time covering her up and the bugs finally seemed to give up. Though her heart screamed at her to get out, find him, she forced herself to stay under for ten more minutes; she would not cheapen his sacrifice by making herself a target.
When she did stir, she did so slowly. But the insects were gone, no buzzing in the air. Shaking off the soil that covered her, she rubbed away the dust on her face and looked for any sign of Naasir.
Nothing. No tracks, no glints of silver, nothing.
Breath coming shallow and hard, she thought of what he might’ve done. He hadn’t had time to dig another hole, but he was fast. Really, really fast. He could keep up with her flight speed; that meant he could have made it to a small cave they’d passed on the way here.
She went to head toward the cave, hesitated. He’d probably want her to stay in place. “Hell, no,” she muttered. If he was hurt, she had to find him. And if he wasn’t hurt, he could track her easily enough.
Sword out of its scabbard and in her hand, she began to stride toward the cave. Ten minutes of walking later, she wasn’t yet there and she’d seen no signs that Naasir had passed this way. Part of her said he couldn’t have made it this far. Perhaps he’d gone toward the water instead.
She hesitated, caught exactly halfway between the possibilities. The cave would’ve provided shelter but it wouldn’t have stopped the insects from getting in. The water on the other hand, would provide a shield—and Naasir was an almost-immortal. He didn’t need to breathe for long periods, though the need to breathe was instinct.
She ran through a grove of peach trees toward the narrow end of the teardrop, the part hidden from the village. Her wings were heavy weights that created drag on the ground and scraped against branches and thorny bushes. She knew she was leaving a trail, ignored it. Chest painful, she tumbled out on the water’s edge and looked frantically in both directions, the moon a spotlight that lit up the world in a soft wash of silvery gray.
Nothing.
A closer look showed her tiny corpses washed up on the rocks not far from her. As if the locusts—or whatever the bugs were—had tried to dive toward the water and drowned.
“Naasir,” she called in a low tone that wouldn’t carry beyond a short distance. “Naasir.”
Hearing no response, she slid away her sword and focused on the tiny insect corpses. They were gathered in a particular area, but the water had a quiet current. Walking her way upstream, she saw a spot on the edge where the grass was crushed and the soil disturbed—as if Naasir’s heel had slid as he dived in.
She got on her knees and peered into the water, but couldn’t see much. Everything was too churned up. There was only one option and Andromeda didn’t hesitate to take it: leaving her sword on the bank, she kicked off her boots and dived in, searching the murky water using her arms and legs. Swimming on top of a body of water was one thing, diving quite another; she had to combat the buoyancy of her wings to go under and stay under.
She didn’t find anything in the first pass, or in the second, but her right hand hit something that wasn’t stone on the third pass. It was cloth over flesh.
Feeling her way up Naasir’s body, she noted his head was hanging limply. Her muscles tensed to painful tightness—Naasir was old enough that he could survive a broken neck, but it depended on the intensity of the injury.
Fighting her instinct to breathe, she tried to pull him up but he wouldn’t rise. She made herself let go. Searching all around his body using her hands, she finally discovered the large branch that was hooked into a tear in his pant leg.
Unhooking it, she managed to get him to the surface. She gasped in air and lightly slapped his cheek. “Naasir. Wake up.”
No response.
Teeth clenched, she swallowed her panic and touched his neck with gentle fingers, trying to discern if it was broken. It didn’t seem that way to her inexpert touch, but as she made her way upward, she felt a knot on the back of his head. Her eyes went to the large stones scattered amongst the grasses on the bank.
Naasir must’ve slipped and hit his head as he went into the water. That was