They hit the water hard -- the impact of it was jarring -- but Arai never let go of Lillandra's hand; she fell with him, and hit the water with him, and even though the both of them were totally enveloped by darkness, and immediately pummeled by the rising waves crashing against the shore, they managed to hold on to each other.

Arai instinctively tried to stay afloat, to keep his head above the water, but Lillandra kept pulling him down, and he remembered then that he didn't need to stay afloat; her spell allowed him to breathe underwater. Experimentally, he dipped his head below the surface, and even though his body was screaming at him not to do it, he opened his mouth and tried to breathe.

Water immediately filled his lungs, and for a moment he thought the spell must have failed...but he wasn't choking, and the seawater in his lungs was, he quickly realized, not obstructing his breathing. On the other hand, the water was extremely cold, both inside and outside of his body, and he wondered suddenly if he had miscalculated. The Mermaid's Glass allowed them to breathe underwater, but how long could they endure this cold?

But the longer they remained below the water, the more accustomed to it he became -- it was cold, certainly, but it wasn't the kind of cold that was going to kill him. The greater problem was the darkness -- it was pitch-black beneath the waves; he couldn't see a thing. And though he wanted desperately to speak with Lillandra, to ask her if she was all right, he couldn't do that either.

Eventually, the two of them floated down to the bottom of the sea, which was probably around twenty or thirty feet deep at this point. Arai felt his ears pop, but the underwater pressure did not otherwise bother him; he wondered if this was part of the spell. As soon as he hit the bottom, he righted himself, planting his feet on the sea floor; Lillandra did the same. Where was Shell? What had happened to Sir Estil? It was impossible to tell; it was simply too dark. All they could do was wait.

But how long would the spell last? Lillandra had mentioned once that the spell would likely last a few hours, but she had used up some of the magic in the Mermaid's Glass earlier, when she had escaped the Cockatrice with Shell. How much was left? He knew it was possible to recharge some zemi, such as the Candle of Hours, but he wasn't sure about the Mermaid's Glass.

He eventually began to calm down. Slowly, and while still holding Lillandra's hand, he began to feel his way forward. He wasn't sure which direction they were facing, but there seemed to be more rocks near the shore, so he veered away from those, following them up the coastline -- hopefully north and west, to the headland he had pointed out to the others earlier. Lillandra did not object, so either he was heading in the right direction, or she was just as lost as he was.

Walking along the bottom of the sea, a couple of dozen feet beneath the surface, and with no fear of drowning, was a very strange experience. If there had been more light, and if the water had been warmer, and if he wasn't still worried about Skirrish patrols, he might have actually enjoyed it.

After spending perhaps half an hour beneath the water, he indicated to Lillandra that he wanted to surface. Kicking off the ocean floor, he swam up, using his legs to paddle himself to the surface, and broke through the waves above. He quickly got his bearings -- the cliff was almost directly above them; they hadn't made any progress at all towards the headland. He didn't see or hear the soldiers above, but neither did he see or hear any sign of Shell or Sir Estil. He thought about calling out to them, but decided he didn't want to risk it.

Lillandra suddenly surfaced next to him, strands of her long, dark hair clinging to her face. "Any sign of them?"

Arai wasn't sure if she was referring to the soldiers or to Shell and Sir Estil, but he shook his head regardless. "I don't see them. Are you all right? We hit the water pretty hard."

"I'm all right."

"I think the current is pushing us in the wrong direction. Can you swim? We should try to make it to shore."

"I can swim," she said, "but not very well."

"Hang on to me, then." She grabbed hold of his belt, and the two of them started off -- both of them swimming, but with Arai doing most of the work. When they made it within a few feet of the shore, they dipped back under the water again to conceal themselves from anybody who might have been watching, and made their way to the rocky point where they had agreed to rendezvous. Finally, and fully exhausted, they emerged from the sea and crawled up on to the shore, finding themselves on a sandy spit a few hundred yards from the headland. Though Arai was anxious to start looking for Shell and Sir Estil, they both needed a rest. And so they remained there for several minutes, side by side on the little beach, both of them shivering from the cold. The moon broke through the clouds, bathing the scene in silver light.

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"I didn't get the chance to thank you before," Arai said to her.

"Thank me?"

"For coming to my rescue. For breaking me out of the prison."

She shrugged. "Shell insisted."

"Is that the only reason?"

She thought about it. "No. You've saved my life two or three times now; it wouldn't have been right, leaving you there. Besides, we stand a much better chance of making it back to Velon if we stick together...right?"

"I did say something like that, yes."

They were both quiet for a moment. Lillandra finally broke the silence: "There's one other thing."

"Yes?"

"I've been thinking about what you said, about...about wanting to be friends."

"Ah."

