Enya tried to follow. She reached for the rock again, but a sudden, violent surge of the tide slammed into her back. Her fingers slipped. The weed was too slick. The current, as if angry at losing its first prize, wrapped its cold fingers around her waist and yanked.
She went under.
The world turned black and silent. The cold was absolute now, a peaceful, numbing weight that pressed against her eyes. Shetried to kick, but her legs were lead. She tried to reach for the surface, but she couldn't tell which way was up.
So, this is how it ends,she thought, a strange, dry humor flickering one last time in the back of her mind.
She felt herself drifting, the saltwater stinging her throat, as she let the dark take her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The darkness was a roar of white noise.
Enya’s lungs felt like they were being squeezed by iron bands, and for a fleeting, silver moment, she considered surrender. Why struggle? The boy was safe. Harald hated her anyway. It would be easier for him if the sea simply kept her. She felt herself beginning to drift, the weight of her sins finally heavier than the water.
Then, a jolt.
A massive, violent force clamped around her waist—something solid, immovable, and searingly warm. She was hauled upward with a brutal, desperate strength that ignored the punishing drag of the sea.
The transition to the screaming air felt like being reborn. The wind slapped her raw skin like shards of ice, but it was the sudden, crushing weight of her own life returning that hurt the most.
Enya collapsed onto the wet shingle, her knees hitting the jagged stones with a dull thud she was too numb to feel. She wasa useless heap of sodden wool and trembling limbs, her chest heaving as she tried to remember how to pull oxygen from the freezing air. Her fingers clawed at the pebbles, slipping on the slime of the tide, as the sheer, overwhelming reality of being alive began to set in with a violent, racking shudder. She was alive. She wasthere.
"Enya! Enya!"
The voice was a thunderclap. Large, shaking hands seized her shoulders, and Enya blinked, her vision clearing just enough to see Harald. He looked like a god risen from the sea, his dark hair plastered to a face that was twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated terror.
For a heartbeat, the pride she used as armor disintegrated.
He came fer me.
Relief, sweet and thick as honey, coated her throat. She wanted to reach out, to press her frozen face against his chest and tell him she was sorry.
But then, the terror in his eyes curdled.
The fear transformed into a jagged, lethal fury.What?He gripped her arms so tight she felt the heat of his rage through her numb skin. His fingers dug into her, as if he were trying to shake the life back into her or tear it out of her himself.
"What in the name o’ God were ye thinkin'?" he roared, the sound drowning out the wind. "Are ye completely out o' yer senses? Ye threw yerself intae that current like a stone!"
"The... the boy," she wheezed, her voice a dry, salt-choked rasp. She tried to pull back, her stubborn pride flickering to life even as she shivered. "He was... drownin', Harald. I wasnae––"
"Ye should have called fer help! Ye should have found a guard!" Harald’s face was inches from hers, his jaw set with such violence she heard his teeth grind. He was vibrating with a terrifying energy. "Instead, ye dive in? Dae ye have any idea how close ye came tae never comin' up?"
"There wasnae time!" Enya snapped back, though it came out as a pathetic, watery hiss. She glared at him, her sharp tongue finding its edge despite the cold. "By the time I’d have found a guard... the lad would have been halfway tae the Hebrides.”
Harald didn't answer with words. He let out a guttural, frustrated huff and, without another word, he scooped her up. He did it with a forceful, possessive heave that tucked her head against the hollow of his shoulder.
He began to stride back toward the keep, his boots crunching over the rocks with a murderous rhythm. He was breathing hard, his chest heaving against her.
Enya remained quiet, her body feeling like a block of ice carved in the shape of a woman.
When they reached the gates, the iron portcullis shrieked upward, and the guards scrambled like frightened hares out of the way. Harald marched straight toward the healer’s chamber, his boots leaving a trail of brine and mud across the polished stone of the inner keep.
"Laird Alvsson! What in the—" Eirik, the old healer, came shuffling out from behind a curtain, his spectacles perched precariously on the bridge of his nose.
His eyes widened behind the glass as he took in the sight.
"She jumped in the bay," Harald growled.
