It feels like whatever power moved that day doesn’t want anything more to do with me.
And yet–Ifeelit, still. The pressure of a weight I can’t name, humming like a constant thread in my mind, telling me I should be making progress.
Footsteps crunch behind me, and I don’t have to turn to know it’s him, the scent of him floating on the wind to me. Sharp cedar, like a freshly chopped tree.
Torryn doesn’t speak at first as I turn in the river to stare at him. He stops a few paces from me on the edge of the bank and waits, arms crossed and an expression carved from patience I don’t currently have the grace to appreciate.
“You’ve been in the river for hours,” he finally says, voice low.
“Maybe I like being here,” I counter gruffly while crossing my ownarms.
There’s a pause. Then, “You’re yelling at the river. I don’t think that’s a sign of enjoying yourself, Wren.”
I grimace as my eyes fall to the river. “She’s ignoring me, so I thought I’d try to wake her up.”
He bends down to roll up his pants to his knees before wading into the river. He doesn’t come as deep as I am, merely wades nearby in the shallow edge.
“You can’t force yourself to understand,” he says quietly. “You’ll remember who and what you are with time.”
My throat tightens.
“I don't have time,” I snap, feeling my unease growing as a visceral tightness in my chest. “I’m doing everything I can to–”
“Wren, take a breath.” His voice is steady as he cuts me off. “That’s the problem. You’re trying to brute-force something that I don’t think can be forced. It’s just adding to your frustration.”
I glance at him sharply, the sunlight catching on the planes of his face. His golden eyes are softer now as I force myself to take a deep breath.
My hands drop to curl into fists in the flowing water.
He’s right, but it doesn’t change the heavy weight of impending doom I feel.
“I feel it, Torryn,” I whisper. “Something is coming. Something iswrong. I don’t know what it is, but it’s close. I feel it but I can’t explain why.”
Torryn is quiet for a long moment, the current curling around his shins. A crow calls in the trees behind us, distant and sharp, followed by the low rustle of branches shifting overhead. The sky presses in–too open, too blue, like it’s pretending nothing is wrong.
“There was a…skirmish.”
“Where?” I ask, the word rushed out in a quick breath as my pulse quickens with the news.
“Vampire territory,” he says hesitantly. “South Carolina border.”
The sound of the river dulls beneath the roar in my ears as my stomach tightens. “Riven’s region.”
Torryn nods once, the movement stiff. “Yeah.”
My shoulders slump forward. The water feels colder as I ask softly, “Were there casualties?”
He hesitates briefly, as if mulling over how to word his response. “Some nests were caught while they were sleeping.” A pause. “They weren’t expecting a coordinated hit from small teams like that all over the edge of the state. We blindly assumed humans would always move in large, brute forces.”
My lungs don’t seem to know what to do…pull tight, hold, let go. I take a shallow breath that doesn’t help at all.
“And Riven?” The question falls out in a whisper, sharp and uninvited. “Is he–”
“He’s fine,” Torryn cuts in before I can finish. “Nothing in this world could take out that bastard.”
The knot in my chest doesn’t loosen entirely. I press my palms flat to the river’s surface, focusing on the lapping against my skin in an attempt to anchor the tremble that’s started in my hands.
“I knew something was wrong,” I murmur as my eyes track the fish swimming past me in a school. “I didn’t know what it was or where, but…it’s been building for days. I could feel it.” My voice cracks, quiet and uneven. “Like something inside me was bracing.”