"We've been through a lot together. We started out as enemies, of course, but maybe..." She turned to him, suddenly, her dark eyes full of the moonlight. "Do you really want to be friends?"

"I think we already are friends."

"I've never had a friend before. Not really. Temis, maybe, back in Ada, and Shell, of course. But before that..." She shook her head. "I didn't have friends, even as a child."

"What about Julien?"

"Julien was more than a friend," she said.

Arai understood. Lillandra had had a difficult childhood. She was a magical genius, but a lonely person, and after Prince Ryal murdered the only person who had ever loved her, who had ever shown her any kindness, she had snapped, and sworn vengeance on the whole of Velon. That didn't excuse her actions, but she was, after all, a teenage girl, and a broken and battered one at that. If Prince Ryal had murdered someone dear to him, Arai might have chosen the same path.

In fact he had chosen that path -- hadn't he sworn to kill Lillandra after Lord Pierce murdered his father? Both of them, after all, had run off in pursuit of vengeance. Arai had always told himself he was working for the people of Velon, but there had always been that personal side to it as well.

"Thank you," he told her. "Thanks for coming after me."

She shrugged and got to her feet. "We should find Shell and that knight. What was his name?"

"Sir Estil Endsgrief. He's famous, apparently."

"Can we trust him?"

"I think so," he said, "but I'm not sure yet."

"He's some kind of sorcerer, you know."

Arai stopped. "A sorcerer?"

"Well, maybe not a sorcerer, exactly, but I noticed magia gathering around him earlier, when he was fighting. He wasn't calculating, or casting spells, but he was using it, somehow, manipulating it like a sorcerer. It was very strange."

"He didn't tell me he was a sorcerer," Arai said doubtfully. "Are you sure he wasn't casting spells? He was moving very fast for a man his age, and his skill with that sword was unreal."

"He wasn't casting spells," she assured him. "It was something else. He may not even have been aware of what he was doing, but he was definitely using magia."

"Interesting." Perhaps Sir Estil had a found a way to use magia to increase his strength and speed, but without casting spells; perhaps that was the secret to his legendary fighting prowess.

But none of that was important now. He filed that information away and got to his feet as well. "Let's look for them."

Arai suspected that the Skirrish soldiers had given up looking for them, or had already written them off for dead, but just to be on the safe side, the two of them straddled the cliffside as best they could, trying to stay out of view of anyone who might see them from the city above. When they were finally in the clear, they broke into a run, making their way up the coast, to the deserted headland.

On arrival, they found no sign of Shell or Sir Estil. Had they made it to shore? Arai wondered if they were going to have to return to the water to search for them.

A few moments later, however, he heard a quiet voice calling out to them from behind a rocky outcropping: "Arai? Lillandra?"

It was Shell. "We're here," Lillandra called out to her.

She emerged from hiding, along with Sir Estil. The elf girl jumped up to embrace Lillandra, while Sir Estil conferred with Arai. "We thought you might have been a Skirrish patrol."

"Are you all right? Did you have any trouble making it to shore?"

"Not particularly. I swam most of the way, with the little elf child on my back. I was always a good swimmer, and swimming is easy when you don't have to worry about drowning." He glanced at Lillandra. "Thank goodness for that spell you cast."

Arai marveled. The knight was practically elderly, and had spent the last several months in prison; nevertheless, he had managed to swim more than a mile with a little girl on his back. Sir Estil's physical abilities were almost as impressive as Lillandra's magical ones.

Shell, meanwhile, was a little bruised from the fall, but was not badly hurt, and what's more, she still had her satchel, which contained their zemi and some other supplies. "Where do we go from here?" she asked.

"We have to get as far as away from the city as possible," Sir Estil said. "The soldiers we left up on the cliff probably think we jumped to our deaths, but there will be other parties out, searching for the escaped prisoners." He turned to Lillandra once again. "Can your magic conceal us?"

She shook her head. "My specialty is making zemi," she said. "I can't throw spells around like a battlefield mage."

"Pity." He frowned thoughtfully. "We have these Skirrish uniforms," he said, referring to the outfits they had taken off the guards at Dolorous Castle, which they were still wearing. "They ought to offer us some protection -- Skirrish peasants are very deferential to soldiers. If we encounter anyone, we'll tell them we're headed for the Long Wall."

"Is that where we're headed?" Arai asked. "The Long Wall?"

He nodded grimly. "North and east is the Skirrish heartland. South, of course, is the Bay of Vandals. We could make for the Triarchy, I suppose, but the Bal River is a formidable obstacle, and the border between Grand Skir and Citias is covered with magical mines and other dangers besides. No, our best bet is Galleus, and the Long Wall."

"But there's fighting going on there, isn't there?" Shell asked. "How are we going to sneak through the Skirrish camps? How are we going to cross the Long Wall into Galleus?"

The knight smiled. "Fear not. I have a plan."