The river hit like a battering ram.
One moment they were on the rock, blades flashing in the spray — the next, the current tore them away, plunging them into a black, raging world of water.
Eliakim broke the surface just long enough to see Caleb's head vanish beneath a wave, Gideon slamming into a boulder hard enough to tear the axe from his hands, Ezra thrashing with wild, mana-drained strikes that fizzled into steam. The roar of the water drowned out everything but the pounding of his own heart.
They tried to swim for the banks.Tried to fight the current.Tried to live.
But exhaustion made their arms heavy, the cold leeching strength from their muscles with every second. Every gulp of air came with a mouthful of river. The Codex of Imreth flickered — Skyling's last sight burned into his mind like a dying ember — but the bond between them was unraveling fast, each heartbeat stretching the silence between them.
Then, through the haze of water and spray, he saw him.
Vaeryn.
Standing at the cliff's edge above the torrent, cloak whipping in the wind. His eyes locked with Eliakim's.And then — that grin.Sharp, knowing, cruel.
He didn't move to help. Didn't lift a weapon or shout a word.Just turned… and stepped backward into his own shadow, vanishing as if the river had already claimed them all.
The message was clear.I won.
A wave slammed Eliakim under before the thought could burn itself away. The current spun them, pulled them deeper, tore them apart from one another until he could no longer tell where his team was — only bubbles, darkness, and the crushing weight of water.
The enemy didn't follow. They didn't have to.
Somewhere above, the sky broke open with a flash of lightning, and the first hammering drops of rain fell. In seconds, the river swelled even more, becoming a storm-fed monster that swallowed them whole.
Eliakim's last breath was stolen by the current, his last sight the fractured image of Skyling's wings in his mind — then nothing but black water and the drumbeat of the storm.
They were gone.All of them.
Swept wherever the river chose.