“...”
What was that?
She looked down, but nothing seemed wrong. It was fine. The current was still split cleanly to either side. The engineers were still crossing.
Dear steadied her breathing again.
And then, a moment later.
Snap.
Her little finger suddenly bent backward.
“Ugh.”
Pain crashed through her, and in the same instant the water she’d shoved to the right heaved in a great swell.
“Whoa!”
The men inside the river staggered along with it. Dear brought her hands together, lacing her fingers over her injured right hand. She forced power into it, and the current subsided; the sigil on the surface of the water wavered, then barely found its place again.
The officer in charge turned to look at her.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, sir.”
The answer came fast. So fast it sounded strange instead of reassuring. Dear clenched her teeth, because she didn’t want to be the kind of person who told lies.
I really am fine.
I can still do this. I just have to focus again. Dear forced herself to ignore the feeling in her bent finger.
Even the smallest push sent a needling pain shooting from her fingertips up to her elbow, but she couldn’t give up. There were still men out in the middle of the river.
“Next group, move in!”
At the officer’s order the engineers stepped into the river again. But before long, this time her wrist snapped backward.
“Hhk!”
Dear’s upper body lurched hard. One side of the sigil spread across the water buckled out of shape. At the same moment the pent-up river came rushing in, up to her knees.
Splaaash!
“Elma!”
The officer barked her title like a reprimand.
“I’m sorry!”
Dear all but screamed it. She hauled her arms back up in a hurry. The spirit stone over her right hand flickered unsteadily. As its clear light clouded over, the color drained from Dear’s face too. The officer clicked his tongue, and that was when Dear suddenly spoke up.
“Could you tie a rope around my waist, sir?”
“What?”
“Water spirits synchronize more easily the more direct the contact with their medium. Getting into the water myself puts less strain on me than dragging it around by force from up here.”
“...”
“I can do it.”
Dear’s eyes were dead serious, her tone half a plea. The engineers were still out there, gripping the guide line as they moved.
The officer seemed to weigh the situation from several angles, then nodded. And pointed at Kyle. Kyle stared back at them with his eyebrows drawn together and me? written all over his face, then sighed, walked over to her and tied the rope around her waist.
Then, while he was knotting it, he muttered something short.
“The current’s stronger out there. It’s going to hurt.”
“I don’t care.”
“I didn’t ask. I was warning you.”
Kyle gave the knot one more tug. Dear turned around at once. Kyle wound the other end of the rope around his forearm a few times.
“And don’t go out too far.”
Instead of answering, Dear stepped into the river. The moment her body sank into the water, the flow that kept slipping out from under her fingertips felt like it caught and held. Dear drew a breath and waded deeper in. The spirit stone over her right hand glinted. Her clouded mind cleared in an instant, and the surface stabilized.
“It’s holding!”
Someone shouted.
The engineers were sent back in. This time nobody staggered. Dear watched them and felt the relief wash through her.
The current drove the rope at her waist into her skin, but the confidence of knowing she could do this made her bold.
One step more.
And then a little more.
Before she knew it the water was at her waist. Behind her, the rope pulled taut.
“Hey.”
It was Kyle.
“That’s far enough.”
“It works better out here.”
“Maybe spare a thought for the guy holding the rope.”
And sure enough, she could see the rope biting into his arm as he took her weight and the current’s with it. Dear muttered, irritated.
“You could just tie it to a tree or something.”
“And when something goes wrong, you get cut clean in half.”
“...”
“You think a tree’s going to ease off when it needs to?”
Dear’s mouth shut.
Kyle hauled the rope in hard, dragging her body back toward him.
“I have to be the one holding it so I can pull when you get swept off, or let go when you go down.”
He was right, so she had nothing to say. In the end Dear pushed her lips out in a sulk and went exactly as far as Kyle had allowed, and held the spellwork there. By now everyone had crossed, and the last cart was nearly over.
Just a little.
Dear pushed power into her fingertips.
A little more and it’s done.
The cart’s front wheels came up over the bank. Then the rear wheels caught in the mud and jolted hard.
“Push!”
The engineers on the far side threw themselves against it. Dear watched without breathing.
“One, two!”
Clunk!
At last the rear wheels pulled free of the river.
“Crossing complete!”
The second the words landed, cheers broke out everywhere.
“We did it!”
“Everyone’s across!”
