sixteen
Idreamtthatnight,the sort of dream unlike anything I’d ever dreamt before.
I fell asleep picturing those ghostly faces staring at me in the water, their mouths open as if asking for help. Wishing I could help them, but not understanding their needs. As I reached for them, I was pulled under the water, yanked in by slippery hands, dragged beneath the surface until I could no longer breathe.
But I wasn’t a spirit. I’d been dragged under, but unlike them I was a mortal. I could feel the coolness of the water, feel the burning in my lungs, hear the whispers of voices around me. I promised myself it was just a dream.
But even in my sleep, even as I inhaled that first lungful of water, I knew this wasn’t a dream. It may have started as one, but it wasn’t a figment of my imagination any longer. It was real. The third trial.The waters had come for me while I slept.
I blinked my eyes in an attempt to wake, but all I could see was murky blackness. My hair fell in damp strings around my face. I was fighting a kraken all over again, except this time there wasno kraken. I didn’t know what was pulling me underwater. There was no physical enemy. This was all supposed to be a dream.
I didn’t have long before I ran out of oxygen. It took everything in me not to panic. Finally, my feet hit a sandy bottom. Wisps of seaweed tugged at my ankles. As my feet touched the ground, I remembered what I’d learned in my last trials.
Calm. Grounded. Breathe.
I couldn’t exactly focus on the breathing, but I could work on the grounding. Water was good for my powers, it strengthened them. I knew how to ground myself now. If I could pair the two together, maybe I stood a chance at surviving this trial.
I sank my toes into the sand and pushed the panic as far out of my head as I could manage. I focused on the vibrations of the earth through the sand, the water coursing around the granules, over my bare skin. When I opened my eyes, I could see the faint glow as my powers began to activate. My oxygen was running low, but my powers were reacting.
I needed a breath. I wouldn’t be able to reach the surface in time, so I needed tomakeair available down here. I focused on pushing the water away from my head first. Just like I’d pulled dewdrops toward me to form a ball, I now repelled them.
I made myself enough space—a little bubble around my head where I could finally breathe. I coughed up a lungful of water as I focused on inhaling and exhaling into the little space I’d created beneath the surface of the water. As panic threatened to take over, I centered myself, grounding into the feeling of the earth at my toes, the water brushing my hands.
When I looked down, I saw my entire body was starting to glow. I was outlined, like someone had taken a highlighter around the curves of my body. I was accessing my magic. It was working.
I focused on staying still. Staying grounded. Keeping a breathing bubble around my head. Then, once that washumming along steadily, I took stock of my surroundings. I was at the bottom of a very deep body of water. Deeper than the swimming hole where the kraken attacked me. This was different—like when I’d destroyed the salt crystals at the bottom of Lake Superior.
That’s exactly what it felt like. And that’s when I saw it: a salt crystal.
I shook my head in confusion. I’d already destroyed all seven of the salt crystals at the bottom of Lake Superior, the ones responsible for keeping the wards running. The ones that had been powering the curse. I’d plunged my dagger into them and unlocked them, breaking the magic free and releasing the ancient wards.
At the time, I thought I’d done it alone, with only Silas’s help. Now, I realized that I’d probably had the help of my ancestors as well. I just hadn’t known it at the time. But why was I back here, repeating history? Why did this moment look exactly the same as moments I’d already lived?
I started when I realized I actually had the dagger in my hand. I hadn’t been holding it when I’d fallen asleep, but it was here now in an eerie replay of those former moments. The only thing missing was Silas. Was that my test? To see if I could do it alone?
I bent to insert the knife into the salt crystal, but the more I focused on the crystal, the faster the water crept back in around me. I was fully engulfed by the time I reached my knees, unable to breathe once more. Unable to see the crystal before me.
I paused. Recentered. Started from scratch.
I focused on the water molecules, pulling them apart, making space to breathe. Deep, steadying breaths. I grounded myself again, let my hands sink into the soft sand, rebuilt the bubble around my head. This time, I knelt slowly before the crystal, focusing on giving myself the air I needed to continue breathing.
I remembered needing to speak to the crystal before—how it had revealed the keyhole to open the dagger. In retrospect, I was sure this was the part my ancestors had helped with. For all I know, I’d borrowed their senses to speak in ancient Fae so that the wards would react to me. To the newest Fae Queen.
I tried it now, speaking to the crystal. But this time, nothing happened.
Last time, I’d been desperate. The Isle had been counting on my being able to destroy the crystals to survive. That sheer hopelessness had probably opened channels to my ancestors that I couldn’t open now. I hadn’t finished the third trial yet, and they couldn’t help me now. Not yet, not until I completely opened those channels.
When in doubt, in my training, Seer Goddard always made me start with the basics. Sit. Breathe. Earth, water, air. Earth, water, air in one whirling sphere.
It was the only thing I could think of to do. Start from the beginning.
I stood, lifting up the sand, the earth, whirling it around me in a sphere that gave me the space to breathe. As soon as the rock swirled around me, I focused on the water—pushing the droplets back until they encased the layer of rock. Then I pushed out the rest of the air until I sat in an orb of spinning earth, water, and air. Just like I’d practiced on land, but on a much larger scale, all moving in perfect harmony.
When I glanced down at my feet, the salt crystal was glowing.
“Please help,” I whispered to my ancestors. “I’ve done all I can.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, the same keyhole appeared as before. I knelt without waiting a beat, sliding the dagger inside while balancing the swirling forces around me. I yanked as hard as my arms would let me. There was a click, and the next moment—I sat bolt upright in bed.
