“ will you quit talking like that?! i’m not leaving you behind! “ ( jared ) ♡ @heroscarred.
when they had descended into the drowned place, elsie had sensed there was something wrong. perhaps it was nothing more than the fact that the tunnel existed. they should not be walking and breathing beneath the boden; it was never meant to be. she’d wanted so badly for that to be all there was to her sense of foreboding... but even in those first moments, she had known the truth. the brightmore blood in her veins resonated with the water pressing down on them from above. this kind of knowing is her gift and it is the gift given to her by the very river the order of the broken knife is defying with the existence of this tunnel. all this knowledge crashed into her mind at once when she heard the first, terrible crack of stone.
she doesn’t know how long she can keep holding the water back. even with all of her magical effort being pushed towards it, the cracks are spreading overhead. in either minutes or moments, the drowned place is going to live up to its name - it’s going to succumb to the fate that even the order always knew it would have. shaking legs have already folded; elsie is on her knees. water is beginning to cascade from the cracked, vaulted ceiling, pooling around her. jared wants her to go with them but the moment she moves, she loses what little concentration she has left and the entire thing collapses. they’ll all be killed. he doesn’t seem to understand or maybe he does, but he simply doesn’t care.
❝ i love you. i’m... i’m sorry. ❞ elsie finally tears her eyes away from him; the heavy gaze lands instead on the shoulders of the only other person who remains here. from the look on her face, it’s clear the thief already knows what has to be done. ❝ get him out of here, nessa. that’s an order. ❞ she can give orders now. she’s the highest ranking member of the daughters currently present, a child of the magic, a scatterflow. protecting the people she loves is part of that identity, is one of her responsibilities. she was always meant to do this, wasn’t she? it breaks her heart to watch jared fighting with every ounce of strength inside him as nessa takes hold of him, drags him towards the other end of the drowned place. they just need to climb the stairs and pass through the archway... she just needs to hold on a little bit longer.
the shadows at the top of the stairs seem to swallow them. elsie releases, drops forward onto hands and knees. the stone above her breaks open. she has just enough presence of mind to be relieved when the archway collapses, sealing off the rest of the tunnels from the deluge that’s already pouring in. the water hits her like a wall and everything turns black.