Chapter 17 #2
“Wait!” We can’t swim in this. The current, I try to say, but no words come when I open my mouth.
“Before the first trial horn, are there any quitters?” The Mercyenforcer scans the contestants. “Now is your chance to back out. You can leave and go home. After this it’s succeed or…”
Die.
Someone whimpers. Bodies shuffle. And in several minutes a drove of contestants back away from the edge, begging to go home.
The crowd at the cliff’s edge thins enough that I can see Mae, Dorian, and several of the others.
Caelus has distanced himself from me. Mae’s eyes are wide, her mouth pressed into a hard line.
Dorian looks like he’s been shouting—face flushed, jaw tight.
Others hover behind them, some I recognize, others I don’t.
Ronan stands a few paces back, fists clenched at his sides, a raw desperation in his eyes.
Rhythe looks at me again, asking me to come to the group of Saltbloods around him with only a look in his dark eyes. His jaw hardens the longer I stand still. I stare down again, trying to think, when Dreth says, “Find courage or drown in fear.”
The horn blows.
I don’t move.
Someone shoves me forward. I push back, digging my toes into the rock. But they urge me harder and my feet leave the ground. I plummet through the air and the world disappears beneath me. I’ve dived into the ocean a thousand times. Just not from this high up.
And not with a current this violent.
I straighten my body into a sharp line, arms straight ahead over my ears. The dark depths race to meet me.
I hit the water, and my body feels like it’s being stabbed by a thousand needles at once.
My foot scrapes something sharp. The world is water and pressure and darkness.
When I open my eyes, I see my mother’s body.
My heart strains in my chest. I can’t move, staring into the bleak memory of a ghost, living feelings I’m not sure I’ve ever felt.
I still can’t picture her face. It was so long ago when she died.
But I can see her body, bloated from the sickness.
I can still remember the way her gloves could hardly fit her in the end.
She tore them a little on the backs of her hands to stretch them over her swollen fingers to be sure our skin didn’t touch.
Grief tugs me down like an anchor, and the surface of the water grows dimmer above. My lungs burn, and it snatches me from the sorrow threatening to drown me.
Air. I need air.
I urge my legs into motion.
My parents didn’t die so that I could drown in the same waves where they were buried. My face breaks the surface, and I drink in air.
Around me there are flailing arms and people screaming. The shore is so small in the distance, I rub my eyes to make sure I’m seeing it. It’s a long swim. A very long swim. Even for a Saltblood.
I spot Mae’s head dipping below the surface as she fights the waves.
This isn’t a current you can fight. When you’re outpowered, you have to fight battles you can win.
Not too far off from Mae is Dorian. I swim toward her, moving with the motion of the water.
She claws her way to me, hugging my neck, her cold bare arms against my skin.
“Axira!”
“Can you swim at all?” I ask.
“I can. But the water.” She’s breathless. “It’s like sink-mud. It keeps pulling me back.”
She’s never going to make it to the shore. I swim around behind her, careful to keep her face up, roping my arm under her arms and across her chest. Her head rests on my shoulder. I swim toward Dorian.
“Wait!” I shout for him, but his arms are moving faster than I can catch him. “Dorian!”
He looks around at the sound of his name. “Axira? The current—”
“I know. Get her back to the shore. She’ll never make it.”
Mae blinks, gazing between us.
“Please, Dorian,” I beg. “She’s one of the good ones. Like you.”
He ropes his arm around her. They’re off.
And I see my mother again, imagining her body being pulled from this water.
Picturing someone bringing her to shore.
Envisioning my father being there to receive her with me by his side.
Us burying her in the fields by the boundary.
He and I, sharing a few words about what she meant to us.
My mother would have liked the burial rituals they did away with after the rebellion. I would have liked it too.
A wave crashes into me, pushing me back under the surface.
But there was no one to retrieve my mother’s body.
I try to swim, sliding my arms out, one in front of the other, fighting my way up to the surface. But the ocean claws at me harder this time, pulling me to its depths.
There was no one who said nice things about my mother. My father was dead moments after her.
Another jolt of the water, shifting directions, waves crashing together. It flips me around, upside down.
I should have retrieved her. I should have said nice things about her.
I don’t know where I am. The abyss is deeper. I’m not sure which way the surface is.
I should have grieved her in secret at least. But I didn’t even do that.
The world is dark. Maybe there is no way to the surface again. Maybe I’ve sunk too far.
Instead I buried her memory like these waves are burying me.
The water is heavy. I thrash around foolishly, kicking in every direction.
It shoves me farther into my mother’s grave.
Something ropes around my waist. I’m rising through the water, swimming in a drift of white hair.
The sun overhead brightens as the surface gets closer.
My face breaks through and it feels like escaping death.
The embrace holding on to me releases. Caelus?
I look for him, searching every direction.
Maybe I imagined it. Maybe my mother’s ghost really does live here.
But I spot him swimming away, gliding on the water toward the shore.
He moves through the water like a Saltblood.
You are Saltblood, Axira. Act like one! Or die out here.
I inhale, deep. My mind races. But I plunge back into the water, ducking under a big wave.
I know the wave patterns. I know how to dive diagonally through the surf.
I swim harder than I ever have. I swim like Serafina is waiting for me on that shore.
My parents are gone, but she is still here. I am still here.
My determination carries me until my arms ache.
The shore is closer. But I stop to catch my breath and let the current pull me.
Then, I dive again, swimming in short bursts, holding on to as much energy as I can, stopping to rest when I must. I tread and float and swim.
The shore is a beacon on the horizon. Everything hurts.
When I’m close, I spot Rhythe already on the beach.
Caelus is lugging himself from the shallow waves.
I stretch my arms and push my body, squeezing out every bit of energy I have left until my lungs feel like they might burst, until my muscles scream in pain, until I can hear Serafina’s laughter ricocheting around in my head.
My feet hit the rocky sand. I claw my way up onto the shore and collapse.