The sun was now merciless. Its white-gold light bled across the lake, turning every ripple into shards of broken glass. Mist no longer cloaked the water. Instead, the brightness stripped the scene bare, leaving no refuge for shadows to hide in.
Nerine's breath hitched as the lake's surface split apart. Water sprayed skyward in a dazzling arc, sunlight catching the droplets until they glittered like diamonds. But there was no beauty in what followed.
From the rift rose a monstrous head—scaled in black, slick with water, each plate gleaming like polished obsidian. The creature's neck arched high above them, thick as the trunk of a great oak, water cascading down its ridges in torrents. Its golden eyes burned with unnatural hunger, unblinking, fixed on them.
The serpent.
