I try to picture a home, my mother waiting for me in our tiny little cottage. But after all I have been through, the image feels far less like a home than it once did. “I’ll figure something out.”
“What about the ring?”
I glance down at it. “I haven’t decided.”
Truth is, I’m trying very hard not to think about it at all.
It takes several hours of solemn trekking to get back to the room with the pedestal. When we finally arrive, I hand over the ring to Cygnus.
“You don’t want to do the honors?” he asks.
“I did the blood,” I answer. “This one’s all you.”
Cygnus approaches the stone table and carefully lays the ring in the divot. Then he steps back and widens his stance, waiting. I do the same.
Nothing happens for a moment, and I wonder if I somehow misinterpreted the clue. But then the floor begins to shake, and the cave rumbles around us as the great stone doors part.
Light floods my vision.
I yelp, shading my eyes, as the entrance widens and the light pours out over us. When the rumbling stops, I remove my hand,blinking frantically to adjust my vision. Then the confusion sets in, as I cannot make sense of what I see.
We appear to be standing in the midst of a wasteland. The ground beneath us is white and gray, as is the sky that yawns above us, defying logic. There are no clouds, but no sun, either. The immense light seems to radiate from nothing at all; it is a part of this space with no clear origin, like the air and earth.
Cygnus and I walk tentatively forward, and the ground crunches beneath my feet. It cracks and peels in huge flakes, like the riverbeds in the Ironwoods at the end of a long, dry summer. Ahead lies a lake. Beyond it, a ridge of mountains, the same pale bluish gray. And faintly outlined against the water, so still that I nearly miss it, a figure stands on the lake.
“What do you think it is?” Cygnus asks quietly. “Another statue?”
“I have no idea.”
We exchange glances. There is nothing else to say. It is clear which direction we need to move.
Forward.
He takes the lead, and I follow trepidatiously. I grip my father’s dagger, savoring the warmth of the metal. My fingers trace the rose on its handle, the ridges that are as familiar to me as the calluses on my own hands.
As we approach the lake, the figure on the water stands still. Eerily so. Cygnus and I come to the water’s edge, and I hesitate. I still can’t make out a face, only dark robes, limp hair, and a slumped, clouded countenance.
“What now?” I ask.
Cygnus offers, “Swim, I guess?”
I try to stick a toe into the water. Only it isn’t water at all—or at least, it doesn’t have the appropriate properties—because my foot doesn’t break through the surface. It hits something solid instead. Confused, I try again and meet the same result.
Beside me, Cygnus has a similar experience. He turns to me, puzzled, and suggests, “I think…I think we’re supposed to walk on it.”
Ominous energy hangs over this place. When I gaze down into the water, I don’t see my reflection; the water glows from within, swirling in the same way the Everwillow portal did, the same way I imagine my magic swirls in me now.
I look back toward the figure, who still hasn’t moved. Feeling deeply apprehensive, I counter with: “What if it’s a trap?”
“Hasn’t this whole thing been a trap?” he grunts.
“Fair enough.”
I follow Cygnus a dozen or so paces onto the water.
As we approach the figure, their features gradually come into view until I am certain the person I am looking at is female—and she is not made of stone. She is very real. Hair drapes in oily sheets around a haggard face. She is Elven; her ears are prominent, sticking out from the strands of hair that cling to her like seaweed. She wears dark robes and is pale, deathly pale, her pallor more resembling that of a corpse than a living being. She stands about my height, so thin she looks skeletal. Her green eyes are deathlessly cruel.
Cygnus’s voice cracks. “Lyria, I think that’s…”
