The Empty Shore

She didn't die. The river, cruel in its mercy, slammed her into a submerged log a quarter-mile downstream.

The impact jarred the water from her lungs. Instinct, that traitorous thing, forced her to cough. She grabbed the log with her good arm and hauled herself, retching and shivering, onto a muddy sandbar.

She lay there for a long time. The mud was cold against her cheek. The festival was a distant glow in the trees, the music lost to the wind.

She was alive, but she felt hollowed out. Scraped clean.

"Cora!"

The voice was frantic.

She heard crashing in the underbrush. Then, Julian burst onto the sandbar. He was soaked, his shirt clinging to his chest, his hair plastered to his forehead.

He saw her lying in the mud and dropped to his knees, sliding the last few feet.

"Cora," he breathed, reaching for her. "Thank the Moon."

He grabbed her shoulders, pulling her up. His hands were warm, shaking slightly.

"I looked for you," he said, his voice thick with relief. "After I got Lila to the bank, I turned around and you were gone. I thought... I thought the current took you."

Cora looked at him. She looked at the concern etched into his handsome face. An hour ago, that look would have made her melt. Now, it just felt like ice.

"You swam past me," she whispered. Her voice was raspy, broken by the water she had swallowed.

Julian froze. He pulled back slightly, looking confused.

"Lila was drowning," he explained, his tone reasonable, logical. "She was panicking, Cora. She was going under. I knew you were a strong swimmer. I knew you could hold on for a minute until I got back."

*I knew.*

He said it like it was a virtue. Like his faith in her strength was a gift.

"My arm is broken," Cora said flatly.

Julian’s face went pale. His gaze dropped to her left arm, hanging limp and swollen at her side.

"I... I didn't know," he stammered. "Cora, I'm so sorry. I just assumed..."

"You assumed I didn't need you," she finished.

She pulled away from his grip. It took every ounce of strength she had left to stand up. Her legs trembled, sinking into the silt.

"Cora, let me carry you," Julian said, standing up, reaching for her again. "We need to get you to the healer. You're freezing."

Cora took a step back. She flinched as his hand came near her.

The movement stopped him cold. He looked at his hand, then at her face. For the first time, the oblivion in his eyes cracked. He saw the hollowness. He saw the wall that had slammed down between them.

"Cora?" he asked, his voice uncertain. "I saved her because I had to. You know that. You know me."

"I do," Cora said. The wind blew across the river, biting through her wet clothes, but she didn't shiver. She was numb. "I know you now, Julian. Better than I ever did."

She realized the tragedy wasn't that he didn't love her. It was that he loved her exactly as much as he was capable of—as a friend, as a soldier, as a subordinate. And she had been drowning in a fantasy of something more.

"I can walk," she said.

"Don't be stubborn," Julian pleaded, stepping into her path. "You're hurt. Lean on me."

Cora looked him in the eye.

"No," she said softly. "I think I've leaned on you enough."

She stepped around him.

She began the long, painful trudge back toward the tree line, clutching her broken arm to her chest.

"Cora!" Julian called out behind her. "Wait!"

She didn't wait. She didn't look back. She walked into the darkness of the woods, leaving the river, the fire, and the Alpha kneeling alone in the mud, finally beginning to understand the depth of the water that now lay between them.