Blood Heir. Amelie Wen Zhao

don’t move. Just hold on to me. Feetfirst, toes pointed.”

      She had barely processed his words, barely let a taste of fear reach the tip of her tongue.

      Quicktongue raised his arm. “First step to becoming a ruffian,” he said, “is learning to fall.”

      His blade flashed. He brought his arm down with ruthless force.

      And then they were falling.

       3

      The river claimed them as soon as they hit it, pulling them under with vengeance in its white-furled fluxes and battering them like leaves in a gale. Ramson let the tides take him. He knew the waters, knew when to let himself go and when to push against it. The river did not yield. It was all about learning to swim with the current.

      These waters were different from the wide-open seas of Ramson’s childhood. In Bregon, the waters were cobalt blue, the caps flecked with sunlight. He had swum for hours, diving beneath the surface and looking up at the faraway sky in a muted blue world of his own.

      In Cyrilia, the rivers were white and frothing and cold. Ramson struggled to keep his eyes open as the current flung him to and fro. The pressure in his chest grew. Water surged at his nose and mouth.

      The Affinite girl was still bound to his chest by the rope. He could feel her thrashing against him, kicking and struggling as the current pummeled her.

      Ramson severed the cord. The odds of survival were greater without someone weighing you down. He had been thinking only of himself when he did it, but as he watched the current drag the witch away, he supposed it might have been true for her, too.

      Stay still, he wanted to tell her. The more you struggle, the faster you drown.

      But his own lungs were aching, and that familiar sensation of weakness was creeping into his limbs. He needed to breathe, or risk becoming a part of the current forever.

      Ramson kicked out. No sooner had he righted himself than the current pushed him over again. Panic bubbled in his chest. His head felt light. Water pressed at his nose and his lips, yet part of him remembered that he could not open his mouth.

      His limbs were becoming heavier. His vision was a whirl of white. It was cold.

      Swim, came a voice. He knew instantly whose voice it was—that calm, thin voice that had defined his childhood and haunted him every day thereafter. Here, in the roaring chaos, it sounded so close. Swim, or we both die.

      Ramson thrust his legs behind him, arching his back. He felt the current give a little. Somewhere above him, somewhere near, there was light.

       Swim.

      The light grew brighter. He broke through the surface, coughing and gulping in lungful after lungful of fresh, wintry Cyrilian air, feeling the power return to his limbs.

      He hauled himself onto the bank, digging his nails into the half-frozen dirt and dragging his feet across snow-covered grass. He was shivering uncontrollably, moving in starts and stops, his arms and legs jerking in awkward movements as he tried to stimulate his blood flow.

      The river had borne them quite a distance; Ghost Falls was a faraway speck, barely larger than the size of his palm. His stomach flipped as he took in the height of the cliffs, the waterfall that was no more than a misty stretch ending in the river. No matter his calculations and the meticulous planning he’d done in the darkness of his cell; it had taken a miracle and a hand from the gods for them to have survived.

      Not that Ramson believed in the gods anyway.

      He turned his back to the prison. A snow-tipped forest stretched before him, illuminated in a haze of dusty gold beneath the late-afternoon sun. And in the distance, ice-capped mountains rose and fell as far as the eye could see.

      But Ramson felt only the cold in his bones and saw only the shadows that stretched long and dark beneath the pine trees. This was Cyrilia, the Empire of the North, where autumn nights were colder than any winter day in the other kingdoms. And if he didn’t find shelter before the sun set, he would die.

      A cough behind him made him spin around, dagger in hand. He felt a faint twinge of surprise as he caught sight of the Affinite struggling up the bank like a dying animal. She was on her hands and knees, her head drooping, her dark locks plastered to her face and dripping water. She would not stand again. Not without his help.

      Ramson turned away.

      The snow muffled his footsteps as he ventured into the forest, and soon the sounds of the girl spluttering and the river rushing faded into silence. The trees grew thick enough to block out the sun, and the cold pressed into him with every step he took.

      He ran through the terrain around Ghost Falls in his mind, but a growing sensation of doubt began to stall his progress. He’d been brought here in cuffs and a blindfold, the wagon traveling for days before he’d been hauled out and thrown into his cell. As far as Ramson knew, the area around the prison was barren—a wasteland of ice-covered tundra and the Syvern Taiga, the forest that covered half of the Cyrilian Empire.

      Somehow his thoughts were drawn back to the witch. It was a shame that their escape had weakened her so much. Whereas she might have been a useful ally with her powerful Affinity, she would only be a hindrance going forward. He doubted she’d even be able to stand, let alone make it out of the woods. But then again, he thought grimly, where would she go?

      Something clicked in his mind, and he came to a sharp stop. Of course. How could he have been so stupid? He turned back and half staggered, half ran to where he had left the witch.

      The girl had come to Ghost Falls just to see him. Which meant she had to have a way out. A means of transportation.

      He found her crouching several feet from the river, her head bent, her arms wrapped around herself and moving stiffly as she tried to rub heat back into her body. She looked up at him with half-lidded eyes as he approached. In just minutes, the bottom of her wet locks had frozen to ice.

      Ramson knelt by her side, clasping a hand around her neck and feeling for her pulse. She twitched but made no further move to resist.

      “How do you feel?” Injecting concern into his tone, he took her cheeks in his hands. They were ice-cold. “Can you speak?”

      She opened her chapped lips. They were tinged with blue. “Y-yes.”

      “Do you feel dizzy? Drowsy?”

      “N-no.” It was clearly a lie, yet as she lifted her chin stubbornly and fixed him with that glare, Ramson couldn’t help but admire her resolve.

      “We need to find shelter before sunset.” Ramson darted a glance over the treetops, where the sun hung, obscured by the gray clouds and mist. “Where did you come from? How did you get here?”

      “W-walked.”

      His heart almost sang at that word. That meant there had to be shelter within walkable distance. He’d made the right choice, coming back for her. “From where? Is there a town nearby?”

      A shake of her head. “A d-dacha. I l-live there.”

      “How far?”

      Her body gave a spasm, and he bundled her closer to him. Their wet clothes might as well have been ice packs, but he knew the body heat would help. Her answer came in a breath that clouded in the air. “Two hours.”

      Ramson glanced at the mist-covered sun that hung precariously low over the rim of the trees. For the first time, it looked like hope. He stood, adjusting his icy clothes and testing his muscles. They weren’t cramping yet, which was a good sign. “Can you walk, darling?”

      The witch began to rouse herself, climbing to her feet, but almost toppled over at the effort. Ramson caught her by her elbows before she fell. “I’ve got you.” Earn her trust, reach the shelter. He hoisted her onto his back, immediately