Chapter 145: Tides
The fortress gates opened before dawn. Heavy and firm, belonging to the ancient times, when magic was blossoming and the fortress was full of light.
Isla stood at their threshold, cloaked in deep blue lined with protective runes. Around her, the air was thick with pressure, prophetic, ancient and intensely personal. This wasn’t just a mission. It was a negotiation that might determine the world’s survival.
Instead of horses or caravans, a sleek black vehicle waited, custom-fitted by Rohen with fortified shielding, spell-resistant armor, and a magically-bound engine designed to silence magical trackers. It looked like it belonged in a war zone, and that was precisely the point.
Damian stood by the passenger side, his hand closed around hers.
“You're sure you don’t want me riding with you?”
“If you come,” she said, “they’ll think it’s war.”
Damian’s jaw clenched, but he nodded. “Then you lead.”
He kissed her slowly, protectively, and stepped back. Rohen opened the rear door for her, while Raven climbed into the front seat beside Alaine, who had insisted on driving. Lucia took the second vehicle as backup, her fingers already drumming on the enchanted dashboard.
“ETA: four hours, if the roads hold,” Alaine muttered, adjusting her weapons holster.
“Let’s move,” Isla said, pressing a hand to her stomach. The baby shifted beneath her skin, aware, as always.
The vehicle roared to life and sped down the paved pass that wound out of the fortress. Forest blurred past them. Distant hills fell away to cliffs. Mist thickened as they neared the sea. The smell of ocean permeated their nostrils and brought images back to their brains.
By midday, they reached it. The edge of the world. Who would have f thought she would be close to the edge of world.
The sea glinted silver beneath the sun, and mist clung to jagged rocks that jutted up from the surf like broken teeth and at the cliff’s peak, wrapped in swirling winds and the scent of salt, stood the sanctum of the tide-bound witches.
A circle of standing stones. A sanctified altar. A waiting delegation cloaked in ocean colors, barefoot and expressionless. Osla felt a shiver down the entire body. She wasn’t too sure how to act around them. They hadn’t exactly been very pleasant since they were just trying to prove Isla worthless.
The car stopped. Isla stepped out first. The mist parted around her as though it knew her name.
The High Tide herself stood in the center of the stones, Syra, with pearl-beaded braids and sea-glass eyes. Her skin shimmered like sunlight beneath water, and power lapped at her feet.
“You bring fire,” Syra said, looking Isla over. “And a storm unborn.”
“I bring warning,” Isla replied. “And an offer.”
Syra circled her slowly. “We felt it when the Gate opened. The Veil cracked.”
“And you stayed silent.”
“We do not speak to surface kings or earth-bound wolves,” Syra said coldly. “You are neither.”
“No,” Isla agreed. “I am all.”
Something flickered in Syra’s eyes. A challenge. .
Then she gestured to the stones. “Then prove it.”
Isla entered the ancient circle, the mist turning into vapor against the glow rising from her skin. She dropped to her knees and pressed both hands to the earth. The salt-drenched ground pulsed under her.
She whispered the old tongue, calling on the Veyra. The Sombrosi. The Umbrazin. The flame and the moon, the wind and the gate and her child… the blood that bound all.
The stones hummed. Then they blazed. Each one flared in elemental light; earth, air, flame, water, spirit. Not in sequence, but together, as a convergence. Syra inhaled sharply. A ripple passed through the tide-bound delegation. One of them dropped to a knee.
“She is the bridge,” one murmured. “And carries the storm-child. She is the bearer.”
Syra bowed. “Then the sea will stand with you.”
That evening, in the candlelit caverns beneath the sanctum, oaths were exchanged.
Salt scrolls were signed, dipped in moonwater and sealed with blood. Ten of Syra’s most trusted warriors, tide blades and spell-weavers, were chosen to accompany Isla’s return to the Fortress.
As the others rested, Isla stepped out alone to the cliffs. The sea crashed far below, but it felt strangely silent. Raven found her there, barefoot, her long braid rippling in the wind.
“You’re afraid,” she said quietly.
“Yes.”
“Of failing?”
“Of not being enough,” Isla whispered.
Raven didn’t laugh. “You’re already more than enough. But the world is greedy, Isla. It’ll take more than that. you know that, right?”
She paused. “They’ve been watching you. Not just the witches. The shadows.”
Isla turned. “Cassian?”
“He’s calling something,” Raven said, eyes distant. “The dead answer him.”
Isla exhaled, the ocean mist catching in her throat.
The cold wind bit deeper and far away, the second Gate stirred.