She looked at him shyly, and Kiran stared back as fierce and proud as he had always been. She wanted to kiss him again, do a little more reintroducing of her own, but before she got her chance, the bubble around them burst and water came rushing in from all sides.

She sucked in a breath, and got nothing but freezing cold blades across her tongue and down her throat. She slammed her eyes shut against the burn of the water, and chaos overtook them. She was jerked sideways and up and down—or maybe none of those directions were right. She could not be sure. Distantly, she was aware of a weight holding on to the back of her clothing, but all her limbs were free and flailing, searching for the surface, which was nowhere to be found. She turned around and around in a current that was rough and wild, nothing like the gentle pulse they had been traveling on before.

Finally, her head broke free from the rapids, and she came up coughing and gasping, her hair covering her face and eyes, which mattered little for there was naught but darkness where they were.

Something hard collided with her back, and that’s when she realized the thing clinging to her clothes was Kiran’s hand. As soon as his head pierced the surface, he wrapped a strong arm around her, pushing her higher out of the water at his own expense.

But it was a useless gesture. The two of them were moving fast down the river, toppling through rapids, nowhere near finding purchase enough to get free. Aurora yanked at her vest, pulling haphazardly until enough of her chest was bared that the glow of her skyfire gave them some light in the night.

They were in the middle of a fast-moving, rocky river that did not appear to ease up farther down the line. Together, Aurora and Kiran swam toward the nearest bank, fighting against a current that wanted to sweep them this way and that. More than once, Aurora felt her limbs smack into something unseen beneath the water—trees or shrubs or something else she could not identify.

She had no idea how long it took them to get out, only that it felt like it would never end. When they finally reached water shallow enough for their feet to touch bottom, they grabbed hold of each other for strength, and charged out of the water with as much speed as they could manage. Then they collapsed on the shore, exhausted and soaked and trembling. Aurora coughed up water she had inhaled and pressed her cheek to wet soil that felt warm by comparison.