Elara's breaths were shaky, her heart a wild drumbeat of fear and anticipation as gentle hands guided her into the river, the docile current tugging at her ceremonial robe. The water's chill was a slap of deep winter frost, drawing sharp gasps from her with every step.
The Druids peeled away Elara’s robe, leaving her bare beneath the sky. But she didn’t flinch, didn’t lower her gaze. She kept her chin high, her shoulders square, though the chill kissed her skin. Here, in this circle, there was no shame in nudity—it was something else entirely. A declaration. A surrender. The Druids saw no sin in the human body; to them, it was sacred. Each curve and hollow, every scar, a mark of life crafted by theMothers. It wasn’t weakness or vulnerability, but truth. Raw and unvarnished. And in this, the only honesty that mattered.
The Cillareen River brushed against her breasts, sending a shiver across her shoulders. But she steadied her mind and her heart, for she knew what was to come.
“Have faith in the waters; their healing touch has mended many before you,” Caelum, a Soothsayer, murmured against the backdrop of the flowing river. He drizzled a blend of sacred oils over her, the liquid gold running down her form.
His deep emerald eyes didn’t meet hers as he worked, his touch almost reverent, but there was a detachment to it. Like most of the Druids, he hid behind a veneer of indifference, a practiced neutrality that made it easy to forget there was anything personal in their ministrations. To him, she wasn’t Elara—she was just another body, another soul seeking healing. Not a person with thoughts and fears and desires, but a part of the endless cycle they served.
With a subtle nod, Caelum turned away, disappearing into the crowd of Druids.
As the oils seeped into her skin, Elara could almost feel the edges of her consciousness blur, the barriers between her soul and the river thinning.
“I’ll be right here,” Avis murmured, reaching out to interlock their fingers.
The touch was easy, comforting.
Elara returned the Druid's squeeze with a tight smile as something bitter buried deep within her reared again, whispering words she tried to shut out.
Unlovable, abandoned, used, alone.
The words chanted in her mind, even as Avis stayed at her side. Elara took comfort in her steady presence, and outwardly, she was thankful for the companionship. But in those deep, still hours of the night, when the world slept and her thoughtsroamed freely, a fragile hope would sometimes take root. A ridiculous, pathetic hope—that maybe, someone out there believed she was worth the fight.
Tears pricked at her eyes, and she blinked them back fiercely. She forced herself to match her breathing to the rhythm of the river, each inhale a battle to steady the storm raging inside her.Just get through it, she told herself.
Steeling herself with one last look at the moon, Elara exhaled and let go, slipping beneath the surface. The cold hit her like a blade slicing through her skin, straight to the bone. Her chest seized in protest, the icy grip of the water squeezing her lungs. She balled her fists, pushing back the instinct to flee even as her heartbeat roared in her ears, drowning out the soft murmur of the river.
Before her, the water stretched out like a void, dark and endless. Long strands of kelp twisted around her legs, ghostly fingers trailing across her skin like sirens beckoning.
Above, the moonlight filtered through the water in trembling, fractured beams, casting eerie patterns across the sand below. Elara’s breath,her offering, burned in her chest, held tight as her eyes darted from one shifting pool of light to another, searching, straining, for any sign, any ripple, that might betray the presence of the spirit.
She didn’t have to wait long.
There, amidst the swaying dance of kelp, it revealed itself—a current alive like a serpent of the deep, wild and writhing as it surged toward her.
Elara's heart leapt into her throat, her pulse hammering with a mix of primal fear and awe. She exhaled, and the river eagerly snatched the bubbles of her breath, swallowing them before they could even dream of reaching the surface. She could almost sense its glee, a dark, hungry joy in seizing whatever it could from her.
The spirit twined around her, a swirling vortex that nipped at her eyes and tugged fiercely at her hair. Its kelp snaked around her ankles and up her legs like chains, dragging her to its watery bed.
They tightened.
“Surrender,”whispered the spirit, its voice a slippery hiss.
Everyone seemed to want a piece of her, even the river.
Morbid curiosity flickered within Elara. She had never given herself over to it completely. And, curse it to the Void, if there ever was a time for the spirit to take advantage, it was now.
Ever since the Hunter slung her over his shoulder and rifted her away, the truth she'd been fleeing from clawed at her.
Viscerally. Relentless.
The reasons behind Fenlin's actions, his decision to steal her blood—it didn't matter. At her very core, she believed it was her fault, hersin.
Fenlin had needed her. But he never reached out, never asked for help with whatever he was wrestling with. The walls she'd constructed around herself—walls meant to protect her from others, to keep everyone at a safe distance—had done their job too well. Each brick laid in fear and self-preservation had isolated him. Kept him from trusting her.
Elara bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, the coppery taste of blood filling her mouth.
If the river craved her breath, then let it have its fill.
