Like all Leihaniians, I was a strong swimmer, slicing cleanly through the reef. But speed wasn’t my worry. As I came around the bend, I couldn't immediately see him, but a blur of sediment hung suspended in the water. He’d stepped off the shallows and into the drop-off.Mihaunaalive, what a fool. It would’ve been easy to lug him up through the shallows, but I wasn’t sure if I could manage pulling him to the surface from deeper water. I’d come this far after him though, so I might as well try.
After surfacing for a quick mouthful of air, I plunged under.
The murky sea obscured my vision. I swam down, poised for the feeling of another person, but my hands only struck empty water. Waving, kicking, stroking—I searched until my fingers brushed the sandy floor of the seabed.
Flipping over, I let my feet sink into the silt. The depth pressed my chest tight, and I ignored my lungs as they protested for air. Casting my arms out, I struck blindly until the sensation ofspongy skin hit the back of my wrist. I thrusted toward the touch and caught a hand.
It wasn’t moving. I tugged, but the hand flung out of my grasp as I shot in the opposite direction, his body too heavy to stay within my grip. Bright lights flickered in my eyes, and I wondered who had been more foolish, the man who let himself drown inches from dry land or the woman simple-minded enough to try to rescue him. I hiccupped, clasping a hand over my mouth as a trickle of salty water invaded my palate, and I wondered if I could actually carry him up. Above me lay the surface, but I must’ve been at least ten feet below.
I doubled back, squatting low on the seafloor to spring my knees straight, and collided slowly into the man’s midsection. He was as heavy as an old log. As helpful as one, too. But I shook off a wave of dizziness as my chest beckoned for oxygen, legs pumping for the sparkling surface above.
My progress was agonizingly slow. Was I even making progress? We were lost in a sandy vortex; if wehadmoved, it hadn’t been far. I clawed toward the sky, which seemed to only shrink away. He slipped through my fingers, and I clung tighter, but my legs were suddenly slow, knees unwilling to bend.
I kicked. I kicked and twisted and yanked. Blazing heat ripped through my shoulder when I lost my grip on his waist and lurched awkwardly to grab him again.
A moment passed when I considered letting him go.
The man hadn't moved since I’d first touched him. Not even a twitch of his finger. But I couldn't bring myself to do it.
The man’s golden-brown hair plumed and danced in the water as I struggled. His limbs hung from his torso, his head rolling over my shoulder. I clung tighter, kicked harder, pushing him through the vortex, but the stretch of water between us and the surface was still vast.
Consciousness, and the effort to keep it, ebbed away. An involuntary cough bubbled in my throat. Saltwater rushed through my mouth and down my windpipe.
My larynx contracted, closing like the cinching strings of a purse. Like a noose—rough hands around my neck, squeezing life from my body.
Darkness crept into the corners of my vision, staining the water a velvet black. Beyond my control, my body contorted. My spine arched, floating upward, and my eyes opened, though I could no longer see.
I must’ve been truly stupid to think I might carry a body to the surface with only my kicking feet. I don’t know why I did it.
I hated men.
Allof them. Sailors, traders, merchants. They were all the same. Slobs and drunks who visited Leihaniian shores just to buy our fish and leave our harbor riddled with broken barrels and glass bottles. Why had I risked my life for one of them?
The last three strokes were messy. Futile. But suddenly my forehead grazed cool wind, then my nose and chin broke the surface, and I realized dimly that I was here—I’d made it.
My mouth opened, and as air surged down my throat, the use of my muscles came snapping back. I burst over the surface like an angry cat, hissing and spitting, doubling my efforts to hold on.
The man did nothing but hang from my arms. Flipping onto my back, I heaved him over my hips, steadying him with one arm as I worked toward shore. My throat burned, and I turned my cheek to retch and sputter, spewing saltwater into the waves.
As my feet landed, I shoved him forward, desperate to be rid of his weight. He unfolded like a soggy blade of pili grass. Limp. Cold.
My legs wooden, I reached under his arms and pulled, landing on my rump with a splat and heaving his body up over my own.Waves stroked my legs as I rolled out from under him, then sat on my hands and knees to look over the poor idiot while taking gasping breaths, my throat raw and lined with salt.
His lips and eyelids were blue, a paleness under the red sunburn across his skin that sent a chill down my spine.
“Wake up.” I patted his face once. Twice. He was clammy, even under the heat of the sun. I lifted his hand and dropped it. It landed on his face with a dull thwack. Biting my lip, I slapped his shoulder softly. Then again, hard.
“Wake up.”I shoved him forward with a groan, turning him to his side, and punched him square in the back. A wet burp erupted from his body as dirty water gushed from his slack mouth, but nothing else changed.
I’d seen Akamai, the village doctor, breathe life back into people. Islanders and sailors alike.Ididn’t know how to do it, but there seemed little to lose in trying now. My hands shook as I laid him down flat and rotated his chin, covering his mouth with my own and sending air into him.
Exhaling into another person was shockingly different from releasing breath to empty space. It was heavy. As if his lungs didn’t want it. Iforcedair into him with a punch of my lungs, my chest constricting as his inflated. The sound of it filling the hollow chambers of his chest vibrated in my ears.
I breathed again—then again.
And then I felt him move.
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