We’re quiet except the sobbing.

  We’ve made it across the trap but at a cost none of us are willing to bear; Jeary has the worst of it, she clings to Mela and Mela holds the back of my tattered shirt as I walk them down deeper into the dungeon.

  Water flows about my thighs now; it’s rising with every turn of the corridor. I’m sure it’s colder too, but my skin has been sodden for so long that I’m wet a through and shivering.

  “You’ve been training, haven’t you?” I ask the dark where Mela walks.

  “Me?”

  “Yes. You’ve been working on advancement, haven’t you? You’re strong and quick.”

  “I was almost ready when the calamity overtook us. Oran put a stop to anyone trying to advance who wasn’t one of his lackeys.”

  “Do you think you’d survive the transformation if you got a seed?”

  “I don’t see how I could. We’d have to beat the boss first and I don’t see that happening.”

  “It’s important to have faith, Mela.” I was certain that we would lose when we first stepped into the dungeon and our fateful passage has done nothing to assuage me of that fear.

  I splash further through the rising water until it is just below my hips. Jeary is up to her chest now and struggling to make progress without being pulled along by Mela and me. We aren’t attacked again and my eye doesn’t warn me of any more traps or puzzles, so I’m doubly suspicious when I feel a change in the air.

  I stop and shush quietly; we all fall silent and listen to the hum of the dungeon. It’s rhythmic, this new sound, and brings with it a pulse in the breath of the dungeon; it washes over us and back again like water sloshing from side to side.

  I swallow.

  “I think we’re almost there. I should go alone and check the way is clear for us.”

  “No.” Jeary and Mela speak at the same time.

  “No.” Mela is still harsh, but softened. Her hand is caught in my shirt and she only tightens her grip. “Together, this time, Pik. I don’t want to be left behind.”

  I huff; it’s foolish to scout somewhere with two blind people in tow, but I don’t have the heart to leave them behind in the dark again. I take us forward and finally, finally, light seeps from the tunnel ahead. It’s hard not to hurry, but I’m taking no chances.

  As we step out into the chamber a sound plays behind us. A chime. A grind. A splash as a gate clangs closed over the entrance of the tunnel.

  I rush back.

  “No. No. No. No. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. Mela, help me. We need to go back.”

  “What happened?” They are confused, both of them, but they help me nonetheless. Even our combined strength isn’t enough to budge the bars. I sink against them, my hair plastered across my face.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t see it.”

  Mela stands close. “See what, Pik?”

  Her eyes are concerned but she doesn’t comprehend. “This is the final door. We’re already in the boss room.”

  “How? I thought you had to open it, I thought we’d have time to prepare.” She spins. “They can’t mean for us to fight here, I can’t swim. Blazing sun!”

  I turn slowly and straighten myself. Fear has set in deeply; I’m glad for the water now as it hides my shaking. The cavern is large and filled with rippling and sloshing water; beyond the space on which we stand I cannot fathom how deep it goes.

  Light comes from globes hanging from the ceiling at equal intervals in a spiral from the centre. Right beneath that central point is something that I’ve never seen. A word springs from my cocoon memories.

  Boat.

  Small. Only large enough for one or two people and inside this boat sits a hooded figure shrouded in black. They aren’t moving.

  “It that the boss?” Jeary asks. Her voice is so small that it’s almost lost in the ripples.

  “It must be.”

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  “How do we reach it?”

  I chuckle; the only thing about me that is dry. “I can’t think of anything I want to do less than to reach that creature.”

  “What happens if we just stay here?”

  The chamber answers; within the deeps something stirs and now my feet are sliding, sliding, and I tumble as there’s nothing beneath me. I cry out and my mouth fills with water; I’m breathing it, I’m choking on it.

  My hand touches wood. It’s unsteady but I grasp onto it like it is my last chance at life as it truly is. I come back to the surface with a gasp and pull myself up and over the rocking edge until I lie at the bottom of a boat with my chest heaving.

  “Pik?” Mela’s voice comes, she’s more distant now. “Jeary can’t reach, Pik! You’re closer, help!”

  I roll to my knees and the rolling of the boat almost sends me back into the water. I steady myself and look to where Mela is pointing, Jeary has reached her own boat two person lengths away from me but her fingers catch the edge and slip. Her head bobs beneath the surface deeper with each attempt.

  There. In the bottom of the boat, a wooden thing. Another false memory clunks into place and I know it is an oar. I take it with hands too anxious for dexterity and thrust it into the water. I move forward, but sideways too, I’m getting closer to Jeary. Slowly. I switch sides, alternate, and I swim across the surface of the great lake.

  She’s disappeared beneath the surface; with no more time nor space for thoughts I lean as far over the edge of my boat as I can and plunge my arms deep into the water.

