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)
She gestures, and an aide brings forward a shallow bowl filled with what looks like clear marbles. "These are minor water echoes—impressions left by water elementals. Finding one will require you to sense its resonance with your own affinity. Channeling will be necessary both to locate them and to survive the depths."
At this, my stomach drops like I've swallowed a handful of stones.
Channel to survive the depths. Channel to find the echoes.
Of course.
Am I going to have any chance of this when I'm not a real water affinity?
Maybe. Being submerged in water will give me a unique advantage here. I’ll be surrounded by a nearly unlimited supply of water essence. For once, I might actually be positioned to excel at something.
"Instructors and third-years will take you to various locations around the lake. On their signal, you will enter the waters and begin the trial. You will have until sunset."
"Please tell me that brilliant brain of yours has a plan," Mireen whispers, her teeth chattering as she eyes the black water.
I stare at the mist curling off the lake's surface. "Get in, grab the first echo I find, get out before anything eats me."
She bumps her shoulder against mine. "Simple. Elegant. Probably won't work. See you on the other side anyway."
We're separated and led to various points around the lake. I'm not happy to see a third-year with a dangerous glint in her eye is the one leading me. I'm reminded of Raith's warning. Malakai has friends in the upper years. Friends who told him where certain people will be entering the lake. For all I know, he’ll be making a line directly for me as soon as the trial begins.
But I can't hide forever.
Staying scared is only going to mean staying weak. And I'm fucking tired of being scared.
So if he wants to come hunting for me during the trial? Let him.
Let Malakai think he's going to ambush me. Let him think he'll have the advantage if he finds me.
My body feels electric with newfound resolve. Davrin couldn’t handle me two days ago during challenge matches. Let’s see Malakai do better.
They're brave thoughts from a shivering, half-naked girl pretending to be a water affinity—a girl whose knowledge about her affinity is coming a few paragraphs a night from an old book.
"Go," the third-year says from behind me. I don't miss the half smile she wears. Why the hells does a third-year want to help first-year waters kill one another?
It makes me wonder if there's actually something more to Malakai's murderous intent. What if it's not just simple bloodthirst or ambition? What if there's some other angle I'm not seeing?
But now is hardly the time to dwell on mysteries.
I wade through the slimy shallows of the lake, my breath fleeing the moment the icy water touches my bare skin. Goosebumps erupt across my body, but I force myself to keep walking deeper, feet slipping on submerged rocks slick with algae.
Eventually, I'm deep enough to swim and submerge myself beneath the waters. We've trained with Sestra to form bubbles of air around our mouths beneath the water.
Before now, I've never succeeded. This knowledge wasn't exactly helping me sleep once Raith told me about the trial. I decided I could, at worst, swim on the surface and just hold my breath as much as possible.
I fumble in the freezing cold and dark waters for several minutes, bobbing to the surface to gulp air and then diving down again as I try to draw water and air together to make a bubble around my mouth.
It's slow work, but I eventually succeed.
Sort of.
Instead of a small bubble around my mouth and nose, I end up creating a huge one around my entire head. It stretches and threatens to break if I swim too fast, but it provides me with air and a surprisingly clear view of the lake's depths.
I see vegetation rising from below, swaying eerily in unseen currents. If I squint, I think I even see a few distant dark shapes moving through the water. Other students, maybe?
I glance behind my back, suddenly sure I'll see Malakai himself coming at me. But it's just more water and more vegetation.
With the bubble in place, I find my thoughts drifting to Beck and Ambrose's stupid story about some kind of sea monster as I swim.
It would be easier to dismiss if their stories and this lake didn't seem to match what I've been seeing in my nightmares for weeks.
Pushing it all from my mind, I focus on the task at hand. I need to find an echo to pass the trial, and I need to pass the trial to make it to Confluence Day.
So how the hell am I going to do that?
According to the book, the unbound can sense the elements differently—not by creating, but by feeling what already exists. I let myself sink slightly, trailing my fingers through the water, trying to sense... something.