Otto is already pulling weapons out of scabbards at his waist, focus jumping between the soldiers beyond the water and me. “You can manipulate water—what do you think you can do with the rock that makes up the chamber?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. Sweat starts to bead on my forehead despite the chill of the tunnels, muscles along my back cramping with the effort of holding up the water. A particularly strong hit from an ax makes me stagger; Johann catches me, steadies me upright. “What do you want to do?”
“Our original plan,” Otto says, his eyes glinting. “Bury the bastard.”
Can I do that? Collapse the room. We can dig out the water stone from the rubble.
I nod, shaking with anger and fear and growing fatigue.
“I think—” I waver again. “I think I’ll have to drop the water to focus on the stone.”
Otto holds up his knives. Johann has weapons in hand now, too, a short sword he removes from his back and a knife from his waist.
“Do it,” Otto says.
We’ll have seconds. Maybe less before the jägers are on us.
Drop the water. Reach for the stones in the ceiling. Bring the room down on my brother without burying us alive.
Holda, I pray, beg, though what guidance can she give me? Her panic is only feeding into mine, and so I close my eyes in one steadying moment and drop the water wall.
The soldiers are right there, weapons midswing to hit the wall again.
Behind them, Dieter laughs.
Laughs.
I look up, reaching for the ceiling, ignoring his cackle and whatever it might mean—
A growl resonates through the chamber.
The hexenjägers, weapons up, go rigid, frozen by Dieter’s will, and that growl rises, rises, thunders like horse hooves.
Dieter’s laughter turns to manic glee. He bounces on his feet and looks down at the stone in his hands. “Oh,yes,” he coos. “Fritzichen! Can you feel it? Oh this will befun.”
Not growling.
Not horse hooves.
Each stone the goddesses hid is connected to an element. Bring all three together, and the Tree can be burned with the final element, fire.
The stone bound to earth is safely in the Well. Abnoba’s stone.
The stone bound to air is hidden. Perchta’s stone.
But this stone. Holda’s stone.
Otto grabs my arm. “Water,” he shouts a beat before a wave rushes up the tunnel behind us and slams into our backs.
We go sprawling into the room, thrown into torment and tumult with the hexenjägers. Water sweeps up over me, yanking me down and around, flipping me and letting me break the surface only to tug me under again. The torches on the walls snuff out, plunging us into darkness.
I lose Otto in the chaos; Johann cries out, but it’s gone; there is nothing other than that growl of water rushing in single-minded focus and my brother’s echoing laughter.
It is the summation of every nightmare I’ve had. Just darkness and Dieter and no escape.
Terror sweeps up over me. It could eat me alive. It will—
I slam my arms out.
