Page 84 of Angel of Water & Shadow

Somehow, I gathered the strength to scoot to the edge of the precipice and peer over. I choked on my breath at what coated the ground, some hundreds of feet below. Feathers, so many torn, drifting plumes, tinged with blood and earth. Skeletons crushed and fractured, skulls with bits of shredded muscle. Piles and piles of bones. The putrid stench of decay singed my nostrils and burned my throat.

Akosua was right. These weren’t their bodies falling—those were already in rotten ribbons at the bottom of the ravine—these were their souls, trapped in eternal free fall.

Crumpling to my knees, I heaved beside the doomed, palms mixing with the dirt and bile. Most of my life I’d felt ungrounded. Now I knew where it came from—where I came from. The fallen Angel of Water. A stabbing sensation dug into my scars as if ripping them open, stripping me of my senses and the ability to latch on to anything but the pain. I dug my blunt nails into the ground until they bled, panting while the anguish gradually weakened to a prickle.

“I’ve seen enough here.” It could have been my own proclamation, but it came from my mom’s lips.

“Have you?” Akosua pressed. “You truly know what’s at risk? To the Kingdom? To the Earth? To us?” Each syllable rocked me like an aftershock. There was so much more than love at stake, and my mom still sacrificed herself for it.

Was love worth risking everything for when it triggered the end of the world? That, I did not have the answer for.

No wonder the Voices—the Watchers—were so hard on me. I was a walking reminder of Mira’s betrayal. Yet they never gave up on me, until recently, and my world felt more upside down without them. What had happened to change their course? There was no way our spat at Grad Night—now, looking back, I realized it was Akosua’s voice I’d gone head-to-head with—had been the final straw.

“I do know what’s at risk,” my mom affirmed. When her hands slipped between the part of her robe, I swore they rested on her belly for a second before clasping together.

Red flared as the Angel of Fire swished her cloak’s sleeve, summoning an escape route with a simple flick of her wrist. “To your watchtowers then.”

The others did the same, the sky twisting into funnels after their subtle gestures.

Akosua left first, followed by Fei and Gaia, disappearing as soon as they stepped into the swirling airflow, the vortices spinning faster until they folded in on themselves. Ash, mud, and floating specks were all that was left to mark their presence.

One angel remained, her aqueous robes flowing like a river against the dry landscape. On the brink of departure, she glanced behind her, removing her hood. Haloed by the hydro-powered rays, she drew in her wings, then extended them like colossal sails.

For ten rapid heartbeats I locked eyes with my mom. Not the version stitched together by dreams and washed-out photos, but her in her truest form: flushed with passion, fishtail braid flipped over her shoulder, with a close-lipped smile that didn’t reach her blue—flaming-blue—eyes.

Even after she’d gone, the cerulean fire that flared behind her pupils burned in my mind.

I waited for the dust to settle, for land and sky to bend, for the portal she’d gone through to turn to vapor, but it continued to undulate without its maker.

Or maybe it was waiting for its new master: me.

I took a step closer, a salty drizzle kissing my cheeks as I reached its opening.

Slowly flipping my hands, I gazed at the lines in my palms and the veins running through them, down past my wrists. When my mom died, did that mean I…did that mean I inherited her Source? I’d seen no trace of any such abilities up until recently. Fei had mentioned a transfer of power was near complete around my eighteenth birthday. Was that what was happening here?

My hand inched forward, timid and slow, until it grazed the cool barrier of the swirling vortex. I twisted my wrist, moving it further in, and thicker droplets splashed my palm. When I drew back my skin was damp but still intact—a small part of me had worried it’d be acid rain or something equally gruesome to my half-mortal touch. Glancing around, I hoped for a sign of what to do, but aside from the cursed…I was alone.

There was only one path out, and it churned in front of me. Willing my pounding heart to calm, I took a shuddering breath, and stepped into the watery whirlwind.

Chapter 28

This vortex seemed to be the gateway to water, and it led me to the deepest part of the ocean. Once I’d left the barren mesa, and stepped into the rippling whirlpool, everything went black. My eyes were open, but I couldn’t see my hand even if it was in front of my face.

A familiar lilt rang off the darkness and echoed in all directions.

Was it my breath? The Voices? A manifestation of my Source? I didn’t know. Whatever it was, it tugged at my heartstrings, begging me to let it in. Each time it sounded more dire, more desperate than the last.

Something in its timbre made my eyelids flutter, and its persistence quickened my pulse. Fervent pressure marked my cheeks, my nose, my forehead, my lips. So plush and warm and…intoxicating. Whether I was dead or alive or somewhere in between, it was enough to bring me out of the dark.

Awareness jolted through my body as my fingertips twitched and my eyelids slowly peeled open.

River, River, River. Was my mind playing tricks or was someone calling me? I willed my blurry senses to resolve the shadows into shapes and the sounds into meaning.

“River, you’re going to be okay.” The person stressed it as if there was no other alternative. “Stay with me baby, stay with me.”

A grogginess clung to me, so thick and heavy that it took everything for me to give an “mmph.” My mouth full of spit, I coughed back gibberish. The motion made my chest cave in painfully.

Coastal humidity stuck to my skin and salted my lips. Rhythmic chirps reverberated off the coarse strands of grass that tickled my arms. The moonlight broke through the hazy layer of clouds and the summer night dawned around me. Pushing off my elbows I caught a glimpse of a Victorian before collapsing back down to the ground.

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