Glowly's Arc

Chapter 11 of 16

Glowly swam down the drowned steps, the pup pressed to her side, Nova a shadow above. The blade's runes lit the water blue. Then something moved in the dark below. A shape longer than three men slid off a step and turned toward the light. Its eyes caught the glow. Scales rippled along its back. The crocodilian creature she had seen in the deep waters had found them here, and the blade had drawn it straight up the stairs. Glowly's chest already burned. She kicked backward. The creature snapped, and its jaws missed her leg by a hand's width. Nova grabbed a fistful of Glowly's collar and hauled her sideways behind a broken pillar. They pressed there, out of the light's reach. The beast circled, hunting the glow. Glowly understood then. The runes were killing them. Underwater they shone like a lure, and every predator in the ruin would come for the light. She could not fight the thing. She could not outswim it. Her lungs squeezed. She jammed the blade against her chest and smothered the runes under her arm. The water went black. The creature slowed. It had lost its mark. Glowly grabbed Nova's sleeve and the pup's fur. She remembered the steps she had already seen lit below, four of them, then a gap, then a dark opening to the left. She counted them in the dark with her free hand on the stone. One step. Two. The creature's tail struck the pillar behind them. Three. Her fingers found the gap. Four. She swept her hand left and touched an open passage. She shoved Nova through first, then the pup, then folded herself in after them. Stone scraped her shoulders. The passage was narrow, too tight for the beast. She heard it thrash outside, blind and furious. Then she uncovered the blade. Blue light filled the tunnel. Ahead the passage rose. Her head broke the surface into a pocket of stale air. Nova came up gasping beside her. "You put out the only light we had," she said. Her chalky hands shook on the ledge. "In front of that thing." "The light was the problem," Glowly said. She coughed water. "It follows the runes. I can't hold them under anymore. Not down here." Nova stared at her, then at the blade. Understanding crossed her face. The tool that had guided them was now the thing that hunted them. Glowly pulled herself onto the ledge. The pup climbed up and shook. The dragon dropped from Nova's coat and clung to Glowly's arm, warm and small. She lifted the blade and looked down the new passage. It ran dry and level, deeper into the ruin. No water. No steps down. "We're past it," she said. "But I don't know if this still goes down, or if we just climbed away from the relic." She had escaped the creature and lost her only sure path in the same breath.