Chapter 23 #2
At least when the day’s searching felt the same, I was seeing something new, interacting with the island, never knowing what challenge was going to come at me.
But this? Staying in this small room day in and out for who knows how many years seems like it would make the time on Dawnlin pass so slowly.
He shrugs. “I don’t do it every day. It rotates, just like the shifts.”
“How long did you have to wait on the beach for me?”
“Not long. Maybe an hour. Once you’re inside, you won’t come out until some time after dusk, so we have until nightfall to get into position.”
“It didn’t feel like it took that long at all.”
I found the waters early in the morning, but by the time I stepped through the portal onto the beach, it was already dark. I’d never thought about it before, but now that I know the Castaways wait it out, all day is too long to hide unnoticed by any of the Voyagers out in the daylight.
“That’s part of the island’s magic. It feels like it goes by quickly, but really you were walking through the mountain all day.” He looks back out over the trees toward the mountain, and I hop back up, crossing over to his side and leaning against the railing next to him.
“No one can see us?” I ask, leaning forward, looking down at the ground below us. “Does the island hide this, too?”
I can feel him tense at my side the farther out I go over the rail, but I ignore it.
“We think so,” he mumbles. “No one has seen us yet.”
Straightening again, I lean my hip against the rail and look up at him. “Were you here the day you pulled me from the water?”
There’s a long pause before he answers, his gaze still trained on the mountain ahead.
“No. I wasn’t up here that day. Sig and Jorn were.”
Of course he wasn’t. He followed me around the island. He’d been the noise I heard in the trees, right before I got the courage to approach the bridge. It’s the only explanation for how he got to me so quickly; how he kept me from drowning.
“So they saw you jump in after me.”
He nods. “They watched the whole thing.”
After being with the Castaways for weeks now, Sig hadn’t ever told me she saw what happened.
She barely wanted me to find out Weston had been following me.
Maybe she didn’t want to divulge that there was a lookout, especially if that piece of information wasn’t one she could tell me.
Weston obviously had to be the one to decide it was time to trust me with it.
“Why’d you do it?” I ask.
He finally peels his gaze away from the entrance as his head swivels toward me.
“Do what, princess?”
“Save me,” I say. “It was broad daylight, and other Voyagers were in the area. You could have been seen, or captured, and that would have changed everything for everyone back on the ship. If I’m not a bargaining chip, then why’d you do it?”
My mind flashes back to that moment in the cave, his teal eyes and hard expression softened by relief when I opened my eyes and gasped for breaths, completely ignorant of who was hovering above me.
I am not asking to further my plan. I’m asking because deep down, I truly want to know. Why would he put everything in jeopardy for just another Voyager?
A muscle ticks in his jaw as his eyes flicker between mine. “I couldn’t let you die.”
“But how’d you know I couldn’t swim?”
“Lucky guess,” he grumbles, then seals his lips shut.
So we’re back to barely speaking.
It’s my turn to look away and stare at the mountain.
The Weston I know who is trying to steal the hope away from every single Voyager and taking the cure to benefit himself doesn’t seem like the same Weston standing in front of me, who would risk his crew being discovered, having their leader taken, to save someone he’s never met.
If he is the monster that Dane says he is, the life of a random person on Dawnlin wouldn’t have mattered to him.
Edmond always taught me to take in all the information and see the truth, and something is not adding up.
Would a monster put a stranger’s life in front of everyone they know and care for?
Has Dane been wrong about Weston this whole time?
Or is this just another manipulation?
Confusion and uncertainty war inside of me, yet some sliver of certainty buried deep underneath them tells me that Weston isn’t lying to me.
I don’t know if it’s his tone, or the look on his face that said he was trying not to say too much, but I think he is telling the truth.
He didn’t want me to die. His protectiveness since being part of the crew has confirmed that.
The question is, why?
“You’ve never asked about the other side, the Voyager side. Don’t you want to know what we think about you and the Castaways?” I ask. Maybe if he doesn’t want to answer why, he’ll answer something else I’ve been curious about.
“I don’t need to know the exact words being said to know they aren’t true.”
“But I don’t know they aren’t true. You keep telling me to trust you, but I can’t. Not when you’re still plucking us off the island against our will.”
He lets out a sigh through his nose. “I hope one day you’ll understand.”
“I won’t understand why you’re rounding them up and turning them against everyone else. You’re taking away their chance—”
“I didn’t take anything away from them. The island already did that.
I don’t turn anyone against anyone, princess.
” His voice is tinged with frustration, but he doesn’t raise it.
“Have I once said anything to turn you against them? Have I tried to make you hate Dane? Despite everything being said about me?”
My mouth opens, but no words come out. He’s right. He hasn’t ever said or done anything besides acknowledge the Voyagers exist. He’s never coerced me to change my mind about anyone, or said anything about Dane, other than they don’t see eye to eye.
Have I been believing he is manipulating me, simply because I was told that is what Weston does? Was my reality tainted by my previous perceptions?
Every thing that has happened, that I thought was a manipulation, was only because my mind saw it as such.
And I saw it that way because Dane told me I should.
Now I don’t know who to trust, Dane or Weston.
But there’s one piece that I can’t write off, that I need to know the truth.
If Weston wasn’t actually trying to take the waters for himself, stealing it from anyone deemed worthy, that means he came here for someone he wanted to heal, and he is trapped like the rest of us.
But if he didn’t, then I know this entire conversation has been a game.
“Did you even come here for someone?”
Tension fills the small space between us as I wait for his answer. I turn and watch him intently, trying to find any clue or tell that he’s lying to my face.
When he does finally speak, his voice is thick with emotion.
“I did truly come here for someone. I came for a friend.”
He drops his gaze to the rail, then back out toward the mountain, looking anywhere but at me. His normally emotionless face has faltered, his lips curved down in a slight frown.
Is Weston sad?
The thought seems so foreign for this grumpy, overbearing captain.
“A woman friend?” My heart beats a little faster as I wait for confirmation.
“Technically, yes.”
“She must mean a lot to you if you are willing to sacrifice everything for her.”
“She does.” His throat bobs with a hard swallow and my heart sinks, but I choose to ignore it. Who Weston has waiting for him back home is none of my concern.
“How do you know she’s still waiting for you after all this time?” I ask.
“I just have a feeling.” He stays fixated on the waterfall, and I know he isn’t avoiding my eyes out of dishonesty. He doesn’t want me to see the emotion hiding behind them.
I think Weston is telling the truth.
What it must be like to have a love last this long, over time and space, through magic and uncertainty; to be so thoroughly connected to another person that you would know they are still alive.
I’d always hoped for a love like that, like the love in the stories I read, but that kind of love isn’t written for me. That kind of love doesn’t exist for a princess with a duty to her kingdom.
I swallow down the lump forming in my throat and look down at my boots, hoping he, too, doesn’t see the emotion in me.
“I hope you make it back to her,” I murmur.
We stand side by side for a while, neither of us moving, only staring out at the entrance to the mountain. I wait, anticipating the same question, but he never asks it. He’s never asked who I sought Dawnlin for, or if the island deemed me worthy.
It’s almost as if he doesn’t care, or rather, it isn’t necessary for him to know.
Which makes me wonder yet again if the story that Weston is out to get the healing waters for himself is just that.
A story.
I don’t know how I could ever confirm it, but once again I find myself doubting everything I knew since stepping foot on Dawnlin.
But now the bigger question that I can’t seem to shake is, if Weston is being honest, then why is Dane lying?