Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
I look around, contemplating our bleak circumstances for a few wasted seconds. Could I use my whip? Strike it with lightning? Not without frying Soren, too. Drive it off with my paltry dagger? Not bloody likely.
My maegic will simply have to be strong enough for the both of us. I will hold out until we are at the surface. There is no other choice.
I look straight into his eyes as I move closer. “Don’t let go.”
His gaze flares with frustration, but he does not argue. He gives a shallow nod and wraps his arms around my back. His squeeze is only half strength.
I get as close as I can manage, ducking my head down to rest against his throat, where his thready pulse pounds. There is no need to explain the plan to him, no need to spell out my thoughts. He is inside my head, watching them form as if they were his own.
“Ready?”
His lips press a fleeting kiss to the hinge of my jaw. “Just in case we die.”
I might laugh, if this were any other moment. As it is, I’m barely holding on to my consciousness. The octopaeron’s tentacles cinch tighter and tighter, determined to make us its next meal.
I am not about to let it.
With the last dregs of my strength, I rocket us straight toward the sky with a purified stream of air. A soundless scream builds in my throat as the immense effort of it tears through me.
Gods, why did I think I was strong enough to do this on my own?
Our progress is hampered by the immense weight of the beast still wrapped around us as we ascend.
Though I’ve forbidden him to help, Soren can’t resist adding his maegic to mine, lending me whatever strength he can spare.
His currents rip at the clinging limbs, prying them off one sucker at a time. One tentacle falls away, then another.
We are nearing the surface.
The water pressure eases, the leached colors saturating once more as we hurtle rapidly toward light. Toward life. I give one last mighty push—the last one I have in me, if I am being honest—propelling us upward so fast, the sea monster cannot sustain its grip.
“We’re there,” Soren says. “We made it.”
We explode out of the sea, the force of our exit slingshotting us straight toward the clouds.
The octopaeron’s long tentacles reach fruitlessly after us, but we are all too quickly out of range.
I cling tight to Soren as I carry us up into the skies, higher and higher, riding the wind currents like I’ve sprouted invisible wings.
I do not think about the mechanics of flight.
I do not need to. I was born for this, a creature of the aether, as at home among the skies as Zephyr.
I do not slow until I’m certain we are safe. Until I’m confident we will not be pulled back down into that watery void. When I take a breath and look around, we are suspended high above the sea, naught but clouds around us.
“Oh.” I blink, surprised by our altitude. “I did not mean to…”
My words fail, for Soren starts shaking. At first, I think he is upset or afraid or…Oh, gods, is he injured? Was the ascent too much for him?
I quickly realize he is laughing.
“What in the realm could possibly be funny?” I ask, a hint of annoyance in my tone.
He pulls back enough so he can look into my eyes. They are crinkled up at the corners with mirth. “You never do anything by half measures, do you, skylark?”
I think about that for a moment. “What would the point of that be?”
The mirth fades, replaced by a serious look that makes my breath catch. “How close are you to passing out?”
“Why?”
“Because if I kiss you right now, I want to be prepared to plummet half a league into monster-infested seas.”
My breath catches. I ignore the darkness pulsing at my temples, a dire warning. “I feel fine. Really. Never stronger.”
“Liar,” he whispers, mouth twitching.
He kisses me anyway.
It does not last long—it cannot, for I truly am in danger of depleting all my maegical reserves, even with him channeling me.
But for a few glorious seconds, floating in the clouds, I do not think of anything on the ground.
It is just me and Soren, hearts racing in time, lips moving together, arms twined so tight I think nothing will ever make me let go.
Reality crashes back in with a vengeance the moment we reach the ship. No sooner have our boot soles touched down than I collapse in a heap of utter exhaustion.
Soren’s arms catch me before I hit the deck.
“Rhya!” Penn calls from a great distance. “Gods, is she all right?”
I want to tell him I’m perfectly fine. Hadn’t he just seen me flying? Unfortunately, my eyes slip closed and blackness consumes me before I can.
I dream in fitful flashes of nightmarish scenes. Battlefields full of dead, mortal and fae alike. And me, flying high above it all, vengeance in my heart as I survey a world ripped to shreds. My wrath knowing no bounds, my fury huge enough to sweep away kingdoms…
A fateful tempest.
A storm unbound.
