Chapter 34
WHAT I NEEDED
ODELIA
“Rune!”
The door had sealed behind me when I made it in here, and though I watch it do the same behind him, the tension in my shoulders eases. We may be trapped, but it seems we've both passed the first part of the test.
From across the glass, Rune studies me and I return the favour—he looks unharmed.
His hair is soaked and dripping in rivulets down his shirt, which clings in interesting enough ways to send my thoughts in directions that won’t help us now.
“Did it send you underwater?” I ask, clearing my throat.
The space between us has been strange, strained, but his eyes are bright and pinned to mine in a way they haven’t been for days.
His voice is muffled by the glass when he speaks. “Yeah. I guess it didn’t for you since—” he waves his hand over the top of his head. “You shifted?” There’s a strange pride in his voice.
I reach up on instinct, and find the soft antlers on my head. The tunnel had dropped to a cavern that was pitch black. I had to shift to have any hope of seeing. I’d actually managed to keep her grounded.
Mostly.
It was shaky at first, but it was easier when I wasn’t in the hold of a ship or being pursued by a seven foot man with claws.
She and I had eventually come to a tentative understanding, and we’d made it this far.
It was more than I’d hoped for, considering the swinging boulders I’d barely avoided.
Then the wall arrows. So many wall arrows.
“I guess the animal has its uses,” I shrug, too relieved we’re okay to try hiding the smile that spirits over my face.
He grins wide, making my stomach flip, and presses his hand to mine on the glass, the sudden softness in his eyes confusing me further. “I’m so fucking proud of you. I was worried I’d lost—”
A crunch vibrates from his side, making us both move to look behind him.
The wall is spiked.
He turns his head to me, brow pinched as if confused.
It wasn’t spiked before. I’d studied every inch I could while I was stuck in here.
I open my mouth to speak, but in another teeth-grinding crunch, the wall leaps towards him again, closer to the glass like it would like nothing more than to crush him, and every nerve ending in my body zaps in a shock of electricity, sending my pulse sprinting and my hands over the glass, the sides of the walls.
The corners—anywhere I haven’t checked—but I’ve checked everywhere.
“Rune—”
He’s doing the same, checking for depressions in the rock, slots in the glass.
The wall crunches again, sending my heart into my throat.
“I don’t see anything!” he shouts on the other side.
“I don’t—” my breath catches, because I do. The entirety of the floor below me is opening. I flip the dagger from the sheath at my side and start ramming it into the glass. “Rune!”
He doesn’t look at me. “See anything?”
“Rune, the floor!” My heart can’t beat any faster than it is, but it tries, stealing the air from my lungs and the ability to think.
The wall on his side crunches again. It’s closer now, moving in random spurts.
He turns to where I’m looking, his eyes going wide as he realises the floor on this side is creeping away.
“What does that symbol mean?” I ask, panic strangling my voice. Where the floor opens, water laps at the walls. It’s going to drop me in. On the far wall, beneath the water’s surface, a symbol glows—wind overlaid by a circle and a diagonal line.
“Rune—” when I look back at him, the expression on his face sends another wash of dread through me.
“Odi,” he says, almost gently, ignoring the wall snapping behind him again like jaws. “It’s a rune. One we use in Nareth; its magic will nullify the sea stone. It means you’re going to have to hold your breath.” I’m already shaking my head but he goes on. “It must be part of the test—”
Words don’t form. This can’t happen. We didn’t make it this far for this to happen. The water is pitch black, endless. It’s death. It’s taunting me with death.
“Look.” He points to the centre, where the floor still moves, its insistence pushing me into the back wall as my feet move against their will.
But I see it. A light glows at the bottom, faint.
“I think this is it, Odi. I think this is what it wants. You have to swim.”
The wall crunches again. It’s almost halfway to him now.
“I can’t—” but the words won’t leave my lips, because there’s no other option. It’s Rune. And if I don’t do this, he dies for nothing.
He presses his forehead to the glass, his bright-blue eyes clear even through my smudged handprints.
“I have watched you face the Sotor. I’ve watched you grin while gutting acid-tongued monsters.
You’re braver than me. Stronger than me.
You held things together while I broke—you—you made Tavi laugh.
