Page 101 of Ravenrose

For one disoriented heartbeat, I think he’s found me.

The Raven.

The shadow demon that has stalked my nightmares since I was a child. It took my mother, and now it’s back for me.

Fingers tighten around my wrist. Real fingers. Not shadow or hallucination—real. Pulling me back. Pulling me up.

My eyes fly open, and the darkness appears to part just as something else wraps around my waist, strong and unyielding. An arm, I realize through blurred vision.

It drags me upward until I break through the surface. Sunlight chases off the last of the shadows, and I’m coughing and choking, sputtering as my lungs reject water in favor of air.

Air.

The arm wrapped around my waist keeps me above the surface long enough to take a solid breath, giving my body much-needed oxygen.

A wave crashes hard over my head, and I’m dragged back up again, the arm tightening around my waist as my vision clears, and a violent gasp escapes me.

Ayer.

I can barely register the sight of him next to me before we’re pulled back underwater by the relentless current. I panic, not wanting to revisit the icy dark I’d almost been lost in.

Ayer drags us back up to the surface, keeping me pressed hard to his chest. Using the last of my strength, I cling to him, my fingers digging into his soaked leathers.

“I’ve got you,” he breathes out roughly, as he fights to keep us both above water.

The current slams us hard against another submerged boulder as if trying to break us apart. But he doesn’t let go. Not even as the river twists and turns, trying to wrench me from his grip—to reclaim the life he stole—but Ayer never lets go.

The rapids finally give way to rough waves, and at last, the violent rolls of water quiet as the river widens, the current losing strength.

No longer completely at the river’s mercy, Ayer swims diagonally for shore with one arm. The other, he keeps firmly wrapped around me.

I barely have the strength to hold on.

Relief crashes through me when his boots finally hit bottom, finding purchase and finally halting our descent downstream. He doesn’t relinquish his grip as he half-carries, half-drags me into the shallows. When all four of my limbs are on solid land, he lets me go. I collapse, and so does he.

My hands sink into the deep silt of the river’s edge. Every muscle in my body shakes as I cough and convulse, and there’s a sharp pain in my chest as my body ejects all the dark water I swallowed, again and again until my breaths even out and the pain eases.

With trembling arms, I push myself up until I’m resting on my knees, still sitting in a few inches of water by the shoreline. The water laps around me in soft, gentle waves, nothing like what we just experienced further upstream.

For a moment I just sit there. And breathe.

In and out. In and out. Gods, I have a whole new appreciation for air.

Speaking of…

I look up, glancing around me—searching until I find him.

Ayer.

He’s on his back, not far from where I sit. Half on shore, eyes closed, his chest moving up and down.

He jumped in after me.

Whether to save me or prevent my escape… I don’t know. Though, likely the latter.

My gaze lifts higher, to the tree line.

Run.