Chapter 22 - Charlize
I didn’t intend to eavesdrop, but my curiosity got the better of me, and I heard enough to make me feel like shit again.
I was passing the council chamber when an elder’s voice reached me through the door, sharp with disgust. Unfit to lead. Weak. Shiftless, perhaps.
The Kings were silent. They didn’t defend me. And that realization hit me harder than anything ever had.
Why?
Why did they stand still and not say anything after spending weeks promising to never hurt me?
I didn’t wait a second longer before taking off without looking back.
I’m in my room now, my back pressed against the door with tears in my eyes. My lips are quivering, my hands are shaking, and my legs are too weak to carry my weight.
Their silence stings like a nasty bee.
I thought we were past that now.
Why? Why did they betray me like that?
Is this what they truly think about me? Have they been pretending all this time?
I don’t have the answers, and I don’t want to wait any longer. The only thing that comes to mind is to run away. I have more than enough to leave the island and start a new life somewhere with my baby.
I place a hand on my belly, and with the back of the other, I wipe my tears. Their indirect rejection hurts even more this time because I’ve already let myself fall deeply in love with them.
I hear the accusation echoing at the back of my mind, and something in me that’s been carefully rebuilding these past weeks cracks straight down the middle.
They’ll say it to my face eventually. Maybe not today. But someday, when the pressure builds enough, they’ll look at this child and decide he or she is not worth it. I refuse to sit still and wait for that particular door to close on me twice.
So, I pack what little I have—crying out my eyeballs while at it. Disguised in a red robe, I slip out through the same servants’ passage I used before, and hop on a carriage that takes me straight to the docks.
The docks are busy at midday, nothing like the hollowed-out quiet of that first night. Vendors call out over crates of salted fish.
Sailors haul rope and cargo between ships, shouting numbers back and forth. Gulls wheel low over the water, screeching at scraps.
I keep the hood of the robe low and join the line at the harbormaster’s booth, the same as any other traveler. A tired clerk barely glances at me, taking my coin and stamping a slip of paper without a single question about where I’m headed or why.
Nobody looks twice at a red-robed woman buying passage south. That, more than anything, is what makes it easy.
I follow the crowd down the gangplank onto a modest two-mast vessel, one of a dozen just like it moored along the pier, and duck below deck before anyone thinks to ask my name.
I sit there with my knees drawn up, telling myself this is the only sensible choice left to me. My heart is broken into a million tiny pieces, and I simply can’t stop the tears in my eyes from streaming down my cheeks.
The ship rocks steady beneath me for the first stretch, the motion almost soothing once my stomach settles into it. I watch the coastline shrink behind us through a small porthole, the palace already swallowed by distance, and something in my chest aches at how easily it lets me go.
I can’t believe I actually made it onto this ship—I can’t believe I’m finally leaving this cursed island for good.
Salt air fills the cramped space below deck. The creak of timber and rope becomes its own kind of quiet, steady enough that I almost convince myself I’ve made peace with leaving.
I press a hand to my stomach more than once, whispering apologies to the child for a decision that feels less certain the further we sail.
Hours later, the sky outside turns dark with blinding lightning streaking the clouds. Heavy footsteps stomp on the wooden ceiling of the deck as men run around, trying to control the situation.
“There’s a storm coming!” someone shouts.
A loud thunderclap follows the sound of his voice, and I flinch, pulling my legs to my chest.
I’ve never been on a ship before, and on my very first time I boarded one, a storm already hits us? Maybe I really am cursed.
The storm is raging, rocking the ship back and forth. Thunder claps, lightning flashes, and a heavy rain traps us at sea.
Everything is happening fast, faster than anyone on board seems prepared for; the ship is pitching hard enough that I’m thrown from my corner within the first few minutes.
There’s lots of loud shouting above deck. Water is pouring in through gaps I didn’t know existed.
“No, no, no, no…” Panic sets in, and I can barely hold it together.
I claw my way toward the stairs, toward air, toward anything solid. The deck tilts hard beneath me, and my hands lose their grip entirely. But I don’t give up. I keep pushing until I make it above deck.
