Chapter 35
I walk through quiet neighborhood squares, and then a louder street where a dozen adults sit outside and food sizzles over a fire, children laughing and running as the adults talk in hushed voices about what’s to come.
Their conversation pauses as they see me.
I give them a nod and continue on to the next stairs, hoping nobody will challenge me.
Nearly three hundred people on Lusern. Is that more or fewer than the number of Enchanted they drained to create that explosion?
Then I reach the sea.
The last set of stairs is enclosed in darkness. I feel my way down carefully and reach a cave. A pale lance of moonlight spills from the far end, and I follow it past a rack of rowboats, hand on my sword hilt in case something lurks in the cave’s darkness.
Outside, there’s a cove where the sea laps against black sand and rock, the waves less violent than I have come to expect. A narrow beach. The moon is nothing more than a brightening in the sky, through thin clouds that dull its light and hide the stars.
My blood pumps sluggishly. A chill starts in my stomach and spreads through my limbs, an uncoiling terror.
Roiven thinks this fear is enchantment, not real. I take a step toward the sea, then another. If the witches can fly toward that blue explosion, surely I can let the sea wash over my feet. There won’t be reapers right where the waves break.
My limbs begin to shake. Ten feet away from the water, a wave of nausea hits me so strongly that I clamp a hand over my mouth and sit down. The world spins. I pant until the feeling passes.
It was never this bad before. But then, I’ve never tried to overcome it like this.
I inch forward without standing, scooting a foot across the rocks.
My feet seize up and refuse to move. I switch to my hands and make it a few inches further before my whole body begins to shake so violently I can’t do anything.
With a cry I try to throw myself forward, but I just collapse.
My heart is pounding so fast I think it might burst.
The moment I wonder whether I’m capable of making it, my brain decides that I am not, and I must retreat, and I find myself crawling rapidly back up away from the sea. I don’t manage to stop myself until I’ve put another ten feet between me and the ocean.
I’m not going to let fear conquer me. I try again, and again. Hours pass. I sit, stand, pace. I even crawl toward the waves. But when the sand gets packed and waterlogged, the sensation of my fingers sliding into the sea-wet shore makes me retch and scramble backwards.
Dawn burns pink in the sky. I huddle against the rock wall of the cove, fifteen feet back from the lapping water, and stare grimly at it. I’ve been pushing my fear all night and now I’m so exhausted I barely register the sound of footsteps behind me.
“There you are,” Roiven says.
I swing my head to look at him. Before I can scramble to my feet the witch sits beside me, resting his elbows on his knees and staring out at the water. His black hair is loose. The cove’s muted wind tangles with its ends.
“You’re back,” I say. He doesn’t nod or give any indication. He doesn’t even look at me, but I look at him, at the red rimming his eyes and the hard clench of his jaw. “Were there any…?”
“All gone,” Roiven says, his voice like a cleaver cutting bone. “So. You’re leaving.”
I blink at him, and then realize how it must look, finding me down here after my insistence that he give me a ship.
“Oh. No.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Trying…” I draw a ragged breath and look away from Roiven, worrying my bottom lip with my teeth. He turns to face me then; I can see it from the corner of my eyes. But most of my attention is focused on the sea, foamy and spiteful, reaching and reaching and reaching toward me.
“What?” he asks.
“I can’t.” My voice breaks.
“Can’t what?”
“Go in. I’m trying. But I can’t go in.”
“To the sea?”
I glance at him. Roiven is staring at me, but he still has that exhausted, hard look, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I want to know. So I reach for him, in my mind.
He doesn’t think I’m pathetic, like I do right now. All I feel from him is hope. And grief.
The witch rises to his feet and offers me a hand. Slowly, I reach up and take it. Roiven pulls me up. My whole body trembles.
Without letting go of me, he turns and walks toward the water. His hand clenches so tight around mine that it almost hurts, but I need that firmness. I need him to believe I can do this. And I’m with him for the first three steps.
Then my legs stop working and my heels dig into the sandy beach.
“Come on,” Roiven urges.
“I can’t.”
“What’s stopping you?”
Everything. But I can’t say that. His people are dying.
I refuse to be weak, to let fear be the reason I do nothing.
I’ve been trying all night, but maybe I just needed help.
He takes another step, his hand pulling at mine.
I close my eyes and force myself forward.
My body shudders, fighting, but I focus on Roiven.
“Come on,” he says.
