Page 41 of Beacon

I rolled my eyes the moment my back was turned, took a deep breath, and dove into the water. The familiarity of the ocean immediately surrounded me, greeting me like an old friend. After diving deeper I glanced behind me to see if the princess was following…only to not see her at all.

Panic swelled. Despite not liking her, the last thing I wanted was for her to die on my watch. I hastily changed directions and kicked back to the surface…where I found the princess thankfully alive but coughing and spluttering, her hair plastered against her face making her look half-drowned.

I guiltily bit my lip. I’d likely swam too quickly, something easy to do with my powers, just as I could hold my breath longer than most. Without my powers, the journey had undoubtedly been much more difficult for the princess; she’d likely run out of air.

I motioned towards the shore, a silent question of whether she wanted to return, but she frantically shook her head. “No, I need to go to the pool. I need—” Her words were cut off as a rough wave made her nearly swallow a mouthful of seawater, resulting in another fit of coughing.

I sighed. This was foolhardy. Orders or not, I couldn’t risk the princess’s life by allowing her to accompany me on such a dangerous venture. I swam close enough to seize her arm, determined to drag her back to shore if need be, but she yanked herself away with a sharp glare.

“Take me to the pool!” Her request came out less like an order and more a desperate shriek. I couldn’t fathom what the pool could possibly show her that was so important for her to risk herself. I debated the wisdom in dragging her back to shore by force before concluding that the resulting struggle would likely prove just as dangerous as it’d be to heed her wishes.

In the end I concluded that the sooner I took her to the cavern, the sooner I could rid myself of her. Before diving back beneath the surface, I swam as close to its entrance as I could so that the princess would be required to spend as little time submerged as necessary.

Once I reached it, it took three attempts for us to dive down and successfully swim to the entrance considering she kept running out of air. But rather than grow discouraged, her desperation only seemed to increase with each failure, a determination that in the end allowed her to finally squeeze through the cavern’s entrance and clamber onto the rocky shore.

At first she simply lay there—soaked, shivering, and taking several long, gasping breaths. The moment she recovered enough to move, she shakily stood. The cavern’s beauty seemed entirely lost on her, the colorful, glistening light cast by the crystals embedded into the rock becoming nothing to the shimmering pool at the center that had completely eclipsed her attention.

She knelt beside it almost reverently. “So this is the mystical pool the legend spoke of. What does it show you?”

In truth, I didn’t know the extent of its powers, my only experience being that it showed whatever memory the viewer desired, no matter how deeply it was buried. In an attempt to illustrate this, I rested my hand over my heart, then my forehead.

“It shows what’s within one’s heart and mind? The legends did mention that.”

The princess grazed her fingers across the pool’s surface; it rippled at her touch, causing the light within it to swirl without forming any discernible image.

“Can it show one the way to a specific location?” She frowned at my shrug even as longing filled her gaze as it returned to the pool. “That is what I most seek. There’s a place I’ve been searching a very long time for. If I could but know how to reach it…”

She leaned towards the pool so closely that her lips nearly grazed its surface. There she whispered something, too soft for me to hear the location she was so desperate to find.

The pool immediately shimmered and churned to life in a blend of different shades of light. The colors swirled together before settling to form an image of a snow-shrouded place high in the mountains, the sky against the peaks lit with a brilliant aurora.

The princess scowled. “My question isn’t whether such a place exists, but how to get there. Tell me how to reach it.”

But the pool didn’t seem inclined to do anything of the sort, only continued to reflect the image of the aurora playing across the velvety night sky in shades of blue and green light.

With a frustrated growl Princess Lavena splashed the water, causing the image to immediately fade away. For a long moment she glared at where it’d been before hope once more lit her eyes.

“Kian?”

She spoke this word loud enough for me to hear, her tone hopeful while also a little afraid. I had little time to wonder just who Kian was when the pool responded to the princess’s heartfelt plea. The colors swirled together once more before settling on an image of a handsome blond man.

Her breath caught and she scrambled so close to the pool, she was at risk of falling in. “Kian…”

Tenderness cradled the name, such a contrast to the coldness that usually filled her tone. She reached out as if to stroke the man’s cheek. Being unable to touch him, she merely stared, taking in his kind smile and soft gaze, a sight that caused a loving smile to graze the princess’s own lips.

“I’ve missed you, Kian. So many years…far too long.”

Because the image was a memory rather than of the real man the princess longed for, it was impossible for him to respond to her words. Her fingers finally made contact with the reflection of his cheek; frustration at the reminder that the man in the pool wasn’t real mingled with her happiness.

Longing and heartache filled her sigh. “Kian…”

Her touch allowed the pool’s magic to access her other memories. It swirled again before several visions played across its surface like a performance on a stage, each flickering so quickly I could barely follow their details.

All were of this Kian and the times he’d spent with the princess—them sitting together in conversation until the late hours of the night, them carving their names within a heart on a tree, the many times they’d held hands or stolen a kiss…Too many memories at once came flitting by for me to make any sense of them save for the joy and love filling their interactions.

The princess in these memories was different to the one who sat before me now—the eyes of the princess within the pool were soft, lined with laugh lines from her frequent smiles. The real Princess Lavena stared at each memory as they appeared in turn, seeming happy while also looking as if the recollections brought her great pain.

Then all at once the memories took a drastic turn; one moment Kian was smiling, healthy, and clearly in love…the next he’d become pale, sickly, and confined to his bed. The visions that followed were no longer warm and filled with light but shrouded in shadow: memories of Kian as his condition worsened, of the princess’s long hours at his bedside clinging to his hand and pleading for him to remain with her, and finally to his last rattly breath…

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