Page 27 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy

“I trust you,” said Fairhrim.

She snatched his arm, heaved herself forward, and plunged them both into the river.

Osric’s last sight was aDreor’s scythe whipping through the air where his neck had been, and then the water closed over his head, and the Færwundor was gone.

He convulsed in the frigid water. Fairhrim, clutching his arm, did the same. The current rushed them into a culvert, and they flew along into water-filled blackness.

Osric held out his tacn. He reached for the farthest shadow he couldperceive and pulled Fairhrim and himself along, ten times faster than the current carried them, through the underground river.

Twenty times, thirty times, he pulled them forward into new shadow. His seith flowed strong and sure in the dark. He read the bends in the underground river, avoided slamming into walls, whipped himself and Fairhrim around sharp rocks. Still there was no light. His lungs burned. Fairhrim’s grip on his arm faltered. He locked forearms with her. How far did this underground river go?

His seith wouldn’t last forever. He would need to breathe soon. Fairhrim would need to breathe soon.

His right eye grew blurry. His Cost was upon him, that physical manifestation of seith overuse.

He reached his tacn ahead and pulled, and pulled, and pulled towards the farthest shadows. He lost sight in his right eye entirely; his left began to fade. Fairhrim’s palm pressed at his chest in the rushing water and her seith came into him, not to heal but rather, incredibly, to replenish. His Cost receded as her seith filled his reserves. Since when could one share seith?

Among the rush of water in his ears, he heard a sudden gush of bubbles as Fairhrim’s breath gave way. His own followed. His diaphragm spasmed. His body screamed at him to take a breath. His right eye went blind again. They were going to die. His lungs were empty, and still, still, this unending darkness, through which he shadow-pulled a path—was that light ahead, or was it only the swimming of his vision, as darker black crept at the edges of the world?

The last of the air in his lungs was gone. He wouldn’t let go of Fairhrim’s arm.

Dark gave way to light.

Osric and Fairhrim did not swim out on their own power; it was the river that spat them out like drowned rats.

They crawled up a bank, coughing and spitting, just enough to get their bodies out of the water, and collapsed.

For long minutes they lay there and revelled in the simple glory of breathing.

“Are y-you all right?” asked Osric in a choked whisper.

“Bit damp,” said Fairhrim.

She turned away and vomited out half the river. Osric hacked out one or two lungs in response. He was devoid of seith, half-blind, mostly dead.

“I h-hope that was Incident enough for you,” said Fairhrim.

Osric laughed. They lay next to each other with wet reeds for pillows and river muck for a mattress as the rising sun turned the sky gold.

Fairhrim raised a trembling palm into the air.

“What is it?” asked Osric.

“Xanthe’s deofol wants to come through,” said Fairhrim.

Xanthe’s axolotl materialised above the two of them and studied them with her beady black eyes. “Fria. I was just coming to check how the healing session went. You two look like you’ve crossed the Styx.”

“Tell Xanthe to send Wardens to the Færwundor immediately,” said Fairhrim.

“What happened?” asked the deofol. “This was meant to be a simple healing.”

“We discovered a bloodbath,” said Fairhrim. “The Druids are dead. Murdered by the Dreor. They were coerced into producing the Pox.”

The axolotl’s gills puffed out in alarm. “Ibegyour pardon?”

“I know,” said Fairhrim. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t just seen it. There’s an enormous state-of-the-art pharmaceutical manufacturing facility under the Færwundor. Larger than ours—moreadvancedthan ours. And a cellar full of the Pox ready for distribution. And dead Druids all over. Bring Wardens. The entire place is swarming with Dreor. Bring Haelan with you—Cath’s team. We found one Druid alive—perhaps others managed to survive.”

Xanthe’s axolotl was normally a cheeky thing full of ready retorts, but she did nothing but float speechlessly.