Page 102 of Ravenrose

My instincts are screaming at me and I try; I really do. When I attempt to stand, my legs won’t hold me. So I crawl.

Light.

I barely make it a few feet before my body reaches its limit. My legs collapse under me at the shoreline, the gravel of the riverbank the last thing I see before darkness claims me.

Chapter 45

ROWAN

Iwake with a violent shiver, startling further at the darkness surrounding me.

Disoriented, I lift my head, cringing immediately away from the heavy pounding inside before somehow finding the strength to push myself up out of the thick mud of the riverbank. My arms strain with the effort.

Gods, what I would do for a feather mattress to sink into instead.

My body is weak and slow to respond, as if the icy water stole away all its energy.

I’m half submerged in water, my clothes soaked through and freezing. The cool breeze of the night air feels like a whip against my skin, eliciting another violent shiver that rips through my entire body.

I glance around.

Trees.

Endless trees.

We’re deep in the forest; the river potentially dragged us miles further south.

I shake off another shiver, crawling further up the river bank until I’m fully out of the water, ignoring the pain screaming through my shoulder.

Glancing back at the river, I can see where the narrow stream of rapids spills out in a rush into a wider basin of water. The current slows into something deceptively calm, the surface of the water glassy, reflecting the silvery glow of the moon high above.

Unrecognizable. It’s so peaceful and serene, despite having just tried to violently drown me.

I cough hard, expelling more water still from my abused lungs, and I can feel every breath I take, each one an extra effort; my body doesn’t quite seem to remember how to breathe properly yet. I sit there for a long moment while I catch my breath. My eyes scan the riverbank again, catching on something dark in the water.

I go still.

Ayer.

He’s a few yards downstream from me. Eyes closed—passed out, maybe. Not dead. I’m not that lucky. His body lies half submerged in the shallows, wrapped around a thick log, which keeps his head propped out of the water.

The tide has crept up while we’ve been out, and his face is just barely above water.

Barely.

The log sits precariously along the shoreline, shifting in the gentle current—unstable. Any minor disturbance in the water threatens to dislodge it.

I swallow hard, remembering the feeling of his arm around me in the water. The river tried to wrench me from him, to take back what it had already claimed, but he never relented.

He never let go.

Why?

The question circles in my mind as I stare at him. I don’t dare move, lest it wake him. My eyes dart back toward the tree line, silently calculating how much of a head start I might get if I could slip away undetected into the woods—assuming he does, in fact, live.

That log… One strong wave and it will slip free, taking the captain with it.

Backing away, my eyes stay vigilant, scanning every inch of him for the slightest hint of movement as I move further away. If he so much as twitches a pinky, I’m bolting.