Page 47 of Broken Hearted
“Check him for a dampener rune,” Adrien told one of his men but never took his eyes off me.
“Isolde. Are you okay?” he asked.
“You …” My voice was a croak. “Saved me twice.”
He looked relieved I was conscious and speaking. “We aren’t keeping score, beautiful Isolde.”
Something about hearing him call me beautiful made my whole body warm.
I was exhausted from the struggle, and my arms and legs felt so weak. Adrien pulled me closer to him without question. I relaxed, letting him take my weight and feeling a little guilty about it as he trod water doubly hard to make up for it.
“No rune, Cap’n. Something else is afoot here.”
“Probably sirens,” one man said.
“Or the belly of the sea. Messes with powers too, my buddy said.”
Belly of the sea.We were here?
I peered around, but saw no glowing water as Adrien had described earlier.
“You can only see it at night,” he whispered to me.
We’d be long dead by then.
I looked over Adrien’s shoulder at the speck of green in the distance. An island. I didn’t think I’d be able to swim that far. It was difficult to gauge distance while bobbing in the sea, but if I had to guess, I’d say we were still at least three miles away, maybe more.
I already wasn’t a good swimmer, but now I was exhausted and waterlogged from almost drowning. Getting to shore was our only hope though, so we had to at least try.
“All right,” I said, steeling myself for what very well may be the last hour of my life. “Let’s try to swim for it.” I gestured toward the island in the distance and let go of Adrien so that we were both free to swim, but his grip on me tightened.
I glanced at his face to see him frowning. Unveiled concern shone from his eyes. “That’s a long distance. It would be difficult for even the best swimmer,” he said, pausing.
Tilting my head skyward, I guessed the time of day from the position of the sun. It was past midday, but blessedly still a few hours until nightfall. “Well, then we’d better start now.”
I tried to disentangle myself from Adrien’s grasp again, but he wouldn’t let me.
I sighed. “Adrien, you’re going to need to let me go so we can swim.”
His gaze bounced over my face, seemingly memorizing each feature. “I don’t know that you can make it,” he confessed, his voice soft and gentle.
A rush of fear swept through me, but I forcefully shoved it away. Adrien’s concern was valid, but now wasn’t the time to panic.
“What choice do we have?” I asked, defeat in my tone.
Adrien’s frown deepened, but he didn’t refute me. He couldn’t. He might not like it. I might not like it. But it was swim for the shore, or give up now and die.
When I scanned the faces of the other sailors bobbing in the water around us, I could tell that they knew the truth: not all of us were going to make it to land alive. But grim determination lined their features. No one was ready to give up yet.
With a reluctant nod, Adrien finally loosened his grip enough that I could slip from his grasp. I knew without him having to say it that he wanted to snatch me back, but he restrained himself.
I trod water clumsily, immediately feeling fatigue pull at my limbs, but I refused to let it show.
Adrien swiveled in the water so that he faced all of us. “Mathis, if your powers come back, let us know.”
“Yes, Cap’n,” Mathis said, but I was worried about the young sailor. He looked almost as tired as I felt.
“It’s going to be a long swim,” Adrien said to all of us. “Do what you can to conserve your energy. Take it slow and steady if you have to. This isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon.”
