Teddy instantly let her go as they descended into the vicious current. She had to claw her way back to him.
They went down and down and down, until finally the descent arrested. Stella released her legs from Teddy’s waist and kicked hard, propelling them back to the surface.
Stella gulped in air as Teddy flailed beside her.
“Stop panicking,” she said, yanking him closer as the current tugged them swiftly away from the bridge.
Teddy did not stop. His fear was a living thing in her chest. Stella fought the swirling current. Hooking her arm across his chest, she curled herself around his back and pulled him long to float with his back resting against her body.
“Breathe,” she said in his ear.
He relaxed the slightest bit, but his hands held a death grip on the arm she had across his chest. The water battered them from all sides, driving them downstream. Stella tried to ease the passage with water magic, but there were so many rocks and eddies. Each time they clipped a boulder, she lost focus, and they both went under. Each time they swallowed water, Teddy trusted her less.
She glanced back at the bridge. It grew smaller and more distant by the second.
“Stella!”
She whipped her head around at the terror in Teddy’s voice.
Rapids. They were heading toward rapids.
She kicked hard, but the current was so strong. She heaved her water magic out, trying to propel them toward the shore. Pain toredown her side from the movement. She gritted her teeth and pushed harder, kicking wildly. But they were entirely at the mercy of the river.
She held on to Teddy tightly as they plunged into the violent rapids. The roaring water blocked out all other sound and blended with the roaring of her heart.
Her shoulder slammed into a rock, and she cried out. They started to sink, water splashing into her mouth.
They slammed against a large bolder, Teddy’s body taking most of the brunt of the impact. Water pinned them there.
Stella was burning through her magic at an alarming rate. She was violently shivering, still bleeding, and summoning her least efficient magic to try to ease a raging river, all while trying to keep a lump of a prince from drowning.
She was walking a fine line between using too much and not enough. If she burned through her magic, she’d pass out in the middle of the river and they would both drown. But if she didn’t use what she could to ease their path, they’d surely be bashed on the rocks.
Teddy coughed and sputtered, his body rigid with fear, but she felt him pushing out his magic, weaving it with her own.
Unfortunately, it seemed it was not his strongest summoning, either. It made sense. The mountains of Argaria had many gentle streams from snow melt, but the rivers and lakes were frozen half of the year. He wouldn’t have had a chance to practice water summoning.
Together, they steered the current to propel them around the largest obstacles. Stella’s muscles burned under the strain of keeping them both afloat and the sheer exhaustion of fighting nature. She glanced downriver for a good place to stop, but the current kept picking up.
That’s when she realized the roaring was getting louder.
“Is that—” Teddy started to flail as he put together what she already had.
They were headed toward a waterfall.
He shoved his magic out, trying to arrest the current. Instead, thewater in front of them bowed momentarily and the current behind them slammed their bodies into the wall of water. The impact ripped Teddy out of her arms. The jolt of it rattled her bones.
Stella flailed for him, her frozen fingers grasping at nothing. She caught a flash of his scarlet shirt and, for the first time all day, was happy he’d worn such a conspicuous color. She dove into the current, using it to propel herself forward with strong, practiced strokes.
It was reckless to swim this way in a river, but if she didn’t get to him now, he would die and it would be her fault. Death whispers rose with the roaring of the waterfall. Insistent panic hit her so sharply in the chest that she gasped. Surfacing, she tugged on their bond. A terrified jolt echoed back. She turned her head and caught sight of him pinned against a rock. The rapids surged around him.
His head was stuck under the water and the bond in her chest pulsed with panic, fear, and grief. Stella threw a wild flare of power at the rapids behind her, pouring every bit of magic she could into it.
Her body dropped instantly, hitting the rocky riverbed so hard she almost let her magic slip.
The current slammed against the shield of water she’d formed. Her body flashed hot and cold, the effort of holding back the river heating her chilled skin. She jumped to her feet and turned her shield into a tunnel curling around them.
The control was difficult, but it lessened the pressure and let some of the current go over their heads. Stella felt herself approaching the end of her magic. She ran to Teddy, stumbling over river stones, her legs burning with the effort.
