My heart thrashes so hard and fast I’m certain I’m going to be sick, eyes widening with a silent plea.
I shake my head ever so slightly.
No, Baze.
No—
He doesn’t still, doesn’t even slow, drawing almost close enough for me to leap through the air and land in his arms. He’s about to push free of the crowd when Cainon kicks the horse forward, catapulting us down the path so hard and fast I’m shoved against his chest.
He weaves his arm around my waist, tucking me close, and I want to feel repulsed. Want to sit in that feeling until it seeps through my skin and rots me to the core. But I can’t feel anything beyond this wild fear wrestling inside my chest …
Baze saw.
Lungs convulsing for breath I cannot pull, I grope at the water, the river dumping me against rocks that pummel and pierce.
I dredge through the surface of the raging current with a coughing, retching heave. A torrent of thick, putrid liquid pours up my throat, lost to the violent churn of frothy rapids dragging meaway—my surroundings a blur of blue and white.
I fist the talon and try to heave it out, screaming as I’m jerked against a rock so hard it shifts the weapon sideways, digging deeper into my rotten flesh.
Get out of the river.
Just get out of the fucking river.
I’m tossed around like driftwood, water punching up my nose and sloshing over my head. The current lugs me around a sharp bend toward a burbling abyss, and I choke down a breath before being sucked down the steep deluge, spat out into a steady stream of calmer water that allows me a moment to breathe.
Look around.
I catch sight of a low-hanging branch a second too late, trying to thrash against the current, fingers brushing it before my body loses strength. I’m ripped beneath the water, tumbling, mining the strength to move.
To try again.
Seeing her face on the backs of my lids.
Roaring, my muscles power into action, and I punch above the surface again, heaving my leaden arm up to snag a vine draped from another low-hanging branch. I lash against a boulder with bone-buckling force, my chest absorbing the brunt. A blade of pain impales me, forcing more liquid from my lungs with a bubbling choke.
Black dots blot my vision, multiplying, and my next heartbeat is slower than the last …
No—
With a growl, I plow through the blur and whip my other arm around the large, slippery boulder, my entire body clinging to its weight. Sharp ridges slice into my waterlogged hands as the current yanks at my legs and threatens to snatch me under.
I heft myself farther up the rock, one painful drag at a time, until I reach a plateau where I can roll onto my back. Groaning, I grit my teeth, looking down at the talon’s hilt protruding from my chest, haunted by visions of her hand wrapped around it.
Fuck.
I grip it andpull.
It tears through the ladder of ribs with a bolt of searing pain and a gush of rank-smelling blood. I throw my head back androar.
The sky shakes, krah swarming as I put pressure on my ruptured chest. I look up, forcing my focus to narrow on my surroundings, wheezing through shredded echoes of the paralyzing pain.
I’m at the base of a ravine, sandwiched between sheer walls of dark-blue stone, scarce light shooting through the jungle’s thick canopy.
Still in Bahari.
Through the gaps, ribbons of color dash across the ripening sky.
Evening.
