Chapter 5: Leaving the island
The boat drifted away from Veyra’s burning shores. Flames devoured the horizon, painting the sea in blood and gold. Briv rowed through smoke and salt, his heart breaking with every glance backward. The cries faded, replaced by the slow whisper of waves. The island that never knew magic now glowed with cursed light. In silence, Briv became the last witness of a dying world.
Each pull on the rough-hewn oars sent fresh agony radiating from his corrupted arm. The numbness had retreated, replaced by a deep, sickening throb that pulsed in time with the fading roar of Veyra’s death throes. The cold sea spray stung his face, mingling with sweat and ash. Saltwater seeped into the charred wood beneath him, soaking his trousers, chilling his legs. He rowed. Not with hope, but with the desperate, animal instinct to put distance between himself and the devouring dark. Distance from the barn. From Chloe.
She trusted you. You left her.
The thought was a physical blow. He gasped, faltering mid-stroke. The oar slipped in his weakened grip. The boat lurched sideways, caught by a swell. He scrambled, grabbing the gunwale, knuckles white against the scorched wood. Below him, seawater sloshed around his boots, dark and cold. He stared into it. For a horrifying second, he saw Chloe’s face reflected in the shifting blackness – pale, terrified, trapped in the moonlit straw as the unnatural fire licked at the barn walls. He’d smelled that reek. Seen stone melt like wax. Wood wouldn’t stand a chance.
"Damn it!" The curse ripped from him, raw and ragged. He slammed his fist against the hull. Pain exploded up his corrupted arm, sharp and blinding. He doubled over, retching violently over the side. Nothing came up but bile and seawater. He spat, the taste of salt and despair thick on his tongue. His breath hitched, ragged sobs tearing at his chest. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Could only see her eyes, wide with fear, trusting him to come back.
He slumped back against the sternpost, trembling. The corrupted magic in his arm reacted to his anguish, flaring like a dying ember caught in a gust. A wave of unnatural cold washed over him, followed by a wave of nausea so intense his vision swam. He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his forehead against the cool, damp wood. Get it together. Get it together, Briv. Torren’s frantic voice echoed in his memory. Resonance dampening… thicker strata… The cave. They’d been safe in the cave. Because he’d drawn the shadows away. Because he’d run.
He’d saved Torren, Mara, Durn. Maybe. He had to believe that. He’d led the hunters away. Sacrificed Chloe to save them? The thought was unbearable. He hadn’t chosen. He’d just… broken. The weight of it pressed down, heavier than the smoke-filled sky. He was adrift on a poisoned sea, carrying a piece of the nightmare inside him. Alone. Utterly alone.
He forced his eyes open. Veyra was a shrinking bruise on the horizon now, a smear of unnatural light beneath a plume of smoke that reached claw-like fingers towards the bruised twilight sky. The cursed glow pulsed faintly, a dying heartbeat. The silence out here was vast, broken only by the rhythmic slap of waves against the hull and the creak of the oars in their makeshift locks – two lengths of driftwood he’d jammed into the gunwales before fleeing the cove. No gulls cried. No fish leaped. Just the endless, indifferent sigh of the silver sea.
His stomach growled, a sharp, hollow pang cutting through the numbness. He hadn’t eaten since… when? Before the shadows came. Before the screaming started. He scanned the meager contents of the boat. Charred wood. Seawater. His knife, still strapped to his belt. Nothing else. Thirst clawed at his throat, sharper than hunger. He dipped a cupped hand into the cold sea, brought it to his lips. The salt burned, making him cough. Useless.
He picked up the oars again. The blisters on his palms had burst long ago; raw flesh rubbed against the rough wood. He ignored it. The pain was grounding. Real. He focused on the rhythm. Pull. Lift. Dip. Pull. Each stroke pushed the nightmare further behind him. Physically, at least. Mentally, it clung like the stench of smoke in his hair and clothes.
Hours bled into each other. The sun sank, plunging the world into deep indigo. Stars pricked the vast dome overhead, cold and distant. The moon, a thin sliver, cast a feeble silver path on the water. The air grew colder. Briv shivered uncontrollably, his soaked clothes leaching warmth. The corrupted arm felt like ice buried deep in his flesh, radiating cold through his entire body. He kept rowing. Stopping meant thinking. Thinking meant Chloe. Meant the barn. Meant the wet tearing sounds.
