In order to save the world from eternal night, Red must find a way to unlock the dormant power of the Sun Goddess running through her veins without killing herself and everyone she loves.
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I came to on a rocky beach in a small cave, back stiff and bones aching with cold. My eyelids felt like sandpaper as I blinked, taking in the shadowy crevices of the rocky walls, rippling with faint refractions from the pool that lapped at my soggy boots. The water was dark and sleek, filled with bobbing glow worms that shed an eerie blue light on my surroundings.
A foul, gritty substance coated the inside of my mouth, tasting oddly like the way reptiles smelled. I was about to spit it out when I heard a low splash, followed by a glimpse of spines breaching the water. Not glow worms, I realised, my rapid descent into the river coming back to me in a flash. Eyes. Those creatures were still lurking, waiting, but for what? Could they not breathe air, or were they afraid of what resided in this cave? Was I some kind of sacrificial offering for a greater monster?
Trying not to give away the fact that I was awake, I kept my limbs loose and limp, imagining myself sinking through the slick stone. But it was even colder underground than it had been in the water, and my body gave in to the urge to shiver as it realised there was still a chance at survival. My clothes dried surprisingly quickly, reflecting my body heat inward, kick-starting a process of rejuvenation I was helpless to control.
I hated that Sebastian was right. I really didn't know when to give up.
The blue light intensified as a scaly head breached the water, dimming when its inner eyelids closed. I scuttled back, bile rising in my throat at the vaguely humanoid features mashed up with the visage of a pouting fish. There were spines where there should have been hair, slime where there should have been skin, and when the creature opened its mouth, it emitted a series of guttural clicking sounds that made my hair stand on end.
Worst of all was the understanding in those glassy, luminous eyes, the pity that warred with fear before compromising on bleak resignation. This was no animal, no monster in the typical sense. It could contemplate its miserable existence — and the swiftly approaching end of mine.
A low scraping sound alerted me to movement deeper in the cave. I froze, torn between diving into the pool and fleeing into the clutches of whatever was emerging from the belly of the mountain. My eyes scoured the walls for an alternate exit, but there were none to be found.
"The princess awakens from her beauty sleep," sounded a lilting, musical voice. There was something mesmerising in the way her tongue caressed certain vowels. "A pity, for she sorely needed it."
I bristled at the insult, climbing to my feet. The ruse was up, and while I knew I wasn't much to look at, her behaviour was uncalled for. I was beyond my days of accepting and internalising petty insults, just so that people drowning in insecurity could drag themselves up by pushing me down.
"Can we make this quick?" I called out, making out a dark shape in the black mouth of the cave. "I have somewhere to be."
The woman that rode into the light had earned her arrogance. She was utterly resplendent in a dress of rippling water that barely disguised her most private features, blurring them just enough that the imagination was allowed to thrive. Her hair was the deep, curling green of lake-weed, and her eyes were an exquisite mixture of blue and green that moved with the eye, the spitting image of the decorative seashells we used to buy off the North Sea Pack.
