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She chuckled darkly. “Well, after the stunt from the other day, I can’t deny. Good for another thing, then.” Then there was the sound of keys and the door swinging open. “Come.”
Though she was alone without guards to enforce her order, Salas still felt compelled to do as he was told. He ran his fingers over the fur of the muff, reluctant to part with it. He noticed, for the first time since his awakening, that his jewelry was still neatly stacked where he had left it. The guards had not checked on him enough for them to filch it.
He rose stiffly, feeling every ache, and followed her out at a pathetic shuffle as he favored his left leg in his limp.
Using the wall for support, he traced her path as she made her way through the various corridors and exited the palace, stopping wordlessly and without comment when he needed to catch up, then proceeding with her relentless journey.
Once outside, Salas no longer had a structural bolster, and tripped along awkwardly, falling along the ice-encrusted dirt and painstakingly righting himself. He realized a bit afterwards what could only be their destination.
She was taking him back to the well.
Sure enough, the stone funnel appeared before them, a dark and rigid structure that did not conform to the rules of the world around it, so solid it was in its composition.
The day was at the swell of the blue hour before dawn, where everything seemed to glow in shades of cerulean. Few people were out starting the day, just the scatter of the rare early-risers who did not take interest in the witch or Salas. No crowd surrounded the well this time, leaving the area empty and lonely.
The witch, then, was for some reason acting solo in her mission.
And something about it seemed distinctly wrong.
Once they were both by the well, only then did she turn to him, her expression forever remote and stiff. “Here we are. Now, I want you to have a look down the well and tell me what you did to the water.”
Salas shifted uncomfortably, not understanding the question and hoping her meaning was simply lost in translation, ignoring the subconscious reminder that told through experience, this was not often the case.
“The water,” she barked, grabbing a fistful of his hair and tugging his head towards the well opening, “What did you do to it?!”
“I...I don’t…” Salas gasped, crying out when his body collapsed as he was forced to put weight on his lame leg. “I didn’t do anything!” He neither knew nor cared if he himself was telling the truth; he simply wanted the pain to end.
“Are you quite sure about that?” she mused icily. “Because the water is different now that you’ve tainted it. My coven sister says it’s for the better, that what you did became a solution that hassaved Diagor.” Her voice pitched, taking on a mocking quality. “You’ve made it so we will never have to spell the water ever again. Not only that, but the water might extend their lifespan. Ha!” She laughed, as though finding spiteful irony in an unfriendly joke. “I don’t believe any of it. I know asnakewhen I see one, jinx. I want to know what you did.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Salas cried, twisting away. “You’re the one who made me participate in the ritual! I did nothing—” His protest was stopped when her cool, long hand whipped across his face in a bruising slap.
“You didn’t do anything, you say?” Victoria repeated, no longer attempting to hide her hostility. For whatever reason she seemed to despise Salas, it ran at a core level, which scared him. He had no idea how to reason with her when she herself had seemed to already have decided that he was a wicked being who deserved punishment. “Well,” she continued nastily, “if that is the case, then my sistermustbe right. Congratulations! You’ve made the water that gifts eternal youth, perhaps! An all-saving solution. By all means! Let’s perform the ritual again!”
The witch began chanting in a low, melodic voice that was nearly a whisper. Then, Salas felt as his body began to lift. He could only glance around stupidly in a confused stupor as he was magically levitated from the ground, seemingly from the work of the witch’s chanting. It wasn’t until she moved him through the air towards the well that he began to struggle.
He grabbed at air, his fingernails barely ripping at the brim of the well’s opening when it was close, yet his grasps yielded only mortar-dust beneath his blue-and-black fingernails. He kept moving. “Stop!” he shrieked, panicking when he was now hovering in the well’s ominous mouth.
A moment passed where he simply floated there, desperately trying to grab something that could be used to pull himself to safety.
Then, abruptly, he dropped.
He fell down the shaft of the well, the deep-blue morning sky taking the shape of a circle above him as the tunnel leading down to earth closed around him. It lasted only a moment before the world disappeared, and he was splashing down into the base of the well, plunging into brittle, frost-coated water.
He gasped violently when he broke the surface, coughing and choking at the pain as he was urged to swim with his broken leg.
He trembled with every muscle, his entire body locking up. He never knew such a cold existed. Past numb, it felt as though every inch of him, through and through, was burning. Burning and inflamed in a fire of ice.
He knew he could withstand much of it.
His arms flailed wildly, hoping to find leverage in the stones surrounding him so that he would no longer have to work his broken leg to tread the water. The bottom of the well must have been much further down if his feet did not reach it, and therefore he was left to swim. Everything around him—from the unforgiving masonry wall to the icy depths that wanted to swallow him—all seemed to so distinctly work against him. It was as though everything around him was working as a team to end him.
And maybe he should let them.
Already, he could feel his legs giving out.
He gasped, his face just managing to float above the surface.
Above him, he could hear distant shouting that echoed strangely down in the well. He ignored it, focusing instead on the ring of sky above him. Surprisingly bright in hue, the image was strangely comforting.
