Elemental Shadowed by Helen Scott

11

Finn

When the ground opened up and separated us from Tessa I thought I'd been scared, but when Kai told her to jump my heart seemed to want to climb out of my chest through my throat. I wanted to yell and tell her to stop, but no words would come.

I was stuck watching as she backed up a pace and then launched herself trying to cross the gap that was more than I would be comfortable jumping. She began to lose height too soon. I could only watch in horror as she smacked against the rocky side of the divide and slipped, her fingers scrabbling for purchase as they went over the edge.

"Tessa!" Kai yelled as he dove for her. When his body slammed against the ground it seemed to startle the rest of us into movement. We each rushed forward, trying to help just in time to see her fingers slip from Kai's grasp.

The look of terror on Tessa's face was one that I would never forget. Maybe that's what made me jump after her into the darkness, or perhaps the ground gave way where I was standing; I wasn't sure what happened. All I knew was that one second I was watching her disappear and the next I was falling after her.

Wind whistled past my ears as I picked up speed. Shouts sounded above me, but that wasn't what I was paying attention to.

My ears were straining for any sounds coming from below me. It was only the smack and splash of water echoing up from the blackness that let me know death didn't await me.

While I could have called the water below upward to prevent me from injuring myself, I didn't know what was in the water or what lay above it. In trying to save myself I could accidentally kill Tessa or one of the ancient beings that lived in the ocean that surrounded Atlantis.

There was so much about the realm that we still didn't know, even after centuries of exploring as much as we could, and that was only part of the reason we were discouraged from using our abilities with water or environments that we couldn't see.

I tried to arrow my body as much as possible so I didn't hurt myself as I crashed into the water. Sure enough, a few moments later the ice cold liquid covered me from head to toe as I plunged into its depths.

There was nothing to see, just darkness and only the sensation of the water over my skin as I surged toward the surface. The splash next to me a few moments later was unexpected, and as I tried to gain my bearings I called for Tessa, getting only echoes in return.

A masculine gasp sounded to my right followed by Griff's voice calling out to me. "Finn! Where are you?"

"Here." I swam toward his voice, the cold water making my muscles tense up and stiffen even as I tried to move.

"Where's Tessa?" His voice tinged with fear and urgency that I hadn't heard in a while.

"I don't know. I can't see anything down here, can you?"

"No, but I can make light if we need it," Griff said, voicing an idea I'm sure we both had even though we knew it was illegal and risking the death penalty if he was caught doing it.

We weren't allowed to use our skills anywhere except our home realm. That was especially true if we were visiting other realms. We might be free to do so in the origin realm, but only if we were on a mission.

If we were caught using magic outside of specified training areas like Griff was suggesting, then it was an automatic death sentence. It was why Dres hadn't used his ability to manipulate air to stop Tessa from falling.

With the queen and her advisers right there, they would have no choice but to sentence him to die for saving the one thing that could save us all. It was stupid and fucked up and assumed that we were children that needed to be controlled to prevent us from hurting ourselves when most of us were well past a century old.

"Do it," I said quietly, and watched as flames came to life above the hand that he had sticking out of the water. It was the only light in the cave, and as my eyes adjusted I dove down, hoping against everything that I would find Tessa alive. The light dissipated much too quickly under water, and I was left searching a small radius at a time for our woman as I dragged Griff around from section to section.

I wasn't sure when my mind had decided that it was okay to think of her as ours, or even mine, but there it was. Without his light I didn't stand a chance of finding her, but he couldn't keep his flames alive under water, so the search was almost futile. The only chance I had was using echolocation, but that wasn't a skill I was well versed in having never needed to train it. It also required me to be completely submerged, which would mean leaving Griff.

"I'm going to try something. I'll be right back." I let my body slide beneath the surface. I saw the light from Griff's flames fade out and knew he was trying to conserve energy.

Without wasting another moment I called the water to me, forcing the transformation in my body that allowed me to swim underwater without requiring oxygen or artificial flippers. As the magic within the waters of Atlantis washed over me, I knew the change was complete.

After I closed my eyes, I focused on the different sensations against my skin. I could feel the water, the sounds of the edges splashing against the walls of the cave reflecting back to me. A moment later I let out a high-pitched clicking sound, and as it went out and returned to me, my body and mind worked in unison to create a mental vision of the cave until I found an opening near the bottom.

I moved toward it and through into a tunnel system, my body acting on autopilot as I kept clicking and swimming, narrowly avoiding walls and stalagmites that were pointing up from the floor like miniature mountains. The further I went into the tunnel the more I felt the water pulling at me, as though it knew where I needed to go.

