𝑮𝑳𝑰𝑻𝑻𝑬𝑹 | 𝑘.𝑏.

42

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T O O  M U C H
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THEY EMERGED FROM THE DARKNESS, soaked, bruised, and gasping in the bright light of the moon. Nina's entire body felt like it had been pummeled. She wiped away the remnants of the baleen clustered in sticky globs at the corners of her mouth. Her dress had frayed to nearly nothing, and if she hadn't been so desperately, giddily happy to be alive and breathing, she might have worried about the fact she was standing barefoot and practically naked in the gorge of a northern river, still a mile and a half from the harbor and safety. In the distance, she could hear the bells of the Ice Court ringing.

Kuwei was coughing water. Nina had felt Feta wrestling with Djel's voice just to see them all to safer waters, and so it was no surprise she found Feta on her hands and knees, chest heaving. Feta started crawling through the shallows before she even opened her eyes, and that was when Nina spotted Matthias dragging a limp, unconscious Kaz out of the water.

"Saints, is he breathing?" asked Nina.

Matthias flipped him onto his back none too gently just as Feta, half crawling half collapsing, reached them. Matthias started pressing down on his chest with more force than was strictly necessary.

"I. Should. Let. You. Die," Matthias muttered in time with his compressions.

"Here," Feta said, more breath than voice. She could sense the water in his lungs, could feel the way it was drowning him. "Here, I'm here, let me just— let me..." She knelt over Kaz as if in prayer, hands hovering just above his chest, stare unmoving from his face.

Feta tried to coax the water from his lungs up his throat, but even from a distance Nina could see Feta's hands shaking violently. Her entire form was trembling, making her appear smaller than Nina had ever seen her. Feta still could not look away.

Nina crawled over the rocks and knelt beside them. "Let me help."

"No, I can—" Feta lost her hold again. She clenched her fists. "It's okay, I've got him." She pressed her fingertips to his ribs, tried to close her eyes and breathe, and dragged them up to his collarbones still without much success.

"Feta," Nina said softly.

Feta gasped wetly. "Please," she relented. Her stare continued, teary-eyed and fiercely pleading, with a hint of If you die, I'll kill you, and it'll be so much worse.

Matthias tore the druskelle uniform away. Nina placed one hand on Kaz's pale chest and focused on his heart, forcing it to contract. Nina used the other to pinch his nose shut and push his mouth open as she tried to breathe air into his lungs.

"Will he live?" Kuwei asked.

Feta's lips twitched and some chord pulled taut behind her eyes, but she didn't answer him.

I don't know, Nina admitted to herself. She pressed her lips to Kaz's again, timing her breaths with the beats she demanded of his heart. Come on, you rotten Barrel thug. You've fought your way out of tougher scrapes.

She felt the shift when Kaz's heart took over its own rhythm. Kaz coughed, chest spasming, water spewing from his mouth. Feta released a heavy, shuddering breath of her own, wiping at her face.

He shoved Nina off of him, sucking in air.

"Get away from me," he gasped, wiping his gloved hand over his mouth. Kaz's eyes were unfocused. He seemed to be staring through the frozen ground in front of him. "Don't touch me."

"You're in shock, demjin," Matthias spoke up. "You almost drowned. You should have drowned."

Kaz coughed again and his entire body shuddered. "Drowned," he repeated.