Page 39 of The Weaver

“Rekosh!”

He could barely make out her voice amidst the noise, and yet hearing it fought back some of the cold inside him.

She wiped her black tresses aside, revealing her fearful expression, and turned in place until she was facing him.

They swam toward each other, but the conflicting currents battering their bodies made it a trial to overcome even that short distance. He shifted his course over and over as the water shoved him in one direction and carried her in another, as it sped her along while trying to catch his legs and hindquartersin more of those swirling pools where currents converged. His hearts stopped each time the water pulled Ahmya under, only to resume beating when she came back up coughing.

The ravine walls sped by on either side, with rainwater pouring down them to feed the already swollen river. Branches shook in the wind high above the ridgelines against a dark gray sky.

But Rekosh could only focus on Ahmya. His little flower. The mate he’d yet to claim, the clever, courageous, determined, kind female who he so desired.

Who he so needed.

The threads of fate that had brought them together were tangled and knotted, spanning across the jungle, across worlds, across the stars. He would not allow them to be severed. He would weave those threads around himself and Ahmya, would fashion them into a cocoon. It would be their warmth, their shelter, their shield. Their unbreakable bond.

Drawing in a deep breath, he plunged forward, paddling with all his arms and legs.

The distance between them shrank, first a threadspan, then a hand’s width, then segments at a time. When finally they were near enough, he thrust out a foreleg.

Ahmya grabbed hold of it immediately. Her hands slipped along his slick hide, but she clenched her jaw, turned away from the water splashing into her face, and clutched at his limb until she’d fully taken hold. The instant her arms were secure, Rekosh pulled her toward him.

She clambered into his arms and clung to him with her whole body once again, squeezing tight. Shivers wracked her, and her skin was far cooler than normal.

Rekosh embraced her, smoothing down her hair. “I have you,vi’keishi.”

“I know,” she whispered raggedly. “I know.”

They clung to each other as the river carried them onwardand the current spun them about, barely managing to keep their heads above the water. But Rekosh didn’t care about that. He had her in his arms, and that was all that mattered. He could overcome anything else that was thrown at them so long as he had her.

He scanned the sides of the river, narrowing his eyes against the spray kicked up by the rain and churning waters. The ravine walls offered no apparent points of escape; they were steep, rocky, muddy, with signs of recent landslides everywhere.

Kicking his legs and swinging his arms, he fought the river’s incessant downward pull. Fire sizzled through his limbs, igniting countless aches and stings from his wounds, many of which he hadn’t realized he’d suffered.

And the current only gained speed.

Rekosh blinked water from his eyes and stared hard downstream.

Through the gloom and mist, he couldn’t make out the river for much farther ahead. From his perspective, in fact, it seemed to stop abruptly after an upcoming calm patch.

And beyond it he could see…nothing.

“Shaper, unmake me,” he rasped.

“Rekosh, wha—” Ahmya turned her head to follow his gaze with her own and stiffened. “That’s…not what it looks like. Right?”

He was already drawing a thick silk strand from his spinnerets, passing it to his lower hands. “Looks like nothing. It is nothing.”

“Yeah.” Her lower lip trembled with her next inhalation, and she shifted her hips to accommodate him as he wound the strand around her waist. “Nothing.”

Unable to look away from the water’s edge, Rekosh tied the strand off around Ahmya before securing the other end around his own waist, leaving a bit of slack between them.

The closer they came to that edge, the faster the river carried them toward it, and the more tumultuous the waters grew.

He wrapped himself around her again. “Still have you.”

“I know.” She buried her face against his neck. “And I have you.” Her breath was warm on his hide, and her fingers curled into his tousled hair as she tightened her hold on him. The bite of her little nails on his scalp was the sweetest sensation in the world.

Dark masses took shape beyond the water’s edge—the tops of towering trees, thrashing in the storm, made indistinct by the rain and mist.

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