Gazda, Erydia.
Voyage – Day 19
We arrived in Erydia just as night was setting in. Gazda was a hazy line of lights against the horizon as we approached. The city seemed like a sleeping giant, clothed in mist. At some point, the captain had dimmed the ship lights, casting us into near darkness. I stood on the deck sandwiched between Jaxon and Heidi.
No one had said anything to Darragh about my being here. When his ships had split from ours nearly five days ago, he hadn't known I was with the group heading into Erydia. I wondered who would take the blame for it—my being here. I hadn't explained to anyone how I'd done it and I wasn't going to let the guilt fall on my new friend.
To everyone else, Jaxon was merely my running partner and our link to these new rebels. As we stood together, our hands wrapped around the cool metal railing, our backs to the scurrying soldiers, I wondered if he was nervous. Jaxon wasn't the sort to show his anxiety on his face, but every few minutes he would rub at the growing scruff on his chin self-consciously.
This, I knew, wasn't about our impending mission.
"Did you have a beard the last time you saw Harper?" I asked him.
His brown eyes slid to me and he sighed, leaning down so his weight was on his forearms. The cold wind pushed his hood back and he tugged it into place with enough force to tell me I'd probably hit close to home.
"She's always liked it better when I was clean shaven. But I ran out of time this morning and...it hasn't exactly been my priority."
I smiled. "I doubt she'll care."
He rubbed at his face again and winced. "It doesn't bother her when it's longer. But she says it's like kissing sandpaper when it's short like this."
Heidi turned and leaned her hip against the railing. The ship had come to a somewhat stop a good deal away from the shoreline. Now the sailors were preparing small boats. The plan was to take those to shore and then head into the city on foot—hopefully avoiding any detection from the ports or the Erydian guards posted in the water.
It was a risk.
But then, all of this was a risk.
I could tell Heidi was ready to get this over with and I empathized. The idea of climbing down the ship's side and into those boats wasn't exactly appealing. Watching the shadows dance across her face, I wondered what she saw when she looked in the mirror. Was her own fear something she could see? Did it change from day to day, minute to minute?
I turned my attention back to Jaxon, who was chewing his bottom lip. I nudged his shoulder with my own and asked, "How long has it been since you've seen her?"
"Eight months."
"Eight months?"
He nodded. "I left Erydia when Britta did. So, it's been a while."
"That's a long time to be apart. Have—Have you spoken to her?"
He smiled. "She plants messages for me in her articles sometimes. It takes a while for them to make it this far and Britta almost always reads the paper first, but she lets me have it afterward."
I smiled at that, imagining Jaxon waiting outside Britta's little war room for her to finish with the newspaper. "What sort of messages does she send you?"
"Harper is smart and she's always liked puzzles, so it changes all the time. Sometimes, it's some code made of words that all come together to say something. Sometimes it'll be the first letter of every sentence combined to create a message just for me." He shrugged. "It's always silly things—'I miss you' or 'I love you.' 'I'm waiting for you.' Stuff like that. Nothing earth shattering, I guess. But when you haven't seen the person you love in weeks—months, really—you take anything you can get."
I could imagine.
It hadn't been that long since I'd seen Kai, and I was still missing him desperately.
"It'll be nice to hear her voice again," he said quietly.
"What about your family?" I asked.
He shook his head. "My pa won't get involved in any of this. And I don't really want him to. Cassidy and Jacob—my siblings—they need him too much. He doesn't even know I've left Gazda."
"He doesn't know?"
Jaxon shook his head. "As far he knows, I'm still working as a guard in the palace. We have to foreswear family when we enter the guard. It's the rules. We can't—It wouldn't be good for us to have distractions. In that role, the royals come first, no one should come before they do."
"But that doesn't include Harper," I said.
He bit his lip but it nothing to hide the small smile that tugged at his mouth. "No. I couldn't foreswear Harper, she's the exception."
Behind us, the sailors had finished preparing the small boats and were lowering them into the water. When I turned to look, I found that Cohen was on deck, Nadia and Dellacov with him. I flinched as Dellacov caught sight of me.
