Oh…OH…

Gideon Nav, a runaway, has found herself in a tight spot. In an attempt to make herself useful as a sellsword, she’s trapped riding a skeletal beast among the banks of the river.

Blood of my blood, the god under the water warbles. Soon, I will wake.

Gideon dunks him another corpse to feed on.

This is what she gets for bleeding in strange rivers.

When not bringing her miserable puddle of a father dead people, she broods in the forest and practices her sword forms. She dreams of freedom — of salt water and adventures. But, Gideon’s daydreams are interrupted by a sudden appearance from her past. A blood-drenched rag of a woman has found her way in the forest in search of a spell to make her powerful enough to face gods.

Much to Harrow’s disappointment, her bone-scrying has brought her to the ward who once stomped around her father’s castle.

And much to Gideon’s equal disappointment, they find a use in each other.

A tenuous connection is made between them.

Eventually, after much fighting and a near-drowning incident, Harrow finds a way to free Gideon from the river. On a mirk and midnight hour, Harrow scrambles for the reins of Gideon’s hellish horse, but John’s magic is a tricky thing to face. They fall into the river, still clutching each other as Gideon changes in her arms – into beasts and flames and hateful things.

There are false promises made as John speaks through Gideon’s mouth. Little saint of devotion, give up my daughter, and I will teach you how to become deathless.

Let me go, Gideon says. I will not let you die for me!

Harrow wrenches Gideon’s sword free with one hand. She’s choking, her lungs filling with brackish water that shouldn’t belong in the river. But she steadies herself, drawing on the dead that are buried in the mud for power.

“Step off, bitch.”

With the sheer force of hope, with the sheer force of want, she keeps hold of Gideon with one hand and dives the sword through with the other.

The spell breaks.

They live.

The power that is about to be unleashed…..