6. A Seduction of Ropes and Rigging

Chapter 6

A Seduction of Ropes and Rigging

T he water sent a stinging pain from her toes to her head when her boots pierced through, but Mariel had no time to think, because the force of her entry had sent her plunging deep under the waves. She flailed in alarm but quickly remembered what her father had taught her about the dangers of panicking, so she shifted her conscious effort toward relaxing her limbs, flipping her feet, and angling her arms down to return to the surface.

She gulped in a screeching breath of air, the desperate sound engulfed by the great roaring sea. Her chest was full to bursting. A cool wave swiped her, dragging her under again, but she let her buoyancy lift her back to safety.

The lifting and pulling continued until she got the hang of the pattern. Her bearings slowly returned.

From the sea, the rise of land looked considerably higher than it had before she’d dementedly jumped to what could have just as easily been her death if the water had been any shallower. If she’d hesitated at all, though, she would be in custody.

Or dead.

Of all the things she had ever done as an outlaw, nothing had ever felt so dangerous.

Or so wickedly invigorating.

The sharp rays of the sun blinded her, but with a squint, she could just make out the form of a man, waving his arms from the top of the cliff. He was too broad to be Erran, but she saw no sign of her meddling husband. There wasn’t time to wonder why. Whatever else happened, she’d never be able to return to her marriage.

The guard was unlikely reckless enough to jump in after her, but if she didn’t hurry, he’d make it to town and procure a vessel that would reach the Mistwitch long before her tired body would. Even if she did get there, there was still so much work to do to ready her for sail, and it would take far too long with just one person doing it all.

That was a problem for the future. She had but one job in the now.

Mariel was a lake swimmer, not a sea swimmer, but analyzing the differences was a luxury unavailable to her as she bobbed in the sea, one foul wind from drowning. The White Sea was infamous for its treacherous waves in open water and untenable sailing conditions, but the coastal currents were calm and easily navigable. She could make it.

She would make it.

Mariel turned until she’d fixed the Mistwitch in her sights. She closed her eyes and pumped her arms and legs, looking up every few strokes to gauge her ship’s distance. Gentle waves carried her backward, slowing her momentum, but she pushed on, counting her strokes and turning her thoughts off.

A hard ache settled into her legs. Her lungs seized in response. She thought she heard someone calling her name, but the sea was so loud, consuming and blending her senses into a morass of disorder. It would consume her, too, if she gave into it.

Water is water. I can do this.

Mariel pushed on, each stroke in direct defiance to her fright, her demand for hesitation and reflection. One, two, three, four, five, six, she counted, starting over when she’d lost her place. One, two, three, four. She allowed herself another glance up and saw the Mistwitch was only a few yards ahead, glittering in the midday sun—anchored and waiting for her mistress.

She dipped under the water and didn’t emerge until her hand struck wood.

Sputtering, she crested, swallowing as much air as her lungs allowed. She used the divots in the hull’s wooden cage to guide herself to the stern of the ship, where a ladder was fastened. Her heart hammered as she made her way to the back, but it lodged in her throat when she saw someone was already halfway up, stretching a hand down to her.

Erran.

She lifted her elbow onto a thin ledge to steady herself and took his hand. With a grunt, he hoisted her effortlessly up and out of the water, locking her fingers over a rung, but it left her spread between the outer hull and the ladder.

“I have you,” he said breathlessly. His soaked hair was matted against his flushed face, seawater dripping down his eyes to his chin. His aquamarine eyes glistened, like how the sea looked when the sun reflected off its surface. “You can let go. Trust me.”

I don’t trust you a whit, she wanted to say. A wave thrashed her feet and her hold slipped, causing a few of her nails to bend back. She grimaced through the sharp pain. “What are you... doing... here, Erran?”

“Is now the time you want to have this conversation?” His jawline tensed and constricted as he worked to keep hold of her and the ladder. “They’re coming, aye? So we can argue about it, or you can accept my help and we can get the bloody feck out here.”

“I can...” Mariel couldn’t get enough breath to speak. She took a pause. Her bleeding fingertips strained on the wet wood. “Do it myself.”

“I could barely reach it from the water, Mariel, and I have half a foot on you. It’s meant for going down, not up.” His muscles on the arm gripping the ladder strained under his translucent white shirt. “Let go, and swing my way.”

It wasn’t the time to argue, and she shouldn’t have needed the princeling to tell her so. She inched her hand closer, more nails bending along the damp wood as she struggled to stay gripped.

