Vesta pushed the boat all the way onto the sand. We all jumped out and rushed to see if there was anything we could salvage. Nevis’s arm came up right in front of me, forcing me to stay back.
“What kind of survival instinct do you have, if you feel compelled to run toward the flames like that?” he asked, his tone clipped.
“We have a fae and a witch with us!” I shot back. “I’m not suicidal. Duh.”
He shook his head slowly, then sent his frost out across the white sand. The ice blossomed in a thick layer, spreading all over the burning resort. Within minutes, the entire property was frosted, and the flames suffocated beneath the ice.
“Do you think the flashes did this?” Kailani asked Rose.
“If they did, then their fire will only destroy my frost if they aim directly at it,” Nevis replied, frowning. “If it sets something else ablaze, I can still take it out.”
“Well, then, let’s consider that good news,” Rose said, then motioned toward the back of the resort, her face paler than usual. “The shuttles?”
“It’s okay, I put them under a cloaking spell,” Kailani reassured her.
Nevertheless, we all felt the urgency to check. As soon as we reached the back of the resort, however, our previous plans came crashing down like a house of cards during a massive earthquake.
“Oh. Wow…” Ben managed, staring at the four piles of molten metal and burnt debris that had once been our shuttles.
Somehow, the hostiles had gotten past the swamp witch cloaking spell and had destroyed our escape pods. Those were our last resort for long-distance travel, including getting off the planet, without the use of swamp witch magic. The benefit of using the shuttles was that we had more flexibility in deciding and changing the course, even at the last minute, since we could steer them.
“Most of our swamp witch and Druid magic supplies were in there,” I said quietly, suddenly feeling the weight of it all pressing down upon my shoulders.
“They broke my cloaking spell,” Kailani breathed. “What the hell are these creatures, to be able to do such a thing?”
“They might’ve bumped into them and figured out there was something worthy of their attention,” Dmitri offered. “I mean, your cloaking spell hides objects from sight, but one can still touch and feel opposition from their force field.”
We stared at one another for a while. Whenever I glanced at the shuttles, my stomach churned, and my blood ran cold. This was so much worse than what we’d originally anticipated. Not only had we nearly gotten our asses handed to us at the lighthouse, but we were pretty much defenseless against those flashes. Having the ability to disrupt a swamp witch spell gave them a devastating advantage.
“I think we’re dealing with a whole new type of enemy here,” I said, my voice trembling.
“But are they truly enemies?” Zeriel replied with a shrug.
“What do you mean?” Ben asked him, frowning.
Zeriel sighed. “Well, think about it. Say they’ve just woken up out of those cave pods,” he said. “This is their home. They were obviously here before us. So, they’re back out, and they find these creatures—Derek and the others—lounging by the beach. Then, they see us coming in, snooping around. We don’t know anything about these creatures. What if they’re just really defensive? What if we can actually engage them in conversation? Maybe it’s just their self-preservation instinct kicking in after waking and finding interlopers in their home.”
“Assuming that is what happened, and that’s where those flash creatures came from, their lighthouse attack was still unjustified. We didn’t have any weapons drawn. We’re a small team, definitely not invaders. They had no reason to blast us the way they did, without even talking to us first,” Ben replied.
“What if they don’t know how to communicate? What if all they have is this feral aerial display of speed and strength as a warning sign?” I asked. “What if the flashes we saw before we got to the lighthouse were their way of warning us?”
A minute passed as we all mulled this over, but it didn’t lead us anywhere new. We still had loads of questions and no answers. Most importantly, our grandparents, parents, and friends were still missing.
“I only have enough ingredients for one interplanetary spell,” Kailani said. “We’ll have to use it wisely.”
Rose stared at her for a few moments, then nodded slowly.
“There are two things that are clear here,” she said. “One, whatever those flash creatures are, they don’t want us to leave. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have touched the shuttles. For a civilization able to preserve itself in those high-tech pods, it’s safe to assume they knew what our shuttles were for. Two,” she added, looking at me with a furrowed brow, “they don’t want us to feel safe.”
Dmitri sighed, then cleared his throat.
“Rose is right,” he said. “They torched the resort for a reason. They’re sending us a message. They know where we came from, and they will come after us again.”
My entire body was shaking with rage. I had no control over the muscle ticking in my jaw. I felt insulted, wrongfully in the crosshairs of those creatures and desperate to get my grandparents and their crew out of here before it got worse.
“Then we’d better figure out what they are, what they can do, and what weaknesses they have,” I replied. “Because the next time they come after us, I want to hit them where it hurts.”
We all nodded. We were definitely on the same page here.
No one messes with GASP without paying the price. No one.
Kailani
(Granddaughter of Corrine and Ibrahim)
My blood simmered.
After I’d established a connection with the Word inside that sensory-deprivation pod back on Calliope, all my emotional reactions had become somewhat extreme. It required more self-control than usual to keep my cool. I’d kickstarted an irreversible process in that pod, and it was starting to take its toll on me.
The one thing I knew for sure was that I needed to meditate a few hours every day and commune with the Word during that time, in order to keep my emotional responses in check. I was undergoing a transformation process of sorts—nothing visible on the outside, but its intensity burned through me.