Everyone else had come to terms with my being here, but he hadn't. When Cohen had told him, he'd wanted to use the radio onboard to contact Darragh. He'd wanted to lock me in one of the cabins and keep me there. But Cohen had asked him to stay silent—and even if Cohen really wasn't the Crown Prince and Dellacov wasn't still actually the Captain of the Guard anymore, he still listened to Cohen. He still followed his lead.
I didn't know why Cohen had stood up for me. Over the last two and half weeks of us being here, he'd made his position on all of this more than clear. One of the first nights here, he'd asked me to go on a walk and we'd discussed everything.
"You know," Cohen had said, "he loves you. This is about way more than just keeping you safe. I know—I know if it were me, I wouldn't want Nadia to have to watch me be hurt either. I'd do what I could to prevent her from having to see it. It'll be worse for him if he knows you're there. His final thoughts will be filled with worry for you. Fear for you. And that—Is that fair to him?"
"Is it fair that he should die just because he was born first?"
Cohen had pursed his lips. "It's a difficult situation. And... And we aren't the same. He is king now. That comes with responsibilities and dangers. It comes with risks."
"What I said to Nadia the other day, was right. What's to stop everyone from looking to you once Kai is dead? Britta isn't leading this charge. She doesn't seem to care if Kai lives or dies. It's Darragh who sees him as a threat. So, what happens when he decides you're a threat too?"
He had swallowed and paused by a set of metal steps leading to the upper deck. Without saying a word to me, he'd eased onto one of the steps and sighed. It had been over a week since he'd woken up, and he was still exhausted from Nadia's in-depth healing. He hid it well enough most of the time, but I could see it then—it made him appear far older than his eighteen years.
"I'll deal with that if it becomes a problem."
I'd wanted to argue with him, but I think Cohen was tired of fighting this same fight and, honestly, so was I. We were constantly moving in circles and nothing was ever solved. Even if my friends could see things from my point of view, they weren't willing to change their beliefs about Kai. Everyone seemed to have already decided how this story would end.
It didn't change anything that I was here.
Cohen and Dellacov hung back from us, keeping their distance as we waited for the boats. They kept their conversation too quiet to be overheard with the distance and the slapping of water against the ship's sides. I offered Nadia a small smile as she came to a stop on Heidi's other side.
Heidi must have still been watching Cohen and Dellacov too, because she said to Nadia, "Why the whispers?"
Nadia shrugged. "They're talking about Uri, I think."
The sly smile fell from Heidi's face. "Oh."
"Yes," Nadia said quietly. "They go through what happened at least once a day. He—Dellacov feels a lot of guilt. He feels like he should have gone for her instead of sailing for Pellarmus."
I started to say that it wouldn't have changed anything, but I stopped. We had no real way of knowing what might have happened if Uri had been rescued instead of left in the palace with Larkin.
Dellacov was angry and I knew he wanted someone to aim that at—at first it had been me. He'd blamed me for her being in Third Corps, he'd blamed me for her being a target for Larkin. When she'd been taken hostage, he'd told me that he'd make my life hell if something happened to her.
I'd believed him then and I believed him now.
But Dellacov's guilt did little to help anything. Uri was dead. And just like my tears would not bring her back—the constant wondering wouldn't save her. Her end had been her end. And there was no changing it.
I knew because I'd spent the last few weeks rethinking each interaction I'd had with my brothers. I couldn't remember what my last words to them had been. I hadn't spoken to Kace since that day, months ago, in the palace hallway. He had just betrayed me and turned me over to Cohen. I'd been about to go to my execution in front of Viera.
I'd been heartbroken.
Our last conversation had been angry. He'd blamed me for our mother being named a traitor. He'd felt like he had to protect her from my mistakes. If he swore to be loyal to the Crown, that would keep her safe.
And I'd been so mad at him.
In that moment, when he'd stood looking at me and he's said those damning words—I've found her—I'd hated him. But I didn't hate him anymore. I hadn't hated him in a long time, probably not since that split second. Now, I spent hours each day trying to decide if he'd known how much I loved him. Had he known that I'd forgiven him?
As for Ambrose—no amount of wishing would bring him back. I would never see his smile again. I would never feel the weight of his arms around me as he hugged me. I would never hear him singing on his way back from a hunt. I'd never again hear him whisper the remembrances.
I wished I remembered enough of the words to say them for him.
But I didn't remember.
