Chapter 44
Forty-Four
Elodie
Irun across the bridge, my sneakers making tacky sounds through the vast pool of Kenneth’s blood. For a second, leaning over the railing, I can’t make out Salvatore’s form at all.
Then his head and shoulders bob up, an arm groping through the roaring water. He’s nothing but dark shapes amid the glinting moonlight.
The rain-swollen current drags him downstream. It looks as if he’s trying to pull himself toward the shore, but I can’t tell if he’s making any progress against the rush of the water. Kenneth’s heave landed him right in the middle where the river is deepest.
My heart batters the base of my throat, panic shattering the shock of Kenneth’s death. I hurl myself toward the end of the bridge with no thought in my head but getting to Salvatore.
I careen off the bridge and along the riverbank. My feet slip and squish as I try to hurry along the soaked ground and flattened grass.
A sudden swell dunks Salvatore again. He stays under long enough that my pulse turns into a hammer before he claws to the surface. His head drifts vaguely as if he’s still dazed from hitting the railing.
I throw a stream of ephemera toward him, gathering everything I can from the darkened landscape around me. An ache of fatigue splinters through my joints—I’ve already expelled more energy than I thought I’d need to while I was luring and then fighting Kenneth.
I can’t let Salvatore drown. Not when he only jumped into the fight to try to save me.
With all the strength and focus I can summon, I propel him toward the shore. One yank, and another, and another.
The river’s current wears against my efforts. My breath starts rasping, and not only because of my hasty scramble along the bank.
Salvatore has drifted a little closer to my side of the river. But his head is dipping forward, his face smacking into the water.
Is he losing consciousness?
With a fresh jolt of panic, I shove another pulse of magic toward him. It tips him so at least his head is lying back against the water, his mouth and nose clear other than the lapping of the rippling surface.
The ache prickles through my skull and down my spine. Ignoring the discomfort, I pull Salvatore toward the shore again and again.
Where’s a helpful naiad when you need one?
I lose sight of him briefly as I have to clamber through a clump of dense saplings right next to the river. When I burst out on the other side, the view up ahead gives me a flicker of hope.
In the rainstorm, a tree has fallen over, part of its expansive trunk stretching into the river. If I can draw Salvatore just a few more feet, he should be able to grab one of the branches.
If he’s aware enough to recognize the opportunity.
Swallowing the metallic tang of fear that’s coated my mouth, I haul at the ephemera I’ve wrapped around him. Sweat dribbles down my back beneath my already damp shirt, chilled by the night air. The exhausted ache sharpens into a lance prodding my eye sockets.
Teeth gritted, I compel the magic toward this side of the river one more time—and Salvatore bumps into one of the thinner top branches.
He’s at least conscious enough to reach out and grasp the wet bark. The current jostles him against the tapered trunk, and it sways with his weight.
How long will it hold?
I sprint the last several feet to the fallen tree.
I’m only a couple of paces from the trunk when the slick ground and my throbbing joints conspire to trip me up. My feet flip out from under me, and I land on my ass with a smack of pain up my tailbone.
Suppressing a whimper, I half scoot, half slide over the edge of the bank. The first plunge into the cold water shocks a good portion of the pain right out of me.
Engorged by a full day of hard rain, the river comes up to my waist after just the first couple of steps. The current pummels me, trying to flatten me against the trunk.
Several of the branches have already cracked off. I grip their stumps, shoving myself through the water toward Salvatore.
Halfway to him, I can’t touch the bottom of the river anymore. I switch to kicking while holding on to the tree to make sure I’m not caught up in the current.
My shoulder bangs against the trunk more than once, hard enough that I can feel the bruises forming, but I keep going. My steadying manta murmurs through my head.
I have all I need. I have all I need.
By the time I’m close enough to touch Salvatore, my fingers are tingling with pins and needles. I can’t tell whether it’s an effect of the energy I’ve expended or the frigid water—maybe a mix of both.
Salvatore has slumped over the narrow top of the trunk. His jacket flares around him in the current. He coughs and heaves a breath as if he’s struggling to get his bearings.
“Salvatore,” I call over the rushing water. “Come on. We’ve got to get you back to shore.”
I reach for more ephemera to help me guide him along, but it shudders away from my fingers with a lurch of my pulse.