I could tell from the glances that Elonora stole at me that she’d noticed something different about me. We’d yet to talk about it, but she wasn’t going to get much out of me when that conversation happened, either. I’d been sworn to secrecy about my apprenticeship. Given the circumstances, my next meditation session was still far away. That made everything more difficult.
“What do we do now?” Vesta asked, crossing her arms, while Elonora kept looking around with her True Sight.
“We can’t stay here, obviously,” Dmitri muttered.
“With just one interplanetary spell left, and given what we’ve experienced so far, our only choice remains the same,” Ben said. “We gather more data first. We need to find out what those creatures are, and what their endgame is. Once we have enough information, we’ll use the interplanetary spell to send a message to GASP. They’ll send us more resources, maybe even reinforcements.”
“Do you think that’s wise, though?” Rose replied. “The reinforcements part, I mean. You’ve seen what those flashes did to us, and it’s not like we’re newbies or amateurs.”
“We have more strength in numbers,” Ben replied. “Besides, GASP may very well be on their way already, since they have eyes on us via the telescope. Remember we’re bound to it via a blood spell. They see everything.”
Rose nodded slowly. “I do agree with gathering more data,” she said. “We’ve followed some of the clues, but I think it’s time we check the biggest clues we have: the diamond structures.”
“The colosseum, yes,” Elonora replied.
She’d spotted a strange, colosseum-shaped structure about two miles east of the lighthouse, just before the flashes attacked us. It hadn’t been there before—we would’ve flagged and checked it during ou
r initial scans of the planet.
“We need to get a better understanding of what happened, especially where our friends and family are concerned,” Rose said. “We need to know how that diamond colosseum just appeared and who’s behind all this. We don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle now, so it’s nearly impossible to do anything else, for the time being. I honestly think it would be irresponsible to call for backup now, since we don’t know what sort of creatures we’re dealing with.”
“I agree,” Ben replied. “The best we can do is keep digging now.”
“We’ll have to keep our eyes on the sky, then,” Ridan said.
Rose nodded again. “We will. But we can’t sit and wait in the meantime. We have to find out more about those flashes and the colosseum. I think time is of the essence here.”
“I’d definitely like to find out more about those flashes. I thoroughly dislike what they were able to do, and I suspect that was just a warm-up session,” Nevis muttered, still sullen over the lighthouse incident. I figured it was going to take a while for him to get over that, despite Rose and Elonora’s encouragements. The guy had spent his whole life thinking he was pretty much indestructible. No one liked feeling vulnerable, especially those who had been brought up like Nevis.
Vesta drew large quantities of sand from the beach and threw it over the burning shuttles, using it to smother the fires until they died out. After it was done, she summoned a wind to brush the sand away, so we could investigate. There was nothing to be rescued from the wreckage. Everything had been burned to a crisp.
“Holy crap, this fire burned at much higher temperatures than usual,” Elonora breathed as she analyzed the shuttles. She pointed at the molten chunks of metal that had fused with the plastic and wiring of the electrical circuits. “The shuttle skeletons were made from meranium,” she added. “Lumi had them charmed. They weren’t supposed to melt like this.”
“Okay, so we’re dealing with creatures that move around like flashes of light, faster than the speed of sound, basically,” I concluded. “Their fire attacks can melt Nevis’s Dhaxanian frost and charmed meranium. They were able to break through my cloaking spell, too. I have to ask again, and I know no one has the answer, but still: what the hell are they?!”
I could relate to what Nevis was feeling. We’d all come here thinking we were pretty high up on the food chain and not easy to take down. My magic, both natural and Word-provided, didn’t seem to stand a chance against those things. I briefly glanced at Ridan, wondering if he was the only one left with all his defenses up in this scenario. His dragon hide was practically impenetrable. His fire was devastating on any scale. Maybe he was our strongest weapon.
Deep down, I fought back a hint of helplessness. But, like Rose had said, we didn’t have all the data needed for an informed decision. All we could do was investigate. Those flashing creatures had to have a weakness. No one was really indestructible.
“I wonder what Grandma Corrine and Grandpa Ibrahim are doing,” I said, after a minute’s worth of silence.
The raw concern on the faces of Rose and Ben told me something I already knew. They were worried that our people had been harmed somehow.
“What if those flashing creatures got them? What if they’re hurt?” Dmitri asked.
We all instantly scowled at him, though we knew he was within his rights to raise that possibility.
“We’re all thinking it,” Nevis replied, looking at us. “At least he’s voicing it.”
“Honestly, it’s not something I want to consider right now,” Rose said. “I’d rather believe they’re out there, maybe hiding from them.”
“We should consider it now, though,” Nevis insisted. “If we don’t, how will we react if it turns out to be exactly what happened? Can we really afford to be surprised in that moment?”
Nevis didn’t mince words, and for that, he deserved some credit. He wasn’t personally invested in this search mission like us. For that matter, neither were Vesta or Zeriel, but the Tritone had a bit more tact and seemed to know not to stir us up at a time like this. Vesta was mostly quiet, but visibly impacted by what we were seeing.
