Scarlett Hayes's Arc

Chapter 4 of 9

Scarlett knelt by the carved stone and pressed both hands to the runes. The marks glowed under her palms. She meant only to feel the shape of them. But the light flared, and the ledge shook. "Scarlett, let go!" Azumi grabbed her wrist, but the stone held Scarlett's hands fast. Blue hair whipped across Azumi's face. She yanked hard, feet lifting off the rock, all her flying strength in the pull. Scarlett tore free and fell backward. The wall behind the stone split open. Water burst through the crack. Not a trickle. A wall of it, roaring down from somewhere higher, framed by glowing purple crystals set in the black rock. The runes on the arch above the falls lit one by one, purple and bright. "It made a waterfall," Azumi shouted. "Out of a wall! How does that even happen?" Scarlett scrambled up. The water pounded the ledge and pooled fast around her ankles. The dry stone was shrinking. There was no route off the ledge now, only the falls and the drop behind them. "The stone did this." Scarlett wiped spray from her eyes. "I touched it wrong. I woke it up." Azumi hovered above the rising pool, reaching down. "Then stop touching things! Grab my hands!" Scarlett looked at the crashing water. Something moved behind it. A dark shape, curled and huge, pressed against the sheet of white. She could not tell if it breathed or if the water only made it seem alive. Fear ran cold down her back. But under the fear, she felt something else. The runes had answered her hands. This place knew the boy she chased. He had touched a stone like this one. The trail did not end at the ledge. It ran through the falls. "There's a way behind the water," Scarlett said. "He went through something like this. I know it." "You want to swim into that?" Azumi's voice cracked. "There's a thing in there!" "I want to not drown here." Scarlett grabbed Azumi's outstretched hands. "Lift me over the pool. Set me on the ledge beside the falls, where the crystals are." Azumi's grip tightened. She read Scarlett's face and stopped arguing. She flew backward, dragging Scarlett across the flooding rock. Her sneakers skimmed the water. She dropped Scarlett on a narrow shelf of glowing stone at the edge of the falls, then landed beside her, panting. "You're stuck with me, remember," Azumi said. "So we go together." The pool swallowed the last of the dry ledge behind them. There was only the shelf, the roaring water, and the dark shape waiting inside it. Scarlett gripped a purple crystal and leaned toward the gap where the falls met the wall. "Together," she said. "On three." The trail had opened a new door. It led straight into the water, and into whatever lived there.