Chapter 35 #2
My familiar bond. I turn my head away from his grip to look at the sea. He lets go and then follows my gaze. I gulp and slowly stand, my legs shaking from exhaustion.
For the first time in memory, I’m not afraid.
I look at the sea. It glitters in the morning light, peach and pink and gold that beats the splendor of the sky. The waves must break further out, beyond the cove, because by the time they reach this shore they only lap softly over the sand before rolling back.
The sea is vast. The sea is deep.
The sea is gods-damned fucking beautiful.
“Cai?” Roiven asks. My throat tightens. He was right.
The armor that saved my arm has been poisoning me the whole time, making me afraid of who I am, afraid of where I came from.
If none of this had happened, I’d have gone on hating everything about who I really am.
I curl my left hand into a fist as tears track down my cheeks.
“Are there reapers here?” I ask. My voice is hoarse. I take a step toward the ocean, and then another one.
“No. It’s a rock shelf. The water’s safe.” I barely hear Roiven’s voice. I’d probably go in even if there was real danger here.
The water washes over my boots, over my ankles. It’s cold and salty and I can feel the power running through it. I walk further, until the water swells around my calves, then my knees.
“Careful. Mind the tide's pull,” Roiven says.
A laugh escapes me. It turns into a choked sob. How could I not have known? I should be glad to be free of it, but all I feel right now is pain. It’s an ache in my heart, not in my head. When I think about who I am, the fact that I’m a witch, my temple doesn’t so much as throb.
The War-Father may have raised me, but he’s a worse enemy than Roiven ever was. And that isn’t an easy feeling. It’s complex and thorny. I still don’t know who I am without the Empire, but I do know that I’m going to destroy them.
And my familiar…
He’s always found me. Even when his voice didn’t immediately fill my head, there was always an awareness of our connection when I touched the sea. I reach for it now and find nothing. Just a vast, cold tide that threatens to drag me under. And a hollow ache in my chest.
“Where is he?” I whisper. And then, louder, when Roiven doesn’t respond.
“Your familiar?” Roiven asks. He’s in the water behind me, wading out toward where I stand. “Can’t you sense him?”
“He’s always there. Why isn’t he there now? Did they hurt him?” My heart slams at the idea. A new panic rises in me, worse than the fear of the sea used to be. What if, after all this, I’m too late?
But Roiven laughs, and stops next to me.
“I’m sure he’s fine.”
“How can you be sure?” I whirl on him.
“He’s your familiar,” Roiven says simply. “If they hurt, or killed him, you’d know. You would have felt it happen. It wouldn’t just be silence. And a kraken is not easy to kill.”
“Then where is he?” I rasp.
“Maybe he listened to you when you pushed him away,” Roiven says quietly.
“What?”
“That night I saw him. You remember?”
The night on the Bluff comes surging back into my mind. How Sava had started to attack, before my familiar rose out of the water and dragged her away from me. “I don’t want this,” I hear myself scream in the memory. “I don’t want you. Can’t you just leave me alone?”
Shame bubbles up in me. Can’t I do anything right these days? But I didn’t know.
I'm starting to get exhausted of that excuse. I never questioned anything I was told. I never want to be this ignorant again.
“Reach for him,” Roiven suggests. I don’t know how.
I can feel the connection to Roiven. I think back on my awareness of the kraken all the times before.
Closing my eyes, I send my thoughts out into the sea, hunting through my mind for any thread of connection to follow.
But the ocean is so vast, and this time, I don’t feel anybody reaching for me from the other side.
Just an emptiness that threatens to swallow me.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright, Cai,” Roiven whispers. But I’m not talking to him.
“I’m sorry,” I scream, shrieking at the top of my lungs. “I didn’t know. What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to understand?”
My legs give out. I was only in the ocean up to my knees, and now the water swirls around my chest, dragging at my clothes like a cold embrace. Roiven's at my side, one arm out, ready to grab me the moment I need it.
“I only knew what they showed me. I’m sorry,” I say, my voice breaking. I’m exhausted. I feel like all the emotions have been wrung out of me.
But nobody answers.
I close my eyes and feel the tears run down my face. My head pounds from throwing up and from being down here all night without fresh water. I’ve gone past my breaking point. There’s nothing left. And he isn’t even here.
I’d give anything just for that awareness of my kraken, the feeling that he’s out there. But there’s nothing at all.
I struggle back up to my feet. The tide pulls at me, making me sink down again. This time when I straighten, Roiven is there, taking my left hand and helping to steady me.
“I’m tired.”
“I know. Let’s go upstairs.”
“I want to stay by the sea.”
“Then we will.”
“You went through all this just for my power. Why aren’t you mad?”
The water laps around my knees. My drained arm hangs straight down, an unfamiliar weight that no longer supports itself.
But Roiven’s grip on my left hand is warm and firm.
When I dare to look up, I find his golden eyes watching me.
His lips curl as a soft smile breaks through the pain still shadowing him after Lusern.
“You’re more than your bonds. And the kraken will come back.”
“What if…”
“You’re overthinking. All we can do is try. And right now we’re ahead.”
“How can you say that? They destroyed that village.”
“I know,” he says hoarsely. “But after everything they did to control you, you still woke up. You still chose to be who you were meant to be instead of who they wanted.”
I stumble after him towards the shore. I’m exhausted and broken. I’m only a mediocre swordswoman with my left arm, I can’t even find the familiar that the Empire tried to take from me, and I’ve lost everything that makes me who I am.
I turn and stare back at the ocean. My kraken is somewhere out there. I don’t know how to reach him, but I know that he’s mine. My throat catches.
“Water?” I ask.
“Thirsty?” he asks. I nod. “Cup your hand.”
I frown, but I do as he says. Roiven reaches up towards the sky and draws his hand down slowly. A dawn-pink shred of cloud above us condenses, darkens, and seems to vanish entirely as water streams down from the sky to fill my left hand. I gape at him.
“Drink,” he urges. The cloudwater is cold and tastes fresh. I have another handful, rinsing the sourness from my mouth.
“What if he doesn’t come back?” I ask.
“We’ll worry about it tomorrow.”
“Do we have tomorrow?”
Roiven pulls me against him and presses his lips to my forehead. My eyes flutter shut and I rest my head against his chest. He’s warm, and solid, and I don’t have the strength to be mad at him anymore.
Having lost everything and everyone, I just want something I can hold on to. And right now, he’s holding me up against him so I don’t have to stand on my own. But tonight wasn’t easy for him either. He just lost hundreds of people.
“Are you alright?” I ask, and push myself back far enough to look up at him.
“I haven’t been alright in years,” Roiven tells me. He glances down and his eyes widen.
“What?”
“Cai, beautiful,” he whispers, and lifts a hand to trace the edge of my cheek. “Your eyes are burning.”