The muscles of his arms tensed, and she sucked in a deep breath and screamed, “Help me! Someone help me!”
With a roar, the current surged, slamming against them with incredible force.
His hand slipped from her chin to grasp the edge of the drain, but Lydia fell backward, only his grip on her other wrist keeping the water from sucking her down the tunnel. Her body twisted, her arm crying out in agony.
She reached desperately with her other hand, trying to catch hold of the edge of the drain, but it was too far. Straining her neck to get her head above the flow, she gasped in a breath and at the same time, she saw his lips move, and she swore they formed the words, “Hold on.”
He pulled and hope flooded through her veins. But her wrist was slipping through his grasp, his grip failing even as she caught hold of his arm with her other hand, feeling his muscles strain beneath her fingers as he struggled against the current.
Then the water twisted and surged, wrapping around her ankles like a pair of liquid hands, and with a violent tug Lydia was torn into blackness.
She clawed at the sides of the tunnel, searching for an opening and for air.
Then she was falling.
The impact drove what air remained in her lungs out in a stream of bubbles. The current dragged her back under, flipped her around and around before spewing her free. Her head broke the surface, and she gasped, steamy air filling her chest.
The blackness surrounding her was absolute, but her hand still drifted up to right her lost spectacles as though they could’ve pierced the darkness. The current pulled her away from the thunder of falling water, and around her was nothing but empty air. A void.
It didn’t last.
The pool flowed into a tunnel and her feet banged against rocks on the river floor, her arms soon battered and bleeding from guarding her head against the unseen obstacles hanging from the increasingly low ceiling. Lydia dug her nails into the slimy surface of the rock, and she screamed.
The sound reverberated through the tunnels, bouncing off rock and water. It was all for naught. No one could hear her. And even if they could, there was no way to reach her. She thrashed, furious and afraid.
The current ripped her free, and water closed over her head. One deep breath, and it will be over. One breath …
She opened her mouth, but air rather than water filled her lungs, light bursting bright in her eyes, illuminating a cavern. The underground river poured into it, creating a circular flow that she was powerless to evade. Circular, because there was no tunnel from which it could drain.
Yet it would never fill.
Round and round the water went, dragging her toward the center of the pool where a reverse vortex rose toward the faintly glowing stem of crystal suspended from the ceiling, the water disappearing into it.
A xenthier genesis.
Lydia fought the flow, trying to reach the walls of the cavern. There was no way to know where the crystal would take her. How far it would take her. And as much as she knew that to stay here would mean her death, the unknown terrified her.
Around the water whipped her, and she thought of Lucius’s cruel laughter as he walked through those golden doors.
Around, and she remembered the feel of the legatus’s hand gripping her jaw, about to break her neck.
Around, and her heart twisted with the knowledge that Teriana was imprisoned, her father being slowly poisoned.
The xenthier might lead to the unknown, but the unknown was somewhere, and from somewhere she could find her way back. To voice the truth. To save her friend. To take her revenge.
Lydia stopped fighting the current and, with the last of her strength, surged up out of the water and closed her fingers around the crystal’s tip.
17
KILLIAN
Groaning, Killian flopped back on Malahi’s bed, feeling the feather mattress sink beneath his weight. The silken pillows moved against each other with a soft rasp and, reaching sideways, he plucked one up and pressed it to his eyes to block out the lamplight, wishing nothing more than to fall asleep.
“You could at least pretend to be paying attention, Lord Calorian.”
Malahi’s muffled voice filled his ears, and despite his exhaustion, Killian smiled into the pillow.
“What degree of protection can you possibly provide from across the room buried in a pile of my pillows? Are you even awake?”