It’s chaotic up here.
Before I can understand what’s happening, the ship rocks sideways. And because I’m not holding onto anything, I fall off, plummeting all the way into the ocean.
Splash!
The water closes over me in total silence, cold, dark, and strange after all that noise. For one suspended moment everything goes still.
My dress is billowing around me, bubbles are streaming past my face, and the hull’s black shadow is looming somewhere above. Then my lungs catch up to what’s happening and start screaming for air.
My eyes widen, and I start kicking upward, one hand curling instinctively over my stomach even as the current tries to drag me the other way.
The second my head pops out onto the surface, I gasp for air, salt water in my eyes. My pulse is racing, my heart is hammering, and I think to myself that this is how I die.
Rain hammers down sideways, driven hard by wind that rips the breath right out of my mouth.
Waves shove me under and spit me back up in the same breath. Somewhere close, a woman is screaming a name over and over.
A trunk bobs past me, then a barrel, then someone’s shoe, the ship’s cargo scattered wide across the churning water like the sea has already picked it apart.
I spot a crate floating a few feet off, half-submerged, and throw myself toward it before another swell can take me under again.
My fingers close around the wood and hold.
Lightning splits the sky, and in that single flash I see land—small, rocky, distant, my only chance.
I swim because I can’t let myself die like this. If I die, the child in me dies as well. And I can’t allow that. I won’t.
So I swim toward the island, arms burning, legs kicking long after they should have given out, some desperate animal instinct refusing to let me stop.
I drag myself onto the rocks sometime later, coughing seawater, shaking too hard to stand. I lay on my back at the shore, the waves washing over me as I stare at the sky that’s now gradually becoming clear again.
My breathing is heavy, and every muscle in my body is aching. I’m so parched my throat is dry. The ocean water isn’t healthy to drink, but at this point, I may resort to it because I don’t have a choice.
The island is small. Barren, mostly, a few twisted trees clinging to rock, no shelter from the wind still howling off the retreating storm.
I lay there, struggling to keep my eyes open, teeth chattering as I fight to stay awake. I don’t move. I can’t.
My eyes are drifting shut, my limbs too heavy to obey me anymore. And the edges of everything are starting to go soft and distant, like the world is retreating somewhere I can’t follow.
Then, in a heartbeat, my eyes close.
I’m standing somewhere else—a clearing, moonlit, silver grass underfoot that isn’t really there. And across from me, watching with clear blue eyes that mirror my own, sits a wolf with the deep red of my hair.
“You’re not done yet,” she says.
Her mouth doesn’t move, the words arriving somewhere behind my ribs instead of through my ears, not after everything it took to get here.
I don’t need anyone to tell me what that creature is. That’s my wolf. She looks weak but awake, those striking blue eyes boring into mine.
“This is not how you die, Charlize.” She rises, gigantic, steady on four legs.
I watch her close the distance between us until her nose nearly touches my chest.
“This whole time, you’ve been strong on your own. Allow me to carry us both the rest of the way.”
Warmth floods in behind her words, spreading fast from somewhere deep and forgotten, chasing the cold out of my fingers, my toes, the frozen ache behind my eyes.
“Wake up, Charlize,” she says, one last time, gentler now. “We have a child to protect.”
My eyes snap open to the real sky, stars scattered thick above the clearing storm. By now heat is already flooding back into my limbs like something long dormant finally remembered how to burn.
I press a hand to my stomach and feel steadier than I have in hours.
“We’re alive,” I whisper, to the child, to myself, to whatever small, stubborn thing just clawed its way back to life inside me. “We’re not dead.”
I think about the red wolf I saw in my trance and how beautiful she actually looked. Mine. She’s awake. Weak—but awake. And her warmth is what saved my life.
I hear Sinth’s voice before I see him, calling my name across the rocks, raw with something close to panic.
Then Wayne, then Chris, all three of them scrambling down toward where I’m lying on the shore, soaked and shivering.
I’m not sure how they found me, but a part of me is glad that they did.
