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20
Death wasn’t all bad, because it felt a lot like kissing Vai. Our embrace distracted me for longer than it should have. Then I remembered what had happened. Still clutching him, I broke off the kiss.
Inhaled.
I could not breathe.
I could not breathe.
I could not breathe.
An undertow sucked me down.
The abyss of the past is a black chasm. It is too dark to see clearly, yet its waters run all through us.
I am six years old. In the drowning depths of the Rhenus River, my papa and mama are dying. As the water closes over my head, my mother’s strong hand slips out from mine. She has lost me, and I’ve lost her. I open my mouth to cry for her, but all that rushes in is smoke.
We were going to die in the smoke unless I could find a gate and cut our way out.
“Mama,” I whispered, clawing my way through dense fog toward a half-glimpsed beacon.
For there she was, she and Daniel, in the shadow of the ice cliff. They were striding across a stony shore to meet the men who were pushing a boat down to the ice-gray waters for their escape.
“Mama,” I said, louder, finding strength in desperation.
She halted, dragging Daniel to a stop. “Did you hear something?”
He looked up at the face of the ice. “Just the wolves and the wind.”
“No, something else.” She rested a hand on her belly and extended the other arm as if hoping to touch something she could not quite see. “A child. I heard a child calling to me.”
Blessed Tanit, keep me in your heart. Do not let me die.
I will not die.
I bit my lip hard enough to raise blood as I reached for and grasped the memory of her hand.
21
“Catherine! Stop fighting me! You’re impossible to keep hold of when you wriggle like this.”
I slithered out of a grip that was dragging me through icy water, but my numb limbs had no strength. The tide dragged me under as it hauled at my skirts.
A man lifted me above the water. I spewed all the cursed salt water I had swallowed. My bitten lip stung. I sluggishly realized that Vai was carrying me out of the sea. He dumped me onto a stony shore, then slapped me repeatedly on the back as I retched.
I found my voice, although it was sadly thin and mewling. “Why must I always swallow seawater? It tastes so foul.”
Vai collapsed beside me onto the pebbled strand. He fumbled to unbuckle himself from his carpenter’s apron, wheezing as he gulped in air.
I thought the weight of the pack was going to crush me. Rolling onto my side took all my strength. The hard stones felt heavenly because they were solid. The sea sloshed up to tickle my boots, then receded. Fiery Shemesh, but I was freezing!
The wind was coarse and unforgivingly cold.
Vai was still wheezing. I tugged my arms out of the straps to shed the pack. With the sodden basket bumping on my rear, I crawled over to him, only to realize he was not wheezing but laughing in a hoarse sort of way.
He smiled at me. Smiled!
His smile acted as an infusion of hope. My lips twitched, fighting upward.
