Page 24

RYDER

T he water closes over me like a fist.

Cold and ancient.

I kick down hard, arms tight at my sides. The current grabs me immediately, coiling around my legs, yanking like it knows I don’t belong here anymore.

But I do.

This is where I’m supposed to be.

I open myself to it.

Feel it.

Not just the temperature or the pull. The will .

Because the rift is awake now.

And it knows me.

It knows my bloodline, my tribe, the weight of my failure. It curls around my magic like it’s tasting it. Testing me.

“Not today,” I murmur through my teeth, and the sound bubbles uselessly into the black.

I go deeper.

The lake turns colder. The light above me shrinks until it’s no more than a fading thought.

And then, I reach it.

The trench.

The place where it broke the first time.

The water is wrong here. Not just thick, heavy. Like swimming through grief.

The rift pulses, jagged and wide, glowing faint green with heat and magic and rot. It moves like it’s breathing.

Like a wound trying to scream.

My chest burns.

I’ve got seconds, maybe less.

So I stop.

Open my arms.

And call the current.

It answers.

Hard.

The power rushes through me, sharp, hot, wild. It shreds the edges of my thoughts, tries to rip my form apart, but I hold steady. I pull it close. Shape it. Push it into the wound.

I push everything.

My strength.

My guilt.

My love.

Callie’s face flickers behind my eyes. Her voice. Her laugh. Her ridiculous glitter cannon and impossible hope.

She believed in me.

More than anyone ever has.

More than I believed in myself.

I press my magic into the rift’s core.

The pressure screams.

Something cracks in my chest, real or magical, I don’t know. But it hurts.

And still, I push.

I think of my father.

On the night he drowned trying to seal the first breach.

Of the stories he never told, the lessons he never finished.

I never got to say goodbye.

Never got to tell him I was proud to carry his name, even when it felt like a weight.

“I'm not afraid,” I whisper, voice swallowed by the deep. “I understand now.”

I feel the lake tremble.

Not in anger.

But acknowledgement.

I give one last push.

Then let go.

And in the space between breaths, between worlds, between me .

I make peace.

With the past.

With the pain.

With everything I never said.

And I let the water take me.

The rift roars, louder now.

The currents slam around me like fists of old gods.

But just before everything breaks.

A memory bubbles up.

I’m eight. Too small for my age, too skinny.

Sitting on the rocky edge of the southern inlet, legs dangling in the cold surf, watching my father twist saltweed into a braid around a small stone charm.

“What’s that for?” I’d asked, voice high and curious.

“A tether,” he said, eyes serious. “For the ones we want to keep. For the ones who drift.”

I’d cocked my head, inspecting his craftsmanship closely. Taking in everything I could. “Is it magic?”

“Yes,” he’d replied simply. “Some of the strongest there is.”

I’d frowned in confusion, trying hard to understand. “But there’s no glowing or sparks? I thought magical stuff was supposed to be…I don’t know, pretty?” I’d grimaced, thinking of my aunt’s glowing amulets or the school teacher’s hair beads that glittered like the stars on a cloudless night.

He’d smiled. “Some of the strongest magic doesn’t flash, son. It holds. Quiet. Steady.”

I remember watching him toss that stone into the lake with a strange reverence. I didn’t have the knowledge or understanding to appreciate what he was doing back then.

I have too much of it now.

“What if it doesn’t work?”

He’d looked at me, hand on my shoulder.

“Then we try again. That’s what we do. We hold the line. Even when it hurts.”

Now, years later, in the heart of the lake, with the rift trying to tear me apart.

I feel that hand on my shoulder again.

I feel him.

And suddenly, I know this isn’t where my story ends.

Because I am not alone.

Because someone made a tether for me.

And she’s still up there.

Still holding.

Still fighting.

The rift groans, vibrating through my bones.

The current coils tight around my ribs.

And then, light.

A glow, faint at first.

Not from above.

Below.

It pierces the black water in threads of silver and violet, winding like veins through the silt.

I blink.

It’s not rift magic. Not twisted. Not old.

This is warm.

Steady.

Alive.

The light pulses once, brighter.

I shield my eyes, heart hammering in my throat.

Then it splits the water completely, a column of soft, fierce brilliance rushing toward me like it was summoned by a promise.

And in the center.

I see her.

Hair floating around her like flame.

Eyes locked on mine.

Callie.

Coming for me.