“What now?” asks Sander. “If there are others who made it through, they’ve drifted too far for us to find them.”
Thyra stares out at the gently rolling waves, which are indeed carrying our dead and the remnants of our invading force further out into the Torden. “We go home,” she says.
Sander laughs. “It took us nearly half-daylight to get here, and that was with the wind at our backs and twelve pairs of oars!”
He brandishes his broken oar, but Thyra rises on her knees with threat in her eyes. “And what would you prefer to do, Sander? Lie down like a weakling and let the Torden sing you to sleep?” She snatches the oar from his grip before he can think to stop her. “Take your spot next to Cyrill, then. Lie down and rest.”
“Hey, don’t cut me from the same cloth as this cub,” Cyrill rumbles. He tries to push himself from the planks, but then groans and sinks back down. “If I wasn’t so broken, I would help you row.”
She grimaces. “Stay where you are.” I hate the look in her eye, the worry and despair she’s trying to hide. The twist of her lips and the bright sheen on her eyes—this is how she looked as she stood over the fallen, weeping old man in that coastal village during the summer’s eve raid. When her hand shook, when she said in a broken whisper, I will risk my father’s wrath. This man has done nothing to warrant such a death, and when the sight of her hesitation and shame made me draw my own blade and plunge it into his side. Though it is forbidden, I gave her the kill mark—her father had told her not to come home without a new one.
Like then, I cannot help but save her. I grab a floating plank from the water and hold it like a paddle. As Thyra plunges her broken oar into the Torden, I do the same, and together we move the raft, the shattered hull of what used to be a great warship, a few feet closer to home. The wind pushes my hair off my forehead as I glance over to find her looking at me in a way that warms me from the inside.
Red-cheeked, Sander snags himself the blade of another broken oar and joins us. He’s at the “prow” of our unsteady little vessel, and so he sits on his knees and reaches forward, drawing the flat blade straight back toward the jagged edge before pulling it up again. The three of us paddle in silence as the sun dips at our backs and the sky turns dark once more, this time with night. Stars wink from the safety of the outerworld, mockingly cheerful as we slowly pull ourselves closer to our home shore in the northeast. The moon lights our way, showing us nothing but black waters all around.
Thyra is the first to notice that Cyrill’s spirit has departed for eternity. She stops midpaddle and presses her fingers to his neck, then bows her head. “Stop for a moment.”
Sander sits up and tosses his oar blade down next to him, rolling his shoulders and wincing. “What is it?”
“Cyrill’s gone,” I say unsteadily. I let out a shuddering breath and brace my palm on the planks. The birthmark on my leg is throbbing steadily now, to the point of pain. I can’t tell if it’s hot or cold, only that it burns. Thyra gives me a concerned look, and I wave her off. “I’m fine.” I think I am, at least. The shivers haven’t stopped, even though I’m sweating. Perhaps it’s the scalding I took in the water. I’ve had fevers before, but it hasn’t felt like this. Something inside me has gone unsteady and brittle, one collision away from shattering.
“We have to get rid of him,” says Sander. “We’ll be lighter if he’s gone.” He reaches over and plucks Cyrill’s dagger from the sheath at his side, and I feel a pang of memory. Just last night, his beard dripping mead, his mouth split into a drunken grin, Cyrill drew that very blade and joked about how he’d ram it into the guts of any Kupari who stood between him and the twenty fine horses he planned to own before the invasion was done. His andener, Gry, laughed and kissed him, her fingers twisting in his beard, her joy and pride and love so big that all of us could feel it.
“Put that back,” I say quietly, wishing I could stop shaking. My mouth suddenly feels too dry, like I could drink the entire Torden and still be parched.
“Why?” says Sander. “It’s an excellent blade, and it’ll do me a lot more good than it will him.”
“It’s his,” I snap. “And a warrior is buried with his weapons.” If he’s not, he goes to the heavenly battlefield unarmed and shamed.
“We’re not burying him, Ansa—you see any dirt around here?” shouts Sander, his voice breaking, his fingers white-knuckled on the hilt of Cyrill’s dagger.
“He died with honor!”
“Stop it, both of—” Thyra begins.
“Death is pathetic, no matter how it strikes, and Cyrill died helpless and wounded and weak,” roars Sander.