The water closed over my head and everything became darkness and cold.
I tried to scream but water rushed into my mouth, down my throat, filling spaces that were meant for air. The taste was wrong. Not just river water, not just cold. This tasted like starlight and copper. Like moonlight filtered through blood. Like every terrible truth I'd swallowed in the chalices, condensed into liquid form.
The ghostly hands pulled harder. I felt them wrapped around my ankles, my calves, my thighs. Dozens of dead fingers digging into my flesh, dragging me deeper into the Pool.
I kicked. Thrashed. Tried to fight my way to the surface. But the hands were too strong, too many. And the water was so cold it had already stolen the strength from my limbs.
I'd drowned before. I knew what this felt like. Knew the panic, the burning in my lungs, the way your body fights even when your mind wants to surrender.
But this was worse.
