Lucan steps forward with the knife in his clenched hand.
“We’ll honor you in the Great Hall,” he says with a heavy sigh. “I’ll have a mural painted of you.”
He shoves the knife into my wolf’s chest with a savage grunt and yanks it out. Our front legs collapse. Our head hits the wet mud with aslap.
Run, I beg him.Into the river.
The shifter behind me steps on my back with his boot and pulls the spear out with a grunt. He raises it to finish me off.
Now.Please…
With our last bit of energy, my wolf jumps to his feet and lunges into the cold raging river. The strong current yanks us away, practically drowning us in the process. We spin and flip and somersault under the current, the icy water filling my wolf’s lungs as he desperately tries to breathe.
Let me out, I tell him.I can swim better.
He doesn’t fight me at all. My wolf has never liked water.
I pull myself out and fight to the surface, kicking and swimming, no matter how painful each movement is. My head breaks through the surface, and I take a deep breath.
Lucan and his hooligan friends are in their wolf forms, running along the riverbank.
I’m not even trying to fight the current. There's too much of it and too little of me. I just let it take me, trying only to keep my head above the churning surface.
But then I hear it.
Low at first. But it gets louder. It roars savagely, deadly, inevitably.
The waterfall.
It’s higher than two castle towers stacked on top of one another.
And I’m heading straight for it.
I force my eyes open and see it approaching. The river just disappears in a cloudy mist.
It’s where my father went this morning. Over the edge. Into Ulissa.
He’ll be surprised to see me so soon.
Surprised or let down?
I don’t want to find out.
I dig in with everything I have as I’m dragged to the waterfall. My legs are like unmovable weights. My sides are screaming. Every stroke sends white-hot agony through my ribs.
Maybe I can get to the shore in time. Lucan and his friends will descend on me to finish the job, but maybe I can fight them off. It’s a better chance than the waterfall, which will surely kill me.
But after three agonizing strokes, I know it’s hopeless. The current is too strong. My arms are too weak. And the spot where the river disappears into the sky is quickly approaching.
Then, I see the tree.
A fallen trunk is resting over the river, caught on some rocks near the right bank. If I can only reach it…
I grit my teeth, putting every last bit of will and determination I have into swimming toward it. It’s my last chance. I drive my shredded body through the current by sheer determination and bloody refusal to give up.
I reach out as I fly by it, grabbing a thick branch. My body yanks to a stop, seconds away from the waterfall’s deadly edge.
The wolves catch up on the shore, growling and snarling as they paw the mud, waiting to finish me off.
