Chapter 30
The Child of a Fallen
Steel wrapped around me, squeezing tight, crushing me.
No, it was lifting me. Pulling me up.
Then I was lying flat on something jagged. My body had weight again.
Breath from someone else filled my lungs, pushing the water up until it poured out of my mouth and nose.
I shot up with a gasp and a scream. My hands found someone else’s wet shirt and clung to it as if it were a lifeline.
“You’re okay,” Soren said over my sobs. He pulled me closer, one hand on the back of my head. “I’ve got you.”
I was shaking so hard it bordered on convulsing. His promise meant nothing to me because I’d almost died the last time he had me.
When I finally regained all five of my senses and control of my muscles, I shoved him hard with both hands. But it sent me backward as he didn’t budge. My body scooted and scraped over the rough surface of the massive rock he’d thrown me down on.
“Why are you trying to kill me?!” I screamed. Snot flew out with my spit as I spewed a string of curse words at him. “You said you wouldn’t let anything hurt me!”
I slid across a mossy patch on the stone, my leg screaming in protest as a sharp edge shaved off a layer of skin, but I still kept trying to kick and shove to get away from Soren.
“You’re going to fall in again if you don’t calm down.” His long arm reached out and snatched hold of my elbow, pulling me back to him.
Warm liquid pooled under me. I’d either pissed myself or was bleeding from a fresh injury.
One glance to my right, and I saw that we were on a boulder in the middle of an underground lake.
Not entirely underground. We were barely inside the mouth of a large cave.
The rest of the lake sprawled out for as far as I could see, shimmering under a sunny blue sky.
No other land was within immediate reach.
Great. Now he can just throw me off and kill me all over again.
My hand searched for the abrasion on the underside of my thigh to simultaneously abate the pain, assess the damage, and stop any unruly bleeding. I squeezed hard, trying not to wince or make it noticeable that I was hurt.
“I wasn’t trying to kill you,” Soren said, voice lower now that he didn’t have to outdo my belting. “I didn’t know you couldn’t swim.”
I looked back at him through a film of tears. He wore a new expression that didn’t quite fit him. Brows knitted together, eyes wide, the black in his irises swirled to more of a gray. His mouth parted ever so slightly, and he was visibly breathing. He looked surprisingly human.
I wiped at the snot coming from my nose with the wet arm that wasn’t holding my leg.
“I wouldn’t have let go if I’d known,” he said.
He moved closer and pried the wet hair away from my forehead and cheek. Then he looked down at my injured leg. Soren wrapped his hand around my forearm and slowly pried my hand away.
Blood soaked my palm, my skin-tight training pants, and the wet rock beneath.
Without a word, Soren peeled off his soaked T-shirt and ripped it into a long, black strip of cloth. Then he tied his now-shredded shirt around my wound.
I lost eye contact as soon as he reached for his shirt and couldn’t bring myself to look at him again. So, I occupied my attention with the shimmering surface of the slick stone that had so rudely attacked me a few moments ago.
Soren was too close, half-naked, and touching me again as he tried to cover the wound beneath my thigh.
“We have to swim a bit further to get to the bank on the other side of this tunnel,” he said. His steady voice clearly indicated he had no trouble controlling his body’s reaction to our touching. “You can just hold onto me.”
I shook my head. It felt like being on an amusement park ride where they refused to stop it just because one kid was screaming and crying. No way could I hold onto him and his naked body! I’d take my chances with death by drowning, which were nearly 100%.
Soren didn’t argue with me. Instead, he scrambled down the rock a bit until he was standing half-submerged in the water but close enough to reach me. He held out a hand and waited, dark eyes on me.
I wiped my hands over my face. It got rid of the snot and tears, sure, but now I was probably covered in grime from the mossy stone.
I shook my head again.
“I’m not going anywhere else with you.”
Soren sighed.
“I know you can’t swim now,” he said. “That won’t happen again.”
“What if you don’t know that I’m allergic to being eaten by sharks?” I snarled and kept both hands firmly planted on the rock.
The narrowing of his eyes was his only response. He waved his extended hand slightly, gesturing that he was still waiting for me to take hold of it.
“You can’t stay here.” His tone dropped back to its more customary growl. “Either come with me voluntarily or by force. Choose.”
“Prick,” I muttered.
