Glowly's Arc

Chapter 12 of 16

Glowly crouched on the ledge and counted heads. Herself. Nova, dripping beside her. The dragon on her arm, warm and small. But the wolf pup was gone. She had shoved it through the narrow passage in the dark, ahead of Nova. It should have been here. She swept the blade's blue light across the water. Empty stone. The pup had not come out. "Where's the pup?" Nova asked. Her chalky hands still shook from the swim. She was the acrobat who had caught Glowly's rope on the mud bank and hauled her out of the tide. Since then she had followed Glowly into a sealed ruin she had no reason to enter. Now her eyes moved over the black water, fast, like she was searching for a net that wasn't there. "I pushed it through first," Glowly said. "It should be here." Her voice cracked. The passage behind them was narrow and flooded. Somewhere in it, a pup that had stood its ground against a jungle cat for her was drowning, or already still. Glowly lifted the blade to go back. Nova grabbed her wrist. "That thing is out there," Nova said. "The light brings it. You told me yourself." "Then I go dark." Glowly pressed the runes against her chest. The tunnel went black. She slid into the water and felt along the stone with one hand, counting. She remembered the pup's fur under her fingers as she'd shoved it in. It had been kicking then. Her lungs shrank. She found the low point of the passage, a dip where the stone bowed down. Her fingers touched something soft. Fur. Wedged where the tunnel narrowed, pinned by its own panic against the rock. She grabbed a leg and pulled. It came free. She kicked back the way she had come, blind, one hand on the wall, the pup clutched to her ribs. Her head broke the surface. Nova hauled them both onto the ledge. The pup lay limp. Glowly pressed on its small chest with the heel of her hand, once, twice. Water ran from its mouth. Then its ribs jerked. It coughed, shuddered, and dragged in air. Its bright eyes opened. Smoky shadow curled off its wet fur. Nova let out a breath and sat back hard against the wall. "It's breathing," she said. She almost laughed. "You went back in the dark for it." "I wasn't leaving it," Glowly said. She held the pup while it shook. When its shivering eased, Glowly lifted the blade again and looked down the dry passage ahead. The floor sloped upward, not down. She had counted on stairs descending toward the relic. Instead the stone climbed. The way past the crocodile led up, away from the depths where her father and sister had gone. She had saved the pup, but the only path forward now carried her group back toward the surface, not toward the relic below.