Another step. His hand doesn’t loosen, and he doesn’t let me stop. My legs buckle out beneath me, and he lets go of my hand to wrap his arm around my waist instead. Roiven hauls my arm over his shoulder and strides forward. If I don’t move my feet, they drag. I have no choice.
The sand gets hard by the tideline, packed and firm. And then a wave breaks over my boot, the water seeping inside, and the sea is touching me.
“See? It’s…” Roiven starts.
My whole body rebels. With a cry of disgust I wrench myself free and hurl myself back up the beach. Falling to my hands and knees, I empty my stomach, but there’s nothing in there after the long night. Just bile. I shake and pant. Tears pool at my eyes and splatter onto the sand below.
Roiven’s hands gather my hair back as I sob.
“I’m sorry,” I croak.
“For what?”
“I’m weak.”
“You’re a lot of things. Weak has never been one of them.” His voice is hoarse.
I spit and sit back on the sand, wishing I had water to rinse my mouth with, wishing I was anywhere but here. I want to be done. I want to rest. But the threat of the Hellions is an ever-present warning in my mind, and there’s no time for anything else.
I gave up on making it to the council at Barivum. I gave up on asking the War-Father to negotiate. I can’t give up on this, too.
That blue light, the explosion in the sky. They could do it somewhere else. They could do it here.
And I'm useless. There must be some way I can contribute.
“I should keep working on removing the enchantment from you,” I say.
Roiven shakes his head.
“You need to save your strength. It can wait, until… if we get an after.”
But it's the only thing I'm capable of doing to help right now. One rusty swordswoman can't take down a navy, and the ocean… I shudder. I'm not strong enough.
“But if it would help…”
“I can fight and use my magic. That's all I need.”
“I know you want me to help you. I don’t see how else I can,” I whisper to him.
I can see the hesitation on Roiven's face. He runs his hand over his face before speaking.
“Let me take your armor off.”
I bite my lip and grasp the metal arm with my living hand, running my fingers over it. This is part of me. I don’t even know if there’s anything left underneath. And it’s imperial, enchanted armor, the last part of me that feels like home.
Even if I don’t know what home is anymore. I close my eyes and try to push down the pounding feeling in my head
“It welded together when it melted. It can’t come off.”
“Would you let me try?” Roiven asks.
“What are you going to do?” I ask warily.
“Cleave it open.”
“How?”
“A simple spell.”
I chew my lip. I don’t like this. But what is there left to try?
“It will be alright,” he adds quietly. “If it’s not the arm, I’ll put it back together. And if it is, I’ll help you figure it out.”
“How do you do this?” I ask. “Take on everybody’s weight and not break beneath it?”
“I don’t take it on alone,” Roiven answers.
We move over, away from where I was sick. Roiven walks down the shore and dampens his hand with saltwater. I sit, and Roiven sits facing me, our knees touching. He takes my metal arm.
“Ready?”
“No. Do it anyways.”
His eyes meet mine for a moment. Roiven nods.
He draws a line of saltwater down my metal arm with his finger. I shudder. Power blisters where he touches and the metal eases open like a door on a hinge. I can’t watch it happen. I turn my head away, teeth gritted tight, and wonder what will be left of me.
I hear the clank of metal as Roiven sets the pieces down next to us, on the black sand beach.
“Do I have an arm?” My voice sounds thin, fragile.
“Yes.”
I look down and feel my stomach revolt all over again. But I don’t let myself be sick. I close my eyes and drag a breath through my nose, then another, until I’ve steadied myself. Then, slowly, I open my eyes and look again.
My right arm is pale, thin, the bones visible through the skin.
It’s been leeched. The enchantment has fed on it for years and now only this is left.
I try to curl my fingers, a movement that should come naturally after years of commanding my enchanted arm just like it’s my own flesh.
But the fingers of my right hand don’t respond at all, not even the smallest sign of life.
Beside me, my armor lays in two halves, like a skin that I’ve shedded.
“I'm useless now,” I mumble.
Roiven grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. His eyes burn ferociously.
“Never say that. It isn’t true.”
“I’m right handed. And I can’t even make it move.” Tears gather in my eyes. He doesn’t let go of my chin.
“You have other strengths.”
“It's my arm. I want my arm.”
“It might heal,” Roiven says stubbornly. “And… if it doesn’t, Torain can make you a new one, in whatever material you like. With an enchantment that is powered by your familiar bond, instead of one that drains your life.”