Chapter 35
We walk until we come to a river. After helping Daerios up from the grass, I drape his arm over my shoulders and let him use me as a support. As soon as he swallowed the skyberry juice, the darkness started to recede, but his strength has yet to return in full.
He limps for the first mile or so. Gradually, his steps become more sure, his muscles more steady. By the time we reach the river, the only lingering sign of the venom in his system is a slight labored drag to his breathing.
Elvish healing truly is miraculous.
The river is huge, at least fifty feet across.
The other side is illuminated by bright moonlight, black grass on a slight slope, leading to yet another dense forest. The river itself looks innocuous enough.
Slow-moving black water drifts along between the riverbanks, gentle swirls and bubbles appearing every now and then.
Cara bends over, reaching her fingers down to dip into the dark water.
“Whoa, there.” Berendir scoops her up by the waist, stopping her just before her fingers make contact with the river. He spins her effortlessly around and sets her back onto the black grass. “You don’t want to do that.”
“Why not?” Cara elbows him away, shooting him an annoyed look.
Berendir points at the slow-moving water. “You have no idea what’s inside that river. For all I know, your fingers wouldn’t be attached to your hand when they came back out.”
I shift under Daerios’s arm. “How are we supposed to cross, then? I don’t see a bridge anywhere.”
“That’s a good question.” Berendir bites his lip, looking up and downstream several times. “I could run down a ways and check if—”
“No.” I cut him off. “We stick together.”
“But—”
“I’m serious, Ber. What if an urrath corners you while you’re gone? Or several?” I shake my head. “We stick together.”
“Fine.” Berendir taps his saber atop his foot. “Then I guess we swim.”
I look up at Daerios, whose forehead still glistens with a subtle sheen. “Are you up for it?”
“A swim across a potentially monster-infested river while still barely half-alive?” He grins weakly. “Why not?”
I smile back up at him. “Didn’t you tell me the water is where you feel most whole?”
“I did say that, didn’t I?” He watches me for a moment, lips curling upward. “I think there’s a place I feel even more whole, now.”
“Really?” I ask. “Where is that?”
He just winks and takes my hand, pulling me toward the river.
The first half of the swim passes without incident. The water is freezing, but I swallow my squeals and paddle resolutely forward, not wanting to alert any nearby monsters to our presence. A part of me is glad for the chill; Daerios looked like he could use a cold shower.
I stick close to his side while we swim. He might be making jokes again—smiling, laughing, even splashing a bit of water at Berendir’s head—but I know he’s still weak. If anything comes for us, I want to be ready to grab his collar and haul him back above water.
When did you become Daerios’s protector? a voice whispers inside my head. When did his safety become your first priority?
Probably around the same time you almost told him you’re in love with him.
The thought takes me by such surprise that I startle mid-stroke. I gasp at the same time that my chin drops below the water, inhaling a mouthful of freezing black. I start to cough, hacking, garbled sounds that echo loudly atop the river.
“Quinn?” Daerios swims closer, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“F—” Cough, cough. “Fine. I’m fine.”
I’m fine. I just thought the very last thing I ever wanted to think and am currently having a panic attack about it, but I’m fine.
The prince eyes me warily. I shoot him a strained smile and keep swimming. Thankfully, he says nothing more.
As I paddle, I dig further into my own thoughts.
Do I love Daerios? Is that what this is?
Is that what this all adds up to? How I think about him constantly.
How my memories of him, even the painful ones, seem etched into my mind in the brightest technicolor.
How willing I am to protect him, even if it means throwing myself before a monster; I would do it every time, no questions asked, even if it meant facing my own death.
How he’s ruined me for anyone else.
How it can only ever be him.
My breath comes faster. Tiny gulps of midnight air that don’t seem to fill my lungs. I slap at the water. I’m being too loud. I know I’m being too loud. But I seem to have lost control of my body, and I don’t know if I can get it back.
“Quinn?” Cara asks.
My head shoots up. I lock eyes with Cara, who has stopped swimming to watch me.
“Are you all right?” she asks. “You look sort of—”
But I never hear how I look, because, at that very moment, something grabs Cara beneath the water and her head disappears.
“Cara!” Berendir yells. He doesn’t waste a second. He dives beneath the river, feet slapping at the surface.
As soon as my brain catches up to the situation, I dive in after him.
I’m a decent swimmer. Not the best, not the worst. I spent most summers in one of the many lakes in Minnesota, but that’s where my experience with large bodies of water ends. Which is why, as soon as I dive beneath the black waves, I know I’ve made a mistake.
I can see nothing. No moonlight penetrates the water. I hear only muted grunts and groans, the squealing of something that sounds inhuman and terrifying. I paw at the freezing river, searching for Cara’s body.
What I find is much worse.
Something long, slimy, and strong as an elephant trunk wraps around my leg.
I scream, sending bubbles up in a dark flurry as my body plunges deeper into the icy water.
