The others, larger ones crawling slowly along in the mud, she did not recognize until one snapped up an infant mosquitoes. Tiny legs propelled it, hunting for more larvae, a long armlike jaw hinged beneath its upper body. Dragonfly larvae, or water-dragons she’d called them as a young girl.
“They brought me here to die,” said the unmistakable voice of Tessaeril. It filled the chamber, wafting gently over Ghaelya’s skin. and she did not look away from the water. She somehow expected her sister and accepted her presence as a matter of course, one more part of the dream. A reflection of faintly glowing crimson eyes danced on the water, as did the dark silhouette of their bearer who sat in shadow on the opposite shore of the pool. “The Choir brought us here, one by one, and asked us if we could hear it …”
“The song?” Ghaelya muttered, her tongue feeling thick and sluggish as the crimson eyes nodded solemnly.
“Those that could not hear it were slain … mercifully,” Tessaeril answered, her voice breaking slightly, causing a brief disturbance in the humming melody that held tight to Ghaelya’s will. “Those that could hear it … were not so fortunate.”
Ghaelya swooned, dizzy as the chamber suddenly shifted, the ghostly light flashed, and ripples coated every surface, spreading out from the stagnant pool. She stumbled backward, blinking and shaking her head, trying to focus as Tessaeril’s eyes grew and split at their centers, blossoming into brilliant, deep red petals. Ghaelya slowly withdrew into the shadows.
“Is this real?” she mumbled hoarsely. “Am I dreaming?”
“We are, all of us, dreaming,” Tessaeril replied from the dark, her voice growing louder, echoing and rippling through the bone mosaic on the walls.
“Wait!” Ghaelya cried, reaching out and advancing only to splash into the pool, far deeper than it had appeared. She sank swiftly as the light faded, kicking as she fought to keep her head high, to keep Tessaeril in sight.
“Only, some of us are trapped,” Tessaeril continued, her eyes dripping streams of crimson nectar. “Some of us are not dreaming, but rather, are dreamed …”
“I don’t understand!” Ghaelya replied, trying to swim forward, but held back by a swiftly growing current. The edges of the pool spread outward, and the walls faded to a hazy black. A sense of unfathomable depth overtook her, and the distant crests of sloshing waves flashed far beyond the meager perimeter of the chamber as she called out to her sister, “Don’t leave me!”
“You will understand, when you come to me …” Tessaeril said, the last echoing from far away, buzzing and repeating on the air. “…Come to me … to the blood … and to the bloom …”
A wave surged over Ghaelya’s head, blinding her for a moment and filling her mouth with a taste of seawater. She trod water, bewildered, flinching as thunder rumbled overhead and lightning tore through a cloudy sky, illuminating an expanse of choppy water that stretched in all directions.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, once again able to feel fear as a line of brilliant blue flared on the horizon. Gulls wheeled in circles, complaining loudly as they fled a swift wall of sparkling blue fire that roared across the surface of the water. Ghaelya tried to swim away, diving beneath the surface, but even the darkest depths glowed as the blue flames neared. She surfaced again, gasping as the seagulls, unable to escape, were engulfed.
Some simply disappeared, others were incinerated into little puffs of ash, but a handful were horribly changed, twisting into distorted masses of flesh that had little resemblance to the gulls they had been. Plummeting into the water, the lifeless lumps left behind a single bird flapping clumsily, little more than a collection of giant wings and squawking beaks, a monster that hung heavily on the air.
“The Spellplague,” she muttered in horror, recognizing and somehow bearing witness to events she only knew of through century-old stories and legends. The Blue Breath of Change had been born in the death of a goddess and ravaged all that it touched as the fabric of magic fell apart at the seams.
Stunned and helpless, Ghaelya froze as the blue fire washed over her, shaking her violently and drawing massive waves behind it. As it passed, she felt no different, and drifted momentarily in a void of utter silence, waiting. The silence was broken by a drowned scream, a melodious shriek that rose from the depths beneath her and touched her soul with pain and terrible sorrow even as it ripped through her body like a thousand spinning blades.
She screamed as well, her vision fading to darkness; and her body lifted, floating in a weightless void for several breaths before everything suddenly stopped.
Opening her eyes, she found herself lying on the floor of the chamber, bones and dead bugs pressed against her cheek. The light was gone, and in the dark she shuddered, inhaling deeply, relieved even by the scent of stagnant water and death. Her skin tingled uncomfortably as she sat up and brushed the filth from her face, a dim memory instinctively guiding her back to the present and the bottom of the pit, though the strange dream sat heavily in her thoughts.
“Something … Something in the water,” she whispered.
“Ghaelya?”
Uthalion’s tired voice called down to her through the cloud of buzzing insects, and she hesitated, saying nothing and shivering in the dark. She gripped the sides of her head, assuring herself of the solid reality around her, trying to sort through the course of the dream.
Through it all, she felt a grim certainty.
Through finding her voice and calling back to the human, through climbing out of the pit and breathing fresh air, through each new moment that passed, she was certain that Tessaeril was alive and waiting for her. She dreaded the idea with a quiet shame, however, for she was as yet unsure if simply being alive was for the best.
Uthalion stumbled free of the vine-trees, wiped the mud from his hands, and glanced back across the sea of waving plants before putting a safe distance between them and himself. He collapsed to his knees in the tall grass, wild eyed and breathing heavily. He pressed his hands hard into the ground, pushing dirt between his fingers purely for the sensation, to feel the solidity and find control over his own faculties.
The song had taken him, drowned him in the darkness of the pit, and he had been unable to turn away, longing to stay forever in its embrace. He spat, repulsed by the idea, violated by a will that was not his own and yet one that could not be ignored. He could still imagine the surging tune digging into his mind before abruptly ending, leaving an empty space that seemed to shatter his ability to reason the difference between reality and dream.
He closed his eyes as a spinning vertigo threatened to make him sick, but he held on, willing his heart to slow its rapid beating. Only when he had regained some manner of control, a better awareness of his surroundings, did he look to Ghaelya.
She sat just beyond the wide grove, shivering as she whispered to herself, shaking her head and gesturing as though she argued with someone.
“Madness,” he muttered and looked away, leaving the genasi to herself until he could compose his own thoughts into a coherent order. Night still ruled the Akana, and he suspected little time had passed since he had fallen by the edge of the pit though it had seemed an eternity. He dug his fingernails deep into the palm of his hand as he stood and tested his balance, reassured by the dull pain.
“Tess was down there,” Ghaelya said suddenly, looking at him wide-eyed and wringing her hands. The energy lines flowed over her skin, flaring with a soft light, rolling from one pattern to another like a restless tide.
Uthalion felt an urge to take her by the shoulders and shake her, to slap the faint glint of mania from her eyes. He wanted to say she was lying and that she would find nothing of her sister save bones like those they had just crawled through. But he stepped back, his hands at his side to keep them from betraying his better sense.