Page 66 of The Rebel and the Rose (The City of Fantome #2)

Ransom was dead. If that arrow didn’t kill him, the river would. He couldn’t swim, couldn’t breathe with that steel in his chest.

Andreas’s general bellowed another command. More arrows flew, but this time, Sera didn’t look up. She was looking down at that dark, churning water.

The thread in her chest went taut.

One minute she was on the bank, and the next, she was free-falling down into the swirling waters of the Verne. She barely registered the shock of cold or the tug of the current. Every fibre of her being was focused on Ransom.

Find him .

Save him .

In the water, she was weightless. Painless. Half numb by the time she broke the surface. Sera was a good swimmer – quick in a current and confident in the dark, thanks to summer nights spent in Ploughman’s Lake, and river-swimming with Pippin.

Using front stroke, she let the current carry her downriver. She scanned the surface as she swam, grateful when the clouds fractured around the moon, letting it light up the river.

Thank you, Saint Maurius .

Or whatever saint of old was listening to her prayers.

A glimpse of something up ahead made her jerk to the left. Moving closer, she spotted the arrow shaft protruding from Ransom’s chest. He was floating on his back.

Not swimming.

Not moving.

Fear shoved her under the surface, where she swam as fast as a merrow, surfacing just behind him. She threaded her arm around his upper chest, careful not to disturb his wound.

‘I’ve got you,’ she said, swallowing a mouthful of water.

Ransom was silent in her arms. Too cold. Too still. A flash of moonlight revealed his pallid face, and the blood seeping through his lips.

No. He was not dead.

She was going to save him.

They had made a promise to each other. She was going to keep it.

She floated on her back, propping him against her as the current carried them towards the mouth of the river. The South Sea glistened up ahead, where the Verne broke off into a series of narrow tributaries that reached towards the ocean, like splayed fingers.

The current slowed as the river splintered. Sera swam for the closest sandbank, crossing the narrowing inlet with renewed determination. When the water shallowed enough for her to climb out, she pulled herself up onto the sand, dragging Ransom with her.

Stars swam in her vision as she laboured for breath, but she didn’t dare break her focus. Not while the man she loved was half dead in her arms.

No, not dead.

He can’t be dead .

She laid him on his back, the river lapping at her feet as she clambered over him. The arrow in his chest was like a knife to her own. His eyes were closed, his face so pale she hardly recognized him.

‘Ransom?’ she said, trying not to cry. ‘Can you hear me?’

Nothing.

She turned him on his side. He gave a small wet cough. A stream of water trickled out. It was tinged with blood. There was blood on his clothes, too. She ripped open his shirt and nearly wept at the sight of the wound in his chest.

Too near his heart .

Was it too late to pray to Saint Alisa?

‘Bastian?’ The name was a plea, a broken whisper.

His eyelids fluttered but never opened. His breath was shallow. He was dying. She could feel it. She could see it. All that blood still pouring out of him. There must be so little of it left inside.

Panicking, Sera prised the arrow free, covering the wound with her whole hand. She pressed down hard, willing the last of his blood to stay in his body, begging his heart to keep pumping. She could feel it giving out under her palm.

‘Please, Bastian.’ She brought her forehead to his, her wet hair falling around them like a curtain. ‘You have to live. I need you to live.’

His heart lurched, surrendering a slow thud.

‘You promised.’ She was crying now, her tears falling on his cheeks, trickling into his mouth. ‘You promised we would be together.’

Another weaker thud.

She wasn’t cold any more. The numbness was gone. In its place, a violent heat ripped through her body.

‘I love you,’ she whispered against his lips. ‘Please, Bastian. I love you.’

A weak flutter beneath her fingertips.

The final beat.

She closed her eyes, pressed a trembling kiss to his cold lips. ‘Please, come back to me.’

Then silence. The wind ceased, the river quietening to a reverential hush. For a moment, it felt like they were the last two people in the world. One of them already gone, the other holding fiercely to that thread in her chest. The one that told her he was hers. And she was his.

I love you , she said again and again.

Come back to me .

Time stretched, the familiar ache of grief creeping in. She refused to let go of him. To take her hand from his quiet heart.

I love you .

Come back to me .

Something sparked. The darkness winking from black to gold.

There was a slow, deliberate thud.

A heartbeat.

Sera lifted her head, confusion warring with hope.

Light suffused them. Here in the dark of night, a bubble of warmth surrounded them. It was coming from her. Her palm on his chest was glowing.

She stared and stared, terrified to remove it.

She felt it again – that deliberate thud.

And another, stronger now.

A rhythm.

A beating heart.

Ransom’s lashes fluttered, his chest bowing under her touch.

A breath!

And another.

Then a name. ‘Seraphine.’

Sera let out a sob. ‘Bastian?’

He whispered, ‘I love you, too.’

Slowly, so very slowly, she removed her hand from his chest, stunned at what she found there. Not a gaping wound, or even a scar. But a handprint.

‘Bastian?’ she said again, nervous now.

He opened his eyes.

They were a bright, burning gold.

Saint .

A gasp stuck in her throat.

All around them, the darkness rippled. Shadows swarmed the riverbank, creating a canopy of starless night.

And from within, monsters came.