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Exhausted beyond belief, I collapsed onto the barren ground of Glimmerglass Lake, my tears mingling with the dust beneath me. I couldn’t see Aidan anymore, but I could hear his labored breathing as he stayed vigilantly beside her. Closing my eyes, I gave in to the grief. Lerissa was gone. I didn’t want to get up or face Aidan, let alone look at Lerissa.
How could I not have been strong enough to save her? I felt so weak and powerless that my body refused to move.
“Lia,” Aidan murmured as he knelt beside me. My eyes were too heavy to open, so instead, I just remained in silence. “Lia, you have to see this,” he said more urgently.
I opened my eyes and could barely make out the sight in front of me, but it was what I could hear that caught me by surprise . . . it sounded like a river rushing somewhere close by.
Aidan’s arms gripped me tight and he helped me sit up, his eyes gleaming with astonishment. My vision was still foggy, so all I saw was his face but when I listened closely, the water became louder and louder.
He smiled wider and nodded to his left. “Take a look.”
Hastily, I wiped away the tears running down my cheeks with the back of my hand and looked toward the sound. The moment my gaze landed on the scene before me, my mouth dropped to the floor. What used to be Glimmerglass Lake was slowly filling up with crystal-clear water, which raced toward us with force and determination. Its warmth and magic enveloped my skin, restoring all the strength I had lost in an instant. The water lapped at my ankles, and I saw Lerissa’s lifeless body drifting in its depths. Her curly caramel-colored hair fanned out around her head like a halo, her skin pale and flawless against the aquamarine of the lake. Tears filled my eyes as I realized we couldn’t leave her there.
“We need to take her with us,” I whispered, my voice thick and choked with emotion.
Aidan pulled me into his arms and kissed the top of my head. “Okay,” he agreed softly.
He started to walk away when suddenly Lerissa’s body jolted and she lifted her head out of the water, gasping for breath. My heart leaped and I stared at her in stunned silence as Aidan rushed over and knelt beside her, splashing water everywhere.
She blinked a few times before turning to me. “What the hell just happened?”
Relief washed through me, and I grabbed one of her hands while Aidan took the other. We helped her stand up before I hugged her tightly, amazed that the wound on her back was now perfectly healed. I was about to explain when fear echoed in her voice.
“Diawen. It was her, wasn’t it?”
I followed Lerissa’s gaze toward the tree where Diawen had been, but she was gone. Aidan ran over and picked up the arrow I’d shot into Diawen’s chest.
“She’s not here,” he shouted.
Panic filled Lerissa’s eyes and dread settled in my gut. Diawen was still alive.
“She almost killed me,” Lerissa said, rubbing a hand over her chest.
“But she didn’t,” I said. “I hope she thinks she did so that she doesn’t come back for you. But I don’t think she stuck around after I put an arrow through her cold heart.”
Lerissa’s eyes widened. “You shot her?”
I nodded. “Next time, I’ll slice off her head if I have to. That should do the trick.”
Relief seemed to pass through her body, but there was still a hint of fear on her face as she turned to the lake and gasped. “How did this happen?”
I couldn’t answer the question, so I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I tried to heal you after the blade struck you. I gave you everything I had, but it didn’t seem to work. Then a few minutes later, the lake began to fill up and the water gave me back my strength and you came back alive.”
Lerissa bent down and submerged her hands in the water, gasping with delight when she stood again and faced me with tears in her eyes.
“It was you, Lia,” she said softly with a smile on her lips and laughter shaking her shoulders. “You are the one who healed the lake with your magic; whatever you did on me was absorbed by the land.” She smiled wider. “Youdid it.”
It was hard to believe that I had restored Glimmerglass Lake. But what I was most happy about was seeing Lerissa alive again. However, it wasn’t going to be long before her life was going to change. Soon, she would be confined to living mainly in the water. There was a guilt in my soul I was afraid would never go away because of that.
Lerissa smiled as she gazed out at the water. “I never got to tell you about the cure. Do you want to know why it needs our blood and water from Glimmerglass Lake?”
“Of course,” I replied, curious to hear the story.
Lerissa blew out a sigh, still keeping her focus on the lake. “The original potion that turned men into Tyvar only had two ingredients: Diawen’s blood and water from the sea she was born in. That sea is all dried up now. She’d saved some of the water and used it on the men she just recently turned into Tyvar.” Her eyes shot over to mine. “She can’t make any more now. But, at least we have all we need to heal them all. She’s going to get a big dose of reality when we break the curse, and she loses a lot of her power.”
Lerissa walked over to the grassy bank and picked up the glass decanter I had left there. She pulled out the cork stopper and lowered it to the lake, almost filling it completely.
“You need Diawen’s blood for the cure,” she explained. “Since I’m part of her line, mine will work. It makes sense why you’d need it since it’s part of the curse. That’s why your healing blood and the magical Glimmerglass Lake water are used to counteract Diawen’s essence. It reverses the spell.”
