Page 125 of Thief of Hearts

It crashed hard against the rock wall we were perched on. The earth seemed to move beneath us.

“What is—”

My question was cut off by the water hitting the rock wall again. And again. With more force each time. It was like it was trying to push the wall down and out of its way so that it could cause more destruction.

Water poured between the large gaps in the rocks, but it didn’t make the main body dissipate.

Somehow the water continued to get higher, continued to pound away at the rock wall.

And there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t fight the flood. My strength didn’t matter, his cleverness didn’t matter. We were at the storm’s mercy.

There was nowhere for us to go other than where we were. We were trapped.

I tried to tell myself that this was fine, that we were safe. The water was several feet beneath us and I didn’t have to worry.

But the water continued to rise until I could feel it lapping at my feet.

“It’s coming over the wall!” I yelled to Zain and felt him nod.

“Hang on!” he shouted back.

At first it seemed harmless, like a small wave in the ocean. A thin line of water would rush against us and retreat, over and over.

But then the water got bigger. And stronger.

And it crashed against us, as if trying to knock us off the wall. I wanted to ask Zain if this was what these flash floods were supposed to do because it didn’t feel natural.

It felt like we were being attacked and I didn’t know why.

Or who could be behind the attacks.

The water would push us and we would dig in, holding our position, and it would retreat. It began hitting harder. So hard that Zain lost his footing and was yanked off the wall.

I screamed his name and grabbed the rope on the outcropping with one hand and the rope attached to him with the other. I felt his body weight as I began pulling him back to me. The flash flood wasn’t allowed to have him.

Another wave hit me but I held on. I would keep us both safe, no matter what. I yelled at the water, as if that would do something, but it felt as futile as everything else.

Lightning lanced above my head and I saw Zain, hanging on to the rope. His head and torso were above the waterline, which meant that both he and Dagger were safe.

“Thank Invara,” I whispered, pulling him back up. It was so hard to pull—I was so cold and tired and the water sucked at his feet, tugging him down. I yelled again and put all my strength into jerking him free of the roiling water. He used his feet as leverage and was able to walk along the rock wall as I tugged him to me.

When he was back on the ledge, I threw my arms around him. “Shorten the rope!”

“What?” he shouted, not able to hear me.

“Shorten the rope! There shouldn’t be so much slack between us!”

He looked as if he wanted to argue, but instead he fixed a length of the rope so that we were much closer. I didn’t want him pulled out of my arms again.

I did my best to shield us from the incoming waves, using my strength to stay in one spot, but I still stumbled, as did Zain. The waves had started to feel like giant fingers that grabbed us, trying to drag us back into the flash flood.

Hanging on felt like the most hopeless thing in the world. A bleak part of my brain told me that eventually the water would sweep us away and we would both drown.

Then there was this disquieting voice, piercing through the thunder and the rainfall, and it said:

Give up. Let go.

That had not come from inside me. I’d heard that with my ears from outside myself. I knew that to be true when I saw from Zain’s expression he had heard it, too.