Page 47 of Astrid at Sea

“I worry about you as well, Viktor.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, Astrid. I’m the Captain. It’s my job to worry about everyone else.”

“Someone has to worry about you.” I turned around in his arms, wound my arms around his waist and pressed my face into his chest. “You’ve got so much on your shoulders. I know that’s what you’ve signed up for as Captain, but there’s just so much to deal with, and you’re only one person. And now we also have Crosby here to make things more difficult.”

“He’s also one more mouth to feed, even though we barely have enough for ourselves.”

“He hasn’t been a single help since he’s gotten here,” I agreed with a frustrated groan. “And I have a feeling that won’t change anytime soon.”

“He’s locked up down there. We won’t have to worry about him anymore,” Viktor assured me, running a gentle hand down my back. “And the food rationing is only temporary. We’re only a little behind track, and I’m hopeful that as long as the winds keep going, we’ll get to the next island in three days. Maybe four at the most.”

I pulled back to look up at him. “Isn’t it too early to be docking at Greenland?”

He shook his hand. “Not Greenland. There’s still more than ten days until we reach Greenland, maybe fifteen, but our food supply isn’t going to last until then.”

Viktor was right. We wouldn’t be able to make it to Greenland on the little we had left, and we would last even less with the lack of fish. We would all be starving then, diminishing the chances of all of us making it to Greenland in one piece and with a sane mind. I gulped fearfully at that thought.

“We’ve sailed by this island once on our last mission,” he said. “We didn’t stop by as we didn’t need to, but we marked it on the map. It will come in useful now.”

“We can buy food from them and get a few hot meals,” I smiled hopefully into his chest. “But for now, we’ll work on the fishing and ration the little food we have left.”

“I’ve told you this before, and I’m telling you this now. I’ll make a good little sea Captain out of you yet,” Viktor chuckled and pressed his lips to my forehead. I could feel his lips curl against my skin, and it warmed my heart to feel him smile. To feel himgenuinelysmile.

I hadn’t seen him smile much like that these past few days.

Viktor and I stood there for some time, arms around each other, staring at the sea. Alone, we had many problems. Together, they added up, and we ended up with even more problems, but at least we had each other to lean on.

Yesterday wasa fantastic fishing day compared to today.

Today, Jerrik, Manny, and I returned to The Serpent with empty buckets and a boat lighter than when we set off earlier, given the lunch and water we had consumed.

The three of us returned with heavy hearts and a cloud of disappointment hanging over our heads, even more so when dinner and the crew awaited us upon our return.

“Perfect timing,” Viktor grinned and pulled me into his arms.

I didn’t miss how he looked me up and down, sighing in relief at how dry I looked. Nothing like the nearly drowned state I had returned in yesterday. Unlike Crosby, Manny was far gentler and even turned out to be pretty decent with a spear. It was just too bad that there weren’t any fish around for us to hook on the end of that spear.

“Where’s the fish?” Gustav frowned as he retrieved the bucket from Jerrik, finding it just as empty as when we left this morning.

“We didn’t catch any,” Jerrik groaned as he joined the circle for dinner. “We sailed out further than yesterday, but there weren’t any big fish. The ones we did find were far too small to hook with a spear. We tried to scoop them up with our hands but didn’t want to risk any of us nearly drowning again. Besides, they weren’t big enough to feed even one of us, so it was useless.”

“Let’s all sit down to eat, and then we can discuss this further,” Hammond called out, his lips pointed down.

I sat beside Viktor in the circle and stared at the little food before me, my lips curling down at the corners.

Half a slice of bread and the thinnest slice of cheese I had ever seen. It was so thin it was almost translucent.

Gustav cleared his throat as he picked at the bread. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but this is all we have.”

“What do you mean this is all we have?” Caspian asked, looking offended at the tiny portion of food before him. “I know we’re short on supplies, but surely we shouldn’t be rationing this much.”

“What’s wrong, Gustav?” Viktor called out to him, a speculative look in his eyes.

“You mean, what’snotwrong?” Gustav groaned and dropped his slice of bread to run his hand through his hair, tugging on the ends in frustration. “I went down to the bottom deck earlier to grab some supplies for dinner, but it’s all been ruined.”

My breath hitched. How was that possible?

“What do you mean it’s all been ruined?” Latham was the first to speak up, his voice ridden with disbelief.

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