Page 76 of Lore of the Tides

“Let my optimism embolden you.” The prince grinned, his eyes shimmering. “And it’s a deal; I have much to discuss with you when it comes to future escapades; I should not like to be excluded in the future,” Prince Hazen said before turning and clasping Finndryl’s and then Syrelle’s hands, to thank them.

Lore couldn’t believe that Syrelle was even here, and despite their complicated history, he was risking his life to protect her. And while his motives might be self-serving, the results would be the same—his actions would ultimately benefit the siren people.

Lore turned away from the prince, Cuan, Jade, and the other guards, her gaze fixed on the boiling sea.

Chapter 26

Incalescent water shimmered before Lore’s eyes, streaming rivulets wavered like heat ascending from clay bricks baking in the midsummer sun. It was an ethereal, once-in-a-lifetime view. The only problem was that she was submerged within it and felt moments away from being boiled alive.

As the three of them approached the gaping mouth of the volcano,Sourceemerged in a torrent from Lore’s hands, shimmering silver as it flowed from her fingertips to coat her entire body. Trails of it wove in rivers from her to Finndryl, coating him as well.

Syrelle did not need Lore to protect him from the heat; he used his own magic, shaping it like black marble to protect himself.

Despite the protection of magic, Lore felt feverish and flushed; pain was beginning to flare up, not just on her feet but on her cheeks, her arms, and her shoulders. She gritted her teeth and pressed on. The ground here was no longer hexagonal rock formations but smooth rivulets. The rock was hard, but the ground here changed a lot more quickly than the surrounding area, and the ground looked like a riverbed, though not formed from centuries of water flowing, but from fast-cooling magma.

She prayed to her gods that the volcano did not decide that now was a good time to unleash its lava. Their bones would surely meltinto the ground where they stood. Then she prayed to Anuya, the sirens’ goddess, just in case. And then to Great Hearth himself.

This was it; this was what they had been preparing for.

Above the cavernous, hungry maw of Mount Vatraol, Great Hearth,Sourcedanced and twirled among the blooms of steam. It was as though the volcano itself was the source of all magic on earth. And maybe it was. No scholar alive knew where magic came from, and it was impossible to create something from nothing. Maybe the volcano was the source, or maybe the magic came from deep within the core of the earth, and the volcano was simply one of many vectors for its liberation into the world.

It made sense that some of the creatures here had found their very lives, their mating and birth cycles, so entwined with magic, if their habitat was so close to this...

This sublime sight before her.

Lore halted when she could not stand to move any closer. When another step risked her magical shield failing. The Puallas Kiss would boil off along with her skin, and the grimoire’s magic would not be able to keep it intact, even here. She could feel the warning from the book—not in words, for it did not speak to her in words anymore, but in a feeling of caution.

This is as far as we go.

Lore heeded the warning, forDeeping Lunewanted to protect her as much as she wanted to protect it.

They were as one, just as it had promised back in Wyndlin Castle.

Lore gritted her teeth against the searing pain in her skin.

This magic was like scrying, though instead of using a bowl of water to cast herself away from her body, she was immersed within the bowl itself. There was water all around her, magic swirling in eddies above her, and all she had to do was reach out her hand and take it.

So she did just that. She reached up and thrust her hand into one of the rivers ofSourceand opened herself to it.

TheSource, as if alive, as if it wanted a place to go, a purpose, as if it craved life itself, jumped at the chance. Here, there was no life; it would float around above the volcano until, maybe, eventually, it would wither and die; watergavelife, but it wasnotlife, and Lore was.

She was eager for it, too, so when she raised her hand, palm forward, fingers splayed wide, open, inviting, magic erupted from the volcano.

It flowed into her, bright hot.

In a single breath it soaked into her palm, and she was filled with magic, to the brim, she thought, but there was no stopping it. It pushed into her, without care.

Lore gasped, clenching her jaw as the magic ignited her every nerve ending.

It felt like she was struck by lightning, on fire, boiling. It felt like she was being frozen, crushed, ripped apart. Lore cried out, though no sound escaped her lips. Nothing could escape this onslaught of power.

Lore’s body went rigid, her back arched; she floated off the ocean floor as more and more magic entered her body, her being. It was filling her up in such a way that there wasn’t going to be any room left for her.

It was overpowering her very self.

Her life force.

Lore felt herself unraveling.

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