Blood of the Sea, Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter 36: Precipice

Astrophel

Sunlight hits him with the same pounding headache as though he were waking up drunk. The light is too bright; chatter around him is too loud; his skin feels too tight. Rolling to his side, he sees Dionne watching him right before he coughs, expelling a lungful of sea water, his throat burning, eyes watering. He doesn’t remember swallowing that much water, let alone coming back to shore half drowned.

He does remember those bottomless eyes, full of dark promise and buoyant hope. Eulla’s voice washes over him, reminding: You will drown if you don’t leave the islands behind you. As Dionne’s comparatively warm hand rubs his cool shoulder and back, he realizes that perhaps his goddess was more serious than he realized. He shudders, salt water filling his senses - all that he can taste and smell, as the constant, reassuring crash of water against the shore lulls in the background.

“Ast, are you alright?”

Astrophel shakes his head, wiping his mouth on his wrist. “I’ll be fine. It’s a reminder of why we’re here.”

“What do you mean?” Dionne asks him, concern etched into the way her eyes squint at him.

“The islands are no longer an option for me,” he says quietly, lungs aching as they gulp in fresh air. “It’s this life or nothing.”

“Good thing you have us with you,” Dionne says, trying to smile past the faith-filled shock nestled in the subtle widening of her eyes. “The ocean sings her song.”

“And we heed her call,” Astrophel responds, pushing to his feet and dusting himself off - sand sticking to his salt-creased clothing. “Lest we be swept under.”

Dionne straightens and gestures toward the harbor-town, “Seri was suggesting that we could move in. The shore was meant to be temporary; the houses are built, and Kildangan would be happy to have us integrate…”

“We can’t.” Astrophel tells her, scrambling to his feet and grasping her hand as she leads the way toward Kildangan and the wide, river-full streets. “We have to leave.”

“I… Ast, you said we can’t go to Magellani. What do you mean, we have to leave?”

Astrophel sighs, rubbing his thumb over Dionne’s hand. “I can’t go back. You, Sul, Khalil, and Nox could. You could take the tribes…”

“We aren’t leaving you here,” Dionne shakes her head angrily. “Look, I get that you recognize our water-lust as it rages in you just as strongly, but we’re fine. We’re better than fine when we’re together.”

“I don’t want to keep you from…”

“Our homes? Our families?” Dionne scowls, muttering, “Phyrlin’s beard, Ast.” She rolls her eyes, “Our families might be behind us, but we have another one right here.” She squeezes his hand. “Our home will be where we make it. If you don’t want to live here…”

“It’s not that…”

“... then we’ll move.”

“Eulla told me to look to the cliffs. To build a house and found a home upon our broken hearts.”

Dionne’s brows arch toward her hairline, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she says, “A home built on all that sounds lovely, Ast.”

“And on hope. ‘Somewhere between heartbreak and hope.’”

Dionne chews on her lip for a moment, absorbing the words. “She’s really testing you, huh?”

Astrophel shrugs, his head pounding with each heartbeat. “I suppose this is where I say She offered for it to be someone else. I volunteered.”

“You mean you were voluntold. This is your Goddess, we’re talking about,” Dionne says kindly. She squeezes his shoulder. “You would no more disappoint Her than your own mother. You have a good heart, Ast.”

“I just want to do what’s right for us,” Astrophel says, holding his head in his hands. “The mages here seem to want to complicate that.”

“Maybe the Riders have the right idea?” Dionne suggests. “Live apart; govern ourselves. If we can’t go back to the islands, it’s the next best thing.”

“Making lives for ourselves here… but what would we do?”

“What we’ve always done,” Dionne replies, a smile in her voice. “Survive.”

“The people will want more than survival,” Astrophel says sourly.

“They shall have it. We all have to start somewhere, and this is one of those cases. We will build our lives here, one stone at a time. One timber. One newly sharpened blade.”

There’s a bump against his arm so Astrophel turns to look at it, squinting through heavily lidded eyes. Dionne is offering him a canteen of water. He takes it gratefully, uncorking it and gulping down a mouthful of water, trying to ignore the sandpapery feel of his dry mouth. He pours a little in his hand before offering the container back to Dionne, splashing the water cupped in his palm across his face. The liquid drips over his nose and down toward his chin, falling towards the ground as if it too wants to be reunited with the ocean at their side. Astrophel groans and stretches, his muscles tired from the night’s ride. He casts a glance about their shore-side camp, seeing people waking or awake already, making food and sharing it amongst themselves. A couple people glance at his soggy appearance, but rather than judgment, each pair of eyes he meets are full of understanding. We are a people of the water. Who am I to ask that they leave it behind?

Dionne wraps an arm around his shoulders and leans her head against his. “We’ll survive this. Everyone here came because you believed it was the right thing to do; they’ll follow you to our new cliff-home on that same faith.”

“It’s too much to ask of them.”

“Ask anyway,” Dionne says gently. “Give them the option. Don’t just push them away for fear of rejection.”

“They’ll feel obligated…”

“No more obligated than Khalil or Nox or Sul. We all have a say in our futures. You just happen to be the one leading the way. It doesn’t mean you have to like it.”

Astrophel wraps his arm around her waist, taking comfort from the pressure of her body against his.