Authors: Amanda Hocking
“I’m fine,” he insisted and wiped the water from his eyes. “How long can you hold your breath?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe five minutes.”
During grade school, I had frequently shown off my ability to hold my breath for extended periods of time. I thought it would make the kids think I was cool, but it turned out I was nothing more than a circus sideshow. The average Kanin could hold their breath for roughly thirty seconds, so my feat seemed quite impressive and a little freaky. But by comparison, my mom could hold her breath under water for nearly a half hour.
“Yeah, I can’t do anywhere close to that.” Ridley shook his head. “I tried to go down to the bottom of the lake, but it’s way too far for me. If Linnea has gills, she could be hanging out in the depths of it.”
“That makes sense,” I agreed. “I’ll see how far down I can go and look for her. You wanna stick to the shallower areas?”
“Works for me.”
I took a deep breath, then plunged under the water. I went straight down, thinking that I would find the bottom and search along there. If this was a hidden paradise built for gilled trolls, it wasn’t a stretch to guess that there might be something at the bottom.
Ridley wasn’t kidding about how deep it went. Even with the water being totally clear, it soon became too dark for me to see well. When a small silver fish swam by, I caught just a glimmer of light on its scales.
Even as a dull ache in my head and chest began to build, the delirium of the water overtook me. It seemed to flow through me, filling me with pure elation, and I swam deeper. I’d like to say I was more determined than ever to find Linnea, but really, that came in second to the way the lake made me feel.
But slowly that was beginning to give away to pain and panic as my body struggled with a buildup of carbon dioxide. My lungs started to burn. I looked up toward the rays of light barely breaking the water, and it occurred to me too late that I had gone down too far.
I had swum down for almost five minutes, which meant that it would take me almost five minutes to surface. That was twice as long as I could hold my breath. I was in trouble.
With my eyes fixed on the sun above me, I kicked my legs as fast as I could, racing against the clock. My lungs felt like they were going to explode, and the muscles in my abdomen began to painfully spasm.
But the light above was growing brighter, and if I pushed myself, I could just make it. The pressure aggravated my head injury, making the vision in my right eye blur and my head throb. A fog was descending on my brain. Then everything faded to blackness, and my legs went limp underneath me, despite my demands that they swim on.
The good news was I was breathing. I could feel it—oxygen filled my lungs with ease. Beyond that, my stomach ached as if I’d been punched, and my head throbbed dully. But all that pain meant I was alive.
“I think she’s coming to,” a female voice was saying softly.
“Bryn!” Ridley shouted in a panic, slapping me on the cheek.
“Stop hitting me,” I mumbled and weakly pushed his arm back. The ground felt soft beneath me, so I assumed I was lying on the grass, safely out of the dark clutches of drowning.
He exhaled roughly. “You scared the crap out of me, Bryn.”
“Sorry.” I opened my eyes to see Ridley and the missing Queen Linnea bent over me. “Hey, I found her.”
Linnea smiled—there was no lipstick out here, so her lips were a pale pink, in line with the porcelain tones of her skin. Strangely, without the makeup she actually looked older than when I’d seen her before.
She was sixteen but a young sixteen, with an innocence about her. The too-bright red lipstick had reminded me of a little girl playing dress-up, whereas now she simply appeared to be her age. It probably didn’t help that with her ringlet curls and wide blue eyes, she bore a remarkable resemblance to Shirley Temple.
“Actually, I found you,” Linnea correct me. “You were about to drown when I spotted you and pulled you to the shore.”
“Thank you.”
I sat up, and a wave of dizziness nearly knocked me back, but I fought it off. It didn’t help waking up in this place, where everything felt like a dream. Everything had a shimmery edge to it, like it wasn’t quite real.
“You okay?” Ridley put a hand on my shoulder to steady me, and his strength reassured me the way it always did.
For a moment, with the sun backlighting him and the water dripping down his bare chest, Ridley appeared absolutely dazzling. He’d leaned over when he touched me, and the very nearness of him took my breath away. That only made his chestnut eyes darken in concern, and I hurried to shake off the feeling and pull my attention away from him.
