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I gave her a nod and asked the fox, “Would it be possible for you to sit near the edge of the water for us? We have only been able to get one sample of water clear, but when we did so, the queen was nearby. Since this is the canine sanctuary, it may be helpful if you are right at the edge of the water.”
Of course,the fox responded calmly.
As soon as he was positioned at the edge of the water and we were also, we released our magic and got back to work in the disgusting looking water.
“I don’t get it,” Jorah offered minutes later. “We are sending three times as much as I ever spent on the lake in Wylan because our magic can combine now.”
We all exchanged a glance as if thinking the same thing. Our lake hadn’t actually been poisoned though. It had been the forest punishing my father. So we truly had no idea what it would take here in Dra Skor.
Still, I refused to give up hope.
“You did attack that lake for almost a week straight,” Owen reminded her.
“Let me think,” Jorah offered, dropping her magic and wiping a hand across her forehead. We had tried her magic first, my magic first, and Owen’s magic first. And any combination of the three. “I’ve been focusing on healing the lake, like I did with Rafe when he was hurt.”
Would more canines be helpful?The queen sent me a moment later.
“Possibly,” I offered over my shoulder where she stood ten feet behind me. “Can we get one to stand in the lake with us? Or would that be too much for them? To be close to our magic like that?”
“What?” Owen asked, eyes darting from me to the queen, lost to the conversation.
“Queen Esta is going to ask some more of the canine shifters to come closer. I think maybe if we had one in the lake with us it would help. Not justclose, but with us.”
Within a minute, Whit and the fox stood in the water with us, and two wolves sat on the shore.
Jorah held out her hand to Whit, her palm swirling with magic. “You two will feel the buzz of our magic. If not in the air, then within the water you are standing in. It does not hurt, but it does feel different. May I touch you each so you can see?”
I was thankful for Jorah knowing exactly how to approach this with the shifters. This was more than we thought we’d get to experiment with, and I felt oddly hopeful that Whit and the fox standing with us was going to make a difference.
A few minutes later, we were back to pouring magic into the lake. Because the canines were unexpectedly helpful to our endeavor, we had already spent more time here. None of us wanting to give up so easily in front of our audience who had turned out to be rather cooperative.
“Come on,” I muttered.
Even with Whit and the fox standing in the lake with us, there was no change. Even with all three of us increasing the intensity and amount of our magic, there was no change. Even with more canines in proximity and throwing all the magic we had at it, there wasno change.
Had I been obtuse for assuming that the first time we tried this with Jorah and Owen something would happen? Still, I refused to lose hope. I wouldn’t. For Esta. For these warrior shifters I respected. For these people who hadn’t deserved this fate. This couldn’t be their end. I refused it.
“Dial it back,” Owen bit out to Jorah though he was still sending plenty of his own magic into the black lake.
“I have a personal vendetta against black lakes, okay?” she snapped back.
We can try again another ti?—
Before Whit’s train of thought to us was even completed, we were all knocked down.
There was a roar and multiple yips around me, but as I sat up, I saw the water was no longer black, but the most calming turquoise blue hue I had ever seen.
At first, multiple shifters had charged forward to help Whit, and now the yips and barks were changing from that of alarm, to excitement.
Jorah put her hands in the air victoriously. “We did it!”
Whit sniffed at her, tail swishing, and put his head down as if trying to help her up.
I looked around. The lake was blue. Yet the shifters were still stuck. I had foolishly hoped with the lake cleared of the poison, the shifters would be free to shift back. But if I’d learned anything from my father’s reign, it was that things were never that easy.
Whit let up a howl that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“One down,” Owen said with a grin as he hauled me up and out of the water.
