Page 41 of The Flame and the Forsaken

Her knees went soft again.No. No, I will not fall here. I will not die here.She lifted one leg, then another and resumed her sweeping, cheerless assessment of the remnants of their doomed voyage.

I never wanted him dead. I never wanted that.Mariel wiped a tear, but it blended with the briny, reedy mess coating her cheek. She started collecting everything she could, chasing planks with the waves, but kept losing her footing in the powerful pull of the receding tide.

She realized it was raining. Pouring, actually, but she was so soaked from the shipwreck, it was hard to discern what was storm and what was sea. Ahead, the darkening sky held ripe clouds, promising more of the same, but it was the encroaching evening that made her skin prickle with anxious dread. She needed to find shelterbeforeshe lost daylight, and the ship would be too risky.

A shrill screech tore out from somewhere behind her. She turned inland, but it was just more endless forest, far more vibrant and verdant even than the ones that colored the lake district. It reminded her of the paintings in Goldsea Spires of the Hinterlands, the land of the Medvedev, where outsiders were not allowed. But she was a long way from the Hinterlands or the realm proper, and anything so foreign must be evaluated as a danger.

Whatever made that sound was inthere.

Mariel continued her cursory scan of the horizon and spotted, astoundingly, a small, utilitarian building resembling a shed. It was a neat, modest wooden rectangle with no windows, one door, two steps leading up to it, and no sign of anyone nearby.

She blinked in case she was imagining it, but itwasreal, and it looked to be serviceable. What it was for, what was inside... It didn’t matter. It was shelter. The ship wasn’t safe. Whatever had screamed from inside the forest, there would be more, and other creatures besides. She’d washed up onto an island mostly unbothered by man, a kingdom unto itself. The shack was the only sign someone had been there before her, but she wondered if she’d discover more evidence if she became brave enough to venture into the forest. What else she might find...

Focus!

Mariel wiped her face and continued through the haze of dusk and rain, in the opposite direction of theMistwitch. She needed to go back, to collect as many supplies as she could salvage and what little food she’d stored, but if there was even a chance Erran was out there, she had only a narrow window to find him.

She wandered in a haze of mist and exhaustion until she’d outpaced the wreckage. With her hands linked over her head, she stared down the expanse of beach and fought another sob. The last of the sun tickled the edge of the sea’s horizon. If she didn’t turn back now, she’d be salvaging in the dark.

At least I know which way is west.

Reluctantly, she spun around and hobbled toward the ship. As she drew close, she saw that the angle of the wreck had wedged the bow into the shore itself, and the starboard side was pinned against a rock. The unused oars served as dikes, wedged into the sand. Water was seeping inside, but the stern had shifted high enough to be almost entirely out of the water. For now.

Mariel gripped the highest rung on the ladder she could reach, but when she tugged, the sodden wood snapped in her hands. She tried again with a lower one and climbed, pulling herself over the broken one with an aching burst of strength she’d pay for later. Grunting, she squirmed over the gunwale and dropped onto the stern deck, but the pitched angle sent her rolling down the planks and stairs until she slammed onto the main deck with enough force to knock the breath out of her and bring some of that magical light back.

She staggered to her feet, leaning forward to fight the slant, playing a careful game of balance and physics as she inched sideways toward the hatch. She wrestled with the bolt before throwing back the door, then used it as leverage as she angled sideways down the steps.

Mariel looked around the lower deck. The portside hull had a massive opening, through which she could see the increasingly darkening skies. Her mind assembled all the repairs needed to make theMistwitchseaworthy again, but even if she could make them, she didn’t have the tools. The manpower. The strength.

She pushed deeper until she reached the galley, where she’d stored what few supplies she’d brought onto the ship, and laughed in traumatized relief when she saw they were all where she’d left them, and mostly dry. She grabbed an empty crate and filled it with blankets, pillows, food, netting, and candles, stuffing them down so they didn’t spill out, and then pulled herself along the wall to fight the slant.

When she reached the beach, she peered down the coastline once more, praying Erran would have washed up in the minutes she had been below deck, but the result was exactly what her sinking heart had expected.

Sighing, she started toward the miracle shack when something large caught her eye, propped against a rock.

Mariel dropped the crate and raced down the shore, laughing and sobbing all at once. She fell to her knees, her hands floating above Erran’s pale face, and brushed the torn shirt exposing his chest. She leaned in to listen for breathing and moaned in delirious delight when she both heard and felt it. A palm to his chest revealed a strong heartbeat.Alive, alive, alive.

You’re one tough little princeling, aren’t you? she thought, turning his face back and forth, hoping it was enough to stir him. When it didn’t, she slapped him. He agitated with a shrill mumble but didn’t wake.

“Erran, you listen to me. You feckin’listento me. You’re too heavy for me to carry, and if we don’t get off this beach soon, there’s no telling what might come for us. I heard... Well I don’t ken what I heard, and I don’t want to, especially not when darkness falls.” She winced in silent apology and slapped him again. His face scrunched in pain, one swollen eye cracking open. “There you are!”

“Mar...” Erran’s face crumpled, his head falling back to the side.

“Oh, no. No. Don’t you feckin’ dare.” She moved to slap him again, but one of his hands shot up and gripped her wrist.

“You and violence,” he muttered. His head lolled back, and she reached to right it. “Where...”

“Can you stand?”

“I don’t...” He pressed a hand to the sand, sagging into the effort. “I don’t know.”

“I can support you, but I can’t carry you. Ineedyou to get your head on straight, to help me. Can you do that? Erran, please, can you do that?”

His tongue lashed at his bloody mouth. He closed his eyes and nodded.

Mariel slipped one of his arms over her shoulder, bracing herself against a rock. She waited for him to grip before heaving them both to their feet. He reeled, but she held tight, and he nodded to show he was fine, though he didn’t look it. She didn’t want to even think about his injuries—or her own—until they were safely inside the mysterious shack.

They hobbled up the beach, struggling through the sand and the uneven weight. Twice he seemed to drift off again, so she pinched him, almost smiling at the curses he muttered at her in defiance. He was alive,alive,and together they’d find a way out of their impossible predicament.

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