to scare me, but it hadn’t done anything yet.
Asher moved down another cavern we hadn’t been in; it ended in a small circle of deep, dark water. “This is the way out,” Asher said. “It moves fast, and it’s best not to fight the currents. They’re magical portals that allow only Atlanteans to travel to the lost city.”
“What happens if you’re not Atlantean?” Calen asked.
Asher turned to him, and I could have cried as his lips quirked and those dimples came out to play. I’d missed them. “Exactly what you’re imagining.”
Calen flinched, and Axl let out a low whistle. “At least I can confirm that we all have Atlantean blood now.”
I groaned as Asher shifted, the burn of the blade increasing. Asher looked down with concern. “We need to move fast. The longer the steel absorbs her blood and power, the harder it will be to remove.”
He then stepped into the water hole, holding me close, and we were whooshed along the waterslide, taking us away from the secret caverns of Atlantis and back to the surface.
38
Because those slipstream entrances changed all the time, we ended up nowhere near our boat, which meant we could literally be miles from our vessel.
“There’s an island this way,” Asher said, pointing into the horizon. “I know there’s equipment there for us to get in touch with the Academy. They’ll open a step-through.”
My energy pulsed inside of me. I was so desperate to get back to my home that I imagined the building in my head. The stone and brick. The ivy-woven pillars and irregular weather patterns. I let myself go there for a moment, because I needed the comfort of home.
The heat spread, and I closed my eyes, too tired and sore to keep fighting.
“Uh, Mads…?” Jesse said, using a tone I hadn’t heard before.
I squinted one eye, not sure what I’d done.
A shimmery step-through was swirling just above the water’s surface. “Did you open that?” I asked, looking at Asher.
