Page 70 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
If I follow it, I’ll find her.
I push myself harder, and without pausing, I leap in.
The current catches me, and I tumble through the silt-muddled water, eyes open but unseeing. I hold the air in my lungs like a raft against a storm and kick furiously, fruitlessly scrambling for the surface. As I choke and sink further down, the way back up is lost—as if I’m stuck in a lightless attic and someone has kicked out the ladder. The world becomes eternal dark but for a looming figure just behind me, racing to catch up.
I’ve found Morgen after all.
But when the undertow finally plunges me into a still pool, it’s not the mermaid I see slithering after me.
The ripples of water in my wake are binding together, roiling against the slowing current. The shape that emerges is ever shifting, unclear apart from the ribbons of water sweeping together into a mane. Beneath the mane a snout appears, and two furious red eyes. Silt clings to a murky body, and water hooves beat against the riverbed.
Y ceffyl dwr. The water horse.
I shriek and accidentally let out the last of my air.
I kick wildly up, up, but the moment my head breaks the surface, I’m dragged back down again. The water horse dives and catches me on its back. My legs flail but are gripped by the weeds and reeds twined and twisting inside the horse, holding me hard in place.
In all my diligent study of Dad’s fairy tales, I forgot one of his more sensible lessons: don’t jump blindly into lakes or you’ll get caught in the weeds and drown.
The ceffyl dwr races around the lake like it’s derby day, and I become an unwilling jockey. Water forces its way into my nose, wrenches my mouth open, burns down my throat to flood my lungs.
My rapier beats against my thigh. My hand claws for the hilt. I wiggle it loose of the scabbard, and the horse jerks, threatening to rip the blade from my grasp.
I make a clumsy slash toward its watery body. It bucks and cries out in pain, but I remain trapped.
I brace myself through a harsh turn and swing my blade once more.
It slices through one of the knots of weed clasped around my right ankle. The water horse makes a keening noise as the tendril recoils, sizzling. I slash again, and that’s one foot free. But the horse bucks furiously, thrashing me back and forth, preventing me from reaching the other.
I’m near blue in the face as I swing clumsily for the weeds on my left leg.
The blade strikes through the thick body of the plant. I fight my way free and push off from the horse’s back. It thrashes in pain and bites the air, and I kick my back legs desperately as I claw for freedom.
My head breaches the surface and I gasp with relief. I grasp the bank and yank myself up, shuddering and yelling unintelligently.
The horse lunges for my weed-wrapped legs, but I manage to wrestle them free.
I heave up water and lie on the bank, waiting for the rise and fall of my chest to slow.
A laugh escapes me. Then three more. I’m a pot bubbling over, unable to stop laughing: at Neirin, at myself, at a horse trying to kill me and every other bloody thing.
More water splashes me as Morgen bursts through, resting against the bank, her chest heaving from effort, no different from me.
“The ceffyl dwr is one of the prince’s guards,” Morgen says. “Really not something to laugh about.”
I keep laughing, staring up at the gap in the trees above and the stars peeking down to say hello.
She splashes water at me. “What’s so funny?”
“Your stars are the same as mine,” I say between wheezing breaths. “How is that?”
“I don’t know, but you need to stop messing around and—”
“Find Ceridwen.” I lever myself up onto my elbows. My last laughs peter out, and I begin to grapple with the weeds tangled around my ankles. “Yes, you keep saying. And I keep falling into traps, and now I’ve lost a week, and I’ve probably lost her as well.”
I rip the weeds off my legs. They leave behind a scorching mark—stripes of red that wind their way up my shins like rope burn. I chuck them back at Morgen. She tries to dodge, but they still hit the side of her face.
She snarls in disgust. I don’t know if it’s directed at the weed slipping slowly down her cheek or at me. Regardless, she hops up onto the bank, sitting beside me, her tail the only part of her left in the water. She shivers at the sudden introduction to the night air.
