We tumbled through the current, his arms reaching me again and again but being pulled away as many times, the water covering our heads, both of us gasping for air, with the raft nowhere in sight. He reached me at last, his arm circling my waist, trying frantically to rip the dress off. “Hold on, Lia.”
“I love you,” I cried, even as I choked on water. If there were to be last words he heard from me, I wanted it to be those. And then I felt us sliding, tumbling, the world turning upside down, and I lost sight of him, lost sight of everything, the wretched dress the Komizar had made me wear pulling me under as if he were tugging at me from beneath the water himself, getting the last say, until finally I couldn’t fight against its weight any longer, and my icy world went black.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
RAFE
I had walked the riverbank for miles, searching everywhere. I wouldn’t accept that she was gone. I was numb with the cold and uncertain how much time had passed. I never caught sight of the raft again and wondered if the others had made it. With every step, I retraced the events, trying to understand how everything had gone wrong. I saw the child, Aster, again, her body lying in the snow, and the knife in Lia’s hand. I saw the Komizar too, slumped against the wall and bleeding. There hadn’t been time to put the pieces together then, and I still couldn’t.
My thoughts just kept going back to Lia. I’d had her. I’d had her in my arms and then we were tumbling in the falls and she slipped from my grasp. I’d had her, and the river ripped her away.
The current was fast and relentless. I wasn’t sure how I had made it to shore myself. By the time I did, I was miles downriver, and my limbs were frozen. Somehow I had dragged myself up on the bank and forced my legs to move, praying she had done the same. I couldn’t accept anything else.
I slipped on an icy rock and fell to my knees, feeling my strength fading. That was when I spotted her ahead, facedown on the bank, settling into the earth as if she were already a part of it, her fingers lifeless in the mud and snow.
Blood stained her back where the arrow had entered. Only a broken stub remained. I ran and dropped to her side, gently turning her and pulling her into my arms. Her lips were blue, but a soft moan escaped them.
“Lia,” I whispered. I brushed the snow from her lashes.
Her eyelids fluttered open. It took her a moment to see who I was. “Which side of the river are we on?” she asked, her voice so weak I could barely hear her.
“Our side.”
A faint smile creased her eyes. “Then we made it.”
I looked up, surveying our surroundings. We were miles from anywhere, without horses, food, or warmth, and she lay badly injured and bleeding in my arms, her face the color of death.
“Yes, Lia, we made it.” My chest shook, and I leaned down and kissed her forehead.
“Then why are you weeping?”
“I’m not. It’s only—” I held her closer, trying to share what little warmth I had. “We should have stayed. We should have—”
“He would have killed me eventually. You know that. He was already weary of the little power he shared with me. And if not the Komizar, his Council would have done the job.”
With each word, her voice became fainter.
“Don’t leave me, Lia. Promise you won’t leave me.”
She reached up and wiped the tears from my face. “Rafe,” she whispered, “we made it this far. What’s another thousand miles or two?”
Her eyes drifted closed, and her head lolled to the side. I put my lips to hers, desperately searching for her breaths. They were shallow and weak, but still there.
We made it this far. I didn’t even know where we were. We were lost on a riverbank with miles of dark forest surrounding us, but I scooped one arm under her knees and the other carefully behind her back and stood. I kissed her one more time, my lips gently resting on hers, trying to bring back their color. And I began walking. A thousand miles, or two, I would carry her all the way to Dalbreck if I had to. No one would pry her from my arms again.
We already had three steps behind us.
“Hold on, Lia,” I whispered.
Hold on for me.