Page 52 of I Summon the Sea

More screeching birds descend, diving between coral trees, trying to get me, and I’m so focused on avoiding them that I almost step onto a snake.

I only realize because it hisses and grazes my shin with its fangs.

Fire spreads through my leg as I limp away, cursing silently. My arm throbs where the mist touched me, while my leg hurts more and more as I hurry away, and that’s not counting the hurts I accumulated earlier.

If this is an accurate recreation of the original world of the fae, then it’s no wonder they left it behind.

I know it’s not an excuse for what they’ve done, enslaving an entire world, suppressing the humanfolk and finnfolk, killing and maiming and torturing, taking over the towns and temples.

But right now, none of that matters—history, righteous rage, thoughts of revenge. Right now, I need to get through this hellish coral forest, run for the tower, and hope to survive.

The tower seems to oscillate over the coral trees.

I’m standing in a small opening, and it looms over me, elegant and strange.

I can’t remember why I stopped running. It could be because my bitten leg is pure agony, fire racing up my knee and hip with every limping step. I cradle my wounded arm to my chest and just… stare up.

Towers shouldn’t sway like that. Whether it’s the poison from the snake’s fangs in my veins or the poisonous mist making me see things that aren’t there, towers just… don’t sway.

Is the tower even there, or am I imagining it? For a moment, I thought it had vanished, but now there it is again, a creamy-white spindle rising toward the sky, black markings spiraling around it.

Something about its shape is… odd. Organic, with subtle curves and undulations, it’s almost as if the line down its middle is a mouth, curling into a smirk…

Gods, I’m delirious. It’s a godsdamnedtower,that’s what it is, made of stone and iron and maybe spellwork, and I’ll have to scale it, or break into it, or perform some other such feat.

Spells. Magic. This whole place tastes of sweet apples, a sign of earth magic, with a hint of bitter air power, the fae king’s domain.

I was right. Earth has to be the theme of this trial. And reaching that tower is part of the game.

“Be careful. This trial isn’t over yet.”

Why do my eyes burn at the memory of his words? Where is he?

A sting on my leg, close to the ankle, has me gasping and whirling around. I find that the poisonous mist is reaching tendrils toward me again with white, spidery fingers.

I shouldn’t have stopped. I jolt away from the questing mist and run between the coral trees. A bird screams like a dying soul, diving down toward me, and I jerk aside, barely avoiding getting impaled on its long beak.

Heart in my mouth, I run and run, only slowing down to check I’m heading in the correct direction.

The tower beckons. It flashes like a beacon in a sea of danger. I’m not naively believing that reaching it will save me, but the way the games are set up, it’s probably the only temporary haven around here as the surface of the island becomes more and more hostile.

Snakes hiss and lunge at me as I run so that I knock against sharp protrusions on the trunks, my feet getting cut up on the shards littering the ground despite the flimsy protection of the fabric I tied around them.

The poison in my blood sings.

It sings like the mermaids in the sea.

I see the boy I used to love, his gray eyes luminant and clear like gems. His gaze is full of affection and hope, and it pours into me until I’m a crystal goblet full of light. I fall to the ground, and Mars bends over me, frowning.

Mars…

“We have to run,” he says, his hand engulfing mine. “There’s a dragon. I felt it.”

Mars?

“Come now. We have to go.”

It’s not Mars. No, this one is a taller, broader man with eyes like a stormy night, dark markings on his cheekbones, and blood seeping out of his clenched mouth. He pulls me to my feet and under the canopy of the coral trees, stumbling, then catching himself before he falls.

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