You can do fucking anything, Odelia.” The wall screeches again.
“But you’re going to have to jump. Please. ”
Everything in me screams to keep my feet on the ground.
The animal, the little girl tossed in to sink or swim.
But I won’t let him die for this. I lock my eyes with his—they’re so blue, impossibly blue, shining with confidence I know he doesn’t feel.
I shove down the fear one last time, but fail to steady the trembling in my voice. “Count of three?”
He nods. “Count of three, little doe.” He takes a few steps forwards, angling so he’s in front of me. I follow until my toes overlap where the floor retreats.
He offers a smirk that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and crosses his arms, tilting a shoulder into the glass like he doesn’t have a care in the world. “One.”
I wonder how many would hear the tightness in his voice. Would recognize the faux optimism for what it is.
“Two.”
I swallow and pin my attention to the wavering glow in the water. One more time. Just one more time. Live or die, I promise myself, you will never have to go under again.
“Three.”
I leap. Headfirst, arms splitting the icy water before it swallows the rest of me.
It takes every ounce of willpower to stop from gasping.
My eyes burn against the salt, but I won’t lose sight of the glow at the bottom.
I won’t be the reason we don’t make it out of here—the reason he doesn’t make it out of here.
It takes me a moment to realise the pressure doesn’t feel like suffocation. And as I settle into a rhythm, the darting shadows make me wary, but not the dark of the sea itself.
For years I’ve flinched from the ocean, certain her touch meant icy death.
I’ve watched her take many, felt the crush of her fury.
But now the water slips past, and it reminds me of glittering blue and trying not to smile.
Of the way he cradled me with his taloned hands.
Of gentle offerings and long nights of wondering when he’d finally let himself sleep.
It touches my skin—and all I can think of is him.
My lungs start to burn too soon. I really am a shit swimmer, but I push harder—I can still hear the grind of the spiked wall in my head. How long does he have if I fail? One minute? Two? My muscles protest and my lungs beg, but Rune will be crushed any moment. This is the only hope we have.
My hands brush into something trailing around my wrists and I flail away, but as the glowing light below me wavers again, I realise it’s seaweed of some kind, nearly as thick as both my hands put together.
It’s dense too. I push through, trying not to think of how wrong I may be, how the light may be a clever trick for a hungry maw. The fire in my lungs grows the harder I heave through the growth. Even if I tried to swim up now, I wouldn’t make it.
But I’m nearly there.
It’s slowing me, tugging me back as I press forwards. I reach, lunging my arm out as deep into the mass as I can. One more heave, and I’ll be in range. The spikes will stop, Rune will be free, and the key—
The key . . . I fight the sudden urge to laugh as the realiation hits me. The key doesn’t matter.
Not the key or the treasure. Not my dream of lonely peace.
Neither of those hopes are what I swim for now.
They were never what I needed. What I needed was proof that there was another way to live.
That my mother’s love wasn’t the last I’d ever feel.
That a crew could sing together, grieve together.
That even the most fierce are fiercest for love.
That a big-hearted cook can adopt all those that adopted him.
That loyalty is born not of fear but of trust. That a captain can lead by example, and choose to shoulder every burden alongside those that die for him, even if that means offering his drink to the sea.
I needed proof that a smile can be gentle. That my hands can be a comfort.
Before now, I’d never owned new clothes that weren’t stolen. I’d never had things that were mine before they were anyone’s. Not my mother’s necklace. Not Ivor’s sharp edges.
And then there’s Rune, handing me a package like it’s the least he can do, announcing he’s going after Ivor like he knows he’ll win, like he doesn’t see how he’s taken everything I know about the world and tossed it, skipping it far across the water, nevermind the ripples that grow.
He is confidence where I am fear. He is bold where I tend towards the shadows.
Considerate where I’ve been nothing that wouldn't help me survive. We’re opposites, fire and kindling.
The earth, the moon, and this tide between us.
It doesn’t matter that he hates me. Or, he wishes he could. The map, the fear, the anger, I shove it all to the back of my mind as I reach the last of my breath.
One more kick. And one more again. Because if I don’t make it, he’ll die wondering if the fear won in the end.
I want him to know that it didn’t.
I want him to know that I love him too much to let it stop me.