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A tragedy.
The boat rode the current, battling the turbulent water with every stroke.They took a sharp bend, and the boat jumped. Water rushed over the side, soaking them and stealing her last breath of hope.
Blanchette muttered a silent prayer. The dark and pelting rain made the river nearly impossible to maneuver. The water itself was a muddy color mixed with red.
Their lives were in the hands of a higher power now.
It went on that way for nearly a mile—water sloshing over the sides, the veil of darkness making every deadly turn unpredictable. Blanchette shivered from fear and cold. That chill had numbed the pain in her leg and across her wounded cheek.
She continued to hold her mother, feeling very much like a child.
She’s all I have left. Her father had always been a stranger, now more than ever.
Blanchette heard the enormous splintering crash before she felt it, like a sword splitting an oaken shield in two. The boat reared up, tossing the three of them from its mouth. The cold rush of water hit her with the force of a thousand daggers. She struggled against the rapid current, the river foiling her every stroke and breath.
Norland wants me to die, she thought in despair. It’s trying to smite my family from its soil.
Am I paying the price for my father’s sins?
She glanced at fragmented images of her mother and father. She watched as the king flew against a riverbed rock with a force that must have split his head open. The current pulled Blanchette under.
She emerged again.
Her father was nowhere to be seen now… but what might have been blood and guts were…
Her mother’s body floated a yard away and was thrown about like a rag doll.
Thrown and torn and tattered.
No.
No, no, no.
Only a gnawing emptiness remained where hope had been moments ago.
I will not surrender. Not without a fight.
Blanchette’s determination to survive flared in her mind and body. She struggled to stay afloat as her skirts threatened to drag her down again into the murky depths. But fight she did. The current snatched her cloak and garment, whirling her about and dragging her back and forth. The cold, dark waters closed over her head, and the struggle to rise above the surface became too great of a burden. She sank into the stygian void.
Her arms slowly ceased their labor.
Darkness finally came upon her and swallowed her up.
Two
“WHOEVER fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Blanchette was lying face down, her body sprawled on the bank and half-submerged in the Rockbluff River. The dirty taste of mud and muck filled her mouth, and her wounded cheek burned like hell. She ground her teeth against the filth, against that grainy texture and slush. Nausea hit her hard. She lifted her head with a violent cough, spat out the water, and then emptied her stomach onto the ground. Her body protested, convulsing in dry heaves.
Pain and coldness shackled her in place. And not the chill in the air. It was a misery, a profound sense of hopelessness, unlike she’d ever known.
A mounting wind moaned and whistled, snapping off branches and rattling the trees. Thunder and the mournful howl of wolves rumbled in the distance. Blanchette shuddered, then felt herself growing sick again.
Reality crashed down and capsized her thoughts as efficiently as the river had capsized the boat only hours ago.
Has it been hours? Minutes? Days?
