(Chapter 5: A Difficult Crossing, cont.)

  Roarke roused everyone an hour after dawn. Without a camp to clean up, or horses to care for, it was a simple matter to pack their bags and strike out once more. They didn’t have far to go, just up the riverbank to the three ropes stretched across the water. The middle rope was the walk-line, tried at the lowest point. The other two ropes were strung at waist height, serving as railings. The ropes were winched tight, to provide as much stability as possible, but the river was running high. It lapped at the walk-line, which would only drop lower once someone had their weight on it. Ean tracked the current and frowned. The water was moving fast. A few tree branches whipped by, one tangling in the walk-line before being pushed free. It wasn’t an ideal crossing.

  “I’ll go first,” Asali said, which showed good sense. Apart from Flora, she was the lightest of the party and had a soldier’s training.

  “Be careful,” said Leo.

  Asali rolled her eyes good naturedly and stepped onto the ropes.

  As Ean expected, the walk-line dipped under her weight. She walked out to the middle of the river, dropping about mid-calf in the water, and bounced a couple of times, testing the integrity of the walkway. The ropes held firm. She crossed to the other side and gestured for the next person to follow her.

  Chadwick went next, walking quickly and easily. Leo took a slower, more careful approach, which Ean appreciated. He’d be the one forced to jump in after him should he fall.

  Flora stepped up next. Her face was paler than usual, and Ean spotted a tremor in her hands. She curled them into fists and a bit of smoke curled up. There was no deliberately poised expression on her face, no carefully pursed lips and lowered lashes. Those looks of concentration had all been a show. Her fire was instinctual. She had more power in her hands than a trained soldier with a sword, but she hid it under bashful smiles and coy flirtations. Ean didn’t like people who hid their power. It stank of subterfuge. But subterfuge wasn’t the problem right now. It was getting the terrified Fire Mage across the river without her accidentally burning the ropes mid-crossing.

  Ean watched her inhale. She stepped onto the walk-line and slowly released her breath. She inhaled again and took one small step forward, then another. She inched out over the water. The rope sank and water lapped at her boots. She stopped. A few seconds ticked by. A few more followed.

  “Don’t worry, Flora!” Leo called out. “It’s easier than you think!”

  Flora nodded several times. She didn’t move.

  “It’s okay! I’ll come to you.”

  Leo stepped towards the ropes, but Asali grabbed his arm.

  “No! We don’t know if the rope can hold two people.”

  It was a fair concern. The walk-line was waterlogged and swollen, and they hadn’t tested it past one person’s weight.

  “You can swim, Flora!” Chadwick shouted. “You were swimming in the creek a few days ago.”

  “That was a creek,” Flora yelled back, a sharpness in her voice that Ean hadn’t heard before. “It’s different. And I’m a Fire Mage.”

  Roarke stepped forward. “Shall I cross first?”

  Flora shook her head and sucked in a breath. “No, I’m fine. I can do it.”

  She started moving again, but at a snail’s pace. Ean wondered if it would be faster if he piggy-backed her over. He didn’t care if the walk-line snapped under their weight. There were two other ropes to use and, as a shadow-walker, he’d been trained to walk across a tightrope. He could even do it blind-folded, like a circus performer. Which… could be a viable career option if he never figured out how to catch an arrow. It’d mean a lot of travelling, but the larger carnivals had covered wagons to sleep in. It had to be more comfortable than this journey.

  Flora edged her way to the middle of the ropes. She let out an audible gasp as the water hit her knees.

  “You’re doing great!” Leo encouraged, but then they all saw it—a tree branch, caught up in the river and moving swiftly downstream. It was headed straight for her.

  Ean yelled a warning, his voice chorusing with the others. Flora turned her head, following their pointing fingers, and froze. The branch hit her legs. She fell, plunging under water.

  Shit.

  Ean ran to the water’s edge, scanning the rapids for any sign of her surfacing. Beside him, Roarke shucked off his pack and cloak, like he was preparing to jump in after her.

  “There!” Chadwick yelled from across the river.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Flora’s head appeared, just under the ropes. She’d managed the grab the walk-line, but it wasn’t high enough to pull her out of the water. The current swept her body out, threatening to yank her away.

  Leo jumped onto the ropes to rescue her, but he jostled the walk-line. Flora screamed and lost her grip with one hand. She slipped under the water. Leo leapt backward. Flora surfaced, coughing and panicking.

  “Get a rope!” Roarke yelled across to Chadwick.

  A rope would take too long. Ean dropped his own pack and hopped up onto the right guide rope. It took a second to find his balance—the rope was slacker than he liked—but it was serviceable. He rope-walked, as quickly as he dared, to the middle of the line where Flora was floundering. He stepped down to the walk-line, snagged Flora’s arm, and hauled her out of the water. She latched onto him, shaking so hard it was difficult to hold her with one arm. He hefted her up so her feet could find the rope and it calmed her for a moment.

  “Ean!”

  Ean jerked his head up to see the Prince gesturing frantically upstream. He turned, right as rest of the tree came whipping down the river. There was no time to run. Ean curled around Flora, tightened his grip on the guide rope, and braced for impact.

