No...
The word ripped through mid-air, sharper than the wind screaming in my ears.
I wasn’t going to make it.
The other side of the cliff lood before , a wall of shadow and stone, so close I could almost believe I would land. But my paws weren’t long enough, my body too small yet too heavy.
The arc of my leap was wrong.
Too short.
By a few ters.
I stretched my claws anyway, desperate to catch the edge, to scrape against anything that might hold . My chest hamred, each heartbeat louder than the river below.
But there was nothing. No rock. No rope. Nothing but air.
Panic flared white-hot, flooding every vein, every nerve.
Behind , from the cliff I ca from, a roar burned my ears.
The sound rattled my bones, a howl so furious it made the night itself shudder.
I didn’t need to look to know his rage burned gold behind .
I could feel Finn’s fire chasing down, a streak of red fla stretching toward , hungry to burn even here, mid-fall.
"I guess we’re taking a bath down the river," Leika muttered in my head, her voice dry, almost amused, even in the face of death.
The ground was gone.
We plumted.
Wind roared through my fur, flattening it against my skin.
My stomach flipped, weightless one second, sinking the next.
My body spun once, twice. The cliffs blurred. The stars wheeled.
Below, the river surged. Black and white, foam frothing like teeth.
It was no calm stream but a beast, thrashing, waiting for to land in its maw. The roar of it drowned everything, even Finn’s fury.
I tried to twist my body, to angle myself the way wolves were ant to when crossing streams or leaping prey.
I tucked my paws, stretched them again, tried to make the fall less deadly.
But I was clumsy.
My limbs flailed too wide, uncoordinated, unpracticed. My wolf was too small, too weak from three years of silence, too raw from being forced out again. I couldn’t fix the fall.
There was no fixing it.
The river rose up and hit like a fist.
The water slamd the breath from my chest. Pain burst through , white and blinding.
Cold swallowed whole, so sharp it was like knives tearing into every inch of skin and bone. My body convulsed, mouth open in a silent scream that filled with water.
The current seized instantly.
It dragged under, flipping over, tumbling in its claws. I slamd against a hidden rock, my shoulder exploding in pain. My arms spun uselessly. My legs kicked but found no ground.
The river owned .
And then my wolf slipped away.
My fur lted, my paws shrank, claws dissolving.
My human body returned, fragile, vulnerable, the thin white dress clinging and dragging down heavier than chains.
"Leika!" My thought scread into the darkness. "Where are you? Why did you—"
"Sorry, Vien." Her voice was faint now, strained. "My energy isn’t stable enough. I can’t hold the form. Not after years under the wolfbind. It’s too much."
Her words broke like glass on stone.
Terror stabbed through sharper than the river’s cold. "You can’t leave ! Not now!"
"I won’t. But I can’t keep us as wolf."
Her voice flickered like a candle in a storm.
"I figured," I thought weakly, water rushing into my throat. I gagged, choked, coughed, but swallowed more. "I figured it must be... the suppression... all those years..."
But I couldn’t finish. My chest convulsed again. Water poured into , heavy, suffocating.
I tried to swim.
I tried.
I kicked my legs, moved my arms. But my limbs were dead weights, numb from cold. I didn’t know how to swim properly. My body twisted sideways, spinning with the current. Every attempt to fight made weaker.
"Swim, Vien! Swim!" Leika’s voice rose in panic, sharp and urgent.
"I can’t!" My thought was jagged, desperate. "I can’t!"
The river roared louder, a predator’s growl. It dragged down, spun again, shoved into stone.
My ribs scread as my side struck rock. The pain was brief, swallowed by numbness.
Air. I needed air.
My chest felt like fire. My lungs clawed for breath. My throat ached from choking. I opened my mouth again and more water rushed in. My vision blurred, my head pounded, and the pressure inside grew unbearable.
I was drowning.
This was how it ended.
Not in fire. Not in chains. In a river.
Finn would laugh when he found my body. Or worse, he’d never find it at all. I’d be just another naless piece of prey swallowed by the current.
My mother’s face flashed before .
Her shawl, her last breath, her body crumpling to the stone.
I couldn’t even honor her by surviving.
The thought shattered .
My body slowed. My arms stopped flailing. My legs drifted uselessly. I couldn’t tell which way was up or down. Darkness pressed closer.
Leika’s voice trembled, softer now, desperate. "Vien, please. Don’t give up."
"I can’t... breathe..." My mind’s voice broke apart.
The last bubbles of air escaped my mouth, drifting upward into blackness.
And then—
Sothing found .
It was sudden. A presence wrapped around , coiling over my skin, sliding beneath . It wasn’t the river, wasn’t water. It was thicker, heavier... so black that I thought I’d gone blind.
The current no longer beat . The cold no longer bit .
Instead, warmth seeped into my body.
Strange warmth. Not Finn’s fire, not natural heat, but sothing other. Dark and gentle, curling through my chest and limbs, pushing the ache from my lungs.
I gasped, not water this ti, but air. Sohow, impossibly, air.
The river still roared, but it no longer touched . I floated, suspended in this shroud of shadow.
My eyes fluttered open, but I saw nothing. Only black.
"What—what is this?" My thought was barely a whisper.
Leika was silent. For the first ti since she’d returned, she said nothing at all.
And I realized, whatever this was, it wasn’t her.
The shadows tightened around , carrying , lifting .
I was moving.
Upward. Away.
The cold vanished fully, replaced by warmth that sank deep, until my bones no longer shook, until my body eased despite itself.
My lashes grew too heavy. My vision dimd.
"Who... who are you?" I whispered into the dark, though no one could hear.
No answer ca.
Only the steady warmth, carrying as the river raged on without .
And then, at last, the darkness claid whole.
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