I take hold of the rope in my good hand and then, just like Beaufort described, I’m shimmying all the way down until I’m a foot above the green slime of the moat.
Yeah… I guess I didn’t plan this bit.
I look back up the way I’ve come – my two bond brothers staring down at me from the open window above. It’s too risky to shout up to them and ask for help or suggestions. As usual, I’m gonna have to wing it.
I look down at the slime. Fuck knows what’s in there. Fuck knows what it’s going to do to me.
I lower the toe of my boot, half expecting it to sizzle away in the slime. But nothing happens.
Fuck it, I think, pinching my nose, closing my eyes, and letting go of the rope, falling into the green slime below me.
It’s cold and gloopy, more like jelly than water, and I sink through its surface as it swims around me and locks me in its glutinous embrace. I kick with my legs, still clutching my nose and having only one good arm to swim with.
Turns out, swimming through it is nothing like water at all. My limbs just slice through the jelly and I seem to sink further down to the bottom.
I risk opening my eyes. Everything is green, like a forest on a bright summer’s day. I tip my head back, searching for the surface above me and having no fucking idea where it is.
Then I feel it – a ripple in the slime. I swing my gaze to my side and see an ominous dark shadow gliding my way. It moves like a snake, except it’s much bigger, much more solid. It has two beady black eyes that pierce me with its gaze.
It clearly wants to make acquaintances. Either that, or it’s hoping I’ll be its next meal.
Fuck that. If I’m not being executed today, then I’m certainly not being eaten by some giant eel in a sludge of green slime.
I fire my shadow magic right into its face and then use my shadows to propel myself up to the surface. I break through, gasping for air – the stuff in my nose, in my ears, in my mouth. I kick as hard as I can for the grassy verge in front of me, peering down constantly at this snake-like monster now shooting my way.
My hand hits the bank just as the monster grabs my foot in its sharp bite. I swallow down a cry. The monster is going to be the least of my problems if every guard in this tower comes running my way. I kick – it holds my ankle tight in its teeth – and I kick again and again with my free leg, over and over into its face, until the green sludge is starting to turn black with its blood.
Still, it doesn’t let go, yanking and yanking until my fingers are sliding through the mud of the bank and I’m pulled back into the slime.
Beaufort and Thorne shoot their own magic down into the slime, but they can’t see the monster attacking me and their shots miss the mark.
I’m on my own.
It yanks me back under the surface. I realize shooting my shadow magic at it in the thick, jelly-like substance is almost impossible.
There’s only one thing for it.
I transform into my wolf, and then I’m scraping and snapping and tearing at the monster – the slime turning as black as night – my claws slicing through its scale-like flesh And finally,finally, it releases my leg and drifts away, motionless.
My wolf howls and scrabbles back for the bank, pulling itself up onto the damp grass and collapsing in a heap. I lay there panting, occasionally coughing up greenish-black slime onto the earth, my ankle and my shoulder both throbbing with pain.
I don’t see my two bond brothers descend from our prison, but I’m guessing they don’t make the same mistake I made –somehow avoiding the green slime and ending up on the bank next to me.
Thorne wipes slime from my face with his shirt, and Beaufort heals my ankle, before moving on to my shoulder.
I blink up at them both, now back in my human form.
“That was fun,” I lie, pushing Beaufort away. My shoulder – already fucked up by that shifter bite – is even more screwed up now and can’t be healed that easily.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Beaufort whispers. “What the hell were you thinking?”
I shrug. “I couldn’t think of another way down.” I peer back up at the Black Tower. “Did we get heard?”
Beaufort peers that way too. “I don’t think so,” he says.
I wipe more slime from my face and as I do, I catch a glance of something on my wrist. Thinking it must be the blood from that creature, I rub at it. But the mark is embossed into my skin like a tattoo.
I jolt and then I’m wiping gunk from my other wrist and staring down at fresh marks there too.
