CHAPTER 86
ZORA
As Farin and I make our way across the beach, I keep several paces ahead of him, just out of sight. I figure he’ll assume I’m trying to avoid interacting with him after our conversation last night about his probable plans to murder me.
Let him think what he wants, as long as it distracts him from the truth.
The island has the audacity to be warm today, like it’s mocking me about the chill it blew into the cave last night, like the Fates are reminding me I’m as moldable as a sail in the wind in their hands.
Like all they have to do is make me shiver a bit, and they can send me straight into Farin’s arms, just for their amusement.
It’s growing more and more difficult not to think about how it felt that frigid night, to be tucked into his chest, to feel the strange mingling of danger and safety renewed with each step I take.
But an hour into our traipse across the sand, I stumble across something that wipes all such notions from my mind.
A body.
Worse, one that’s alive.
The man is human, his breathing shallow.
Another victim of the shipwreck, perhaps? Or has another ship fallen into the snare of the rocks circumventing this island?
I fall to my knees and check his neck for a pulse. I don’t know why. Of course he has a pulse; he’s breathing.
Get a hold on yourself, I whisper to my shaking limbs.
My fingers linger at the man’s neck, when they should be climbing to his face. All it would take would be placing my palm over his mouth and nose, and then…
“Do you have a family?” I find myself asking the man.
His black, sand-crusted eyelashes flutter. “Sara,” he croaks. “My wife. Told me if I didn’t come back, she’d leave me…” He chuckles, though it seems as though he’s masking a sob.
My stomach wriggles.
“Children?” I ask.
He shakes his head, closing his eyes and swallowing.
Good. Good, that’s good.
“Are you in pain?” I ask.
The sailor fixes a set of clear blue eyes on me. Blue like the sky, deep like the sea. His skin is weathered from what might have been decades in the sun, manning a ship’s deck. No wonder his wife was irritated with him leaving again. “No pain. More concerned about that, to be honest. No feeling, either. And forget moving my fingers.”
Good. That’s good, too.
I’m a monster for thinking it is.
Hero or villain?
“Fell over the side when we ran aground. Knew the instant my spine hit rock that my days of walking were over.” Again, he chuckles, but his voice is strained, and he begins to sob.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. My fingers twitch, his pulse still tapping against them.
“Eh. You didn’t do it to me.”
Normally, I would have wondered if this was true. Wondered if whoever was writing my story had snapped this man’s spine specifically to transform me into the villain. I would have wondered if this man was my Event.
I don’t wonder anymore.
When I murder this man, it won’t be because anyone forced me to do it.
It’ll be because I searched this beach, hoping to find someone I can kill easier than I can kill Farin.
I was hoping for someone I could kill with a good conscience. I’m not sure I’ve found that in this man, but he’s as close as I’m going to get.
“I think.” The man wheezes. “I think my lungs might be filling up with water.”
My tongue goes dry in my mouth.
“I’ve been laying here for days now,” he continues. “Had a lot of time to think about how I don’t want to die. Been praying to the Fates that it won’t be a savage animal. A couple times, the tide reached my toes, and I thought I might drown. I asked they not let me drown. That it be something quick.” He offers me a sad smile. “I think they might have been listening.”
I freeze, my limbs going rigid. I should be relieved, overjoyed this man wants me to kill him. It should take the burden off my shoulders completely, but still…
“What’s he saying to you?” Farin asks, and his presence makes me jump. He’s barefoot on the sand, so I hadn’t heard him walk up.
My heart races. I shouldn’t have stalled. Should have killed this man before Farin caught up to me, then I could have escaped. Without Farin.
