“Though little good I could do the last time. I truly am sorry for that. I hope one day you can believe me that I never meant to go back on my word. I really, truly tried, Victoria, to protect you.”
My ribs seem to collapse on themselves. My throat constricts. I rest my forehead between his shoulder blades, up by the nape of his neck. I’d thought so little of him. I’d spoken so harshly…when all he’d done was try to protect me.
“Victoria? What’s wrong? Should we go back?”
“I’m fine.” I hope the firmness and strength in my words gives him calm.
“What is it?”
“I just need a moment.” My masks are breaking. It’s been a long, exhausting day, and my strength is waning.
He slows to a stop, saying nothing more. Allowing me to cling to him. My body pressed against his sturdy frame. We hover in the ocean as I steep in my thoughts.
All those years I spent alone. All those years that I spent looking out for myself, feeling that if I didn’t, no one would. I was strong because I wanted to be, but also because I had to be.
I couldn’t depend on anyone to take care of me. I truly believed that. Part of me still does, I suppose… My crew was like family, but just like my actual family, they were my responsibility. I could trust them all to do as they needed. But it was my job to look after them, not the other way around.
But they were there for me. Just as Emily was looking after Mother and Father in my stead when I wasn’t in port. Even Ilryth…even as I cursed him underneath my breath every day for not giving me power enough. He was there, too. It was him protecting me—not just his magic, buthim. Even as I was trying to hunt for folklore or magic to undo the hold he had on me.
“I gave so little credit,” I whisper. He doesn’t say anything, so I continue, “Everyone… I thought I was alone for so long. That I was surrounded by people who needed me and the best thing I could do for them was provide.Thatwas what they needed me for—everything I could offer—and I was strong enough to do it. Giving was how I would be worthy of them. I never…I never thought of people needing me for me. I never even considered people taking care of me as much as I was them.”
But they were.
My papers for the severance of my marriage were always expedited. Now I can see Emily’s hand in matters with the council. My mother was always giving me suggestions for sailing that ended up leading me to empty ports with eager merchants, easy to navigate and even easier to trade. My father always had a warm meal ready when I would return home. My crew, when the time came, risked their lives and gave up all their pay while doing it…for me.
“I don’t—didn’t deserve them. Deserve you.”
“Victoria—”
“I was so lonely for so long, but I was never really alone, was I?” A dam breaks in me. Tears I thought I’d long since stopped crying come forth. My hands release his shoulders and fly to my face, covering it, trying to hide from the world. Trying to hide from my shame for not realizing it sooner.
Two arms wrap around me. Tight and firm.Sturdy.
One of his hands slides up my neck, to the back of my head. The other arm is circled around my mid back, clutching me tightly. I am drowning in a sea of pain and joy that I never knew I was filling all those nights that I wept alone.
“You are worthy of so much more than I, or anyone, could ever give. I could spend a lifetime giving to you, and it wouldn’t be enough,” he whispers. It almost sounds like he’s whispering right in my ear, even though he speaks without the use of his mouth. Every thought is a caress within my mind, smoothing over the endless aches I’ve carried for far, far too long. “Every night I heard you cry, I wanted to tell you that it would all be all right.”
I let out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “I wouldn’t have believed you, even if you did.”
“I know.” He strokes my hair gently. “Because I know what it’s like to feel as though you are adrift, alone in a vast sea.”
“I could’ve done so much more with the time you gave me,” I admit to myself and him.
Long after I left Charles, I gave so much time to him. He had a hold on me unlike any other. Paperwork completed or not, I was as free as the wind in my sails for years. Em was right; my heart had given up on that decaying marriage long before pen was put to paper by the council.
But I hadn’t let go of the grip Charles had on my spirit. I lived every day thinking of him. Spiting him. Resenting him. Wondering, now and then, despite myself, how he was and what he was doing. Good or bad, it all boiled down to thoughts ofhim. Devoting energy he didn’t deserve, that I didn’twantto give, and yet did anyway time and again.
It took removing memories of him with godly magic, and the plight of a world, to finally break my focus from him. To realize that, more powerful than all my hatred and need for vengeance, is my indifference. The way to wound him was never to hurt him, it was not to care at all.Thatis what will finally free me of him.
“You did extraordinary things. You sailed through the end of the Gray Trench, avoiding Lord Krokan’s emissaries and wraiths alike. I promise I didn’t help as much as you might think with that. You went farther to the south than I have ever seen—past where the maps spill off the edge of parchment.” Ilryth sounds genuinely impressed and his sincerity slows my tears. “You did more in nearly five years than most do in their entire lives.”
“But it wasn’t enough…I didn’t do enough for them. To repay them for all the love they gave me.”
His hand stills. Slowly, his arms unfurl from around me. I almost tell him not to let me go. I’m not ready, not yet. I have not been comforted like this in years and I am needy.
“Look at me, Victoria,” he commands gently. And I do. I peek through my fingers, then lower my hands. Ilryth holds me now with his unwavering gaze. It’s as reassuring as his embrace just was. “You don’t have to repay someone for their love. It’s given freely.”
“But—”
