Up and up I swam, my lungs feeling like they would burst as the water weighed heavily against me. It was like I was being burned alive, from the inside out. Everything hurt.
My arms and legs felt slow and clumsy. The black spots in my vision got bigger and bigger until I couldn’t see at all. I was so dizzy.
I wished it had been anything besides drowning.
It would have been so much better if I could have—
Chapter Fifty-Three
One minute . . .
Chapter Fifty-Four
Two minutes . . .
Chapter Fifty-Five
Xander
I had forced myself to stand on top of palace walls, despite my fear of heights. I had found my mother after she killed herself. I had been in battles where I was certain I would die. Where I was outnumbered, and it seemed that I had no chance of success.
But none of it had ever terrified me the way that watching the woman I love dive down into that hole did.
I’d never been so desperate, so frantic, so petrified as I was when she went under.
She’d told me she loved me. I knew she did. It wasn’t something she had to say.
But she had given me the words.
For the same reason I had given them to her.
Because she thought she was going to die.
She had just told me how she felt ... I wouldn’t let things be over now. I was going to spend the rest of our lives showing her how much I loved her.
An insidious voice inside me whispered,What if she’s already dead?
Erisa was responsible for this. She had pulled the lever to flood the lower levels. If she couldn’t rule Ilion, she had decided no one could.
I had thought Erisa had already taken everything from me that she possibly could, but now she had taken my wife.
My Lia.
Thrax brought me a metal rod and I used it to pry the lock apart. It was stubborn but old enough and rusty enough that it finally broke when I twisted and applied all my strength to it.
I pushed the gate up far enough that I could jump into the water. It was freezing but I barely noticed. The only thing that mattered was getting to her.
She should have let me do this.
No. I wouldn’t let myself think that way. I would find my wife and save her and all would be well, just as she had promised.
There was a silvery light ahead of me and I swam toward it.
Her lizard was shining, and the first thing I saw was Lia’s red hair floating in that light. She’d made it halfway. I swam toward them as fast as I could, begging the goddess to let her be alive. As soon as I reached Lia, I grabbed her and pulled her close. I put an arm around her and began to swim up quickly.
When I surfaced, Thrax and Stephanos were there to help me get her out of the water. They laid her on the ground.
“She’s not breathing,” Thrax told me.
