~2~
One hundred days before the destruction of Nutharion City
Somehow things had gone very, very wrong.
Dil bobbed on top of gnashing, biting waves, holding Cole against her chest in driving rain. His lips were blue, and he hadn’t said anything in a few minutes, so she shook him gently.
“Mmmalright,” he muttered. He had his arms wrapped around himself, and he was shivering.
Idiot, she thought. My wonderful idiot.
She considered channeling a soul into him—like she had in the forest in Lurathen—to keep him warm. But there he’d had nowhere to go. Here if she lost him and he lost his mind, he might spend the rest of his life at the bottom of the ocean, thinking he was something he wasn’t. She didn’t want to take that risk.
So she clung to the soul of a sea lion and swam for both of them, and she did her best to keep him warm in the frigid water.
Directly ahead of her was one of the flat-topped rocks she’d seen from the deck of the Skellup.
The swells gravitated to it like bees to a lavender bush. She was only a few hundred yards away, and every time she rose and fell, she found herself a little closer. Even through the sheets of rain, the rock looked big. It towered twenty or thirty feet high, riddled and pocked with caves and overhangs. Seaweed and kelp dripped from its edges and mired the froth around it. Dil smelled life in the tide pools at its base―tiny crabs, urchins, little fish and anenomes.
There was food there then, and shelter. And with this much rain, there’d be fresh water in the crevices of the rock as well.
They just had to get there.
The sea and the rock didn’t coexist easily. Waves thundered against the stone and sent clouds of spray into the air in twisting, ephemeral fountains. To get caught in that struggle between earth and sea would mean a hard death, smashed against the rock until her body gave out.
So Dil flicked her feet and swam sideways, away from the chaos at the front of the rock. The rear looked just as dangerous; whirlpools seethed below it, sucking kelp and foam and water into the depths.
That left only the rock’s near side, where the heaving water was rising and falling ten feet or so with every swell.
“You hanging in there, Cole?”
“Mmm-hmm.” He clutched her arm like he was a child.
She spotted a ledge just above the tops of the swells, a little rearward of the center of the rock, and angled for it. The sea lion in her was as nervous as she was. This was dangerous water. Child-eating water. Death water. The lion wanted to head for shore, but there were dozens more rocks between her and the land, and the currents between them looked fast and vicious.
The ledge drew closer.
“Cole, you’ll have to climb,” she said.
“Hmm?” His head came up, but it looked like he was having trouble focusing.
“The ledge, Cole. Ahead of us.” She kicked to keep them from drifting to the rear of the rock. The current was stronger than she’d expected.
“You’re going to have to―” Kick. Grunt. “Grab it and climb. Can you do that?”
He blinked. Took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said.
“I’ll boost you as high as I can. At the top of the wave, grab the ledge and pull yourself up.”
Cole nodded.
The sea dipped them down. The sea pushed them up.
Dil kicked, grabbed Cole underneath both armpits, and heaved as hard as she and the sea lion together could manage.
She got him high enough out of the water that he didn’t even really have to lift himself. He just grabbed the rock and spun around so that he was resting on the ledge.
Still, he was breathing hard and shivering when he was done.
The current kept trying to pull Dil to the rear of the rock.
“You have to move, Cole!” she shouted.
“Move where?”
“Up!” The sea dipped down, and the sea pushed up. “There’s a hollow above you!”
Shakily, Cole started to climb.
At the top of the next swell, Dil stretched as high as she could and caught the ledge. She let go of the sea lion’s soul once she did. It was no good for climbing.
The black rock of the stack was full of tiny toeholds, and she scrambled up and onto the ledge before the next swell came through. The top of it kissed her heels and disappeared, and she looked back out to sea.
It was tough to spot much of anything through the rain. There was no sign of the Skellup.
Dil saw Cole’s legs disappear over the edge of the hollow she’d pointed him to, and then she climbed after him.
#
The hollow was about six feet long, four feet wide, and three feet deep. When Dil arrived, Cole had already scooted to the back of it. He was curled in the fetal position, shivering.
She pursed her lips. With the sea lion gone, she was beginning to feel the cold too. The temperature wasn’t all that much above freezing, and the wind and the rain made it feel worse.
Dil wriggled into the little hollow. A thick layer of moss carpeted the bottom of it, but the rocks above were sharp, and the entrance was barely tall enough for her to squeeze through. She wondered if she’d find cuts on her back when she warmed up.
If she warmed up.
When she got to Cole, she wrapped her arms around him.
They didn’t speak. It was too cold and too miserable to speak.
Huddling together and being out of the wind helped with the cold, but not enough. The warmth was still bleeding out of her. She rubbed her hands up and down Cole’s back. He mimicked her; for all his strengths, he didn’t know much about being cold and alone with no building to duck into.
