Then, carefully—so fucking carefully because I didn’t want to jostle her head wound—I leaned down. Kept my hands from shaking out of sheer will and shoved away the terror ripping through my body. Mila didn’t have time for that.
Pressing my ear to her chest, I nearly cried when that steady beat greeted me. My panic unwound further when I held my hand below her nose and felt the small puffs of breath. I listened, counting each dull thud until my own heart rate slowed.
“She’s breathing.” I shifted to take Lyria’s position applying pressure to the wound. “Where’s Santorina?” I called out.
“Here.” Rina’s tired voice echoed from further down the ledge.
She cradled her wrist to her chest, and Vale stumbled after her. But no pack was strapped to Rina’s body.Spirits. All of her healing supplies were gone.
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head when she saw the panic splitting my features. “The tide ripped it from me.”
“Damien’s balls.” Tolek exhaled from over my shoulder. I hadn’t heard him approach, but he was there, removing his undershirt, too, so we would have it to replace mine, which wasquickly staining crimson. Both were too wet to help much, but he dropped it beside me.
Lyria scooted out of Santorina’s way so she could evaluate Mila, adjusting my hand with her good one to better apply pressure to her wound.
“Are you okay?” Tolek asked her, dragging a hand through his hair to slick it out of his face.
“Feels sprained,” Rina said through a tight jaw.
Over their voices, that melody drifted along the waves again. The bead of pain panged through my chest, more insistent and in time with the rise and swell and dip of both that music and the stirring river.
Shifting closer to Mila, I brushed her hair back from her face. It went against every instinct in my body not to pull her into my lap, but I had enough composure not to risk messing with a head injury. Her eyes were closed, lids paler than usual. Her lips were—dammit they were blue from the icy water.
The melody rose again, my chest aching like an arrow went through it.
“Fuck, what is that?” I snapped, glancing over my shoulder.
Tolek dropped beside me, warily asking, “What’s what?”
“That music,” I growled.
Everyone was silent. I kept counting the rising and falling of Mila’s chest, my own squeezing tight.
“What music?” Rina hedged.
My head snapped up. “You don’t hear it?”
Lyria, Santorina, and Tolek exchanged nervous glances that told me everything. I nearly laughed, the sound mingling with a sob in my chest as I looked back down to Mila. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Right as I’d thought the Angels couldn’t fuck me over again…
“What?” Tolek asked.
I held the fabric to Mila’s head, ignoring where blood seeped through to stain my hands. “The Angels can go fuck themselves. I’m not doing it.”
Not with Mila unconscious. We needed to clean and stitch this wound. To get some sort of tonic in her that would speed up the replenishing of her blood and strength.
To get her to open her eyes.
“Not doing what?” Lyria whispered.
I ground my jaw, refusing to acknowledge the truth.
But Vale, who had been silent since emerging from the water, said with the dazed eyes of a Starsearcher waking from a reading, “The Soulguider emblem is beneath the spirit river.”
“I won’t leave her.”How many times did I have to say it? A dozen didn’t seem to be enough for them.
“She’ll be okay with us,” Tolek promised.
