She was about to hunt for an easy spot to cross the river, away from the males, when she heard, “Pity that bitch escaped. She’d have made for good entertainment on the cold nights.”
Everything in Nesta’s body went still. Emerie had made it to this river. Alive.
Another said, drinking from the rushing water, “She’s probably washed halfway down the mountain. If she isn’t dead from the rapids, the beasts will get her before dawn.”
Emerie must have jumped into the river to get away from these males.
Nesta ran her fingers across the bow slung over her shoulder. The arrows in her belt hung like weights. She should kill them for this. Fire these two arrows into two of them and kill them for hurting her friend—
But if Emerie had survived …
She pushed off the tree. Slipped to the next. And the next. Followed the river, her steps barely more than the whisper of water over stone.
Through the pines, down the hills. The rapids increased, the rocks rising like black spears. A waterfall roared ahead. If Emerie had gone over it …
The rapids hurtled over the edge, to the bottom a hundred feet below. No surviving that.
Nesta’s throat dried out.
And dried out further as she beheld what lay across the river, caught on a fallen tree jutting from the rocky bank directly before the plunge to the falls.
Emerie.
Nesta rushed to the edge of the water, but snatched her foot back from its icy fingers. Emerie appeared unconscious, but Nesta didn’t dare risk shouting her name. A glance at the sky revealed the sun at its midafternoon point, but it offered no heat, no salvation.
How long had Emerie been in the frigid water?
“Think,” Nesta murmured. “Think, think.”
Each minute in the water risked killing Emerie. She lay too far away to discern any injuries, but she didn’t stir against the branch. Only her twitching wings showed any sign of life.
Nesta peeled off her clothes. Wished she’d taken the nightgown to tie her knife and two arrows around her leg, rather than leave them on the shore, but she had no choice. She took the Illyrian bow, though, strapping it across her chest, the string digging into her bare skin.
Naked, she eyed the distance between the falls, the rapids, the rocks, and Emerie.
“Rock to rock,” she told herself. Braced for the cold.
And leaped into the water.
Nesta gasped and sputtered at the icy shock, hands shaking so hard she feared she’d lose her grip on the slick rocks and be hurtled over the falls. But she kept going. Aiming for Emerie. Closer and closer, until finally she swam frantically between the last rock and the riverbank—and Emerie draped over the half-submerged tree beyond it.
Shaking, teeth chattering, Nesta dragged Emerie free of the branches and farther up the bank, then crouched over her.
Emerie’s face was battered, her arm bleeding from a gash in her biceps. But she breathed.
Nesta reined in her sob of relief and gently shook her friend. “Emerie, wake up.”
The female didn’t so much as moan in pain. Nesta searched through Emerie’s dark hair, and her fingers came away bloody.
She had to get her across the river. Find shelter. Make a fire and get them warm. The bow she’d carried wasn’t enough to protect them. Not nearly.
“All right, Emerie.” Nesta’s teeth chattered so hard her face ached. “Sorry about this.”
She gripped her friend’s nightgown and ripped it down the middle, baring Emerie’s thin, toned body to the elements. Nesta peeled off the nightgown and twisted it into a long rope, then unshouldered the bow.
“You’re not going to enjoy this part,” Nesta said through her clacking teeth, hauling Emerie back to the water. “Neither am I,” she muttered, the icy water biting into her numbed feet.
Cold as the Cauldron. Cold as—
Nesta let the thought pass, willing it to drift by like a cloud. Focused.
She managed to get Emerie into the water up to their waists, holding her as tightly as her shaking fingers would allow. Then she hoisted her friend onto her back and hooked the Illyrian bow around them both, letting the near-unbreakable string dig into her own chest so the wood rested against Emerie’s spine, tethering them together.
“Better than nothing.” She looped Emerie’s limp arms around her shoulders, then took Emerie’s nightgown and wrapped it around her wrists, tying them in place. “Hold on,” she warned, even though Emerie remained an unmoving weight across her back.
Rock to rock. Just as she’d done before. Rock to rock and then back to the shore.