Lakesedge (World at the Lake's Edge #1)(50)

“No!” I look to Arien, who is wide eyed with shock. “What are they? What’s happening?”

“Get back, both of you!” Clover cries. Her hands are blazing with light, which she casts at the creatures in a brutal slash. They flinch back and melt into the ground. But then the rift opens farther, and more of the creatures rise up.

They have claws. Sharp slices of stone, hooked and brutal. They have mouths. Round, studded with shards of broken shells. They surge from the earth in a torrent. I reach for Arien, but they’re so fast—I have no time to move before they’ve washed over him.

His arm thrashes out, caught by coils of mud. His face is pale, terrified.

“Arien, hold on!” I lunge toward him as he vanishes beneath the creatures.

Rowan wrenches at my arm. “Leta, get back.”

“No! Arien—”

I twist free of his grasp. But before I can do anything, Rowan shoves his hands into the writhing mass of earth. He doesn’t even flinch. The way he moves—it’s practiced. Like he’s done this before, faced the Corruption, pulled someone free. Or tried.

I crush in close beside him, my shoulder hard against his. I plunge my hands into the mud, desperate and frightened as the creatures rush over me, as I feel the scrape of claws and teeth. I reach farther into the icy darkness, searching desperately, but Arien is gone. There’s only mud and cold and the hungry creatures.

I could have stopped this. If I’d accepted the Lord Under’s help, then none of this would have happened. I grasp for the strength he showed me, a force far beyond my magic. But there’s only the faintest throb. A burn at my wrist, an ache in my chest.

I can’t do this. Not alone.

“Please!” I call out to the shadows. To the monster who was kind, once. Who held my hand and led me through the woods. Who saved my brother. “Please, you said you would help me—”

Darkness clouds my vision, and the evening light is swept away. Water rushes over me, followed by a sound. A breath, a hiss, a sigh.

I search again for Arien, but my hands find nothing in the dark. My voice is an incoherent sob that echoes through the shadows. “Help me, help me, help me.”

With a flare of silvered brightness, the Lord Under appears. Tall and sharp and jagged, like the upturned roots of a fallen tree. Streaks of wet, dark shadows trail around him, and there’s a spill of black water as he moves forward. I can’t see his face, but I know—somehow I know—that his eyes are fixed on me. He watches me silently for a very long time as the dark closes down around us. When he finally speaks, his voice is as cold as a midwinter night.

I offered my help already, Violeta. And you refused it.

He’s going to let Arien die. He’ll die, and it will be my fault. No. Indignant anger burns through me. I’ll not beg for his help. I’ll not cower here, small and afraid. I am light and heat and fire.

“You’ll save him.” I grit my teeth and glare at him as power sparks, blistering, from my fingers. “You will.”

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. Then he laughs, softly, softly.

You’re so brave. Be a little afraid—it will hurt.

I reach out, and the darkness wavers. My fingers touch cloth and skin. Arien—his sleeve, his wrist. He takes a sharp breath. I pull him close. I wrap my arms around him. I don’t let go. As the shadows thin, as the light brightens, I brace myself for the promised pain, but it doesn’t come.

Then Arien screams. He screams and screams. We’re back on the shore, released by the Corruption. I hold him in my arms. He screams. Clover and I drag him back from the lake, across the shore and toward the pale trees, where we fall to the ground. He’s crying, his screams changed to ragged sobs.

“Arien?” His hands are stained dark all the way to his elbows, the skin ravaged and raw. They’re charred, like something held too long in the fire, but when I touch his fingers, his skin is cold.

Clover lets out a hopeless, wounded sound. “Oh, Arien. Oh, what have you done?”

Her magic flickers as she runs her hands over him.

“I—I can’t feel—” Tears streak across his face. He drags in a tattered breath. “They’re all numb.”

Arien cradles his ruined hands against his chest. I hold him tightly as he starts to cry again. He shivers and shivers. I want to make him warm, but I’m just as cold. “We need to get back to the house.”

“We can’t.” Arien tries to push me away. “Those things—they’re still there.”

I look back toward the lake, horrified, to see that the creatures have begun to rise up again. And Rowan—he’s there. He’s taken off his cloak, and his knife gleams in his hand.

“We need to help him,” Clover sobs, starting to get up from the ground.

The creatures close in around Rowan as he stands with his arms outspread.

“We are not going to do anything.” I move Arien gently into Clover’s arms. “Stay here.”

I run back toward the heart of the Corruption. It will hurt. The sun has set behind the hills now, and everything is streaked in darkness. I stare out into the night sky above the lake. Black water, black sky, twin moons. I reach desperately for the burned-down scraps of power I have left, feel it heat my palms.

I run across the shore until I’m beside Rowan. He’s cut his arms—both of them. Blood streams from his wrists. He turns to me, and his eyes are crimson, his throat snared with dark. “Get away from me.”