“Thr—”
Reeve didn’t finish before something large and black shot out of the water and slammed into him, propelling him forcefully back into the lake.
Viri shouted his name, having no idea what had just happened.
He reappeared with a splash, coughing and cursing.“What the hell was—”
His words cut off when he vanished beneath the surface again,as if something had dragged him under. Viri’s pulse thundered in her ears as she peered frantically into the depths, but the blue glow barely penetrated the darkness.
“REEVE!” she yelled, unsheathing a dagger.“REEVE!”
A flare of light beneath the water, a tingle of ellixen, and Viri realized he was fighting whatever had pulled him down. The next second, he reappeared again, but he wasn’t alone when he broke through the surface this time. There was something wrapped around him, an inky black tentacle that thrust him up out of the water, high into the air—
And then slammed him against the rocks with a sickeningcrunch.
Viri’s stomach roiled at the sound, then roiled again at the sight of his shoulder bending at an unnatural angle and the blood dripping from his temple, his eyes dazed and unfocused from the hard blow to his head. That was all she saw before the tentacle lifted him again, and this time, the body it belonged to rose partially out of the water, revealing a monstrous black creature with glowing orange eyes and too many appendages to count.
“Beware the wood. Beware the stone. Beware the beast. Who lost his throne,”the wraith’s song whispered in her memory.“Beware the lake. His sacred home. Beware the drop…Or die alone.”
Elders, this was what the wraith had warned them about—the drop from the stone temple into the lake.Thiswas what had kept it from following them, the reason for its grotesque grin.
Dread rushed through Viri as she watched the lake monster haul Reeve beneath the water again, both his arms now trapped against his sides, stopping him from grabbing his weapons. But even if he’d been able to retrieve them, they would have beenuseless in his hands; he was barely even conscious after being slammed like a rag doll against the rocks. The only way he would survive this was if Viri fought for him—forbothof them.
With Reeve’s life on the line, Viri didn’t think, she just acted, pulling a vial of zingzest from her cloak and downing the citrussy potion. Her nerves electrified as adrenaline shot through her system, and when the beast resurfaced moments later with Reeve’s alarmingly limp form in its clutches, she didn’t hesitate. Still holding one dagger in her right hand, she unsheathed her second—her last, after having thrown her third at the wraith—and leapt off the rock with a battle cry, barely noticing the frigid water thanks to Wynter’s potent tonic.
Her aim was true and she landed halfway along one of the monster’s slimy tentacles, instantly slashing into it with both her blades. The sinewy flesh peeled open beneath her, gushing oily black blood that stung as it splattered across her hands. But it was the beast’s unholy shriek that really made her skin crawl.
It had been angry before.
Now it wasfurious.
Suddenly, Viri was hanging on for dear life as the tentacle twisted and bucked, flinging her into the air and plunging her beneath the water before doing both again—and again, andagain. Another tentacle swatted at her, trying to loosen her grip, while a third sought to coil around her like the one that had ensnared Reeve, but she stabbed ferociously with her daggers, knowing that if it succeeded, neither she nor Reeve would be leaving the cavern alive.
“REEVE!”Viri screamed when he was tossed into the air again. His eyelids fluttered at her call, telling her he was stillalive, still fighting to stay conscious. Something about her cry roused him enough to send out a surge of ellixen—but instead of using it to free himself, he blasted away a tentacle that Viri hadn’t seen coming toward her. The monster shrieked in pain, and then Reeve’s mouth opened in a gasp as it squeezed him mercilessly, his eyes rolling to the back of his head as the beast dragged him under the water again—but this time, he didn’t reappear.
“NO!”Viri cried, knowing she had to do something,now, or he would drown.
With a grunt of effort, she scrambled her way up the tentacle she was straddling, gripping with her thighs and fighting off the monster’s other appendages with her blades, choking on water as it dunked her over and over again, trying to dislodge her. But she wouldn’t let go—couldn’tlet go. Reeve still hadn’t resurfaced, and if he was unconscious beneath the water…
Terror threatened to overwhelm Viri, but she shoved it down, slashing her way through anything that tried to stop her, black blood stinging her flesh until she finally reached the point where the tentacle attached to the creature’s enormous body.
Her daggers were too small to hit anything vital—it would be like pricking a dragon with a pin—so she sheathed one and uncoiled her fillium, knowing she would have only one shot at this, and equally certain she was crazy for even thinking it possible. But now wasn’t the time to doubt herself, so when another tentacle flew at her, instead of stabbing it away, she snagged it with her golden cord. As predicted, the appendage flung her straight upward, and she used the momentum to swing herself in the direction of the beast’s head. It didn’t have a chance to realize what she was doing before she thrust her dagger forward—
Right into one of its glowing orange eyes.
The monster’s shriek was so loud, sopainful, that Viri nearly blacked out—and she might have if she hadn’t been thrown violently away, her fillium coming loose from the tentacle as she was hurled through the air and left to plummet down into the lake. The fall was jarring enough to knock the wind out of her, and she rose to the surface with a wheeze, panting hard and treading water as she braced for the next attack.
Only, it didn’t come—the monster was retreating beneath the lake, its tentacles drawing inward to protect its remaining eye, like a dog running away to lick its wounds.
Viri could hardly believe it was over, her uncertainty so strong that she stayed on guard, even as the beast fled. But then, finally, the water rippled and Reeve appeared, his body released from the tentacle that had held him hostage.
Relief slammed into Viri at the sight of him, but it lasted only a second before she realized something was very wrong.
Because Reeve wasn’t moving.
25
“REEVE!”Viri screamed, tearing through the water toward him.