“Mariel, let go already!”

Mariel yelped through her teeth as she released the hull and threw as much momentum as she could toward him and the ladder. His arm scooped her waist, catching her right as her grip on the rung slipped. He snapped her against him with a low grunt, but instead of pushing her up and ahead of him, he climbed up with her tacked to his waist like an adornment and pulled them both up until the gunwale was in reaching distance. She grabbed for it and wormed her way over the side, then crashed onto the deck with a rolling thud.

Erran landed on his feet behind her. This time when he offered a hand, she didn’t take it. She needed her wits about her, because the only trouble as bad as the guards pursuing her—after she’d boldly, stupidly outed herself as the Flame to save her friends—was a Rutland discovering her criminal activity.

“Where did you get this thing?” Disgust wove through his words as he continued his inspection. “It’s not even yours, is it?”

“It’s mine,” she said tersely, straining for breath. “And I’ve got only a few minutes to get her readied for open sea. So while I thank you for the rescue, you can go now.”

“Go?” His expression widened in bemusement. “You think you can captain this dory yourself?”

Mariel’s hands shot to her hips in hot offense. “ Dory ? She’s a proper trading craft! And aye, I’ve captained her myself, Princeling of the Seas. Do ye see a crew?”

“I see a woman who jumped from a feckin’ cliff because she couldn’t think straight.”

“Wh...” she sputtered, unsure what his angle was. It was clear he wasn’t leaving, and she didn’t have time to argue. “Fine. But once we’re off, you’ll be explaining yourself, or I’ll punt you into the sea myself.”

Erran scoffed, squinting as he took in the details of the ship. She knew what he was going to say before he said it. “Aye, it’s no dory. I’ll give you that. But it is a balinger, lass. The draft is shallow. Only good for trading. Transport. It’s built for coastal waters.”

As if she didn’t know. “Aye, and those same waters are going to make it easy to catch up with us, because we don’t have thirty men to run the oars, do we?” She shoved past him and raced for the sails, nearly losing her poise on the slimy deck.

He hissed in through his teeth. “We take it to open sea, we might not come back.”

“Feel free to return to where you came from then,” she replied, baring her teeth as she started tugging on the starboard halyard, twisting her fingers into the knot to loosen it.

Erran appeared on the other side to help. “On three. One, two?—”

Mariel bore down and started tugging before he finished his countdown. He emoted a brief chuckle full of reproach, like she was a petulant child, and joined her. Together, they raised the first and then the second sail. It would have taken her thrice as long by herself, but her gratitude never made it past her tongue.

“Tie them off,” he commanded.

“I’m not one of your crew. I don’t take bloody orders from you,” she muttered, wrenching her halyard over the joint.

“Protests the one running from the law,” he snapped.

When she whipped her head up to tell him where he could stick his words, he was already done with his side and had gone to the starboard beam, where he was pitched over the side. His back clenched with every tug as he wrested the anchor from the water, something she’d only been able to do with the winch.

He carefully lowered it to the deck and into the cradle, but on his rise, he went notably still. “Mariel,” he said calmly.

She closed her eyes and sighed. “They’re coming, aren’t they?”

“Are you more comfortable trimming the sails or manning the tiller?” His hands fisted at his sides as he watched the sea. “There’s hardly a wind this afternoon. It’s going to take some doing to catch air, if we can even do it at all.”

What he really meant was that managing the ropes and rigging would take strength and stamina, and she was at a disadvantage. It burned her to admit any weakness to a Rutland, but it wasn’t the place for pride. “Tiller.”

“Go.”

She raced to the tiller, sliding again when the ship rolled on the tide. Erran had two ropes in his hands, his hips wide and knees bent. He craned his head back and yelled, “Northeast!”

“Are you sure?” She tried to read the waters, the air, but she was forced to concede he knew far more than she ever would. “It almost seems?—”

“Northeast, Mariel!” His feet started to slide. “Come on!”

Mariel put all her weight into cranking the tiller and heaved a relieved breath when it responded. She kept turning until the compass read northeast and then locked it in place before rushing to join Erran.

“Secure the deck and the hatches,” he ordered.

For a moment, she was too awed from watching him work the ropes to do anything but gape. His work was fluid and effortless, like a seasoned artist painting the perfect landscape on their first attempt.

“Mariel!”

