He planned to trudge straight into the water and consume as much of it as he could while washing away the sand sticking to his muscles, but something inside his head screamed at him to stop when he arrived at the water’s edge.
Falling to his knees, he stared at the water. It was so crystal clear he could see every one of the stones making up its bed. Hovering over the water, he shook as he restrained himself from gulping water from the lake.
These were the trials. And so far, he’d endured a trial by air, another by earth, and now he was staring at water.
The trials are the elements.
The knowledge was sluggish in coming as most of his brain continued to scream at him to drink, drink, drink!
But he couldn’t drink. He’d defeated air and earth, so that only left water and fire. It couldn’t be a coincidence that after leaving that wasteland behind, he was now facing this lake with all its delicious, life-giving water.
His entire body quaked as the aroma of the water intensified. Like a siren beckoning to the sailors, he couldn’t resist its temptation as he leaned over the water. He hadn’t realized he’d cupped his hands until he spotted himself hovering over the water with them.
The vision of himself—or at least he believed it was him, as he was barely recognizable—staring into that water shocked some reality back into him. He had no skin left on his face, and little remained on his body. It had been stripped away and replaced by the sand sticking to his bloody tendons.
One of his eyes protruded oddly. It took him a second to realize that was because part of his eyelid was missing. He’d lost his boots; skeletons and the sand had torn away his shirt and shredded most of his pants.
Only the waistband of his pants and some shredded fabric covered his upper thighs. The remnants of his pants shielded his only remaining flesh.
His ears were nearly gone; he couldn’t tell if his hair remained or if it had been sheared away too. At first, he thought he still had some tissue on his face, but then it sloughed downward, and a ball of sand plopped into the water. It caused a circle of ripples to radiate across the surface.
Despite his lack of skin, he didn’t feel any pain. He suspected that was because his nerve endings were so damaged, they didn’t detect the sensation. He recalled the suffering he endured while trapped beneath the sand and knew it would return as his body healed.
Leaning away from the water, Cole tried to wipe away the sand. Without something to wash it from him, all his actions did was cause it to abrade his muscle further.
His hands fell to the rocky ground as he stared at the water and willed himself to get away from it. He didn’t move. It was easier for him to kill a dragon than it was to find the strength to push himself away from the water.
Finally, and with a will he hadn’t known he possessed, he placed his hands against the gray rocks and shoved himself to his feet and away from the lake. He staggered, lurched, and fell as he tried to get away from the relentless pull of the liquid he craved.
Lacking the strength to get back to his feet, he crawled a hundred feet away from the shoreline. There, he found an outcropping of rocks that created a small cave. He crawled inside the shelter and took some solace in the shadows enveloping him, but the water still called to him.
He leaned his back against the wall and positioned himself so he could see the water. Maybe he was wrong; maybe he’d denied himself much-needed hydration that would help him heal a lot faster and wash away the sand for no reason.
But he couldn’t chance drinking that water in this condition. He was so weak and battered that if there was something wrong, he wouldn’t withstand it.
He would wait to see if any of his competition survived. If they had, he didn’t doubt they would go for the water. But would they also resist like him, or would they give in and drink it?
As he watched and waited, his body started to heal. Cole gritted his teeth against screaming as his nerve endings fired back to life. When they did, it felt like someone had taken his entire body and dipped it into a vat of boiling oil.
Quaking all over, he closed his eyes while his body gradually regrew the skin it lost. When this was over, this maddening agony would be one more thing he made the Lord pay for.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Knees to chest!” Brokk commanded.
Lexi did everything she could to get her knees to her chest as she ran, but she felt like an idiot as her knees nearly hit her boobs. She didn’t exactly love running, and she’d already run around the lake three times. However, this added knees-to-chest thing was making it almost impossible to keep going.
“Knees to chest!” Brokk yelled like a drill sergeant.
Lexi stopped running, turned to face him, and planted her hands on her hips. “I’m trying!”
“Not hard enough,” Brokk retorted. “You’re the one who asked to learn how to fight.”
“What does me hitting my knees against my chest have to do with fighting?”
“Nothing,” he said with a smile. “I’m just entertaining myself.”
Lexi gawked as she resisted hurling a bunch of curses at him. Bending, she picked up a handful of dirt and threw it at him. Brokk laughed as he danced away from it.
“Come on,” he said. “Get back to running.”
Lexi was beginning to regret her decision to ask him for help with this, but at least his drill-sergeant-like ways were a distraction from her thoughts because none of her thoughts were good.
Cole had been gone for five days. Five days in which there was no word from anyone on what was happening. Five days in which Brokk hadn’t given her much time to sit and wallow, but the nighttime was different.
At night, she tossed and turned before giving up and rising from bed. She’d pace from the window to her bed and back again. She’d stare at the moon and search for crows while praying Cole returned to her.
Sometimes, she would creep down to the library and try to read, but she could never concentrate on the words. For the first time in her life, reading didn’t bring her solace from the world.
The other night, she returned to the tunnels to deliver what little food they could spare. Orin wasn’t there, but she found Nessie and the other refugees in the section where they had taken to living.
Nessie was a pretty brunette with gray eyes and a timid smile. Behind that smile was a spine of steel. The woman was determined to keep her four-year-old nephew, Jayden, safe no matter what it took.
When she first met them, Jayden looked so much like Nessie that she assumed he was her son, but his mother, a mortal, died during childbirth. Nessie stepped in to help care for him afterward and loved him like he was her own.
Jayden’s father was a vampire who fought against the Lord during the war. Because of that, the Lord would ruthlessly hunt his child.
While Lexi hated keeping this secret from Cole, when she looked at Nessie and Jayden, she knew she’d made the right choice. They deserved better, and she would do whatever she could to make sure they got it.
Nessie didn’t know where Orin had gone, but that wasn’t unusual. There were times he slipped away for a day or two, but he always returned. She hoped he was extra careful about his comings and goings.
Since that night, she hadn’t returned to the tunnel, but they should be set for food still, and Orin should have come back by now. She would have to go below again soon to make sure. If they got hungry, they might try to leave, which could be disastrous for all involved.