We'd gone south. Further than we'd ever gone. Past the crusty hills of Thelveth, past the thorn scrub, past the bitey flies and dry air and the dumb goat statues with their dumb little dicks out. All the way to where the air turned thick and green again. Sticky green. Lush green. The kind that climbs your legs, curls in your hair, and whispers suspiciously moist things into your ear while you sleep.
Jungle. That's what I called it.
The Dragon snorted. "Rain forest," he corrected, like he was lecturing a halfwit geography student and not the girl who once bit a customs officer for calling her 'wench'.
"Rain forest," I mimicked in my best noble twit voice, then slipped on a root and nearly broke my ass.
We were dripping in sweat and fungal misery when we saw it.
First I thought it was a mountain, half-digested by moss. Then the angles clicked. The lines. The stairs. The statues peeking through the vine curtain like very serious perverts. It was a temple.
An enormous, glorious, definitely-haunted temple.
I stopped walking. My mouth fell open. A beetle flew in. I gagged, spat, and then stared harder.
It had towers. Courtyards. Stone bridges across nothing. A whole mural of snake-headed women doing suspiciously orgiastic things. It was all cracked and overgrown and perfect.
The Dragon muttered, "Typical pre-collapse Zarnathi style. Overwrought. Grandiose. Trying too hard."
He was full of shit.
I pointed. "That column has nipples."
He peered. Blinked. Blinked again. "…Goddess of Fertile Justice, if I'm not mistaken."
"Are all your gods into boobs?"
"Some into ankles. One into elbows."
We stepped closer. I touched a vine-covered door twice my height, wood warped and swollen from centuries of tropical tantrums.
"Think it's safe?" I asked.
"No," he said, and pushed it open with his snout anyway.
Inside it was cool. Dark. Wet. The air smelled like damp stone, bat guano, and forgotten sins.
I tiptoed over some questionable puddles and a suspiciously humanoid pile of bones. The Dragon ducked under the lintel and sniffed dramatically like a wine critic judging a corpse.
"You impressed?" I asked.
He exhaled smoke. "It's… fine."
Which, in Dragon, means holy shit.
There were frescoes on the walls. Some had flaked away. Others were very much intact. One showed a priestess on all fours receiving divine blessing from a many-limbed sky thing that had far too many tongues. Another showed worshippers weeping at a golden altar. Another showed… honestly I think it was a metaphor for orgies.
We walked deeper. Past cracked idols. Past offerings turned to dust. Past the kind of runes that hum just a little when you look at them wrong.
"Do not lick anything," the Dragon warned.
I licked a finger and touched a glowing glyph.
He sighed like a disappointed governess. "Why do I even bother."
"Curiosity," I whispered. "And maybe treasure."
The air got thicker the further we went. The light dimmer. The murals more… frantic.
The corridor cracked open like a secret yawn, and just like that—we found it.
A courtyard.
Hidden. Sun-dappled. Vines hanging like lazy serpents from cracked pillars. The air here didn't feel thick and oppressive like the rest of the jungle. It shimmered. Hummed. Like the place was still breathing, quietly, just beneath the moss.
And in the middle—an emerald pool.
Not slimy. Not festering. Not suspiciously frog-orgied like most jungle puddles. No. This thing was pristine. Glass-clear. A soft trickle of water from a lion-headed spout. Carved stone steps leading right into it. Fat golden koi lazing in circles like they owned the damn place.
I was already undoing my shoulder brooches.
"Don't," said the Dragon. Instantly. Suspiciously fast.
I let my peplos drop anyway. It slid down like melted butter and pooled around my ankles.
"What," I said, stepping into the water. "You never seen a girl bathe before?"
"I have," he grumbled. "I've also seen girls get possessed by spirits that live in sacred pools."
"Ooooh, spooky. Ghost fish gonna nibble my coochie?"
He didn't laugh. He never laughs when he's worried.
"This might be a holy site," he said. "A place of reverence. Ritual. Not your personal suds bucket."
I sank up to my shoulders. The water was warm. Silky. Koi bumped against my thighs like curious little priests. I sighed.
"Maybe it was for purification," I said. "And gods know I need some of that."
