The storm had come out of nowhere, tossing the ship like a toy on the waves. The sea had played along until it had tired of the game, and dragged their boat under in a tangle of rope and sail and screaming men.
Matthias remembered the darkness of the water, the terrible cold, the silence of the deep. The next thing he knew, he was spitting up salt water, gasping for breath. Someone had an arm around his chest, and they were moving through the water. The cold was unbearable, yet somehow he was bearing it.
“Wake up, you miserable lump of muscle.” Clean Fjerdan, pure, spoken like a noble. He turned his head and was shocked to see that the young witch they’d captured on the southern coast of the Wandering Isle had hold of him and was muttering to herself in Ravkan. He’d known she wasn’t really Kaelish. Somehow she’d got free of her bonds and the cages. Every part of him went into a panic, and if he’d been less shocked or numb, he would have struggled.
“Move,” she told him in Fjerdan, panting. “Saints, what do they feed you? You weigh about as much as a haycart.”
She was struggling badly, swimming for both of them. She’d saved his life. Why?
He shifted in her arms, kicking his legs to help drive them forward. To his surprise, he heard her give a low sob. “Thank the Saints,” she said. “Swim, you giant oaf.”
“Where are we?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied, and he could hear the terror in her voice.
He kicked away from her.
“Don’t!” she cried. “Don’t let go!”
But he shoved hard, breaking her hold. The moment he left her arms, the cold rushed in. The pain was sharp and sudden, and his limbs went sluggish. She’d been using her sick magic to keep him warm. He reached for her in the dark.
“Drüsje? ” he called, ashamed of the fear in his voice. It was the Fjerdan word for witch, but he had no name for her.
“Drüskelle! ” she shouted, and then he felt his fingers brush against hers in the black water. He grabbed hold and drew her to him. Her body didn’t feel warm exactly, but as soon as they made contact, the pain in his own limbs receded. He was gripped by gratitude and revulsion.
“We have to find land,” she gasped. “I can’t swim and keep both of our hearts beating.”
“I’ll swim,” he said. “You … I’ll swim.” He clasped her back to his chest, his arm looped under hers and across her body, the way she’d been holding him only moments ago, as if she were drowning. And she was, they both were, or they would be soon if they didn’t freeze to death first.
He kicked his legs steadily, trying not to expend too much energy, but they both knew it was probably futile. They hadn’t been far from land when the storm had hit, but it was completely dark.
They might be headed towards the coastline or further out to sea.
There was no sound but their breathing, the slosh of the water, the roll of the waves. He kept them moving – though they might well have been paddling in a circle – and she kept both of them breathing. Which one of them would give out first, he didn’t know.
“Why did you save me?” he asked finally.
“Stop wasting energy. Don’t talk.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Because you’re a human being,” she said angrily.
Lies. If they did make land, she’d need a Fjerdan to help her survive, someone who knew the land, though clearly she knew the language. Of course she did. They were all deceivers and spies, trained to prey on people like him, people without their unnatural gifts. They were predators.
He continued to kick, but the muscles in his legs were tiring, and he could feel the cold creeping in on him.
“Giving up already, witch?”
He felt her shake off her exhaustion, and blood rushed back into his fingers and toes.
“I’ll match your pace, drüskelle. If we die, it will be your burden to bear in the next life.”
He had to smile a little at that. She certainly didn’t lack for spine. That much had been clear even when she was caged.
That was the way they went on that night, taunting each other whenever one of them faltered. They knew only the sea, the ice, the occasional splash that might have been a wave or something hungry moving towards them in the water.
“Look,” the witch whispered when dawn came, rosy and blithe. There, in the distance, he could just make out a jutting promontory of ice and the blessed black slash of a dark gravel shore. Land.