Page 69 of Seaborn and the Seven Seas

Chapter Twenty-Two

The tunnel narrowed before it opened into a chamber just as grand as the one we’d left behind. The air shifted from dried earth to something cooler, damper, not unbearable but enough to raise the hair on my arms.

Though there were no torches here, the surface glowed, a faint blue light bleeding up from the stream in the distance, rippling across the rocky walls like a living thing.

How is this possible?

A soft waterfall fell from somewhere high above into a pool that fed a stream. At the base, white and pale as something that had never once seen sun, was the creature, its back under the surface, its skin catching the blue glow of the water.

Nam had drawn one once, when she told us stories about the deep sea, and called it an eel. But it was nothing like the ones Nam had sketched. This one was nearly as long as an oclego, its head as wide as the boarox, its body rippling in slow, sinuous coils as it swam toward us the moment we crossed the threshold.

No fins, no legs, no scales. Just that long, boneless body cutting through the water, moving as one long muscle.

“What is that thing?” Ranis’s boots crunched against the pebbled ground and he froze.

The five soldiers behind us and the lead did the same, weapons half-raised.

Jina murmured, her voice barely a breath, “The one from Nam’s drawing. Hers were small things that couldn’t survive out of water. But this is… much more dangerous.”

Minha said nothing, her eyes tracking the eel’s movements the way she tracked an opponent before a fight.

“Don’t move.” I put my hand up, palm out.

“Get the pure stones. Move!” The lead soldier shoved me forward, then directed his men toward the other side.

The eel launched before the echo of his voice died, impossibly fast for a creature that size. I shoved Jina behind me and braced against the rocky wall.

The bite never came. At the last second it veered, head swinging toward the sound of boots, and the running soldiers never made it ten steps before it swallowed them whole, one after the next.

Then silence, except for my heart pounding in my ears.

The eel’s head turned back toward us. Ranis and Minha had their daggers out, useless as they were against an anomaly that size. Jina’s fingers dug into my arm hard enough to bruise.

“Don’t move,” I whispered.

Its giant head stopped inches from us and stilled, smelling the air. When it finally turned away, I gestured for the others to follow. We moved in short bursts, twelve feet at a time, pressing flat against the wall whenever its head swung back toward the sound of our footsteps, hissing, baring teeth that caught the blue light like splintered stones.

We reached the waterfall and pressed ourselves into the shadow of a large boulder, the mist from the falls cold against my skin. The eel slid back into the stream with a splash and coiled at the entrance, patient, guarding.

“Now what?” Ranis whispered.

“Going anywhere near that water is suicide.” Jina shook her head.

Minha’s mouth curved. “I say we swim.”

I arched an eyebrow. Sometimes I worried about her.

Think. The creature was enormous and fast, but it relied on sound to find us. Every time we’d moved, it had swung toward the noise, not the sight of us. Then Sable’s words surfaced through the fear. The creature at Mount Kael knows what you are. It won’t harm you.

“Wait here,” I said.

“Don’t go alone.” Jina grabbed my wrist.

“Do you trust me?”

She nodded.

“Then let me go.”