Total pages in book: 214
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
At first, there's nothing. Just cold, dark water. Then, gradually, I become aware of currents—little eddies and flows that seem to carry whispers of... intention? Memory? I can't quite grasp it, but I know it's there.
I dive deeper, following one such current. The light fades quickly, leaving me in greenish twilight. My ears pop and pressure builds around me, but I push on, drawn by something I can't name.
There—a flicker of blue light perhaps twenty feet below. An echo?
I swim toward it, my head feeling like it might cave in as the pressure continues to mount.
Once I'm closer, I can see it's indeed one of the marble-like echoes, nestled in a crevice between rocks. I reach for it, fingertips closing around the smooth sphere.
I sense something coming toward me.
I swirl so fast the bubble around my head nearly pops. And then I see him. Malakai is swimming toward me with a bubble around his eyes, nose, and mouth and a shifting, shimmering kind of water dagger in one hand.
Panic clutches at me, threatening to keep me stuck in place—motionless and helpless.
And then he’s on me.
I kick off the ground, dodging his first stab in what feels like slow motion. He comes again, and I see he's moving faster than he should be able to—using the water to propel himself, somehow.
I barely twist out of the way of another attack as his big body flows past, yanking me to the side with the force of his movement.
A cold reality settles over me.
Do something, or you're going to die down here.
Malakai turns, dagger in his hand as his muscular body ripples in the dark depths of the water. Something about the muffled silence of fighting for my life beneath the water—with nothing but my ragged breath echoing within my own bubble—feels wrong. Claustrophobic.
I reach into the water, struggling to even think of what I would do with my powers if I had complete command. Form a weapon of my own? Try to push him down with heavy currents? Pop his bubbles?
Before I can even start to try, he's on me again, rushing through the water like a human arrow, dagger extended toward me.
I jerk to the side, but I'm not fast enough this time. The cold bite of his weapon shocks me, pain exploding through my nerves like lightning, my screams piercing inside the solitude of my air bubble.
He stabbed me in the left shoulder. Blood so dark it almost looks black clouds out from the wound, gushing from between my clasping fingers.
Distantly, I sense something else in the water with us. Another student, maybe? Or are more of his soldiers on their way to take turns stabbing me?
No. I'm not going to die like this. Not this easily.
I don't think. I let instinct take over. My mind reaches into the water until I feel like I can make it move at my command. Using an invisible tendril of lake water, I press in on Malakai's face, watching with satisfaction as his eyes open wide and the bubbles providing him air smear and pop, scattering into thousands of tiny bubbles that rush upward.
While he's distracted, I kick toward the echo I dropped, scoop it up, and then realize my situation has gone from bad to worse.
I see three shapes coming from behind Malakai, soldiers of his, by my guess. All three are holding magical weapons.
But there's something else. Something much more dangerous.
It wasn't them I sensed in the waters. The thing I sensed is far, far larger than them. And it's moving fast. At first, I think a cloud is passing over the lake far ahead that casts a deep shadow behind the three approaching student soldiers. But then it twists and moves in a way that shadows don't.
Two deep blue eyes suddenly appear behind the three figures, and the eyes make sudden sense of the shadow. It's a serpent with massive wings, and it's coiled and waiting behind the three students, its massive mouth opening slowly.
Malakai manages to get his bubbles back in place over his face. He looks triumphant for a moment, and then he must see the look on my face.
He turns, and a cluster of bubbles bursts up from his head. A scream, I hope.
Maybe I'm about to die, but at least I got the chance to see Malakai become so scared he screamed and broke his spell.
My smile fades when the creature—which looks like it's at least seventy or eighty feet long with wings at least that wide—explodes forward. The first student disappears, seemingly swallowed by the massive shadow of the beast.
It slithers out of view, leaving only a dark stain slowly spreading in the otherwise deep blue water. The other two students turn, see the blood, and begin frantically swimming for the surface.
Malakai turns from them and comes toward me, knife still raised.