Another accusation. “We never would have reached her. She wouldn’t have allowed it.”
He arches an eyebrow, pure suspicion. “If you really thought that, why did you swim for it? Or were you just jumping overboard to save yourself?”
My brow furrows, and I look to Thyra. “The ship came apart only a minute after you went over the side,” she says quietly.
Sander’s gripping the oar as if he’d like to hit me with it. “Did you know that by instinct too? We needed you on board!”
I rip one of my knives from the sheath at my wrist, but Thyra grabs my arm, which makes me hiss with pain. “Stop it now, both of you,” she barks. “If you knock us into the water, I’ll kill you before you have a chance to drown.”
“So many dire threats, Thyra,” drawls Sander. “You actually expect us to believe them?”
Thyra’s eyes go wide at his insolence. He’s never dared speak like this to her. No one has. But her father is dead now.
She strips my knife from my grip and has it pointed at Sander in an instant. “I said to stop it.” She stabs the blade into the wood of the hull, leaving its hilt bobbing only inches from Sander’s knee. “Though I choose not to shed blood often, it doesn’t mean I won’t.”
“I’m just wondering what Ansa was really doing while our entire crew was battling the storm.”
Thyra opens her mouth, probably to threaten him again, but it snaps shut as I murmur, “I made it all the way to her skiff.”
Cyrill stops his moaning and turns his head to look at me. My cheeks burn as I gaze after the three black specks on the horizon. “I nearly had her, but the water . . . somehow, they turned it hot.” I show them my raw, red arms and hands. “And one of her attendants had fire in his palm.”
Sander rolls his eyes. “You’re both addled.”
“Our world was just destroyed by a witch-brewed storm,” Thyra says in a flat voice. “What’s more addled than that?”
Sander leans forward. A drop of blood from his chin lands on Cyrill’s sodden tunic. “The fact that Ansa’s still breathing. If she got that close to the witch, how is she still alive?”
All of them stare at me again, and I fight a strange fluttering inside me at the memory of the witch queen’s face, the way she was looking at me before the end. “I don’t know,” I mutter. “I tried to strike, but then . . .” I swallow my next words, and they taste like shame. I dropped my weapon for no good reason. I had the chance and the strength. I might have been injured, but not severely. If I had lunged, I could have sunk that blade into her thigh. I was that close. But my heart went soft all of a sudden. And if I admit that, I might lose the thing that is most important to me in this world, more important than my own life.
Other warriors’ respect.
“A wave caught me and pulled me away,” I say quickly, realizing I have been silent for too many seconds.
“Why didn’t she bring a bolt from on high to cook you in the water?” Sander asks. “Since that seemed to be her strategy for eliminating threats.”
“Again, I don’t know.” Except . . . I don’t think she wanted to kill me. Her attendants seemed to want her to do exactly that. The one in her boat, with the fiery hands, was going to do it himself. Instead of striking, though, she summoned the wave that bore me away.
She saved me.
The thought turns my stomach, and I lean over and retch into the lake, giving it back some of the water I gulped down as I drowned. I press my forehead to the soggy hull and listen to Cyrill’s wheezing breaths, not wanting to raise my head and see how my three fellow warriors are looking at me. My skin is hot and cold at the same time, and hard shivers are making me tremble. A spot on my leg throbs, then sends icy bursts of sensation up my thigh. Startled, I shove the edge of my boot down my calf.
“Are you injured?” Thyra asks.
I stare down at my red birthmark, which is now pulsing hot, and shake my head as I pull my boot back up to cover it. “It’s nothing.”
Thyra curses. “They’ve disappeared.”
I slowly raise my head and look out on the watery battlefield. The only sound is of gulls crying above us. Some of them have descended on our dead. The warriors we saw slide off their own improvised raft are nowhere to be found. Sudden fury rushes through me, and I yank my knife from the hull. I reel back to throw it at one of those hateful birds and nearly pitch into the water, but Sander brings up his oar and slaps me hard between the shoulders, sending me down with a huff on top of Cyrill. “Cursed to survive with only three baby warriors as my allies,” he says with a moan.
“Quiet, Cyrill,” Thyra says, command in her voice. “Your eyes would be in a gull’s stomach if not for us.” But she squeezes his shoulder, and he offers a weary smile.