Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
My knees hit the log. Damon’s hands grabbed my shoulders as I fell forward, yanking me upright before I could hit the water.
“Meera!” His voice sounded distant, like I was underwater. “What happened? Talk to me!”
I blinked, vision slowly sharpening.
The hand was gone. The river roared as it always had. I looked down at my ankle.
Nothing.
Not a scratch. Not a bruise.
But something inside me wasscreaming.
“I—you saw that, right,” I asked quietly, breathless. My heart pounded a million miles a minute.
Damon’s grip tightened on my arms. “Saw what?” His voice was taut. Alert.
“The hand. There was a hand,” I said, scanning the river, even though I knew I wouldn’t see it again. “It grabbed me. Gods, it touched me. I wasn’t just imagining it.”
He looked me over carefully, his eyes flicking from my face to my legs to the water. “There was nothing there, Meera. One second you were crossing, the next you dropped like someone cut your strings.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. My chest heaved as I struggled to find the words. “It showed me something. A memory. Not mine, though. Not exactly. It was mine—ours—but from the outside. Like someone waswatchingus earlier when I fell.”
Damon’s expression turned grim. “Evorsus?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “It didn’t feel like it. Or maybe it did. I—gods, I don’t know what I saw now. Maybe ... maybe I imagined it.”
“Don’t do that,” he said. His jaw tightened, a muscle flexing in his cheek. “Don’t pretend. If you say there was a hand, then I believe you. In this vision, did it say anything?”
“No.” I hesitated, then added, “But I felt like it was trying to show me something. It was focused on my hand. On the blood.”
He let go of my shoulders slowly, but his eyes never left my face. “We need to get off this log, and preferably, out of this realm.”
“Agreed.”
We crossed the remaining few feet quickly, neither of us daring to look down. My legs trembled as they hit solid ground again, the pressure in my chest lessening, but not gone.
Damon reached for me instinctively. His hands skimmed my arms, checking for injuries again. “You’re sure it didn’t say anything?”
“Positive. It just touched me.” I trembled, wrapping my arms around myself.
Damon gave me a hard look. His mouth pressed into a thin line, his eyes sweeping the shadowed edges of the riverbank before shifting to the dense woods beyond. Whatever he was thinking, it wasn’t good.
“I think we should stop and take a longer rest,” he said, voice low and clipped.
I blinked. “What?”
“You’re shaking, something just reached out of the water and hijacked your mind, and we’re still in the middle of nowhere with no idea what direction the flowers are actually pointing.” He stepped away, already scanning for a decent place to set up camp. “You’re spooked, with good reason. We’re stopping. I’ll take watch while you sleep. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Corvo will show up.”
“All right.” I didn’t argue. For once, I didn’t have energy, or the will. “Let’s just get further from the river. I’m not comfortable being so close to it.”
Damon dipped his chin in agreement, then held out his hand. I took it for what it was, not a romantic gesture but a protective one. With all that had happened, it was obvious the realm had an interest in me. Now something had just grabbed me. It happened right in front of Damon, and yet he saw nothing. I was going to hold on to him for dear life.