Okay, I’m not getting much farther with magic tonight. We’ll just have to make this work the drab way.
I kick a little closer and let go of the tree with one hand to tuck my arm around Salvatore’s back. The buffeting of the current sends my hip smacking into his leg.
“Stupid fucking river,” Salvatore mutters. He stretches out his arm past me toward the next branch over, swaying as he bobs.
I do my best to support him as he edges a few inches over, and a few inches more. He grunts when the river slaps us with a heavier swell.
My waterlogged clothes drag at my limbs. I can’t imagine Salvatore’s jacket is doing him any favors, but getting it off while we’re still adrift seems like more trouble than it’s worth.
I’m casting out with one foot, hoping to feel where the riverbed is low enough for me to ground myself with it, when the tree trunk lets out a hollow groan.
With a creak and a snap, the upper section of the tree—the part we’re still clinging to—breaks off and swirls downriver.
The log drags us with it. The spin brings a branch careening toward our heads, and I dodge, yanking Salvatore with me as well as I can.
More twigs and bark slough off beneath my scrambling hands. With another spin, the crumbling chunk whips away from us completely.
Salvatore swears and sweeps his arms through the water, managing to keep himself upright. I tread as well as I can. As I push myself closer to him, I scan the dark banks for another lifeline to aim for.
Nothing catches my eyes. The ache of my exhaustion has seeped all the way into my lungs.
Out of desperation, I grope for even a thread of ephemera again. It wisps through my fingers, and a wave of pain radiates through my body.
We careen under another, much larger and higher bridge where the lights of the passing cars don’t penetrate the night far enough to touch us. They streak by like shooting stars.
My feet drag through the water. I dig one heel against the other and let my shoes fall away into the river’s depths.
It’s a small help but not enough to make a real difference.
I turn toward Salvatore. “Can you push us with magic? I’m worn out.”
He grimaces, and his head lists to one side. “Hard to concentrate. I keep… getting dizzy.”
His eyelids flutter closed for a few seconds. A deeper chill sets in, one that soaks all the way to my bones.
The river is only going to get rougher the farther we go as its smaller tributaries add to the rush. And then we’ll be swept right out into the vast lake, where the rip current could drag us right under.
I might be able to float with the worst of the current until it dissipates and then swim back to shore—might.
Salvatore looks like he could sink again any moment.
“Gotta… try…” he mutters, his forehead creasing beneath his soaked hair. The furrows deepen, a strangled noise reverberating from his throat.
Energy heaves into us, shoving us just a couple of feet to the right—and then spasms against my skin. I lurch forward instead of sideways.
Salvatore growls through his teeth. “Sorry. Sor—”
His voice dwindles out. His body dips in the water to his chin.
I cry out in alarm. “Don’t tire yourself out anymore. You need to be strong enough to keep swimming.”
He doesn’t answer. His features have slackened, his eyelids drooping shut.
His head bobs again, and I only just manage to catch him before his nose submerges.
Through fractured breaths, I push him into a back float. I tread alongside him, one hand nudging up his head when it dips, the other straining toward his hips.
There’s no way he’ll survive the lake’s current like this. No way I have the strength to keep both of us up.
I don’t even know if I can save myself. Every gulp of air burns in my lungs like fire while the cold sears my skin.
My gaze latches on Salvatore’s unconscious face. He looks so weak, so vulnerable.
My heart wrenches beyond any of the horrors of our immediate dilemma.
This isn’t how Salvatore is meant to look. He should be grinning his cocky grin, sauntering around like he owns every room he’s in—or could claim it if he wanted to. Gazing at me with a gleam of promise in his bright eyes, both adoring and hungry.
No, that was my Salvatore. This one… This one doesn’t know me even that well.
My Salvatore could have shifted the whole river to land us on the shore—
With his glim.
The glim that hasn’t woken up in this Salvatore yet.
I could change that.
The imagined scene of the warping river and the thrum of power that would come with Salvatore’s deepest gift stills my thoughts. Water splashes into my mouth before I realize my jaw’s gone slack.
I sputter and cough, my mind still reeling.
Activating his glim will boost his energy, jumpstart his mind. Could I really—?
Every nerve in my body recoils from the idea.
I can’t. I ruined everything the last time, for all of my matches. I can’t risk screwing up four more lives.
I can’t abandon the mates I inadvertently left behind.