The Runes of the River Souls

Chapter 1: Execution
The last thing Niah remembered from her life before now was how cold the water felt against her skin, and inhaling the blackened river water where they threw her bound body.
The fools believed its scum-covered, shadowy hue to be the souls of the wicked it had claimed through the years, bound by the current and unable to escape.
Over the years, the town elders oversaw and executed outright blasphemers, whores, and witches, no matter how mild or defiant. She had seen some of them dragged screaming and cursing to their deaths, made ‘examples of’ disobedience to the whims of the very ones who consorted with them, putting their cracked masks of piety back on their besotted faces.
When those events had run their course, they turned suspicious eyes to the healers, their small homes and herb gardens routinely searched and robbed of whatever things of meager value they owned.
She’d been one of them, and now it was her turn.
They broke down her door, shattered her flower pots, and burned her garden, all the while shouting false accusations over her pleading screams of innocence.
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There was no reasoning with these inbred townspeople, but they thought she’d been tortured long enough. Her voice was sore from a raw throat that had been screaming in pain for almost an hour.
They only gave her moments to regain her breath, if not her wits, before they carried her down to the river and threw her into it. if she floated she was guilty, but if not, she was innocent.
She floated at first, then began to slowly go under, the scent of vegetative decay strong in her nostrils. The water had a thickness to it from the years of whatever loamy growth covered it like a second skin.
A brief tug on the rope around her waist sent another shock of pain through her, and the weight of her underclothes, now soaked and slippery with black detritus, was getting heavy.
Taking what she thought would be her final deep breath, she disappeared from their sight beneath the flow. She managed to still her thoughts and rising panic as she worked at the ropes on her wrists, hurrying to make anything in the knot loose.
Her thoughts racing with what might be coming for her in the murky water made her had to calm down or pushing herself back up for air would soon be impossible.
Thanking a deity she wasn’t sure existed, she sloughed off the rope on her wrists. Her skin was raw, and a small tendril of blood slithered out and up, curling in on itself in a slow, serpentine dance.
Her body jerked, telling her she was losing time as she involuntarily took in some of the water mixed with her blood. The coppery, briny taste forced her to place the last of her strength into her legs and push off with all her might, not knowing if she’d break the surface.

Chapter 2: Reclamation
She broke the surface, gasping loud, tears and slime blurring her vision, and she wiped them both away as she clumsily tried to swim to the riverbank. She made it, crawling and spitting and crying with gratitude that her nascent efforts were successful.

On the other side none of the townspeople remained.

Did they give me up for dead?
The setting sun was hazy behind graying clouds heralding a storm.
Of course they left me. They want to be indoors when it gets dark. How long was I down there?
Alone on the riverbank, the sky full of sunset shadows and leaden clouds, she clambered to her knees and tried to stand, but the shock of being bodily thrown into freezing, black, rushing water, and the close brush with death combined to make her fall back down and sleep.

Chapter 3: Redemption
When she woke, the rain clouds covered the first of the evening stars. They were distant from her touch, indifferent to her plight, but the evening breeze slipped around her like a lover’s arms.
She coughed up some black water, and found herself covered in the skimmed
slime.
It was most dense on her forearms, and streaking down to dapple her hands, so her first thought was to rinse them off. As soon as the thought came she smiled at the folly of it. Washing up in dirty water…
But something was different. Something was different.
She’d never felt more alive.
It was a curious thought, but there could be no other explanation.
She stopped a moment, the river loam giving way to ankle high grass as she left the river behind. It felt like her skin was drying in the breeze, but it didn’t feel normal.
Putting her arms out in front of her, she saw the black mucus seeping into her skin, and her fingers starting to glow with an eldritch light.
Everything in her wanted to scream as the light crept up, engulfing her, heating her face, drying her eyes and clearing her vision, and knowing it without any formal recognition of it, she knew she was now the thing they feared.
The men were feasting and dancing, the women gossiping and dancing, and the musicians played so lively and well. The Elder’s house was bright and festive, and the wards he’d carved himself on the gate and into the doorframe stood sentinel against the black magic Niah now held.
As the vision faded she heard the whispers of the river souls calling to her: Welcome, Niah. Greetings, Daughter. Sister, we’ve found you at last.
They assailed her mind with violent visions she might inflict on her accusers.
“Not tonight,” she said. “Let them think me dead, carried off by the current and over the falls.”
And with that, as the first drops of rain steamed and sizzled against the blackness on her arms and the runes of magic from past river souls were etched into them as she walked, she saw her desecrated home sitting in the field like an old dog too stiff to greet her, and with the most small and casual wave of her hand, she opened the door and lit a fire in the hearth.