Page 53 of The Heart Trials

“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.

18

Ilie with my face smashed against the wet sand until I can breathe normally again. The sounds on the shore blare in my ears and my chest is still burning from being starved of air. My skin stings with cuts and scrapes from brushing debris.