Page 12 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

Silas pushed on before his fear could melt through the ice in his veins. He waded deeper, and something weaved about his legs, making his pulse race until he spied the spiky water milfoil which had made a dense home where he stood. The lacy fronds moved like sluggish flags.

‘Weeds, nothing more.’

Silas was determined now to hold the reins on his terror. It washewho would must taunt the waters.Hewho must bolster the prince when they at last came to this dreaded Blood Lake.

There could be no repeat of the debacle of Goodrich Castle, with Silas clinging to Pitch like a petrified, oversized monkey as they traversed the moat.

He blew out a breath, a blaze of white coming from between his lips, heat defying the chill…as he defied the weight of centuries past.

His life had been taken from him violently–over and over–and his memories stripped by time until he was bare. But nothing could change what was done. And he’d been given life in return, survived where all others had long since succumbed. And Silas did not need to ask why, anymore.

He knew it was for this.

This dreadful, vital moment where he must not just survive but slay those who sought to take from him again.

He was the Lady’s Horseman, death’s chosen messenger, and the lover of a most undeniable prince. Silas must be ferocious when their enemies came to take what…who…was most precious to him.

Silas inhaled, clearing the last of his doubt from his lungs.

And dove beneath the surface. Wide, sweeping strokes took him down. Down further.

The pond was deep at its heart. Far more so than its outward appearance belied. The water clamoured at his ears, forcing its way in and deafening him until all he could make out were the sounds of the bubbles he released and the restless hum of his own mind.

They were there. The memories. Most punishing of all was that very first, when the terror of the masses had seen him banished to a watery grave as the Lord of Arcadia rained down his fury.

Silas knew now it was the fear of the gods he’d seen in his brother’s eyes that day. A fear of the monster that lurked in Silas’s veins.

The monster perhaps he was.

He had torn teratisms apart with his bare hands and thought nothing of it. Christ, a part of him had relished that violence…until he came to realise he was fighting the wrong enemy.

Down Silas swam. The strokes coming easily.

When had he learned to swim? Was there a lifetime where he’d staved off a summer day with a dip in the sea or a lazy paddle in a lake? And with whom? Perhaps that woman in lavender and her companion had joined him?

Considering how often he had drowned, he was likely a terrible swimmer when it came down to it. But might he have tried to learn? When he had lived, did he sense his great weakness and seek to override it, or did he scramble from bathtubs like a great babbling fool each time?

The flurry of questions was a welcome distraction as he moved downwards. A shame no answers were to be had.

Silas’s lungs ached, warning of a need to head back to the surface very soon, if he did not turn into an ice-block before that could happen. He shook so hard that it was as though his organs shuffled about inside him, his heart rattling down to his stomach, and his stomach shimmying its way up to his throat. All the rest tangling together like the milfoil and mare’s tail plants that played at his limbs.

Bloody hell, it was like being lost in a forest of weaving eels. The paltry light from the pale winter sky barely penetrated the mass of shifting lengths.

Silas grasped hold of a bunch of frothy mare’s tails, wrapping one leg about the gathering of stems to anchor himself.

He floated there in the icebox that was the pond. The quiet was so thick he could hear the faint pulse of his heart in his ears. The weeds touched at him, tendrils that found their way to the back of his neck, snagged in his hair, and touched at his bare feet.

But he had been under water for some time now. And was doing a fine damn job of things, if he did say so himself.

Silas glanced down. And did not expect to find such utter darkness there. Such a clear reminder of the blackness he so often sank into.

He gasped, releasing the very last of the bubbles his lungs could fuel. The panic sneaked in through the swaying mass of weed, darting to find him.

His scream was short-lived, his parched lungs very much done for. Oh god, he was afraid.

Silas kicked out, but he could not seem to separate himself from the milfoil. It was everywhere. He’d free one limb only to have another taken prisoner. Christ almighty, where was the fucking surface? The light had dimmed. The darkness swept up from below, coming to claim him.

Thrashing about was only worsening things, he knew it, but the terror was making a fool of him, and wrapping him more fully in the dense branches of this underwater forest. His vision was spotting, his head light, his lungs empty.