Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
The golden flower winked out as her feet left stone, and she fell into roaring darkness, chasing a light that had already died.
The water rose up to swallow her, icy cold and far too eager.
The impact stopped all coherent thought and stole her breath, leaving nothing but the panic of drowning. The current grabbed her immediately, hungry and purposeful, spinning her in the dark until up became little more than an idea.
She clawed for the surface and by some miracle found it, managing a gasping breath before something wrapped around her ankle and pulled her back under.
Not the current this time. Whatever this was had fingers, too many fingers, with joints that bent in ways that shouldn't exist.
Terror shot through her as the thing dragged her down.
Her dress tangled around her legs, heavy as chains.
The mark flared in response, finally waking up, the heat tempered by the river.
Then she saw it—a sickly green phosphorescence in the water below, outlining something that her mind refused to process.
A face, but wrong. Eyes like deep pools, too many of them, clustered where eyes shouldn't be. The mouth opened, wider than any mouth should, revealing rows of needle-like teeth. The fingers around her ankle belonged to arms that were too long, too jointed, bending in segments like insect legs.
Another glow to her left. Then right. Then everywhere.
They rose from the deep places, dozens of them, their bodies emitting that corpse-light glow.
In the brief flashes of visibility, she saw skin like drowned flesh and hair that moved wrong, not flowing with the current but reaching, grasping at her like tentacles.
Some of the creatures had faces almost human, until they smiled.
Others had given up pretending to be anything but nightmares.
The water filled with their voices, the words, vibrating through her bones.
Fae pet...
Marked thing...
Drag her down...
Let the depths have what’s owed...
They hated her, she could feel it in the way they grabbed at her—her arms, her throat, her hair. They especially clawed at the mark on her arm, their touches burning worse than flame.
She kicked at the nearest one, her foot connecting with something that gave way like rotted fruit. It didn't even slow them.
The green glow intensified as more rose from below.
In the ghastly light, she could see the full horror of what she faced: bodies that stretched too long, ribs that opened like gills.
One wrapped its hand around her throat, and she saw its face clearly, hauntingly beautiful until it opened its mouth, revealing a throat that descended into black nothing, lined with teeth all the way down.
She opened her mouth to scream and felt water rush in. Fire seared up her arm, the mark pulsing so hot that the creatures touching it recoiled slightly, but they always came back, pulling harder.
They were dragging her down to the deep places, where the water turned black and the pressure would crush her long before she drowned.
The green glow began to fade as her vision darkened, the last thing she saw was one of them bringing its terrible mouth close to her face, as if to taste her final breath…
Then an explosion.
The water itself seemed to scream as something crashed into the mass of twisted bodies. The creatures scattered, their iridescent glow swirling in chaotic patterns.
"Hold on, Briar!"
Sian's voice reached her, but that couldn't be right. Why would she hear the water sprite in her final moments? Drowning must bring hallucinations of rescue, the mind's last kindness before the dark. Her lungs were full of river. This was just death playing tricks on her.
Through her fading vision, Briar saw her, Sian had become the water itself, her form huge and terrible, hair streaming in violent currents.
Not a hallucination but real, impossibly real.
Sian grabbed one of the creatures and tore it apart, the thing dissolving into foam with a shriek that made the water itself recoil.
"Get back!" Sian snarled, forming whips of current that sliced through the glowing bodies.
The creatures retreated but didn't flee entirely, circling at a distance, their green glow creating a ring of hostile light. Sian spun, creating a vortex that pushed them away, then grabbed Briar with arms that were somehow solid despite being made of water.
One of the things made a final lunge, its too-long arms reaching. Sian caught it by the throat, her watery hand solidifying into ice. She squeezed and the creature burst into luminous fragments that dissolved into nothing.
The others finally fled, their glow descending back to whatever deep places they'd risen from, taking their ancient hate with them.
Briar was teetering on the cusp of unconsciousness when arms encircled her again, different arms, warm despite the water. They pulled her up, following Sian's path of fury through the current.
When they broke the surface, Briar tried to breathe but couldn't. Water poured from her mouth, her nose, but her lungs wouldn't work.
"Shore!" Sian said, desperate now. "Get her to shore!"
