Meeting the Mother of Thorns

The Briar changed around them as the boat took them deeper and deeper into its shadowed interior. 

At some point, the clumps of dull, lifeless moss hanging from trees began to emit a pale, almost sickly green light. Likewise, the petals of flowers turned luminescent, appearing in the fog as clusters of pale pink, lavender, and red light that Jacques assiduously avoided. 

The further they went, the darker the water beneath their flat-bottomed seemed to grow, changing from murky brown to an almost inky black that drank in the light from the glowing plants above and sound alike, turning even the sound of their passage into little more than a quiet ripple. 

Now and then, something large would move beneath the surface, creating ripples that spread out until they vanished into the fog. Once, Ashlynn caught a glimpse of pale, scaled flesh and what might have been an eye larger than her fist watching them from the depths.