  It smacked hard against the back of his body. They were shoved off the walk-line and plunged halfway into the water. It was cold, shockingly cold, and the tree snarled around them. A branch slapped against his legs. Another against the side of his head. Ean fought against the instinctive urge to push the tree away. He couldn’t let go of the rope, or Flora. They were buffeted for a moment, half-suspended, half-submerged, then the current ripped the tree away and sent it barreling down the river.

  Ean pulled himself back onto the ropes, dragging Flora with him. It was a struggle to get them both back on the walk-line. Their clothes were soaked, doubling their weight, and Flora was no help. She clung to him, arms wrapped around his neck and legs hitched around his waist, like she was trying to climb his body. He carried her awkwardly to shore; the others immediately crowded around.

  Flora didn’t seem to notice they were on land. Her head was tucked into the crook of his neck, and she sucked in deep, shuddering breaths. Ean supposed it was natural for someone to need a moment to compose themselves after a fright, but his head ached from the impact with the tree and the wind blew, cold and piercing, through his wet clothes. His boots squelched, completely full of water. And still Flora clung to him.

  He gingerly extricated himself from her grasp and she finally picked her head up. She looked startled, like she hadn’t realized they’d made it to land. He turned her around and gave her a push towards Leo, since she was so friendly with him. Leo caught her and she latched on his shirt and continued to shudder, this time a little more theatrically. Ean turned back to the river, crossing the ropes again to retrieve his pack.

  Roarke handed it over with a simple, but genuine, “Well done.”

  Ean hadn’t expected the gratitude. It settled wrong over him, so he deflected it, gesturing grandly at the guide ropes, “Yes, a witch has been rescued from the river. The quest is over. We can all go home.”

  Roarke didn’t rise to his sarcasm, just pinned him with a steady gaze. “It’s a mark of character to accept thanks.” He turned without saying more and crossed over without issue.

  By the time Roarke reached the other side, Ean’s teeth were starting to chatter. He could see the others building a campfire and he quickly jogged across the ropes to join them.

  Flora had been situated by the fire. Roarke dropped his cloak over her shoulders and Chadwick pulled off her boots. She barely noticed them, still clutching onto Leo as she was. Asali set out the kettle for a warming cup of tea, but her movements were too sharp to be anything but exasperated. Ean wanted to laugh at her but getting warm took precedence. He stepped behind a tree to strip. The shirt collar scraped over his head and a flare of pain shot up from his temple. He reached up; hot blood dripped down his fingers. The tree must have opened the skin. He prodded at the wound, wincing at the stab of pain, but it didn’t feel too deep. He dug a kerchief out of his pack, blotted his head, and pulled on his dry clothes.

  He rejoined the camp and hung his wet clothes from a nearby branch to dry. Flora had changed as well and had finally released Leo. She sat so close to the fire anyone else would be screaming. She seemed to be drinking in the heat.

  Ean sat down, not nearly as close. She didn’t notice him at first, but then her gaze drifted over. Her eyes fastened on the kerchief he was holding to his head.

  “Oh!” She scooted over, pulled back the cloth, and winced in sympathy. “I can fix this.”

  Ean opened his mouth to let her know it wasn’t that serious, but she was already up and digging through her pack. She pulled out a small tin and a couple of bandages. Her fingers were cold, despite the fact she’d been holding them next to the fire, but her touch was gentle. She smeared something against the cut. It stung for a second, then settled into a pleasing sort of numbness.

  “This needs to be re-applied in two hours.”

  It was more attention than Ean thought it needed, but he agreed with a shrug. “Okay.”

  She settled down beside him, let out a breath, and then started talking. At first, it was a great rambling ‘thank you’. She told him about getting scared on the ropes, and freezing in place, and not knowing what to do. She felt very silly about it now and she was sorry that he’d gotten hurt because of her. She thought he’d been very brave and heroic. She had never liked the water and she wasn’t a strong swimmer. And then suddenly she was talking about a ferry ride to the Glass Isles and spending the entire trip in the hold, not able to look at the water.

  Ean was confused, both at the change of topic and the fact that she kept talking to him. He didn’t think he was offering any encouragement, he was only nodding and grunting on occasion. In fact, he wasn’t really paying attention, but then Leo sat down and spoke about his first boat ride across Viator Bay. Roarke passed out tins of tea and spoke about the Great Wave that had struck the coast of Eastmere forty years ago.

  The conversation continued for the hour it took for him and Flora to warm and then they packed up, Flora jumping up to fold his mostly-dry clothes into a neat pile, like she could repay a life debt with small favors. He was surprised when she fell into step beside him, still chirping away. He was also surprised to discover that, when she wasn’t fawning over court gossip, she was decent conversationalist. Some of the others dropped back from time to time when the topic interested them. Ean didn’t say much back, but he still spoke more than all the other days of the journey combined.

  When they camped for the night, he and Flora were allowed to sit and relax while the others did the chores around them. Flora reapplied her strange paste one last time before bed, and when Ean woke up in the morning, the cut had completely sealed over. All that remained was a red line and a fading bruise.