“You do.”
He lifts me before I can finish, one arm behind my back, the other beneath my knees, and the room shifts out from under me as he moves.
“I said let go?—”
“You’re going to pass out.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
The words come flat, without emphasis, but they don’t slow him. The door opens again, colder air cutting through the space as he carries me into the corridor. The motion of the ship pulls unevenly beneath us, the rhythm off in a way that makes the nausea worse, but the air is different out here, thinner, easier to breathe.
“Put me down,” I say, quieter now, my voice worn thin by the effort. “I can walk.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I can walk.”
He doesn’t answer. By the time we reach the stairs, the sound of the sea has grown louder, the wind pushing through the structure in uneven bursts. When we step onto the deck, the cold hits hard enough to force a breath from me.
There is no one else here. The ship stretches out around us, dark and nearly empty, lanterns burning low along the edges, their light catching in the wet boards and along the ropes pulled tight against the mast. The water moves in long, uneven swells, rising and falling in a rhythm that feels too slow, too heavy.
He sets me down.
My feet hit the deck unevenly, and I have to catch myself against the rail to stay upright, my grip tightening as the dizziness subsides.
I focus only on breathing, forcing each breath in and out until the nausea eases enough to give me room to think again. I was aware of him behind me, close enough that I could feel him without turning, waiting in a way that made him impossible toignore. Then the memory of what he had said returned, and with it the full understanding of where I was and what he intended.
I straightened slowly, my hand still resting against the rail.
“I’m not going to Alarna with you.”
CHAPTER 9
The Water
He does not answer right away. The wind moves between us, dragging at my hair, pressing the damp fabric of my clothes against my skin. The ship rises beneath us and falls again, the rhythm uneven enough that I have to keep one hand on the rail to stay steady.
“You don’t have a choice,” he says at last.
Something in me gives a quiet, humorless sound. “You keep saying that like it means something.”
“It does.”
I turn to face him fully now, slower than I want to, waiting for the ground to hold beneath me before I let go of the rail. The lantern light catches along him in pieces, along the rings at his hands, along the circlet at his head, everything about him composed in a way that makes what he’s saying feel even colder.
“This ends with you in Alarna.”
“There are two ways this can go,” I say. “You’re just choosing not to take either of them.”
His expression doesn’t shift.
“You can find a way to get me on another ship so that I can return to Veynar,” I continue, my voice steadying as I speak. “Or you can let me go to Alarna without you.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It is. You just don’t want it to be.”
