Page 106 of The Iron Dagger
The long fleshy tendrils of the monster were no longer inert. While the giant cat slashed and tore at one of the heads, the tendrils grew longer, winding themselves around Seraphine’s ribcage.
Blood gushed freely from the mangled head of the monster, which was little more than a stump now, but slowly the cat’s movements became stilted. As the half-decapitated monster collapsed into the water, it began to pull Seraphine’s form with it. The giant cat struggled fruitlessly, the ropes of flesh snaring it like iron bonds while it screamed.
Hara let out a gasping sob, turning her face into Gideon’s chest. Gideon could hardly stand to watch as the life was suffocated out of the spirit-Seraphine, and so he urged Hara to keep moving, trudging deeper into the water.
Hara submerged herself, and Gideon had no choice but to follow.
The warm water instantly muffled the screeches of the struggling cat. Her hand clenched tightly around his, and then he was being pulled, jerked, and the water rushed past him faster than he could ever swim.
In an instant, Gideon was on all fours, gagging and choking.
His throat felt as though it had been rubbed with sand as he coughed. The ground was firm beneath him, but his head felt as though it were still tumbling and rushing through the water. He retched, but nothing came up his aching throat.
Eventually, he realized that he was no longer holding Hara’s hand, and he frantically looked around him. She was there, a few strides away, curled up and gasping for breath. Just beyond her, a deep pool of water sloshed against three walls, as though some of Hara’s ocean had been captured indoors. The water slapped against the walls as though something had just been violently expelled from it. He crawled to her and gathered her in his arms.
“Hara, can you speak?” he said, and she groaned.
“Yes,” she said, sitting up.
“What happened? What was thatthing?” he said.
Hara turned her face into his chest and began to weep.
He held her close and rocked her, trying to hold back the hysteria that threatened to overwhelm them. He would never forget the sight of the creature rising from the water, the blood curdling sound of its cry.
He knew what it was. She did not have to say a word; that was Hara’s greatest fear. That thing represented the horror she felt at the thought of his father and Corvus, the two men who were responsible for uprooting her world. But what was it doing here?
“I thought this was a realm of time. How could that thing appear?” he asked.
“The beach was formed by my mind,” she sniffled, slowly recovering. “I suppose there are things that live in my past that are strong enough to become real, too.”
He held her closer, and she began to keen softly, “Seraphine,”
Seraphine was safe outside of the stone. Wasn’t she? Gideon clamped his eyes closed and fought back his own terror. They knew far too little about what they were meddling with. Who knew what other horrors would emerge?
But they were not on the beach of Hara’s mind anymore.
Gideon studied their surroundings for the first time. They were in a wide, dim corridor that opened on one side like a balcony. It formed a ring around a deep empty space in the center. He craned his neck to look down into it. Below them were more levels, and when Gideon looked up, there was only darkness as the levels went on forever, perfectly neat and symmetrical.
“Hara, where did you take us?” he said in a low voice.
She was silently taking in the space with wide eyes. “This is my mother’s mind. Or at least, her version of the realm-between-realms.”
“How—?”
“When I searched for her influence under the water, I felt her, stronger than I have ever felt her. I took hold of it to look into her present, and then we were brought here. This is her present.”
Gideon could hardly wrap his head around all this.
“If we were outside in the real world, I would only be visiting this place in my head,” she said, getting to her feet. “But inside the stone, I can move into it as I would a set of rooms.”
“But does that mean . . .”
“She’s here. We just need to find her.”
Angharad
After confronting the horror of her fears made real, roaming the silent halls of her mother’s realm filled her with apprehension and awe.
