“To help dowhat?” He looks at me as though I’ve lost my mind.
“I don’t know. Anything but sitting down here, waiting for death?”
He laughs, though he—astoundingly—seems nervous. “Unless you can command the winds and the waves, there’s not a thing you can do,revna.”
My lips part. I intend to say something more to him—like why does he keep calling merevna?—but the boat tosses me forward into Odgar’s hard chest. He wraps his arms around me, balancing me, but the boat rocks once more, tossing us both to the side. His back slams hard into the wall as he turns at the last moment. It could’ve been me.
He grunts and I wrench myself from his arms. “Gods, are you alright?”
Rubbing the back of his head, he winces but nods. “Yes, I’m fine.”
The boat is still being tossed about, and my heart refuses to calm down over the sounds of water pelting against the ship, ofwaves crashing, of the shouting of the crew above and perhaps even down here. “Have you been in a storm this bad before? Could we die out here?”
He wraps his arms around me again, pulling my face against his chest so that I feel his words as much as I hear them. “If we are going to die, do you really want to spend our last moments talking about the possibility?”
“No.” A tremor rises in me. Even the dark flames at my core shudder. As if even Enidwen’s spirit inside of me fears for her life. I can’t stop the quaking, but Odgar holds me tighter, his back still pressed against the wall.
“Let’s sit,” he says over the cacophony of the storm. I sink down to the floor with him, sitting between his legs with my thighs draped over one of his. I press my face to his leathers, taking in the scent of pine oil and perspiration. Normally, I’d be disgusted, but right now it’s a comfort.
His chest rises with each intake of breath, and I bask in the warmth of his arms encircling me, even as the boat rocks, creaks, and groans. Even as I fear our impending death.
The ship tilts so hard we begin to slide. My heart leaps, and Odgar tightens his grip on me with one hand while the other anchors us against the floor. I hold my ground as well, my heart pounding in my throat. Water pours under our door, streaming across the floor. Panicked cries seem to bleed from the walls.
This is it. We’re going to die.
But the ship stops tilting, and I relax slightly, even though we continue to rock back and forth in the tempest. Odgar’s heart thuds steadily against my ear, and as I start to disentangle from his embrace, there’s the slightest increase in the pressure of his arms around me.
I lick my dry lips, and though I make no further attempts to shift, I murmur, “You don’t have to hold on to me anymore.”
“I know.” His voice rumbles through his chest, against my cheek. He presses a kiss to the top of my head, and I inadvertently sink deeper into his hold. I find myself desperate to commit this feeling to memory.
If this is the last experience I’ll have in this life, it wouldn’t be a bad way to go.
Chapter 39
Stocky branchesof a tree stretch toward the inky black sky. Fire rages across the land. Cries of terror and pain tear through the abysmal darkness as the ground fissures and molten rock glowing an angry orange spills from within. The bloodred moon casts eerie shadows into the endless night, and with a howl heard in every hollow of the world, the last orb of light ceases to exist. As if swallowed whole.
As if it had never been.
The next afternoon, I’m drenched in sweat as my body hits the floor. I’ve barely gotten much sleep in the two weeks since we’ve been on the sea. But every time I do drift off, it’s this fucking dream again.
During the days, I’ve been working with Briony on strengthening my mind against Enidwen—though the enchantress still slips into my consciousness far too often. The mind strengthening does seem to keep Durvla out of my dreams,however. Thank Sunlagh. As much as I miss Durvla, I don’t want her to watch me slip away.
With a groan, I roll onto my back and rub my bleary eyes. As I reach out from the floor to grab the mattress for leverage, I find Odgar sitting on the bed staring down at me. I shriek and clap my hand over my mouth.
Odgar winces, an apologetic look on his face as he lowers a large wooden needle threaded with wool. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. His eyes drift down as he weaves the blue wool through the needle eye into the knitted fabric.
My tongue feels a tad too large for my mouth as I watch his precise motions. I swallow and stand to sink back onto the bed, leaving a gap between us.
“I still can’t believe youknit,” I say.
“Nalbinding,” he corrects gently. “Knitting requires two needles—one holding the wool, and the other weaving it. The nalbinding needle is like a sewing needle but instead of connecting two pieces of fabric—” He lifts his face to me, and I must look as utterly bored as I feel because he huffs out a quiet laugh. His smile wavers as he sticks the needle into the fabric and sets the work in progress between us.
He unstraps a bulbous leather bottle from his waist and hands it to me.
Slowly, I sip the lukewarm liquid and try to remember … something. What had I been doing last? I don’t even remember going to bed. I vaguely recall a conversation of some sort with Briony. Or Valdis?
That strange, shrouded sensation begins to cloak me again. Until a sharp pinch just beneath my inner elbow releases me from the impending daze. My fingernails are digging into my forearm, and I stare at my hand as if it doesn’t belong to me. It takes a moment for me to release my own grip. My skin isspeckled with scratches and black, blue, and yellow bruises. I pull back the dress sleeve from my other arm, and it’s the same.
