Terror choked Ramson. The darkness was absolute. He had no direction.
No,he thought, and the phantoms of his mind dispersed. By whatever means he’d met Jonah—coincidence, fate, or the Deities—it wasn’t Jonah’s death that his friend would have wanted him to remember.
It was what Jonah had taught him when he was alive.
Swim.The voice came to him, so real that Ramson opened his eyes. But instead of a pale-faced, dark-haired boy, there was a girl in front of him: a brave, selfless, and stubborn girl who had worked her way into his heart, by Jonah’s side.
He would not lose her.
Not again.
Swim,came the voice, but this time, it was his own.
Ramson kicked out. The currents were dragging her away, down to where it grew darker. She thrashed, her gown puffing out around her, pulling her down.
A sharp pain cut across his forearm and he flinched, lashing out to grab whatever it was that had bit him.
An arrow.
Another whizzed past him, and another. Archers. Those bastards werereallyintent on killing them.
The best way, Ramson knew, to escape archers was to swim deeper. The arrows decelerated within a yard of hitting the surface of water; he and Ana stood a better chance of surviving if they remained underwater and let the river carry them far enough.
He swam toward Ana. Her arms flailed erratically, but her movements grew weaker. One more kick, and he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her deeper.
They needed to stay submerged until the archers thought them dead—but there was another problem: they needed to breathe.
Ana opened her mouth. Bubbles drifted up; he felt her spasms against his chest. The lessons drilled into him from Bregon’s Blue Fort ran through his mind. Her lungs were expanding, drawn by the irresistible desire for oxygen. Water was rushing in. Soon she would lose consciousness. And after that, her heart would stop.
His own lungs burned with the need for air, and his legs grew weaker with every kick. As a recruit for the Navy, he was trained to handle water and resist the yearning to draw in breath. He’d trained in the iciest waters in the middle of winter, building up his tolerance.
But even a Navy recruit could not defy the odds of nature.
Arrows be damned—they would drown first if they stayed like this.
Ramson kicked out.Up, up.But which way was up? His head spun, and the currents slapped harder, grew frothier.
Was that light? He needed to breathe. He needed to find out which way was up. Bubbles—he needed bubbles. They would lead him up. But letting out even the tiniest breath might drown him faster.
Ramson struggled against the darkness clouding his vision and opened his mouth.
And burst through the surface. Cold air rushed into his lungs, and he sucked in deep, blissful mouthfuls. Then, panting, he turned to Ana.
Her head bobbed in the water. Her mouth was open, but her eyes were closed; he couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
Crushing down his terror, Ramson tucked her chin over his shoulder and made for shore.
The swim to the bank was arduous in itself; the river stretched over a hundred yards wide, and the shore seemed to draw farther away with each kick. Ramson swam with the current, focusing on keeping his and Ana’s head above the water.
At long last, he reached the frozen bank and hauled himself and Ana up through the mud and snow. Far off, no larger than the palm of his hand, the lights of the Kateryanna Bridge shimmered hazily. His muscles begged for rest; it would have been so easy to lie down for a few minutes.
But Ramson turned to Ana. His hands shook from more than just the cold as he touched a finger to her lips.
Not breathing. He’d expected it, but hope did foolish things to a man’s head.
Ramson knelt by her side and placed his hands on her chest, one over the other. And then, counting the beats silently, he began to pump.One, two, three, four…
He wanted, more than anything, to beat the ground with his fists and scream, but Ramson forced himself to count a steady rhythm to his compressions.
