Page 40 of The Weaver

Rekosh’s insides twisted, drawing tighter than any knot ever could. All the words he’d longed to say were caught within him, trapped, silenced.

His friends would’ve found that the most unbelievable part of this tale.

He tucked his chin over Ahmya’s hair, curling more protectively around her. A few kicks of his legs turned him so he was facing away from the nothingness ahead.

The river carried them over the edge of the world.

CHAPTER 9

For the secondtime that day, Rekosh’s gut lurched, and he fell, now amidst a torrent of water rather than dirt and stone.

Foolish as it was, he couldn’t help wondering if this was how flying felt. Was this the sensation Ahmya and the other humans experienced during their journey across the stars?

His back struck the water, which felt much more like solid ground than liquid, and his left foreleg slammed into something hard and unyielding. The bursts of pain jolted him, body and mind. All went black and silent, as though a spinewood fire had been snuffed out in one of Takarahl’s deepest, darkest caverns. Despite all that pain, he felt…nothing. He was nothing.

No. Not nothing. Need to protect her…

My mate.

Sound and feeling rushed back. His chest burned from a lack of air, and the pressure within it was overwhelming. Churning water had closed in around him, the waterfall was forcing him down, down, down, and his arms…were empty.

His arms wereempty.

No!

Fighting to right himself, he sought the silk tether.Everything was dark, tumultuous, murky, so much so that he could not see. But his grasping fingers found that line, and he pulled. It went taut. He tugged harder.

Rekosh found Ahmya on the other end, and he drew her into his arms.

But something wasn’t right. Why did she not grasp him? Why was she so still, so limp?

Every oath he knew in vrix rattled through his head, accompanied by every human curse he’d been taught. He held Ahmya against his chest, ignoring the fire in his lungs and the pain radiating from every part of his body, and swam toward what he hoped was the surface.

Each beat of his hearts was harder and louder than the last, until they were all he could hear. More thoughts must’ve been raging through his mind, powerful emotions must’ve been thrumming in his chest, but he perceived none of them. He was aware only of Ahmya’s unmoving form and the impossible expanse of water separating him from the air they both desperately needed.

He broke the surface with a ragged inhalation that felt like a thousand bone needles stabbing his throat and chest from within. Raising Ahmya’s head above the waterline, he pushed toward the shore.

The instant his legs touched the bottom, he ran.

His left foreleg buckled when he put weight on it, breaking his stride. Agony pulsed along the limb, emanating from his bones. Rekosh growled, lifted the leg higher, and hobbled onward, water sloshing around him. Every step met a little less resistance from the increasingly shallow water.

Ahmya’s head lolled on the crook of his elbow, and her dangling limbs bumped his hide as he moved.

Hungry mud grasped at his legs when he finally neared land. Rain fell relentlessly, creating countless ripples on the water’s surface that were swept away by his passage.

As soon as he was out of the river, his legs folded, dropping him onto their joints in the mud. The pain in his left foreleg drew a breathless snarl from him, but it was quickly forgotten. He cradled Ahmya in his lower arms as he smoothed her wet hair out of her face.

Her skin had lost its color, and the usual pink tinge of her lips had been replaced by faint blue. When he cupped her cheek in his palm, it was cold, and she did not react to his touch.

“Ahmya,” he rasped. “You must wake.”

She did not open her eyes.

With the pad of his thumb, he eased her eyelid open. Her brown eye was dull, unfocused, nearly…lifeless. Lowering his head and battling back an onslaught of chilling thoughts, he took hold of her jaw and angled her face toward his.

No breath escaped her lips, no air flowed from her nose.

His fine hairs stood, and tension rippled across his hide. Shivers coursed through him that had nothing to do with the cold. Everything was unraveling—Rekosh, the world, the whole universe beyond. Every fiber of his mind and spirit fought to hold it all together. Fought to tie off those threads.

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