All's Fair in Revenge

Chapter 59: Kelvia

Calm waters wash upon Kelvia's East Harbor nuzzling Srisset's outskirts. Large, sun-bleached boulders the size of hills shape the shoreline where carefree longboats tied to a rough dock rock tranquilly in the rising tide. Its waves lap at an outdoor market pungent with fresh fish and glistening mussels. Along the walk, beads of torch-fire beckon us like a pathway of twinkling stars guiding our sails and rudder.

The whole of it is too peaceful for my liking. A welcoming hug when all I want to do is sink into the water until I drown. The irony of such is not lost on me. Death, I fear, is all I have left to hope for; some sort of solace in the wake of a soul scorched from the inside.

I push up from the wide boards onto my elbows, half wondering if the sight is a hallucination, one last trick of the goddesses before Hella's hounds drag me by my hem to Helheim. The billowing sheets above us, like fluffy midnight clouds, tell me I'm safe. I'm on the ship. I'm going home. The thought sends quake after silent quake to rattle my bones. Ma'ma's healing energy mended my injuries, bad as they were, but invisible wounds sometimes never close.

"Bröd," my voice scratches out.

He places a finger to my lips. "Don't," he says. "There's nothing so immediate that you must speak right now. Rest." He places a familiar wilted ring onto my finger and smiles at me as though I hold his heart in my palm.

I look anywhere but him to my eyelids and then Brix. She slouches next to him, her chin in her hands, her eyes on the brood of Kelvians at work along the boat. From bits and pieces of information I found Liv, Ma'ma, and even Brix's sister made it home, initially. When things went awry in the abbey, Brix ran to Kelvia on foot. She brought back Liv, Bröd, Ma'ma, and a small army with which to rescue me. The three of them made it with little more than a scratch. The other lies at the far end of the vessel still unconscious, her dark, wavy hair like damp seaweed draped across her softened face.

"She'll be well soon enough," says Brix to me when she finds me staring.

Not a one of them will tell me what happened only that she's unconscious and, "The Golden Healer will figure it out," because "it's what healers do, isn't it?"

It is. Until I came along. Wait until they learn all my dark little secrets. How they will regret coming for me. How I regret it already.

***

On shore, several Heerth warriors in bloodied armor tie our longboat to the dock. Drained and weary, we slip off the ship and into the outskirts of Srisset. I lag.

"There's a cart to carry you into the city," says Bröd, his voice warm like butter-bread. "I can help you if you need it." He looks around as though he might pick me up. He knows better.

"I'd prefer to visit the ocean a little longer."

"Hana, you've been through a terrible ordeal. I think it best—"

I cut him off with a touch of his hand. I roll it over and place the woven ring onto his leather-strapped palm. My fingers close his, hiding the band. When I meet his eyes, they're searching my face. "I will never not be sorry that you came to save me. That you risked your life for someone who did not deserve it."

He clenches his jaw and says, "There's someone else?"

I suck on my teeth and avoid the well of emotion building in my chest, coming for my throat. A line of tears I beg not to shed threatens to anyways. "No, not anymore there isn't."