Nerida Quickwave's Arc

Chapter 11 of 12

Nerida hit the far end of the bridge and kept kicking. Open water stretched ahead, broken only by a massive iron arch suspended over a churning spiral of current, its bars threaded with glowing algae. No cover. No ravine. Just the spinning gate and the cold pressure of twelve arms cutting the water behind her. She clutched the broken shaft — a single obsidian point lashed to bone, etched lines still faintly glowing from where the trident had been a real weapon. One point. One strike left, if she got one at all. The beast was faster across open water than she was. She could feel the wake of it already pushing against her legs. She angled hard toward the spinning gate. The pull caught her, dragged her sideways, and slung her past the iron bars into the shadow beyond. There, low against the seabed, sat a squat concrete shelter, its walls wrapped in pale, glowing vines, a single dark doorway open like a held breath. She drove for it. The beast crashed into the gate's current behind her, tangled for one precious second in the spiral. Nerida slid through the doorway and pressed flat against the inside wall. Her broken pike trembled in her hand. Outside, the water went dark as twelve arms blotted the glow. The beast had not lost her. But the walls held, and she was breathing, and the single point was still hers. She had bought herself the next move — nothing more.