He drifted into a half-sleep, exhaustion dragging him down. Images flickered behind his eyelids: Torren’s workshop exploding in blue-black flame; Durn swinging his wrench futilely at a coalescing shadow; Mara’s face, pale with terror; Liam’s fishing nets dissolving into smoke; Logan’s booming laugh cut abruptly short; Mason’s clever hands crumbling to ash. And Chloe. Always Chloe. Reaching for him as the flames closed in.
A sudden, sharp thump against the hull jolted him awake. He froze, heart hammering against his ribs. Silence. Then another thump, softer this time, followed by a scraping sound along the starboard side. His corrupted arm flared, a sudden, vicious spike of cold agony. Magic. Close. He peered over the edge, straining his eyes in the moonlight.
Nothing. Just dark water swirling. He held his breath, listening. Only the waves. Then… a faint, phosphorescent glimmer beneath the surface, maybe ten feet away. It pulsed once, weakly, like a drowned star. It wasn’t the hungry cold of the shadows. This felt… different. Older. Fainter. Like the quiet pull he’d felt deep in the cave on Veyra. The island’s secret? Or something else entirely? The gnawing void in his arm seemed to… twitch towards it. Not hungrily, but with a strange, almost magnetic curiosity.
He stared at the fading glimmer, then back at the distant, dark smudge that had been Veyra. The last witness. Adrift. Starving. Thirsty. Haunted. Carrying a piece of the apocalypse in his veins. And now… drawn to a drowned light in an endless sea. He dipped the oars back into the water, the sound impossibly loud in the vast quiet. He didn’t row towards the light. Not yet. He just kept moving forward, away from the past, into the unknown dark, the faint pulse beneath the waves a silent counterpoint to the cold dread coiled in his arm. The horizon remained empty, the sea vast and uncaring. But something had changed. He wasn't just drifting anymore. He was being pulled.
===
The faint pulse tugged at the corrupted arm like a fishhook buried deep in rotting muscle. Briv hissed, knuckles whitening on the oar handles. "What are you?" he rasped at the dark water. The phosphorescent glimmer had vanished, but the pull remained—a persistent, underwater current dragging his awareness downward. Not hunger like the shadows. Something quieter. Older. Like the damp stone deep in Veyra’s caves.
He fought the instinct to lean over, to peer deeper. Drawing attention felt suicidal. Salt crusted his lips; his throat was sandpaper. He scooped another useless handful of seawater, spat it out violently. The taste of failure lingered. Chloe’s face flashed behind his eyes again—not terror this time, but accusation. You ran. The corrupted magic flared cold in response, a fresh wave of nausea twisting his gut. He gripped the oars tighter, the raw flesh of his palms screaming against the charred wood.
Rowing became mechanical. Pull. Lift. The scrape of wood on wood. The endless slap of waves. The corrupted arm throbbed a dull counterpoint. Hours bled away under the deepening indigo sky. Stars emerged, sharp and alien—constellations he didn’t recognize, patterns that felt like watching eyes. No familiar points of light like back home on Aella. Just cold, indifferent pinpricks.
Exhaustion seeped into his bones, heavier than the seawater soaking his clothes. His shoulders burned. Each breath was a ragged gasp. The pull from below hadn’t lessened; it was a constant, low thrum against the icy void in his arm, a strange magnetism he couldn’t escape. He scanned the empty horizon. Nothing but flat, silver-black sea meeting star-strewn void. No sails. No land. Just him, the dying echo of Veyra’s screams, and this insistent, silent call from the deep.
His vision blurred. The oars felt like anchors. One slipped from his numb fingers, clattering against the gunwale. He fumbled for it, his movements sluggish, clumsy. The effort sent fresh agony lancing from his shoulder. "Can't…" he breathed, the word barely audible. His remaining strength bled out like the light from the vanished island. He stared at his blistered, trembling hands. Useless.
UNDER A SKY LITTERED WITH STRANGE STARS, BRIV LETS THE OARS FALL. HIS HANDS ACHE, HIS SOUL HEAVIER THAN THE SEA ITSELF. “I’LL COME BACK,” HE MURMURS, VOICE LOST IN THE WIND. FROM SOMEWHERE WITHIN THE MIST, HE ALMOST HEARS CHLOE’S NAME WHISPERED BACK. ALONE, DRIFTING TOWARD THE UNKNOWN, BRIV FEELS THE FIRST SPARK OF DESTINY AWAKENING INSIDE HIM—THE BIRTH OF A POWER HE DOES NOT YET UNDERSTAND.