Directly below the crude skylight was a pool of water that Selena knew at once to be the darkpool Accora had spoken of. Dirty junks of ice floated atop its oily surface like dun-colored lily pads. The water itself was quiet but Selena sensed a dark energy in it, as if somewhere deep below its surface, a heart pumped the corrupted blood of the thousand merkind that had perished in its depths.
Selena gave the darkpool a wide berth and then waited for the trap to spring, for her enemies to make themselves known. Moments passed, marked by the hiss-splat of the melting ice. Of Bacchus or Accora, there was no sign. The tension in Selena’s stance eased. She prowled the small confines looking for another door, for certainly Bacchus had not lived five years in one bare room. Near the torch, she found wet leaves and fresh boot prints. The size of the prints made her heart thud dully in her chest.
Bacchus.
Her own foot was dwarfed; Ilior’s foot would seem dwarfed, she thought. But the large print wasn’t the only one scuffed into the icy grime. Smaller prints—those belonging to a woman or women—were clear. Accora, Ori, Cat. Most or all were his prisoner—Ori and Accora for certain. Selena breathed a prayer to the Two-Faced God that they lived still…or that they had died quickly.
She knelt beside the prints and found a groove along the floor. She followed it up the wall and the outline of a crude door, camouflaged by the varied materials used to make it, became apparent. Selena’s muscled tightened again as she felt around the bits of planking for a way to open the door. Behind her, the torch extinguished its own light as melting ice snuffed its fire with a final, loud hiss. Selena nearly jumped out of her skin as the small room was plunged into darkness. The only light came from the moonlight that peeked in between broken slats in the roof above. When a fat raincloud passed over the moon, that light was stolen too, and Selena shivered in the dark.
Someone moaned.
Accora…Selena thought, but the voice was younger, softer. Her heart thudded like a hammer against her ribcage. Gods, a child…
A wail of anguish joined the child’s whimper, then another, and another. Shadows boiled on her right and she looked to the darkpool. It writhed.
Long, pale arms thrust from the stinking water, then heads matted with seaweed and bits of flotsam broke the surface. Staring eyes and gaping mouths that loosed anguished cries found Selena. In the shadowy dark they were even more horrifying to behold; pale, bloated, scrabbling over one another to get at her.
Merkind, she thought, readying her blade, but no, these were humans. As they hauled themselves out of the darkpool, Selena saw homespun clothing—tattered and sodden and moldy—instead of fins or tails. Men and women and children. The drowned. Her drowned.
“The Calindari,” she whispered, her sword nearly falling from nerveless fingers.
They staggered across the temple, water pouring out of their mouths as if they were welling up from within. Their moans and sobs, she realized with a pang of horror, were resounding in her head. In her heart. In her wound. And though they spoke no word, she heard their plaintive, singular cry as clear as a clarion.
Why?
“This isn’t real,” she whispered, staggering away, her back coming against something hard and that smelled of rot. Bacchus! She spun, sword cutting a vicious arc, and then pulled up short with a shriek.
“Ilior! Thank the gods.”
Ilior replied by raising his own immense broad sword and bringing it down over her head.
Selena only barely registered that the blow was meant for her. With a cry, she dodged, but not enough. His blade came down on her shoulder. Flesh tore and bone cracked. Selena uttered a strangled wail and stumbled against the rough-hewn wall. Her arm hung low, nearly cleaved from her body, and blood gushed. She spoke the sacred word to call healing, though it came out as a whimper. The orange glow answered, diminishing the pain enough so that she was not drowning in it, but no more. Behind her, the throngs of dead Calindari wavered in the murky dark like mirages and then vanished.
Ilior remained.
He snarled and delivered another blow that would have decapitated her had she not spun clumsily out of reach. She cut at him, mostly to keep his sword at bay, knowing it was futile anyway, that he was going to kill her. But he was slow. Slower than she knew him to be. Her haphazard swing had opened a small gash on Ilior’s thigh and terror wracked her like the cold to see it leaked not blood, but a yellowed, watery sap that smelt of rot.
Gods no, I’ll heal him. And what the darkpool did to him, I’ll heal that too…
The pain of Ilior’s answering swipe at her side added its voice to the throbbing scream of her shoulder. Blood washed down to her thigh and she called her healing, inhaling it and holding it to staunch the pain, while at the same time, dancing out of Ilior’s long reach. Somewhere, she knew, Bacchus watched.
“Ilior, stop! It’s me!”
Ilior replied with the sword, and Selena found herself locked in a dance of death with him. It was a nightmare come true, as every stroke of his sword came with a memory of him fighting with it to defend her life. Every grimace of rage was echoed by the thousands of kind words and bolstering care he’d given her over ten years.
And now he will kill me, Selena thought, for surely I cannot kill him. I cannot…
“Your healing, girl.” Accora’s voice was a hiss in the fog of battle. “For him and for you, it will fight the darkpool. Not the poison, but the hate. Healing…it is the answer to—”
The old woman’s words were severed by a thud and whimper. Selena called more healing to her, but she couldn’t get close enough to touch Ilior. Not without being struck by that sword that could sever her in two. With her injured arm, it was all she could do to keep from fainting.
And then Ilior stumbled and then fell to one knee. The sword in his hands trembled.
Selena saw her chance and rushed at him. He brought his sword arm up in a weak defense but with a running blow, she knocked it out of his hand.
“Ilior,” she cried, dropping her own sword. “It’s not real. Fight it.”
He grabbed her by the collar and hauled her to him so that his snarling visage was inches from hers. His breath smelled of death and his flesh looked as if it were rotting from the inside out. He balled his other hand into a fist and raised it. Before he could knock her senseless, Selena quickly laid her good hand on his leathery cheek and channeled the healing into him. She watched with tears in her eyes, as the light of madness died in his, and he looked down at the hand clutching her so roughly.
“Selena?”
She nearly wept with relief as he held her to him. But the stench of the darkpool was still all over him. His skin was burning and riddled with bites and deep rents. “I’ll take care of you,” she whispered. “I’ll make you better…”
A hulking shadow, darker than those that cloaked the temple, loomed over them both. Ilior was torn from her as Bacchus lifted him by his remaining wing. Bones snapped and Ilior cried out raggedly. Bacchus tossed the dragonman aside where he landed on his broken wing and this time a scream was coaxed from his ailing body.
Selena felt an answering wail in her heart.