Chapter 44 – Rowan
ROWAN
The current takes me before I can even fight for the surface.
This must be the Blackstone River. Flowing down from Izel in the north, the Blackstone River twists its way through the continent, through almost every kingdom.
The bitter cold seizes my lungs, my muscles, my body; I’m locked in an icy vise.
The cold, however, is the least of my worries. The water is chaos. It spins me, flipping me end over end through the water. My shoulder slams into something hard enough to send blinding pain exploding down my arm.
I think it's a rock, or maybe a tree.
There’s no time to recover before the river drags me away.
No more than a few seconds later, pain wrenches my side as the river slams me into yet another boulder. The impact forces me up, and I hit the surface, inhaling nearly as much water as oxygen when I do.
My fingers scrape frantically along the slick stone, desperate for purchase, but there’s nothing to grab. The force of the current is too strong, quickly sweeping me around the massive rock.
I don’t know how to swim, but even if I did, I don’t think it would matter. The river is in control, and I am completely at its mercy.
It’s all I can do to get enough oxygen into my lungs before the current drags me back under.
Something sharp slices along my leg as I’m dragged past it—a branch, another rock… I don’t know. I cry out again at the sharp pain, only to have even more water rush into my open mouth. Coughing and choking, my lungs burn and I’m desperate for air.
Pain.
It’s one thing to choose to give your life to the river; it’s another thing entirely to actually let it drown you.
Panic sets in as I’m swept further away. The water’s moving fast, slamming me into rocks, trees, and submerged debris over and over again.
I try desperately to cling to anything, not even to escape, but just for relief—a full breath of air, at the very least. But it’s all too slippery. I need to catch my breath. I need to—
The fight drains out of me far sooner than expected.
I’m tired—so tired, my muscles scream with effort until they start to fail.
I stop fighting for control and start fighting just to keep my head above water, but it’s no use.
The river plunges me down mercilessly, under and under, rolling my body in its churning fury.
I don’t know how long I’ve been in the water. It could have been several minutes or close to an hour, but I know my time is running out. As my body tires, I begin to spend more and more time beneath the surface.
Darkness presses in, thick and murky, threatening to swallow me whole.
Air. I need air.
My lungs feel like they’re on fire without it. I try kicking for the surface again, but the water relentlessly pushes me down, and there’s just— I just have nothing left.
The current drags me down deeper, and this time… this time I don’t fight it.
My body goes still, and I sink faster. My limbs feel heavy—like they’re not mine anymore. The tumultuous sound of the roiling water around me fades away and everything gets…
Quiet.
I don’t feel the cold anymore.
I don’t feel the violent churning of the surrounding current.
I don’t feel… anything.
My eyes lift to the surface; the sunlight is barely visible through the rough waves, but it’s there. I can see it. It’s beautiful.
I close my eyes, wanting that to be the last thing I see as I finally hand myself over to the darkness.
For once, the void is welcoming.
But then, my wrist catches on something. My body jerks so violently, and my injured shoulder screams in protest.
For one disoriented heartbeat, I think he’s found me.
The Raven.
The shadow demon that has stalked my nightmares since I was a child. It took my mother, and now it’s back for me.
Fingers tighten around my wrist. Real fingers. Not shadow or hallucination—real. Pulling me back. Pulling me up.
My eyes fly open, and the darkness appears to part just as something else wraps around my waist, strong and unyielding. An arm, I realize through blurred vision.
It drags me upward until I break through the surface. Sunlight chases off the last of the shadows, and I’m coughing and choking, sputtering as my lungs reject water in favor of air.
Air.
The arm wrapped around my waist keeps me above the surface long enough to take a solid breath, giving my body much-needed oxygen.
A wave crashes hard over my head, and I’m dragged back up again, the arm tightening around my waist as my vision clears, and a violent gasp escapes me.
Ayer.
I can barely register the sight of him next to me before we’re pulled back underwater by the relentless current. I panic, not wanting to revisit the icy dark I’d almost been lost in.
Ayer drags us back up to the surface, keeping me pressed hard to his chest. Using the last of my strength, I cling to him, my fingers digging into his soaked leathers.
“I’ve got you,” he breathes out roughly, as he fights to keep us both above water.
The current slams us hard against another submerged boulder as if trying to break us apart. But he doesn’t let go. Not even as the river twists and turns, trying to wrench me from his grip—to reclaim the life he stole—but Ayer never lets go.
The rapids finally give way to rough waves, and at last, the violent rolls of water quiet as the river widens, the current losing strength.
No longer completely at the river’s mercy, Ayer swims diagonally for shore with one arm. The other, he keeps firmly wrapped around me.
I barely have the strength to hold on.
Relief crashes through me when his boots finally hit bottom, finding purchase and finally halting our descent downstream. He doesn’t relinquish his grip as he half-carries, half-drags me into the shallows. When all four of my limbs are on solid land, he lets me go. I collapse, and so does he.
My hands sink into the deep silt of the river’s edge. Every muscle in my body shakes as I cough and convulse, and there’s a sharp pain in my chest as my body ejects all the dark water I swallowed, again and again until my breaths even out and the pain eases.
With trembling arms, I push myself up until I’m resting on my knees, still sitting in a few inches of water by the shoreline. The water laps around me in soft, gentle waves, nothing like what we just experienced further upstream.
For a moment I just sit there. And breathe.
In and out. In and out. Gods, I have a whole new appreciation for air.
Speaking of…
I look up, glancing around me—searching until I find him.
Ayer.
He’s on his back, not far from where I sit. Half on shore, eyes closed, his chest moving up and down.
He jumped in after me.
Whether to save me or prevent my escape… I don’t know. Though, likely the latter.
My gaze lifts higher, to the tree line.
Run.
My instincts are screaming at me and I try; I really do. When I attempt to stand, my legs won’t hold me. So I crawl.
Light.
I barely make it a few feet before my body reaches its limit. My legs collapse under me at the shoreline, the gravel of the riverbank the last thing I see before darkness claims me.