There were a lot of small things I couldn't seem to recall anymore.
So, I understood how Dellacov felt. What I couldn't understand was why he wouldn't support me getting a chance at saving someone I loved—especially when he had so recently lost Uri.
"Was he close to the princess? I thought they were just friends." Jaxon asked, breaking through my thoughts.
He pushed from the railing and moved towards the other side. We walked side by side, Nadia and Heidi still at the opposing railing. The small boats had just hit the water as we reached the other side of the ship and peered down.
I nodded; my focus locked on the swirling dark ocean. The seas had been relatively calm during the passage over, but there was a storm rolling in, I could smell it on the salt wind. The air seemed pulled taut—a band ready to snap.
"Yes. They were—" I hesitated.
Saying they were in love seemed wrong, when Uri wasn't here to defend her half of it. I knew that she'd loved him. She'd told me as much. And I knew that Dellacov returned those feelings. But being in love seemed like the sort of thing that needed to be vocalized consensually.
I fiddled with the rabbit head pendant around my neck as I said, "They were very close. If things had been different, I think they would have been far more than just friends."
Jaxon let out a long low whistle. "What happened to her was..." he shook his head. "It's a shame. A terrible thing. She was just a kid. You're all so young."
"You say that as if you aren't also young."
He shrugged. "I'm nearly twenty-seven. Young isn't exactly how I'd describe myself, at least not in comparison to you."
I blinked at him, surprised. He looked young, maybe early twenties. I wouldn't have believed he was almost a decade older than I was. "How—Wouldn't it have been weird to train with Dellacov, since he's so much younger than you? And to follow his orders?"
Jaxon shrugged. "I didn't join the guard until I was twenty-three. I'd worked my way up from being a city guard, but I still had a ton to learn. And so, I usually volunteered to take shifts guarding Cohen during his own fighting lessons. I learned a lot of what I know from watching others teach him. As he got older, those lessons got fewer. And Dellacov needed someone to spar with. We sort of taught each other. It's like that with most of the guards. You're never truly done learning. As for listening to him," he shrugged. "When the king made him in charge of the royal guard, no one disputed it."
Sailors clambered up the ladder to our left, their conversation hushed. One of them stopped by where Cohen and Dellacov stood. They addressed the prince and he nodded, gave the sailor a friendly pat on the back, and thanked him. The boats were ready for us.
By now, a few soldiers were mingling on deck too. Their expressions were a mix of anxiety and eagerness. Many of them would go with us tonight, while some would remain here to protect the ship on its voyage to Haniver. Those remaining would come with the rest of Darragh and Justinian's forces, almost all of which would be arriving late next week sometime.
Haniver was using merchant ships to carry their army into the city.
So far, it had worked. Caine hadn't closed the Erydian borders and didn't suspect Haniver as an ally to us. I wanted to see that as good news, but I was hesitant to believe we could really trick him that easily.
Jaxon stepped away from the railing and sighed. I kept my hands on the railing, trying not to let myself begin to panic, even as the soldiers began climbing their way down into the waiting boats below us. Jaxon's presence was replaced by someone else—Cohen.
"Nervous?"
I turned to look at him. "I'm not really a fan of water—at least not this much of it."
A raindrop hit my cheek and I flinched, turning my eyes skyward. Cohen followed my gaze. "A storm is roiling in. We have a few miles to row. We need to get a move on. The longer we wait, the choppier the waves will be."
"You know," I said, "that isn't helping me to feel any better about this."
He laughed and hooked an arm through mine. "Unfortunately, I'm not in the business of making you feel better, Monroe. I am, however, a pretty good swimmer and—if it comes to it—I'll make sure you don't drown."
"Wow," I said as he pulled me towards the ladder. "What a hero."
***
If I never got on a boat ever again, I'd be alright. More than alright, really. Overjoyed. Relieved.
The boat did not tip, that much was a goddess-sent blessing. But it certainly tried to. By the time our boats run against land, we were soaked. Between the waves and the torrential downpour that unleashed itself on us about a mile into a trip, there was a lot of water in the bottom of the boat.
There had been multiple times when it was only sheer luck that kept us from tossing over. More than once, I'd felt the metal of our boat creak beneath us, I'd felt it find purchase in the air, felt it slide sideways on a swift wind and wave.
