A Court of Wind and Song

40: The Mask

Nesta

I let go of that bastardized form of Leur and threw myself away so fast that I fell on my ass into the water. And when I looked back- the ruse was gone.

It's face was whiter than bone, only vaguely humanoid, a thing of yellowed sharp teeth and too-thin limbs, a narrow, long nose, stringy black hair hanging like trails of blood, and it's hands-

It's hands were like talons, each finger a blade, each as sharp and long as a dagger- outstretched for me. Knuckles cracking and popping as they unfurled, reaching, reaching, reaching-

Terror roared within me unlike anything I had ever truly felt before, a freezing cold inferno ripping me to shreds as I sloshed back from the kelpie. It rose further and further from the water, revealing a bony torso, ribs jutting out unnaturally, a male form.

And it was as if it was feeding off of my fear, reveling in every sharp breath and shaking crawl, as if this was what it wanted, what it lived for- to terrorize, to maim and kill and feast.

And at that realization, a grotesque, wide smile spread across its lips. Too wide, too thin, too many teeth.

And then it spoke, a language I did not recognize, voice raspy, deep and hoarse. And I couldn't move. I was frozen in terror or shock or something worse, even as some female voice in the back of my head begged me to run, run, run.

But my legs were numb, all control I had over my body a distant memory, lost somewhere in this fog, disappeared into smoke and terror-

And then it was wrapping it's talons around my legs, dragging me, speaking in that language, and I finally remembered how to move.

I remembered how to fight, how to move, how to do anything other than watch in terror. My body lurched forward, thrashing, scratching desperate. Hands ripping the kelpie's hair out in clumps, a scream finally breaking free from my lips, but it was too late.

Too late.

Too late.

Too late.

The kelpie had already drug me under the frigid water.

Light vanished, swallowed whole by the blackness of Oorid. And I had been here before, thrashing in icy waters, being consumed by darkness and nothingness all at once. The sense of wrongness, the way the water rushed through my bones, the way that hands seemed to grasp me from every which way.

I had felt this before, in the Cauldron.

And I was blindly reaching for the dagger Cassian had strapped to my leg, trying to conserve my air, trying to remember all of those hours of training that had vanished from my memory.

I would not die here.

I'd fought against the Cauldron.

I'd do the same now.

I only had the pain searing into my leg where it gripped me and a vague sense of up and down to go off of as I ripped that dagger free from my side, swiping blindly and hoping I wouldn't hit my own leg.

The hand holding me splayed as blade hit bone, and I drove the knife deeper and deeper.

If you get into a pinch, just keep twisting the knife.

That was what Cassian had said in that very first lesson with weapons, and so that was what I did. I twisted and drove that knife as hard as I could, twist, twist, twist- trying to cause enough pain to make the creature let me go.

And it worked.

But then I flailed, trying to sense which way was up, which way was towards life, towards light- when spindly hands slammed into my chest and my back hit the silty bottom of the bog.