Maybe it’s watching myself die.

Maybe it’s the chill of the room or the painful pulse that runs through my body. But I can feel a change. I roll over on my side, sure that I’m not going to make it out of this room alive. Maybe I’m already dead.

I taste copper in my mouth and I spit it out. My tongue is dry and my lips are swollen.

In my hand is the Scepter of the Earth. I’m afraid to look at the end of it, but I force my eyes to open. The nautilus maid is gone. In her place is a tall coral the same shade of pink as her eyes. A lone fish is swimming in the shallows.

I hold my side where I saw myself get stabbed and replay the vision in my head. It couldn’t have been a vision because that’s not how my life is supposed to be. And then I think really hard about what another oracle—Lucine—showed me the time I watched her give Kurt the Trident of the Skies. She showed me the same thing. Me, dead, with a crown on my head.

Thalia’s words ring like a bell: killing an oracle is a curse.

And then I feel it. The ground is shaking, trembling like an earthquake. The quartz in my scepter lights up, and I know I’ve done it. I’ve released the Sleeping Giants.

The sensation is thrilling, pushing every thought of death out of my head. It is the lightning and current that flows through the earth. I hold my scepter horizontally, and the energy that flows through it is like ten shots of adrenaline in the chest. I could swim for miles, for days. I hold out my scepter, and a blast of light crashes into the wall, breaking it down.

I concentrate on pushing the lightning straight through the rock of the ceiling until it’s a single beam into the sky. The room is flooded white and the walls are crumbling around me, but I don’t care. I hold the beam as long as I can.

The island trembles all the way through. Pieces of stone break away from the ceiling. I have to get out of the chambers and find Nieve and Kurt. But I’m high on adrenaline and the power of the scepter. The ground is shaking so hard that it knocks me off balance and I fall forward, right on top of the pink coral.

That sobers me up.

Focus, Amada said. Focus.

I dive back into the main artery that leads to the tunnels and swim down. The shark guard is all gone. Instead three prongs wait for me, pointed right at my throat.

Kurt’s violet eyes glow fiercely; his mouth is an angry snarl.

My mind flashes to us fighting in the vision Chrysilla gave me. I shake it away because that can’t be how we end. Not after all we’ve been through.

Chunks of the island break off from the tunnels, and the hungry chatter of merrows echoes through them.

“You can’t go that way,” Kurt says, lowering his trident. “They’re coming for us.”

He swims along the base of the shaking island. The ground beneath us is also trembling, splitting like a hairline fracture across glass. First a nick, then with every shake, it keeps going and going.

When I don’t follow, Kurt turns around. “Please.”

This could be the worst idea I’ve had in a while, and I have a lot of bad ideas. But when Kurt gives me his back, I know he’s not worried that I’m going to skewer him. So I follow him where he leads, back to surface that is overgrown with vines and trees. It’s a part of Toliss where I’ve never been before. A waterfall breaks the landscape and rushes into a narrow stream full of multicolored fish. We trip over broken branches and scratch our legs on jagged rocks until we’re under then behind the waterfall. It’s relatively dry, and a hole in the ceiling of the cave provides some light.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I have to!”

I shield my eyes as birds take flight around us. “That’s a non-answer!”

But we keep running through the Toliss jungle, and I fluctuate between wanting to bash him in the face and hug it out like bros because he came back to me.

“Where are we going?” I shout as branches and boulders fall all around us. I duck out of the way as lightning strikes the ground near us and three trunks fall sideways, narrowly missing me. A few hours ago, I couldn’t get the quartz scepter to conjure any power, and now it’s made us target practice for the angry sky gods. Kurt’s screams get drowned out in the rumble of thunder, the ripping apart of solid rock.

“Kurt?”

He falls forward, flat on his face.

“What’s wrong?”

“She’s calling to me—” He grits his teeth and screams through it, clutching the Trident of the Skies. His unfiltered power blows through it in sparks of lightning. His breath is labored, like someone’s got their hands on his lungs.

“What do I do?”

He shakes his head and pushes himself up, like he’s wading through cement. “I have to go to her.”

“No!” I pull on his arm.

He wavers on his knees, gasping for air. He gulps it down and it sounds easier. He grabs my shoulder for support. “It’s like she’s squeezing my lungs.”

“She can do that?” I hope I’ve never seen Kurt complain about pain before. “As your friend, I’d like to point out that this is what we call an abusive relationship.”

“Lucine wants what’s best for me.” He leans on a tree trunk for support, pressing his hand to his chest like he’s making sure his heart is still beating.

“We have to get back to the others,” I say. “Shelly’ll know how to make it stop.”

“No. We have to finish this. Nieve has weaknesses just like everyone else.” He breathes normally again.

The sky is dark and so are our paths. We follow the light of our weapons and the animals that scatter away. I scream as I feel the ground fall beneath me. Kurt grabs on to me by the back of my harness and pulls me back. With one foot out to sea, I’m a step away from free falling off a cliff and into the crashing waves.

“Only way out is down,” I say.

And he goes, “Together.”

“On three,” I say, retracing our steps and getting ready to jump.

“Tristan, I’m sorry,” Kurt says.

The wind is screeching in a fury, bringing the sea over the cliff.

“One—” I say, but neither of us waits. We run, run, run, and then jump.

It feels so long since I’ve taken a dive. I’ve come a long way from Karel pushing me in the Vale of Tears. I tuck my head between my shoulders and straighten my legs.

But I don’t reach the sea.

Searing pain digs into my shoulders. Something warm runs down my chest and back. In the dark, I see a slick body and massive wings flying beside me. A sea dragon. It wasn’t the wind screeching; it was the sea dragons. Thick black talons grab Kurt by the shoulder and fly away. Talons, cutting me and dragging me away.

I scream, and as I feel my body being lifted into the sky, I know no one can hear me.