When I awaken, I am in an unfamiliar cabin far larger than the one in which I’ve been bunking. The captain’s quarters at the ship’s stern. I hear the rhythmic slosh of waves against the hull outside.
We are underway.
I roll over and find Soren sitting on the edge of the mattress, staring down at me. One hand is planted in the blankets beside my head. There is a deep furrow of displeasure between his eyes. I reach up and smooth it away with my thumb. My arm feels like it weighs a ton.
“You look terrible,” I inform him softly.
He scoffs. “Speak for yourself.”
My hand falls back to the bed. I push myself upright against the headboard, wincing as my sore muscles protest. Everything hurts, down to my marrow.
“How long was I out?”
“About six hours.” He studies me, eyes slivers of blue. The expression on his face is one I cannot fully decipher. “How are you feeling?”
“A bit sore.”
“Only a bit?”
“Okay, slightly more than a bit.” I blow out a breath, rubbing at my Remnant mark. It aches worse than usual. “Nothing that will not heal in a few hours’ time. Nothing permanent.”
His expression turns suspiciously blank.
“What? What is it?” My heart beats faster. “Has something happened?”
His mouth opens, then shuts again. As though he cannot quite find the words. “Rhya…”
“Are you injured?”
“My ribs are bruised but already on the mend.”
“You should let me wrap them.”
“They’re fine. Barely a twinge anymore.”
“Then what’s changed?” I ask, leaning closer to him, eyes narrowing on his face. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing is wrong.”
And yet, there is something decidedly off about him. I cannot put my finger on what. If my maegic were not so drained, I’d reach out with it and try to read him elementally. The bond always gives me a clearer picture of what is going on inside his head—and inside his heart.
It should not take long for my maegic to recover enough to feel him again. Still, I do not much enjoy even a short stretch of disconnection.
I drag in a deep breath. “Do not tell me we’re abandoning the mission?”
“No. We should reach the Iron Isle within the hour.”
“Then what is it?” I scan his empty features, searching for clues. “What’s wrong?”
“I told you, nothing is wrong.”
“Yet you are acting strangely,” I insist, leaning closer to catch his stare. “I think you might have a concussion. You hit your head hard enough to knock you unconscious.”
“Unconscious,” he repeats slowly.
I blink. There it is again. That odd look, that unsettling tone. He is acting…
Unlike himself.
“Is that what I was, Rhya?” His head cants to one side, eyes gleaming with incisive light. “Was I only unconscious?”
My breath snags. My words dry up on my tongue.
Does he know, somehow, what happened on that seafloor? Does he remember that he was not merely without breath but…without life? That he was…
Dead.
He was dead.
There is no way he can know that. No possible way. I certainly have not told him. Nor do I plan to—not now, in any case. There is no reason to confide just how close he came to slipping away, nor how near I was to following him over that bottomless cliff toward eternal rest.
In truth, looking back at those dark moments, I am shocked by my own intense reaction to the prospect of losing him. My cheeks sear as I recall my own savage desperation, my mad bargaining with the gods, my reckless disregard for my own life…
Skies.
How did this happen? How did a few short weeks at his side flip everything in my world on its head? How has he become so irrevocably important that I do not want to carry on living if he is not here to do it with me?
I can scarcely own up to such truths myself, let alone lay them bare at his feet. And even if I could muster the courage, this is not the right time or place for that discussion. Not with Penn pacing right outside the door, along with half our friends…
No.
When we are back in Hylios and I’ve had proper time to process, I will be able to find the right words. After Arwen’s life is no longer hanging in the balance, I will be able to confess how we almost lost ours at the bottom of the ocean.
“Rhya.” Soren’s brows quirk high on his forehead. “Are you all right? You’ve gone quiet.”
“I’m…” I bite my lip, swallow hard, and start again. “How close did you say we are to the Iron Isle?”
“An hour, maybe less.”
So little time. “Perhaps we should stall.”
His frame goes solid. His voice goes dark. “Stall?”
“For a few hours. Long enough to gather our strength before we storm the prison.” I pause, sucking in a gulp of air. “Neither of us will be much use if we’re drained to the point of exhaustion.”
He shakes his head. A lock of dark hair falls over his forehead, into his eyes; my fingers itch to push it back for him. I curl them into the sheets instead.
“No. If we hesitate, we’ll miss the tide. We will have to wait a full day for another opportunity to make landfall under the cover of darkness.”
I forgot about the tides.