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“Well, in that case, I know the goal for today is to shift, but I need you not to for a second, alright?” He steps toward me, arming his arms tight around my body and I crane my neck to stare at him.
“What are you doing?”
He waddles us backward. “Think skinny thoughts.”
The ground gives out and I scream as we plummet down into a dark tunnel. We plunge into some sort of crystal slide, and it wraps and wraps and twists and turns and my lungs spasm trying to find the air as I squeeze my eyes shut. Then we shoot from a tunnel with aplunkfollowed by nothing but air, becoming weightless for a moment and Brenn let’s go, shouting for me to hold my breath.
There’s not enough time. Before I can draw in one, I smack into water. My body dives below the surface, and I flail my limbs, desperate to reach the top. My lungs ache, my body trembles and I fight against the thick liquid to reach the top.
The moment my head pushes through, I gasp in a breath, choking as water goes up my nose, the second I level out. My limbs thrash as I fight to keep my head above water.
“What the fuck, Brenn!” I shout, turning, trying to find him. He pops through the surface, dragging in a breath before treading water.
“Do you think I enjoy this? No, but it’s also the fastest way to the edge. We don’t have hours to walk, do we? No.”
My face slips under and my body starts to go weak, lacking the energy to push me up.
“What’s wrong? Answer me woman!” Brenn says, disturbing the water as he swims toward me.
“I… Can’t swim….”
He curses loud enough that I can hear him as I slip under the water. I try to force the magic from my fingertips, anything topush me up, but it doesn’t work. No smoke forms around me, no golden strings, nothing.
“We’re going to die. Great, and we didn’t even save Loric.”
Not the fucking time!
Brenn snatches me up, yanking me to the surface and clutching me against his chest. I vomitwater, my lungs bubbling. Then as things calm, I realize we’re floating. I jerk my head to the left, then the right. It’s a pond of some sort. Not the river we saw when we got here.
Brenn’s voice is in my ear. “For fate’s sake, kick your legs before we both drown. You can choke later.”
I start running in the water, kicking us toward the edge. “You should’ve asked if I could swim before you sent us spiraling through the gods damn crystal mines.”
He doesn’t say anything until we reach the edge, and we crawl out of the water. The rocky sand bites into my palms as I cough again, still trying to clear my lungs.
“I’m sorry, I thought swimming was common knowledge,” he says and I push him over.
“Dungeon!” I yell before going into another coughing fit. “Fuck!” Soaking wet and run through, I sit on the edge of the pond, trying to catch my breath.
“Well, the good news is, maybe drowning you is a safer option. I can’t fly, but I can do mouth-to-mouth.” He lays on the rocks, his limbs stretched out as heaves in air.
I glare at him. “We’re going with what works.”
“Yes,what works formost…”
“Okay, Mr. Know It All. Ever think you might’ve finally shifted because you realized your father wasn’t coming to get you? You hesitated because you believed if it didn’t work, he’d save you.”
Brenn pauses, sitting up in a fluid motion. “I suppose, yeah. My mother and Vik were flying around the first time he pushed me off. I knew they’d save me. Then every time after that, I knewhe would, until he didn’t. It wasn’t until I realized he wasn’t coming for me that I started to shift… So, it might be why I didn’t shift in time.”
“I have to go over that edge, Brenn. Drowning, I’ll know you can bring me back. I can’t force her out. We tried that.”
“I know… I just don’t want to be the one to push you over if it doesn’t work.” At least that’s honesty… He gets to his feet, offering me a hand. “The edge is this way,” he says, pointing toward the trees.
It doesn’t take long for us to get through the sliver of forest. It was void of all movement the entire way. Not even the wind blew, as if it wasn’t ominous enough.
“Megara was a night fury. Her scales were black and she could fold her wings back and dive so fast she sounded like a whistle,” Brenn says as we reach the edge of the trees.
“Why are you telling me this?” I shake my head.