Dear’s eyes went wide.
It’s over. It’s actually over.
The engineers, the materials, the carts, every last one of them safe. I didn’t think I could really pull it off. Her nose started bleeding, but Dear just swiped it away.
“I did it.”
The words slipped out before she realized she was saying them. The answer came from behind her.
“Great, so crawl back out now.”
Kyle, as bored as ever. He was still insufferable, and he didn’t look the least bit interested in her success. Dear grinned at him anyway.
“You saw that, right? I’m not dead weight.”
Kyle didn’t answer.
“You saw it.”
“Ha. That dinky little thing. Fine, I saw it, now hurry up and get out.”
Only then, satisfied, did Dear face forward again. Now it was time to withdraw the spellwork.
Dear drew a slow breath in and began pulling the sigil back, starting from its outermost edges, one piece at a time.
One.
As one piece of the sigil vanished, the water banked up on either side crept back toward the middle.
Two.
The level rose. Dear backed away slowly, gathering the spellwork in as she went, easing off and tightening by turns, calculating her own route out as she withdrew. But right at that moment, every connection severed at once, like a thread pulled taut until it simply snapped.
For an instant she felt nothing at all. Sound and sight cut out together, and everything went pitch black. The spirit stone glowing on the back of her right hand and the mark on her collarbone both went dark.
Dear swayed, as if her consciousness had briefly snapped off, and dragged in a short breath. In that same instant, the enormous walls of water pinned back on either side collapsed inward onto her.
“Hey!”
Kyle shouted for her, urgent, but her body was already flying sideways, swept clean away by the current. She didn’t get far, though.
The rope tied around her waist had snapped taut.
Thunk!
“Kugh!”
The rope bit straight into her waist. She’d thought the world was ending right there, but it wasn’t. When she forced her swimming vision open and looked, she saw Kyle gripping the rope with everything he had.
Dear barely managed to get her head above the water.
“Puhah!”
He had been dragged down to the water’s edge himself. Both feet braced against the ground, both hands clamped around the rope wound about his arm, teeth gritted hard.
“Hold still!”
“I’d... love to!”
“Then quit thrashing around!”
“I’m not thrashing!”
Even now, the backtalk came out of her. Kyle spat a curse through his teeth.
“Sh*t, seriously.”
He hauled on the rope. Dear’s body moved against the current, bit by bit.
A handspan. Another handspan.
Kyle had been right. If she’d tied it to a tree, it would have been a disaster.
The moment she let out a breath of relief, there was a sudden crunching, splintering sound. It wasn’t the rope. When she looked at Kyle, she saw him staring down at his own feet, the color draining from his face.
The riverbank soil, scoured out by the violent current, was collapsing, taking the patch he was braced on with it.
“Kyle!”
The bank gave way. Kyle’s body dropped straight down. The rope lurched violently. In that instant, the force holding Dear vanished.
“Ah...!”
Her body was yanked backward. On reflex, Kyle grabbed at a stake driven into the ground beside him. One hand holding his own weight, the other fisted around the rope.
Thunk!
The rope went taut again. Dear’s body stopped dead in the middle of the raging current.
“Ngh!”
Her waist hurt like it was about to snap in two.
Kyle clenched his teeth and dragged himself up.
“I’m not letting go, so don’t freak out.”
“I-I’m not freaking out.”
“Shut up and get your hands under the rope.”
“Why?”
“Because when I pull, it’ll cinch tighter!”
Only then did Dear hurriedly shove her hands in between the rope and her waist. Kyle hauled.
Bit by bit.
Dear’s body drew closer to the shore again.
And then something upstream made a cracking, colliding sound.
“...”
Dear turned her head.
A tree.
A log as thick as a grown man’s torso was riding the current down, spinning like mad. And on a line straight for her.
“Kyle.”
“Told you not to freak out. I’m not letting go.”
If he doesn’t let go here, won’t I just get smashed to death by that thing? But somehow, his low, level voice settled her. Dear let the tension drain out of her body and closed her eyes. Kyle looked for a moment at Dear, eyes shut, leaning her whole weight on him as though she trusted him completely, and then wrenched the rope in hard.
Blood dripped from the forearm the rope was wound around. And in that instant, Dear’s body was dragged sharply forward.
Kraaash!
The log grazed past her by a hair. Kyle pulled her into his arms and went down on dry land with her.