Our clothes were soaked through and after taking a turn rowing, my arms were shaking and boneless. Despite Cohen's easy going smile from earlier and his promise to keep me from drowning, he was as shaken up as I was. When he hadn't been rowing, he'd held tight to Nadia, his hand caught in hers, her face buried in his chest to shield from the pouring rain and spray of salt water. I'd held onto his jacket with white-knuckled fists—as if he might actually be able to make good on his promise to save me if we found ourself enveloped in ocean.
I felt drowned, each breath a gasping inhale of wet air, as the boat neared the blackened shoreline. As soon as the water was shallow enough, Cohen, Dellacov, Jax, and a few other soldiers, climbed out of the boat and pushed it the rest of the way onto land. Their muttered orders, heaving breaths, and splashing were the only sounds above the cashing waves and distant thunder.
With Cohen at the back of the boat, Nadia and Heidi had both moved to sit closer to me. We huddled together, our hands trembling as the boat stopped rocking and we were stopped—settled on the earth once more. It felt unreal, this stillness. As if we were pebble dropped into a bucket. It felt heavy, unmovable.
The desire to run from that feeling, to separate myself from the cold water that surrounded me, that leeched into my clothes and froze my fingers, was all encompassing. Here in Erydia, it was not quite spring and the night was freezing—the rain was like needles as it pelted every inch of my bare skin.
Before anyone could help her from the boat, Heidi was already scrambling over the sides. She took two stumbling steps forward before she collapsed into the sand and vomited. One of the soldiers, a woman named Nia, came to her aid, but she waved her away.
Heidi's voice was a quivering gasp as she said, "I'm fine. I'm—I'm fine."
Cohen was at the edge of the boat in an instant, his hands finding Nadia's arms as he helped her to her feet and then lifted her onto the rain-soaked sand. Once her footing was steady, he turned back to help me—but I was already climbing out on my own. Jax caught my elbow and helped me the rest of the way, his grip on me tight enough to hurt.
He spoke quietly, but loud enough that the rest of our party and the other two boats landing nearby could hear. "We need to get out of the open—there will be guards on the piers," he nodded far off to our right. "And the gate up ahead will have eyes too."
Cohen nodded in response. Then we were moving. Jaxon kept a hand at the small of my back as we trudged through wet sand and then onto dunes littered with reeds and cattails. It was only his support that kept me moving as the cold set in and the water in my hair and clothes began to freeze.
By the time we reached the outlying cliffs, we were all breathing heavily. Cohen's face was flushed red and his blond hair was dripping with rain. We'd just ducked underneath an overhanging rock when the rain started to pick up once more. It had been pouring on and off for hours now and showed no sign of easing away.
"I—I can go into town," Jaxon said. "To the safe house on Banicket. That—Birk was told to expect us." He'd already given his jacket to Heidi after he'd caught her shivering from cold, and now he was trembling himself. He exhaled, steam clouding his breath as he glanced to Dellacov. "Birk knows me. He—"
Dellacov cut him off. "You were reported missing alongside Britta. If one of the city guards sees you, you're a dead man. And then we're all screwed. They'll arrest you and take you to Caine and—"
"Then I'd best not be seen, eh?" Jaxon pointed up towards the cliffs above us, where Gazda glittered like a box of jewels. "I can get help. Birk can send a transport to get the rest of you. We can't go walking into the city looking like this."
"But you can?" Cohen asked. There wasn't any anger in his voice, only open skepticism.
Jaxon shrugged. "We can't very well stay here. Someone's got to go." He nodded to a small group of soldiers standing nearby. "I'll take a few people with me. It's pouring rain. Thankfully, anyone who sees us will just assume we were caught out in the storm and are heading home. Nothing strange about a few guys on the way home from the pub. The guards have no reason to give us a second glance."
Cohen looked to Dellacov, a prince seeking the opinion of his Captain of the Guard. The weight of that glance seemed to wake something in Dellacov, because he straightened and began giving out hushed orders, sending two soldiers to look for better shelter, a deeper cave, drier ground, and another three with Jaxon.
Before Jax left, he gave my shoulder a tight squeeze. "Stay out of sight and out of trouble."
I nodded, worry tightening my gut as I said, "Just please be careful."
"Always."