Chapter Twenty-Three
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
Garreth and Dethan were sitting before the fire with drinks in their hands when Jaykun exploded into the common area of the castle. Shocked, the brothers lurched to their feet.
“Jaykun! Where in the eight hells have you been?” Dethan ejected harshly.
“I have no time to explain!” Jaykun said, pushing past his brothers.
“You will explain!” Dethan demanded as he grabbed his brother’s arm and stopped his progress. “Do you know what we have had to deal with in your absence?”
“It could not be helped!” Jaykun said. “I am sorry I was gone so long, I truly am, but there was nothing I could do about it! I was trapped where I was until tonight.”
“Trapped! You mean you were held prisoner?”
“No! Look, I do not have time to explain!”
“You will make time!” Dethan thundered.
Jaykun could see his brothers would not be satisfied, and yet he could not bear to waste a single moment of time. He rapidly explained what had happened. Everything he could fit into the shortest amount of time possible, including what had just happened to separate him from Jileana.
“So, what will you do now?” Garreth asked as they followed their brother into his rooms. Jaykun was still naked. Before he could do what he was thinking of doing, he needed to put on some clothes.
He dressed quickly as he answered his brother’s question. “I intend to take a ship into the maelstrom and find the selkie island.”
“But you can’t! You just told us that it’s impossible to reach the island through the storms,” Dethan said.
“I will find a way through!”
“Why?” Garreth demanded of him. “You were going to leave it all behind anyway. It is no longer your concern. What did you think was going to happen when you left? That everything would remain the way you left it and there would be no more troubles? They have to sort these things out for themselves. There is nothing you can do about it!”
“I will not leave Jileana in the hands of that bastard Barban!”
“Let her brother and father manage the problem. It is not up to you. You’ll destroy a perfectly good ship in a folly that won’t do you any good,” Dethan said.
Jaykun pulled on his boots in tight silence, refusing to argue with his brothers any longer.
They couldn’t understand. He couldn’t make them understand.
He did not know how. He simply couldn’t leave her like that.
He couldn’t turn his back on her and leave her like that.
Panic and pain swamped him, threatened to overwhelm him.
He couldn’t bear the idea of what Barban might do to her. He had to hurry. He had to go!
He flew out of his room, his brothers hot on his heels.
“Tonkin!” he bellowed through the hall as he headed for the room the page had been staying in when Jaykun had left three weeks ago.
Tonkin appeared in his doorway just as Jaykun reached it.
“Tonkin! I need a ship ready to leave within a few minutes and a captain brave enough to pilot her into the storms. Do you think you can find me one?”
“I know I can, Sor Jaykun.”
“Then do it! I’ll meet you at the docks.”
“Yes, sor. Right away.” Tonkin didn’t even bother to dress. He hurried away in just his breeches and bare feet.
“You’ll risk the lives of others in a foolish attempt to reach the selkie island?” Dethan demanded.
“I won’t risk anything,” Jaykun said as he turned and headed out of the castle. “And yet I’d risk everything for her.”
“Why?” Garreth asked.
“Because …” Jaykun came to a stop as he weighed the answer to that question.
Why? Why was he so determined to go back to the place he was just about to leave anyway? His brothers were right. What had he thought was going to happen after he left Jileana behind? That she would be safe without him no matter what?
Good gods, what had he been thinking? What had he been thinking, wanting to let her go where he could not protect her? Wanting to let her go at all.
He’d been an idiot. A fool. A fool afraid of his own feelings. Afraid to admit that …
“I love her,” he said softly.
That made Dethan and Garreth look at each other with worry.
“You love her?” Garreth echoed.
“Yes. I love her. More than words can say. Damn, I was a fool to think otherwise! Just because Casiria …”
“Casiria?” Dethan said.
“Casiria betrayed me. Because she did, I could not trust myself to feel anything for anyone other than the two of you. I thought … I thought love was an illusion … even though I could see the strength of it in the two of you—with your wives—I thought it was safer to deny it even existed rather than trust myself to get it right this time.”
“I thought you loved Casiria,” Garreth said with confusion.
“I did. I loved her up until she betrayed me … and even beyond. I think that was what hurt so much. She betrayed me and yet I knew I still loved her. Faithless as she was. Damn her to the eight hells. And to think I almost let her ruin my one true chance at something real, something ten thousand times more powerful and special than anything I ever had with her.”