He muttered something in Draconic. Possibly a curse. Possibly a prayer. Possibly both.
"This," he said, flaring his nostrils, "is exactly how you ended up in the Mogwai situation."
"Oh come on," I splashed a little. "That wasn't even a sacred pond. It was a glorified frog tub with runes. And I didn't know they were sacred runes. I thought it said 'no peeing.'"
He buried his face in one claw. "It said 'no mortal flesh shall sully the waters lest the watchers awaken.'"
"Well," I shrugged, water lapping around my collarbones, "they didn't fully awaken. One just twitched. A bit. And moaned."
He looked skyward like begging the heavens to strike him down.
I stretched out in the pool, breasts barely breaking the surface, hair floating like a drowned princess. I felt… weirdly clean. Not just dirt-off clean. Soul clean. Like maybe this place was doing something. Something old and deep and humming through my bones.
"Hey," I said softly. "Come in."
He recoiled like I'd asked him to bellydance.
"I don't do water," he snapped.
"Liar. You loved that hot spring in Lerida."
"That was different. That had… minerals."
"This has koi. They tickle your toes."
He gave the koi a look like he was considering poaching them in wine.
I smirked and floated back toward the deeper end.
The pool wasn't just water.
It was something else.
And it was starting to feel… very awake.
I giggled.
I mean, full-on, unrepentant giggle. "Okay. Okay! That koi really is nibbling my coochie."
The Dragon made a sound like he'd just swallowed a thorny plum. "Must you be so vulgar?"
"Oh please," I waved one wet hand lazily, still half-floating. "You've seen me naked so many times it's basically your bedtime scenery."
"Yes, but I don't commentate every detail of your anatomy like a drunk bard at a flesh market."
"Then you're missing out," I grinned, just as something brushed the inside of my thigh. Not koi-sized.
I frowned.
Another brush. Slick. Thick. Cold.
Then the water shifted—not rippled. Shifted. Like something vast had just rolled over beneath it. The koi scattered. The vines above trembled. And then—
PHLOOMP.
Something erupted from the depths.
Tentacles.
Long, slick, veined horrors slapping against the stone with a sound like wet rope meeting panic. A dozen of them. Maybe more. One slapped the edge of the pool, another lashed around a column and cracked it in half like a breadstick.
The water boiled around me. Something huge stirred below.
The Dragon backpedaled three steps, wings half-unfurling. "I knew it. I knew it! This is why I warned you!"
I screamed. "Kill it! KILL IT WITH FIRE!"
"Do you know what kind of fire it takes to boil a threshold guardian?!"
Tentacles grabbed my ankle. My wrist. My hair. I thrashed. Screamed. Kicked one right in its suckery face. It squelched.
"Less taxonomy, more incineration!" I shrieked as another tentacle slithered up between my thighs. "It's trying to purify me from the inside out!"
The Dragon finally exhaled—
And the world exploded into flame.
***
Some time later…
I was sitting on a cracked pillar, still dripping, still naked, steam rising off my skin like I'd just crawled out of a baptism conducted by lunatics. The jungle hummed quietly around us. The pool was half-evaporated, blackened at the edges. Smelled like sushi bar arson.
Next to me, the Dragon was curled like a smug cat, delicately holding a blackened tentacle tip between two claws. I tore off a chunk with my teeth.
Chewy. Smoky. Bit of spice. Weirdly good.
"This is tasty," I mumbled around a mouthful, surprised.
He nodded solemnly. "Not unlike calamari. With a hint of ancient sin."
I licked my fingers. "What was that?"
He didn't even look at me.
"The Blind Guardian," he said. "The Lurker at the Threshold. Old thing. Doesn't like visitors. Especially not loud, naked ones with no respect for sacred waters."
"Oh."
We chewed in silence a bit.
"Oh indeed," I said. "Add this to our karmic ledger."
He side-eyed me. "Assuming we have one that hasn't already burst into flames."
I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. "You think this counts as purification or desecration?"
"Both," he said. "But mostly desecration."
I grinned. "Still. Worth it. My coochie's never been cleaner."
He groaned.
I tossed a tentacle nub at him. "Eat your sins, ash-breath."