Page 48 of Destined Dawn

Spencer

“Rhianna!”someone yells. “Rhianna.”

And then there’s light, white dazzling lights, streaming through the mist and chasing away the shadows and all they contain. I squint against the light, raising my hand to shade my eyes and see just where that light is coming from.

Rhi.

Standing in the boat, the wooden planks white like the ribs of a skeleton, the light pouring from the palms of her hands. Her face is locked with determination, the man in black’s palm resting on her right shoulder and Tristan’s on her arm.

“Well, fuck me,” Barone says from behind me, clutching the rucksack with the pig in his lap, “now ain’t that somethingto behold.”

It is, but it doesn’t last long. The light races away and Rhi slumps forward.

“Come on,” Tristan says, grabbing her hand. “Who knows how long that will last.”

And this time we motor the boat forward like it’s a fucking speed boat, all of us straining our magic to push the boat through the water, water that feels thick and heavy like treacle, cold water slapping over the sides and lashing at our arms and legs, catching on our legs as if the water itself is trying to catch us and entrap us, but finally, finally, the mist thins and the Gray Isle itself looms above us, ragged and cragged, the convent – weathered and bare – stretching up from the rocks.

We stop the boat again, catching our breaths, Rhi hunched over her knees and Professor Stone spitting into the ocean.

“That was fun!” Barone says, grinning like a maniac.

I consider smacking him right in the mouth.

“You like being harassed by the dead?” Tristan asks, his face still pale from whatever came for him out there on the water.

“It was like a little reunion with all the people I’ve …” he glances towards Rhi, “sent on their way. Good times, man. What a trip!”

“Whatever,” I say, eyes scanning the ragged rocks, the sea pounding against them. I can’t see any obvious place for us to moor a boat on this island, not without being smashed to smithereens. “How do we reach these books?” I ask.

“There should be a passageway through the rocks. It leads right under the convent,” Stone says.

We all scan the rocks and the ocean and finally I spot a slight gap between two high rocks, almost invisible to thenaked eye, the flow of water between them the only real giveaway.

“There,” I say, pointing, and slowly, with caution, we maneuver the boat in that direction, the gap in the rock suddenly materializing more obviously as we approach it. The gap is narrow though, barely wide enough for our boat, but once we’re there a current whips us along, through the rocks and then right under the convent into a cave covered in seaweed and slime, the light tinged green.

Here the water laps gently against a mooring and stone steps reach up from the water.

I swallow, trying once again not to think of that damn dungeon. Of the walls crowding in on me, of the pain and the shame and … It smells the same down here, damp and dank, the walls lined with cool stone.

“Spencer?” It’s Rhi’s voice.

The others have moored the boat and tied it to a metal ring driven into the stone. Tristan and Azlan are already out of the boat and on the steps and Stone and Barone are following.

“Okay?” she whispers, concern in her eyes as she offers me her hand.

“Yeah,” I say, taking her hand gladly.

Together, we follow the spiraling stone steps upwards. Soon the weak daylight can’t penetrate this far and we’re plunged into more darkness. Stone forms a ball of light and names, dates and patterns carved into the stone walls are suddenly revealed. I can almost see the past magicals, carving their names before they made their way in or out of the convent.

The staircase is small and narrow, wide enough only for one person and the ceiling so low I’m forced to duck myhead. We climb upwards and after a while we can hear noise from above, the wind and the waves.

Stone stops.

“The stairway leads into the heart of the convent. I very much doubt there’s going to be anyone here but .... Rhi?”

“I can’t feel any magicals,” she says.

“I suggest we proceed with caution anyway.”