Page 151 of A Baron of Bonds
It needed it to stop.
I knew that much.
The stream, the water, the rush and power, the heaviness that pushed me down needed to stop. I wanted it all tostop.
I opened my eyes, coughing, the sweet intake of cold, wet air filling my lungs before I heaved and more water left them. Large round stones, covered in algae sat nestled into their riverbed, suddenly exposed to the open air, just as I was.
I coughed again and continuously, watching water and blood drip down onto my hands as I felt for the gash at my temple.
“Karus!” Mychael was at my side, sloshing through what was left of the stream to get to me, grabbing my shoulders to look at my face. “Can you hear me?”
I nodded slightly, the movement painful.
“We need to move. Can you walk? It doesn’t matter.” He pulled me up, bending and lifting my soaking wet body over his shoulder, running to the shore.
He helped me down gently, the other channelers and Moira at my side. Philius brushed over my wound with the sleeve ofhis shirt, then ripped a piece with his teeth and pressed it to my head.
I turned and coughed again, somehow more water spilling from my lungs.
“Karus, where are you right now?” Mychael asked somewhere in front of me.
“At—at the Great Stream.” I managed, blinking slowly, shivering before Philius’s shirt covered me.
“What time of day is it?” he asked next, taking Talon’s shirt and wrapping it around my legs, rubbing them up and down to warm my body.
I coughed, the jerking of my torso sending sharp pains to my head. “Morning.”
I saw him nod, the twinkling of Moira’s wings next to his shoulder.
“And what just happened to you?” he continued.
“I…I slipped and got carried away by the stream. I don’t know how I’m not dead.”
I heard Moira’s giggle as she landed on my chest. “I know. Look!”
She pointed behind her back to the water. I lifted myself onto my elbows, squinting at the stream’s edge.
A massive wall of water was forming, higher and higher into the sky. The rush of the river stopped right where I had been, exposing the riverbed completely. I gazed up at the wall of continual water as it grew taller than the trees, waiting for something.
“Tell it to let go, Karus. But slowly or we’re all soaked.” She crawled up to my shoulder and started pulling back my dripping hair.
“I did that?” I asked to no one in particular.
“Yep,” Moira answered. “I always knew there was something strange about you, Karus. From that first day I met you.”
I did what she suggested and watched as the wall of water slowly flowed downstream at the bottom of the wall, more and more of it rushing over the stones I had just landed on. Then the rest of it fell in a loud slap on the surface and the stream continued as if nothing had happened at all.
“I don’t understand. I didn’t use any magic to do that.”
She laughed, the chiming of it hurting my ears. “You didn’t need magic, Karus. You just did what any other powerful fae can do. You asked it to stop.”
Chapter 62
Rev
She was just wading there,waist-deep in the stream.
Her back was turned to me, her long chestnut and white hair curled, clumped and frizzy down her back as she laughed watching Parvus and Rauca swim after the stick she threw into the calm water.
