The lake won.
Gavriel had eleven seconds of consciousness left. He spent ten of them trying to reach her before tentacles erupted around him.
These were thicker. Armored. Barbed with ridges that cut into his skin on contact. One slammed around his torso, spikes cutting through his flesh, and squeezed hard enough to crack ribs and knock the remaining air from his lungs in a single, devastating compression.
Another wrapped his leg and yanked downward, reversing his momentum in an instant. A third coiled around his throat and tightened with the slow, deliberate pressure of a creature that understood anatomy and was applying force to the exact spot where it would do the most damage.
White spots burst across Gavriel's vision.
