Risk

Chapter XXVI

Everything seemed to ache and throb at the same time. She had fought the current all she could, but now she couldn't bring her cold-numb, exhausted limbs to fight any longer. Her chest felt as if it would burst, and she was half tempted to suck in a gulp of air, but she knew that she would only drown if she tried.

She flapped her arms weakly once more in the last effort to get back to where the air was, but nothing happened, and the freezing black water carried her further. Her hand snagged against a rock at the bottom.

She realized for the first time that she was dying. If she didn't get air soon, she would die, and then she would never see her family, or her beloved home again. After so long, she was finally defeated by a river.

With the thought of her family in mind, she gave one last effort, pushing out with all four limbs as strongly as she could, trying to break the surface. Her heart gave a tiny leap of hope when she felt her foot scrape against the rocky river-bottom. She pushed upward with the last of her strength, and her head broke the surface.

She coughed, paddling out with her hands to stay afloat as the current kept pushing her further downstream. She kicked out towards the bank, hoping to get out onto dry land.

Her arms moved feebly, and every second she felt more of her strength ebb away, swept out of her with the river. She was nearly ready to give up when her toes faintly brushed against the bottom of the river again.

She was only feet away from the shore. She kicked again and was soon crawling onto a boulder-strewn, pebbly beach. She collapsed as soon as she was free of the rushing water. Her strength was gone, and she could do little more than gasp there on the river's bank, her chest heaving as her lungs sucked greedily for air. She coughed water up from her lungs in three painful heaves.

The coughing took what little strength she'd had left.

Her arms didn't move, and her eyelids dropped with exhaustion. The cold seeped deep within her, chilling her to her very soul, and not even the sun high above, peeking over the lip of the gorge, was enough to give her warmth again. The thundering of the river filled her senses.

She sat up, swaying with the movement. Her vision swam, casting a blurry sheen over the scene in front of her. She wiped her eyes. She was still sodden, and water was running from her clothes and hair in tiny rivulets.

When she had rubbed her eyes, she could see better, and then she remembered with a jolt that Rowan and Star had also fallen into the water. The thought forced a stab of white-hot fear into her heart. She scanned the white, frothing surface for a head, or an arm, or even a slight disturbance in the current that would tell her where they were.

Her heart skipped a beat when she spotted Star, her eyes white-rimmed in terror. She was kicking out with all her legs, but the current pulled her mercilessly past, so fast that Jasta hardly had time to react before—that couldn't be right.

She rubbed her eyes. Yes, it was true. Star had disappeared. The river ended up ahead, abruptly cut off. She craned her neck to try and see where it went, but she was too far away from where it disappeared.

Then it really hit her. Star was as good as dead, if not dead already. She recalled the silent neigh of horror as Star plunged over the end of the river. She hadn't even been able to hear anything, because the rushing of the river filled her ears until she couldn't hear anything else, and she felt deaf.

She rose shakily to her feet, wincing when she felt every muscle in her body flare with the fire of pain. She stumbled a couple of steps further onto the shore. She didn't know what she was supposed to do now. Rowan still hadn't appeared, Star was gone, and she was stuck at the bottom of a gorge, more exhausted and beaten up than she had ever been in her life.