Page 387 of Elemental Becoming

And I swim toward it.

Every part of me aches, but I keep moving. I will not drown here. Not while he’s still waiting for me.

Calryx is still yelling.

Gods, that dragon is loud.

What is she saying now? How can she talk to me when I’m underwater?

My head pounds. It feels like it’s splitting in two.

Where is it? Where’s that strand? That bond?

I swim and swim through black water, cold and endless, pressing in from every direction. There is no up or down. Only darkness.

Then Calryx’s voice tears through the void.

“You are the Spiritborn! Not some half-broken hatchling drifting through the dark! You do not get to give up! Not after everything we have done to get here!”

I flinch even here, even in the depths of this place.

But she isn’t finished.

“You are stronger than this black poison. Stronger than this weakness. Stop drifting. Find the thread and fight!”

Her fury slams into me, uncompromising. She knows what I am. What I am capable of. And she refuses to let me forget it.

Something catches my eye.

A glimmer in the darkness.

Small.

Silver.

Alive.

The bond!

I reach for it, but everything feels impossibly heavy. My limbs refuse to cooperate, moving through the darkness as though the water itself is trying to hold me in place.

How long have I been here? And how am I still breathing?

The thought drifts through me before I can hold onto it.

Then Calryx’s voice spears through the darkness again.

“That’s it! Keep reaching, Virelya!”

The force of her roar rattles through me.

“Thane is on the other side. He is waiting for you. Grasp that thread!”

Thane.

The dragon never uses that name. And yet the moment I hear it, something inside me lurches.

I know that name.