Salt-Suture went underwater with its doors still open.
Green flood swallowed bridge roofs, hanging ropes, and riders who had expected the road to remain above them. Air fled the saltglass houses in bright twisting pockets.
Jiang sank beneath all of it.
The brinehart's belly passed over his head.
Split hooves kicked at water. Beneath its belly, a forced fin drove backward, shoved the land body forward, and rolled an antler through Maelin's opened undercroft.
Dead founder rib cracked above Jiang.
Stone, saltglass, and blood filled the water.
He closed the clear inner lids over his eyes.
Green flood sharpened around him.
Underwater was the one place his body still understood better than the people falling around him. Safety did not follow.
His lungs were already strained, cold had tightened his breast, and every hard stroke spent air he could not replace inside the drowned road.
