A few minutes later, Hyllus breaches the water and swims toward us.
“Nothing on the south side of the lake,” he says, sounding as if he’s just gotten back from a stroll.
“You must’ve been under there for over twenty minutes!” Tira says, impressed.
“Big lungs.” He smiles humbly.
Now we’re all back, I tell them what I found.
“I think it’s there, under the waterfall. I discovered a stretch of stones wider than my arms’ width, much smoother than the rest of the lakebed, like someone moved the stones from somewhere else.”
“So what do we do next?” Ana asks. “Can Phaia break them apart to see if they’re sealing something up?”
“I could,” Phaia says. “But then the cave would fill with water, if it hasn’t been submerged already. And once we’re down there, we’ll need light, or we won’t be able to find anything.”
Ana straightens up. “Well, I can help with that.”
“Not without going underwater too,” I point out. I pull myself onto the shore, shaking off some of the droplets from my hair before striding around the side of the lake toward the waterfall.
“Where are you going?” Stratton asks.
“I know roughly where those stones are embedded into the side of this lake,” I call back. “So if thereisa cave behind them, I’m not diving to reach it.” I throw a smile over my shoulder, pleased with my idea. “I’m going todigfor it.”
It takes a few minutes to climb over to the other side of the waterfall, and I get soaked again in the process, but then I’m on the stretch of bank which I calculate is more or less above those stones.
“Tell them all to stay there,”I warn Ana across the mooring.“I don’t want anyone accidentally falling in.”
I crouch down to one knee as I place my hand against the earth. Contact isn’t essential for my geostri magic to work, but it does help me sense the ground I’m trying to split to feel out its layers and consistency.
The earth starts to rumble beneath my fingers. I can’t drain the whole lake, that’s beyond even me, but I don’t think this cave is so deep that I can’t crack the top off it like splitting the shell off a boiled egg.
A fissure opens up in front of me, beautifully deep, and I flood it with my magic. My power swirls downward, shoving the earth aside until it’s piling up either side of me in huge, dense mounds. The smell of fresh earth always clears my mind, and I inhale it into my lungs as the crack in front of me widens, stretching down into the darkness.
Eventually, when I’m about twenty feet deep, I hit bedrock. I expected this, of course, and am about to call Phaia over when something else tugs at my senses. I frown, climbing down into the hole, using my magic to shift little handholds into the earth. When I drop down the last few feet onto the exposed rock, I bend and place my hand flat against the stone.
It’s there, like the whiff of a scent on the breeze, or a snatch of melody. A low resonance of power seeping through the rock. I recognize it, having felt a similar magic when the scythe was cleaving my body from my soul.
It’sEthira’spower.
“It’s here!” I shout, unable to contain my excitement.
The others scramble over to my side of the lake as I climb back out of the crevice. I’m damp and mud-covered, but I’m grinning like a fool. We can actually do this.
“It’s down there?” Tira asks as she carefully peers over the edge of the hole. “Idon’t feel anything.”
“Me either, but maybe the captain’s more sensitive to it after his run-in with the scythe,” Phaia suggests.
“Can you split it open?” I ask the silver-haired soldier. The cave is carved into the bedrock—it’s solid stone, and my geostri magic only works on earth.
She squints down at the rock face. “As long as there’s a groove or crack to work with, then yes.”
It takes a few trips climbing down and back out of the hole, finding a suitable imperfection in the bedrock and then a collection of stones for Phaia to expand. The bedrock is thick, and it takes over an hour for her to pry the rock open one painstaking inch at a time, until the surface is littered with cracks and debris.
“One last push,” Stratton says to an exhausted Phaia. He lays a hand on her shoulder. “We’re nearly there.”
She nods, shoving her hair back from her face. Reaching out weary arms, she directs her magic once more down toward the rock. There’s a groan, like a huge beast awakening from under the earth, and then the rock collapses, crumbling down into a cavity beneath it—a cave.
“Ana,” I call over the sound of the falling rock.
