Chapter 11
Vessa
Hellsfire. A thousand needles. The water was so cold it was incomprehensible to her. It didn’t matter that her suit was made to withstand the frigid temperatures. It wasn’t meant to seal underwater.
Jogo tried to use her as a flotation device, pushing her down, even as he convulsed. She kicked and struggled against him. Clawed at him. She tried to swim away, to reach for the opening that had swallowed her.
But she was only dragged deeper. To darkness. To death.
The depths grew impossibly colder.
Jogo’s deadly grip eventually slackened as he succumbed to his fate.
She should swim. Move. Survive.
But she was in the clutches of a much greater danger. A frigid fist closed around her. Numbness spread. Consumed. Took her over.
There was no light. No direction. Just this freezing and unending black.
It was much too late for her. Her body wouldn’t listen to her commands. Or maybe it was, but she couldn’t know if her legs and arms were moving her upward because she couldn’t feel them.
But her lungs burning? Vessa felt that. She hadn’t been able to gulp in a full breath of air before she was dragged under. Out of all the ways to die, this was not how she’d have bet she would go out. There was no honor in these depths. No glory.
She longed for her raze sword. A Seken warrior should always die with her blade.
At least she’d taken out the ogg. Surely, his death counted as more than one kill?
Kedar.
He would be angry that he hadn’t gotten to kill her himself, her brain produced unhelpfully. Probably would never know what befell her. One minute she was there, the next gone. The ice had probably already sealed back up. She was just a sacrifice to this ancient, slumbering devourer.
What a waste.
Something sent her jerking to the side, and precious oxygen left her. Was it a beast? Something hungry that ruled these waters? Her body spasmed as she willed her lungs to last a little longer even while knowing the futility of it.
It didn’t matter. She only had seconds left. Sadness and anger rushed through her at things her mind couldn’t produce but her bones remembered. Her slowing heartbeat was a softly fading lament in her ears.
At last, her mind conjured an image—something tangible and familiar, something that felt like loss and home at the same time. Him.
Red eye shields glowing in a dark helmet. Beneath that, a face she’d never seen.
But eyes she knew were violet and filled with stars.
This final ache settled in her chest between burning, desperate lungs. Her body relaxed, and she breathed in.