And I have to follow.
I’m so afraid. I’m so afraid. I don’t want to do this. But I have to.
“Rowan.” All I can see is that path, waiting to lead me into the lake. “I can’t mend the Corruption here. I have to mend it in the world Below.”
As soon as I’ve spoken, the earth that’s trapped my wrists uncoils.
Rowan looks at me, his expression raw and wounded. “Leta, no.”
“I have to,” I tell him. “I have to do this, or it will never stop. It will spread; it will claim you; it will claim everything.”
Arien comes over and puts his hands on my shoulders. Although his cheeks are tear stained, he looks at me evenly. “I’ll hold it back for you while you’re gone. Clover and I both will, just like in the garden.”
His jaw is set, and his shoulders are squared. He has the same expression he wore the night after the first ritual, when he wasn’t afraid of his power anymore. “I can do this, Leta. We can do this.”
I pull him close and hold him tightly. I can feel the frightened beat of his heart against my chest. He grasps me back, just as tight, then lets me go.
I turn to Rowan and catch his face in my mud-streaked hands. “I’ll come back.” I kiss him, hard. “I promise I’ll come back to you.”
Silence closes out the world until there’s only me and the mud and the opened path. Then I see him, way out beyond the shore, a sliver of pale mist against the dark.
The Lord Under. He stretches out a hand as he waits for me. He knew—he knew all along that I’d have to do this.
I wish I could refuse him. Forfeit our bargain and tell him that I’ll never, ever help. But there’s no other choice. The Corruption is laced through the whole world—earth, blood, heart, skin. It’s everywhere. And we will never be free—or safe—unless I mend it.
I get to my feet.
I go toward the lake.
I walk into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I’m in the lake. One step and I’m past my knees. Another, and I’m sunk to my waist. The water takes hold of me. It’s cold and cold and cold. Waves wash at my throat, then higher. The mud beneath my feet dissolves and the water closes over me, an icy shock. I’m pulled beneath the surface.
I want to go back to the shore and my garden. Back to the moment of moonlight where Rowan held me and I let myself forget the rest of the world.
I want to go back, but I can’t.
The Lord Under is suddenly beside me, a smear of mist and shadows in the water. He speaks to me, his voice soothing. Don’t fight it.
The lake floods my mouth, tasting of dead leaves and bitter tea. The pale glow of moonlight is gone. All is dark, even with my eyes open. Not the muted, marbled light of underwater but full dark. Fear closes in. My lungs burn and ache. I gasp, a rush of bubbles streaming from my mouth. Something brushes against my hair, my cheek. A tangle of lake grass, a piece of bone, the scrape of claws.
Don’t fight it, Violeta. Let the water claim you.
Colors bloom across my blackening vision: blossom pink, rain-cloud silver. The tether is still there. Stretched from me to Rowan, from me to the world Above. No matter how far I go, how dark it gets, I’ll always be tied to home.
I walked into the shadows. I came into the dark. I chose this, and I am not afraid.
I open my mouth. I let the water fill my lungs.
The world goes still. A terrible, lightless silence that seems to stretch forever. The mud is gone. The water is gone. I fall to the ground with a hard, bruising thud and curl over onto my side, coughing desperately as I drag in breath after breath of ice-laced air and ashen shadows. It’s so dark that I can’t see anything. I stretch out a hand and try to draw on my power. A faint heat flickers at my fingertips, but I’m too weak and numbed from my struggle against the Corruption.
I try again. Light flares, then scatters into sparks. Another light echoes in return, bright and brilliant. The Lord Under appears beside me. Shadows spill out around him, but at the center of the darkness he glows. Bone white, luminescent.
“Violeta.” He speaks my name like it tastes of honey. “My Violet in the woods.”
I try to get to my feet, struggling because my hair and dress and boots are heavy with water. I take a halting step, then stumble forward. I brace myself, expecting to fall past him—through him—but instead I land heavily against his chest. His arms go around me, startled. For a breath I’m held.
He’s real. Solid and strong and real.
“Oh—！” I stagger back in shock.