Sealed within Kealie Gothalis are the secrets of a magic destined to flood her kingdom.
Trading her Mortality to disguise the heritage her mother fears most, Kealie is gifted with a blessing. She need only do one thing; keep her kingdom in the dark...
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Kealie didn't know when she lost consciousness or when the cold tremors stopped plaguing her body.
She only had the sense of warmth in the darkness behind her eyelids. Slowly, soft fabrics brushed past her fingertips, a thick material with plenty of density. Soft and plush.
Her senses picked up on the crackling fire and some twigs snapping against the pressure. Footsteps scraping against hot, flat stones.
Stones, she realized, likely along the border to Natansia.
Their territory was very rocky and the city was built to withstand the damning storms that wracked their coastlines.
A Cove meant to protect both Casters and Nerydian's alike.
The first throb of her head began when Kealie opened her eyes. The migraine tormenting her felt like two rocks colliding against her skull with great force, the experience nearly blinding.
All she could make out through slitted eyes were long legs pacing back and forth in front of a firewall. The well-built structure radiated heat back in her direction, clearly designed for warmth and survival.
Kealie couldn't fight the groan wrestling from her mouth as she aimed to sit up. She only made it so far before slouching back on her shoulders, grimacing.
"I'd be surprised if you could see straight," the male said. "Let alone move."
She would've laughed if the very thought wasn't excruciating. "How reassuring," Kealie smirked.
"Coming from the girl who nearly drowned investigating an old ship, I'll take that as a compliment."
The Nerydian male's eyes glowed in her direction, flickering with something dangerously close to the line between humor and warning. The emerald green focused in and out of her vision, the bright color disarming even through blurry eyes. So familiar, yet foreign.
Kealie watched him closely, attempting to keep the world from moving on its own. The ground swayed, the shoreline rippled, and her mind twisted in pain.
Her brows knit together the harder she concentrated until he started to laugh.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Investigating you, I suppose," Kealie mused, wincing as her own voice echoing in her skull speared her nerves. "I don't even know your name, you never mentioned what you were doing in the wreckage."
Kealie's clothes dried wrinkled and crunchy, scratching against her skin. Grit covered her, unaided by the dead grass beneath them.
She felt unwashed and grimy, made worse by the way he stared.
The man watched her. His gaze traveled over her small frame, swaddled in thick furs and rested against a large rock in the grassiest patch of land. Studying her. Searching for injuries and clues as to what she might've been doing or why she'd found herself lost in the waves of sunken remains.
