I can feel the emptiness in her chest. The faint, stuttering echo of her dra-kir against mine—then nothing.
For a heartbeat, fear almost paralyzes me.
No, you do not leave now. I have only just found you.
I turn and kick for the surface.
The water fights me all the way. The current claws at my legs. My new weight drags at me. The pain in my groin pulses with every stroke.
I roar bubbles into the water and let my glow blaze brighter.
I pour it into her.
I push the light out of my skin and into hers, willing my fire to leap the small gap between our bodies and catch in her blood.
Live, I order.Live.
My head breaks the surface in a spray of water and light.
I suck in air that tastes like steam and rot.
I don’t stop. I keep kicking, hauling us toward the lowest slope near Ain’s beam, the only place where stone meets water gently enough to climb.
My knees scrape rock.
I claw at the ledge, dragging us out, my claws slipping on the slime-slick surface until they finally catch enough for me to haul her onto the stone with me and roll her onto her back.
“Mih-kay-lah!”
Her face is gray and slack. Her chest is still.
I press my ear to her ribs.
Nothing.
No beat. No rhythm. Only a terrible, yawning quiet.
“No,” my voice trembles in the mindspace. “No.”
I do not know human healer tricks. I have not learned how to coax breath into still lungs.
But I know that air cannot enter while the water remains.
I grab her shoulder and hip and roll her onto her side, almost all the way over. I strike between her shoulder blades with the heel of my claw.
Hard.
Nothing.
I hit her again, harder, a blow that would stagger a trained fighter. “Out,” I snarl. “Get it out.”
Water spills from her mouth, a thin stream onto the stone. Her body twitches once, then goes limp again.
She is so still. The lack of air has stolen the life-color from her rich skin.
I turn her back and drag her up against my chest, pulling her into my lap. I wrap my arms around her, crushing her to me.
Burn, I order my blood.