But the Dhaxanian prince was right. On the other hand, so was Rose.
“The reason we’re not rushing to take that scenario into consideration is that none of us can even fathom that… that those flashes might have killed our people,” I said, my voice shaky already. “We’re holding on to the hope that they’re out there, somewhere, and hopefully safe because, in a way, it drives us to do more in order to find them.”
Rose inhaled, then rubbed her face with her palms.
“Enough,” she said. “Let’s focus on what’s right in front of us, so to speak. The colosseum. Let’s check it out. Mom, Dad, and the others could be there. Or, if what Lenny saw is real, there could be someone there who might be able to tell us where they are.”
Nevis sighed. “Fair enough,” he replied. “How do we do this, then?”
Now, that was a challenge. We’d gotten away with an ice boat once, but chances were we wouldn’t pull it off the second time around without being spotted. All our invisibility spell supplies had burned up with the shuttles. None of us had thought we’d even need them when we first went out looking for Derek and the others. We hadn’t known there were creatures we’d have to hide from.
Those flashes were still out there, probably looking for us. They’d stopped by the resort to send us a message. They knew we’d come back here, eventually. That told me that they were smart, and that they knew what they were doing. So, we had to be smarter.
Rose
“If those creatures are still out there looking for us, we will need to find another way to move between islands,” Ben said. “The boats are no longer a good option. That includes the ice one,” he added, then gave Nevis an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Given the current circumstances, I agree,” the Dhaxanian prince replied.
Vesta lit up, her bright blue eyes signaling the birth of a good idea. The young fae didn’t have much to say in general, but where action and initiative were concerned, she was a star.
“I think I know how to move around undetected,” she said. “And Nevis can help.”
She walked back to the beach, dipping her toes in the cool water. We came out after her and stilled at the sight of the ocean opening up before her. She took a couple of steps forward, and a tunnel formed through the water in front of her.
“Okay, I see where you’re going with this,” I replied.
Nevis joined her quickly, and they both moved deeper into the underwater tunnel. Vesta manipulated the water into a passageway, and Nevis froze it so she wouldn’t have to put that much effort into holding it together. The tunnel closed behind us, and we ended up walking through a frozen pocket of air, which Nevis and Vesta controlled as we moved underwater.
“Come on,” Nevis said, motioning for us to join them.
We rushed across the beach and entered the tunnel, with Vesta leading the way. As we walked, I looked back and held my breath, watching the frosted passageway close behind us. It was a constant effort on the part of both Vesta and Nevis, but, since they were working together, they had no trouble keeping it up.
“This is brilliant,” Elonora exclaimed, looking around as we went deeper underwater, following the descent of the seabed. “Fat chance they’ll spot us from above.”
“Further proof that the Dhaxanian prince is good for something, after all.” Zeriel chuckled.
Nevis shot him a glare. “I’d normally have a sharp comeback for that, but in this case, I find myself agreeing with you. Let’s not make it a regular occurrence, going forward.”
We journeyed through the icy moving pocket for miles, going around the islands as we headed east, where Elonora had seen the diamond-like colosseum. The ocean waters were mostly turquoise and relatively clear, but only at low depths. We were deeply submerged in the pocket, and mostly out of sight.
Not only was it a safer
way around Strava, but it also gave us a bit of breathing and thinking space as we admired the marine life around us. I felt as though we were in an aquarium, with the entire ocean sprawling beyond the layer of ice. The seabed was also covered in white sand, with plenty of rocky black ridges and an enormous barrier reef that seemed to go on for hundreds of miles.
Billions of fish in all sizes and colors swam around. The smaller fish were dull-colored, gray, black, and ivory white, staying in big groups and moving around together. There were turtle-like reptiles on the bottom, scouring the seabed for live food—the Stravian equivalent of shrimp and other similar creatures, from what I could tell.
“Whoa, would you look at that!” Elonora exclaimed, pointing to the left.
Several large animals swam about a hundred feet above us. They reminded me of the whales back in Earth’s oceans—big creatures with giant tails and small black eyes. But what was really fascinating was the color of their hides. The heavier predators here were mainly coated in pale blue, turquoise, and ivory white, mostly to help them blend in and go unnoticed until it was time to strike. These whales were no exception, and they were simply stunning.
They swam gracefully despite their considerable size, and the sounds they made echoed all the way to us.
“Does anybody else feel that?” Vesta asked.
“Feel what?” I replied.
“There’s this warmth in my stomach. It’s kind of hard to describe, but I know it’s not coming from me, if that makes sense,” she said.
Dmitri grinned. “Yeah, I feel it.”
“Me too,” Hunter confirmed, then looked at me. The whale song got louder, until I, too, felt the pleasant heat spreading through me like liquid sunshine. I nodded.
“Yeah,” I said thoughtfully. “I think it’s the whales.”
“Do you think it’s their way of communicating?” Kailani replied. “Maybe their way of saying they’re peaceful and that we shouldn’t be afraid? Because I’d love to hear that right about now.”