Page 74 of Fate of Echoes and Embers
“Issa,” I yelled, the wind beginning to howl as ominous clouds churned above. “Hold her steady. Keep the bow into the waves. Don’t fight the current, just ride it until I can break it.”
I could admire Issa’s calm later as she agreed. For now, I whipped off my boots for a better grip and ran to the stern. Lifting my hands, I began to manipulate the water, reaching into it with magic, feeling the currents like threads in my palms.
“It’s pulling us toward the Depths,” I yelled. “Issa, turn her around. Now!”
I struggled to counter the pull, redirecting the force below the water as the sky opened on us.
“Issa,” I yelled to her again. “The current isn’t right. We’re being dragged. Turn. Her. Around.”
She wasn’t listening.
Abandoning my post, I ran back to her. Terrified, she white-knuckled the wheel, staring straight ahead. For a moment, I thought she’d panicked. Frozen. But Issa looked me straight in the eyes and said, “I feel it, Marek. It’s there. I feel it.”
“Good. I will come back. But right now, you need to turn the ship around. There is an unnatural pull that I need to counter.” I reached for the wheel to do it myself but she held steady.
“Let me help you.”
I could hardly hear her over the wind. She would not relinquish the wheel.
“Issa,” I said, thinking she did not understand. “The storm is pulling us toward the Maelstrom Depths. None in Elydor’s history has ever made it out of those Depths alive. We need to turn around, now. I need you to turn the wheel so I can counter the unnatural pull that is dragging us to our deaths.”
I knew before I’d even finished, she wouldn’t do it. “It’s there, Marek. I’ve never felt magic this strong before. It’s the Wind Crystal.” Her chin raised defiantly. “None made it out alive, but you will.Wewill. You told me the sea bends to your will. So bend it.”
She could not do this. “Issa?—”
“Marek,” she said, raising her voice to me for the first time since we’d met. “I may not be immortal, or have lived as long as you, but I am not a child. This is my decision, and I’ve made it. Stabilize us as best you can, and I will steer us toward the Crystal. I can sense it easily and know its location.”
My hands shook with indecision. Every bit of me wanted to grab that wheel and turn us around. Bring Issa to safety. I could not turn us and fight the current at the same time, and every moment that passed, we were being dragged closer and closer to the Depths.
I saw my mother, floating, dead, in my dreams. I couldn’t do it. I would not see Issa face the same fate.
Issa’s hands gripped my face. She had let go of the wheel.
“What are you?—”
“Marek. I love you. And if you love me too, you will listen to me. We are going into the Depths to retrieve the Wind Crystal. Together.”
I love you. Together.
It had been my mother’s decision to dive that day. I always thought, if I’d been there, I could have talked her out of it. But maybe not.
“I love you, Issa,” I said, kissing her and making my decision. As if I had any other choice.
Running back to the bow, I reached back into the sea and attempted to steady the ship. But we were barreling forward in a way that was not natural to the sea I knew so well. It was why none before us had ever returned. The maps were wrong. I’d calculated our approach, planned to keep us at the edge. But the Depths had drawn us in.
“There was never a chance to turn back,” I murmured, the truth sinking in like a stone. We’d crossed the threshold long ago. This wasn’t a storm, not in the natural sense.
We weren’t on the edges of the Depths. We were in them.
Now the only way out… was through.
29
ISSA
I hadn’t planned to die today.
But as I watched Marek wave his arms furiously, clearly struggling to do what usually came so easily to him… as the ship’s wheel stopped responding in the way Marek had shown me, it was clear we were losing control.
