Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“ H ave you been to the river yet?” Mara yells to me as we make our way toward the center of the island. I’d seen the river when I first arrived, flowing from the lush waterfalls coming off the mountain and splitting the island in two. From the quick look, I knew some parts seemed calmer than others, but either way, I want to stay far away from it.
“No,” I yell back. “Dane and I started our tour on the other side of camp.”
Noise from the canyon ahead gets louder as we approach. I don’t know where along the course of the river we are approaching, but it must be somewhere near rapids. The closer we get, the more the roar of the water drowns out her voice, making it hard to hear her warnings.
“I know this part looks dangerous, but don’t let the parts that look tame fool you. There’s a nasty undercurrent, and all kinds of creatures that lurk beneath the surface.”
“Stay out of the water. Got it. ”
“We’re going to need to cross. I want to search the other side today.” She points across the way, and I notice a difference in the trees. It is odd, as if this side of the river is tropical, and the other side is more like the forests back home. “There’s a bridge a little farther down. Follow me.”
She jogs closer to the edge, and I follow, paying attention to my feet and staying far from the cliff. At one point, I make the mistake of getting a little too close and slightly lean over the edge to peek, and my stomach drops. The canyon is deep, and the crashing water below could easily throw me against the rocks and pull me beneath the surface.
Nope. I need to stay away from there.
A few minutes pass and I am feeling breathless from the jogging when I see a crossing in the distance.
I gape at the structure I’m expected to cross. “ That’s the bridge?”
I was expecting something made of stone, something sturdy that didn’t look like I was about to fall to my death.
No.
This bridge looks like it would snap with a strong wind. The plank steps that had definitely seen better days, are spaced out and held together by thick ropes, with thick rope sidings to hold on to. This bridge barely looks like it could hold the weight of one person, let alone two. The river below it is much calmer than the rapids farther upstream, but with Mara’s warning of the undercurrent, it doesn’t give me any more confidence.
“What, are you scared?”
“Actually, yes,” I say matter-of-factly. “Now is probably a bad time to mention that I can’t swim.”
She chuckles at my admission. “Not being able to swim is the least of your worries. Even if you could, those guys wouldn’t let you swim far.”
I peer over the edge to see the stuff of nightmares. Huge, deep green reptiles fill the calm water below. Long, sharp yellow teeth stick out of their mouths at all angles, and red beady eyes follow any movement we make. Some are floating calmly, while others gnash their teeth, jaws snapping at another in a fight for some unknown prize .
I’d seen artist renditions of dragons and other non-existent creatures, but these…I can’t believe what I am seeing. Nor can I believe that I’m supposed to calmly walk across a death trap of a bridge above these creatures, just to search the other side of the island. At least they are all the way down there, and we’re up here.
“Just whatever you do, don’t stop on the bridge, and don’t look down,” Mara says as she strides confidently over to the entrance.
I suck in a breath, and nod in agreement, mostly trying to psych myself up rather than acknowledging her, since she isn’t even looking at me anymore. I push my fear of water far from my mind and try to focus only on getting to the other side.
Mara takes the lead, stepping onto the planks of the bridge and grasping the ropes with each step. Her directions to me were dripping with confidence, but I can see the whites of her knuckles from her tight grip.
“Should I wait until you get across to go?” I call after her.
She doesn’t turn around but yells back at me. “Yes!”
In a few breathless minutes of watching her feet steadily step on each plank, she finally reaches the other side. She turns back and waves her hand at me, signaling my turn.
If I thought I was breathless watching her, it is nothing compared to the way I feel knowing it is now my turn.
I step up to the edge and try not to look down at the river below, but fail. The beasts are still laying across the surface, some on top of each other, and others swimming in small circles around the rest of the group. It’s like they are waiting for me to make a misstep, to be their next meal.
I wonder if anyone ever has.
I tightly grasp the rope on each side, trying to mimic Mara’s sure steps in the center of each plank. The first few steps I take slowly and carefully, doing my best not to jostle the bridge or do anything that will cause me to lose my balance. It takes a second to adjust. The planks are nothing like the stone hallways I walk across every day, and these are even more flimsy than the walkways back at camp. Plus, there’s no net to catch anyone if they fall.
“Don’t look down!” Mara yells.
I keep moving, one plank at a time, keeping my eyes trained on the patch of land on the other side. I’ve made it halfway. A rush of confidence fills me, and I keep going, keeping my pace and thinking of nothing else but the solid ground on the other side.
A loud creak breaks my focus.
I barely have time to register the sound before I am weightless, falling straight down into the hole where the plank had snapped beneath me.
A scream pierces my ears, and I barely even realize it is my own. I don’t have time to do anything but react, throwing my arms out in front of me and trying to grasp anything that will keep me on this bridge. My fingers claw at the next plank before gaining purchase, and the weight of my body catches up with me as I jerk toward the river.
“Lennox!” I hear Mara scream, but I can’t see her. All I can see are the planks before me and the wood I am so desperately trying to cling to.
I hear splashing below but refuse to look down. I clamp down hard on the splintered wood, begging the gods that this plank will hold. I try to swing my leg up toward the rope and let out a gasp as the pain in my side from being kicked and dragged prevents me from getting anywhere close.
Fuck.
I am totally fucked.
I make the mistake of looking down at the horror that is in the river.
The monsters below that have been waiting and watching are now clambering up, piling on top of each other, snarling and gnashing, trying to get to me. The pile they have created creeps closer and closer to my dangling feet, and I realize their sheer size makes the depth of the canyon a lot smaller than I thought before.
