Seeking the Fae (Daughter of Light #1) - Leia Stone Page 0,63

my mother told me never ever to do. Reaching up, I pressed my hand to the cool, flexible, magic encapsulation.

The second I touched the iridescent structure, it vibrated wildly. The vibrations sent ripples throughout the water, and Trissa and Elle swam closer. My hand suddenly fell through the structure, creating a small opening. Reaching up instinctively, I grasped the edges of the protections and pulled them apart slowly like they were made of thick clay. The gap widened, and as it did, murky black water rushed into Faerie from the dark world beyond.

Yuck.

“Go!” I yelled, not wanting to pollute what was left of our world. Trissa burst from the water and dove through the hole, as did Elle right behind her. Using my legs, I stuck those through first, before awkwardly moving my upper body into the opening. At some point my wrists were tweaked too much and I had to let go of the protection and float through. There was a current on the other side that I wasn’t prepared for and it carried me away quickly. Frigid cold water consumed my body as I battled the raging black waters, feeling disoriented. Everything was so incredibly dark. The sun looked blotted out by ash and thick, burned trees, but my major concern was on the opening in the dome and whether it had closed once I’d gone through. This foul black water would kill the fish in Faerie. Flipping over mid swim, I glanced back and saw the hole snap shut.

Relief poured through me just before Trissa’s scream ripped across the river. “Look out!”

Flipping over in the water, I turned just in time to come face to face with … a four-eyed, mutated fish creature from hell.

A shriek tore from my lungs as the fish opened his mouth and I gazed upon three rows of serrated teeth. He had black and green scales, but some spots were missing, and in its place were open wounds that wept pinkish fluid. He lunged for my face, and I threw my arm up to block it, when a knife sailed through the air and stuck in the side of the fish’s head. The creature fell to its side and sank to the bottom of the river.

Looking up on the shore in the direction of whoever threw the knife, I expected to see Trissa, but it was Elle.

“Nice shot,” Trissa told her as my mother’s old guard climbed up out of the water.

I kicked my legs like mad, making my way to the shallow edge of the river so that I could climb up onto the shore as well.

Elle winked. “I had a good teacher.”

“Kiss ass,” I teased her as she reached out, helping me up out of the water.

We all gave a little lighthearted smile, which quickly died as we gazed around the ruins of what was once the most beautiful and enchanted forest of all time. I’d seen a painting once, on the mantel of Glena’s house. This … was not that. Spring was … life; it was color; it was the very breath of Faerie. And now … now it was covered in death and darkness. Small tendrils of smoke seeped up from the ground and towards the sky. Tiny pools of lava gurgled and popped on the once beautiful forest floor.

I looked over and saw that Elle was crying. Trissa, however, looked haunted and more traumatized than sad.

“My home was just through these woods. About a ten-minute walk. It was my favorite walk,” she said, voice hollow.

A tree branch snapped to our right and Trissa flinched. “Come on. We shouldn’t linger. Gods know what’s here now.”

With that, she walked through the brittle and dry lands while I followed after her, looking left and right and seeing blackness and ash as far as the eye could see. “What … happened? Fire?”

Trissa sighed. “Fire. Ice. Dark magic. Plague. What didn’t happen is the question.”

Gods. We walked in a V-formation, with Trissa at the lead.

After a few moments, a twig snapped. Trissa pulled her bow. Elle had two throwing knifes in each hand, and I had my obsidian dagger.

“How much farther?” I queried.

“If it’s still there, we should be coming up on it, just over this hill,” Trissa called out.

It was a slight incline as we crested a small, dry, blackened dirt hill.

The collective gasp was audible.

There, in the middle of what I imagined hell looked like, was the most stunningly clear blue pool of water. Bright lily pads and lotus flowers