Chapter Eight
“I don’t know if we’re gonna make it,” Florian groaned. In the hours since they’d been chatting, exhaustion had settled over him like a heavy, suffocating blanket. All his muscles ached with exertion, and his hold over his shifted form was feeling more and more tenuous, which only made him more afraid. If he lost his hold on his form this far below the ocean, he was sure he’d die. But he doubted that he had enough magic to teleport them both back to the village, either, which only compounded his stress.
“We can do it,” Rune reaffirmed. She sounded tired, too, but much less haggard than Florian. “We’re so close, Florian. You can do it. We’re almost there, I swear.”
Florian groaned and kept swimming after her, his pace slow with fatigue. Each one of his tentacles ached, and what felt like a headache throbbed between both his massive eyes. There was just so muchmoreof him that could hurt now. How had he ever thought he could hold a form like this for almost an entire day?
“I swear, Florian, if I have to drag you there, I’m going to be pissed,” Rune called.
“But you’d carry me, right?” he replied, barely able to muster the energy to tease back. She snorted in response, but after a moment she answered in a more serious tone,
“I really think we can do it. But if you can’t make it, it’s better for you to teleport us out. We can always try again.”
He wanted to shake his head, to insist they had to do it now and that he didn’twantto try again. He held back, of course; but he wasn’t sure how much further he could go before he had nothing left of his magic. Did he even have enough now to teleport them? It was hard to sense in this form, when he was actively focusing on staying shifted.
Getting the Arrow was their only option. He kept following Rune.
Florian wasn’t sure how much longer passed as they swam. Pain coursed through him with every pulse of his tentacles pushing him forward. If he tried to think about anything other than what he was doing right then, it felt like his magic would slip out of his grasp.
“Look,” Rune’s voice came softly, making him focus on his surroundings once again. “I think that might be it.”
In the distance, there was a faint light, almost imperceptible in the darkness. It had a vaguely yellowish-gold tone, though it was hard to tell from this far. Hope sparked in his chest—they were almost there. Surely that had to be it. He would make it after all.
Something in the water around them felt different, too, now that he was thinking about it. The water felt warmer, coating their limbs and washing away the constant chill of the frigid ocean as they swam closer. It didn’t feel quite like the magic of the Arrow, but that had to be it.
“That’s it,” he panted, swimming ahead of Rune in a frenzy. “That has to be it.”
“Slow down, be careful!” Rune called, catching up to him. “We still don’t know what’s out there.”
But he kept going, too eager to grab the Arrow and be done with it all. The light grew stronger and stronger, now decidedly golden in color. The surrounding water was becoming even warmer, too. He kept swimming, keeping his focus on the golden light to dull the aches of his body. As soon as it was in his hand, he would have the strength to get them back to the village. They would make it.
As they drew closer, Florian could see that the light was coming from a source below them, leading them even deeper down into the depths. They followed the light, the water getting warmer and warmer. There was a current coming with it, as well—water flowing upward, tiny bubbles tickling against his skin.
“Shit, Florian, it’s a vent,” Rune called from behind him, evidently thinking more about it than he was. “Be careful! Don’t burn yourself.”
The waterwasgetting uncomfortably hot, he thought. He slowed, trying to peer further through the darkness. “Are we that close to the bottom? The ocean floor?”
“Maybe it’s like a volcano,”Rune mused.
“I sure fucking hope not,”Florian groaned. If it was in a volcano, how would they ever reach it?
As the rocky ocean floor came into focus, he could see it more clearly. An opening in the earth had become a hydrothermal vent, hot water pouring forth from the same narrow crevice where light was emanating. Florian thought he could just make out the fletchings of the Arrow within the vent. Of course it would be in a fuckinghydrothermal vent.
For a long moment, he and Rune simply floated there, looking down. The water was becoming uncomfortably hot now, enough that Florian was sure that reaching inside would burn them.
“I’ll grab it,”Rune said, starting to surge past him. Florian grabbed her, keeping her from getting any closer.
“No way,” he interrupted. “No, I’ll do it. You got hurt last time. I don’t want you to get hurt again.”
“Don’t be stupid, Florian. You need to be okay enough to get us home. I’ve got this.”
“No! I can heal myself right away. It’s fine, I’m doing it.”
Before she could argue back, Florian pushed past her and surged downward. The water stung against his skin, but he forced himself through before he could think too much about it, reaching into the vent with one tentacle.
If he had a voice in this form, he would have been screaming. It felt like sticking his hand into a pot of boiling water, pain exploding through his appendage and threatening to break his hold on his shifted form. But it was right there—he coiled his burning tentacle around the Arrow and pulled with all his might. It was stuck, but he was so massive in this form that it broke free with some effort.
Burning pain—and regret—continued radiating up his tentacle, making his hold on his form waver even as magic flooded him from the Arrow, its unblemished surface gleaming in the darkness.
