AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The last bubble of air escaped my lips. I didn’t have much time before I would drown, all my energy having been spent merely holding on.
The creature wasn’t dying, wasn’t losing consciousness, and that meant I was failing. I could feel my limbs losing their grip, my heartbeat slowing painfully. It was happening so quickly, and yet, I could swear I’d been here, in the dark, fighting, all my life.
Right before death took me in its arms, an image came to me.
Maybe it was what everyone experienced right before they died—flashbacks of their lives—but I relished it, softening at the sweet memory.
It was a year before Grandmother had died.
She’d sat me down, her elbows propped on our worn kitchen table, her back slumped like the weight of the world lay upon her shoulders. She’d taken both my hands in her weathered ones, the wrinkly flesh comforting as it enveloped me. I’d felt safe. Happy. Loved.
“I won’t always be here, my girl,” she’d said, her voice thin, weary. “But I need you to always fight, even when they tell you that you’ve already lost. If you don’t, then none of us stand a chance.”
I’d assumed old age was ruining the sharpness of her mind, and I’d patted her hand, plastering a reassuring smile on my face.
But it wasn’t what she’d said that day that filled me with warmth.
For just a second, I’d seen myself through the reflection of her eyes. Pure gold brilliance wavered around my face, snuffed out before it had time to truly bloom.
It was that spark, that flash that I saw now as I was losing consciousness, deep beneath the surface, clinging to a beast. And it was this memory, of the woman who owned my heart, that had my eyes bursting open, my fingertips blazing with electricity and the ferociousness of life.
I wouldn’t lose. Not here, and not in a tomb of black.
Grabbing the creature with renewed strength, I dug my fingers into its throat, my muscles burning with the effort. The thing writhed and squirmed in my hold, trying frantically to free itself. Something was different this time around, my grip stronger, my pulse quicker.
Hard skin gave way, my fingers thrusting beneath scales, poking into muscle, and then deeper, into bone.
I could sense the beast’s light fading, its life force leaving its body.
Gods, I could taste it, hear its thrumming energy departing this world. It emboldened me, gave me that final push I needed to end it all.
And then, there was nothing. No movement, its limbs heavy and stiff.
I yanked my fingers from its insides, shoving off its back.
Kicking to the surface, I broke free a moment later, gasping and gulping in air.
The fresh air seared my insides and burned my lungs, but I kicked and swam, struggling to breathe, to claw my way back to life. Several voices called my name, their shouts of encouragement all urging me closer.
I followed those cries, Patrick’s despairing wails, my arms swinging and my legs moving to bring me to them. A strong hand grabbed my arm, and then there were more hands, all clutching different parts of me, tugging me to the ledge, hoisting me up, out of the waters that had nearly been my grave.
“Ki!” Patrick pressed me painfully to his chest, gripping the back of my neck to hold me in place. “I almost lost you.” His arm slung around my hip, keeping me from toppling over and right back into the stream.
“We need to get her out of here!” Jake must have beckoned the others into motion, for the next moment, I was being gently dragged down the length of the ledge, my limbs shivering from the cold, my teeth chattering noisily.
It was more than the icy temperature of the stream that sent me drifting in and out of consciousness. Something had happened down there, in those mercilessly dark depths, and it had viciously sucked the life from my very bones.
Someone was talking about getting me into a hot bath, warming me up, but I was too lost to make out who it was. There was only Patrick’s too-tight grip on me, the lone thing securing me to this plane.
I swam in and out of reality until the tunnel brightened, the wavering flames of torches a promise—a beacon.
“Almost there, Ki!” Patrick whispered in my ear. “Just hold tight.”
Chapter Fourteen
Jude
Salendons were bred for one purpose only: to kill. Silas, the Water God, crafted them out of silt and the bones of the dead—of those unlucky sailors who had drowned beneath his waters. The god abandoned them once he learned they needed air in their lungs and could be easily drowned. It is said that he gifted them to Lorian.
