Chapter 56

The eruption of briskly moving water cut through her raspy breaths as Rain realized they were nearing what had to be a large river in front of them. She imagined it had to be the River Red, but there was no capacity left in her lungs for words. Running at full speed for hours had taken away all conscious thought, all ability to speak or think or pray. The only thing she was capable of at the moment was putting one foot in front of the other as rapidly as humanly possible. And judging by the pain in her muscles and the spasming in her feet, that possibility was about to dry up.

They were back in the forest now and had been for several hours. Behind them, the sound of explosions had faded away as they’d put more distance between themselves and Dafo, but every once in a while a light would reflect off of the shiny rifle slung over Mist’s shoulder, and Rain would get the notion that it was another bomb being hurled at their friends in Dafo. She h