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Another low howl came and Senna tripped backward, until her back was pressed to his chest. A startlingly attention-getting maneuver. He was vaguely impressed such an unconscious move should imbue such sensuality. “Are they close?”
“Aye.” It was always harder to detect panic within a whisper, but Finian was fairly certain the telltale tremble was there. “Are ye ready to go now, lass?”
“Quite.”
They didn’t say much as they retraced their steps to the banks of Bhean’s River. Woman’s River. It was well named, for it was wild and stunning in its beauty and ferocity. Dangerous, with wicked currents. Deep, an onrushing power to it.
It was autumn, though, and the summer had been dry. While the farmers lamented the fact of it, tonight Finian gave thanks to all the gods he could think of, old and new, because it meant they could cross without needing the bridge at Bhean’s Crossing, which was only half a mile from Rardove Keep.
Still, the Bhean was deep. Deep enough to warrant caution. Deep enough to drown in. Especially if one cracked his skull on the rocks when he fell. Or she fell.
He stopped at the edge. The moon was bright. “How are ye with rocks, Senna?”
Confusion marked her face until she followed his pointing finger. It cleared, into fear. A jagged row of boulders of various sizes zigzagged across the river like huge stepping stones.
“Finian. You cannot be in earnest.” She considered him suspiciously. Then she looked back at the river. “You’re asking us to jump those? Those rocks? Those rocks.”
Nothing had changed about his original query, but her voice became more flatly incredulous. “Why, Finian, some are as widely spaced as my body is tall. The force required…” Her voice trailed off. “And the rate of the current…” She trailed off again, looking across at the dark, rushing river.
She was probably reckoning rate and velocity at this very moment, he realized dimly.
“If ye’re too frightened, Senna—”
“I’m not frightened,” she snapped. “I’m never frightened. I’m…figuring.”
“Ah.” He held his breath. If she said she couldn’t do it…
Her chin came up. “I can do it,” she said, rather loudly. “I used to climb them all the time, you know.”
He smiled as a little warmth flared in his chest. “I didn’t know, Senna,” he murmured, shifting the pack on his shoulders. “But I’m glad of it. Now, do as I do, just as I do it.”
He hopped onto the closest rock. It had a low, broad surface. He quickly hopped to the next one, not two feet away, and turned. “Now yerself, Senna.”
She closed her eyes and leapt. Finian lifted a hand in protest, but by then she’d already landed, knees bent. She opened her eyes and looked up triumphantly.
“Well done,” he said, giving her the congratulations her self-satisfied, never-climbed-a-rock-before smile required. After which he added, “Never do that again. Eyes open, always.”
He turned to the next boulder. Fifteen. Fifteen to cross. Not so many, except that they kept getting higher and more steeply pitched as you went, until the last one towered like an armored sentinel on the river’s western edge.
“Do they seem to get bigger as we go?” she suddenly asked.
“Not a bit of it. ’Tis the moonlight. Tricks the eye.”
“Oh.”
He pushed off, propelling himself to the next boulder. This one wasn’t far at all, but it had a steeply sloped top, like a barn roof. He landed, one foot on either side of the pitch. Arms out, swaying, aware of every whipped muscle in his legs and back, he balanced himself. He blew out a long breath and leapt again, leaving the boulder free for Senna.
Behind him, he heard a small sound over the quiet rush of water. A prayer, spoken in a whispered, feminine voice. “Please, dear Lord.”
He turned just as she jumped. For a moment she hung in space, both legs bent, as if running in midair, then landed with a thump, knees sharply bent, but with a foot planted firmly on either side of the rock.
Standing atop two boulders, in the moonlight, their eyes met. Finian nodded firmly. Senna, panting just a little, from exertion or fear or both, gave a small smile. Almost as if she were encouraging him.
A corner of his mouth curved up. He turned to the next one.
And so they made their leaping, slipping, flying way across the boulders of Bhean’s River. Until the last.
A full four feet away, and easily a foot higher than the one Finian stood upon, it required a running leap. Which they had no room for.
