Strong lungs

Her vision darkened. Bright spots popped off behind her eyelids. An ache blossomed like a hand grenade in her skull, her mind shuddering off and then on, as if she’d drowsed, and adrenaline kick-started her brain in time to watch the trail of silver bubbles escape her mouth and rise through the murk. Now her chest felt concave, and the urgent need to inhale grew.
The escaping bubbles distorted around a shadow. A thing descended toward her—a thing from her nightmares. It rode on draperies of fine darkness and its pale face was the only thing on it with form. Death. Death is real, and it’s here now. It had eyes that were at once beautiful and terrifying, something Naomi had only felt staring into lightning storms.
Yet Death had an oddly serene, oddly familiar face. Not Death. Ryn.
She’d followed Naomi down into the frigid, lightless void and ignited it with the strangeness in her eyes. Not that it would help, with Naomi’s foot wedged in the crevice.
No time. She tugged her knee again, but there was no give.
No time.
Naomi’s eyes shut and her mouth opened. Reflex kicked through her willpower and she inhaled, her whole body expanding to fill the painful vacuum in her chest with water.
Instead, precious air surged into her throat and sweet oxygen flooded her lungs. Naomi’s eyes shot open. Ryn’s hand clutched the back of her head. Naomi felt her lips on hers, fused. She drank the air greedily from Ryn’s mouth.
The raven-haired girl floated a few inches away and again Naomi saw her eyes. The irises burned bluer than stained glass backlit by the sun. They produced their own light, eerily illuminating the water. But where a human’s eyes would have been white, hers were matte black. Nothing on Earth should have eyes like that. And it confused Naomi, because she hardly recognized Ryn—it was a small part of her face, but utterly changed the meaning of every other line, and so it was the first time Naomi had really seen her.
She tried to push her away, but not from fear. Ryn had just fed her the air in her lungs. They might both drown if her friend didn’t surface now.
Ryn’s hand stroked the side of her face. Soundless, the girl’s mien was placid, unconcerned. It was her calm that stopped Naomi’s struggling. She drifted lower, to the pinned ankle, and stretched one hand back, striking the stone tablet with four stiffened fingers. A crack of thunder. A tremor hummed all the way up Naomi’s leg to her hip. The world split, it must have, judging by the sound ringing in her ears. Then, the strange girl rolled away an engine block–sized stone with one arm.
Again, the oxygen in Naomi’s lungs was spent. Again, her vision darkened. Ryn took her chin in hand, leaned in, and briefly their eyes met. Had the water paralyzed her, or had something else made her timid? Their lips touched a second time. Naomi’s eyes widened as air once again filled her. She only stole half a breath, likely all her friend had to give—every last whisper passed from Ryn to her.
And yet Ryn didn’t die or pass out, didn’t slow. With unflagging strength, she tugged Naomi close and powered through the vicious current, carrying her, dragging her inexorably to the surface world. A ceiling of glassy water jumped closer with each of the girl’s kicks. They broke through.
She collapsed onto a rock slab, Ryn beside her. Coughing, sucking in gulp after gulp of air, she hacked out mucus that dangled from her lip in a slimy strand and inhaled again. Blackness at the edges of her vision receded. The oxygen starvation left needle-prick burns in her face, ears, and lips. “God. Ryn. What are you?”
Ryn settled onto the other side of the slab. Her shoulders rose and fell, no more winded than if she’d been jogging, instead of battling the river without a drop of air in her lungs. Her head bowed. She wrapped her arms around her knees and made no response.


Chapter 20, page 313-314