When I didn’t move, he stepped forward once more, and I had a sneaking suspicion I wouldn’t like the ‘by force’ method. So, I took his hand, and he helped me back into the water, catching me this time and not letting me do the whole sinking-like-a-rock thing again.
“Put your arms around my neck,” Soren said gently.
He turned away from me as he guided one arm over his shoulder. I brought the other around, clinging to his back. While trying to look anywhere else but at his naked upper half, I squashed any curiosity to study the black markings stretching up toward his shoulders.
He started in a slow, steady swim deeper into the cave, always near the surface. I was thankful for him being the silent type, because at least he didn’t ask me a bunch of questions about my fear of heights or why I couldn’t swim. I hated it when people wanted obvious answers to obvious questions.
We moved deeper in, and the light from the mouth of the cave faded. Still, the watery tunnel never seemed to get any darker. Instead, the light changed from a greenish white to a spread of rainbows.
It was completely involuntary when my mouth dropped open, and I whispered, “Wow.”
Multicolored gems sparkled from the surface of the rock arching over us.
It looked like a starry night fell into an artist’s palette and rolled around.
The only sound in the cave was the swish of the water as Soren paddled through it, so my whispered admiration echoed off that multicolored starscape and back to us.
“The River of the Twelve,” Soren said. His own deep voice reverberated in the chamber, filling up the space with his presence. “Do you like it?”
I nodded. He couldn’t see that, obviously, so I hummed my yes.
The rest of the swim was silent, Soren offering no further explanation for the beauty around us.
Eventually, a whiter light ahead came into view.
As we neared the end of the tunnel, Soren turned to take a sharp right toward a little cliff that jutted out from the wall and formed a pathway toward the exit.
“We can walk up from here,” he said. “Otherwise, Adriel will tease you until the day you die about this.” I heard a hint of a laugh at the end of his words, and he helped me scramble up onto the bank.
We ambled in silence again—me hobbling and not daring to glance in his direction, and him hovering close but not touching me—until I heard Adriel laughing maniacally. “What took you two so long? Finally decided to go for it, Soren? No more using Mar—”
Adriel doubled over without finishing, thanks to Marigold kneeing him in the groin.
“Did you get hurt?” Matthias asked, pushing past Adriel and knocking him over in the process.
“Small scrape,” I mumbled, narrowing my eyes at him and trying to walk past without showing I was in pain.
“Want me to carry you?” Matthias continued as he kept pace with me. His tone was innocent, but I didn’t miss how Salah’s eyes widened before she looked away.
“No,” Soren answered, stepping between Matthias and me. “Don’t lay a finger on her.”
That was when I got my first full look at the markings on his back—a set of unbelievably intricate wings that ran from the top of his shoulder blades down to his hips, dipping under the waistband of his pants.
Now that I wasn’t enamored by glittering gems in cave walls, my attention reveled in the black lines stretching across his skin.
The wings rippled over the muscles like they were ready to take flight.
My fingers itched to reach out and touch the markings as if they might burst from his skin any moment.
Fortunately, Matthias’s voice pulled me back to reality and the fact that touching Soren was a bad, bad idea.
“Alright, Papi,” Matthias said in a light pitch as he stepped back. “I get it. She’s yours. I was only trying to help.”
My stomach tightened.
She’s yours.
Then Farren shouted from ahead, “Let’s get going. We still have an hour’s walk before we reach camp.”
We all started tottering after her. Well, I tottered. Everyone else trudged.
Soren leaned over and asked if I wanted him to carry me.
I, of course, retorted with a fast and acidic, “No!” and then a somewhat calmer, “I’m fine. Thanks.”
The next hour felt like three. My feet chafed in my wet boots, running through a gauntlet of irritation, burning, and numbness.
My injured thigh throbbed. My damp clothes dragged with friction.
And Soren hovered menacingly, ready to throw me over his shoulder at any moment if I failed to move fast enough.
I was grateful to zone out halfway through and finish the hike in a daze.
I almost missed that everyone else had stopped.
I’d made it halfway through the clearing when Salah called out to me, “Eliana! Over here!”
She grabbed a tote off the top of a massive pile of long, dark bags to my right at the clearing’s edge.
“What is this?” I asked, stumbling toward her.
“Our weapons,” she grunted as she tossed one to the ground and unzipped it to reveal a sleek black crossbow.
I practically dove for the weapon. No one else had been using bows during our training thus far, but I wasn’t taking any chances of someone stealing the one weapon I felt comfortable using.