Drip.
Something wet splashed on Sorian’s face and rolled off. The sound of gentle patter and whistling wind filled his ears, rhythmic and echoing. A drop struck his eyelid, and he lifted a hand to wipe it away—only to be stopped by a metallic clang. He was seated, hunching slightly with his back to the wall. Craning his neck, Sorian peeked down and saw his wrists bound with grey cuffs glowing a soft orange, the chain bolted to the ground between his legs in front of him.
The sound of feet scraping on stone alerted him to the other two figures to his left and right, but their faces were obscured by shadow. Alea and Cillian stretched sore muscles and slowly came awake, looking around with a similar confusion and testing their restraints.
“Alea…” Sorian rasped. “Are…are you okay?”
“Swell.”
“Is anything hurt?”
“Just my entire body and heart.”
“Aside from that.”
Cillian inhaled sharply. “I’m okay too, if anyone was wondering.”
They were seated in an open cave fissure, with their backs to the walls facing a long, dark corridor of stone. The maw of the canyon. The tan rock had been buffed down over the years and was smooth the entire twelve feet up, providing no vines or footholds to climb out with.
Rain pattered on Sorian’s face as thunder boomed closer with every drop.
“That storm is getting closer. Very quickly. And we won’t want to be here when the rain comes.”
“Can anyone Wield at all?” Cillian asked, noisily heaving his chains. “The cuffs are infused with Green that is pushing away my Red.”
The sinister Red glow illuminated Alea’s face as she shook her head. The rain started getting heavier, followed by a trickling sound coming from down the cave and Sorian’s pants sticking to his legs as water slowly covered the ground. As he banged around his restraints, Sorian felt the chain around his wrist come undone and the small wooden chess piece fell out of his sleeve and plunked down in the water.
“I might be able to try something…”
“What are you going to do?” Alea asked.
He used his head to indicate his wrist. “Last time, this knocked you off your feet. Might push the cuffs off.”
“You’ll completely mangle your hands!”
“Better than dying in the dark.”
He had to manoeuvre his wrist awkwardly, but managed to close his hand around the small wooden Rook piece. Then, thinking back to his encounter with the Antipas Guard, he spoke the phrase. Nothing happened. So he scrunched up his face and clenched his hands harder and spoke again, this time just below a shout.
“Obey my authority!”
Cillian’s jaw fell open. The water around Sorian began to vibrate and ripple, then push outward, like he was blowing it away, only no wind could be felt. He began to rise off the ground before the chains pulled taut with a clank, and his clothes ruffled as they were blowing away from his skin.
He fumbled with the cuffs, straining as the orange glow flickered wildly and went out. He mentally reached out to his Blue, but the magic danced around his fingertips as though greased, being pushed just beyond reach. As his vision began to blacken and stars appear, he released his grip on the piece of wood in his hand and landed with a small splash. The water—now a hand-span deep— sloshed back and submerged his legs.
“I can’t use my Blue while this is active,” Sorian said, panting heavily. “It’s like the Rook and my Blue repel each other—like oil and water.”
“You can push away Shades? How?” Cillian asked incredulously. “You — you, that’s…you…should not be able to use that power.”
Lightning flashed as rain poured in sheets, the tunnel flooding faster by the second. Alea hoisted on her chains frantically, kicking her legs and barely containing a scream.
“Can you push the Green off my cuffs?” Cillian sputtered. “If I can use Red, I can melt the chains off.”
“I’ll try.”
He closed his hand around the Rook, and, closing his eyes, said: “Obey my authority.”
The surface of the water trembled and surged away as if commanded. The rain rolled off an unseen barrier and gave the impression of an invisible sphere pushing outward from Sorian’s body. Sorian reached out as hard as he could, directing the force to Cillian. The Green glow surrounding his cuffs danced away until it winked out. Another loud bang sounded above, and a tree landed on the small opening to the cave, plunging them into nearly pitch dark.
Cillian gasped, closing his hands around the clasp and exploded with fierce Red light. The dark metal cuffs started to glow red, then orange, and the air above started to warp and shimmer from the heat. Cillian gave them two good tugs and the cuffs snapped off, falling into the knee-deep water with a hiss and a puff of steam.
He surged to his feet, stretching his taut muscles and not releasing the Red from his hands.
“Now cut ours away,” Sorian said, falling back into the water. “Quickly!”
Cillian stood, looking down upon his helpless prey. The water was up to their chests. It would be easy, he thought selfishly. He’s defenceless and restrained. I could kill the girl and be on my way to Khyria. I could save Talia. I could.
Cillian’s hand drifted toward Alea’s face of its own accord, magic coiling off his fingertips like red smoke. His eyes locked with Sorian’s—saw the rage simmering beneath the surface. Rain hissed against the flames in his palm before he moved sharply, and Alea’s cuff glowed red-hot, cracked, and plunged into the water with a sizzle.
Sorian sat, hands out, eerily calm in the storm. As the cuff fell, he lunged, grabbing Cillian by the throat and shoving his head underwater.
“You were about to—!” He roared.
They thrashed around, and the water began to steam as Cillian very nearly blasted a hole through Sorian’s chest before a slab of hard air slid between and forced them apart.
“Now is not the time. You may kill each other another day. But today, we must survive.”
Sorian opened his mouth to object, but one look at Alea and he was silenced. He couldn’t take his gaze away from her. It wasn’t the lighting. He had looked into her eyes a thousand by a thousand times, and never once had they looked like that. So cold. So…unfamiliar.
