I thought I explicitly stated that you are not to go near water?
Eliam’s voice rose unbidden and for a split second Briar thought he might actually be speaking to her, even though that was impossible. Wasn’t it? She had no time to dwell on it because if she didn’t do something shewasgoing to drown and she’d be damned if she died proving him right.
Her hand caught something solid. A root, thick and sturdy, jutting from the bank. She clung to it with both hands, coughing up water that burned her throat. The current tried to rip her away but she held on, her fingers aching with the strain.
With painstaking slowness, she pulled herself along the root, hand over hand, until her feet found purchase on submerged rocks. The bank here was even steeper than the other side, but she dug her fingers into it, and hauled herself up, the cold making every movement harder.
Once free of the river, she collapsed, shaking so hard her teeth rattled. Her dress clung to her like a second skin, heavy and dripping. Every part of her felt numb except where it hurt, which was everywhere. The cut on her calf had opened again, bleeding freely now without the bandage. The water would hide her scent, confuse the trail, at least for a little while.
The cold set in properly then, seeping into her bones. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking as she tried to wring water from her dress, the wet fabric sucking away what little warmth her body still produced. The air temperature, which had seemed merely uncomfortable before, now felt deadly.
As much as she wanted to rest, she knew she needed to keep moving, to get warm somehow, but her legs trembled when she tried to stand, muscles quivering from cold and exhaustion and blood loss.
Briar forced herself up anyway, one hand braced against a tree for support. She could feel hypothermia setting in, that dangerous drowsiness that whispered how nice it would be to just sit down, just rest for a moment.
She bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste blood, using the pain to stay focused. Keep moving. Keep going. The cold would kill her as surely as any hunter if she stopped now.
The ground began to slope downward, subtle at first, then steeper. She had to brace herself against trees to control her descent. Her feet slipped on the loose leaves and frost, each slide sending her heart racing, but she managed to catch herself.
The further she went, the worse the incline became until she was forced to turn sideways, trying to edge down more carefully, testing each foothold before committing her weight.
Her foot came down on what looked like solid ground, but the sharp edge of a hidden rock pierced through her bare sole. Pain shot up her leg and her knee gave way instantly. She pitched forward, hands grasping at nothing, and then she was rolling, tumbling down the steep incline in a chaos of leaves and stones and sky.
Her fingers caught a root—thick and gnarled, jutting from the hillside. The jolt nearly tore her arms from their sockets, but she held on, gasping, her body dangling. Below her feet, she could feel nothing but space. A hole? A fae trap? There was no way to tell how deep it went or if she would survive the fall.
The root creaked under her weight. She tried to pull herself up, but her ribs screamed in protest, and her grip was already slipping on the damp bark. She could see the earth around the root beginning to crumble, feel it starting to give.
"Please," she whispered to no one, to anyone, her fingers white-knuckled on the wood. "Please—"
The root tore free fromthe earth.
She fell, tumbling through darkness that felt endless. When she finally hit the bottom the impact turned the world white, then black, then white again.
“Well that was certainly dramatic.”
Briar slowly turned her head, the movement making the world spin dangerously. Was she hearing things again? She blinked once, twice, three times before her vision finally cleared enough that she could make out a man illuminated by what little light managed to filter down from above.
No, not a man, not quite. He was beautiful in the way a snake was beautiful, possessing a dangerous grace even in stillness. Patches of iridescent scales shimmered with a light of their own, shifting from black to green to gold as he breathed. They were scattered across his skin like someone had painted him with pieces of midnight rainbow. His eyes, when they found hers, were distinctly inhuman—vertical pupils in irises that held too many colors to name.
Heavy chains wrapped around his torso and arms, each link as thick as her thumb. Where they pressed against his skin the flesh beneath looked wrong, darkened and seeping something too dark to be blood.
"Staring is rude," he said, his voice conversational despite his imprisoned state. "Though I suppose you're trying to figure out what I am. I'm a Drak, obviously." When she continued staring blankly, he sighed. "Dragon-kin? Fire spirit? Household pest, according to some very rude fae lords?" Another blank look. "Gods, humans really know nothing useful, do you? All that education and you can't even identify the thing dying in front of you."
Dying?
"Those chains, how…" she started, trying to push herself up. She managed to make it to her hands and knees before her ribs convinced her that was far enough.
"Oh, these?" He shifted slightly, metal scraping against stone, and even from several feet away she felt it—warmth radiating from him in waves. It called to her and she had to fight the urge to drag herself closer.
"Lord Solandis thought I'd make an amusing pet. I disagreed. Violently. With fire." He sounded almost wistful. "Did you know fae hair burns remarkably fast? Anyway, he put these on me. They are very expensive, or so I’m told. Quite painful if that matters for anything. I was being transported to his summer estate when I had a philosophical disagreement with my escorts."
Why was he telling her all of this? She managed to get into a sitting position, a numbness settling over her that should have been concerning but took the edge off the worst of the pain.
"The disagreement? I’m glad you asked. It was about whether I should kill them slowly or quickly," he clarified helpfully. "I opted for quickly—I'm not a sadist—but then I had to run while still wearing these lovely accessories. Fell into this hole two days ago? Three? Time moves strangely when iron's eating through your scales." His forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air. "You're bleeding rather badly, by the way. All over, actually. It's quite excessive."
She looked down at her leg, saw the blood had soaked through the silk and was now dripping steadily onto the leaves. When she looked back up, she realized he was still talking.
"—hunters up there will smell it soon. They're not particularly clever, but blood scent? Even idiots can follow that. I'd give you maybe ten minutes before they start circling the ravine edge." He paused, considering. "Actually, I should thank you. It might have taken me days to die from these chains. The hunters will be much quicker. Messier, probably, but definitely quicker."
