Soulwoven

Chapter Twenty-Three

~23~

The river wrapped its icy arms around Cole Jin.

He flailed and he strained and he kicked until his elbow hit soft flesh and Ryse let go of his arms, and then he was thrashing freely in the freezing water. It was in his ears, his clothes, his nose, his eyes—

You bitch! he wanted to scream. You stupid, dog-faced bitch!

He opened his eyes and saw only blackness, and then his eyeballs screamed against the cold and he squeezed them shut. He was moving fast, and the cold was numbing his chest, his arms and legs, every inch of him. Tiny pinpricks of ice crawled over his scalp and down his neck.

He clawed desperately toward what he thought was the top of the river. His hands scraped rock, bounced off, skidded and skipped and bled along the stone.

There’s no air. There’s no air there’s no air there’s no air.

Cole hammered his fists against the rock and fought the urge to breathe. He lost feeling in his hands and face. His chest felt like it was going to burst.

Air, he begged. Just air. Just a little bit to breathe. Just enough to stay alive.

For the first time in his life, he was helping with something that might do some good for the world. Not just for himself or his family or his friends, but for everyone. He deserved that much in return—just air, just a breath.

He got nothing.

Cole’s head swam. Every beat of his heart pounded in his chest. White spots started a dance in his eyes. His lungs burned. He couldn’t feel his feet.

Air. Please, just air. Yenor’s eye, I want to live!

His hands broke free of the water.

Cole flailed his way up to the surface behind them. Light and shadow danced before him on the fast-moving surface of the river. Ahead, a bright arc of blinding white stretched from left to right like a wound in the darkness.

He sucked down sweet, damp air in greedy gasps. His ears burned. His head ached. His heart fluttered.

A cave, he thought. No way. No effing way.

Quay had been right.

The gash of light grew closer, wider, brighter, and then Cole rolled and tumbled out of the cave and into dazzling sunlight. The scent of pine filled the air.

You have to swim, his mind prodded. You have to swim for shore.

His body was shaky and slow to respond. The whole world was a blur of bright light and cold, frothy water. He got his legs to kick, forced one arm to reach forward and pull back, then the other.

And then he smashed into a rock hard enough to force the air from his lungs.

The river closed over his head again. He turned a somersault. His face dragged along pebbles and stone.

The bottom, he thought. The river is shallow here.

He clawed for the surface again and managed to put his feet down on the bottom. They caught on a rock and stopped, but the rest of his body kept moving. He flipped over a second time.

Too fast, said his mind. You’re moving too fast.

When he got his head above the surface again, he forced his eyes open and saw blurry shadows in the brightness around him. The river was twenty or thirty feet wide. There were large lumps that looked like mountains to either side. Narrow, slanting plains filled the valley in between, and ahead, there was a line where the darkness of land disappeared into light.