Brenna watched Edmar for a response to her declaration.
"You are the Void's servant, are you not?" He asked after a moment.
She closed her eyes for a few moments. "Yes."
"I have pledged my allegiance to the Void." Edmar answered brightly. "Tamas had promised me power before, which was fine enough for me to follow it for a time, but since you are its servant, my pledge has been cemented for all eternity. I love you!"
"Did nothing I said sink in at all? You don't–you can't love me! It's fake! We both serve the Void, yes, but it will be better, easier for both of us if you don't keep acting as if you're in love with me." She took a step away, and his face fell.
"You want me to act… as if I don't love you?" He asked.
"Yes, please." She couldn't take the adoration in his eyes. She felt no guilt about serving the Void; humanity as a unit had wholeheartedly rejected her.
But this man… he'd done nothing wrong to her. He'd helped her when she was lost, vouched for her to stay in Ceto when the others would have sent her away… and all that before she'd unwittingly bewitched him!
Her heart ached that she had inflicted emotions on him without his consent. Maybe, just maybe, if she hadn't done that, he might have grown to like her.
She shook her head. Such thoughts were unhelpful and sentimental.
"I will try, if it pleases you. I may stay near you?" He asked so hopefully that it cut like a knife.
"The Void wills us to stay together while the battle rages." Brenna told him. "We are its anchors in this world, and it cannot risk our deaths."
"I will protect you with my life," He stared into her eyes with such loyalty that she was forced to look away and deflect.
"Both our lives being intact would be ideal." She replied.
"I will spend all of mine by your side, be it long or short," He pledged, and her mouth pinched. "I mean…" He paused. "Yes. We will both stay alive, as the Void wishes. And serve it together–Not together, but… near each other?"
She squinted at him in the darkness of the moonlit night. He still seemed earnestly attempting to say whatever would make her happiest.
"Can you imagine what you were like before you met me, and just… be like that?" She asked. "Don't worry about making me happy in the slightest. Pretend I'm…" She frowned. He didn't have sisters. "Pretend I'm your brother."
It wasn't a perfect metaphor, but perhaps it would do to make him stop being so… smitten.
He stared at her for several moments.
"That is… what you desire?" He asked.
"Let's try it out and see." She cringed. She wasn't exactly sure what he would do with the instructions, and wanted to be able to back out if it got awkward or uncomfortable.
He nodded slowly, and gazed back towards the city.
"The attack should be underway from below." He said. "It is unfortunate that the giants are not as loyal as they claimed."
Apparently being treated like a brother involved discussion of battles. She could handle that. She would prefer silence instead of constantly being reminded of what she'd done to the poor man, but if conversation had to be made…
"Yes, unfortunate," She agreed, shuddering. She had been with the Void when it felt the giants' allegiance disappear. That had been… unpleasant.
"However, I was able to get to the goblins, and they seem eager to serve." Edmar went on.
"Did they?" Brenna tilted her head. "I haven't seen any."
"Most of them are in this world now. The females--if you can call the ugly creatures female-- have been left behind to serve as Tamas's anchors in that world. Those worlds? They combined, you know. I'm not sure how." His gaze remained fixed on Klain, but his words confused Brenna.
"The worlds combined?" She asked.
"The Pink Sky World and the world of Waterfalls. Tamas said something about them colliding. That's why…" He stopped talking and looked at her. "I forget you haven't been. It's for the best. The gargoyles are there. They–"
A crack of thunder sounded in the distance, and both of them turned.
________________
Finn slipped on the wet stairs, the water pushing her feet out from under her. A cry of pain escaped her lips as her shin struck the sharp edge of a stone.
The hissing behind her spurred her to scramble upward against the current. It was getting stronger and deeper by the moment. Climbing was difficult. She didn't know how Kristoff was faring, but the lamp was still lit up ahead, so she followed the light as best she could.
The memories of being trapped before down here in these tunnels crowded into her mind. Layered on top of that was the trauma of the enormous wave of the river slamming her into Klain's wall after the Void's expulsion from the world.
To have those two sensations combined was nothing short of petrifying.
She made it to the next level area between stairways. That was three behind her, and five ahead now, to make it to the surface. What level was the water coming in? She couldn't recall whether she had been told.
Running on the flat surface of the slick floor was marginally easier than the steep stairs, and she tried to quicken her pace.
She'd lifted her skirts to run, but the water's rush was growing deeper. At first so little she'd barely noticed, it was now halfway to her knees.
Her dress was waterlogged and heavier every second. Kristoff was getting further ahead. The sound of the water combined with the inhuman sounds from deeper in the tunnels were bouncing off the walls in a cacophony which drowned out her call for him to wait for her.
It was better that he ran ahead. He had the box. It should get as far out of the reach of the goblins as possible.
But as he put distance between them, the light he carried went with him. She reached the next set of stairs and continued moving against the current, upward, as well as she could.
Soon, she was in total black.
"Help me, Gwen, please." She sobbed out as a fresh rush of icy water knocked her off her feet again. She clambored higher, one hand feeling the stairs, one lifting her sodden, freezing, heavy skirts so that her legs could move.
Memories of the Darkness flooded her mind as the water flooded the tunnels. The roar of the rushing liquid helped dissipate the illusion that she was trapped in the Void's world, but she wasn't sure this was a great improvement at the moment.
Especially with the screeching of the goblins behind her. The amount of water rushing past was inconceivable. If she didn't get out soon, she would drown long before she was eaten.
Did goblins still eat people, like in the fairy tales?
She shivered, both from the cold and the thought.
Her hands and feet were completely numb, and worked only because she had the will to force them to continue their functioning. If not for the terror behind her, she likely wouldn't be moving at all.
"Please. Please, Gwen," She whispered through chattering teeth.
How many stairs were left now? She'd lost count. Her brain was growing sluggish. The water was getting deeper and more forceful. Her face and hair were drenched by the constant spray.
She tried to stand upright, but the pull of the current was still rising. It was up to her thighs, with no sign of slowing. If she lost her footing again, she was in very real danger of being sucked down into the deepest parts of the tunnel and trapped there forever in an icy, watery grave.
The water pushed her back. She forced her stiff fingers to undo the large buttons of her coat and shrugged out of it.
The water quickly stole away the sodden wool. Next, her scarf was lost to the current.
Relieved of that weight, she climbed further, pursuing the dim glow that had long disappeared. Surely, she must be close by now! The water couldn't be coming from the surface of the city, but from a side tunnel that joined at the first or second level down… right? Maybe even third?
Her thoughts seemed to shiver with her shaking hands.
Ahead. Ahead. Get above the water. Forward. Up. Up. Go.
The disjointed, repeated words were all her mind could manage. Up. Go. Up.
A faint glow showed ahead. Had Kristoff realized he had left her behind and come back?
"No… go!" She cried as loudly as she could through her clenched jaws. Her teeth were in danger of chattering out of her head.
The water was simply too loud, and the light began to fade. She chased after it.
She lifted her foot to take another step, and the world slipped away.