There wasn’t much on the deck, beyond some frayed netting and a few empty crates. A handful of rusted tool parts, scattered. The buccaneer she’d won it from had had his men loot the vessel before handing over the deed, and the meager supplies she’d brought herself were on the lower deck, stuffed in cupboards. She hadn’t foreseen she might need to be stocked for a harrowing escape. When Erran figured out how ill-fitted they were for where she wanted to go, he’d have plenty more to say about her lack of experience.

She scrambled to grab everything as he teased the sails, working against their lack of wind in a way she never could have managed on her own. Why he’d followed her... why he’d jumped into the feckin’ sea when he must have known that aiding a criminal would be the final straw for his father, who was already so close to pulling his birthright for his antics... It didn’t add up. She’d be more inclined to believe it was one big fever dream, but the nightmare surrounding her was unfortunately very much real. The men chasing them, no less so.

The most depressing realization washed over her: Obsidian Sky was done. Their best work was behind them now, not ahead. Whatever her fate, the others were on borrowed time. The stewards now knew their favorite brigands were willing to take bigger risks, and would stop at nothing to hunt them down, one by one.

Better they chase her forever, than the others, for even a minute.

“They’re gaining!” Erran bellowed.

Mariel shoved everything in her arms down the hatch, slammed it, and threw the bolt. The ship listed as they approached the currents most traders avoided. Everyone knew the White Sea took indiscriminately, and anyone who had ever gone too far out to sea had never returned.

She skated again, this time hitting the deck with her hands. Erran’s full focus was channeled into his handiwork, a maestro conducting his masterpiece, a seduction of ropes and rigging.

Mariel returned to the tiller and unlatched the lock, planting her feet as they reached the first onset of choppier waters. She craned her neck back to search for the skiff, but it seemed to hold the same distance.

“Tide’s going out, and it’s taking us along,” Erran called, but he didn’t sound happy, which perplexed her. The keel was at no risk from seabed collision in the low tidal pull, because as Erran had pointed out, her ship had a shallow draft. And without the wind, they’d need some assistance from nature, or he’d end up snapping his arms trying to manipulate the air.

“Aye, good!” The tiller rumbled under her hands from the force of their direction, turned to a northeast angle against the building current. Her gut burned with shame at how easily he’d assumed a captain’s role aboard her own ship, clearly assuming she’d never learned how to pilot the Mistwitch at all. It singed deeper when she was forced to accept he was partly right. She’d piloted her a few times, sure, but in shallow waters, where she belonged. They were already farther from the shore than she’d ever been, skipper or passenger.

“Good? How far do you ken we’re going, Mariel?”

“Far enough to shake those thugs!”

“You gonna tell me who they are?”

“They’re guards.” Mariel’s boot slipped. She’d keep slipping as long as the leather was sodden. When it was safe to drop anchor, she’d dry her gear and dig out something new.

“No shite. Why are they after you ?” His shoulders rippled under his still-soaked shirt as he pulled and leaned and gave and listed. She was mesmerized, watching him work. It was almost beautiful, if they weren’t sailing for their literal lives.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Her muscles locked as the current tried to force the rudder farther north. She gritted down and locked it back in place. Seawater rose to the east and crashed against the side of the Mistwitch , peppering them with spray. A little higher and they’d have been swamped.

“How close?”

“What?”

“How close are they now?”

Mariel turned again and nearly whooped from joy. “They’re receding. Erran, they’ve stopped!”

“Because they know better.” He eased off the trimming and tied the halyards. “If we go any farther east, to open sea, we’ll capsize. No doubt of it. You have a map in this mess?”

“Of course I have a feckin’ map,” she replied, flicking a nod over her shoulder. “In the galley, one of the top cupboards.”

“You keep your map in the kitchen?” Erran was dubious, his expression edged with judgment. “Ken that means you’ve never found much use for it?”

“Oh, you can lose the smug look. Some skippers don’t need maps.” She tapped her chest. “Got ’em in here.”

“ All skippers need a map, and the best ones aren’t afraid to admit it,” Erran replied with a quick, condescending smile that was far more galling than his assumption of command. He approached, his arms crossed. “How fortunate you are to have me.”

Mariel snorted and averted her eyes.

“Aye, you could pout.” His lip hitched. “Or you could thank me.”

“ Thank you?” Mariel screeched.

“For saving your arse, for one.”

“I don’t even know why you’re here!”

He stared at her, open-mouthed, his head slowly passing back and forth. “I cannae even fathom how yer mind must work, baring down on me when yer the one who rode hours to meet a man conveniently wrapped up in the most significant business transaction my father has ever made, right after he mentioned it at breakfast, only to be chased into the fecking sea , and then you turn your suspicion on me? The one throwing his future away for a woman who cannae even stand him?”

