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“The magic is waning. I can feel myself fading—find the sphere and wake the dragons.” With those words, the ghostly queen began to fade.

“Wait! How do I get out of here?”

“Follow the water—” The ethereal light dimmed and the cave’s darkness reclaimed its space.

Anthea was left alone.

Again.

The frigid water bit into her skin as she stepped inside, causing her to gasp in surprise. The stream was a lot deeper than she had expected, reaching up to her mid-thigh, and the current tugged at her legs with a force that was disconcertingly strong.

Follow the water—that’s what Illiyara’s ghost said. She was taking notes from a ghost. What had happened to her life?

“Here we go again,” she said, taking a deep breath, and started moving. Soon the light of the cavern was long behind her.

In the absolute darkness, her world shrank to the feeling of the cold water against her legs and the touch of the uneven walls under her fingertips.

She used the tip of her dagger to etch an arrow into the stone next to her, a marker showing the way she was heading.

Forward. Only forward.

That was the only way out.

Her lips cracked open in a grim smile as she began to count her steps again. One, two, three?—

The walls of the cave echoed back the splash of her footsteps.

Forward. Always forward.

At least she didn’t have to fear dying of thirst.

Hypothermia was the new possibility.

Seven thousand two hundred and twenty-two steps later she saw it, squinting against the sudden brightness.

The opening of the cave was a narrow slit, no more than a few feet wide, but through it spilled a torrent of water that had been thundering in her ears for the past hour. Light poured through it, almost blinding in its intensity after so long in the darkness.

Fresh air. Her heart pounded in her chest.

She crawled her way through the narrow opening, the stream pushing her along, the water tugging at her clothes and soaking her to the skin.

The current pushed her forward, and she spilled out of the opening, gasping for air as she found herself tumbling down a steep hill, carried along by the rushing water. Her fingers clawed at the stone, trying to halt her descent.

Anthea dug her hands into a rocky hole, slowing her momentum and coming to a shaky stop.

Rolling around and sitting up on the slope, she looked around, blinking in the bright daylight.

She was out of the cave.

Anthea was on a slope of a vast mountain, far below her, a wide river snaked its way through the landscape.

In the distance, she could see a forest stretching out, an orange carpet laid out beneath the clear, azure sky.

She was out.

And she had found another piece of the puzzle?—

She did it—not completely useless after all.