  I think it futile. Fingers. Grasping hands and desperate strength and I heave, heave, and throw her once more into the boat she’d been unable to climb. She shivers and vomits until every drop of lake water has been expelled.

  “Jeary?” I keep my voice calmer than the situation calls for. “I need you to come back to us, Jeary.”

  Her eyes are focused on something beyond us; beyond the chamber and beyond the world. She’s not going to be part of what comes next.

  I meet eyes with Mela’s and shake my head. She understands. Together we turn to the figure rocking gently in the centre. They’ve not moved during our entrance; they’re content to sit idle and watch us. Not for the first time do I wonder if they have thoughts as we do or is it that their minds are filled only with the directives of the architects?

  I paddle close enough to Mela to grab the edge of her boat. “We can’t fight like this.”

  Mela bites her cheek; she’s pulled out her knife and has it laid on her lap so she has hands free to paddle. “Do we have a choice?”

  “Not really, still, I’m not sure what to do. It doesn’t look like any monster I’ve fought before.”

  “How would you kill another monster?”

  “A boss? I wouldn’t. I’d let a Marked take care of it with their powers and, well I’d try and poke it with my spear.”

  She looks at me from the side of her eye. “Spear? That would have been useful.”

  “I couldn’t infiltrate your camp while wielding a glowing spear, could I?”

  “So what now?”

  “I’m not eager to paddle to our deaths, but…we have to get closer. I’ll go ahead and we can see if it reacts.”

  “Why can’t I go first?”

  I rub my hand across my face. “I’m stronger right now. If it does something unexpected then I might be able to get away while you might struggle.”

  “All the more reason for you to follow me.”

  “Mela…”

  “Don’t speak to me like I’m not your equal, Pik. You’re stronger, true enough, but that doesn’t make you more. You no more have a mark than I do. I’ll go first; you have the best chance at overcoming it and getting Jeary out. I don’t want to argue with you.”

  “I’m not arguing, I want you to change your mind.”

  “Then you’ll be waiting until you can finally grow a beard.”

  I knit my eyebrows together and glare. “That doesn’t even make sense, I can grow a beard.”

  “Aspirations and delusions.”

  I scoff. There are no words. Mela smiles and uses her paddle to push my boat away from hers; she pushes me back and away from the boss and uses the momentum to take herself towards it.

  “Wait. We weren’t done talking.”

  “Watch, Pik. Make it count.”

  I scramble for my own paddle but she’s faster; her strokes are deep and long and she pulls away while I am still struggling to gather myself. She’s too far ahead now, I won’t be able to catch up let alone overtake her, even with my greater strength.

  The boss remains idle as she approaches. Halfway across the lake and it is still. Half again and it is still at rest.

  Something else stirs, though. I see it first, flashing in my new eye as something bright and blue and angry. Mela sees it a moment later and her strokes change tempo, she’s paddling away as fast as she can. My shout would make no difference. She sees the shadow in the deep and she cannot escape it.

  The creature scrapes against her boat on its first pass. It’s bulk is enormous, five times the length of our boats and twice as wide. I don’t see it break the surface, all that disturbs the water is the weight of its passing.

  Mela drops her paddle into her boat and grips both sides tightly as her boat rocks. I can’t wait longer, I can’t wait for the boss to move, for anything else in this place to leap or dive. I thrust my paddle into the water with desperation.

  I’m too slow. I’m panicked and I can’t control it. I turn too far to one side, then the other and back again. I’m gaining on her but the creature comes back for a second pass and this time I see smooth, black skin, taut and rough, and frilled fins that break the water as it rolls beside her boat.

  Mela screams. Her boat is swamped; there’s too much water inside for it to remain afloat for long. She panics too. She bails, handfuls of water tossed over the side only to be replaced by more splashes from the creature. Then she stops bailing and takes up her paddle, first to move, then to smack out at it.

  I’m halfway to her now as she drifts further towards the boss.

  I watch, impotent as the shadow moves away, turns, and arrows back towards her like a the Monarch had charged me in its deathly ire. I paddle. I paddle. Time crawls as it approaches her.

  It doesn’t slow.

  Mela’s boat snaps into kindling; she’s tossed upwards by the force, her whole body turned towards me for a crystallised moment. Our eyes meet. Hers are so wide they could see the whole world and mine are fixed, unblinking, tumbling into hers for a moment of shared terror.

  She falls.

  Barely a splash in the thrashed water. Into the shadow of the creature. She disappears beneath the turbulence and nothing remains, no waving hands or bobbing head. She is gone.

  “No!” I shout into the abyss. I can’t lose another. Aviela was take from me. I won’t let a dungeon take someone else. Not without a fight.

  Water swallows me. I’ve dived in.

  Beneath me grins a creature from a nightmare.