Page 52 of Unbound

"Kind of like a giant sea serpent mixed with a dragon, maybe? It was dark, though. I only saw bits and pieces. And it was huge, with blue eyes."

"Fuck," Ambrose whispers.

"What?" Beck says.

"It's just that not many elementals could fit a description like that. To be so large and take such a powerful shape… It sounds like one of the ancients, but it also sounds like it has gone rogue."

"You told me about that," I say. "Elementals driven mad by broken tethers or the death of their tethered humans, right?"

He nods. "But I've never heard of one of the ancients tethering a human. Something that powerful going rogue is… dire. And how the hell is it here? How is it in our world swimming around Mirror Lake?"

I think about the dreams I've been having—the sense that I'm being hunted and the predator has been drawing closer with each dream. And then, for the first time in weeks, I think about the storm I called back in Saltcrest three years ago. The storm that I accidentally drew in. The storm that killed my brothers and my father. The memory hits me like a physical blow, making my chest constrict painfully.

Did I survive only to draw in an even bigger storm here? A storm in the form of an ancient rogue elemental? The death of the three I'd seen eaten beneath the waters suddenly rushes in to pile on my back, heavy with the weight of guilt.

"I'm not sure," I say quietly.

The others shift the topic of conversation to Confluence Day, but my mind lingers on the rogue elemental.

An instinct I can't describe tells me I haven't seen it for the last time. There's a kind of connection between us. With a sudden certainty that turns my insides to ice, I know when I'm going to see it next. A shiver runs down my spine as my gut twists with dread.

The beast is going to be waiting for me on Confluence Day, but this time, I’ll be ready for it.

12

Nothing went according to plan.

I clutch my side, wincing at the pain in my ribs. I landed hard. So fucking hard that it takes me a moment to clear my head and remember what the hells is going on.

My eyes are blurry and full of stars as I blink, climbing to my feet and shaking off the disorientation. The last few minutes were a maelstrom of chaos, but they come back to me like snapshots of madness.

First-years assembling in the courtyard as reality itself seemed to split at the seams, opening a portal.

Instructors shouting about instability.

Odd tendrils of magic lashing out from the portal, snatching students and dragging us inside.

I must have been grabbed and dragged here, but I can’t remember it.

It all clicks into place piece by piece. Where I am. What this is.

The air is charged and feels... wrong. The colors are too vivid—like someone cranking up the saturation until my eyes burn. And the sky... it's not the sky I've spent my life living beneath.

I'm in the elemental plane.

My heart thunders against my ribs. Confluence Day is finally here. I either tether an elemental today, or I die.

I sweep my eyes around, taking in my surroundings. This place isn’t what I expected. I imagined shattered ground seeping magma and torrents of water or unbearable winds. Instead... I see a forest to my left that's a brighter green than anything I ever imagined. More distant still, I see it's all ringed by a wall that must be two hundred feet high. The wall looks like it’s made of the elements themselves, shifting in ways that my eyes can’t quite focus on.

Did the elementals build this?

I know from classes that elementals live in cities like us with rulers, politics, and wars. But somehow it didn’t seem… real. It makes me wonder what this place is to them. The area where humans appear once a year hoping to tether with them. And what would stop elementals with a grudge from coming here to hunt for sport?

As if in response to my thought, a scream cuts through the silence, high and terrified, ending in a wet gurgle.

I spin toward the sound, automatically drawing my training rapier. It’s not much, but a having a weapon in hand makes me feel slightly better, silly as it may be.

About fifty yards down the treeline, a group of students has emerged from another point in the rift. They're scattered and disoriented, just as I was moments ago.

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