The mouth of the cavern draws closer, but she still can’t stand. She’s left to the inching pace of her hands and knees, as ragged edges bite into her skin, demanding an answer to their question:is it worth it?
“Yes!” she growls, teeth bared in defiance.
The waves climb higher, like a hand raised in anger. It dumps atop her, landing its blow, sending her sprawling across the rocks.
Pain erupts in her palms. Her face.
“Fuck!” she cries, lifting her hand from the serrated edges of craggy rock. The palm of her hand is ripped, torn from the bone in gaping wounds. She feels it open. Feels skin give way, feels something warm and slippery shift beneath, and the sight of her own exposed flesh turns her stomach even as the pain detonates.
The sea mist tries to wash away her red-black ichor, but it doesn’t—the salt burns through her palms like a torturous joke, mixing with the blood and returning it to the ocean as if claiming it for itself.Drinking its victim.
More blood falls to the rocks.
But this time, not from her palms.
She raises her fingertips to her face, feeling for damage.
A cut—long, jagged, and undeniable stretches from the corner of her eye all the way down to her jaw.
Another attack from the ocean crashes down on her—as fast and unforgiving as a guillotine—sending her scrambling again.
She hisses as the saltwater seeps into the scar on her cheek. Her vision blurs, one eye flooding uselessly, the world tilting sideways as her depth falters. For a breathless moment she can’t tell where rock ends and sea begins.
But she can’t stop. Not now.
Not when she’s so close.
She balls her hands into fists despite the agony of closing her fingers over her shredded wounds, but it’s the only protection she has.
She pulls her cloak over her head—the only layer she can put between the gash on her face and the hellish waters of whatever this fucking place is.
Seren stays on her belly. She drags herself along on her elbows, hiking up one knee at a time and pushing against the fractured teeth with her boot. She times the movement, pressing into the rocks and inching toward the opening of the cave.
But hope is not so easily won.
As if this place watches her adapt to the conditions, it does, too.
Thunder riots through the sky, lightning cracking like a cosmic whip.
Sleeting, unforgiving rain cuts through the sky. It drives toward her at unnatural angles, slicing at her sides as if the skies seek to push her into the jaws of the ocean.
Seren steels her nerve, forcing her head down and her boots to push her forward.
Her leathers snag against the rocks, offering her the only protection she’s afforded in this godsforsaken place.
The skeletons clatter together in the wind, forming a rhythm that sounds like a chorus of laughter.
“Fuck off!” Seren rasps, voice broken and raw.
Her rage rises hot and sharp in her veins.
But so, too, does determination. Because the sound of those skeletons? That means they’re close.She’s close.
A spark of lightning lances through the incensed sky, striking barely a foot to her right. Fragments of broken rock blast into the sky around her. The blast slams her ears into ringing silence, the world reduced to white and pressure and a shrill, internal scream. For a heartbeat, she doesn’t know if she’s alive or already broken apart with the stone.
This is no longer a warning—this is an execution attempt.
She drags herself faster, ignoring everything this place can throw at her. Sleeting rain. Lightning strikes. Violent, crashing waves. Jagged, gnawing rocks. Seren puts her head down. Her elbows scream with pain, her wounds bleed in agony, her thighs burn with every push along the rocks. Her breaths heave out of her in ragged, fragmented pants, unable to suck in enough air.
