Chapter 19 #2
She did not yell. She did not cry. She simply reached down and slid the plain gold band from her finger.
She placed it on the cold marble pedestal beside the thick oak door, her movements precise and deliberate.
The hollow clink of that ring hitting the stone rang in my mind, louder than the crashing waves surrounding me now.
It was the sound of a woman finally accepting that her husband was a ghost, a specter haunting the halls of statecraft while leaving his own home empty and cold.
The wind shifted, howling from the north with renewed ferocity. A massive wave crested in the darkness, taller than the cliff itself. It was a towering wall of black water rushing toward us, entirely indifferent to our frantic efforts.
“Brace!” Bram screamed, dropping to his knees and clinging desperately to a wooden piling driven into the earth.
Throwing myself against the seawall, I wrapped my arms completely over the top stones.
The wave hit. The force was staggering, a physical blow that knocked the breath from my lungs.
Icy water hammered my back, driving me hard against the granite.
The ocean roared over me, pulling at my clothes, trying to rip me from the rock and drag me into the deep.
My boots lost purchase in the slick mud.
For a terrifying second, I hung suspended, tethered to the earth only by my bleeding hands gripping the sharp granite.
The wall shuddered fiercely beneath me, groaning under the immense, crushing pressure.
I squeezed my eyes shut, holding on with primal desperation.
The water receded, dragging tons of loose shale and gravel back into the deep with a deafening clatter. I gasped for air, coughing up bitter salt water. The wall had held, but the upper tier was severely weakened. The stones were loose, grinding against each other in the shifting mud.
“We need the braces!” Bram shouted, scrambling to his feet. He pointed toward a stack of thick cedar beams near the side of the workshop. “The timber, Henry! Bring the timber!”
As I pushed off the wall, my legs trembled uncontrollably.
The cold had seeped deep into my joints, making every movement sluggish and painful.
I stumbled toward the workshop, the wind fighting me with every single step.
The cedar logs were massive, stripped of their bark and slick with freezing rain.
I wrapped my arms around the nearest beam and heaved.
It barely budged. I repositioned my stance, digging my boots deep into the soft earth.
I closed my eyes, summoning every ounce of strength left in my battered, failing body.
With a roar that tore my throat, I hoisted the timber onto my shoulder.
The rough wood scraped raw against my neck, bruising the muscle.
I stumbled forward, the immense weight threatening to crush me into the dirt.
I crossed the yard, the deep mud sucking at my boots, threatening to trap me.
Bram was waiting at the wall, holding a massive iron sledgehammer in both hands.
“Drop it here!” he ordered, pointing to a narrow crevice between the top stones.
Swinging the timber off my shoulder, I guided the blunt end into the gap. Bram swung the sledgehammer, driving the beam deep into the earth. The solid thud of iron on wood cut through the howling wind, a defiant heartbeat against the raging storm.
“Another one!” Bram shouted, rain streaming down his deeply lined face. “We need three more to stabilize the center!”
I stumbled back to the stack, my boots sliding in the sludge. Wrapping my arms around the second cedar beam, I dragged it to the wall. We positioned it together, and Bram drove it home with a powerful blow.
“Third one!” he called out, his voice cracking with sheer exertion.
My lungs burned. Every breath felt like inhaling a handful of shattered glass.
I dragged myself back to the timber pile.
The third log felt twice as massive as the others.
I struggled to lift it, my arms shaking uncontrollably.
I fell hard to my knees, the log pinning my leg against the mud.
The cold earth pressed against my face, smelling of decay, salt, and wet leaves.
“Come on, Henry!” Bram yelled from the wall. “The tide is cresting!”
Glaring at the dark mud beneath my hands, I thought of the empty palace, the long, silent corridors, the cold marble floors.
I thought of the endless nights I spent poring over state documents, convincing myself I was building a grand future for us, while she sat entirely alone in the dark, waiting for a husband who never came.
I had given her an empire, but I had refused to give her my soul.
I had built high walls of stone and protocol to keep the outside world out, never realizing I was trapping her inside a beautiful prison.
Forcing myself up, I ignored the screaming pain in my leg, the tearing of the flesh on my hands.
I lifted the timber. I walked. Each step was a brutal battle against the elements, against my own failing body.
The wind tried to push me back, but I leaned into the gale, a stubborn force of pure will.
I reached the wall and shoved the beam into place.
Bram swung the hammer, driving the wood deep into the embankment. “One more!” he yelled, pointing to the far edge. “One more for the corner!”
Refusing to stop, I did not pause to catch my breath.
I turned and moved on sheer willpower alone.
My blood completely covered the fourth timber as I dragged it from the pile.
I hoisted it onto my aching shoulder, staggering under the massive weight.
The wind shrieked, a high-pitched wail that seemed to mock my desperate efforts.
The rain turned to sleet, tiny daggers of sharp ice slicing my face and stinging my eyes.
Reaching the corner of the wall, the ocean was boiling below, a chaotic maelstrom of white water and jagged rocks. I slammed the timber into the mud. Bram hit it with the sledgehammer, the iron ringing out loud in the night.
“Hold it steady!” he shouted, raising the massive hammer again.
Throwing my entire weight against the wood, I braced it with my chest and shoulders. Bram swung. The hammer struck. The beam sank an inch into the packed earth.
“Again!” I roared, my voice raw and unfamiliar.
He swung again. The beam slid deeper, locking tightly into the stones.
As we repeated the process, the rhythmic thud of the hammer matched the frantic pounding of my heart. We drove the timber down until it sat flush with the granite, a solid, unyielding barrier against the furious sea.
Bram dropped the sledgehammer into the mud, leaning his weight against the wooden piling. He gasped for air, his face pale and drawn in the flickering lantern light. He looked at the wall, then out at the surging ocean.
The waves smashed against the granite, but the massive stones did not shift. The cedar beams held the earth firmly in place. The foundation of the workshop was secure. We had won the battle.
The wind suddenly dropped, the howling gale fading into a low, steady roar. The rain slowed to a cold, misty drizzle. The storm had finally broken.
Standing in the deep mud, my chest heaved.
My clothes were plastered tightly to my skin, stiff with freezing mud and dried blood.
My hands hung uselessly at my sides, ruined and trembling.
I stared at the dark shape of the workshop, the sanctuary she had built far from the suffocating grip of the crown.
I had saved her walls, but I knew, with absolute, terrifying certainty, that repairing the damage I had done to her heart would require more than blood and stone.