Before he could speak, Alea’s voice cut through the chaos.
“This way,” she said, unnervingly calm, already climbing with impossible precision. The storm raged louder, thunder growling through the canyon. Sheets of rain hammered down, cascading from jagged walls onto Sorian’s soaked shoulders. “This way!” Alea’s voice rang out again, cutting through the chaos. She didn’t look back.
The canyon floor was uneven, hidden beneath the churning water that now reached Sorian’s waist. The walls were so narrow at points that Sorian had to bend down and squeeze through on his side. He couldn’t see where he was stepping, every forward step a gamble. “Alea, slow down!” he shouted. “How do you know where to go?”
She pressed on. Each of her steps was precise and calculated, as if guided by some unseen force. The light from Cillian’s Red flickered behind him, casting long, warped shadows on the slick stone, and Sorian increased his pace to catch up to her, but a piece of underwater debris struck his foot, and he slipped.
He pitched forward, his raw fingernails scrabbling for grip on the smooth walls as he plunged under. Frigid water engulfed him, blanking his mind. The current hammered his chest, while debris struck his face.
Not like this.
His lungs burned, his screams swallowed by the icy depths. Clawing blindly, his fingers scraped slick moss and stone, each grasp more desperate than the last as the current crushed him. Above, a hand grabbed his collar and heaved. Sorian broke the surface and gulped down as much air as possible, coughing out the foul mineral taste of canyon water, and desperately wiping his eyes. Cillian released him with a grunt, and the dull Red illuminated his furious face.
“Get it together!” He barked, his voice sharp but cracking at the edges.
Sorian nodded, unable to form the words to respond, and continued walking forward. Alea was ten paces ahead, only visible by the strobing flash of lightning, which came in bursts that illuminated the narrow canyon walls with stark clarity before plunging them back into suffocating black.
Every part of Sorian’s body ached, and every step forward against the indomitable current was harder than the last. Instinctively, he reached for his Blue, desperate for a lifeline, but the crushing weight and relentless surge of the water threatened to consume him. Gritting his teeth, he pushed back with every ounce of his magic he could muster, every shred of his will—anything to hold it at bay, no matter how small.
Cillian was right behind him, flaring his Red occasionally to blast away a tree branch or other detritus, but it was clear that his fire was struggling as much as Sorian’s Blue. Every blast left him weaker and more sluggish than before.
If he falls, I won’t be able to catch him.
“There’s no way out this way!” Cillian shouted, his voice hoarse.
“There is,” Alea said, her voice calm, eerily sure.
She hardly showed any sign of struggle or exhaustion. Her movements were still fluid and deliberate, like she knew where to place each foot with her eyes closed. A slight Green glow enveloped her and flickered like a second heartbeat. Her eyes flicked to his, quick and unnervingly sharp, sending a chill down his spine. They were her eyes, but it was like someone else was seeing through them.
Unbelievably, the canyon narrowed further, pressing in so tight that Sorian shoulders pressed on both sides and he had to sidle. The narrowed space was pushing the chest-high water even faster, threatening to carry him away with a single misstep.
Alea came to an abrupt stop a few paces ahead. “Why stop?” Cillian barked, nearly colliding with Sorian. “Move!”
“Quiet.”
Sorian’s mouth went dry. She scanned around, looking up and ahead. Then, she pointed ahead where a waterfall was cascading down further into the earth. “We climb there.”
Sorian looked ahead at the ledge that was slick with rain and barely wide enough for one person to stand. The sheer drop below roared, churning with black water that flowed into the unknown. “You can’t be serious…” Cillian muttered.
“She’s serious” Sorian said, hardly believing it himself.
Alea wasted no time in her climb. Her fingers found cracks and edges in the stone that Sorian hadn’t even noticed, and she moved like she’d done this a hundred times before.
Sorian followed closely, but his heart was hammering against his ribs. Every hand or foothold felt precarious at best. His foot slipped slightly, and he nearly fainted, but a last-second grasp of Blue kept his foot attached to the water on the wall.
“Keep climbing! No matter what!” Alea shouted above, sharp and commanding, and Cillian’s ferocious cursing was drowned out by the booming waterfall.
One more step. One more step. One more step.
After a veritable eternity, the wall led up to a narrow crevice, just wide enough for them to squeeze through and where no water was rushing out of. Sorian pushed himself up and through, but the ceiling was low enough to touch their backs, so they had to crawl on their front until the chamber opened up.
The storm outside seemed muted here, the thunder a distant rumble. The silence was oppressive, heavy, broken only by the faint drip of water and sound of their laboured breaths. Alea stood off to the side, looking ahead at the passage to the surface where the rain was still coming down hard.
Sorian kept his eyes on her the whole time, almost too afraid to ask. Too afraid that he is right. “Alea,” Sorian said softly. She didn’t respond immediately. When she turned, her gaze pinned him, cold and assessing. “What’s happening to you?”
Alea blinked slowly, her expression unreadable. “Sharp of you to notice, but we need to keep moving.” The voice was hers, but not. It carried a weight, a wisdom, that Alea’s never had. “I’m alright, Sorian.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Cillian asked with his arms wrapped tightly around himself.
“Something happened to her. Like…like it's a different person in her body.” Sorian shuddered, and not from the cold. “Someone who knows things they shouldn’t”
Turning to face him, Alea’s eyes flickered with something ancient, something uncanny. She tilted her head, a faint smile curling at her lips.
“If not Alea,” she said softly, her lips curling into a chilling smile, “then who am I?”61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc4t6OAm5jH
