Chapter 16 The Lady in the Lake
Daphne
The Lady in the Lake
Icy water slammed like a hammer in my breastbone, stealing my breath.
Its weight pressed me down, its cold needles prickling my skin.
The sheer panic stole the last flicker of thought, and I became a mindless beast—unable to tell above from below.
My dress soaked and dragged me to the unseen depths like an anchor.
I kicked and fought, tore at the buttons and peeled it off my skin, while the Unbidden laughed, its voice growing stronger.
Somehow, I got the damned thing off me. A current caught me and propelled me forward, and the darkness melted.
I broke the surface with a gasp, dragging in air so sharp it burned. Thrashing to stay on the surface, my body remembered the moves. I hadn’t swum since that night at the lake when the Unbidden became a part of me.
The taste of damp earth, the crisp bite of spring morning, the faint trace of rotting leaves—so sweet, so real. Above, the world waited, eerily calm. The sunlight was more distant, its warmth a memory. I was somewhere behind the greenhouse.
But something was off.
The silence.
No birds. No insects. No whisper of wind through the reeds. Even the Unbidden got suddenly quiet. Listening.
Only my ragged breath, the drip of water sliding from my hair, and beneath it—
A sound.
Not the Unbidden’s voice.
Not a whisper.
A melody.
Soft. Lulling. It curled around the edges of my senses like a lover’s sigh, like the hush of a mother to her child.
My limbs stiffened in the water, cold dread creeping beneath my skin. Something was here. Something in the depths.
I turned my head, movements slow, careful. The shore wasn’t far now. If I swam now—if I didn’t make a sound—
The water stilled.
No. Not still.
Something was beneath me.
The lake—dark and rippling, once shifting with waves—was suddenly too smooth. Not a ripple, not a breath of disturbance. Like glass. Like waiting.
Something drifted beneath the surface.
At first, it was just a shimmer, a distortion in the water. A trick of light. When I peered through the murk, the shape became clear.
A face.
Pale as bone, its edges blurred by the dark water.
And it was gone.
Whatever was in this water had scared the Unbidden.
I swam to the shore, as silently as I could.
Suddenly—a movement.
Something touched my thigh. Something colder than the frigid water.
Through the murk, something pale drifted to my right. My heart skipped a beat. At first, it was just a shimmer, a distortion in the water, but as the gloom in the depths shifted, she emerged.
A woman, floating weightlessly, her body moving with the current as if cradled by unseen hands. Her hair spread around her in dark tendrils. Her gown clung to her form, its fabric pulled tight over the soft swell of her stomach.
She had been with child.
The realization slammed into me, a sharp, gut-wrenching horror.
The Lady in the Lake.
She opened her eyes.
Two endless pits of blackness, vast and hungry.
A scream strangled in my throat. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t.
Her arms stretched forward, fingers splayed, reaching—not to attack, but to cradle something unseen.
Her hands cupped the space before her as if holding a child that was no longer there.
A sob broke from her throat, warping through the water into something impossibly distorted, a sound that didn’t belong in this world.
My limbs finally obeyed, and I kicked toward the shore.
Then, something snagged my ankle.
I choked on a scream.
The grip was not hands, not fingers—but something colder, something worse.
A tangle of lake weeds? No—hair. Her hair.
A rope of dark, sodden hair coiled around my ankle like a leash, tightening, pulling me back toward her.
The surface blurred. The reeds on the shore faded. The sky, the trees—all slipping away as the dark pulled me under.
She hummed softly as if soothing a child.
Something else stirred, responding to my terror.
“I am owed a debt. You cannot have her.” The Unbidden’s words slithered through the water like oil. “She is already mine.”
“Pretty girls, all of them,” the Lady’s voice was warped, twisted, shifting through echoes of pain and time. “All of them trying to take my place. But it is me who carries his child. He built that manor for me. Yet he married another.”
Dear Lord, what kind of tragedy happened here?
“And I wept until my tears swallowed me. While he laughed and celebrated with his new wife.”
The lake’s grip tightened.
Her face was closer now, too close, the black pits of her eyes bottomless.
I struggled—kicked, twisted—but the hair around my ankle wouldn’t let go.
“She is mine,” the Unbidden’s voice cracked through the lake like splitting ice. Then it spoke again—this time in a tongue I had never heard before.
The grip loosened.
A scream ripped through the water, high and ragged, as the Lady in the Lake reared back.
I kicked hard, breaking the surface and dragging myself toward the shore.
“She took my place. And he left me. I wandered around, and everyone looked away from my shame. But not the lake. The water called me. Welcomed me. Nobody can see me crying in the deep.”
The voice tangled with the wind, twisting and breaking.
I clawed at the mud, coughing, spitting water, my nails digging into the shore.
I threw one last glance over my shoulder—
The Unbidden’s words churned the lake. The wind picked up, bending the reed. The drowned woman hovered above the rippling black water. I wiped my eyes—was I really seeing this? The water beneath her formed arms and tentacles and reached for her bony ankles.
“She is mine.” The Unbidden’s voice cracked like a whip. The lake trembled, its surface rippling outward.
The darkness beneath her feet rose. A thick, glistening tentacle pulled the Lady under the water. The last thing I saw were her eyes—bottomless like cursed wells, and her face—a frozen mask of eternal torment. Bubbles rushed to the surface, carrying a scream that chilled my marrow.
Then she vanished. The Lady in the Lake was no more.
Birdsongs and the soft whisper of the wind returned, and with it, an unexpected sound.
Applause.
Slow, mocking, deliberate.
Emrys was standing just behind me, leaning on a tree. The smug bastard had surely been watching the whole time.
“Did you enjoy watching me nearly get murdered?” I snapped, wrapping my arms around myself. My limbs trembled with cold and pure terror. And I was wearing only a petticoat, clinging to my wet skin, I realized, blushing.
Emrys tilted his head, studying me. Not with concern—no, something deeper. Curiosity. Calculation.
“Murdered?” he echoed, stepping closer. “I just saw you walk away freely from the Lady in the Lake. No one else has.” His gaze flickered over me, pausing at my throat.
“Seems like she won’t trouble anyone ever again.
” Without saying anything, I brushed past him, heading to the manor, but his arm landed on my shoulder, stopping me in my tracks, warm and heavy.
“There’s more to you than meets the eye, Miss Daphne,” he murmured, his fingers trailing over my pulse. His touch was warm. His gaze was not.
“I need to get inside. I’m freezing,“ I said and headed to the manor.