“So because you love Jileana you are willing to go on this fool’s quest?” Dethan said.
“Would you do anything less for your wives?” Jaykun demanded of them.
The brother’s exchanged a look.
“No,” they said in unison.
“What do you need from us,” Dethan wanted to know.
“Dethan, you can do nothing. I will not risk your life. Garreth, I don’t know that there’s much you can do.”
“If you can go, I can go,” Garreth said.
Jaykun nodded. Garreth’s immortality and sword hand might come in handy if they made it to the selkie island.
They were at the dock minutes later. Tonkin waved them over to a ship; the captain greeting them was one of their own men. Probably wisest since the Krizan people were superstitious about the selkies in general. Getting a Krizan captain to sail into the storms would’ve been difficult.
Jaykun impatiently paced the deck as he waited for the captain to launch the vessel.
Luckily, the tide was with them and there was a strong wind up.
They were at sea quickly, but their progress was still too slow for Jaykun to tolerate.
He was left with nothing but his thoughts and his regrets.
He didn’t know how he was going to manage the future, how a relationship with Jileana could possibly work given that they were from different worlds and he had a mission he could not be swayed from, but he didn’t care.
He would figure it out after he knew she was safe.
After he knew Jalaya was secure on her throne, despite whatever it was Barban had planned.
And he knew Barban had planned something.
He and Jalaya had chosen the council well, picked representatives from an equal number of houses in Jalaya’s corner and in Horgon’s corner in order to help sway loyalties toward Jalaya.
But the council was young yet and there was no telling if he and Jalaya had changed anyone’s allegiance.
It seemed that civil war was imminent. The selkie people were about to be torn apart and Jileana was going to be caught in the middle of it.
Jaykun was standing at the bow of the ship as they approached, staring hard into the storms, trying to make out the island he knew was just beyond. When the first rains lashed the boat, they came violently, the winds whipping at the sails and the ocean churning beneath the ship.
“We’ll never make it!” Garreth shouted at him through the storm.
Garreth was right. There was no way they would make it. Not above the water.
He grabbed his brother’s arms and brought him to the edge of the ship.
“Jump!” he instructed.
“Are you out of your mind!?” Garreth asked.
“Jump! You cannot drown!”
“I can drown! Over and over again, I can drown. I just cannot die from it!”
He had a point, but there was no other way.
“Please,” Jaykun begged him. “For me will you do this?”
“Ah damn,” Garreth said as he shook his head.
He stripped off his boots, made certain Dethan’s sword was secured to his waist, then grabbed the rail of the boat and leapt down into the water.
Jaykun shouted to the captain to turn the ship around and head back to port, then he was hitting the water after Garreth.
He grabbed hold of his brother and dragged him down beneath the churning waves and the raging storms. They swam down and down until they were well below the violence above them.
Then they swam beneath the storms, heading toward the selkie island.
Garreth struggled to breathe, drawing water into his lungs and choking on it.
He drowned violently, but then, after a while, he grew used to the water in his lungs and was able to swim in his brother’s wake.
They swam like that for a good half an hour until suddenly the water grew warmer, grew clearer, and Jaykun knew they were close.
When he finally could see the honeycombs of coral, he thought he would scream with relief.
But there was no time for joy. They had to make good use of their time, and Jaykun started by swimming into the cave that housed Jileana’s sea witch mother.
He surfaced cautiously, not knowing what he would find.
He swam into the cave and lifted himself quietly out of the water.
He came around the lit bend and saw Jileana’s mother.
“Ravi!” he hissed.
Ravi turned with a start. “What is it?” she asked, instantly knowing something was wrong.
“You don’t know? Jileana’s been taken captive by Barban and his soldiers.”
“I heard nothing of this! Are you certain?”
“Yes! Please, I need you to help my brother to breathe beneath the water, and then I need your magic to help rescue Jileana.”
“Of course.”
Jaykun fetched Garreth from the water. His brother threw up a violent lungful of water once he was in the open air, but Ravi cast her magic quickly and it soothed him almost instantly. Now Garreth could breathe underwater and speak as well. They could better coordinate with each other.