Kai could feel his blood bleeding into the river, painting ribbons of warmth into the freezing water. His back was aflame, torn open by the wolf's claws. The pain was so sharp he couldn't tell if he was screaming or just thinking of screaming.
Asha's arms were around him. Her voice, hoarse and panicked, came through the roar of water.
"Kai—! Kai, you're hurt! Stay with me!"
He didn't answer. He couldn't. All his strength was in his limbs now—kicking, thrashing, keeping them both above the surface as the cold river dragged them forward like a serpent in a fury.
The current was too strong.
The moment they had hit the river, the cold had stolen their breath, crushed their lungs like stone. Now it was a relentless fight just to stay above the surface. Water slapped their faces, shoved down their throats, filled their ears. The current pulled at their limbs with invisible hands, spinning them around jagged rocks and sunken branches.
Kai couldn't feel his legs. He didn't know if it was the cold or the wound, but he couldn't stop kicking—not yet. Not until Asha was safe. One arm held her tightly against him, the other weakly clawing at the water to steer.
His trusty stone axe has long been swept away amidst the chaotic currents.
"I can't—" Asha gasped, coughing. "I can't breathe!"
"I've got you," he choked. "Don't let go, no matter what."
Another wave crashed over them. The river's roar was a beast now, frothing and wild, surging with cruel strength. The terrain around them blurred—dark stones, pale bark, snow-melt banks streaked in white.
Asha clung to him like she had in the blizzard, like she always had when he was the only warmth in a cold world. She was shivering violently. Her lips were blue.
Despite her desperate attempts to stay afloat, if it weren't for her son's strong support, she would have drowned already. She was keenly aware of that.
She so wished that as a mother that she could help her son in some way, but reality was cruel, always forcing her to be a burden to her son.
The current turned savage.
Kai tried to angle toward the shallows, but the river had chosen its path. A bend came too fast, then a spray of mist—he knew that meant rocks or worse. They slammed into a hidden stone and spun out. He lost his grip on her for half a second. It was too long.
"Mom!"
"I'm here!" Her fingers caught the torn fabric of his tunic. He saw blood cloud the water around them. His blood.
The merciless currents' whiplashing opened his wounds further. There was nothing he could do but endure.
The river narrowed.
The noise shifted. It was no longer the chaotic crashing of surface water. It had become a smooth, endless thunder. A sound that echoed from ahead—not beneath them, but below.
Kai's eyes widened. Mist. A sudden drop in the treeline. The sound. The realization hit like ice in his lungs.
There was a waterfall ahead.
They couldn't see it yet, but they could feel it. The pull changed, turning from a drag to a grip. The water around them deepened, surged with unnatural smoothness. The edges of the riverbank rose sharply—there would be no escape now.
"Hold on!" he shouted, but his voice was thin, carried away by wind and current.
"We have to get to the side!" Asha cried, flailing toward the right bank, but it was too far. The current was dragging them into the center of the flow.
Kai tried to swim against it, one arm strong, the other securely locked around her body. His back screamed. Each movement was agony, but he kept going. He had to. The river couldn't take her. Not after everything.
"I won't let go," he growled through gritted teeth.
Asha looked at him, tears mingling with the freezing water on her face. "I know."
The edge came into view. A sudden void. A drop.
The waterfall loomed ahead, twenty meters or more, crashing into rocks below like the jaws of a waiting god.
Kai barely had time to think.
He turned his body, clutching her to his chest, and whispered, "Breathe deep. Hold your nose."
They took a deep breath and held it.
Then the river fell.
They plummeted.
He made sure that they fell feet first.
Wind ripped around them. The sound vanished, consumed by the hollow silence of free fall. Kai's legs wrapped around Asha's in midair, his arms wrapped as tight as possible around her head and waist, using what little strength he had to cushion his mother's fall with his own.
For a moment, there was nothing but weightlessness—no river, no sky, no up, no down. Just cold. Just falling.
They hit the pool below like stones.
The world went white.
Water surged around them in all directions. Kai tried to swim, but he didn't know which way was up. The wound in his back screamed every time he moved. He kicked out blindly, one arm still wrapped around Asha.
But the river wasn't done.
The pool churned violently before dragging them once more into a narrow passage—an underground tunnel carved by centuries of relentless flow. Asha wanted to scream, but losing what precious little air left in her lungs would be suicide.
They were sucked into the blackness, swallowed whole by a current that twisted and dragged like a living serpent.
Rocks scraped against Kai's side. His elbow slammed against something hard, and he nearly lost his grip on Asha. He couldn't see—could barely breathe—his lungs were beginning to burn. But he held on.
A scorching obsession to protect his mother kept him going despite all the pain. His grip hardened.
Each twist of the current felt like a new betrayal. A bump here, a collision there. Every sharp edge found its mark on his already torn body. His back was an agony of fire and cold, and now his ribs joined in with every hard impact.
His mind flickered—images of Asha, their camp, the wolves, firelight—all bleeding into the roar of the water and the choking dark.
Are we dying? he thought numbly. Is this how it ends? Pulled into the earth like drowned roots…
Beside him, Asha was losing strength. Her limbs had gone slack. Her lips quivered, desperate to breathe. The cold had seeped into her bones, and the fear, the guilt—it numbed her as much as the river.
She wanted to scream for her son, for what he had done to protect her, for the blood she'd seen, the pain etched on his face as he dove. But all she could do was hold on, barely, her fingers entwined with his sash as they tumbled through the abyss.
Then, as if in answer to their desperation, the current changed.
It slowed.
The walls widened.
The choking tunnel gave way, and suddenly they were spat out into an expanse of still water.
Asha's head broke the surface with a sputtering gasp. The air hit her lungs like flame. She coughed violently, eyes darting, arms flailing weakly.
"Kai? Kai!"
He surfaced beside her—barely. His body floated more than swam. His eyes were half-lidded, mouth slack, chest heaving. Blood still seeped from the gash down his back, faintly clouding the water behind him.
He was conscious only in the most fragile sense of the word, every breath a battle, every heartbeat a question.
"I've got you," she whispered, wrapping one trembling arm around his chest. "I've got you, Kai. Don't go. Not now."
With what little strength she had, she kicked toward the nearest patch of solid ground. A rocky outcrop—a small island in the center of a vast underground lake—jutted up from the still water.
Bioluminescent moss clung to the cavern walls far above, casting a soft teal glow across the surface. Stalactites hung like frozen fangs overhead, and deep shadows clung to the edges of the chamber.
She reached the shore after what felt like an eternity. Dragging Kai's body onto the rocks was like pulling a tree from the earth. Her arms shook, lungs burned, and she nearly collapsed beside him.
He wasn't moving.
"Kai…" She leaned over him, hands shaking as they hovered over his chest. "Kai, wake up. Please wake up."
His eyes fluttered. A shallow groan left his throat.
Relief and guilt crashed over her in equal measure.
"Thank the stars," she choked out. "You're alive. You saved me."
He didn't respond. His body was limp, breath shallow, and his skin was cold to the touch.
Asha looked around the cavern—there was no fire, no warmth, no help. But they had survived. Somehow. Somewhere beneath the world, in a place untouched by sun or sky, they still breathed.
She curled weakly beside him, pulling him close, using her body to give him what little heat she could. Her fingers found his again, squeezing tightly.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I should be the one protecting you."
Silence answered. But his chest still rose and fell, slow and fragile, like the lapping of water against stone.
In the heart of the earth, beneath the crushing dark, mother and son clung to life—together.