The sudden impact robbed the breath from her lungs and hit her body like a brick wall.
But it wasn’t a wall at all—or anything solid. Wren attempted to suck in a breath and took in a mouthful of water instead. The delayed sensation of plunging into wetness hit her, and she flailed, completely disoriented.
The undead had fallen down here. They could be anywhere below, sinking in the deep, unable to swim or leave their watery graves.
She kicked, sending her to the surface, and her head shot out into open air. Coughing and spluttering, she struggled to properly draw breaths. Her entire body ached, her legs kicking and hands working on instinct alone. She started to sink again, the water too deep to stand, and panic seized her.
The shore—she needed to find the shore.
The straps from her satchel dug into her shoulders, the weight of her supplies dragging her down. After a moment’s struggle, she managed to remove one strap, then the other.
That weight gone, her chin cleared the water again, but she had no idea which direction to swim or where the shoreline was.
Miraculously, she still held her bone sword. She cocked her arm back and tossed it as far as she could.
It clattered against something, either a rock in the middle of this body of water or, if she was lucky, the shoreline—but it didn’t matter. Focusing with all her might, Wren reached for the sword and pulled. She was more likely to drag it to her than her to it, but all she needed was a sense of where it was so it gave her a firm direction to swim.
Energy failing fast, Wren pumped her legs and paddled, fighting to keep her head above water. The bone drew nearer and nearer in her mind’s eye, and when her foot kicked out and met with solid ground, she wanted to weep with relief.
She did cry, and laugh, and hiccup as she stumbled out of the water and threw herself onto the shore. Her breath came ragged, her lungs aching, but she was alive.
Somehow, she was alive.
Blinking into the darkness, she tried to discern her surroundings. She squinted up, toward the bridge, but the eerie mist obscured her view.
She hoped Julian made it safely across the rest of the way. Though it pained her to have lost a sword, she was relieved that he had some manner of proper protection.
She supposed they’d be on their own from here on out. Maybe that was better. It saved her from having to ditch him or fight him later when it came to getting Leo to safety. They might have been working together, but they both wanted different things in the end. They were on opposite sides in more ways than one.
Yes, this was definitely better.
Wren was, however, a little worse for wear. She had lost her satchel of supplies as well as her only remaining sword, had scraped her hands on the shoreline, and her head pounded from the initial impact.
She was just picking gravel from her bleeding palms when she noticed the steam.
Her entire body was releasing it, and her foggy brain remembered that the water she’d plunged into wasn’t icy and frigid as it should have been, but warm. Now, meeting with the cooler air, her damp clothes and skin were steaming.
This must be a hot spring. They were all over the Dominions, but Wren had never been to one. She’d spent so much of her life focusing on her valkyr training, she’d never done a lot of things.
It explained the mist, though it didn’t explain the color. The water, the rocky shoreline… Everything was tinged with that same sickly green, very clearly ghostlight, though she couldn’t detect a source. She’d also fallen through it without deathrot, so it couldn’t be made of undead spirits… could it? Then again, this was the Breach. Maybe some of the undead here were so old, so ancient, they were no harm to the living—like those poor souls on that battlefield or like the center of the Bonewood, which had had its own soft green haze.
Leaning forward, she swirled a hand into the water, marveling at the warmth it brought to her already cold fingers. If it had been a regular river or lake, even if Wren did manage to combat the lung-restricting cold and make it to the shoreline, she’d probably die here of hypothermia.
As it was, she knew she needed to get out of her wet clothes. But she had nothing dry to wear, and she was tired.
Keeping her feet partially submerged, Wren lay there for a while, catching her breath, a leaden exhaustion settling into her body. She couldn’t sleep here like this, no matter how tempting, but her eyes drifted closed all the same.
A shiver slipped over her. Everything was dark, and wet, and cold…
Her eyes flew open, and a skull loomed before her.
Her heart seized in her chest.
It was a revenant, bent over her prone form, barely inches from her face…
Wren gasped and scrambled back into the water with a splash. The undead, little more than a skeleton, stared with sightless eyes and smiled with a lipless mouth. Ghostlight spilled between its ribs and seemed to wrap itself around its every bone, creating a glowing head-to-toe apparition.
Her sword—where was her sword? But the revenant didn’t pursue her. That was when her senses caught up with her, and she remembered that she was in the water. It protected her.
Her thundering pulse steadied somewhat, but it continued at an unnatural rhythm as the revenant remained there, barely three feet away, head tilted.
Wren knew it was going to happen before it did, a premonition deep in her stomach.
“Alive,” it said. The voice was raspy like the others, and the way it echoed off the cavern walls sent chills across Wren’s skin. “Shouldn’t be here. Alive. So alive.”
Wren was fully shaking now, even though the revenant wasn’t threatening or ordering her to go. It sounded more like advice… or a warning.
Another revenant lumbered toward them. This one was even more skeletal, its bones dark and thin and broken in places, but the ghost was solid and strong, keeping it all standing upright.
“So alive,” it said, repeating the last words of the other revenant. “For now.”
More undead sprang to life all around, winking into existence like fireflies, drawn to the presence of the living. They lined the shore in both directions, while behind her, ghostlight danced across the water, reflecting more undead specters from across the spring.
They were in various states of decay, the glow of their souls alternating from pure, brilliant light to flickering and dim.
Would all of them speak, like some sort of haunted chorus?
Or, Wren thought as she pushed herself to her feet and waded along the shore, would they follow?
As long as she stayed in the water, she should be safe—she knew that—but it didn’t stop her from splashing and stumbling through the knee-high current, going as deep as she could while still being able to move. She cast her senses in all directions, looking over her shoulder again and again, expecting one of them to lunge and drag her to the shore or pull her under.
Thanks to their light, she could see that the soaring cliffs on either side were pocked with caves and crevices. If she could find one, if she could get herself inside and ride out the night…
There was a soft, scraping sound behind her, then a splash. Wren spun around—
Only to find herself face-to-face with Julian.
His gloved hands were raised, weaponless, and Wren’s thoughts stuttered. In fact, her whole body started to shake and tremble, shock and cold and exhaustion seizing every limb.