Page 23 of The Obsidian Curse

Tears of frustration blurred my vision. Keeran’s pain radiated through me, growing more intense with each passing moment. I was failing him, just as I’d failed at every test of my water magic.

As I sank to my knees at the water’s edge, a memory surfaced: High Priestess Valya, after my fifth failed trial. She’d found me hiding in the archives, face streaked with tears.

“Perhaps,” she’d said thoughtfully, “you fail because you’re trying so hard to be what others expect. Stop fighting yourself, Niara. Listen to what the water is telling you.”

I’d been so focused on becoming the perfect Water Mage that I’d never truly heard what she was saying. I’d spent my life trying to force myself into a mold created by others, fueled by gratitude and grief.

Behind me, Keeran’s roars grew weaker. The cyclone thrashed, and water whips lashed out at him. Our bond held nothing but pain.

Ylena’s face contorted in triumph as she continued chanting, using a magic not her own, a magic I didn’t even realize Water Mages could wield, to drain Keeran’s energy for her own selfish purposes.

I closed my eyes and did something I’d never allowed myself to do before. I stopped struggling. Stopped pushing. Stopped trying to be what the Order wanted me to be.

Instead, I listened.

The quiet was immediate and absolute. The sounds of the ritual, Keeran’s pain, the water weapons—all faded away. Within that silence, I sensed two distinct presences. One was cool and fluid, gentle yet unyielding—Morros’s embrace, familiar from years of prayer and working to channel his energy. But there was another presence too, one that was hot and vibrant, pulsing with life and energy.

In my mind’s eye, I saw them both—Morros, serene and thoughtful, his pale blue form rippling like the surface of a still pool, and beside him, Ignis, blazing with passion and power, his form constantly shifting like living flame. Though Ignis’s presence felt new to me, I realized it was not. I had just been trying to suppress that part of me for so long.

The two brother moons were not enemies, as I’d been taught. They were complementary forces, two sides of the same celestial dance.

And they were both reaching for me.

“I see you,” Morros whispered. “Child of water.”

“I’ve always known you,” Ignis’s voice crackled. “Daughter of flame.”

I’d been trying to choose between them when I was never meant to choose at all.

Power surged through me, unlike anything I’d ever experienced—cool blue energy from Morros flowing through my left side, and blazing orange heat from Ignis burning through my right. The seaglass gems braided into my hair and the one at my throat simultaneously froze and burned, crackling with conflicting energies that somehow didn’t cancel each other out but amplified one another.

Steam rose from my skin, a physical manifestation of the harmony I’d found between these opposing elements. I was not half of one thing and half of another—I was whole, a bridge between water and fire, born to unite what others saw as irreconcilable.

I opened my eyes and confidently lifted my hands toward Lake Mynnitunqa.

“Cease,” I commanded, and every water-based weapon disintegrated into droplets and fell harmlessly back into the lake.

“Part,” I told the waves, stating it as a simple expression of my desire.

The water obeyed instantly, rolling back from the shore in a thunderous cascade to reveal a wide path leading down into the depths. A staircase made of obsidian was visible in the distance. The water retreated even farther to reveal the small, domed temple made of the black volcanic glass.

I turned back toward the Water Mages and extended myother hand toward Amal and Ylena. A wall of flame erupted from the ground between us, so hot that the sand beneath it began to melt. The wardens conjured magefrost weapons that hissed and evaporated as they tried to penetrate my fiery barrier.

“No!” Ylena’s scream pierced through the roar of the flames. “This isn’t possible!”

Amal ordered the wardens to break through, to douse my flames, but their magic was useless. My fire could not be put out by water.

I ran to where Keeran had collapsed, his massive form splayed motionless on the shore. The sand beneath him had already begun to melt from his heat. With a thought, I transformed it fully into glass, creating a smooth surface, then lifted him on a cushion of air.

Niara, he whispered in my mind, his mental voice weak.How...?

“I stopped fighting who I am,” I answered, guiding his floating form toward the path across the lakebed.

Behind us, Ylena continued to scream threats and curses, but her voice grew fainter as we moved along the newly revealed trail. Above, the sky darkened as the dual eclipse began. Ignis appeared as if from nowhere, following Morros as he finally caught Lyra in their perpetual celestial dance.

The temple doors loomed before us, covered in the same elaborate carvings as inside the Obsidian Oculus. They seemed to shimmer with inner light as we approached. The prophecy Keeran had mentioned echoed in my mind:Where Ignis’s power meets Lyra’s light, and tempers yield to wisdom’smight, devotion true, the curse must prove, with twining vows to his only love.

I placed my hand against the smooth, dark glass, feeling both fire and water pulse through my veins in perfect harmony.

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