Then they start jumping.
Climbing closer and pushing off with their massive legs, snapping their jaws at my feet with their eyes focused on their prey .
I scream and turn away, focusing back on the bridge and trying to figure out how to get back up. My muscles burn and my fingers start to slip as I try to heave myself up. I fight with every ounce of my strength to get my chest up and over the edge of the plank.
The sound of jaws snapping is right below me, and I feel one of them hit the bottom of my boot. I pull my legs up toward my chest, my ribs screaming at me, my fingers begging me to let go.
No.
It is not supposed to happen this way. I am not supposed to die like this. If I fail, here and now, my kingdom wouldn’t only be without a queen, but my mother’s fate would surely be sealed.
I guess I never thought that someone could die in a magical land like Dawnlin, but I was wrong. Someone could, and that someone could be me. I wouldn’t have a fighting chance if I fall into the rushing river without these monsters, let alone with them. But here I am, dangling by my fingertips above a river I don’t know how to swim in, trying to escape the mouth of a beast that I never would have believed existed except in the depths of my nightmares.
I don’t want to let Edmond or Brynne down. I don’t want to let my mother down. No one in Blackwood would ever know what happened to me, because Dane doesn’t know who I am. He can’t go back and tell any of them, tell the king his daughter fell to her death trying to save the mother she never knew.
I need to try. Another of Edmond’s lessons pops into my head, making me adjust my grip on the board and squeeze tighter.
If I am going to fail, I am going to fail trying.
I take a deep breath and pull with everything I have. I move forward, edging over the plank when I am stopped abruptly.
Fuck!
The end of the bow I have draped over my body caught on the rope, lodging itself between it and the plank and keeping me held down.
I can’t pull myself up with it stuck, but if I let go, to try to get it off, it might be the last thing I do. I feel another small bump on my boot and a snapping that follows, so I kick my feet wildly, trying to ward off the next beast that gets close.
I’m out of time.
I let go with one hand and quickly reach up and pull the bow over my head, dropping it in the river below. My other hand slips even more, my entire body being held up by the strength of my fingers. I stretch forward, grasping for a knot in the rope, something I can grab and use as leverage. My fingertips brush it, stretch to close that tiny gap. I feel my strength starting to wane and panic washes over me.
This is it. It’s the end.
I hope Edmond and Tila and Brynne know how much I love them.
I hope Dane finds the cure.
I hope they remember me.
Suddenly, fingers wrap around my free hand and hold them tightly.
“Lennox! Hang on!”
Mara.
She’s come for me.
She didn’t have to. Minutes ago, she hated me, and after we talked, for all I knew, she barely even liked me. It would be easy to let me fall and let the island claim my death. It would mean less competition for her, not only for the cure, but for Dane, too.
But she didn’t.
Her fingers move to grasp my wrist and she commands me to do the same.
“I got you! You need to let go and grab my other hand.”
“I can’t let go!” I yell at her, panic lacing my screams.
“You don’t have a choice!”
I look down at the monsters below me and know she’s right. Her grip tightens as I release the board, turning my hand to clasp her arm. She jolts forward, all of my weight and my life in her hands. She pushes both feet against the knots in the rope before she leans backward, pulling me up and over the edge. I clamber up and away from the hole, my chest heaving and heart pounding furiously.
“We need to get off the bridge,” Mara yells as she glances over the side, watching the monsters still jumping and snapping at us.
Scrambling to my feet, I take off behind her, neither of us taking our time like before. Our only goal is to get off this bridge as fast as possible. I am stumbling. My body is not fast enough to keep up with my mind, but I will my feet to keep moving and beg the bridge to hold.
The second my feet hit solid ground, I throw myself onto the floor and roll to my back, gasping for air.
“That was fucking terrifying,” I pant. I can see Mara out of the corner of my eye, hands on her knees and head hanging, also sucking in her breaths.
“I saved your ass,” she says between breaths. “Leave it to the newbie to get herself into trouble like that on her first day out.”
I point back at the bridge. “That was not my fault. Why would you want to cross that death trap?”
“It’s been fine for years. The planks have never broken before.” She straightens and rests her hands on the top of her head. “Guess you’re just lucky.”
“If that’s lucky, I don’t want to find out what unlucky is.” My breathing slows, and I stare up at the bright blue sky, trying to work up the courage to ask Mara a question.
“Why did you come back for me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I say as I push myself up, sitting with my legs still sprawled out in front of me. “You could have left me there. You could have let me fall. It would have been easy, and I wouldn’t have been in your way anymore.”
She sits quietly for a moment, thinking. “I almost did,” she admits. “But I thought about my mom, and I know that isn’t the person she raised me to be. I’m not cruel. You needed me, so I helped. Plus,” she adds, “ Dane would have killed me if something happened to you on your first day and that definitely would have ruined my chances with him.”
I burst out laughing and catch a smile spreading across her face.
“Way to lighten the mood,” I say with a smile.
“It had to be done. Besides,” she replies as she stands up, brushing the dirt off her pants. “We don’t hurt our own.”
She reaches a hand down to me and pulls me up. “We still have a lot of day ahead of us, so no use dwelling on all of this. That won’t help us find the cure.”
She is right. This whole event has completely shaken me to my core and opened up my eyes to the dangers that Dawnlin possesses. It makes sense though, that the island is full of peril, making anyone here have to earn what they sought. That’s how getting here was. It was a challenge. It had to be put together and discovered. It wasn’t just handed to you with easy directions. There is now nothing that made me think finding the elixir was going to be any different.
“What are we waiting for?”