Page 67 of Synodic

I eased Rowen to the ground, already feeling his temperature rising through his drenched clothes. I propped him against the rock wall, hoping the upright position would keep him alert longer, but it was clear the poison was quickly taking hold of him.

“Rowen, I need you to tell me what to do while you’re still lucid. How do I draw out the venom?” I asked, carefully lifting his shirt to assess the damage. He grunted as the cloth peeled from his wound, and I gently slipped the garment over his head. He was now naked from the waist up, carved with three gruesome slashes along the side of his ribcage. The skin puckered an unhealthy black around the edges.

I winced at the torn flesh, blood still seeping out in a slow and steady rhythm.

“My pocket. Check my pockets,” he said between hastened breaths, his taut stomach moving in quick, shallow breaths.

Without asking why, I dove my hand into one of his pockets. His pants were still soaked, making it difficult to search the fabric suctioned to his body, but after a thorough look, my hands found nothing.

I moved to the other side, and my hopes dashed as I came up empty-handed once more. I searched both pockets again just in case I missed something.

“Rowen, there is nothing in your pockets,” I said with sickening dread, afraid he was already hallucinating.

“After the laith attacked me, I pulled moss from its body. Keeping it in case I needed to use it on you, in case one of them hurt you, not realizing it had already gotten me.” His speech was laboring, and I was worried he wouldn’t be able to finish, but he struggled on. “It must have been lost in the river.”

“Rowen, I don’t understand,” I pleaded, trying to make sense of his words.

“The moss,” he said, visibly battling the poison coursing through his blood. “The moss that grows from the laith’s body is…is the only cure.”

My heart plummeted.

So that’s what he did when he leaned over the laith—he’d cut off a piece of its mane. I was angry with him in the moment for wasting time, but it turns out he had been thinking of me when he took those precious seconds to tear the moss from the dead laith.

A revolting pain wracked me from the inside as I took in his eyes. His pupils were huge and blown out, only the thinnest ring of green surrounded the fathomless dark holes that were swallowing him up.

Our only hope had been washed from his pockets, lost in the fury of the river. There was nothing I could do. The poison would slowly but surely claim him until his heart stopped beating.

Rowen would die tonight.

25

“There must be something else,” I begged desperately, my mind refusing to accept the reality of the situation.

“When we…when we jumped a laith fell with us. I think…I think I killed it as we fell, but—”

I remembered the flash of white falling beside us. “I’ll find it,” I said without hesitation, an ember of hope swelling in my chest. Now that I knew his salvation was out there, nothing was going to stop me from finding it.

“Don’t you dare leave this cave, it’s not safe. Takoda will find you…” he trailed off, then was silent for so long I was afraid I’d lost him.

“You don’t get to be a martyr for me, Rowen. You’d never stop reminding me,” I said, not believing I could lose him. I understood what I needed to do to keep him alive; the decision was already made.

I reached to his waist and grabbed the blade from his holster. It would do me more good than him at this point. Especially if Rowen was wrong and he hadn’t killed the creature.

I choked at the thought of a laith roaming the area very much alive, agitated, and hungry, but I swallowed down the fear. “I’ll be back. I need you to fight it for as long as you can. Do you understand?”

He shook his head no, still trying to convince me to stay as his eyes fluttered and his head slumped back to the wall.

“Rowen?” I called as I shook him with panicked urgency.

When I received no reply, I dashed out of the cave without a second thought.

As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t stay with him. His only chance of survival was out in the forest, hidden within the dense brush—a needle in a haystack.

If Rowen had truly killed the creature, its lifeless body would have been carried farther along the river; if not, it would most likely come up from behind me before I even knew it was there.

Trying to see everywhere all at once, I made my way downstream, praying I was making the right decision. I scrambled through the branches and bushes like a madwoman, frantically scanning both sides of the bank for the forest laith, dead or alive.

Ominous grey storm clouds roiled through the sky, their bulging bellies of water and lightning promising a brutal storm. In affirmation, an earsplitting boom cracked like a whip, and a bright white light pierced the darkening sky in half. Pellet-like rain began descending upon me, crashing and stinging against my skin with every drop.

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