Page 43 of Sons of Sorrow
And so he began to read. I shuffled from one foot to another as the words came, unnerving as they were. From the brief time we’d known Ember, he’d spoken in a voice I could relate to, almost human, if at a much smaller scale.
But these sounds issuing from his lips couldn’t possibly be made by little lungs, by breaths of air. Here the crackle of fire, there the burble of the ocean. In one utterance Ember told of the rumble of thunder, the awakening tremors of angry earth.
The words. What did they all mean?
Satchel gasped. The skin on Ember’s forearms and cheeks had begun to dry at an alarming rate, turning the color and texture of weathered bark. And then the smell of smoke. Was that from Ember’s hair burning brighter, like when his temper rose?
No. It was the parchment.
The parchment burst into flames. Fire licked out from the center, consuming the ink, the vellum, the protective plastic — all of it, like some twisted self-destruct mechanism. I dove for the ground, reaching for the charred, twisted pieces like a fool, crying out as I burned my fingers on magical flame.
“It’s no use,” Sylvain said, strong arms pulling me away. “Let it be, Lochlann.”
“No,” I shouted, pawing at grit and cinders. Our only chance to unravel the Withering, perhaps trace its origins, literally gone up in smoke.
Dr. Fang’s heels clicked as she approached and stamped out what was left of the fire. “Leave it, Locke. We have more pressing problems just now. Ember, are you all right?”
He’d slumped to the ground, rolling over to lie on his back, chest rising and falling as he panted. “I’m okay,” he breathed.
Ember was fine. His cheeks, his arms, all smooth as before, like the Withering had never touched him. But how? No Wispwater necessary, surviving and fighting off the plague through sheer force of will. Could any of my guardians have done the same, or was it all because of Ember’s determination and spunk?
“I’m fine,” he said, right before he passed out.
Satchel knelt over him, worried, at first. Then Ember started snoring. Satchel frowned.
“Yeah, he’s fine,” Satchel said grumpily. “Everything’s fine.”
“No,” Dr. Fang said. “I wouldn’t be so sure. Can everyone else hear that?”
Silence. I turned in a slow circle, wondering what it was we were meant to hear. But I felt it before I could detect any hint of the sound. Rumbling, from far below. No. Not so far, now. Closer and closer. The ground was vibrating, not quite an earthquake, more like the trembling caused by a nearby machine.
Or an unholy quantity of water.
A geyser erupted out of the Wispwell, the ancient structure belching what seemed like an endless, raging torrent. We all backed away, eyeing the well and the water carefully. This had never happened before, not in any of the academy’s urban legends, not in any of Sylvain’s retellings of the boring Wispwood history books he’d so happily devoured.
“Satchel,” I said, never removing my eyes from the strange waterspout. “You should go. Take Ember with you.”
He stared at the Wispwell and gulped. “You don’t have to tell me twice.” He slipped his arm under Ember’s back, a loose embrace. I blinked, and they were gone, zipped off to safety.
And in the nick of time, too. I stared on, mouth open in bewilderment. The geyser emanating from the Wispwell had turned itself into the shape of something humanoid. A watery woman, her hair like waves, her body fluid. Almost solid in places, formless and constantly flowing in others.
Her eyes were like pinpricks of purest, deepest water, as piercing and blue as brilliant sapphires. But they weren’t filled with the tranquility of a still lake, a meditative pond. No. The woman from the well churned and frothed, the rage of a crashing river, the anger of a roiling ocean.
“Well, well,” Dr. Fang said. “Isn’t this a pretty pickle? Everyone. On your guard.”
This watery creature — she was the voice in the well. Was she an embodiment of the Wispwater, something ancient from before the academy’s forests even grew through the stone? The woman’s wails ensured that we wouldn’t get our answers easily. She thrust her hand forward, shrieking as a jet of water blasted from her palm, straight for my chest.
Even in the arcane underground, there were those who would underestimate water and consider it the weakest of the elements, especially when employed for an offensive. Those people have never experienced the sensation of being punched in the sternum by an immense quantity of violent liquid.
The waterspout threw me off my feet. I landed on my ass with a pained grunt. Served me right for not being prepared with a defensive spell. I scrambled to retrieve the Wilde grimoire from the floor, forcing my essence into its pages, activating it as a shield. Sylvain, bless him, was already standing over me, his barrier of leaves poised to protect us from another blast.
“Be careful, oh summoner,” he said, the affectionate pet name infused with just a hint of anger.
A cork landing on the floor distracted me from thanking him. I got to my feet in time to see Bruna chucking her unstoppered potion right into the Wispwell. I caught a glimpse of the bottle’s frosty glass moments before it landed with a plop. Bruna’s ice potion. Excellent.
The woman in the well screamed, her horrible, watery wail cut short as the potion took effect, freezing both her and the Wispwater into a jagged pillar of ice. Spouts of water froze into icicles, droplets into misted jewels, the woman herself like an ice sculpture trapped in an iceberg.
Beautiful, but we weren’t there to admire beauty. Luna flicked her hand toward the well, launching a barrage of metal crescent moons. They pinged and clinked as they met the frozen geyser, steadily chipping away at the ice.
