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 horrors in 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.
“You…” The word came out hissed and dripping with anger through her clenched, chattering teeth. “You selfish, ungrateful, absolute fool!”
“I’m sorry…”
“You… you…”
She pushed herself away from the stove and with a trembling hand, smacked him over the head.
He drew his shoulders in and tried to make himself small, as if that were even possible.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying you’re sorry!”
It crossed her mind that Seraphina was right. Before she’d run away from him, she’d yelled at him, over and over, to stop saying he was sorry.
“You witless creature,” Briar spat. “How long were you at the bottom of the lake?”
“I don’t know. Long enough.”
“To… what? You can’t die, you idiot! What was the plan?”
He shrugged.
“What was your brilliant plan, Rune? To float with your lungs full of water until spring, when some fisherman would’ve found you? Or until you got bored?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t want to be anymore.”
“Do you think I want to be? Do you think anyone in this God forsaken…”
She stopped herself and felt for the crucifix, hoping she hadn’t lost it. Her fingers wrapped around it, and her heart slowed its hammering.
“God, forgive me.”
Then promptly started hitting him again, though in her weakened state the damage she was doing was more spiritual than physical. The man had wrenched a branch out of his chest. Any damage she’d ever manage to inflict on him would have to be categorized as spiritual.
“Next time, I will leave you there to soak, and come back for you on a nice, sunny day, and only if I feel like a swim.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured pathetically.
“Ugh!”
She yanked at the rope around his waist, found one of her daggers, cut it, then cut it again to adjust its length. She took hold of his right arm, secured his elbow between her knees, and tied one end of the rope around his wrist. The other end, she tied around her left wrist.
Rune tilted his head but didn’t say anything.
Briar pulled at the rope hard but not much happened.
She rolled her eyes. Had he been a normal person, he would’ve fallen over at her feet.
But no, fate had it that he was a massive oaf with supernatural strength that he most certainly did not deserve.
Meanwhile, Briar was a slip of a woman, and she had to do everything.
“You will never get out of my sight again.”
His answer was to hang his head in shame.
“I know you can easily get out of this bind,” she continued, “but I want it to be clear. If you do, I will be very cross with you.”
Rune nodded.
“Good. Now let’s get out of these wet clothes and eat dinner.”
His head snapped up at that.
“N-No. They don’t bother me… I can just wait…”
She got to her feet and pulled at the rope.
“I don’t want to hear it. You will shut up and strip.”
He muttered something under his breath but got up and started working on the buttons of his cloak.
Briar shot him a glance, then turned around, shaking her head. As if she were ever interested.