Chapter Six
The revenant was a floating mass of soaked clothes and stiff flesh.
Darkness. The roar of water in her ears, then the sound of her own pulse thudding in her skull. The cold burned her skin before it numbed it. The shock to her system tore a gasp from her, and bubbles rushed past her face. Briar forced herself to swim down, in a straight line, even as her body wanted to jerk upwards, toward safety.
It felt like she was diving into the frozen pits of hell. This wasn’t just any lake, it was Lake Cocytus. In the Ninth Circle.
“I turned me round, and saw before me
And underfoot a lake, that from the frost
The semblance had of glass, and not of water.”
Dante’s verses rung in her head – a coping mechanism to keep her mind from slipping into insanity. When Briar and her mother had been taken in by the sisters at Saint Vivia’s Convent, Briar had been a savage, illiterate teen. It had only been through the mercy and patience of the Mother Superior that she’d learned to read. Endless days and nights, she’d poured over a translation of the Divine Comedy.
When Dante walked across Lake Cocytus – smart fellow, didn’t go for a swim – he saw the traitors trapped in ice, with Lucifer himself frozen in the center. His bat-like wings were weaving, summoning three freezing winds that kept the lake congealed.
Briar reached down, deeper, grasping aimlessly, hoping to find Rune, preferably not Lucifer. She couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or closed. The darkness was absolute, and she couldn’t feel her face. Something brushed the back of her hand. She recoiled at first, the humanity in her warning about horrorsin the deep, the collective consciousness screaming in her head that monsters were real.
Well, of course they were. She was risking her life for one. She kicked her legs and grabbed around again, her hands finally finding something solid.
Briar tried to pull Rune by the cloak. He didn’t budge more than a few inches, so she aligned herself with his body and shoved her shoulder under his armpit. She let out a silent scream that sent more bubbles upwards. It was her bad shoulder, and her last reserve of air was gone. Her lungs burned.
She changed position and tried again, pulling and pushing, but the revenant was a floating mass of soaked clothes and stiff flesh. There was no strength left in her body. Her limbs heavy, her legs kicking slower and slower, she was losing consciousness. The need to just open her mouth and breathe, was overwhelming.
She had heard or read somewhere that drowning was the worst of all deaths.
Then she felt him move. A firm arm wrapped around her middle, and she was dragged with such ease and grace that she thought she must’ve been dead already, and some angel had decided her place wasn’t, after all, in hell, and was taking her to Heaven’s Gate. Her head broke the surface, and she gasped, coughed, dragged in blessed, frigid air.
Rune hauled her onto the ice and crawled out after her. She rolled onto her stomach and spat out water, but it was nothing compared to the endless stream the revenant was vomiting just a few feet away from her. Briar’s eyes widened as she watched him curl into himself and heave until there was nothing left, just a wet cough. Her teeth were chattering, and she was shaking so hard that limb coordination was nearly impossible. Still, she slipped closer to him and grabbed for his cloak. He turned to her then, and Briar couldn’t believe her eyes.
A rope was tied around his waist. It was pulled taut, the other end still in the lake.
Briar reached for her folded clothes, on top of which she’d left her daggers, snatched the closest one, and cut the rope. The end that wasn’t attached to Rune anymore slithered into the water like a snake, something heavy tied to its end.
“You did this…” She croaked, coughed and wheezed, her raw throat feeling like an open wound. “You did this on purpose.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Briar wanted to hit him but found she couldn’t move her arm. The dagger fell from her hand, and the next thing she knew, she was on her back, shaking, her eyes open wide, fixed on the starless sky. Was the story over?
She felt him move around, touch her face, paw at her body. Then he wrapped her in her cloak, but she was so soaked and frozen that it brought her no relief. He threw the rest of her clothes into her arms before lifting her, and she felt the effects of the Hearthband that was folded somewhere in there. Its power was feeble, but enough to chase some of the cold away and bring back sense into her flesh.
Briar curled up, letting him press her tight against his broad chest. Which proved to be a sensible choice, since the moment he entered the forest, he slammed into the first tree.
“Left,” she croaked. “Two steps to the left, there’s an open path.”
He followed her guidance, but couldn’t keep straight, tripped over a hidden root, and Briar caught a glimpse of the pearly gates again when a branch stabbed right in front of her face, its sharp end sinking a few good inches into Rune’s chest. The man merely grunted and pulled himself free.
“Which way?”
His deep, rumbling voice reverberated through her ribs.
“R-Right.”
When the house came into view, Briar let out a breath of relief. She could’ve sworn they’d been going in circles. Rune bowed his head against the storm and crossed the open space to the front door, with which he fumbled for a moment before he could open. Once inside, he slammed it closed and headed toward where the heat was coming from. He stumbled over a table and fell, turning at the last moment so he’d be the one under. Reason having left this plane of existence long ago, Briar didn’t even check if he was all right, just crawled out of his arms and over him, her foot digging into his jaw as she reached for the hot stove. She pressed her hands to it, her face and chest, then turned around and slumped with her back to it, breathing heavily and still hacking, pushing loose, damp hair out of her eyes.
Rune drew himself into a sitting position, hugged his knees to his chest, and started rocking back and forth. He wasn’t even wheezing or coughing anymore, the bastard.
