Chapter 25 Strangers on the Island
The tide kept creeping after us, gray and stubborn, licking at my boots like it meant to drag me back out and finish what it started.
I staggered anyway.
My legs worked—barely—but only because Fisk’s arm stayed locked around my waist, holding me upright when my body forgot how. Every step felt like stepping onto something that might give way. My muscles shook so hard it rattled through my bones.
Don’t fall.
Don’t stop.
I ground my teeth and moved.
Away from the water.
Away from that cold, endless pull.
The first stretch felt impossible. Then the second. Then it stopped mattering. Pain settled in and stayed, and I let it push me forward.
We cut along the beach, east by the look of the sun, its heat pressing down on the back of my neck like a hand that didn’t know when to let go. Gulls circled overhead, screaming. The sound scraped at my nerves.
Waiting.
Watching.
I didn’t like it.
The sand shifted underfoot, soft and treacherous, then thinned into patches of shell that bit sharper than the splinters had. Up ahead, the shoreline changed—debris scattered in uneven clusters. Broken pottery. A charred fish skeleton. The smell fires and food floated through the air.
Life.
Beyond that, the land rose, a slow, stubborn climb toward a stand of twisted trees. Past them, I caught the faint outline of rooftops. Smoke.
Civilization.
Fisk limped.
It took me a few steps to notice, the way his stride hit uneven, the tight set of his jaw every time his weight shifted wrong. He didn’t say a word about it. Didn’t slow.
Every time I stumbled—and I did, more than I wanted—his grip tightened, fingers digging into my shoulder, steadying me before I could go down. Not gentle. Not soft.
Reliable.
When I tried to pull away, he let me. Didn’t argue.
“Not far,” he said after a while, voice rough from salt and shouting. He squinted toward the bluff. “Fishing town past that rise. Couple hours if we keep moving.”
A couple hours.
My tongue felt like driftwood in my mouth. Thick. Useless. I didn’t answer. We walked.
The sun climbed higher, hotter. Sweat slid down my ribs in slow lines, stinging where it found cuts I hadn’t known were there. I looked down at my arms—scraped raw, streaked with sand and dried blood.
The ring rested against my chest.
Warm and Steady.
I left it there.
Every step, I measured the ground. Sand. Shell. Then something firmer. Brush crept in, snagging at my legs, scratching new lines into skin that had already had enough.
A path formed underfoot.
Worn and used.
It wound away from the shore toward the cluster of buildings ahead.
Fisk followed it without hesitation, but I could feel it in the way he moved—this wasn’t his ground. Not like a deck beneath his boots. Not like a ship that answered to his hands.
The farther we got from the water, the sharper he became.
His gaze flicked to the horizon. Again. Again. His hand drifted to his side, resting near the hilt tucked beneath a strip of canvas. When the fabric shifted, I caught a glimpse of it.
The sword.
Black handle, twisted like something grown, not made. Silver caught the light in dull flashes.
It didn’t look decorative.
“You always carry that?” I asked, my voice rough.
He didn’t look at me. “Never know who you’ll meet on shore.”
“Friends?” I muttered.
He barked a short laugh. “No such thing.” That settled it. We kept moving.
The world narrowed to breath and footsteps. The grind of boots. The occasional sharp curse when I caught my foot wrong and tore something else.
By the time we reached the top of the bluff, the sun had gone from hot to cruel.
The town below didn’t look welcoming.
It looked like something the sea had chewed up and spat back out.
Shacks hunched along the waterline, patched together with driftwood and rope. Nets hung between them like ghosts caught mid-fall. People moved through it all—working, hauling, cutting—but no one moved quickly.
No one wasted energy. As we started to approach the town, I felt it. The shift. At first, it was just glances.
Sideways. Quick.
Then slower.
Longer.
Bodies stiffened as we passed. Hands disappeared behind backs. Voices dropped, then died entirely.
