She ran until sorrow diminished into exhaustion. With James fallen behind somewhere around a bend, the only sounds were of her own violent passage, the branches she snapped, her breath coming hard in the silent cold.
Slowing to an unsteady walk, the weakness in her limbs kept her falling down, tripping over boulders, but still Ravenna went on searching. She must have gone two or three miles before she collapsed. Sinking to her knees in the river’s flow, she bent down into the icy current in the hopes James wouldn’t find her there. When he did, she begged him to leave her. She wanted to die in the rush of that river. She wanted to feel the chill in her bones until she couldn’t feel anything more.
With his boots slipping beneath the water, James stooped to lift her and carry her, dripping, back to the village. She clung to him, to the living warmth of his neck, and by the time they’d reached the Indian houses, she was unconscious in his arms, half-dreaming and half-terrorized by the image of Paul being forced into the pinnace and sent to his death.