Page 33 of Fate of Echoes and Embers (Heirs of Elydor #3)

ISSA

I hadn’t planned to die today.

But as I watched Marek wave his arms furiously, clearly struggling to do what usually came so easily to him… as the ship’s wheel stopped responding in the way Marek had shown me, it was clear we were losing control.

Yet as we got closer, the Crystal’s magic hummed in my chest. It was the opposite of the feeling I had when Lyra whispered to Mev, and later again when I’d been alone with Marek. That had felt… off. As if it were wrong. Unnatural. But this?

I had to be here with him. Somehow, I knew, without me, Marek would not be able to find the Crystal. Or maybe he could find it, but not retrieve it. Or not get out alive. I wasn’t sure how I knew this, but telling Marek I was staying had been a surprisingly easy decision.

The only decision.

“The water feels wrong. This isn’t just a storm. It’s the sea itself rejecting us,” Marek yelled to me.

I understood what he was saying. Though not an experienced sailor like him, or a Thalassari whose lifeblood was tied to the water, I understood.

Why was the magic so welcoming but the sea, just the opposite?

The magic was the Wind Crystal. Powerful, all-encompassing, welcoming.

The sea was just as powerful but it was angry and very much unwelcoming.

And then it hit me.

“The Crystal doesn’t belong there. It’s a curse,” I called to Marek. “A wound that won’t heal until it’s removed. It wants to be removed. The sea is rejecting it.”

I struggled to keep the wheel steady. Struggled to listen to Marek’s advice. But the waves, the wind… everything was fighting against me. Against him.

“We’ll never survive the Depths if we don’t retrieve it. But if we stay too long…”

“I cannot hear you,” he yelled.

I turned to watch.

Marek’s eyes were closed, his hands were raised, palms facing the water. For a moment, the storm seemed to pause, the waves shifting as if responding to him. But they didn’t calm. The waves writhed beneath us, defiant and alive with the magic of the Depths.

“It’s rejecting us,” I whispered to myself, feeling the truth of it in my bones. “The sea knows the Crystal doesn’t belong here,” I yelled to him.

The winds howled, and the ship groaned beneath us as if the wood was being torn apart by the storm’s fury. We were going to die here. Draven would take Hawthorne. My people would suffer. The Gate would remain closed.

No.

I shook my head.

No. This cannot be happening.

I struggled to remain standing, the force of the waves wanting to rip the wheel from my fingers. I thought of Marek’s early instructions to me.

“Don’t fight it, Marek,” I called over the roar. “We need to listen. Let it guide us.”

Marek’s gaze shifted to me, his jaw clenched, the strain of holding back the water visible in his face. “I won’t let it take you,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.

The ship shuddered.

“If we fight it, we lose.”

He was silent for a long moment, the only sound the deafening crash of waves against the hull. Then, with a harsh exhale, Marek stepped forward. “Hold fast,” he said, his voice steady.

I twisted the wheel, steering us in the direction of the Crystal.

“That way,” I called, pointing.

The water buckled beneath us. Marek was at the railing beside me now. His hand shot out, manipulating the waves around us, parting them like a curtain. The space between us and the Crystal grew smaller, but the closer we got, the stronger the pull became.

And then, through the blackness of the storm, I saw it. The Wind Crystal. A bright blue-and-white beacon, bouncing up and down with each wave, but never sinking or even moving positions, as if it were anchored from below.

Its glow cast an eerie light through the murk of the Maelstrom.

The air around it hummed with a magic so strong it consumed me.

I could hardly concentrate on steering, the intensity of the Crystal was so extreme.

Remembering my training, I separated myself from my own senses.

Breathed deeply. Pretended it was nothing more than a regular artifact.

“We’re almost there,” I said, my heart pounding as Marek continued to steady us but no longer battling back the natural currents. It must be difficult for him, not to guide us in the way he knew but instead to allow Tidechaser to be pulled closer and closer to the center of the storm.

“Ready yourself, Issa. This will not be easy.”

The ship lurched violently as we crossed into the epicenter of the storm, waves crashing higher, the winds screaming. At the heart of it all, the Crystal remained. Unyielding.

Marek reached out in his first attempt to retrieve the Crystal. He encapsulated the water around it, but as soon as he did, it dropped back into the sea. Again and again he tried, and failed.

My arms were getting tired. My hands raw with the pressure of Tidechaser ’s wheel constantly pulling against me. I could tell Marek was getting tired too. But this was no time to give up.

The Crystal’s magic was almost oppressive. I battled not just the wheel but the energy it exuded, as if warning me to stay away. Or maybe that wasn’t the Crystal at all but the Depths surrounding it.

“We need to be closer,” I said, realizing Marek’s last attempt could have seen him retrieve the Crystal if the ship was nearer.

Turning the wheel and angling us into the waves, I watched as Marek tried again.

This time, the Crystal’s glow came closer and closer as the water surrounding it, like a clear, liquid box, held steady.

Bringing it toward him, Marek maneuvered the Crystal until he reached out and grabbed it, its water container falling to the deck below.

“Got it,” he yelled, securing it into the pouch at his side, the one that held his mother’s pearl. “Hold the wheel steady, Issa. Keep us aligned with the current. Don’t fight it.”

I did as he instructed, the ship gliding in the direction the Crystal had been. We were going through the Depths, and not back out of them. Trusting Marek’s decision, I did as he told me.

“Hold on,” he called, running back to the bow. “I’m clearing the path ahead. Just stay on course, Issa.”

Perhaps it was because we had the Crystal. Or because we had learned to navigate the Depths without fighting them. Whatever the reason, despite my exhaustion—and I assumed Marek felt the same—our path out was difficult, but not impossible.

“Keep your eyes on the horizon,” Marek yelled. “Adjust as the waves come.”

We sailed, the oppressive magic no longer encapsulating Tidechaser as if it were to swallow us whole, and little by little, the waves calmed. The winds began to die down and eventually, the skies cleared.

Somehow, we had done it.

Together, Marek and I had retrieved the Wind Crystal and survived the Maelstrom Depths. But… as a distant shore appeared on the horizon, one that appeared desolate, abandoned, Marek still seemed uneasy.

“What is that?” I asked. “Where are we?”

Marek’s expression was not reassuring.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know.”