Stained, Tome 4 : Exalted

Chapter One

He burst through the waves howling. One crested over his head, and freezing water sloshed into his mouth, pulled down his throat by a gasp. His lungs sputtered, aching as they tried to contract—but the current was swift and unrelenting, pulling him along head-first, and when his body called for air, his lungs just found more water.

I’m drowning.

This was a mystery to Cayne, not just because he’d been swimming since he was a wee lad, but because in his mind’s eye he saw only snow. Where the snow had been, he couldn’t recall, but he knew he’d been somewhere with heaps of snow, and he'd been there with Julia.

As the current jerked him over sharp stones, he saw a swatch of landscape: rushing water between tree-lined banks, branches crisscrossing in front of gray sky. His knee caught on a rock, his body spun, and when he surfaced again, his plane of vision was level with the grassy shoreline.

That’s what gave it away: the grass. It grew in tufts, like an old man’s hair. It was thick and pale yellow and sweet-scented, and along with the particular bend of the river, it conjured a distinct impression: the Falls of Dochart.

In the back of his stinging throat, he could taste the particular tang of Loch Tay: earthy, boggy, and with just a hint of brine. The taste had been called home once, the falls the site of boyhood feats.

Now the rapids sped him toward his demise. He banged his temple against a sharp stone and moaned, gulping more water. Starved of oxygen, his mind spun like a film reel, jumping from Rosa’s house to a stolen car to Nepal with Samyaza, then the river; he told Julia about the exorcism and there was shame, but her hands were soft; he was kissing her mouth; there were tears on her cheeks as she fled his cell; they were escaping an alpine resort. Lots of snow.

Julia!