Veritas by St. Clare Kelly

Author:St. Clare, Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-13T16:00:00+00:00

Twelve

She let her head sag onto the kraken’s blue tongue, no longer worried about the smell or the teeth or being here. She’d nearly lost the fifth part.

Her fingers complained at the tightness of her grip on the tube, and the injured muscles at the back of her upper arm ached in protest. Ebba placed the tube sideways between her teeth and began to shuffle backward out of the creature’s many mouths. She didn’t dare slow her pace.

On her stomach, digging in her bleeding arms and legs, she worked her way back through the sixth and fifth mouths, through the fourth and third mouths.

Hands grabbed at her feet.

“Ugh,” the kraken said, back mouths snapping closed. “Augh!”

Ebba tore the part from her mouth, gripping it tight as she quickened her backward wriggle. “Don’t ye dare!”

An inch from her face, his second mouth snapped shut.

“Augh-choo,” roared the kraken.

The helping hands of her crew were ripped away as Ebba flew from the kraken’s mouth. She was sneezed over her fathers’ heads. Their shocked faces barely registered before Ebba realized the kraken had sneezed her beyond the security of the rowboat.

Well beyond.

Ebba broke the surface of the Dynami Sea with a slap that would have her smarting for days, but the stinging heat was lost as black water closed over her. Bubbles erupted in all directions, stealing her sense of up and down, and still the force of the kraken’s sneeze shot her downward into the abyss.

She held her breath as her uncontrolled hurtling through the water slowed. Not for a second did she relax her death grip on the weapon part. But she unfroze enough to draw the cylinder to her chest and cradled it tight.

Peering around, she released a bubble and watched the direction it rose in, and then began kicking in the direction of the surface.

Something brushed against her leg. She ignored it.

. . . Probably nothing.

Please be nothing. The mind played tricks underwater. The whir of a current or floating seaweed grew in the skull to become sharks, rays, and sea monsters.

A hand clutched her foot.

Harder to ignore!

Her chest had tightened already, and Ebba’s remaining air left her breathers in a bubbled expulsion. Her legs worked double-time, yet as she neared the surface, her muscles ached from lack of air. Her heart stormed in her ears. Her kicks became feeble. The thing beneath her grasped her feet in an unbreakable hold.

Ebba’s chaotic upward surge ground to a halt. Until. . . .

She was pushed up.

Not just pushed. As her eyes began to close, her arms were extended and wrapped around two bodies who supported her to the top.

Ebba broke the surface and dragged in a breath that was half water. She choked and coughed, strung out between who knew what as her body demanded she focus on survival. Spluttering, drawing in painful gasps, she cracked open her eyes, wincing as salt water stung them.

Blinking, she looked side to side in tired bafflement at the creatures under her arms. Ebba stared.

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