More hands grabbed her, dragging her onto solid stone.
Someone turned her on her side and she immediately vomited river water.
But mixed with the water came something impossible and golden—flower petals.
Delicate blooms that had no business being in her lungs spilled onto the dark stone where they glowed faintly before dissolving.
"Breathe!" A voice demanded. It was Arion. His hands pressed against her back, pushing more water out. "Come on, breathe!"
She gasped, choked, then gasped again. Air burned in her throat but she'd never tasted anything sweeter. More petals came with the second wave of water, golden light fading as they touched stone.
"What in the deep waters—" Sian crouched beside them, water still streaming from her hair. "Are those...?"
"Golden flowers," Arion murmured.
Briar coughed up one last petal and watched it pulse once with failing light.
“How…” she rasped, mind whirling. How had they found her, that’s what she had intended to ask.
"The flowers," Arion said, but his voice sounded distant, as though he were trying to recall something he had forgotten. "We were... I saw one bloom near the border. Then another. They kept appearing. I don’t know why we followed them but they kept leading us down and down until…"
"Until we reached the underground river just as you jumped," Sian finished. "I’ve never seen anything like it, you didn’t even hesitate! I admit the timing was—"
"Impossible," Arion interrupted quietly. "Those looked like court flowers, throne flowers."
"But those only bloom—" Sian stopped, her eyes widening.
"What?" Briar asked between chattering teeth.
Arion and Sian exchanged a look she couldn't read. The mark on her arm pulsed with agitation, no longer muted, sending signals with desperate intensity.
"We need to move," Arion said suddenly. "Can you walk?"
"I... I'm not sure," she replied. In one smooth motion, he drew her to her feet, catching her when she swayed. His arm slipped around her waist, and he pulled her closer without hesitation, her body fitting against his as he supported her weight like it was nothing.
Thunder rolled through the deep, not only a sound but a sensation. The whole cavern shook, drops of water falling from the ceiling in a sudden rain.
"Too late," Sian whispered.
The mark flared so hot Briar cried out. Pain lanced through her arm, thorns piercing inward, burrowing into flesh and bone. Punishment for escape, for the impossible golden path, for breathing when she should have drowned.
The darkness at the far end of the cavern didn't just thicken, it congealed into substance, and from that substance, Eliam emerged.
Water on the stone turned to ice in his presence. The temperature plummeted so fast Briar's wet clothes stiffened, and her next shaking breath came out as visible mist.
"Step. Away. From her."
Each word fell with the weight of judgment. Eliam stood at the cavern's edge, beautiful and terrible in his fury. His clothes were pristine despite the journey through earth and dark, but his eyes burned with cold fire that promised retribution.
Arion's arms tightened around Briar. "She nearly drowned."
"Her punishment was mine to give." Eliam moved forward, each step deliberate. Ice spread from his footfalls in crystalline patterns. "Her death, mine to prevent if I so chose."
Briar tried to speak, to move, but her body wouldn't cooperate. Water still burned in her lungs. The mark pulsed with frenzied desire, caught between two forces, the fury approaching and the warmth holding her.
"Get behind me," Arion murmured to Sian.
"Not happening." The river sprite stepped forward instead, water rising from the underground river to swirl around her in protective ribbons. "The old laws are clear, Forest King."
Eliam's gaze cut to her. "Sprite."
"She crossed death's threshold," Sian's voice carried the authority of deep currents. "Three nights before her soul settles. You know this."
"Don't quote the law to me." The temperature dropped another degree. Frost began forming on the cavern walls. "She's marked. Mine. The laws don't supersede—"
"You gave her three days after you marked her," Arion said, his voice cutting through, steady despite the danger. "The Law of Three isn't selective, Eliam. Or do you only honor it when convenient?"
Silence fell.
The kind of silence that preceded avalanches.
Eliam's attention returned to Arion, and something dark flickered in his expression. "Careful, cousin. You're holding something that doesn't belong to you."
"I'm holding someone who nearly died," Arion said without flinching. "The law is the law. Even for you."
"Especially for him," Sian added. "Unless the Forest King wants to be known as an oath-breaker? A law-bender? No better than the humans who—"