Bab 319: Drowning and Desolation (1/1)

A weak moan drifted through the fog that enveloped Rowan's mind, grasping at his awareness with slippery fingers. He had the vague thought that someone was in pain, but the voice wasn't deep enough to belong to Wren.

After he'd stepped into the pond, reality had simply blinked out of existence around him, taking any sense of what was happening outside of his body along with it. But on the inside, he was plummeting in all directions at once. Or at least he was, until his perception of that vanished, too.

Rowan's belly flipped as if he were still falling, fluttering all the way up to his throat until he realized he was already on the ground, curled on his side on a blanket of dead leaves. The earthy-sweet scent of decay filled his nostrils. The trees around him were painted with shades of dusk. 

It was cold here. Winter when it should have been summer.