Chapter 19: Blacktongue
A spear of light cracked open the clouds above a still, secluded lake.
Then came the splash.
A boy’s body plummeted from the heavens, crashing into the water like a broken comet. He hung there for a breathless moment, suspended just beneath the shimmering surface, until his eyes shot open with a jolt.
A gasp.
Wide, disoriented eyes scanned green canopies above, then the still lake below.
That lake—
It froze him.
His head dipped back under, submerging in silence, before erupting upward as he drank, ravenously, without care for purity or safety. The cold water slid down his throat like liquid salvation. He didn’t stop until his lungs screamed and his chest ached. Only then did he pull back, panting, his breath uneven, ragged.
“A forest,” Aric Blackthorn mutte
