Shadows of Discovery by Brenda K. Davies
Chapter Twenty-Six
The blessed coldair of the darkness enveloped him as he lurched forward like a zombie in pursuit of brains—and those creatures were ruthless when tracking a meal.
Except, he didn’t smell brains or food as he stumbled forward. Instead, the crisp scent of water filled his nostrils. If he’d possessed an ounce of moisture in his body, saliva would have flooded his mouth, but though he felt like drooling, he couldn’t.
His stressed heart beat so rapidly it pulsed in his eardrums as he tracked the scent. He became so focused on the smell of water and the prospect of drinking all of it that his vision tunneled.
He didn’t see the world around him and had no idea if an enemy loomed nearby as he searched for water. The cool rocks beneath his bare, skeletal feet were a welcome respite as he shuffled around a set of boulders that blocked his view of whatever lay beyond.
And then, he saw the water.
An unrecognizable sound issued from him, and his legs became so weak that he nearly went down. Somehow, he managed to stay on his feet as he staggered toward the pristine lake. Not a single ripple disturbed its glassy surface.
He was almost to the shore and could already taste the cool liquid slipping down his throat to eradicate what remained of the sand coating the insides of his cheeks and tongue when warning bells went off in his head.
He planned to trudge straight into the water and consume as much of it as he could while washing away the sand sticking to his muscles, but something inside his head screamed at him to stop when he arrived at the water’s edge.
Falling to his knees, he stared at the water. It was so crystal clear he could see every one of the stones making up its bed. Hovering over the water, he shook as he restrained himself from gulping water from the lake.
These were the trials. And so far, he’d endured a trial by air, another by earth, and now he was staring at water.
The trials are the elements.
The knowledge was sluggish in coming as most of his brain continued to scream at him to drink, drink, drink!
But he couldn’t drink. He’d defeated air and earth, so that only left water and fire. It couldn’t be a coincidence that after leaving that wasteland behind, he was now facing this lake with all its delicious, life-giving water.
His entire body quaked as the aroma of the water intensified. Like a siren beckoning to the sailors, he couldn’t resist its temptation as he leaned over the water. He hadn’t realized he’d cupped his hands until he spotted himself hovering over the water with them.
The vision of himself—or at least he believed it was him, as he was barely recognizable—staring into that water shocked some reality back into him. He had no skin left on his face, and little remained on his body. It had been stripped away and replaced by the sand sticking to his bloody tendons.
One of his eyes protruded oddly. It took him a second to realize that was because part of his eyelid was missing. He’d lost his boots; skeletons and the sand had torn away his shirt and shredded most of his pants.
Only the waistband of his pants and some shredded fabric covered his upper thighs. The remnants of his pants shielded his only remaining flesh.
His ears were nearly gone; he couldn’t tell if his hair remained or if it had been sheared away too. At first, he thought he still had some tissue on his face, but then it sloughed downward, and a ball of sand plopped into the water. It caused a circle of ripples to radiate across the surface.
Despite his lack of skin, he didn’t feel any pain. He suspected that was because his nerve endings were so damaged, they didn’t detect the sensation. He recalled the suffering he endured while trapped beneath the sand and knew it would return as his body healed.
Leaning away from the water, Cole tried to wipe away the sand. Without something to wash it from him, all his actions did was cause it to abrade his muscle further.
His hands fell to the rocky ground as he stared at the water and willed himself to get away from it. He didn’t move. It was easier for him to kill a dragon than it was to find the strength to push himself away from the water.
Finally, and with a will he hadn’t known he possessed, he placed his hands against the gray rocks and shoved himself to his feet and away from the lake. He staggered, lurched, and fell as he tried to get away from the relentless pull of the liquid he craved.
Lacking the strength to get back to his feet, he crawled a hundred feet away from the shoreline. There, he found an outcropping of rocks that created a small cave. He crawled inside the shelter and took some solace in the shadows enveloping him, but the water still called to him.
He leaned his back against the wall and positioned himself so he could see the water. Maybe he was wrong; maybe he’d denied himself much-needed hydration that would help him heal a lot faster and wash away the sand for no reason.
But he couldn’t chance drinking that water in this condition. He was so weak and battered that if there was something wrong, he wouldn’t withstand it.
He would wait to see if any of his competition survived. If they had, he didn’t doubt they would go for the water. But would they also resist like him, or would they give in and drink it?
As he watched and waited, his body started to heal. Cole gritted his teeth against screaming as his nerve endings fired back to life. When they did, it felt like someone had taken his entire body and dipped it into a vat of boiling oil.
Quaking all over, he closed his eyes while his body gradually regrew the skin it lost. When this was over, this maddening agony would be one more thing he made the Lord pay for.