Obsidian and Stars (Ivory and Bone #2)(52)

But then Kol starts to speak. He leans forward, and I think he is saying that I should climb—try to make it up through the gap before . . .

But the rest is lost to me. His voice is drowned out by the hum of water as I dive back under to the place where his legs are pinned below.

I trace his left leg to the floor. His foot is wedged in a gap between two large shoulders of rock. My hands run over the surface of each one—they are broad and wide, like the backs of two short-faced bears lying side by side. This is a different kind of trap—different from the smaller rocks that held my wrists in place. Moving the boulders that pin his legs to the floor will take all the strength I have.

Even that may not be enough.

Liquid cold tears at my skin like the claws of a saber-toothed cat. It holds me in its grasp. It peels away my warmth like a sharpened blade slicing meat from bone. The bare skin of my hands and face, the covered skin of my arms and chest—every piece of me aches, every piece of me burns with cold.

Every pulse is like a scream, every heartbeat an order to swim up to the surface and breathe. But I won’t yield. As the water runs in, time runs out. And Kol is no closer to escape than he was when I dove down.

My hands thread between the rocks, wedge around his legs, seeking any knob or notch to grab hold of. Nothing. Smooth stone wraps all the way around, as far as I can reach. I work my fingers around his ankles, down to the soles of his boots. Pushing . . . pulling . . . I manage the smallest of movements. His left leg slides up the width of one of my clawing fingers. His right leg slides out from under his left about twice as far. A victory so small, so insignificant, but it’s enough for me to allow myself a moment at the surface to breathe.

The moment I break through to the air I hear Kol’s voice shouting at me. I think I may have heard it under the surface as well, but the desperate screams of my body and mind overwhelmed it. Now it can’t be ignored. His words ring against the rippling surface that climbs ever higher. They shiver against the close walls. The room shudders with his words—foolish, and too late, and save yourself.

I cough, spitting water and silt from my lips. I don’t dare answer his shouted demands. I don’t dare take time to argue. Instead I try to give him the kind of smile he gave me, and I soak in the image of his face one more time.

Then I swim back down, fast.

My hands go right to his legs, squeezing around them and easing into the gap between the rocks. I lean hard, wedging my arm as far into the dark space as I can. I claw at the stone, fighting to stay down, leveraging all my strength, holding myself underwater as I fight to lift this impossibly heavy boulder up and away.

And the effort is answered by the tiniest shifting of weight.

The rock on my left slides ever so slightly farther to the left. Kol’s ankle writhes under the pressure of my hand. I feel a tiny shiver of movement, the smallest advance toward our goal. Kol pulls his knee just a hair toward his chest.

My heart gallops. I feel the weight of a hundred running mammoths. They stampede by, breaking my selfish will against these rocks as they pass. My will to save myself, my will to escape at any cost. Those things are torn and broken, splintering into pieces that sink to the bottom and disappear.

I let go of it all. I let go of the fear, I let go of the instinct to save myself, to scramble up through the hole overhead and say that I tried my best. I open my clenched heart, and let go of everything that won’t help us both get out of here alive.

I see Kol’s legs pinned against the rocks, and I know that I am pinned here too. I feel his bruised and broken knee, and I know that I am bruised and broken too. I turn over and slide my leg under his leg, wedging myself in as tightly as I can, pushing the heel of my foot against the rock that pushes on his.

Because I know this is the end, one way or another.

I wriggle my leg deeper into the chasm, and my face angles upward toward the surface. I see his chin, his mouth, the back of his tilting head, already under the water. My leg wedges deeper still into the rock, and I twist my knee, driving it into the boulder until I feel like it will shatter into dust.

A heavy weight crushes down on my chest. The water around me grows a little bit darker. Not breathing becomes a little bit easier.

And then the boulder gives.

It rocks away, tilting and tumbling, sending a wave through the water that forces us both up, bobbing away from the floor and up to the surface.

For the first few moments, air fills my gaping mouth and dim light fills my eyes. But then a choke rises in my throat. My chest refuses to rise. My vision fills with a murky smudge of silt, growing darker as I sink farther down.

My eyes sweep the cave floor. Bubbles rise from the shifting rocks, but Kol is gone. He made it out.

Now I need to make it out, too.

The floor of the cave comes up as I sink, and I feel my shoulders, my back, my head settle against the stones. I stare up at the surface, at the small circle of light that floats just above me, when all at once I see Kol’s face come into view.

An arm wraps around my waist, a hand slides down my back, and I am rising. My face warms, my chest aches, and my knee throbs as Kol pushes me up through falling water into the open air. Someone grabs me under the arms and hauls me onto the grass.

I roll onto my side and gag, water pouring from my mouth and my nose. I tremble all down my body, my eyes pressed closed, when someone touches my hand.

A second shudder runs from head to foot, and the hand tightens around mine. A third, and an icy, wet arm sweeps me into an icy, wet embrace.