The crackling from the meteor grew louder, and the heat grew against my back. Panic bubbled inside me, but we reached a cave near the river shore surrounding Vesitire’s main city.
Drystan grabbed my hand, hauling me inside. I gripped him just as desperately as we huddled into ourselves right as the blast into the river shook the ground, trembling from my feet through my whole body. I threw out a shield of magick over the cave entrance, hoping it would providesomeprotection.
The star pummeled into the water, which would have drowned us in an instant if it flooded into this cave. My body tightened at the force battering against my magick, and for a moment I thought it would shatter through. The crashing against it felt endless, pushing and pushing against me.
“You can hold it,” Drystan said, his voice a soft encouragement barely audible through the chaos.
He held me tightly, and the firm assurance of not being alone gave me strength enough to keep holding on with everything I had.
“I can’t… hold it…” I said between strained breaths.
“You can let go now, but brace yourself,” he said.
I didn’t need to be told twice when magick was burning through my veins. I only managed one breath of relief before my next held as water swallowed us.Neither of us anticipated the low wave would still be enough to knock us off balance and send us drifting deeper into the cave.
The water wasn’t high enough to swim, and I could only let the shallow current take me until it ran out. Or, as our unlucky streak would have it, until we slammed into a wall and the remaining wave continued around the bend.
The water only lapped up to my elbows and thighs as I was on all fours, drawing breath with sharp adrenaline as I feared more water could come crashing through the cave at any moment.
“I’ve never enjoyed swimming,” Drystan said; the pain in his voice drew my attention to him.
His boots sloshed through the mercifully shallowing water toward me before he leaned down and I accepted his aid to stand. Drystan studied me head to toe.
“Your head is bleeding,” he said, not in concern but like that was a hindrance to our plan.
“Don’t get any ideas,” I muttered, pulling away.
Drystan chuckled dryly. “Believe it or not, I don’t turn into a bloodthirsty beast at the scent of a little blood. Even yours.”
“Good to know.”
“Though it does make me irritable to crave it.”
“I’m not offering,” I grumbled, touching the wound past my hairline at my temple.
“Fine. I’ll just have to find a snack when we get out of here.”
I tried to focus my hearing, but my pulse was still erratic and loud. Every sound of water kept my adrenaline on a razor’s edge. “Please tell me we planned to go this way and that there’s another exit.”
“This takes us under the second level of the city.”
That would be a few hours in this dark, wet cave. I shuddered, trying not to let my spirit sink.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this entrance before?”
“Because if you had a sure way in you wouldn’t have waited a week.”
He… might have been right about that. Though I wouldn’t admit it.
“I don’t think I like swimming either,” I said, shivering at the cold water seeping into my skin.
“It’s being trapped you don’t like,” he said. “You can’t swim, but you did enjoy shallow lakes, especially in summer before that gloriously warm season became more and more fleeting, year by year. Don’t you remember?”
My heart skipped because Drystan remembered such insignificant things about me.
He shut the door of amity that he’d let creep open before I could reply. “Come on. The faster we are, the less time we’ll spend in here.”
I had no choice despite my fear of confinement. Wehadto get inside the city and rescue Eltanin. My teeth bashed together and my steps were slower than those of Drystan, who marched confidently through the shallow water.
