Chapter 47 — Veinwater Pool

They crawl on hands and knees until the tunnel swells open, widening into a cavern so vast that their eyes can't find the far wall. The air is thicker here, heavy with a wet, metallic tang. Beneath their feet, roots pulse like veins beneath skin — and at the center lies the pool.

Black water, so dark it devours their torchlight. It ripples without wind. Now and then, it shivers — like something beneath the surface sighs in its sleep.

Rafi coughs against the smell. It's not rot exactly — it's older than rot. It smells like secrets left to drown.

The braid girl steps to the edge and kneels. She dips a finger in; when she lifts it out, a bead of liquid clings to her nail, dark as ink but swirling faintly with silver veins. She watches it slide off and vanish in the dirt.

He knows what she's thinking. If this is the hush's blood, then crossing it means bleeding too.

Voices echo from the pool. Whispers lap at the shore: promises, threats, soft lies. One word Rafi keeps catching beneath them all — Stay.

Stay, and the pain drifts away. Stay, and the cold world above can't touch you.

Rafi wants to listen. The hush knows his want: family, warmth, no more fighting in the dark. He tastes it on the back of his tongue, sweet as sleep.

Then the girl's hand smacks his cheek, snapping him awake. Her eyes burn through the hush's mutterings. She mouths it without sound: Don't.

He nods. He hates how grateful he is.

They scan the cavern's edge. Roots dip into the pool like feeding tubes, drawing the hush's poison into the ground. On the far side, an arch of slick stone rises out of the water — the next tunnel mouth, the only way forward.

Between here and there: the pool itself, glassy, patient, hungry.

They tie themselves together — her rope from the camp days, frayed but stubbornly strong. She binds it around his waist, knots it at her own hip. If one of them falls under, the other must pull them back, no matter how the hush begs.

Rafi steps first. The water is colder than bone. It clutches his ankles like icy hands. Each step pulls at him — soft laughter under the surface, brushing his mind with glimpses of lost warmth: his mother combing his hair, his father's hand on his shoulder.

He almost stops. Almost.

The braid girl's tug on the rope jolts him forward again.

Midway, the pool deepens. Black water climbs to their chests. Every heartbeat drums against the hush's pulse below. Shadows swim underfoot, brushing their legs. Once, a pale face breaks the surface, eyes blind but mouth moving — Stay... — before sinking with barely a ripple.

Rafi bites down on a cry. If he screams, the hush will pour in through his teeth.

They wade onward, trembling, half-floating. Water laps at their chins. Each breath is borrowed.

Then her hand catches stone — the arch's first slick root. She claws at it, drags them up together. They crawl onto the far ledge, coughing out hush-tainted water.

Behind them, the pool stills — a mirror, perfect and dark, pretending it never tried to drown them.

Rafi turns to her. She's shivering, teeth bared in a silent grin — halfway between triumph and terror.

He squeezes her hand. They are poison-drenched, half-frozen, but alive. And ahead, the hush knows they're coming.

One tunnel left, and the hush's heart waits for them to carve it open.