A pocket surrounded them, a human-size bubble just large enough to encompass them, a small air funnel leading from it into the water above their heads, presumably to the surface, supplying them with fresh oxygen.

“What the—”

“I can explain,” Jaren interrupted quickly. “But first, we need to get you warm. Your body’s going into shock.”

It wasn’t going into shock. It was already in shock.

And that shock grew exponentially when Jaren pulled her even closer, right before a circle of flames burst into being around where they sat on the quarry floor.

Heat, delicious heat began to seep into Kiva’s bones, thawing her from the outside in.

She moaned and clutched at Jaren, who continued to hold her tightly against him, his body warmth combined with the smokeless fire returning feeling to her limbs, chasing away the ice-cold nothingness.

But while her physical distress was easing, her mind was descending into a nightmare.

“I d-don’t understand,” she whispered, still shivering, but nowhere near as badly as before. She unclenched Jaren’s water-soaked tunic and pulled away just enough to look at his face.

She couldn’t read his expression. Guilt, fear, resignation. A combination of all three, and more.

“I don’t understand,” Kiva said again, looking from him to the flames to the air pocket, to the dark water beyond.

“Yes, you do,” he said quietly.

Kiva shook her head. Then shook it again, her wet hair dripping down her face.

“No,” she said, holding on to her denial. “It’s not possible.”

She wasn’t shaking from the cold anymore.

She was shaking from something else entirely.

“I couldn’t let you die, Kiva,” Jaren whispered, his arms still holding her, feeling her tremble. “You were down here too long. You—” His throat bobbed. “When I got here, you weren’t breathing. I had to resuscitate you.”

Kiva felt the truth of his words, not just in the haunted way he was looking at her, but in the throbbing of her chest, her lungs, her heart.

He’d brought her back to life.

But that wasn’t the part she didn’t understand.

They were surrounded by fire. And air. In the middle of a body of water.

Kiva licked her lips and asked, “Did—Did the princess give you an amulet, too?”

Slowly, Jaren shook his head.

“Did the prince?” Kiva whispered, her voice hoarse.

Jaren closed his eyes and shook his head again. In an equally hoarse voice, he said, “No.”

One word, and Kiva knew.

Jaren didn’t have an amulet.

Jaren didn’t need an amulet.

Because Jaren had elemental magic.

A memory from weeks ago flooded across her mind, Jaren’s own words about magic users: I’ve heard there are anomalies, too. Born outside the royal bloodline, just like in ancient days.

An anomaly.

Jaren was an anomaly.

Kiva couldn’t believe it.

“How—?”