If I wasted too much energy trying to fight it, then there was a small chance that I wouldn't be able to continue using the echolocation I had been up until that point, and that could be disastrous for Tessa and Griff, not just me. The last thing I wanted was for either of them to be in danger because of me.

When I gave in, the water seemed to sense it and pulled me along, faster and faster until I was rushing through tunnels and barely avoiding knocking myself out on the walls, ceilings, and occasionally the floor. The current was strong and swift as it moved me, at least until it deposited me into another cave-like area.

This time I could sense light though. My echolocation didn't work outside of water, and that meant that the flat line I could feel above me had to be the surface, and the dim light that was steadily growing as I swam toward it was, hopefully, sunlight.

After I breached the surface, I opened my eyes to find one solitary shaft of sunlight streaming in from somewhere high above the edge of the water. It gave enough light to see my surroundings but wasn't an escape route, unless I grew wings or something. The way the light was coming in I knew it was facing away from the sun, which meant that it would disappear that much faster.

I scanned around the open area, and my heart froze in my chest. Tessa's unmoving form was washed up on a beach-like area on one side of the cave. Without a moment to lose I took off toward her, splashing through the water and moving as fast as I could to get to her.

When I was close enough I let the magic of my transformation wash away so I could walk onto the beach area. It was at that moment that I realized that she wasn't just unconscious as I had hoped, she wasn't breathing. Her back didn't move at all with each breath she should have been taking.

I rolled her over onto her back and began administering CPR. I blew into her mouth just as I had been taught and did the chest compressions counting all the seconds that I was working on her with growing concern.

It was taking too long, and I was starting to worry that I'd found her too late. My heart felt like it was breaking in my chest as I begged her to come back to life once more for me.

How many times could Atlantis try to kill her in one way or another? I'd thought finding the key would be the hardest part, but it turned out keeping her alive was even harder.

A few seconds later she coughed up the water that was in her lungs, and I wanted to cry with relief. There were a few more tense moments as she caught her breath but eventually her eyes opened. Those beautiful mismatched orbs stared up at me as her hoarse voice asked, "What happened?"

"There was some kind of earthquake, and you had to jump over a gap in the temple to get out, but you fell. Do you remember?" I pushed some of the still wet hair away from her face.

She nodded slightly, her gaze going distant as though she was reliving the memory of what had just happened. "There was a turtle, the one from before. It saved me."

To anyone else that would have sounded like complete insanity, but I was Atlantean and our sea creatures were anything but normal. "Did it hurt you?" I quickly looked her over for any bleeding or bruising.

She shook her head.

I sighed with relief. Not only were our sea creatures extra smart, but some of them were extra devious as well. In fact, I wouldn't put it past a turtle to use people's preconceptions of turtles being gentle creatures against them.

She'd said it was the same one from before, but I wasn't sure she remembered much of the magic that had bound her being broken. It certainly couldn't be enough to know that it was the same turtle, could it?

I mentally shook myself. Not that that mattered now.

"Are you okay to rest here while I look for a way out?"

Tessa nodded again, and I turned to dive into the water. "Wait, how did you get down here?" Her voice came out sounding frail, as though she couldn't quite believe how close she'd come to dying.

"You know, I don't remember. I was so focused on you falling that I'm not sure what happened," I said as I turned back to face her. It was a degree of truth. I had an idea what had happened, but I wasn't sure about it.

"Oh." She paused, her gaze narrowing on my face, as though she could tell I wasn't being completely honest with her. "Is everyone else okay?"

"I think Dres and Kai are, but Griff is stuck in the water we first fell into. I'm hoping if I can find a way out of here that we'll be able to get back up to the temple and rescue him because there is no way he could survive the trip through the tunnel to this part of the cave system."

"I'm sorry," she said with tears suddenly streaming down her face.

"For what?"

"For not making the jump, for putting you and Griff at risk, for the way I've been treating you."

I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled before going over to her. "Listen, Tessa, there is nothing for you to be sorry for, but Griff is a meathead sometimes, and I don't want him to sink because I took too long figuring out a way to save him. So, let's just get past this part and then we can all have a chat with some coffee and chocolate, okay?"

I was worried that I'd sounded patronizing, and that wasn't my intention, but I was getting more and more concerned about Griff and his ability to stay afloat in the other cave. When she just nodded, I took that as all the signal I needed and jumped in.

The water was icy as it closed around me once more, but I was our only hope of getting out of there, and if I didn't find a way out then all five realms would be doomed. It would have been handy if the turtle had stuck around a bit longer. It hadn't though so now it was all up to me, no pressure though, right?