But it was Leighton who asked, “Arousing? How?”
When the queen responded, she wasn’t looking at him. The black pools of her eyes were fixed on Kestrel. “Like calls to likeness. Your visions summoned you here, my dear niece. And you saw yourself in the lake, correct?” Kestrel didn’t like where this was headed, but she nodded, eyeing the murky waters warily. The first time, it had been her in those waters. Although in one of the visions, she’d seen Signe reaching down into them, a discrepancy she hadn’t realized until now. Before she could say as much though, the queen continued on. “I thinkthatis the missing piece. The thing we need to awakening the light.”
Kestrel swallowed hard. Bodies of water were not her friend.
But the queen was right. In at least one of the visions, Kestrel had been in the water, so it was worth trying. After all, they’d already come all the way here.
Kestrel took an intrepid step toward the stagnant waters, reminding herself that this would be different than the time with the cinder. This lake at least appeared shallow. Even from where she stood at the edge of the bank, she thought she could see the bottom of the lake all the way across, and it looked no deeper than her hips.
If anything went awry, she reminded herself that there were multiple people nearby to help her.
With her shoes still on, Kestrel stepped into the shallow waters.
If her heart hadn’t been racing, the sound of the water lapping at her ankles as she waded in deeper might’ve been peaceful. Relaxing. But the distant growling of the gravemoors all around them was too familiar to the snarling cinder who’d chased her into that oasis all those years ago.
Kestrel forced herself to take one step after another. Forced a haggard breath into her lungs with each and every one.
When the water was barely halfway up her shins, she stopped. The last ripples rolled past her. And once the lake was calm again, she scanned the grey water for the blue orb they were searching for.
Nothing.
No light emanated from the murky depths.
Kestrel twisted around, her gaze inquiring as it fell to the queen.
“Well?”
“Nothing’s happening,” answered Kestrel.
Queen Signe stared down at the ground, thought for a moment. “Your ring. It could be blocking your magic still.”
Protectively, Kestrel’s hand floated to the ring on her necklace. It seemed unlikely that it would be blocking anything, since she’d been wearing it around her neck for days now, and still she was able to receive visions. She had even been wearing it in the queen’s sacrificial chamber, and she had summoned enough magic to be able to repair the rabbit’s wound.
But to rule it out, Kestrel supposed she might as well try.
She unclasped the necklace and tossed it to the bank, careful to watch where it landed so she could retrieve it later. Micah seemed compelled to retrieve it for her and keep it safe, but the only part of him that budged were his eyes that darted toward the queen and then seemed to think better of it. Thatwas alright. The necklace would be safe. Kestrel just needed to get this over with.
As she turned back to face the waters, something was already glowing from the center of the pond. It seemed deeper now though, like the center of the lake had dropped and was now a bottomless thing.
The queen gasped. “What are you waiting for? Retrieve it!”
Kestrel couldn’t budge. “I—I can’t swim.”
She wasn’t sure if her eyes were just playing a trick on her, if she could wade to the center and just bend over to retrieve it. But even if she did, her head might need to go under water, and the thought of that made her lungs hurt as if she was drowning again already.
Besides, in the vision, it had been the queen who retrieved the orb.
“I’m not telling you to go for a swim,” Signe hissed. “Kick the thing over here, if you have to?—”
“She doesn’t want to do it!”
Kestrel hadn’t expected Elora to defend her, not with her position among the royal family still so precarious. Standing up to the queen might cost her. And Kestrel didn’t want Elora to suffer just because she couldn’t muster enough courage to do the very thing they had come here to do.
Before she could announce she would try though, it was Leighton who offered an alternative.
“Queen Signe, maybe it should be you to retrieve it. After all, you were in Kestrel’s vision, were you not? Didn’t the glow intensify in your grasp? What if Kestrel is the key to awakening it, but it’s you who is meant to claim such a power?”
Kestrel’s heart swelled. Whether his intention had been to protect Elora or not, she didn’t know, but she hoped that their conversation earlier had at least left its mark. Maybe Elorawould be well taken care of after all. That was all Kestrel wanted for her.
