“I thought I knew. I thought—” She shook her head, unable to find the words. “I didn’t know anything.”
“You knew enough to want this,” he said quietly. “That’s more than most people ever manage.”
The first wave surprised her.
She’d been walking towards the water’s edge, her feet sinking into sand that was warm on top and cool beneath, when the foam rushed up and engulfed her ankles.
She shrieked.
The sound was sharp and high and utterly involuntary—a burst of shock that dissolved almost immediately into laughter. The water was cold, colder than anything she’d ever felt, and it moved against her skin in a way that made every nerve ending sing.
“It’s moving!” She grabbed his arm for balance as the wave retreated, pulling the sand out from under her feet. “The water is actually moving, it’s pulling at me?—”
Another wave came, this one higher, splashing against her calves and sending droplets flying up to spatter her face. She laughed again, tasting salt on her lips, and gripped him tighter.
“More,” she said. “I want more.”
He was smiling—that rare, soft smile that made his whole face transform—but there was a hint of caution in his eyes. “The current gets stronger farther out. And there are undertows that can?—”
“Please.”
The word came out smaller than she intended, almost a whisper. She looked up at him, her heart pounding, and tried to make him understand.
“I’ve been watching this water my whole life. Every single day, for twenty-one years, I’ve looked out at those waves and wondered what they felt like. I’ve imagined it so many times I lost count. And now I’m here, and it’s real, and I can actually touch it, and I just...” She swallowed hard. “I need to go in. Just a little. Just enough to really know.”
Something shifted in his expression. He looked at her for a long moment, his green eyes searching her face, and then he nodded slowly.
“Together,” he said. “We go together.”
They walked into the surf hand in hand.
The water rose with each step—knees, then thighs, then waist. She gasped at the cold, at the pressure of the waves pushing against her body, at the strange sensation of the sand shifting beneath her feet. Her dress billowed around her, the fabric floating on the surface like pale flower petals.
“It’s so strong,” she breathed. “I never realized how strong it was.”
A larger wave rolled towards them, its crest white with foam. He braced himself, his arm coming around her waist to anchor her against him, and they took the impact together. The water crashed over them both, drenching her to the shoulders and sending spray into her eyes and mouth.
She laughed so hard she nearly choked on it.
“Again,” she gasped, blinking salt water from her lashes. “Let’s do it again!”
They stood there in the surf, letting wave after wave wash over them, until Liora’s lips were blue and her teeth were chattering and she still couldn’t stop smiling. Baylin tried twice to coax her back towards shore, but she kept insisting on just one more wave, just one more moment, just one more breath of salt air.
Then the big one came.
She saw it building in the distance—a dark swell that was taller than the others, moving towards them with deceptive slowness. She should have recognized the danger, should have remembered all those hours spent watching the ocean from above, cataloging the patterns of the waves and the way the largest swells often came in sets.
But she was too busy laughing, too drunk on sensation, too overwhelmed by the sheer joy of finally, finally feeling what she’d only ever dreamed about.
The wave hit her like a wall.
One moment she was standing, the next she was tumbling—water rushing into her nose and mouth, the world spinning in a chaos of blue and white and bubbling foam. The sand scraped against her back as the undertow pulled at her legs, dragging her towards deeper water.
Then strong arms caught her.
He hauled her up out of the surf, cradling her against his chest as if she weighed nothing at all. Water streamed from both of them as he carried her towards the shore, his jaw tight and his eyes scanning her face for signs of injury.
“Are you hurt? Liora, answer me?—”
