Reign of Shadows (Reign of Shadows, #1)(57)

“Oh, did I mention the carp? They’ve developed a taste for flesh,” Glagos called down at me from the boat, an edge of annoyance to his voice, as though this shouldn’t give me pause.

I pressed a hand to my ribs, feeling a chunk of skin missing there.

“C’mon, boy,” Glagos barked. “You’ve got a net to fill.”

Releasing my side, I sucked another breath into my lungs and dove back under, intent on getting through this no matter how much was left of me at the end. I only needed to survive and get back to Luna. I blocked out the pain and worked until my arms burned, cutting at the kelp, ignoring the nips and tears at my flesh from creatures I couldn’t see coming. I lost track of how many bags of kelp I passed up into the boat. I worked a steady, relentless pace, my mind wandering, remembering Luna. The kiss. The warm taste of her.

A shrill scream carried over the water. I froze and looked toward the other boats. I couldn’t see the diver closest to me anymore. The men in his boat leaned to the edge, peering over the side and calling for him.

“Don’t stop. Keep working,” Glagos commanded.

“What happened—”

“He either made it or he didn’t. It has nothing to do with you,” he called down impatiently.

Luna’s face materialized in my mind. I tightened my grip on the hilt of my shears.

I couldn’t leave her.

I continued working, alert, trying to feel for the slightest ripple or change in the current lapping around me. I spent as much time cutting kelp as I did swiping at the foreign bodies brushing me in the black waters.

After a while, I didn’t hear any screams or voices searching for the diver. I continued swimming down, pulling up kelp, trying not to think about how cold the water was or what was out here with me. I thought about Luna. The smell of her skin. Holding her. Kissing her.

A movement to my right snagged my attention. Someone else was swimming in that first diver’s place. I focused on cutting vines, one after the other, and didn’t let myself think about what happened to the other diver.

Until the eels came.

The surface rippled as though a giant wind blew, but it wasn’t a current. The eels undulated along the surface, passing through the other swimmers. My stomach dipped at the sound of the divers’ screams. The eels turned and shot a direct line for me. I couldn’t outswim them. This was their world, not mine.

They rolled through the water toward me like a sea of dark snakes, bigger than any snake I had ever seen on land. I braced myself, my pulse hammering at my throat. I flexed my hand around the grip of my shears, every muscle pulling tight in readiness. The slippery bodies swarmed me a moment before the first popping sting. More stings followed, charges of heat exploding on my skin. I jerked, thrashing in the water. I swiped, cut, and stabbed with the shears, but there were so many of them.

I was on my way up for another breath when some other creature grabbed hold of my leg and yanked me back down. It was big. Strong.

I struggled against whatever it was. It pulled me down, the pressure on my ankle increasing, squeezing.

My lungs burned fire, desperate for air. I lashed out, my shears fighting wildly, swiping around me, desperate to gain freedom. Air. Sweet, lifesaving air.

Water choked me, filling my mouth and nose. I continued to go down, descending amid a tangle of kelp vines. Luna. Luna.

I couldn’t pull free. In a final attempt to save myself, I dove, chasing after whatever was holding me, stabbing at it, the tip of my shears making contact. A pair of yellow eyes peered at me from the depths. Its body was indistinct, just a big amorphous form.

My efforts didn’t help. Its grip on my leg didn’t lessen. One of its tentacles clenched tighter, as if sensing that this was a struggle to the death.

Blackness filled my world. A deeper dark than anything I’d known before. The kind of dark one didn’t come back from. A dark that was total and final and consuming.

My muscles weakened, but still I stabbed at the tentacle wrapped around my ankle, hacking at it as my lungs screamed for air.

Amid all that darkness I saw Luna. Luna’s face with the impossible freckles that had never tasted real sunlight. Luna, who I’d given my word to return for.

Luna, who I kissed and wanted to kiss again and again.

Luna, who waited for me.





TWENTY-FIVE


Luna


I SAT AT the table in Mirelya’s small kitchen, listening to the busy sounds of the village outside coming to life. A cart rolled past and in the distance children played, their laughter ringing out. The woman next door beat at a rug in steady whacks with her broom.

My hands wrapped tightly around a mug of tea made from the kelp leaves that Fowler was out there risking his life harvesting. It had grown cold in the stretch of morning, but I still sipped at it. If it had nutrients and healing properties as they claimed, then I would take my fill. The journey ahead wasn’t going to be easy. Especially since I would be doing it alone.

I squeezed the bridge of my nose between my fingers and released a shuddering breath, trying not to dread the prospect with every fiber of my being. It wasn’t making the journey alone to Relhok City that filled me with dread. It wasn’t even facing the man who murdered my parents and would now murder me. In some ways, that was long overdue. No. It was never seeing Fowler again.

I picked my mug back up and downed the last of the tea. I’d slept restlessly, if at all, thinking of Fowler somewhere on that lake. I knew he would be gone this long. They did runs back and forth to the lake only during midlight, but that didn’t stop the worry. Midlight was close. I could smell it on the air.