“Then you leave me no choice,” he said, marching straight up to her and pulling her into his arms, holding her tightly against him. He leaned into her, and she thought he was going to kiss her. Her eyes drifted to his mouth, but he didn’t move closer.
“What are you doi—AHHHHHH!” Solveig screamed as Westley lifted her and took a running leap off the cliff. They soared through the air, Solveig clinging to Westley as tightly as he was holding on to her.
“Grab the rope with me,” he yelled in her ear.
“I hate you,” she spat at him, trying to adjust her hold without plummeting to her death.
“This was your idea!” he yelled back.
Solveig cursed repeatedly as loud as she could as the wall of rock loomed closer and closer.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, Westley thought.
Didn’t think this through, did you?she yelled in his mind.
And you did?
I’m not the one who threw us off the godsdamned cliff with no warning!
Seconds. They had only seconds in the air before they’d be smashed against the hard rock face.
Solveig closed her eyes and braced for impact when Westley tightened his arms and rotated them. Her eyes flew open just as his back took the brunt of the wall and a horrible cracking sound reverberated throughhis spine. The breath was knocked out of her, her eyes dizzy as pain radiated through her back.
“Westley!” she yelled, her own body stiff from the aftershock of the impact.
She didn’t know if the gods were still on their side, but she thanked them anyway as her feet found purchase on a narrow ledge. Her gratitude was short-lived when the prince’s body slumped. She held him to her, bending under his weight while trying to hold him up against the wall.
“Don’t be dead, don’t be dead.” He didn’t move. “Damn it, Prince, I told you that you’ll only die by my hand, and this does not count!” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks.
She waited a few seconds, but when he still didn’t respond, terror gripped her. “You cannot do this. We have unfinished business, and if you do not wake up right now I am going to murder you,” she said again, trying to jostle him.
With more force than she meant to use, she accidentally slammed his body into the rock, smacking his head against the hard surface. His head lolled forward onto her shoulder. She didn’t know what to do.
She couldn’t leave him here, but the precarious ledge they were standing on could give out any minute. As if her thoughts had willed the situation into being, the rocks beneath her feet began to crumble.
“No, no, no, no,” she cursed.
“S’okay, Sol, I have you,” a voice whispered in her ear as his arm brought her closer to him.
“West? Oh, fuck you. I thought you were dead!”
“S’no way to talk to the dead.”
“Fuck you,” she said again with a barely contained laugh. “We have to shuffle sideways a bit. Do you think youcould do that?”
“Give me a minute and I’ll shuffle wherever you tell me to,” he mumbled, resting his forehead in the crook of her neck, his breath making her skin tingle.
“Hate to break it to you, but we don’t have a minute.” Her arms were still around him and she could quite literally feel his body stitching itself back together.
“How are you doing that?” she asked him as they moved slowly together.
“Doing what?” he asked, voice still weak.
“Healing so fast.”
“I’m not.”
“What?” She tried to pull away to see his face, but that threw them off balance and he gripped her tightly.