Mariel was taken aback, though she shouldn’t have been. What else was he to assume, following her to Banner’s and watching the guards hunt her down like the criminal she was? He might be a spoiled brat, but he wasn’t stupid. “Well... Well, I see your salt and sand has come back, but where are your mates?”

Erran curled his nose and pursed his mouth. “I’m told it comes out with my anger.”

“So does your shite attitude, which I’ll thank you to lose.” She charged forward a step. “You did not have to come.”

“Aye, I did .”

“Why?” she asked.

His nostrils flared with his eyes, burning with intensifying ire. “Because you’re my wife?—”

“And your property?”

“Will you feckin’ stop with such vile accusations!” Erran was thunderous. His arms flew to the top of his head and rested there as he paced short paths before her. “I donnae own ye, Mariel, nor would I wish to, for how... How could any...” His eyes swept her in disgust. “All ye are is lies and rage.”

He stormed to the hatch and climbed down. The lid crashed behind him.

Mariel stood in admonished silence, riding the gentle undulations carrying them to sea. It didn’t matter what he thought. It never had. She couldn’t let any of it get under her skin. Her father used to say, Never take criticism from anyone you wouldn’t solicit advice from.

She climbed atop the raised stern deck, hand on the storm mast, and waited to see what the guards would do.

Erran realized he’d only been allowing himself the shallowest of breaths when he finally took in a deep one and let it roll from his lungs in a lingering, gentle escape.

The guards had turned around, but that only meant they were returning to shore for a more suitable vessel. It bought him some time to chart a better course.

He found a decent place to drop the six weighted anchors, meant for creating drag in deeper waters, around the edges of the deck. It was a little farther to sea than he was comfortable with, and the occasional waves cresting and swamping the deck set his nerves on edge, but Mariel was right about one thing: they couldn’t go back, and they needed to be far enough out for other ships to think better of following.

Whether they would follow anyway depended on what Mariel had done.

While below deck, he’d done a quick assessment of their supplies. She couldn’t have had the ship for long, because there wasn’t much. Blankets and pillows. A few changes of clothes. A box of torn rope and busted rigging, probably left by whomever she’d pilfered the vessel from. A crate of whiskey. Candles, tossed into a crate with some knives. A couple of rusted axes. A satchel of dried meat, and a filled waterskin, seemed to be the only food and drink she’d bothered with, so either she hadn’t anticipated being out at sea for long or she was even worse at skippering than he’d first thought.

He tossed it all back where he found it and returned to the upper deck.

Mariel was seated on a bench on the port side, her arm draped over the side and eyes on the distant outline of the shore. She didn’t look up when he approached or sat beside her.

“Don’t say it,” she said hoarsely. “Please.”

Erran held out his hands to show he had no intention of interrogating her—yet. They had nowhere to go. She had nowhere to go. And aye, he’d followed her when he hadn’t needed to, but he was in it now. Whatever it was.

“Will you at least tell me if there’s a plan?”

Mariel dropped her hands between her knees and folded down over them. “Will you yell at me again if I say no?”

Erran’s irritation flared, but he pushed it down. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

She sighed through her nose. “I shouldn’t have said what I said, when you helped as much as you did. I ken if it were only me, I wouldn’t have fared as well.”

“Guardians, no,” he agreed.

Mariel glanced his way in surprise, and something in her expression made him laugh. She laughed too. “I suppose it doesn’t hurt to tell you where I got this beauty.”

“I assumed you stole her.”

The offense he’d been aiming for never crossed her expression. A hint of pride was there, but it drifted into wistfulness. “I acquired her in Goldthorpe.”

Erran flinched in genuine shock. “The gambling town?”

She nodded. “Game of billiards. Won her fair and square.”

“I didn’t realize they let women in there, except...”

“Except the midnight women, there for man’s endless pleasure?”

He cleared his throat, embarrassed both because they were discussing midnight women and by Mariel’s bluntness. “Aye, I ken that was what I was trying to say.”

“You don’t speculate? Not at all?”

Erran shook his head. “It’s not the business of a gentleman. Or so says my father.”

Mariel nodded and turned back toward the sea. “Neither is confiscating lands from men by fabricating crimes and charges.”

“Mariel, you can’t say something like that if you’re not willing to tell me why we’re here.”