“Are y-you okay?” I asked Linnea, stuttering a bit as I composed myself.
She nodded. Other than the lack of makeup, she looked the same as she had when I saw her last—no signs of injury. She wore a blue bikini, revealing her slender figure, so any bumps or bruises would have been visible.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, deciding to cut to the chase. “Why did you leave Storvatten?”
“I couldn’t stay there anymore.” She shook her head, and her translucent gills flared beneath her jaw. “Something is going on there.”
“What do you mean?” Ridley asked.
“The guards at the palace have been acting strangely,” she explained. “They were normally aloof and careless, but lately I’ve felt like they were watching me too closely. I don’t know how to explain it, but everywhere I went, I felt like I had eyes on me.”
“Did you tell anyone about it?” I asked.
“Not right away,” Linnea went on. “At first I thought I was only being paranoid, so I waited a few weeks before bringing it to my husband. Mikko wasn’t overly concerned, but he tried to ease my fears by saying he would talk to the guards.”
“Did anything change after that?” Ridley pressed her, and I could tell he was doing his best not to sound accusatory.
We’d long suspected that Linnea’s husband, the Skojare King Mikko, had had some involvement in her disappearance. Even with Konstantin Black’s presence, there still seemed to be something odd about Mikko and the guards in Storvatten. They had blocked our attempts at gathering information and doing a proper investigation, not to mention that Mikko had shifted from indifferent about his wife’s disappearance to devastated rather quickly.
There was also the matter of his marriage to Linnea. It had been arranged by their families, as most royal mergers were, and Mikko was twice her age. They’d been married for less than a year, and I had to wonder what exactly those kind of nuptials were like.
“Things didn’t really have a chance to change,” Linnea elaborated. “I told Mikko about my suspicions, and two days later the dark man was telling me that I had to get out of there.”
“Wait.” I waved my hand. “What man?”
“He never said his name, but he had a darker complexion, like you.” Linnea pointed to Ridley, referring to his dark olive skin. “Black wavy hair, a beard, and gray eyes.”
I hadn’t really needed her to describe him, but I wanted to be absolutely sure. It was Konstantin Black.
“What were you doing when he approached you?” Ridley asked.
“I’d gone to bed with Mikko, the way I always did, but I couldn’t sleep.” Linnea sat back and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “I’ve been a bit on edge lately, since I’ve been getting this weird vibe from everyone at the palace. So I went down to the pool to swim, hoping to burn off some of my anxiety.
“I actually snuck down to the pool,” she went on. “With the guards acting so strangely, I didn’t want any of them following me. But as soon as I got there and slipped off my robe, that man emerged from nowhere.
“It was almost like Mystique from the
X-Men
,” Linnea continued with wide eyes.
With the Skojare spending most of their lives locked inside the palace, hidden away from humans and the rest of the world, they spent a great deal of time watching movies and reading books. It was a way to make the time go by faster.
Konstantin appearing out of thin air had to be an amazing thing for her to see. Even though Linnea had been exposed to some of the magic of our world, she had limited interactions with other tribes. Like many Kanin, Konstantin’s skin could change color, so he could blend into the background. It was disorienting to witness in real life.
“Did he hurt you?” Ridley asked, since he was more fixated on the idea that Konstantin was a villain. I hadn’t completely ruled him out as one yet, but my certainty was wavering. “Did he threaten you at all?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think so.” Her brow furrowed, and she pursed her lips. “He didn’t hurt me, but he said, ‘You must leave. If you want to live, you must get as far away from the palace as you can, and never come back. And you must tell no one.’”
“Did he say why?” I asked.
“No.” Linnea shook her head, making water spray lightly from the wet curls that framed her face. “I tried to ask him why I had to leave and who he was, but he just became more insistent and said there wasn’t any time.”
“And you listened to him?” Ridley asked, unable to hide the incredulity in his voice. “Why?”
“Because he voiced what I’d already been feeling,” Linnea explained with a half-shrug. “I didn’t feel safe in the palace, and he’d confirmed my fears.”
“And you told no one?” I asked.
