Chapter 16

I approached the selkie. Its whiskers curled up at me curiously and it gave a little bark.

Seeing the devastation at Tabaskil firsthand taught me that I needed to seal this tear in the mana, even if I went alone. Myria and the Archmagus exhausted the magic they had. But I still had mine. To be fair, I was still terrified.

I put my hand on the selkie’s slick and rubbery head. Instinctively, I sent a pulse of will through my fingertips. For a strange moment I saw myself through the creature’s eyes as I tasted something darker and sweeter than when I normally transformed, like the taste of blueberry lemonade.

I watched myself disappear and felt myself within its seal-like body. I could feel the selkie’s mind reach for my own out of curiosity, not fear. Definitely not like the boar who fought me until I conquered it.

In something like word-pictures I tried to ask it to take me to the middle of the lake. It barked and we dragged our chubby body to a slate shelf on the water’s edge.

With a bounce far from being elegant we plunged into the water. On land the selkie was awkward and slow, but the water revealed its true domain. Its body easily carved its own currents like a torpedo.

We must have been near the shore since I could see the sand at the bottom. The vicious currents pulled the sand into hazy cyclones. The selkie weaved around the torrents with practiced grace.

The sandy shelf gave way to an incredibly large hole in the center of the lake. It was a giant cylinder lined with waving algae and pink coral. I couldn’t even begin to see the bottom. It dropped down into interminable blackness. I knew somewhere in those depths was Wyvergath.

The selkie wasn’t afraid; different story for me. Sensing this, the selkie touched me with its soothing presence. The darkness around me started to fade a little. Curious, I tried to look around. That’s when I was shocked to find that the aquatic creature’s horn was glowing. It pushed back the encroaching shadows.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

The mana tear cried out to me from above, and I confirmed with the selkie and we swam up and up and up. I could feel different valves releasing in our inner ear, which meant we didn’t have that painful popping I was so used to when coming up from a deep part of the water.

At the call’s strongest point I could sense where the mana was bleeding out with that haunting cry. It distressed me and the selkie. A knot formed in our stomach as I thought there was something wickedly familiar about the shape of the tear, but I didn’t have time to look into it. I knew Wyvergath could find us any minute.

We made contact with the tear with one flipper. I felt a terrifying jolt of powerful energy, like electricity seizing my body. The selkie panicked and emitted a shrill wail in protest. Unchanneled power started to swell in our veins as though they were boiling. Worse, I felt something terrible answer from the depths and knew that Wyvergath was on his way.

I didn’t know how we’d survive this. With only seconds before we exploded with the torrent of unrelenting power, I remembered something my dad said. Electrical currents need to be grounded. With no great idea coming to mind, I prompted the selkie to put both big flippers on the tear, one gathering the bleeding mana and the other channeling it to the frayed edges.

It started to work! I could feel the gaps starting to heal. But we were running out of time.

I felt the pressure of the monstrous leviathan approaching from the depths. I pushed my will to hold out, just a few more seconds. I felt the shadow of Wyvergath’s jaws the size of city buses loom over me. Between the selkie’s panic and my own I felt my body start to shut down. My eyes grew heavy. I didn’t have the strength to seal the tear completely. We were good as dead.

Something like a hard plate pushed against my back. Our body went rigid, and I looked down expecting to see us impaled on a tooth or something. But then a warm surge of mana like tropical ocean water surged into our being and fueled our strength. The last whispering cracks in the mana faded, and the tear was restored.

Wyvergath gave us the strength we needed to pull through, but the ordeal paralyzed us with exhaustion. What I now realized was the plated head of Wyvergath gently pushed us through the water to the coastline.

Before we reached the edge I suddenly realized why the tear in the mana had felt so familiar. Three triangular slashes merged in the center. It reminded me of the hideous obsidian weapon the assassin wielded against me. I had a sinking feeling it was connected.