A River Runs Through It Audiobook Novels & Stories

As I peered over the edge, I saw a river coursing below, its waters glinting like molten silver as it cascaded down from the rocks. It was mesmerizing, almost hypnotic. The sound of the water rushing below was soothing yet powerful. I couldn’t explain it, but there was something magical about this place, something that seemed to hum in the air around me. This supernatural world never ceased to amaze me. “This,” Caden’s deep voice broke through the quiet, “is called the River of Lilac.” “The River of Lilac?” I echoed, turning to face him, my brow furrowed in curiosity.

She doesn't get up, the blood keeps spilling out her lips, and I can't help but weep. I hug her, unwilling to let her go. Screaming and crying for her to wake up. I wanted to go back home with her, I wanted her to call my name one more time. I wanted her to hold me in her arms and say 'everything is fine'. I wanted her to wake me up from this nightmare. Reality began to press in, she wasn't getting up. Her body was getting cold. Then, her words echo in my head like a voice, 'Run, River'.

Some noise of water I heard, and then, marking the progress of the water, the sound increased with each stride. The river. My chest was aching with the pain of hope. I sprang out in full blast, and I did not pay attention to the fire in my body and the dizziness beginning its way up my eyes. The woods grew thinner, and then abruptly the woods gave way to a jagged precipice that looked down a very long way on a raging river. I slid to a halt just before the edge, with heaving chest. Rylan came out a few seconds later and strolled into the moonlight, as though he had not just pursued me all the way across the woods. His garments were ragged, and his eyes mad with excitement.

"North. There's a river. They won't follow us across running water." We ran. Behind us, the wolves gave chase, their howls echoing through the forest like death songs. My lungs burned, legs pumping as fast as they could manage over the uneven terrain. Ares's hand found mine, pulling me forward when I stumbled. Through the bond, I felt his determination, his absolute refusal to let me fall. The river appeared suddenly, a dark ribbon cutting through the forest. The water rushed past, swollen from recent rains, easily twenty feet wide and moving fast.

The landscape never changes, just endless flowers and that strange, sourceless light. Just when I am about to give up, I hear the soft sound of running water. I follow the sound until I find a river, its waters crystal clear and inviting. The sight of it makes me realize just how parched I am, and how the heat of this place has been slowly draining me. ~Come into the water.~ The voice seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, gentle and persuasive. I look around but see no one. ~Enter the water, child.~

I did it anyway. We ran the ridge where the pines line up like soldiers who put their spears down only to eat. We ran the old riverbed where stones sit like bones thinking about the flood. We ran through town and didn’t touch it, the way music runs through a room and no one knows which part of it removed the dust. I felt my muscles without pain for the first time in days. I felt my lungs become bellows and not cages. I felt the ground tell me where it hurt and why the deer had been thin this season and where the mushrooms would decide to appear tomorrow morning for the woman who always gathered them barefoot and humming.

You’re our priority. The endless ride through the damp and murky forest leaves us all irritable. I’m quiet we ride down a steeper slope, covered in pine needles towards the rushing sound of water. ‘We have to cross,’ Thade calls back and the three of us catch the leaders. We line up on the bank of the river, horses shifting nervously. The waters rush, raging past in bursts of white foam. Rune dismounts, landing in a long grass as she moves down the bank, pointing out a section where the rocks are smaller and the river shallows out. There’s more foam, the current fast but not as deep.

--- The third morning comes too fast. The carriage stops. The guards shout. Horses snort and stomp. I hear a sound like thunder, but it does not stop. It goes on and on. Then I realize. It is not thunder. It is water. A river. A huge one. I crawl to the open door and look out. My breath leaves my body. The mountains rise on both sides of us, dark and ancient. Between them, carved into the stone itself, sits a fortress. Black walls. Tall towers. Iron gates that look like teeth. The river crashes below it, white and wild, as if trying to knock it down.

"Take everything. Just let me through. Let me find her. Let me finish what she started." The river answered. It did not speak in words. It spoke in pressure, in current, in the ancient muscle of water that had carved canyons and drowned cities and carried the dead to their rest since before language was invented. It spoke by closing around her and pulling her down, and she did not resist.