“Keep your head down,” Fisk murmured.
“Why?” I asked, though I already knew.
Because we didn’t belong. Because we looked like something the sea hadn’t finished with yet. I lowered my gaze anyway.
We limped through the main stretch. Children paused their game—crab claws clacking against stone—to stare. An old man shouted something I didn’t understand, his voice sharp and cracked.
Didn’t sound friendly.
I waited for Fisk to react.
He didn’t.
Didn’t even slow.
That told me more than anything else.
We cut between two huts and into a small market square. The smell hit first.
Fish. Rotting and fresh all at once. Salt. Something sour beneath it.
Food.
My stomach twisted, suddenly, painfully awake.
Stalls crowded together—dried kelp, salt cakes, limp seaweed hanging in strips. People moved slower here, but their eyes were sharper.
Fisk stopped at the edge.
“Stay close,” he said.
“I’ve handled crowds before,” I muttered.
He grinned, but there was no humor in it. “You’re not the problem.”
That tightened something in my chest. We stepped in. The space shifted around us. Not open. Not welcoming. Just… adjusting.
A man planted himself near a barrel, arms crossed, gaze locked on Fisk’s side. Two women paused mid-cut, knives still in hand, watching.
Then I saw what they saw.
The sword.
Even covered, it wasn’t hidden enough. Out here, that meant something.
This was not good.
The space tightened. Closer. Slower. A trap that didn’t look like one yet. My pulse kicked.
Think.
Move.
Before Fisk could react, I stepped in front of him. Close. Close enough that my back brushed his chest. I leaned into him like it belonged there, tilting my head so my hair slipped forward, falling over the line of his arm, the hilt beneath it.
“Put your arm around me,” I said, low.
For a second, he didn’t move. His eyes darted around. Taking in the surroundings. I wonder if he realized it too.
Then his hand came to my waist.
Warm.
Solid.
Careful in a way that didn’t match anything else about him.
“Smart,” he muttered, and I felt the tension ease, just a fraction.
We moved together after that.
Not two people.
One shape.
A distraction.
Someone shouted something about traders. I ignored it. Others did too. The crowd shifted again.
Loosened.
Not gone.
But less interested.
I could feel their eyes anyway. Tracking. Weighing. Fisk’s hand stayed at my waist, steady, grounding. We made it through.
Barely.
At the far side, we slipped into a narrow gap between stalls. Shade swallowed us, cool and quiet compared to the crush outside.
I hit the wall and stayed there.
My legs shook too hard to hold me. He let go slowly. Like he expected me to drop if he didn’t.
“You’re full of surprises, Tavern Queen,” he said.
I slid down into the dirt, letting the wall take my weight.
“I’m full of something,” I muttered.
The ring tapped softly against my chest.
Still there.
Still mine.
He crouched in front of me. Closer than before. His eyes… softer.
“They think we’re together,” he said.
I shrugged, too tired to care. “In a way we are.”
For now.
His hand lifted. Paused. Then brushed a fleck of dried blood from my cheek.
Light.
Careful.
“You saved my life,” he said.
I blinked at him. “You’re the one who—”
He shook his head. “If you hadn’t fought, I wouldn’t have gone after you.”
That stopped me.
Then, without warning, I laughed.
It came out rough. A little broken but unrestrained.
“We’re idiots,” I said, wiping my mouth. “We’re going to die here.”
He grinned at that—wide, sharp, like the thought didn’t scare him half as much as it should.
“Maybe,” he said. “But I’m not letting anyone else drown today.”
He stood and held out his hand. I looked at it for a second. Then took it. His grip was strong, steady. When he pulled me up, it was careful. We turned back toward the market.
Toward whatever waited next.
I squared my shoulders, tucking the ring back under my shirt, feeling its weight settle against my skin.
The fear was still there.
The exhaustion.
All of it.
But my steps matched his. And this time—I didn’t feel like I was about to fall.