“Charlize.” Sinth reaches me first, dropping to his knees, hands framing my face like he needs to confirm I’m real. “You’re alive. You’re alive.” She glances back at the others as they catch up. “She’s alive!”
Sinth helps me up and then carries me in his strong arms.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Wayne lets out a sigh of relief.
There’s a cave up ahead, and they take me inside. There, they set up a campfire with the equipment they brought along.
I’m seated on a log beside the fire, wrapped in a clean, thick blanket, the sand warm beneath my bare feet.
“I don’t mean to be harsh,” Chris begins, seated across from me. “But what were you thinking, running away again?”
His voice is calm, but I can hear the fury he’s trying to hide.
“You could’ve been lost at sea, or drowned, and we never would’ve found your body,” he adds.
He’s angry.
They all are.
But they’re mindful of how they react.
I manage to raise my head, my heart broken. “Maybe it would’ve been better.”
“What? Why would you say that?” Sinth asks, more concerned than mad.
“Because I heard your conversation with the elders,” I say flatly, shifting my gaze across their faces. “They said all those horrible things about me and my child, and none of you defended me.”
“What?” Chris’s brows arch in disbelief. “That’s not true.”
“Don’t lie to me, Chris.”
“He’s not lying,” Wayne chips in. “I guess you left right before the commotion.”
My eyes squint, confused by his statement. “What commotion?”
“Wayne punched the elder who spoke out of turn about our mate and unborn child,” Sinth says.
“Huh?” My brows arch even higher.
“It’s true,” Chris adds. “And we spent the next few hours defending his actions. Defending you and our child.”
My eyes sink, and I realize that I had completely misunderstood the situation.
“I…I…didn’t know…”
They stare at me in silence.
“It’s okay,” says Sinth.
“No, it’s not.” I rise to my feet, overwhelmed by guilt.
“What I did was wrong. I acted irrationally when I should’ve just trusted all three of you to handle it—the way you always do.
And because of my reckless behavior, I endangered my life and the life of the child in my womb.
” I cover my face in my palms. “I’m such an idiot. ”
“You’re not an idiot,” Chris’s voice is soft as he takes my hand.
All three of them are already flanking me.
“There’s enough blame to go around,” Wayne says. “And to be fair, we also played a huge part in this.”
“We gave you every reason to expect the worst from us,” Sinth says. “That first night, in the throne room, we rejected you. We built that fear in you ourselves, and it followed you all the way onto that ship.”
Chris takes my hands in his, and for the first time since I’ve known him, I watch him let every wall drop entirely.
“I called you weak in front of the entire council,” he says, his voice laced with remorse. “I meant to protect myself, not you. I’ve spent every day since trying to undo it, and I understand if tonight proves it was never enough.”
“Chris—”
“Let me finish.” His voice shakes now, openly. “You are the strongest person I have ever known.
I watch and listen in silence.
“You survived a family that should have loved you and didn’t. You survived traders, and execution, and swindlers, and a storm that should have killed you tonight. That is not ‘weakness’. That is strength. Brute strength. I was the weak one, forever believing otherwise.”
Tears spill down my face before I can stop them.
“I forgive you,” I say, and I mean it fully, for the first time since that first terrible night. “All three of you. And I hope you forgive me too.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Chris says.
Sinth pulls me gently against his chest. Wayne’s hand finds mine, gripping tight. Chris presses his forehead to mine, breathing unsteady, something in him finally settling after weeks of quiet, desperate effort.
“Quick question,” Wayne says, stepping away. “How did you survive the shipwreck? And the storm?”
My lips curl into a broad smile as I anticipate their reaction upon spilling the beans.
“It was my wolf.”
“Come again?”
I chuckle quietly. “My wolf…she woke up.”
The surprise on their faces is priceless.
“If it wasn’t for her, my corpse is probably what you would’ve found at the shore.”
They all look at me, smiling with pride in their gazes.
“Now, that is information worth celebrating.” A mischievous grin tugs at the corners of Wayne’s lips.