AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With a breath, I crossed the last few planks and turned to face Sai who stood on the other side. This was it. He could retrace my footsteps—with me carrying the heavy pack, he couldn’t weigh much more—then we’d work our way through the main room of the temple and back outside to the sea. I’d about take the merfolk over this temple.
Sai moved forward.
The bridge swayed.
He took another step, and another, and another.
His pace was slow, thoughtful. He tested the strength of planks before leaning his weight on them.
He passed the midpoint, and I realized I hadn’t breathed for several seconds as a sigh rushed out of me. He eased another foot forward. His expression froze and he cried out. The bridge warbled.
“Sai?” I yelled, my voice echoing.
He screamed, and the board beneath him broke.
Long claws emerging from a thin hand gripped into his ankle. Blood welled up and dripped down the wrist.
“Sai!”
The hand yanked Sai down, his lower half falling through the bridge as it swayed precariously. I gripped the ropes and my eyes locked onto his. I wanted to call my magic, but my mind felt too scattered to think of what I could use to help. Fear swallowed any logic like a howl of biting winter wind.
For a heartbeat, the world froze. Every moment since the one I’d met Sai flashed through my mind. Noticing him across a crowd of people, the kindness he treated his team with, the warm rumble of his laugh, the coarse touch of his fingers trailing my spine, how I’d recognized him even when he wore glamour.
How my soul seemed locked into place with his.
I won’t let him fall,I’d said to the Naga.
Another heartbeat thudded.
A board broke.
And Sai dropped into the shadows.
“No!” I screamed.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
SAI
I gaggedon a breath and peeled my eyes open.
My entire body radiated so much pain, I struggled to locate the source. I shifted my leg and the intensity of the misery increased. It was dark, wherever I was, and water rushed and trickled.
Right.
The temple.
The bridge.
Lira screaming.
Because I fell… and landed. My hand reached my stomach and bumped into the sharp edge of a rock that protruded through it. Fuck. I lifted my trembling fingers up and so much blood came with it that my wrist dripped, blood trickling down my arm and sliding down my sleeves.
Oh Goddess.
This wasn’t the kind of injury a being recovered from.
I would die far from home, with nothing familiar for my soul to cling to, and without a drop of sacred water to taste as I reached my end.
