So we walk, hands clasped together, swerving around large stones in our path, past piles of what used to be buildings. There’s a headless statue lying on the seafloor, and a large decorative pot with a missing handle, bits of its once-vibrant paint still visible in spots. Predatory eyes flicker in the darkness beyond.
The wreckage strewn across the sand gets denser as we near the heart of the mysterious city. I squeeze Gin’s hand. As we get closer, I see that the buildings are pristine white, and not ruins at all—they’re actually in perfect condition, and appear to be lived in. Their surfaces pulse with light and color. They aren’t made of stone. They’re made of crystal, or some other kind of gem, like nothing I’ve ever seen. Like the relics. Something made of pure magic. A fairy-tale land. Except it’s real. All of it’s real, though I can hardly believe what I’m seeing. Then faces peek out from behind windows and around corners.
As impossible as it is, I realize then where we are. We’ve come upon something that should not exist anymore. This can only be the lost city. The Drowned City. The fallen kingdom. Somehow, it has survived.
Ophir.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURGIN
The people of the Drowned City emerge from the buildings, cautious at first, taking small, curious steps toward us. More follow, men and women and children, dressed in colorful tunics and dresses made from some kind of silky fabric I don’t recognize, until there’s a large crowd gathered in what appears to be the city’s common area. Shimmering water flows from a wide marble fountain, set in the middle of a great square, paved in glistening white stone and flanked by crystalline towers that soar upward; how high, I can’t tell. Around the square there are houses made of crystal, and others with wavy, sparkling walls that seem to be made of flowing water, somehow suspended in the air. There are flags waving from posts, and their patterns are familiar, then I realize I’ve seen them before in the Lashing.
We watch as a figure leaves one of the tall iridescent buildings and walks right onto a cloud. My chest seizes, except the person doesn’t fall. Then more follow. It isn’t a cloud, but a bridge. Or both. I look around—there are more cloud bridges connecting all the towers.
Neither of us move, except to gaze over the unbelievable sight, our mouths agape.
“Maybe wearedead?” Eban manages to whisper.
I shake my head, though, to be honest, I’m not convinced we aren’t. It’s all surreal. I even pinch my arm just to be sure.
There’s a commotion in the back of the crowd. People move aside. A woman wearing a floor-length, sleeveless white sheath gown walks through the makeshift aisle. She’s barefoot, and her hair is piled up in a mound of elaborate curls and braids. There are strings of the largest pearls I’ve ever seen around her neck and more around her wrists. Next to her is some kind of sea animal; it looks like a small dragon. It emits a braying sound like the one we heard before our boat capsized.
“Welcome to Ophir,” she says. “We’ve been waiting for you.” She turns to pet the small water dragon. “Thanks, Bastian, for bringing them.”
“Is that a bakuwana?” Eban asks. “My mother told me about them. That Ophir warriors used to ride water dragons in battle.”
“Indeed.” The woman smiles.
“Is this real?” I ask. “Are we dead?”
“This is a memory. The memory of our people that is kept alive in your bloodlines,” she replies.
“But where are we really?” I ask. “We were drowning. We should be dead.”
“You are safe above. Do not worry. But your minds are here in the Drowned City. In the Kingdom of Ophir, which lives on in the blood of its people.”
“Areyoudead, then?”
The woman smiles. “What is death when we live on in memory and in the lives of our children and our children’s children?”
“So this isn’t real. It’s just in our minds.”
She sighs. “Gineth Strong, just because it is only in your mind doesn’t mean it is not real.”
I stop arguing and Eban is silent, too.
Ophir is real. It lives in us.Then I notice something else—that Eban and I aren’t wearing the clothes we donned this morning. Instead I’m wearing a clean linen sheath with a multicolored shawl folded above my right shoulder. My hair is clean and washed and, like the woman’s, held up by a string of pearls and jewels.
Next to me, the street thief is gone, replaced by a man who could easily pass for a prince. Eban’s dark hair falls gracefully around his ears—no longer slicked back, or secured with a thin piece of tied leather. He stands taller, and more assured. I realize for the first time how handsome he is and I wonder why I didn’t notice before, maybe because he doesn’t look Laconian—we’ve been told that only Laconians are beautiful and we came to see ourselves as ugly in comparison. No one would mistake Eban for a Laconian lord, but he is handsome all the same.
Then I realize with a start that I don’t have the thing that’s most precious to me. The relic. It’s gone. It’s not in my pocket. It’s not anywhere. I look up, alarmed.
“You are looking for Tadhana,” she says.
“She’s gone. I lost her!” She must have fallen out when I was drowning.
“Do not fear. She is here. You will see her in time,” the woman says. “As she is part of the reason I’ve brought you here.”
“Because we have the relics,” Eban says.
