Page 30 of Stolen Magic of the Deep

She exhales a shaky breath, fists gripped tightly at her sides like armor.

“I am not asking you to believe in it. Not yet. Just look at the scroll. If Velmira is right, if you can actually read it, then we will finally have something solid. Real answers. And if nothing happens?” I offer an exiguous shrug. “Then you can relinquish the powers, go back home, and pretend like nothing ever happened.”

She does not speak, but I can feel tension shifting around her, like the ocean before a storm, pulsing with decisions yet to be made.

“Having powers does not define you,” I say. “But the choices you make? They will. For all of us. I wish you could do as we both wish and give up the powers so we can all move on with our lives. However, my kingdom cannot do this without you; we need you.” I lift my arm and hold out my hand—not pushing. Just waiting. “Let’s figure it out together, Snapdragon.”

thirteen

Sarah

Orion lingers across from me with an outstretched hand as he waits for me to take that final step toward the truth. But fear prickles beneath my skin.

What do I want? Do I want the truth?

I’ve spent my life chasing answers, digging through wreckage and the unknown, asking questions no one else dared. It was something Leo always said he admired about me. The fact that I never take no for an answer. And yet, now that one might be within reach . . . I’m frozen.

I hover at the threshold of the chamber we entered, leaning toward exiting. Half in, half out. Half believing, half bolting.

You could swim away. You should swim away. Get away from him—from this relentless, unspoken pull he has on me. Orion declares he needs me. Says he can’t save his kingdom without me. But I don’t owe him anything. None of this is mine. This entire mess with the scroll and the powers fell into my path by accident.

I wasn’t chosen. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it all sounds like utter madness.

Still . . . something gnaws at the edge of my doubt. Not trust. Not yet. More like curiosity. The same thing that’s driven every expedition and risk I’ve ever taken. The same curiosity that has brought me here.

I look at Orion, this maddening, mysterious king with the ocean in his eyes, and I realize I have to know.

Curse my need to always need answers to the unknown. Even if the truth breaks me.

My fingers twitch at my side. I reach forward and place my hand in his. It’s the first time we’ve touched, except for, of course, when he carried me here and to his kingdom. And somehow, this is also the first time I notice it.

His warmth.

The moment our skin connects, something shifts. Like a piece that’s been missing—quietly, painfully absent—is no longer gone. An emptiness that seemed to always trail behind me . . . feels whole again.

I don’t acknowledge it. Not aloud. This isn’t the time or place to unravel whatever that was.

I let go, abruptly, gliding past him, moving closer to the scroll. Whatever truth is waiting, I’ll face it on my own. Nothing has deterred me in the past; I definitely won’t let this scroll or anything else stop me from getting home.

The scroll rests atop a raised coral podium, torn at the edges and frayed like fabric left too long in the tides. Its surface, no longer pristine, is now warped and curling, the kelp-leaf thinned with age, despite the faint glimmers of magic that glow along the seams, possibly meant to preserve it.

I trail my fingers across its surface, the material deteriorating right before my eyes. Not just from time, but from something deeper. A quiet unraveling, like whatever once held it together is slowly bleeding out, dissolving under the pressure of the sea.

At the bottom, etched in fading silver, a symbol catches my eye: a three-pointed trident driven into stone, the tips facing downward. Power restrained. Violence paused.

Above it, there’s a message, one that feels like a confession. Or a warning? Maybe both.

I was young when I crossed the boundary between sea and shore. What I left behind there, I cannot undo. But I know this: magic tied to pain will only breed ruin. Should the day come when the mistakes of my youth return in flesh and fury, let this be the record. The magic will not answer to blood, but to worth. Not to anger, but to purpose. It will awaken only in part, for choice is not a one-sided rite—the chosen must also choose. Only when belief takes root will the magic rise in full. Let it choose one worthy and strong—not one born of vengeance and destruction.

The message presses into me like a truth I can feel in my bones before I can name it. I didn’t expect it to feel steady, willful, and impossible to ignore.

Another thing impossible to ignore? Orion. His silence is louder than words, pressed close behind me. I can feel him leaning in as he tries to read what I’m reading. Curiosity hums off him, taut and impatient, and the longer I stay quiet, the thinner his patience stretches. It slides down the back of my neck like warm wax drifting through water, pooling into my nerves. Each imagined drop is a quiet reminder to hurry up.

“Can you read it?” Orion’s voice breaks the silence, low and brushing the shell of my ear. I’ve been so focused on the warmth of his presence, on the way his nearness coils like a snake along my spine, that I don’t notice the internal whisper at first.

Accept me.

The words echo in the back of my mind, soft as breath against water. For a moment, I think it’s just my nerves. My fear. But it doesn’t sound like me. It spreads through my thoughts like a thread of music I can’t quite place, not spoken in sound but in sensation. It’s asking me to accept it. To believe in the impossible, and if I do . . . everything could change.