She’d have to go in feet first, or she might not survive the drop.
Dani took off her runners and pants. Thankfully, her tee shirt hung to her thighs, and she snorted at herself for being shy at a time like this. She bundled her pants and tied them with the laces before slinging them around her neck. If they started to drag her down, she could rip them away.
She took a deep breath, and leaped.
Tired as she was, she still cleared the barrier before she plummeted downward. She cranked her body around in midair. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked. The impact drove the breath from her, and her feet hit the gravel on the bottom. She absorbed the jolt with bent knees and launched for the surface.
True to form, the current was stronger than it looked. As she rose, spluttering, it grabbed her and carried her away from the bridge.
It was the right direction, but she’d have to fight to make her plan a reality. She needed to get closer to the bank, or the river would eventually pull her under.
This would be a suicidal venture in the spring. But the summer had been dry, so the mighty river was a fraction of its usual self. Dani let the current carry her, peering toward the bank. Once the river bent north, she’d need to be near the east side to reach her goal. So she began to swim as hard as she could, angling for her destination.
As battles went, it was damned epic. There was more than one reason people didn’t swim often in the Red. The current was relentless, her pants and runners dragged at her, and she was tired. But the beast in her wouldn’t quit.
The river turned north when she was still fifty feet from the shore. She struggled to swim close enough to the bank to touch ground. Dropped her feet a few times, testing. And then her bare feet felt the bottom. Only for a moment, but when she rallied and surged forward, they touched down again.
She fought the river with every step, but it finally let her go.
Dani dragged herself up the silty bank, and then higher, onto the grass. She looked out across headstones arranged in neat rows beneath towering trees.
The cemetery. She’d reached her goal.
It took everything she had to search for just the right spot. A clump of bushes, which she crawled into. Dani curled up with her soaking wet pants as a pillow, and shivered herself to sleep.
2
Agony scorched through Ash’s brain and body.
Not hot. Cold, like shards of ice being driven through his flesh until they pierced his soul. The icefire whip fell upon his flesh as he lay in a crumpled heap on the floor.
Even through the agony, he sensed the subtle vibration running beneath him. The waves pummeling the shore sang through the entire house. This realm of screaming winds and a tumultuous ocean was as familiar to him as his right arm. He’d grown up here. They were not happy memories.
A tall figure loomed over him, so there was no point in trying to rise. Experience had taught him the best recourse was to lie still until the Archmage’s rage ran out.
There might come a day when that didn’t happen—when Rindek finally stepped over the line and poured so much icefire energy into Ash that he did irreparable damage.
Ash’s talent for seeing the future had told him it was conceivable.
Fortunately or not, most possible futures showed him that the Archmage would inflict damage, and then back off, allowing Ash to heal so that his torturous life could continue.
At the moment, however, the agony consumed him.
“You dare to defy me?” the Archmage thundered. “Iownyou.”
Rindek had every right to be furious. Thanks largely to Ash, the Archmage’s plan for dominating the realms had hit a snag.
“I told you it might fail.” Ash barely recognized his own voice.
“You also told me my Dire packs would be safe there.”
Well, yes. He had.
The vicious packs were Rindek’s army. The Archmage had lured them to him with promises of a stable and influential future.
The Archmage’s eyes had gone the color of fresh blood, a sure sign of his rage. “There is no point in you finding these women, and me awakening their talents, if you can’t foresee when the damnedDragons—” he spat the word “—are about to descend on us!”
Ash kept his eyes averted and head bowed. Rindek’s plan capitalized on the scarcity of Dire females. The Archmage had lured the packs to him by harvesting potentials from the human population.
