Scrambling, I caught hold of its stinger stalk, the fleshy appendage jerking me from side to side, in and out of the water. Choking and gasping, I managed one breath before its teeth closed on my shoulder. The pressure was incredible, crumpling my armor and snapping the bone beneath. I bit down on the pain, using the sluag for leverage as I jerked out a knife and sliced through the stinger stalk.

It shrieked and released me, and I had the chance to see the sluag attacking Victoria just before it knocked the torch from her hand and we were once again plunged into darkness.

Ignoring the pain in my shoulder, I surged through the water and slammed my knife into its side, then pulled another blade, using it to climb the sluag’s flank. It screamed and twisted, and I slid from side to side over its back, feeling its stinger slam into my armor. All it would take was one blow to a chink in the steel, one sting, and I’d be done.

Biting down on one of my blades, I ignored the burning of the steel against my skin and grabbed wildly until my hands found the stinger stalk. Digging my fingers into the flesh, I pulled, my heels braced against its back. The sluag reared, rising higher and higher. My boots started to slide, but before I fell, I cut the stinger off at the base.

The sluag twisted and screamed, and I fell, water closing over my head.

A heartbeat later, the sluag’s bulk slammed down, crushing me against the rock.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t get my good arm positioned to heave the blasted thing off me. And until it died, my magic was useless.

Seconds ticked down, my fingers grasping futilely at the slick rocks, my pulse racing faster and faster with the desperate need for air.

All I could think of was Pénélope. If I died, her value to her father would cease to exist, and it would only be a matter of time before he found a way to kill her. I didn’t trust Tristan or even Anaïs to keep her safe. I was the only one willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of her life.

Desperation gave me strength, and I twisted, shoving the sluag’s dying body up enough that my head broke the water, and I gasped in a mouthful of air before its weight drove me back down.

And then it went still.

My magic flooded back under my control, but before I could do anything, the corpse was lifted off and hands were dragging me to the surface. Tristan’s blood-smeared face was suddenly inches from mine, his eyes full of panic even as the chamber shook from the impact of the sluag’s corpse hitting the wall, rocks splashing into the water. “Are you all right?” he demanded.

I spat out a mouthful of foul water and nodded, unwilling to waste precious air on words. My friends stood wide-eyed around me, battered, but alive, sluag corpses bleeding into the pool that glittered in the sunlight.