suck in a full lungful before two more pairs of brittle hands grabbed her and she once again found herself submerged, this time entangled in limbs and fine, slimy strands of seaweed. The pain in her lungs intensified, like a knife caught in her sternum as she struggled weakly against the fingers dragging her down. As her consciousness began to fade, the vibrations of an echoed, distorted giggle shook the water surrounding her.
Suddenly, a new set of hands, these ones sturdy and full of vigor, grasped under her armpits. The giggles turned into furious hisses. Helpless, she fought to hold the last of her breath—she was viciously yanked, between the hands on her ankles and the ones under her arms, until the hands pulling her up gave a vicious tug. Her legs broke free, and she shot toward the surface. Lilac sobbed and inhaled the air in desperate gasps, feeling as if she would never be able to breathe enough in. An arm curled around her waist and she screamed and thrashed in anguish.
“Stop that! Stop—it’s me,” Garin gurgled next to her, spitting water out. Hair slicked over his eyes, he slung her arms over his shoulder and around his neck.
He immediately began kicking his powerful legs through the water, one-handedly swimming back to shore. He moved faster through the growing current than Lilac thought possible. When they reached the shore, he pulled her out and then dropped her, just before she retched chunks of pie and river water, indiscernible between the mud and stones between her fingers.
Shivering and panting, she shrugged off her drenched cloak and began wringing it out the best she could. Her dress now clung to her torso even tighter.
“My clothes,” she coughed, wiping the spittle off her chin and staggering to her feet. “They’re ruined.”
“Ruined?” Garin spat from somewhere over to her left. He sat in the mud, emptying his boots. “They’re wet.”
“Precisely,” she snapped.
“To someone whose life spans a mere century at best, I’m sure that must seem terribly important.”
“Pity,” came a harmonic inflection from behind them. “Is the poor Darkling upset that his meal got taken away?”
“Ignore them,” Garin instructed quietly as he wrung out the front of his black shirt.
Them.
Lilac spun to face the river and couldn’t believe her eyes. Three bare-breasted creatures sat in the shallower water just beyond the riverbank. It hadn’t been seaweed that Lilac was tangled in, but their long, golden hair. Below toned stomachs, porcelain skin blended seamlessly into what looked like a wide serpent’s tail adorned in aventurine scales. Their complexion glistened with patches of gold smatterings, glinting impossibly in the moonlight as they turned this way and that to wring their hair out. As Lilac gawked, three sets of razor-sharp teeth grinned back at her, like the mouths of sharks.
She shuddered. They were the most aesthetically pleasing and terrifying things she’d ever seen.
Garin paid them no mind. He was too busy wiping the clay off of the baldric belt, taking extra care cleaning off Sinclair’s longsword. “They are why we don’t fancy the rivers,” he muttered, side-eying her. To her surprise, he grabbed her sack off the ground and slung it over his shoulder, then held out his other hand. This time, she gladly accepted it and allowed him to pull her upright.
“G’day, sweetheart,” another one of them purred, scales glinting green and purple as she slithered further up onto the bank. “By the moon, you’re ripe and plump. Once the curse is lifted, he’ll go right for it..”
Frowning, Lilac threw Garin a look of concern, only to find him observing her with the same expression. “Curse?” Lilac repeated. She shifted uncomfortably. How could they have known? It was public knowledge she could speak to Darklings, sure. But no one else knew she had come to Brocéliande to get rid of the ability to do so. Not even Garin.
To her relief he didn’t press further, only offering a grunt of annoyance. “Ignore them. The Morgen speak in riddles and lies.” He stretched the kinks from his free shoulder, re-secured the baldric belt across his torso, then took Lilac under his other arm.
She didn’t have the energy to do anything but accept his help. She knew she should run, scream, call for help… But what good would it do? She was physically and mentally drained. Through the haze, a small part of her mind latched onto the muscular torso beneath his damp tunic, brushing against her side. She forced herself to look away.
“Morgen,” Lilac repeated wistfully,