Magissa by Kassandra Flamouri

Author:Kassandra Flamouri [Flamouri, Kassandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781953539984
Publisher: The Parliament House

Chapter Seventeen

I thrashed against the frigid darkness, desperately trying to reach the surface. But the river’s current had me in its grip, and I no longer knew which way was up. Water pushed against my nose and eyes and lips as if testing my defenses. I bucked, contorting with the effort to keep my mouth closed. But my lungs screamed, demanding a breath that would surely kill me.

Light danced across my vision in little sunbursts. My movements grew sluggish and confused. One of the sunbursts caught hold and spread, growing larger and steadier until the streaks of light and dark coalesced into a face of alien beauty, all angles and shadows and pale as the moon. Her body was long and thin, and, though humanoid, eerily sinuous and iridescent like a beetle’s shell. My heart leapt. Amidra!

Amidra drew closer. Soft, slippery lips found my own—and I could breathe. I gasped, my fingers closing spasmodically around her spindly arms. She pulled me close with a shy smile and put her arms around me, tucking my head close against her shoulder just in time to save me from braining myself against a jutting rock.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing as Amidra guided us safely through the maze of stones that seemed to rush at us like a fleet of trucks as the river whipped us through the water-filled tunnels. Her hair swirled around us, dark and soft like algae.

The cold had settled deep into my bones, and no matter how I shivered, I couldn’t seem to generate any warmth. Nor did Amidra’s body provide any heat. Her skin was as cold and slick as that of a fish. I half expected to find scales under my fingers as I clutched at her in my panic.

My pulse pounded in my ears and behind my eyes, making my head throb with each beat. Through chattering teeth, I tried to ask how much longer it would take to escape the caves. But though I could breathe, I had no air. My mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out, not even a bubble. Amidra gave me a reassuring squeeze—I thought it was reassuring, anyway. The ordeal was almost over. It had to be.

I winced as the current shoved us through a narrow crack, tearing strips of skin off my shoulders and hips. But this turned out to be the last toll paid to the underground river. Light exploded in my eyes, sparkling through a haze of mist and glittering droplets. For a moment, I was weightless, utterly disoriented, with no earthly idea what was up or down or where I was.

Then I was falling, a scream erupting from my chest along with all the water that would have drowned me if not for the neraida’s intervention. Once again, I plunged into the cold and wet, but this time I clawed my way to the surface with the desperate strength of a wild animal. I clung to a fallen tree at the base of the waterfall, coughing and gagging so violently the muscles of my back and neck started to seize.

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