Page 63 of From the Myths of Kings

And suddenly, he was at the end of the small cavity. His head emerged from the water, meeting the damp air. Against his will, he opened his mouth and gasped for air, the instinct to breathe overcoming everything else. His lungs burned as he sucked in oxygen.

Once his eyes became focused again and the splotches of black dotting his vision cleared, he took in the tiny pocket of stone he found himself in. Only about two feet of the crevice was unsubmerged. He treaded water and kept his head above the swelling pool, but the water continued to rise, gurgling up the shaft threateningly. It would flood the small space in a matter of minutes.

Rook cursed, bracing his arms against the close walls of the cavity. Even without the rising water, the cramped space was extremely claustrophobic. He would need to dive back down the shaft to the original passageway, but he had no idea when or if there would be more air waiting for him at the end of the tunnel. Maybe this was it. He guessed the last dregs of Sloane’s potion still lingered in his system and he still had the ability to hold his breath longer than normal, but at some point, the elixir would wear off.

The water clawed up his jaw. The sound of his ragged breathing echoed off the damp walls and pounded back in his ears. He wriggled higher up the shaft, pressing his cheek against the last scrap of dry stone as the water seeped up to his ears. His lips pressed against the wet rock. There was now only a foot of dry air left. Rook drank in oxygen and prepared to dive back down.

Suddenly, the water swelled even higher as a new body filled the tight space.

“Rook!” Saoirse gasped when she shimmied up next to him, sloshing water across his face as she sprang up. Their faces were almost pressed together in the shallow pocket. Their smeared streaks of algae paint had almost washed away, but the faint glow still brightened up the fissure.

“Thank the stars you’re alive.” She evaluated him as the water bubbled up even higher, halving the foot of dry air until there were mere inches between the tide and the ceiling.

“Barely,” Rook coughed, squishing his face against the wall even harder.

“We need to go back into the first tunnel. I saw the way out right as you were carried up this shaft. But you’ll need to hold your breath for about six minutes before we reach the end. Can you do that?”

“I don’t know. The effects of Sloane’s potion are almost gone.”

Saoirse pursed her lips. “Titansblood allows me to breathe underwater and on land. I can share oxygen with you if you run out before the end. Are you ready?”

Rook nodded wearily and filled his lungs once more, already dreading the fast-paced current of the first passageway. Saoirse followed his lead, inhaling the last dregs of air as the water closed the gap and met the ceiling, fully submerging them. She dove down the shaft, Rook at her heels. Already, his lungs strained as they swam back down to the original tunnel. He wouldn’t be able to hold his breath for long.

His numb body was yanked through the fissure’s opening and swept away. Just like before, Saoirse kept her hand clenched around his as they were thrown helplessly against the walls. The spiraling water made Rook’s head spin. He squinted through the silt and bubbles, feeling a wash of relief at the sight of the metal plate looming at the end of the tunnel. They were heading in the right direction, then.

His lungs ached as they drifted closer to the tunnel’s exit. Threads of unconsciousness began to stitch along the perimeter of his inconsistent vision. Breathe, his body screamed at him. Breathe! Titans, he wanted to. His body began to spasm and jerk as he fought to keep from inhaling.

Saoirse grabbed a hold of him and pressed her lips to his, sealing their mouths together. She clamped her fingers over his nose and forced air into his mouth. It wasn’t much, but it was something. He took her offering but felt only minimally relieved with her lungful of recycled air.

“Almost there!” came her water-warped voice when she pulled away.

As they tumbled head over heels, Rook’s sense of time and reality bubbled and retreated like the tide. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t focus on anything other than holding his breath. In between bouts of awareness, he saw cavern walls that looked vaguely familiar. He blinked rapidly, trying to discern if he’d lost consciousness and woken up in one of his dreams, or if he was simply hallucinating.

Abruptly, they were dumped out of the tunnel and deposited in yet another cavern. The water rushed over them, spilling into a dry cave. Rook choked and sputtered as they washed up onto a sediment embankment. He felt like a fish flopping on a dock, rolling waves of water lashing over the side of a sunbaked gangplank. The water must be draining out somewhere, for it didn’t flood the chamber or rise. In fact, the puddle seemed to retreat.

Saoirse leaned over him, pushing tendrils of soaked hair from his face. “You’re safe now,” she whispered. “You can breathe.”

Rook closed his eyes and drank in the moist air. His head pounded like a blacksmith’s anvil. He waited for the world to stop spinning before he cracked open his bleary eyes. His eyebrows knit together with confusion as he stared up at the low cavern ceiling. Recognition sparked at the back of his mind.

Damn, he had slipped back into another dream after all. He’d replayed this dream so many times over the last week, pondering the memory of the prisoner locked behind iron bars in a cave. Please, let me out, called the dream-woman’s voice in his head. Rook rubbed his eyes and tried pulling himself out of the vision, his skin crawling as the sound of dripping water filled his ears. A dream had never felt this immersive and visceral before.

“Saoirse, can you hear me? Are you there? Wake me up from this dream!”

“Rook, I’m right here.” Saoirse placed her hands on his face, a crease forming between her eyebrows as she stared at him with concern. “What’s wrong?”

Rook forced himself to sit up, taking in the sight of the familiar cave walls and the smell of tepid water and mildew. The dream was burned into his memory just like every other one he’d experienced. Every sensation, smell, and sound had been scored against his own personal history. Surely, he wouldn’t be misremembering this.

He vaulted into realization, understanding crashing into him like a physical blow. This was real. He had dreamed of this place and now…they were really here. He grabbed Saoirse’s hand to ground himself. The feel of her slick skin and warmth anchored him in the present.

“Sorry, I thought I was dreaming for a moment,” he breathed. His eyes traced down the corridor, skipping over the mounds of stalactites identical to the ones in his dream. The passageway darkened as it curled beyond his sight. Was the mysterious female prisoner locked away at the end of the tunnel, or had he glimpsed a moment from long ago? He’d witnessed scenes that took place hundreds and thousands of years ago, after all. Where did that woman’s imprisonment fall on the timeline of history?

On shaking legs, he rose from the ground, leaning heavily on Saoirse. Rivulets of water trickled down his chilled flesh. He looked down at his body and winced. Fresh purple bruises and ugly red cuts danced along his already-infected skin, evidence of the harsh thrashing he’d endured in the swirling tunnel.

He turned his attention back to the coiling passageway, heart hammering in his throat. For the first time since he’d begun having the nightmares, he’d have a true opportunity to validate his dreams and weigh them against reality. He could verify his dream about the night his parents were killed, but that could’ve just been the product of years of rumination and regret. The dream about the female prisoner was not from his memory. If a cell lay at the end of this passageway, he would know the vision was real.

“Are you able to walk?” Saoirse asked from his side. She looked up at him, the smeared bioluminescent paint on her cheeks almost gone. “Perhaps we should rest a moment and gather our strength.”

“No, I’m fine. I want to see where this tunnel leads.” Saoirse gave him a skeptical look but nodded her head.

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