The world was a roaring, churning, icy hell.
The impact with the water drove the last bit of air from Kael's lungs like a punch. The current was a monstrous thing, grabbing them and pulling them under instantly. It tossed them like dolls in a torrent of white foam and black, brutal rock.
Kael's body was a symphony of agony. The soul-deep cold from unleashing the katana's power had left him feeling hollowed out and brittle. The freezing river water was a physical blow, seizing his muscles and clouding his mind with a numb fog. He flailed, disoriented, unable to tell which way was up.
A hand locked around his wrist with a grip of iron. Through the murky, rushing water, he saw a flash of silver. Sera. She fought the current not with brute strength, but with a terrifying efficiency, using its own force to push them away from the most jagged rocks. She was a navigator in the chaos, her eyes wide and focused even in the drowning dark.
He didn't fight her. He had no strength left. He was a weight, a burden, but she held on, pulling him with her.
They broke the surface for a gasping, spluttering second before the river sucked them under again. The cliff face and the torches of their pursuers were already far behind, swallowed by the night and the rapids.
The world narrowed to the fight for the next breath. Kael's limbs grew heavier, the cold leaching the last of his warmth and will. The image of the beautiful, laughing woman—Lilith—flashed behind his eyes again, a promise of sweet, quiet oblivion. It would be so easy to let go…
No.
The thought was not his own. It was a feeling, a surge of fierce, protective energy that shot through the hand gripping his wrist. It was a spark of warmth in the infinite cold. It was Sera.
He clung to that feeling, using it as a tether to reality. He forced his leaden arms to move, his numb legs to kick, helping her however he could.
Just as the darkness at the edge of his vision threatened to consume him, the current changed. The violent churning calmed. The river widened, its pace slowing to a powerful, deep flow.
Sera seized the opportunity. With a final, desperate surge of effort, she dragged him toward a dark shape on the bank—a tangle of old roots and sediment formed into a natural alcove under the overhanging earth. They half-crawled, half-were-washed into the shallow, sheltered space, collapsing onto a patch of muddy gravel.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their ragged, choking breaths and the relentless rush of the river. Kael lay on his back, shivering uncontrollably, staring up at the root-woven earth above them. Every part of him hurt. His right arm, the one that had gripped the katana, was a dead, throbbing weight, the blackened veins standing out like grotesque tattoos against his pale, frozen skin.
He turned his head. Sera was on her hands and knees, vomiting river water onto the mud. Her silver hair was plastered to her face and neck, and she trembled from exertion and cold. The delicate silver chain on her wrist was a stark, bright line against her muddy skin.
She had saved him. Again.
"S-Sera…" he choked out, his teeth chattering so violently he could barely form her name.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, her breathing slowly steadying. She crawled over to him, her violet eyes scanning his body with a clinical urgency that overrode her own exhaustion.
"The arm," she said, her voice hoarse. "Let me see."
He didn't have the strength to resist. She gently took his wrist, hissing softly through her teeth at the touch. "It's like holding ice," she murmured. Her fingers probed the blackened veins. A faint, worried line appeared between her brows. "This is not a physical wound. It's spiritual decay. The price of a power that should not be touched."
She began to chafe his hand between her own, trying to restore circulation. Her hands were cold from the river, but a faint, stubborn warmth seemed to emanate from her touch, a whisper of the power she kept locked away. The painful throbbing in his arm receded by a fraction.
"What… what was that?" he asked, his voice a raw whisper. "What did I do?"
Sera didn't look at him, her focus on his injured arm. "You defended us. You used the power of your Path."
"I don't have a Path!" The protest was automatic, born of a lifetime of being told he was nothing.
"You do." Her voice was quiet but absolute. She finally met his gaze, her eyes glowing faintly in the dark hollow. "You have always had one. The rarest and most feared of them all. The Path they called forbidden. The Mistress Path."
The Mistress Path. The words meant nothing to him, yet they resonated in the deepest part of his soul, stirring the memory of that laughing, beautiful face.
"The woman… I saw a woman…" he mumbled, delirium from the cold and pain setting in.
Sera's expression tightened. "Lilith. The First Rebel. The Mother of Monsters. That is whose legacy you carry. Her shadow is your power. And her enemies are now yours." She gestured vaguely toward the river, toward the cliffs they had fled. "What you did back there… you created a void. A null field. You unmade the Diviner's magic. It is a power that the gods themselves fear."
Kael stared at her, the truth settling over him like a shroud. It wasn't a mistake. It wasn't a curse placed on an object. It was him. He was the forbidden thing. The katana was just a key.
The weight of it was crushing. He had wanted a Path more than anything. Now he had one, and it was a death sentence.
Tears of frustration, fear, and utter exhaustion welled in his eyes, mixing with the river water on his face. "Why?" he begged, not sure if he was asking her, the gods, or the universe itself. "Why me?"
Sera's clinical demeanor softened. The worry in her eyes was replaced by that deep, ancient sadness he had seen the first day they met. It was a sadness that seemed to hold the weight of ages.
She didn't answer his question. Instead, she shifted closer in the cramped space, ignoring the mud and the cold. She pulled his head onto her lap, her cold fingers gently brushing the wet hair from his forehead in a gesture of startling tenderness.
"Rest, Kael," she whispered, her voice the only soft thing in the harsh, dark night. "You are not alone. I will keep watch."
He wanted to argue, to demand more answers, but his body and soul had nothing left to give. The shivering slowly began to subside, replaced by a deep, bone-weary exhaustion. Lying there with his head in her lap, the roar of the river fading to a distant hum, he felt a fragile sense of safety.
As he drifted into a troubled, pained sleep, one last thought echoed in his mind.
Her lap was cold from the river water. But the hand stroking his hair felt like the only warm thing left in the world.