Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
For a split second, he stares at me with his head tilted to one side, and I wonder if he’s trying various hair and eye colors on me. Then he chuckles and turns to the oily black water.
Bending down, he wades in as far as he can, which is not all that much because of his bulk and the way the tunnel’s ceiling angles sharply into the pool. Then he starts huffing and puffing, blowing air in and out of his lungs. Finally, he draws in a long, slow inhale that seems to go on forever—
He goes into the murky depths like he’s been sucked down.
The disturbance on the surface doesn’t last long.
And I know what’s coming, if I’m lucky: He’s going to reappear and tell me I have to follow him through that water.
Panic immediately returns.
I cannot swim.
I’ve tried before, in lazy streams and still-watered lakes. In ponds, too. I sink like a stone, and have all the coordination of a seizure.
Glancing around, I find a fissure in the wall that’s big enough to shove the handle of the torch into. It takes a couple of tries to get the stalk to stay put, but finally, it holds. Then I sluice the pack off my shoulder, and bring my hands up to my hood.
I have to breathe deeply once or twice, just to convince my brain I’m not already drowning. Right before I drop the folds back, I glance at the pool. Then I wrench the hood off my head—
Oh, the air is good. Even as musty as it is here, just the ability to draw in freely as well as the temperature drop on my face calms me a little.
Releasing the cloak from my body helps, too. The weight off my torso and arms makes me feel like I’m floating and a chill tickles away the oppressive warmth that’s had me locked in a vise. Underneath, I have two layers, an outer linen tunic that falls from my collarbones to my ankles, and beneath that, there are my intimates, such as they are. As opposed to the corsets and thigh-high silken leggings of the working women, I just have shirting and a pair of loose men’s bloomers.
Quick as my shaky hands will let me, I take off my sheath, tie a knot in the top to close the neck hole, and pull it back over myself, seating the length on the crown of my head. As the folds of thin material settle around me, they are a veil that doesn’t compromise my vision, but still hides my face.
Then I go back to the cloak. Fishing around the folds, I take out Mare’s heavy bag of gold and wonder where I can stash it. There’s a button pocket on the backside of the bloomers and I shove what my friend wanted me to have in there and refasten things. To cure the drag on the waistband, I tighten the leather slip I have to wear to keep them on my hips in the first place.
After which, I just stand there and stare at the pool.
The surface is so still, it’s a mirror of the rough stone walling and the arching ceiling above.
Time spools out into eternity, and my heart beats faster as I imagine the burning in Merc’s lungs as he holds his breath and uses those broad, callused palms to propel himself through a cold darkness that surely must feel infinite to him, too.
My thoughts begin to cannibalize my consciousness. I picture him turned around in the weightless void, unable to find his way back.
I glance at the torch. Hopefully the light will be his guide? Assuming the glow even carries through the soup.
I wait.
And wait some more.
As I sense myself spiraling again, my mind escapes to folktales I’ve overheard in the pub for as long as I have memories. If Anathos still had its magic? If that invisible power, the sacred energy given to everyone and everything when our continent was created, remained in the air and the soil and the water? I maybe could have marshaled it and provided him a sufficient homing signal. Or perhaps I could have gone with him, suspended in a protective bubble that I could drive like a ship—
We could have both been in my magical underwater vessel.
Yes, a bubble under the surface. With a lighting glow and confines that were great enough to withstand even the teeth of the biggest balas in the moat—
My racing thoughts slam into the barn side of reality: In the ancient times, there wouldn’t have been the Fulcrum to claim those boys. So we would not be here at all.
And in that scenario, Merc could have summoned the granthe himself and visualized the safest escape.
“Merc…” I cup my hands to my mouth. “Merc! Come back!”
Trying not to panic, my eyes shift to the pack, and I blame all of this on the stupid story Mr. Lewis laid out—even though the real problem was the angry crowd.