Chapter Two
Much to Florian’s relief, he didn’t barf up sea water when he shifted back to his usual self; but he was soaking wet, which was annoying. Rune laughed, pushing her wet hair out of her face.
“You get used to that part, I guess,” she chuckled. “Nothing to be done. Let’s go.”
“Dry,” Florian muttered to himself as Rune started walking away, shunting all the water out of his clothes. She watched him with her eyebrows raised.
“Neat trick,” she said again, as if she’d forgotten that she’d seen him do this once before. “Not gonna offer it to me?”
“Nothing to be done, you said,” Florian replied, stifling a grin, and Rune howled with laughter.
They were both dry when they arrived at the guest cottage again, but Koji was gone.
“I’ll go track him down,” Rune sighed, dropping off her bag and turning back around. “Shouldn’t take long. Then we can have lunch and plan out what we’re doing next.”
“Sounds good,” Florian agreed. When the door closed behind her, he collapsed on his pile of blankets and pillows, exhausted.
His thoughts wandered to Kade again, as they always did when he didn’t have someone or something around to occupy them. He wondered what Kade was doing—their time zones were about the same, he thought, so maybe he was finishing his morning chores and sitting down for lunch. Or maybe he was at his father’s bedside, holding his mother’s hand. Or maybe everything had already happened, and he was prowling the forest, utterly alone. The thought of that made Florian’s eyes sting with tears, and he buried his face in his pillow.
Whatever he was doing, though, Florian hoped that maybe Kade was thinking of him right now, too. Silly as it was, it made Florian’s heart squeeze with longing.
Florian groaned, shoving his face further into his pillow, embarrassed by his own thoughts. Hopefully, Rune and Koji would come back soon.
“Alright. Here’s what I think we should do.”
The declaration came after a long moment of silence. The three of them were sitting around Rune’s dining room table. Lunch was a vegetable soup with crusty bread, which Florian and Koji had been sipping dutifully. Rune had pushed her bowl to the side, abandoned in favor of their map that she’d asked to see. It was the one with Jerah’s notes that marked the location of the Arrows, and she studied it in silence for a while, long enough that Florian started to worry there was some disastrous roadblock they weren’t aware of.
“This one, I think all three of us can go for,” she said, placing her finger on the red circle closest to the kraken kingdom, off tothe east. “It’s a little over half a day there and back swimming, so I’m guessing flying it’s about the same. Florian, you said you have a way to travel through the Blight. Unless you can put it on Koji by himself, I think you should probably both fly and I’ll swim beneath.”
“But what about you in the Blight?” Florian asked, frowning. To his shock, Rune smirked, scoffing at him.
“The Blight can’t reach into the water. Or, at least, it only hits the surface. Ten, twenty feet down, it’s safe to swim anywhere.”
Florian gaped at her wordlessly before he could collect himself. “Really? Really?”
“Would I lie?” she replied, eyes narrowing.
“No, no, I just mean—I had no idea. Wow!” he stammered, shaking his head. “So there’s still most aquatic life out in the ocean, even in the Blight? They’re not Blight monsters out there?”
Rune seemed to hesitate at that, her smug expression fading quickly. “Well... mostly. Things like whales and dolphins that needed to surface to breathe are gone, or... Blight monsters, like you said. But yeah, most deep-sea creatures were totally unaffected. They’ve had to adapt for sure, but they’re not, you know, extinct or anything.”
“Amazing,” Koji echoed, looking properly impressed. “The dragon kingdom itself is landlocked, but the larger Blighted area is surrounded by water, so knowing that there are still deep-sea fish and other creatures living... Maybe we can use that. Figure out how to fish in the Blight.”
“Well, if everything goes as planned, you won’t have to worry about the Blight anymore at all,” Florian replied firmly, and Koji grimaced.
“Right,” he said, nodding quickly. Florian glanced away. Had it just been a lack of foresight, or was Florian really the only one who thought they could actually do it? It had to have just been aslip of the tongue. Why would Koji still be here if he didn’t think they could get rid of the Blight?
It made Florian miss Kade horribly all at once. Kade’s conviction had always outweighed even his own, and only now was Florian realizing how much he’d been relying on Kade’s belief in him just to believe in himself.
“Anyway,” Rune interjected pointedly, and Florian smiled apologetically, gesturing for her to continue. He’d have time to feel sorry for himself later. “Like I said, this one is six hours away, so all three of us should be able to go get it. This one, though...”
She tapped the other red circle, which was much further from the kraken kingdom. “I don’t think it would be good for Koji to come for this one. Sorry, Koji. But it’s going to be at least a day away swimming, and this is kind of a broad area your dad circled here. It’s mostly all underwater, too. So I think it’s got to be just me and Florian.”
Koji frowned, crestfallen. “I could... Well, I could try...” He trailed off, then sighed in resignation. “I guess you’re right. If it’s underwater, I won’t be able to help. And we wouldn’t exactly have a place to camp out on the water.”
“Oh, shit,” Florian said softly, the realization hitting him all at once. If the Arrow was underwater, at least a day away, he’d probably have to stay shifted that entire time. Terror gripped him at the thought—he’d never been shifted for so long. He’d never even held the shroud in place that long; and like holding the shroud, if he dropped his form, he’d die instantly.
“Being shifted that long is possible,” Rune said, evidently recognizing the fear on Florian’s face. “We live underwater half the time, remember? It’ll suck since you’re not used to it, but we can do it. We’ll practice staying shifted for a long time to work up to it, so don’t worry so much about it right now, okay? That one we’ll tackle later.”
