The doorframe glowed with opalescent light and swung open. Only swirling darkness greeted the immortals from within, as if they’d reached the world’s edge. Tethys skimmed her fingers through the curtain of shadow.
A steady calm settled over her as she watched the air within react to her presence. It slithered around her wrist, like vines creeping up a garden trestle. She knew she should be terrified, should turn her back on the Rift and guide her siblings to the surface level.
But the darkness embraced her like an old friend. She took a step, somehow knowing it would hold her weight above the cavernous void below.
“I don’t like this, sister,” Polaris hissed, grasping Tethys’s wrist before she could cross the threshold.
“It’s okay,” she said, tossing a reassuring glance over her shoulder. Polaris’s grip loosened but didn’t let go. “Trust me.”
“Just…be careful, please,” Polaris begged, caution etched across her pale face.
“Keep watch and be ready to reinforce Altair’s wards. We don’t know what might try to escape,” Tethys replied. The shadows around her boots parted, revealing a sharp obsidian floor as she crossed the threshold fully. Silenceblanketed the space, muffling her siblings’ voices. Only ripples of whispers called to her now, beckoning deeper into the Rift.
A part of herself hoped in crossing the threshold, perhaps her magic would finally manifest. Tethys failed to ignore the sudden search for any physical signs of the manifestation, but none came. Her body felt sluggish and heavy, but there was no rush of feeling through her veins or immortal warmth heating her core. She swallowed, locking down her disappointment. Maybe Eos was wrong about her connection to it. The gate between worlds, now wide open, still left her powerless.
Let that be for another day.
Eos’s orb heated in her pocket, projecting a faint glow from the heavy woolen fabric. She retrieved it with trembling hands. The gemstone, now vibrant in the darkness, projected silvery light around her, carving a fragile path through the void. The shadows bent to its light, recoiling around her as she outstretched her wrist and followed the beacon.
“Eos…” Tethys whispered, her mother’s name barely audible under the fog of silence. The Rift was alive, its walls of swirling black churned like storm-tossed waves. Her boots gripped the floor, squealing across it, as she plunged further into darkness.
Had she been walking for a minute or eternity? Time ebbed and flowed around her, lost to the vapid whispers emulating from every direction. Was it the echo of her own footfalls or something else moving in the dark?
The orb flared suddenly. Tethys trekked further and further, following the orb’s guide. Darkness faded into light, and she realized she’d been inside some sort of cavern. Brilliant greens and blues lit the distant exit, guiding Tethys forward.
Reaching the exit, she squinted, her eyes adjusting, and scanned the horizon. The orb had brought her to avast field of nursery grass and wildflowers. Aster and coneflower rustled in a warm breeze, sending petals and pollen scattering across rolling hills and glorious blue horizons.
This place was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. It wasn’t just the mesmerizing beauty or the vast open space that stole her breath, though. The air here feltalive. Like the winds were its breaths. The ground beneath her expanded and retracted like inhaling lungs.
She traversed the field, letting dew-damp blades of grass lick her ankles with each stride. The orb dimmed, but Tethys didn’t need its guiding light. Somehow she knew which path to take. Maybe it was some long lost memory, or perhaps the Rift whispered in her ear, pointing the way, but regardless she put one foot in front of the other and kept going.
In the lee of the hill was a group of small figures. Her heartbeat thrummed as she followed the sloping trail toward them. She didn’t have to see them clearly to know these were the missing children.
“Hey,” she called. “It’s okay. I’m here to take you home.”
A boy, barely over eight, sat clutching his knees, his face pale and streaked with salt-dried tears. Beside him was a girl with flaming red hair, the oldest of the group, her hands laced together in her lap. She couldn’t have been a day over ten whilst the youngest, barely a toddler, clung to the girl’s shirt with fear flashing in his little eyes.
“Let’s be quick,” Tethys said, gesturing toward the path she’d come down.
“Goddess?” the oldest said, her dirty brow etched with trepidation. “Is it truly you?”
Tethys smiled and grasped her hand. It was so frail and colder than ice. “Yes, sweet girl. What’s your name?”
“Helen,” she replied, her voice hoarse.
“Helen…” Tethys’s heart lurched. “I know your mother.”
“You do?” Helen asked, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“Yes, she told me to give you this.” From her pocket, Tethys retrieved the tonic Leda gave her so many months ago. “I need you to be brave now, because I promised her I’d bring you home. Can you help me guide the others?” Tethys gestured to the group. Misty shadows slithered across the grove.
The orb flared to life, circling the group in silvery light. Tethys’s breath caught as the shadows crashed around the circle, like silent waves against the shore.
Helen nodded and sipped the tonic.
“Okay, great. We’ve got to be quick.” Tethys hushed the other children’s quiet sobs, her heart splitting at their shallow cheeks and blanched faces.
She took the toddler from Helen and tucked his little head into her cloak. His small frame against her calmed the storm now raging through her chest, and she thought of her own little light, merely kicks and movements here and there.