“No.” She frowned. “I didn’t think I had time. I wanted to tell Mikko and my grandma. They must be worried sick.” She perked up then. “Have you talked to either of them? How are they doing?”
“We were in Storvatten helping the search for you, and we saw them both. They’re doing fine.” I glossed over it. I didn’t want to share my concerns about her husband, at least not until I heard everything she had to say.
“How did you escape from the palace without being seen?” Ridley returned to the subject at hand.
“The palace has a freshwater pool that connects to Lake Superior by a tunnel, so I just swam out that way. Since no one had spotted me coming out of my chambers, it was fairly easy,” Linnea said. “Once I was out in the lake, I had no idea where to go, so I just kept swimming. Then I remembered the stories my grandma had told me about Lake Isolera, so I decided to try to find it.”
“So you’ve been out here for…” I paused, trying to remember when Linnea had gone missing. “Ten days? How have you survived? What have you eaten?”
“I don’t know.” That seemed to puzzle her too. “I haven’t been hungry. I didn’t even realize it had been ten days. I thought maybe two or three.”
I glanced out at the lake behind her and remembered a line that Ridley had read from the fairy tale book on the train.
The water of Isolera will sustain all who dream of it
. There was some serious magic here. Maybe it was the near drowning, but its power had begun to unnerve me.
“Did you call for me?” I asked Linnea, pulling my gaze from the lake back to her. “In the lysa?”
“Yes!” Linnea beamed. “And I am
so
happy it worked! My grandma had trained me to use it in case of an emergency, but I’d never been very good. It uses so much energy, but I think the magic of this place helped strengthen me.”
“But why me?” I shook my head. “Why not your grandma or your husband?”
“I was afraid that if I got to Mikko or Nana, they would mistakenly alert the guards to search for me, and I don’t trust the guards,” Linnea explained. “I wasn’t sure if anyone without Skojare blood would be able to find Lake Isolera, and you were the only Skojare I knew who wasn’t connected with Storvatten.”
“So what do you want to do now?” Ridley asked. “Do you plan to go back to Storvatten?”
Linnea let out a heavy sigh, and for a moment she looked much older. “I don’t know. I know that I can’t stay here forever, and I miss Mikko desperately.”
She was staring down at the sand beneath her toes, which allowed Ridley and me to exchange a look. We were both surprised to hear that she missed Mikko. So far, our impression had been that she was in a marriage of obligation.
“Why don’t you come back with us to Doldastam?” Ridley suggested. “Once we get there, we can contact your family and decide what to do.”
I was eager to get going, so as soon as Linnea agreed, I went over to gather our winter clothes. They had completely dried, and when I looked up, I realized the sun had moved all the way across the sky. It felt like we’d been here for maybe 15 minutes, but it must’ve been much, much longer than that.
Linnea had swum here from Storvatten, so she had only her swimsuit. Fortunately, when she’d made the trek across land a week and a half ago, the weather had been a bit warmer, but I still wasn’t sure how she had made it.
I supposed she was like my mother—much tougher than she appeared. Skojare like my mom and Linnea had to be in order handle the harsh temperatures of swimming in a freezing lake during the winter.
Ridley gave her his jacket, and I gave her my jeans. That meant I’d be venturing out in only my leggings, which wasn’t ideal, but I would make due.
When we pushed through the branches the way we had come in, it was the strangest feeling. It was almost like a dream within a dream, where even after you awake, you’re still dreaming. It was totally dark when we emerged from Lake Isolera, which was very disorienting since the sun had somehow still been up there.
Fortunately, the snow had stopped. The moon was only a sliver, but the fresh snow reflected it, making it appear brighter. Thanks to the strings and broken branches I’d left behind on our trail, we were able to make it back to the SUV with relative ease.
But by the time we reached it, I could barely remember what Lake Isolera had looked like.
It was very late on Monday night when Ridley pulled the SUV in front of the palace in Doldastam. Ridley and I had taken shifts driving on the way back, the same way we had on the way there, but we were both tired and sore from the long journey. Linnea, on the other hand, sat up in the backseat, wide eyed and excited the whole time.