Stop it, Vinicola, I scold myself.Write yourself a ballad of bravery, not an epitaph! A war chant, not a dirge!
But… no, I can’t. The words won’t come, and neither will my strength.
“Fabien…” I whisper, voice trembling as it claws its way out of my throat. “I can’t—“
“You can,” he cuts me off, gripping my arm with a resolve I wish I could borrow. “And you will. We’re almost there.”
But he’s got it all wrong. We’re barely touching the shoreline, and I can already feel my heart fighting against me. What about all the other times we’ll have to make this run? When the sea itself tries to swallow us whole, waves crashing down like they’ve got a grudge? I can already hear them, churning and foaming like they’re itching for the chance to drag me under.
“You don’t understand, I…”
“I understand!” he shouts, his voice raw as a jagged wound. “I fuckingunderstand, okay?! But I have to do this. For my parents.”
The words hit me like a wave, scattering my doubts like spilled wine on hot sand, evaporating before I even realize they’ve left a stain. My eyes prick, tears drying up before they can even dare to fall. I blink hard, pushing back that sudden, silly burn.
“For your parents?” I blurt out, the question tumbling free before I can shove it back. His grip tightens on my arm, and for the briefest moment, the hardened mask slips—just a hairline crack, a glimmer of something raw, something beautifully, heartbreakingly, and impossibly tender beneath all that scowl and swagger.
I’ve only known him a short while, but moments like this—they’re as rare as those sea-glass shards that wash up on the shore after a storm. Every so often, I sense it—something more alive, something painfully beautiful trapped inside him, like a song too precious to be sung aloud. And now, with these words, I hear a stray note of it, something just for me, and it stirs something in my heart I’d almost forgotten was there.
“Yes,” he says, voice low, hoarse, barely above a whisper. “They gave up everything for me. I can’t let their memory sink with this godforsaken island. I won’t.”
I feel my chest tighten. Everybody knows his story—how his parents went down to the sea. The way he clings to his beliefs about the Lady and the sea gods, it’s as if he’s decided she’s the one to blame. He hates her. He’s determined to make her pay, though he’d never say it so plainly. Not to any of us.
“The sea chooses whose life it takes,” I whisper, words tumbling out without permission.
The Ladyisthe sea.
His gaze holds steady, and he nods. “Exactly.”
There’s a kind of sorrow in him that feels like an echo of my own. The ache to return, to be welcomed back into my mother’s arms—even if I arrive empty-handed, with no grand riches or redemption. Just the scent of her warmth and her laugh would be enough.
But Fabien? He’ll never see his parents again. That hurt cuts so deep I can’t begin to imagine it. It’s a loss so consuming, I’m certain it’s what’s kept him moving all this time.
“Help me,” I breathe, not even sure he’s listening. “Because there’s no way I can do it alone.”
For the briefest second, his eyes meet mine, then flick away. His face is all angles and shadows, a battlefield with hidden scars I’ll never see. But I don’t need to. I can feel it—like the rumble of thunder before the storm.
“I’m going to count,” he says, panting “Don’t look at the water. Look at my feet. Just keep time with me.”
I nod, words escaping me, clinging to the rhythm of his steps pounding against the sand. I tune out the roar of the waves, the heat that’s sucking the breath right out of me, and the coil of dread in my stomach. Fabien’s heels become my north star.
“One,” he counts, his tone even in the middle of the chaos of my thoughts. “Two. One.”
Surprisingly, it works. Each number becomes a rope pulling me forward, reeling me in. The world shrinks to his voice, his feet moving through the sand.
It’s a rhythm we’re making, a song with our bodies. Desperate, pounding, relentless. A painful beauty wrapped in grit and sacrifice. We’re not just pushing forward. We’re creating music with each aching step.
There’s beauty in the tragedy of it.
“Two. One,” he counts again.
I fall in line, my legs moving on their own now, the rhythm swallowing me up. The fear lingers, sure, but it’s pushed to the side, hushed by the beat we’re creating.
And when the weary bard thought all was lost,
He remembered love’s most precious cost,
How it drives us on when hope runs thin,
