Like that damn forever-refilling hourglass. Once, she’d thought it worthless. Now that she knew the true nature of relics, she realized it was anything but.
She pulled out the compass—the last magic she had left besides Qadir’s knife—and squinted at the arrow. It was pointing at the lake. Of course the relic was underwater.
“Ideas?” Qadir stood behind her, glaring at the lake. He’d never liked water.
Loulie sighed as she began pulling off layers. When she was down to her most basic garments, she slid out of her shoes, set down the compass and knife, and edged toward the water.
“Be careful,” Qadir called.
Wet sand gathered between her toes as she stepped into the lake. She saw rocks, moss, and then, there—a glimmer of silver. From this distance, she could not tell what it was, only that it was buried beneath silt. She stepped forward. Once, twice, and then the sand shifted beneath her feet and she slid. By the time she caught herself, the water had risen to her chest.
She cursed beneath her breath.
“Loulie?” Qadir called from the bank.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled, and continued walking. Soon the water was up to her chin, but the relic was close. She could see now that it was a ring.
She paused to count down in her head—Thalathah, ithnan, wahid—and dove. She plunged into a darkness that grabbed at her with cold, invisible hands. She shoved down her fear as she swam deeper, clawing through the sand in her blind search for the ring. Pressure built in her ears. It had a sound: a moan that penetrated deep into her bones.
Come on, come on…
She felt something cold and hard beneath her fingers and grasped at it desperately. Relief flooded her body as she caught hold of it.
And then the thing moved. It wasn’t a ring. It was too large, too slippery. Too sharp.
She jerked away, but too late. The thing grabbed her wrist and pulled her down. Her eyes shot open. She stared into the darkness, and the darkness stared back. Milky-white eyes with dilated pupils blinked at her from the gloom. And beneath those eyes: a crescent-shaped mouth filled with rows of sharp teeth.
No. She dug her nails into its scaled flesh. It only tightened its grip.
No! The sharpened teeth parted beneath her feet and the glazed white eyes blinked, inches from her own. Loulie scraped at them, desperate, and the beast roared, making the entire lake shudder. Cracks of silver speared through the darkness. Fins, she realized. Large, razor-sharp fins shimmering with dull scales. And one of those oddly shaped fins was just beginning to loosen around her wrist.
Loulie clenched her teeth and kicked. The silver-tipped darkness thrashed against her, but she was persistent. Another kick, and she managed to pull free. Her lungs were starved of air and her ankles were on fire, but she pushed herself up toward the surface. Or at least, she tried to. But her body was suddenly heavy, and the water was pulling her down, down, down…
When the thing grabbed her again, she was too weak to fight back.
But no, wait—it was pulling her… up?
She crashed through the surface of the water with a gasp, even as someone—Qadir?—pulled her to shore. He set her down at the water’s edge and ordered her to breathe until the pressure in her lungs eased and she stopped coughing up water.
When he spoke, his voice was jagged at the edges. “Loulie?”
He sat shuddering beside her, rivulets of water trickling down his muscled back and chest. Though he’d avoided soaking his shirt, she had the impression he had drenched more than just his skin, for his eyes were a pale, feeble yellow. The color of a dying flame.
“So you do know how to swim.” Her words were barely a rasp, and for some reason, that made her laugh. It made her laugh so hard she started crying.
Qadir pulled her to him. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I did not realize there was anything in the water.”
“What?” was all she managed between her hiccups.
“A dendan,” Qadir said. “You remember the stories Old Rhuba used to tell?”
Loulie did remember. Old Rhuba had always described the dendan as a monster fish, a creature big enough to eat ships whole. But in his stories, the creature died after devouring human flesh or hearing a human voice. This monster did not seem so feeble to her.
“Jinn blood changes living things,” Qadir said, as if sensing her thoughts. He cast a forlorn look over his shoulder at the still water. “Like ghouls, all kinds of creatures are drawn to our magic. This is what happens when such a monster has been drenched in jinn blood.”
Loulie thought of the massacre between the marid and the humans. How the mythical dendan had found its way here into fresh water, she did not know, but if it was sensitive to the lamentations of the dead, then she could see why it had developed a taste for human flesh. It was no wonder this relic had been here for so long.