This might all go horribly. The ocean might kill me. The Hellions might kill him. Odds are high we will never see each other again. I know I barely know him, but the thought of losing him breaks my heart worse than the fear I might not survive. His people need him. And if I live, I think I might need him too.
“Roiven,” I call. He turns. My heart’s pounding so hard I’m surprised it’s still in my chest. “Thank you for believing there was good in me. For getting that armor off me.”
“Don’t you dare thank me for that,” Roiven says. He closes the gap and takes my face in my hands.
He kisses me, standing there at the edge of the sea, the waves breaking over my feet. Roiven’s lips move slowly against mine, gently testing, then harder, his tongue sweeping into my mouth like this is a final goodbye. My knees buckle and I don’t want the kiss to ever end. When Roiven steps back I’m blinking away tears.
“Just live, knight,” he whispers, and then he turns, and strides away, and I don’t have the strength to call after him.
He doesn’t look back. Sava bursts into the air, followed by the others, and I am alone on the rock isle, with the taste of Roiven on my lips and the Wild Seas dragging at my heels.
41
I’vebeen out here for at least an hour now, and I don’t know when the last time I saw the shore was. Water swells up on either side of me, the waves taller than how far my head peeks over the surface. I float up and then back down, hoping I’m kicking my legs the way Roiven said, unsure I’m making any difference.
In my head, I thought it would be simple: I knew what direction my familiar was in. Now that I’m out at sea, unable to feel him, I’m not sure I’m steering at all. An ache burns in my legs and my mouth tastes like salt from all the spray. For all I know I’m going the wrong way.
A smooth gray shape breaks the water ahead of me, then submerges. Another one to my left, its dorsal fin the only thing visible for a moment before it vanishes from view. I clench my teeth tight.
The ribbed spines of the fin look just like a reaper’s.
The upper half of my body rests on the flotation device Roiven made for me. I grab the strap with my left fist and sink underwater for a moment. When I open my eyes, the sting of the salt barely registers.
Three reapers. No, a fourth, coming up out of the murky shadows. I can feel their glassy eyes fix on me as they circle. Their lower jaws protrude from their faces, jagged teeth that may look miniscule compared to Sava’s, but could still shred me in seconds without problem. Each of them is bigger than I am. My heart pounds erratically. I shove the bond closed so Roiven won’t try to come save me.
My right arm isn’t working. I can’t fightandhold the strap with my left. But if I let go of the device, I’m probably dead. I can’t feel my familiar anywhere and I still don’t know how to swim.
I haul myself back up above water and take a gulp of air. The device isn’t big enough to be a raft. I can’t get my whole body on top of it. And if a reaper decides to take a nibble of it, it’ll be destroyed.
Something brushes against my leg—the side of one of the reapers. I yelp and drag my feet in toward me.
I don’t have much time to think. The strap on the device is long enough I can fit it over my head. I don’t care if it’s a stupid plan, I have to try something. The moment one of the reapers decides to take a bite, they’ll all taste blood and that will be that. I shove my head through the strap. Taking a deep breath, I plant my face back into the water, floating on top of the surface, able to see below but not breathe. I fight to get my legs up onto the surface with the rest of me, to give the reapers the smallest possible target.
One of the reapers tilts up toward me, his large jaw flexing. I pull the sword Roiven made from its scabbard. The movement is slow underwater, requiring more muscle than normal. I grip the hilt tightly, conscious that if I drop it, it’s gone forever.
As the reaper rises toward me, I slash the sword down. The reaper slides away out of the path of the blade and twists back towards me, opening his jaw to bite my foot. I can’t maneuver fast enough to get my sword over there. Instead I cock my knee and kick him in the nose with my heel.
The reaper jerks back and then lunges towards me, my waist this time instead of my leg. I jab with my sword and slice a cut on its back. A puff of blood escapes into the water.
The reaper thrashes away from the blade. I kick my legs but there’s nowhere to go. I’m running out of air and I can’t possibly swim fast enough to escape.
Blood in the water. One of the other reapers clamps its mouth down around the one attacking me. Then another one does. The fish I cut thrashes, but it’s too late. It’s only the work of moments for the other three to shred it to pieces.
I fumble getting the sword back into its scabbard, already kicking my legs in desperation to get away as fast as possible. Grabbing the devices’ strap with my left hand, I shove it back up off my head and surface, gasping for air. I hug the device to my chest and kick like my life depends on it.
“Do you really want me to die out here?” I call breathlessly. There’s no answer. I pop up over another swell, then back down. “Do you know what it was like for me?” I kick, and kick again.
I’m not going to make it, am I? I’m just going to kick my way out into the middle of the ocean, and then I’m going to drown. And I’m probably going to panic when I do, and Roiven and Sava will feel me panicking and leave Aveinor, and I’ll be the reason everything fails. I allow myself a dry sob, then grit my teeth and kick again.
“They made me hate the sea. They made it hurt every time I even thought about you, or who I might be,” I say. “I guess that’s as fair a reason to hate me as any, but I really don’t know what I was supposed to do. I don’t know why you chose me, or how, but I only even realized you did a few days ago. And if I knew then what I know now, I never would have pushed you away. So I’m sorry. But I can’t change the past.”
A larger wave than the others pops me up high into the air, so high I can nearly make out a strip of hazy ground in the distance.And then I slide back down between it and the next wave, and all I can see is water again.
The kraken is back.
Not in the distance, where I sensed him initially. But here. Below me, and to every side, immense, my awareness of him filling the entire sea.
My hand shakes. I grip the strap, sink back beneath the water, and open my eyes. The bulbous head of the kraken is far below me, a dim glaze rising up from the black depths of the sea. A tentacle twists closer to me, reaching up. I grip the float tighter as the narrow end of the tentacle—still wider around than I am—curls around my waist. And then, the kraken pulls.
