Chapter 46: Mirage I

Icy cold burst around him, freezing him down to the bone. Leo choked, bubbles escaping his mouth as two forces pulled on him—one yanking from above, the other attempting to drag him deeper into the depths.

He squeezed his eyes closed and forced himself to keep his mouth shut and not yell like he wanted to. Every muscle in his body screamed at him. He felt like he was being torn apart, a tense string on the verge of snapping.

Leo’s mind grew hazy as the piercing pain engulfed him, thoughts and emotions flitting past in fleeting, broken fragments. Strongest among them was regret.

Another sharp pull brought him deeper into the water, the draw of the lake’s fae magic beginning to gain the upper hand against [Lifeline]. Behind the darkness of his eyelids, the world was reduced to nothing but the pain coursing through his body and the growing roaring in his ears.

Memories rose in flashes.

Pristine long corridors where all footsteps echoed, dwarfing everything within. Hazel eyes that looked just like his own. A looming figure, a constant presence felt in every corner and room. Bruises and wounds layered on top of old ones. The clanging of chains. Mildew and iron. The smell of smoke. Screaming.

Then, amidst that landscape of crackling red and grey, the whipping strands of hair that billowed in the wind. Crimson against scarlet.

Leo’s eyes snapped open.

The roar in his ears faded into chilling silence, and the pain abruptly dulled. He couldn’t tell how much time had passed, how much time was passing now. All he knew was that for a moment, suspended in the crystal clear waters, everything fell still.

Had the fae magic and [Lifeline] temporarily canceled each other out? He didn’t know, but he was certain this wouldn’t last. Both forces seemed to fluctuate during their durations. Soon enough one of them would win out again, and he had to get away before that happened.

Lungs and muscles aching, Leo forced himself to move, ignoring the sharp pain in his shoulder as he attempted to swim away.

The amulet floated around his neck. Its blue stone gleamed in the light that filtered down into the waters. Though the tides above had been released, down below, the lake was every bit as still and silent as it had been when they’d first seen it.

Leo felt a faint tugging return, and he swam faster. He was running out of breath. He kept swimming diagonally, up towards the surface but further along the shore so he could resurface away from Sonia.

The pull grew stronger. The [Fragmentholder] gritted his teeth and kept going.

Up above, the light of the surface became increasingly blinding. It seemed like the fae magic somehow allowed the waters to catch the sun’s rays through the cloaking fog.

The fae. Normally their magic made it impossible to see within the waters, but here he was, barely hanging on, hazel eyes opened and vision clear.

Leo looked down.

Only his own tight control kept him from gasping and losing the last of his air. He didn’t know what he’d expected—living fae watching from the lake floor, perhaps an underwater kingdom like the ones artists loved to depict of the days before the fall of the ancients.

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A part of him wondered, distantly, when he’d also started to believe that there were living fae in the Glass Lake. Perhaps it was the conviction of people like Irving and Ivan. Perhaps it was his own experiences with the magic that seemed so alive.

Whatever it was, somewhere along the way he’d subconsciously begun to believe in those ancient fae lurking in the depths below.

But what Leo saw were not water fae gazing up at the surface, nor did he see the underwater paradise depicted in the paintings.

Instead, what lay beneath the Glass Lake was a graveyard.

Cracked stone and debris jutted out from the lake floor like tombstones, dull grey crumbling into dust and wasting away. Pearly white bones lay scattered in chunks and pieces, pulled apart by the water. Steadily eroding to nothing.

Amongst the wreckage, curled above like a parent protectively cradling their child, was a massive corpse that completely dwarfed its surroundings.

Long, curling white bones as thick as Leo was tall wrapped around the ruins, forming a crude ribcage. Several bones were gone, and they left wide gaps for water to flow freely through. From the side, they looked like a gaping mouth with missing teeth.

The sharp edges of what were once fins fanned outwards, climbing down a crooked spine. Though scattered in rough, uneven patches, Leo thought he could make out the opalescent gleam of scales.

Dark stringy hair floated in the waters, tangling around the corpse’s own skeleton like seaweed. They drifted in front of the drooping head, obscuring its face from view and leaving the head shadowed. A sagging, sharp mouth flashed behind the occasional gaps in the strands. A chill ran up Leo’s back.

It had to be nearly the size of the old water titans. He didn’t know fae could be this massive. He could picture the creature alive, the way it would fill up the space with its presence.

In its current state, bones gnarled and loose patches of surviving flesh barely clinging onto its skeleton as they decayed, it was nothing more than another piece of the lake floor. Once the rulers of the Glass Lake, now swallowed inside with only their lingering traces of magic to indicate that they’d ever existed here.

Leo stared at the sight, transfixed. If he wasn’t still trying to take everything in, he might’ve thought it was ironic.

The force responsible for the labyrinth of tides that had stumped the Hounds for so long, for the wave that had destroyed an entire village and rendered the people here so afraid—it was nothing more than the lingering remains of a dead legend. Clearside and all others living by the Glass Lake’s shores were haunted by the ghost of what once was.

Another sharp yank caused Leo’s body to lurch upwards, and his eyes squeezed shut again.

His lungs burned. His limbs struggled against the pull, but he could feel himself rapidly approaching the surface as [Lifeline] began to win out over the leftover fae magic.

Seconds later, he broke through the waves. Leo gasped, spitting out water and gulping for air. He was shivering, head reeling, and only barely managed to drag himself up to the shore.

His entire body felt heavy and weak, as though his limbs weren’t his own. His shoulder burned, and he was faintly aware of his stamina dipping down to 13%.

The image of the fae corpse still lingered vividly in his mind, so much that he almost didn’t notice the sound of footsteps approaching.

Slowly, Leo raised his head and met eyes with a cool, icy blue gaze. Sonia studied the shivering form in front of her, and there was something resembling curiosity on her otherwise stoic features.

“Clever,” she remarked. Leo attempted to hack some more water out of his lungs and forced himself to rise on shaky legs.

“Did you see the fae?”

The question caught Leo by surprise. He frowned. He tried to study the Hounds leader, but he couldn’t discern her motive. As far as he could tell, she genuinely wanted to know.

His fingers squeezed tighter around his dagger’s handle. Somehow, he’d managed to keep a hold on it through everything, and he was grateful to not be completely weaponless right now.

“I saw their corpses.”

Sonia was quiet for a moment, expression still. It seemed like she was processing something, or perhaps she was coming to a decision. When she responded, her voice was unreadable.

“I see.”

And then she surged forward.