I fight with everything I have, kicking at the beast below me, clawing at its tentacle with my hands, but it holds fast. I’m sinking.
I’m freezing. My limbs are so cold that I can feel my muscles starting to seize.
My chest is so tight. My throat squeezes shut.
How deep is this river? How long until I reach the—
Two hands close around my arms. At first I fear they belong to a mermaid, a siren, a creature ready to fight over my warm flesh with the monster below. But then my eyes flutter open and I catch a glimpse of long black hair, long muscular arms, a jaw as hard as ice, and I know.
It’s Daerios.
The sight of his face kicks me back to life. This is not how you die.
Fight, Quinn.
Fight.
I kick with everything I’m worth. I must catch the creature below me by surprise, because its grip loosens enough that I manage to hit something else, round and soft, like a belly or the top of a gelatinous head.
The tentacle recoils. Daerios seizes the opportunity, wrapping one arm around my torso while jabbing his other arm down.
Something flashes past us. It takes me a second to realize that it’s his sword.
The creature below lets out a miserable cry before disappearing into the inky black.
After that, I have very little oxygen left in my lungs and very little idea of which way is up. Thankfully, Daerios seems to have no problem with direction. He sheathes his sword and wraps his other arm around me, then kicks toward the surface.
We break free of the water with twin gasps for air. I expect us to be way out in the middle of the river, far from anything, but the creature dragged me closer to the other side. Daerios doesn’t release his grip on my torso. He swims for the both of us, headed directly for the riverbank.
Cara.
Where is Cara?
I squint through the water running down my face. On the approaching shoreline, I make out two figures: one lying prone in the grass, the other bent over the first. Cara and Berendir. They made it. Cara is on her back, seemingly unconscious, but she’s alive.
When we reach the shore, Daerios and I haul ourselves out of the freezing water. I don’t pause to collapse, even though I desperately want to, because I can now see that Cara’s eyes are shut, her lips dangling open, face pale and lifeless.
“Cara!” Berendir yells, pumping her chest the way we learned to in CPR class. “Cara, wake up!”
I fall to my knees at her side.
Berendir finishes his pumps and bends over to give her mouth-to-mouth.
He blows into her slack lips three times, then starts pumping her chest again.
“Cara, for fuck’s sake, wake up.” Tears have started to form at the corners of his eyes.
He keeps pumping—probably too hard for her small body—but he doesn’t seem able to go any softer.
“Please. You have to wake up.” He chokes on the last word. “Please.”
“Berendir,” Daerios says softly.
“Shut up,” Berendir growls. He stops pumping and bends over. He presses his lips to hers and blows once. “I’m not giving up,” he says, then blows again. “I’m not”—puff—“giving”—puff—“up!” Puff. Pu—
Cara’s eyes fly open right as Berendir’s lips land on her mouth for the final breath.
She screams into his face.
“Ew!” She pushes him away. “Ew, ew, ew!”
Berendir collapses backward onto the grass, gasping.
Daerios’s face splits into a huge grin. “There she is.”
Cara sits up, pawing at her lips. “What were you doing?”
“Oh, nothing,” Berendir says, chest heaving up and down. “Just saving your life.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks color as she looks down at her dripping clothes, at the red tentacle marks around her leg. “Oh. Right.”
Before things can get any more awkward, I tackle Cara, wrapping her in a big, wet hug. I’m so relieved to see her eyes open that I barely pause to register that it’s the first time I’ve ever hugged her. “You’re alive,” I say into her shoulder. “You’re alive.”
She raises a limp hand and pats my back. “I’m alive.”
“I thought I lost you.”
“No,” she says, and I feel her smile against my hair. “No, you aren’t rid of me yet.”
We have very little time to recover. After the ruckus we just made, God only knows how many more creatures have been alerted to our presence. We pause only to catch our breath, then take off into the forest.
We’re all shivering. Our clothes cling to our skin, damp and freezing in the night air.
“You don’t happen to have any towel-growing trees on Elaerion, do you?” Cara asks, teeth chattering.
“Unfortunately not,” says Daerios. “And it’ll be nearly impossible to dry off without any sunlight. Walking fast is our best option.”
Cara grumbles something under her breath about Daerios being awfully chipper for someone who almost just died of poisoning. Still, she doesn’t speed up to walk beside Berendir, as she normally would.
Something has changed between them.
Daerios and I exchange subtle grins.
I’m still worried about him. While the river rescue seems to have revitalized him rather than draining him further, as I feared, I know he cannot be back to a hundred percent yet. I’ll have to keep a close eye on him.
After another mile, we spot something just a stone’s throw ahead. A shimmering blue light, as if a lantern burns between the trees. Only it’s far too big to be a lantern. It seems to stretch for miles, its glow seeping through every gap in the trunks and leaves.
“What is that?” Cara asks, squinting through the trees and into the clearing ahead.
“That,” Daerios says, “is the first Trial Gate.”