Her brows raised with a sharp inhalation. She waved her hand toward the mast. “You, uh, handled yourself well today. Thank you.”

“‘Thank you?’” Erran grinned and turned his head toward the sky, in which a distant storm was materializing. “Will you have to kill me now that you’ve paid me such a kindness?”

“Would do it for less,” she replied, but even with her head turned, she couldn’t hide her tight grin.

Erran squinted at the darkening skies, the thick clouds pulling together. “We’re going to have to make a move soon. This storm doesn’t look to be heading toward land, but it is coming our way. If we navigate into smoother waters?—”

“Nay.” She spun on the bench, her expression hard. “Nay, we cannot. We cannot go back.”

“And you’re not going to tell me why...” He enunciated each word.

“Not... I don’t know. Nay. Not now.” Her hands rolled along the edge of the bench, and that was when he noticed some of her fingers were bloodied. “There’s no plan. I had one, but... I wasn’t expecting what, eh, happened, aye?”

“Being chased by guards into the sea?”

She lifted her fingertips with a curt nod.

“Whatever it is you’ve done, my father can?—”

“Your father ?” Her laugh terrified him. “You go on back, Errandil. I never asked you to follow me... to help me. There’s a rowboat attached to the starboard hull, and it’s all yours.”

Mariel wanted him to react, to fight with her so she could justify her own anger, wherever it had come from. “I’m not going back, Mariel.”

She bore into him with a stare that seemed to challenge his words. “Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were, because your father won’t forgive this misstep. I promise you.”

Foreboding crossed her words, the closest he’d get to an understanding of the circumstances that had her fleeing in a paltry vessel for an unforgiving sea. “Maybe I am a fool,” he said, conceding. “But I’m not leaving you to navigate these waters alone.”

“He’ll take the admiralty from you when he finds out you’ve helped me. Is that what you want?”

Was there concern in her eyes? “That’s my risk to take.”

Mariel glanced away with a sigh, shaking her head in defeat and disbelief. “I ken we’ll have a better chance of surviving this mess with your skill.”

“Skill is part of it.” Erran whistled through his teeth. “But... There’s not enough food to last us more than two, maybe three days, and that’s if we ration. You didn’t exactly provision this ship for a long voyage.”

“Where’s the map?”

Erran handed it over.

She stood and spread it on the bench. “There aren’t many islands here. There’s Duncarrow and Belcarrow, the king’s territories. The others are small, rather inconsequential. Useless for much of anything.”

“I know of them.” He gritted to temper the annoyance in his voice, because he truly didn’t have the heart for another row with her. But he’d been born on the sea. Trained on the sea. Had been groomed to helm the largest, most distinguished fleet in the entire realm. And she wanted to educate him ? “They’re not useless if you’re a bird or a boar. Few see fit to travel so far when there’s easier hunting on the mainland.”

“Aye.” She nodded distantly. “But do you really see us making it back to the mainland in this ship anytime soon?”

He wasn’t ready to acknowledge his suspicions, or the inciting words she’d howled at the guards before leading them on a wild chase, but it was enough to believe there could be guards at every port soon, if there weren’t already. And if any of them launched their own ships in pursuit, Erran and Mariel would be boxed in, with nowhere to go.

He’ll take the admiralty from you when he finds out you’ve helped me.

Well, Erran thought, with a wry twist of humor. That ship seems to have already sailed.

“It’s going to be rough,” he said. “If we can even get there in this thing.”

“I can’t guess how long we’ll be out here. You can still go back.”

He scratched down his chin and neck. “If we can make it to even one island in that archipelago, there’ll be vegetation we can eat, food we can hunt. A water source. And then we can...” He breathed deep. “Form some kind of a plan.”

“Did you hear me?”

“Aye.” He stood with a stretch. “Tide is about to go out again. Still no wind, but we’ll make do. You want the tiller again or the sails?”

Mariel’s face peeled back. “I’ll stick to the tiller, thank you.”

Erran closed his eyes and felt for the wind’s direction. Still weak, but north. They needed to go northeast, but he could work with it. “Let’s pull anchors. We’ve already wasted enough time.”

Mariel made slight adjustments in the tiller’s direction while Erran played the sails. At times, she caught herself watching him, his shoulders all neat, flexing lines under his shirt, which hadn’t yet fully dried. It stirred something in her, which she knew better than to mistake for attraction, but it reminded her she was alive... was a real, whole person who could feel something other than vengeance.

