“The gems. I…” I trail off. Now is not the time to explain, but I have no choice. “They are only meant to be handled by someone who has earned them, and never so many. Guardians spend years studying and worshipping in the mines for the privilege of carrying a single gem. Using one without proper training…it’s sacrilege.”
“But aren’t you supposed to have the blood of a fire god in your veins? If anyone can use it—”
I shake my head. “My mother always said that we rulers were the last people who should have that kind of power. I never understood it before, but I’m starting to.”
S?ren hesitates, still holding the coat out to me. “You’ll freeze without it,” he says. “The water is only going to get deeper, and if my navigation skills are what I think they are, we should emerge close enough to the boat that swimming will be our best chance to avoid attention. You didn’t come all this way to freeze to death.”
“I’ll survive,” I tell him.
He holds the coat out for another second before realizing that I’m serious. He starts to shrug it back on, but stops halfway and takes it off again. He holds it out to drop it, but I stop him, my hand on the cloth. Even through the thick wool, I can feel the pleasant hum of the gems rush through me again. It’s dizzying, but I try to ignore it and focus.
“We might need that,” I say. “If we manage to liberate the mines, there will be some Guardians there and they’ll need gems. We need as many as we can get now.”
He nods, taking the cloak back and hanging it over one of his shoulders.
“These allies of yours…,” he starts.
“You’ve seen some of them,” I say. “My Shadows for the last few weeks.”
S?ren frowns. “Your Shadows?” he echoes. “What happened to the other ones?”
“Killed,” I admit.
The water is up to my waist now. It’s beginning to lick at my freshly opened wounds, stinging them so painfully that I have to bite my bottom lip to keep from crying out. I know it’s cleaning them as well, but that doesn’t make it hurt less. The light ahead is getting stronger.
“I’m tired of death,” he says finally. “When I killed the guards…it didn’t even faze me. I didn’t think twice about it. I don’t even feel guilty. What kind of person doesn’t feel guilt over killing?”
“Someone who’s done it too many times,” I say. “But you don’t need me to tell you that it was necessary.”
“I know,” he says. “It just feels like every time I do it, even in battle, I turn a little bit more into him.”
I don’t have to ask who he means.
“You aren’t your father, S?ren,” I tell him.
I’ve said the same words to him a few times before, but each time I think he believes them less, even as I believe them more.
He doesn’t answer me, and we lapse into silence as we wade deeper and deeper, each lost in our own thoughts. Blaise will have told the others my plan by now. How are they reacting? Not well, I imagine. Artemisia will scowl and roll her eyes and make some snarky comment. Heron will be subtler, but he’ll wear his quiet disapproval in the crease of his brow, the twist at the corner of his mouth. I can make them understand, though. It’s the right move.
“There.” S?ren’s voice breaks into my thoughts.
The end of the tunnel appears in the distance, a small circle of indigo sky. We hurry toward it. The tunnel widens around us into a cove that opens directly into the ocean. There is just enough moonlight to confirm that we’re facing west. There is nothing visible but a small ship bobbing in the distance. W?s.
“You’re right,” I say. “We’re going to have to swim it.”
He looks at me. “The current isn’t strong, but it will be against us.”
It’s nothing for him, I’m sure, but he’s worried about me. And he has good reason to be. The most swimming I’ve done has been in the heated pools below the palace. Still, bath-warm water. Nothing like this.
“Sounds like fun,” I say lightly, hoping I sound more confident than I feel.
I don’t. He sees right through me, but he also knows we don’t have a choice. It’s swim or die.
“Stay close to me,” he says. “Let me know if you need a break. We don’t need to get to the ship itself, just those rocks.” He motions to the cluster of boulders the ship is tied to.
They’re closer, but not enough to make much of a difference. There’s also the added risk of being seen when we climb them. But as long as there’s a chance, I have hope.
“Let’s go,” I tell S?ren. We can’t waste another moment.
* * *
—
It feels like every inch I gain, the waves knock me back two. If this is what S?ren calls a weak current, I’d hate to see a strong one. I’m so cold that I don’t feel it anymore. My fingers and toes have gone numb and I’m worried that they’ll fall off before I reach the rocks.
S?ren is ahead of me, but I can tell he’s holding himself back to stay close.
“Break?” he asks, gasping out the words over the waves. Despite the Fire Gem cloak wrapped around him, the cold is getting to him as well.
My teeth rattle against each other, drowning out almost everything else. “We’re almost there,” I reply, pushing on.
“About halfway,” he corrects.
I want to cry, but it would be a waste of energy I can’t afford to spare. I can cry later, when I’m warm and safe. I can cry all I want then, but not now.
The only way I can survive this is if I let my mind leave my body, the way I do during the Kaiser’s punishments—the way I did, I remind myself. He’s never touching me again. Without my mind to get in the way, all I have to do is breathe and paddle and kick. My mind is far ahead of me, on the boat already, warm and safe and free.
Warm and safe and free.
Warm and safe and free.
I repeat the words to myself like a mantra, timing them to the beat of my heart and the rhythm of my strokes. Nothing else matters. I’m hardly even aware of S?ren paddling ahead of me, though he keeps looking back to make sure I’m still afloat.
An eternity passes before we reach the rocks and he stops to help me up.
“Y-you…said…o-o-only thirty…m-minutes,” I manage to get out when I reach him, clutching the boulder so hard the jagged edges dig into my fingertips.
“I actually think we made good time,” he tells me, sounding impressed. “You might have even done it in twenty-five.”
My teeth are chattering so badly that I can’t answer. He tries to give me the cloak again, but I push it away.
“Just for a minute,” he says.
I shake my head. “I’m fine,” I say, but I don’t expect him to believe it.
“There are blankets on the ship,” he says, tying the cloak around his shoulders. He grips my waist and helps boost me onto the boulder. “And a few changes of clothes.”
“And c-c-coffee?” I ask him, scrambling for purchase on the rock. I lost my shoes long ago, so I have to do it barefoot. My poor fingers are bloodied and raw and stinging from the salt water. I’m surprised they can do anything, but they manage to hold on. I find my footing as well, and take the opportunity to get my bearings. The ship is a stone’s throw away, maybe a few yards.
S?ren pulls himself next to me.
“No coffee. But wine. Good wine,” he tells me.
I take a deep breath and begin to move, inch by inch, toward the boat. The frigid wind freezes the joints in my hands, making it hard to grip, but I push through it. I know that I need to move faster, especially now that we’re so visible from the shore, but I can’t. Even this feels like it will kill me.
“You’re doing fine,” S?ren tells me through clenched teeth. It makes me gladder than it should to see that he’s struggling as well. He was born to be a warrior, made for worse things than this, and he’s still having a hard time. “Just don’t look down,” he warns.
But of course, as soon as he says it, I do exactly that. And of course, I regret it immediately.
We’ve moved far enough and high enough along the boulders that the water is now a steep drop below us. At its edge, smaller, jagged rocks break the surface, threatening to tear me to pieces if I slip. I take a shuddering breath and draw my eyes away.
“I told you,” he grunts. “Just keep looking ahead.”