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V ahly leaned around Arc and squinted. With the pearly tint outline and a body that wasn’t much more than mist, the creature looked like one of the human ghosts the Spirit of the River had shown her when they’d left the Lapis cave palace before their quest. He was a thick-bodied fellow with a face only a mother could love.

“You must come with me, Earth Queen,” he said. “You must prove who you are before I can give you my aid.”

And by the Source did she need it. They needed all the help they could get if they had any chance to defeat Queen Astraea and her rising tides. “What happens if I don’t prove who I am?”

“I will fight you, and you will die”

“Lovely. Can’t I simply show you who I am right now?” Vahly waved her hand, and the earth rose, answering immediately. The creature raised its eyes to her. “Doesn’t that prove I am the Earth Queen?”

The galtzagorri shook its wide head. “Many of your kynd have done as much throughout the ages. You must show you are the one we have waited for to rebalance the world. It is not a test of magic. It is a test of who you are. Travel under the ground to the home of the galtzagorri, where our Blackwater Source spring will judge you. You must go alone, take this risk, and prove your mettle.”

Vahly placed a hand on Kyril, whose body rumbled with a quiet growl.

“Well,” she said, facing Arc, Nix, Amona, and Aitor, “I was accepted by the Spirit of the River and the Mountain Spirit. I suppose this third land spirit might approve of me as well. There has to be a reason why all these spirits are approaching me and giving me items. If I don’t return in a day, go onto Illumahrah without me if you’re willing.

See if you can find the Sacred Oak.” She turned toward the galtzagorri.

“Do you happen to know if the Sacred Oak still stands and how we might find it?”

“It is not my place to tell you such things. You must travel that road with your band of the four kynds.”

Nix rolled her bright yellow eyes. “Of course.”

Vahly touched Nix’s hand. “Perhaps I’ll end up meeting you there instead of returning here. There’s no way to know what to expect.”

Nix sauntered over to the galtzagorri. “How long is this going to take? I don’t appreciate the fact that you’re being so vague about this mission. This is the Earth Queen we’re talking about. You can’t jerk her around like you might have the humans once upon a time.”

The galtzagorri glared, then clapped his ghostly hands.

Nix collapsed to the ground.

Kyril leapt at the galtzagorri, but the spirit passed through the gryphon. Vahly’s stomach lurched like she’d been kicked, and her earth magic roared to life. She encased herself, Arc, and Nix in a burrow of sorts. Arc spun an orb of light, and he held it to Nix’s face. Her eyes remained closed.

Vahly touched her cheek, Nix’s scales soft and smooth under her fingers and a gentle pulse beating under her jaw. “She’s alive. Just knocked out. I want to kill that spirit, but I’m guessing death isn’t on my list of options.”

Arc placed a palm on Nix’s chest, near her collarbone. “His power has placed her in a deep sleep. I can’t heal this. Only time will wake her, if I had to make a prediction.”

Vahly jabbed her sword into the burrow’s wall and shouted, expelling frustration.

Her magic surged, pushing her to move onward, toward the Forest of Illumahrah but also urging her to turn toward the galtzagorri.

“I’m so sick of being torn in two. I have to follow my magic though.

It’s helped me so far. It’s the only way to go. ”

She spoke softly to the earth, and the burrow crumbled into small piles around them.

Aitor hurried to Nix while Vahly stepped over the remains of the dirt wall and approached the galtzagorri, who was singing something to Kyril.

The gryphon’s head was cocked to one side, and Amona had the bottom edge of Kyril’s scruff bunched in her hand.

The galtzagorri’s song tugged at Vahly’s magic, pulling the invisible line hooked below her heart, the connection between her and Kyril also humming with power.

This song was truly affecting her familiar.

She frowned. The galtzagorri’s voice was deep, and it rumbled like the beginnings of an earthquake or a landslide.

“ Oh hallowed halls of coal and quartz,

Sing greetings to the one in which we hope.

The Source will judge her true or false,

All will win or all will fall,

Under the hand of the one we call. ”

The creature continued the tune though without words.

Vahly crossed her arms. “Spirit,” she said, giving her tone a nice dose of queenly command. “Will my dragon friend wake? I won’t leave until you assure me that she’ll be all right.”

“She will wake. She must visit a dream in which she learns to respect the land from which she was born.”

Vahly and Amona exchanged glances that said how much they both doubted Nix was the type to learn anything from anyone.

“If she dies,” Vahly said, stepping closer, staring into the galtzagorri’s face, “I will have revenge.”

“You will not. It would be impossible. Now, let us go.” The galtzagorri clapped his hands, and the earth fell away, taking him and her with it.