She had to grudgingly admit they made a good team. Maybe not in marriage, or in anything else that mattered, but she knew no one else who could have taken over the Mistwitch and navigated her with such effortless ease.

As he worked, she saw the man who could one day lead a fleet but never would.

Why he was there—why he’d stayed after she’d skirted just around the truth but close enough for him to know her crime was nothing petty—was a secret he held close, just as she was holding her own. She would never have risked so much for him, a bruising realization that stoked her guilty conscience. When the reckoning inevitably came, the power to exonerate them would not be hers to give, but the least she could do was explain he’d followed her from nothing more than some misguided sense of marital chivalry.

“Coming into the Eastern Shelf,” Erran called over his shoulder.

Mariel swallowed her pride to ask, “What... What does that mean?”

“The eastern side of the White Sea is actually two distinct bodies of water, and where they meet, there’s a... The best way to think of it is a collision of opposing tidal systems. The force can pull even the most hardy ship under.”

Her skin prickled with a fear she’d not considered. “Can we go around?”

“Nay. To go around, we’d encounter worse problems.” He shifted his stance, and the top sail snapped against the wind. “It’s just the first obstacle in sailing beyond the White Kingdom. By far not the hardest, but the islands we want are just on the other side.”

“Then how...” She hadn’t actually asked, or even wondered, why mariners could never leave the kingdom seas. “What do we need to do?”

“Grip that tiller for your life,” he said. “And pray we haven’t angered the Guardians too deeply today.”

Mariel squinted into the misty afternoon for any signs of the Eastern Shelf he was speaking of, but the sea was the same on all sides: choppy, endless, and misty from the scattered rain. She was still searching when something large and swelling caught in her peripheral vision. Turning, she saw a wall of water coming toward them and screamed.

“Crank it to the east, Mariel!” Erran hollered. His boots slid along the deck as he grunted and tugged at the halyards. “Harder!”

“I’m trying!” Mariel bared down, but it wasn’t enough. She was losing her footing, her hold, and the giant wave was coming right at their starboard hull. It was tall enough to swallow them whole. It was all happening too fast for her to adjust. “Erran, what do we do? ”

“Stay calm and quarter us—ah, steer us at an angle against the wave.”

Her heart leaped into her throat and lodged there, thumping and pounding. “I’m trying , but it’s not budging ! It’s going to swamp us!”

“Trust me and keep turning!”

Ocean spray from the coming onslaught temporarily blinded her. She looked up, wondering how Erran could sound so calm, and was stunned to see him reefing the sails. The bottom one was rolled halfway up, and he tied it there.

“Mariel... We need... the sea anchors... not all of them, just two on each side...”

She wiped her face on her sleeve and peered behind her. “I can’t get to them unless I lock the tiller!”

“The tiller will be fine. We just need some drag to pull our rear?—”

Horrified, she watched him lose his grip on the ropes and go rolling down the deck and slam into the side wall. “Erran?”

He didn’t respond... or move.

“Oh, no, no, no. No, no. Feck. Feck. Erran !” She tried to lock the tiller to go to him, but the next wave struck the ship, swallowing her and everything around her in a flood of bedlam. Her throat burst with seawater and she sputtered, gripping the tiller with all she had.

When she finally opened her eyes, the wave had passed, but the deck was engulfed. Water seeped down the drains, but it would overwhelm the bilge, which would need draining soon or they’d capsize.

This is why I need a crew.

But she’d hardly finished that thought when another wave slammed the ship from behind and carried her away. She flailed, scrambling to grab onto anything , but she may as well have been sailing through air.

Mariel slammed into something hard, and it knocked the breath out of her. She heard a horrific cracking sound and saw the mast splitting in the center, the top careening right for her. She shielded her head, but a rush of current carried her away just in time for her to watch the wooden pole slam into the sea.

In breathless horror, she saw the ship’s bow list toward the water, and she realized she was watching the Mistwitch losing her battle from the sea.

“Erran,” she yelped, but there was no sign of him. He was probably dead, like she would soon be. If she’d been better prepared, if she’d understood this Eastern Shelf, if she’d?—

Her world was muffled by another swell that pulled her under. She stopped fighting. It was only making it worse. She was losing the battle either way, but if she conserved her energy?—

An explosion of light engulfed her eyes when a dazzling pain struck her dead in the chest. Her arms wrapped around a thick plank from the ship and she held tight to it, wheezing fractured, gulping breaths that were half air and half water, praying to Guardians she didn’t quite believe in, as the sea issued its eternal reminder that it answered to no one.