But I remind myself: A Krigere is granted passage into heaven only after a victory, or if she dies fighting. Though my only enemy right now is the lake, I will battle it until the end.
I stroke and kick and convulse. My fellow warriors do the same. The water invades and conquers, and as I struggle, I see so many of my brothers and sisters lose the fight. I know my time is coming too, but I don’t—
The wind calms so quickly that it’s like a heavy blanket smothering a campfire. The waves sink into the depths. The heavy, violent clouds swirl into nothing. The tempest folds in on itself like a melting ice crystal, and then it’s gone. I blink up at the sun. Its beauty makes my eyes burn, and I let out a bemused croak of a laugh. I float on my back as the elation that comes with life after the certainty of death gives way to a completely different kind of understanding. Somehow I know to keep my eyes on the sky. If I gaze on the world as it is now, it will be the fatal, crushing blow. The silence alone is evidence of the totality of our destruction.
I should let the water take me. Sometimes wounds bleed too much. A warrior can die in victory on the battlefield if she fought to the end, if she gave all she had. And I did. I gave everything, including the chance to die in Thyra’s arms, to look at her face one more time. Surely I can simply let go now . . . ?
“Ansa!”
One word, one cry, one voice pulls me back from the brink.
“Ansa! Answer me or I swear I’ll cut your throat.”
I turn my head. Thyra paddles toward me on a large scrap of hull, her face smudged and dripping, her eyes bright with horror. Sander is behind her. He is bleeding from a gash on his temple, the blood staining his jaw and dripping into the collar of his tunic, but he still looks strong as he steers the makeshift vessel with a broken oar. Cyrill is draped across the middle, half his blond beard singed away, his formerly handsome face a mess of black and blisters.
I reach for Thyra’s outstretched hand, so grateful that she’s alive that I can’t find my words. She clutches my shaking, scalded fingers and drags me up, and Sander lays down his oar and helps her pull me onto the raft. I clamp my teeth together to keep from crying out. It feels like I’m about to shed my skin, and right now, I wish I could.
While Thyra leans over me, Sander says, “We can’t take on more weight. We’ll sink.”
She nods, then touches her forehead to mine, her palms on my cheeks. “Don’t you ever try to steal my rightful kill again,” she whispers harshly, but then she plants a hard kiss on the top of my head.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice as broken as the rest of me. “I failed you.”
She lets out a strained chuckle as she sits up and looks around. “We all failed.”
Wincing, I push myself up on one elbow. We’re floating in a sea of bodies and debris, beneath a rich blue sky and the sinking early autumn sun. A cool breeze ruffles my hair, but that’s not what sends the cruel chill down my back. Not a single ship survived. In the distance, I can see a few warriors on another section of splintered hull, pulling a limp body onto their platform. But even as they succeed, a section of it dips, and all of them slide into the lake. They let out feeble cries as they struggle to climb back to safety. “We have to try to make it over there,” Thyra says.
“Are you addled?” snaps Sander. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t meet the same fate.”
She glares at him. “There were thousands of us on these waters. And we have andeners at home waiting for word—and protection.”
Sander laughs. “Protection? Thyra, look around. We’re dead.”
“Not yet,” she says, and begins to paddle toward the other survivors, her eyes scanning the waters for others.
Next to me, Cyrill moans. I put a hand on his back. “Keep breathing. Keep fighting.”
“Blood and victory,” he says weakly.
My throat tightens. “Blood and victory.” But I know Sander’s right. We’re corpses with heartbeats. I peer at the horizon. Three tiny specks are receding into the deep blue. “There they are. The witch and her dark minions.”
Thyra pauses in her paddling, drawing her soaked arms up from the lake. The fading sunlight glints off her silvery kill marks. If her gaze were an arrow, it would strike true and lethal. “For a moment, I thought I had the target,” she murmurs.
It’s as good as an accusation. “And if you’d stood your ground long enough to throw the dagger, you would have ended up just like your father,” I say, coughing at the strain of so many words.
“And here I thought your dearest wish was to see me kill,” she whispers.
“How did you know the danger?” Sander asks. “You pulled her away just in time.”
“Instinct, I suppose. The witch had just struck Lars down the same way. I could see her looking at Thyra.”
“You could see her that clearly?”
I turn to Sander, annoyance burning at the back of my tongue. “So could Thyra. We were close.”
“If we’d had enough oarsmen, we might have been able to ram her,” he says bitterly.