Rayna’s teeth were already chattering, and she held out one hand to test the water, then yanked it back. “Snowmelt,” she said, shivering. “Anders, I don’t think I can go in there. I already feel like I’m thinking at half speed, and if I get soaked to the bone going through the water...”
Her voice was a mix of upset and apology, and she turned away, walking a few steps, then swinging abruptly back toward them. “I could do it if I could breathe icefire,” she said through gritted teeth.
“You’ll figure it out,” he said, aware of just how unhelpful he’d found those words, when he’d been the one who couldn’t throw an ice spear.
“I’m trying so hard!” Rayna’s frustration burst to the surface. “I’ve tried so many times, before you came and since. And it just doesn’t happen, nothing comes! If I could throw it I’d be some use if there’s a fight, and I’d be able to walk through the waterfall with you right now, and...”
She trailed off, and he wrapped his arms around her without thinking, squeezing her in a hug. He couldn’t remember Raynaeversaying this before—that she couldn’t do something.And I’d probably have panicked if she had, he admitted to himself. But now, he felt surer.
“It will show up,” he promised, hoping he was right.
“What if it doesn’t? What if I can’t do it?” she whispered.
Lisabet answered, her tone as matter-of-fact as if she was reading from a book. “Of course you can,” she said.
Anders and Rayna both looked across at her, Rayna sniffing inside the circle of his arms.
Lisabet shrugged. “You inherited the ability to transform,” she said. “If you were going to be a regular human, that’s what you’d be. But you’re a dragon. And a dragon who coincidentally can’t breathe fire, the same way Anders couldn’t throw ice? Your gift is in there, Rayna. It’s just taking its time to show.”
Rayna was quiet, and then she nodded. “I guess it’ll show,” she murmured, sounding a little more certain than she had before. “I just wish it would hurry up. We don’t have time to waste.” Then, as she always did, she turned purposeful. “You should both go,” she said.
Anders gave her a squeeze and stepped back. “If anyone wakes up and wonders where we are, just say we went running. Wolves prefer to be awake at night anyway, Leif will know that.”
She nodded. “Good luck,” she said, stepping back into the dark and turning for camp.
Anders and Lisabet watched her go, then turned back toward the waterfall, staring up at it. “This is going to be cold, even for us,” Lisabet said. “Howdoesyour new thing with the heat and cold work?”
“The heat doesn’t bother me the way it used to,” he said. “I still get hot, but it doesn’t make me feel slow and awful. Sometimes it even feels nice. The cold always feels good.”
“Well, even we can still get too cold,” Lisabet said. “So let’s be quick. We’ll have to hope there’s some kind of ledge behind the water, somewhere we can walk along. If we have to walkthroughthe water for long, we’ll be swept down into the lake.”
“Let’s try the lowest level first,” Anders said. “Then we can try the next one up if we have to.”
They slipped into wolf form, both full of energy, brought alive by the freezing-cold spray on the air—it felt like breathing in cold itself, and aches and pains and slowness Anders hadn’t even known he was feeling slipped delightfully away.
He was a little taller than Lisabet in wolf form, just as he was in human form, so he went first. He approached the edge of the waterfall slowly, peering through the torrent to try and see if there was anything behind it. He needed a ledge, or even a cave, so the waterfall didn’t knock him down into the lake. If they were right, and this was where the next piece of the scepter was hidden, then there had to besomethingbehind the water. The riddle said he had to go through. He couldn’t tell, and after a long moment’s hesitation he simply plunged in.
There was no ledge behind it.
His claws scraped against slippery, mossy stone, and the water landed on him like a pile of rocks, shoving him straight down into the lake. He banged his side against the steep, jagged stone on the way down, and then the force of the water falling from above was pushing him down, down, down. Icy water was wrapping around his lungs, and without the sun above him, he had no way of knowing which way was up and which was down.
He desperately held his breath, lungs burning, and swam as hard as he could, hoping against hope he was heading for the surface. Then his throat clamped and closed, forcing his mouth open to drag in a lungful that was half water, half air. He coughed and spluttered, but his next breath was more air and less water, and as he blinked his eyes, treading water with flailing limbs, he realized he’d found the surface.
Lisabet had jumped in after him and was just swimming up, ears pricked forward, worry all over her face.She lifted her muzzle in a gesture he instantly understood.Swim for the other side.
He wasn’t sure why she wanted him to head over there, but he obediently turned and struck out for the far shore—it wasn’t so far to swim, just a little way from the base of the waterfall. Farther out, the lake got much wider. He was still coughing as he dragged himself up onto the rocky shore, water streaming from his sodden coat, tail clamped between his legs.
Lisabet climbed up beside him and they each gave themselves a shake, shedding a little of the water.No ledge?she asked.
No ledge, he confirmed.Maybe from this side?
That’s what I was hoping, she agreed.
They were both considerably slower and more careful as they explored this side, but this time they didn’t have to poke their heads through the water to be sure there was no space behind the waterfall. They’d have to try farther up.
The incline next to the waterfall was so steep as to be nearly a cliff, rough and rocky, tufts of determined grass clinging to it. But as Anders scrambled up the first few feet, sinking his claws into every available handhold, he found a thick, glossy green vine hanging down from somewhere above. He didn’t remember seeing it during the day—it must have blended into the cliff. He grabbed a mouthful of it to help pull himself up, and then nearly let go in surprise. All up and down the vine, tiny lights had come alive in response to his touch—little white flowers no larger than a pea, unfurling their petals and seeming to reflect the moonlight back at the sky, undulating slowly, as if they were underwater.
He climbed very carefully past them and heard Lisabet whine her surprise as she came up behind him. They followed the path of moonflowers up two tall layers of rock, and Anders felt his excitement building. He’d never seen these moonflowers before, or even heard a whisper of something like them. Could this be something Flic had taught to live here?