Ten minutes later, her arms were getting sore from rubbing, and Cole was still shivering. His teeth began to chatter.
“Is there anything else―we could try?” he stammered.
Dil’s legs were starting to shiver too. She gave up rubbing Cole’s back and rolled to face the entrance to their little hollow. It was pretty narrow at the top, but the wind and the rain were so strong they were still getting in. Every few seconds, a gust swept aross her face. Her clothes were soaked too. They were good sturdy wool, but they were stealing the heat from her body anyway.
There was one thing left to try.
She rolled over again, looked at Cole, and took a deep breath.
“Do you trust me?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Take your clothes off.”
Cole stared at her. For a second, he even stopped shivering.
But only for a second.
“Like we did outside of Du Fenlan, Cole. It’ll help.”
Slowly, he nodded, and then he began to fumble with his trousers.
Dil turned her back to give him a little privacy and pulled off her shirt and pants. When she was done, she piled them up in the space at the top of the hollow. Soaking wet, they formed a pretty good windbreak.
She stopped when she got to her underclothes.
Dil wore a light, sleeveless shirt and shorts of thin wool underneath her pants and jerkin. Outside of Du Fenlan, she hadn’t needed to remove them to warm up.
But this was different. It was colder. She was wetter. There was no sun to warm her skin, and she had no wood and spark to make a fire.
“I’m going to take off all my clothes, Cole,” she said.
Her heartbeat quickened. She looked over her shoulder at Cole and saw that he was down to his smallshorts as well and still shivering. The muscles twitched and jumped under his skin.
“I want you to do the same,” she said.
Cole swallowed. “I—”
And then he took a deep breath, and he nodded again.
She turned back around, eased her smallshirt over her head, placed it onto the windbreak. Cole reached over her and deposited his smallshorts as well. She tugged hers off and added them to the pile.
Neither of them spoke. Neither of them moved. Dil just lay there on the moss, feeling a little warmer already, and wondered what to do. Their clothes filled up most of the entrance to the hollow. Only a little light and wind and water leaked through at the top.
Without the sound of the wind, it was quiet enough in the hollow that she could hear her heart.
It was thudding hard.
Dil wrapped her arms over her chest and tucked her hands into her armpits, and then, slowly and carefully, she wriggled backward until her back touched Cole’s front.
She had to. That was the whole point of the thing—to let their bodies warm each other.
But still.
Cole didn’t move. He lay behind her, limp as a fish, shaking.
Her back started to feel warmer right away.
And if her back was warming up, then his front would be too.
“Put your arms around me,” she said.
“Dil—”
“Just do it. It’ll help.”
Cole wrapped his arms around her. His breath felt warm and fast on the back of her neck.
“Put your back close to the rock, but not all the way against it,” she said. The trick was to keep air trapped against your skin. A little layer of air was all you needed, if your body could heat it up and keep it that way.
Cole slid backward and tugged her with him. It was an awkward, rumbly crawl.
When they finally got settled again, she felt him against her for the first time.
His breath hissed sharply near her ear, and his arms tightened.
Is that it? she wondered. Is that really what that feels like? Is that what all the fuss is about?
“I can’t—sorry, Dil, but I can’t—”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Really, it’s fine.”
They lay there for a while, hearts pounding. She was acutely aware of the way his body felt against her: tense as the string of a drawn bow, shivering occasionally, getting warmer. Her fear of the cold faded. Cole shivered less often. The tension went out of his arms, and what had felt like the terrified clutch of a frightened cat became a soft, familiar embrace.
In the quiet left by the fear’s departure, Dil found an unexpected euphoria. They were alive. Together. Naked. She felt as if she was standing above a deep pool, and she wondered whether to jump.
Cole cleared his throat. “I, ah—this isn’t exactly how I imagined this happening.”
She laughed. “Me neither.”
“Is, um—I guess since the clothes were your idea, you probably don’t mind.”
Dil shook her head. She could still feel him, down against her legs. “No, I don’t mind. It feels nice.”
Cole’s heart sped up. Yenor’s Eye, she liked being close enough to feel that.
“Nice,” he said. “Yeah.” His voice held a smile.
There was more to do. An endless landscape to explore. The hollow was far from comfortable, but there was no one else around. The Second River was with them. Dil wasn’t sure she wanted or needed anything more than that.
“There are other nice things too,” she said.
She glanced over her shoulder. Cole looked damp, a little scared, a little excited. Just like her.
Dil twisted until she could kiss him. His arms tightened. She kissed him harder.
Outside the hollow, the storm howled. Inside, it was damp and cold and sharp.
But she and Cole were alive. So very alive.
And in spite of all that was wrong in the world, there was much that was very right.