21. Eighteen

I hated the sea. Hated the chill of the water and how it never left. Hated how, when it dried, it left a smear of white salt behind on everything it had touched. Hated how it rocked and stretched and played with our boats, reminding us how powerless we were against its might.

The storm had been hell, and I had spent it in prayer, certain that I would not live to see another dawn. The Thief, however, had passed over without collecting my soul before its time. I lived.

On the second day, there was sun without warmth. The longboats that had survived found their way back into formation and they broke out the oars. I was still too terrified to walk through the boat, but Ruith showed no fear, rising several times and going from one end to the other.

He didn't seem to remember that he'd almost fallen overboard. That I had saved him. He'd never thanked me for it. I knew better than to expect that from him.

The oars split open the sea and propelled us forward. They opened the sail, and we flew across the water while I cowered in the belly of a boat.

Ruith found his place near the mast, standing tall and looking out over the sea like the conquering warlord he was. Blue eyes scanned the horizon, but I couldn't imagine he saw anything other than more waves. It felt like the world was made of water. Maybe the storm had flooded the whole world, and I would never see land again. The thought sent my stomach swirling again, and I threw myself against the side of the boat, heaving. There was nothing left in my stomach, but that didn't stop it from trying to jump out of my body.

Night was even worse. I flinched at every sound. Every wave looked larger than it was. Without a horizon to orient myself, I had to close my eyes to keep from being sick all the time. That left me with nothing but the rocking to focus on, which did not help.

The boat creaked, and I opened my eyes half-mast as Ruith settled in beside me.

"Come on, then," he said and took my arm.

I made to pull away, but he held firm and looked at me in such a way as to communicate it wasn't an option.

Strong, sure, fingers pushed up my sleeve and found my wrist. I held my breath as his skin slid against mine. My pulse raced, beating like a wild drum against his fingers, my very heart in his hands. Ruith pressed his thumb along the tendon there before finding whatever point he wanted and making small but firm circles.

"I was seasick my first time at sea too," he said.

He couldn't be speaking to me. Elves were not supposed to address their slaves except to give orders. He spoke as if he were talking to hear himself. Maybe he was. Ruith seemed the sort to be in love with his own voice.

"I was nine when I went on my first campaign. Most don't go until twelve or thirteen, but I was tired of being left behind. I insisted. The crossing was miserable. It was late spring, and a storm had settled just north of our route, stirring up the sea. I was beside myself, queasy as could be, but as the warlord's heir, I was expected to conduct myself with dignity. My father would've beat me every time I vomited."

Despite talk of vomit, my stomach had begun to settle. The wrist massage helped. I closed my eyes and let my shoulders drop. The sound of the sea faded into the background until there was only his voice. Only his touch.

"My father taught me this," Ruith said quietly. "He was a slave too once, you know."

My eyes opened, and I stared at him, forgetting for a moment that I wasn't supposed to. No one seemed to be paying us any attention.

A small smile touched his lips. "Did you think we only kept human slaves? It's not true. Elves sometimes sell themselves into slavery to avoid the humiliation of poverty. That was not my father's story, however. He was born to it, the son of two slaves in service to Clan Runecleaver. The story of his rise from slave to Primarch is… Well, there are epic poems, songs, ballads… There's even a play to tell it. But I fear the truth is perhaps less grand than they make it seem. The stories would have you believe he did it for love. The truth is, Primarch Tarathiel is incapable of love."

I studied him. Why was he telling me any of this? It was dangerously personal. Certainly more information than a slave should have about his master.

Our eyes met briefly and suddenly I couldn't breathe. An invisible electric current passed through the air, like we might be struck by lightning, but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I recalled how he'd looked sleeping, how vulnerable. He wore some of that on his face now alongside a question that went unasked. One I couldn't begin to guess at.

Was this the same elf that had tied me to a post and given me twenty painful lashes? How could they be one and the same? The elf rubbing gentle circles into my wrist seemed lost, uncertain. He looked at me as if I might hold the answer to a question neither of us knew how to ask. He looked softer. A different man altogether. Or maybe I was just becoming dulled by all his rough edges.

His lips pulled back in a small smile. There was dried salt on them in a strip of broken white crystals. I had never wanted to taste the sea except when I saw it on his lips.

"Better?" he asked and released my wrist.

I swallowed and nodded. The nausea that had haunted me since we climbed aboard the longboat was gone. Now, there was only a strange, churning sense of emptiness.

The boat creaked. He patted my shoulder. "Get some sleep."

Sleep was elusive with so many bodies pressed in tight. I looked up at the stars because the horizon was gone. My homeland was gone too. My kingdom. My life. I had let it all slip away. What for?

What now?

I don't discard what's useful to me.Ruith had said that, and he hadn't meant as a slave. If anything, I had been terrible at being a slave, an inconvenience.

It felt like a lifetime ago that I was pushed into the fighting pit. Surely that wasn't random. Ruith had orchestrated it, ordered it even. It was the same with everything. Ruith did nothing without a reason, but I couldn't figure out what he wanted from me.

My eyes shifted across the boat to where he sat in quiet conversation with one of his men. I was his puppet, dancing on strings toward some inevitable end. What it was, I couldn't guess. I knew only that he was dangerous, and I was his pawn.

Was it better to be a pawn or a slave? I imagined the latter. Slaves were valuable. Pawns were sacrificed.

On the fourth day, there was land.

The shout rose from the first longboat and carried over open water with excited whoops until it reached our longboat. A few of the elves got excited, but Ruith, stoic as ever, only gave the order to row.

For the first time in two days, I sat up enough to look for the horizon. If there was land, it was still far enough out that I couldn't spot it with my naked eye. The elves rowed with renewed vigor, propelling us forward faster than ever. The slap of seawater against the side of the boat sent a new surge of nausea through me. I gripped my wrist and rubbed it like Ruith had, but it wasn't the same. I lacked the firmness of his touch, the surety of it. Or perhaps I just missed him.

When, at last, I spied the first signs of land, I was disappointed. I had heard so many tales of the elven homeland and their sprawling capital of D'thallanar, that it reached from the mountain to the sea, gobbling up their whole island. That, people said, was why they made their summer raids. There was no room left in their own land to farm.

But it wasn't true. My first glimpse of the Elven Isle was of a sloped white cliff where puffy white sheep lounged. Little tufts of grass hung over the cliff and rocks jutted up out of the sea. I had never imagined the Elven Isle so pastoral.

Ruith frowned as we passed them. All the excited cries about land had stopped some time ago, and now the only sound was the creaking of boats and the gentle slap of oars in the calm water.

"This isn't Homeshore," Ruith said, as if for my benefit. Everyone else surely already knew it.

"The storm must have blown us south," replied Ieduin from their boat. The inlet was so narrow, we were all pressed in together, close enough to speak from boat to boat without shouting.

"This is The ?sin," Katyr supplied and exchanged a knowing look with Ruith, "and we are bound for Rünhyll."