One, two, three, four?—
Her ribs flex under my palms in ways that make me nauseous. Children's bones are more flexible than adults', but there are limits. I can feel those limits approaching with each compression, the structural integrity of her chest threatening to give way.
"Damn it!" I sit back on my heels, knowing if I continue I'll break ribs that will take weeks to heal, cause pain that might be worse than?—
No. There has to be another way.
I press my hands lightly on her chest, closing my eyes and letting Fae magic rush through my body into hers. Not the violent force of compressions but something deeper. Older. Thehealing magic that Fae are renowned for when we're not being cruel to our own.
The bond mark on my chest—her mark, Gwenievere's mark, not Gabriel's—flares with heat that has nothing to do with temperature. I can feel the connection between us, stretched thin by distance between life and whatever edge she's balanced on.
Please,I beg my magic, beg the bond, beg whatever forces govern these impossible waters.Retrieve what's wrong in my bonded one and make it right.
The magic responds with enthusiasm that surprises me. It flows from my hands into her small form, seeking the wrongness—water where air should be, stillness where motion should reign. Golden light spreads through her body, visible through her pale skin like sunlight through paper.
For three heartbeats that feel like centuries, nothing happens.
Then she convulses.
Water erupts from her mouth in a stream that seems impossible for such small lungs to have contained. She gasps—a raw, desperate sound that's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. Her eyes flutter open, those impossible color-shifting irises focusing on me with confusion that shifts to recognition.
"Nikki..." she whispers, voice barely audible over the sound of water pressing against our golden sanctuary.
Then her eyes roll back, and she goes limp again.
But this time, her chest rises and falls with steady rhythm. This isn't death or near-death—just exhaustion claiming its due from a body pushed far past reasonable limits.
I gather her against me, one hand checking her pulse—steady if weak—while the other smooths wet silver hair from her face. She's so small in this form. So fragile. It's easy to forget she's theGuardian, the heir, the one who holds power enough to reshape realms.
Right now, she's just a child who almost drowned, breathing against my shoulder while I try to remember how to make my heart stop racing.
"Okay," I tell myself as much as her. "We need to get back to the surface."
The golden bubble responds to my will, beginning to rise with steady purpose. These Fae waters recognize my authority in a way that makes my chest tight with homesickness I didn't know I still carried. This is what magic should feel like—not the constant struggle of the Infernal Realm but partnership, harmony, flow.
We're perhaps halfway to the surface when I see them.
Golden gates.
They rise from the sea floor like a fever dream, their bars twisted into patterns that hurt to follow but impossible to look away from. They should be corroded, covered in aquatic growth, diminished by centuries underwater. Instead they gleam as if newly polished, each bar humming with power that makes my teeth ache.
I stare, trying to process their existence. Gates underwater. Gates that clearly leadsomewhere, though what lies beyond is hidden by light too bright to penetrate.
Then they begin to open.
The motion is slow, deliberate, accompanied by no sound but somehow felt in every bone. Water doesn't rush through the growing gap, which should be impossible. Instead, the liquid seems to hold itself back, creating a corridor of clear space between here and?—
A woman steps through.
No—'steps' is wrong. Sheemerges, as if the space between the gates has always contained her and only now chooses to reveal that truth.
Her hair is white as fresh snow, but not with age. This is the white of winter's first breath, of clouds before dawn, of pearls pulled from depths no human has seen. It falls past her waist in waves that move with their own current, independent of the water surrounding us.
Her eyes stop me cold. They're blue, but calling them blue is like calling the ocean wet—technically accurate but missing the point entirely. They shift between teal and turquoise with each heartbeat, containing depths that speak of secrets older than the academies, older than the realms, older than the division between what is and what should be.
Her lips are works of art—plum-colored magenta that shifts from dark to light in an ombre that shouldn't be possible on living flesh. The shade matches exactly the flowers woven into a crown that sits on her head with the weight of authority rather than decoration.
She looks human in the way a masterpiece looks like paint—technically true but missing the divinity in the creation. Her flesh bears markings that move with subtle life, Fae script that rewrites itself as I watch, telling stories I'm not educated enough to read.
