Arrival (30 page)

The three Strangers stood around a small cabin in the lowest level of the ship.

Anna had asked them to meet, having heard that they were landing soon. They needed to sort out their problems before the battle began.

“Where’s Jane?” Harry asked.

“Probably with you-know-who,” Luca muttered.

“Those two are joined at the hip,” Anna sighed.

Right on cue, Jane entered with Fern in tow. Luca muttered something and Jane gave him a frosty glare.

“What’s the matter?” she asked Anna.

“We need to talk,” Anna replied.

Jane looked around at the three friends. Harry was sitting on a chair behind a large round table, tapping his fingers impatiently, and Luca was standing in the corner by himself with his arms folded. Anna had been sitting next to the window, trying to deal with a severe bout of seasickness but stood up when Jane entered.

Jane nodded in agreement and sat down in the chair that Anna had been sitting in. Anna sat on the bench next to Harry at the table.

“Was I wrong in thinking this was a meeting just for the Strangers?” Luca asked pointedly looking at Fern.

“Luca!” Jane said angrily.

“Why does he have to be here?”

“He’s with me. I asked him to come,” Jane said in a firm voice.

“But he isn’t a Stranger, Jane. Maybe it’s best he leave,” Anna said somewhat more calmly.

“Anna!” Jane started, but Fern interrupted her.

“I will leave. I only came to offer my help.” Then he turned and walked out of the cabin.

“What the hell is wrong with you all?” Jane turned to face them. “What has Fern ever done to deserve that? He’s only ever been good to you all.” She paused for a moment and sighed tiredly. “I’m asking the wrong question, aren’t I? I should be asking what I have done to deserve this. What have I done? You’ll have to tell me because I have no idea what’s made you so angry with me.” Silence followed until Luca finally spoke up.

“Why does everything have to be about you, Jane?” he asked quietly.

“You always insist that you know everything,” Harry said. “I can’t speak for the others, but that’s why I’m mad.” There were nods of agreement around the room.

“Plus,” Luca said, “don’t you think it’s pathetic, what you’re doing?”

“What am I doing?” she asked softly.

“To Athena. Both you and Fern are betraying her. You used to hate liars.”

The silence was acute, painful. Jane’s eyes narrowed. “Low blow, Luca. I suppose you can’t be expected to realise that this is deeper than all of that.”

“No, it isn’t,” he said, “You just wish it was.”

Jane’s face changed from angry to hurt in an instant. She looked around at them all for a moment, each one of them fidgeting uncomfortably under her gaze.

“I hate myself,” she whispered. “The guilt’s killing me, but I just ... If we are about to go to war, and something happens to him...” She closed her eyes. “I love him. Don’t you get that?” When they didn’t reply, she frowned. “You’re right. Of course you are. I’m disgusting.” Jane stood up and made for the door.

“Where are you going?” Anna asked.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to be somewhere where I’m not going to be attacked by the people I thought were my best friends. The people I love most.”

“You don’t love us most,” Luca said bitterly. “You love Fern.”

“Is that what this is about?” Jane turned on Luca. When she got no answer she said, “So am I not allowed to fall in love? Am I only allowed to love one person at a time?” She shook her head and left the room.

“Why did you have to go and say that?”

“What? You’re blaming this on me?” Luca replied angrily.

“Don’t blame him!” Anna said to Harry.

“Oh, right. Trust you to turn on me. Why have you been so mean to me lately?” Harry asked, bewildered.

“Why don’t you leave Anna out of this?” Luca snapped. “It’s got nothing to do with her.”

“Of course it has to do with me!” she replied.

“She has as much right to speak as you do,” Harry said. “And we all know what happened when you spoke, don’t we, Luca?”

“Yeah, you probably should have kept your mouth shut,” Anna said quietly and Luca turned angrily. Harry cut in. “We all just need to calm down!”

“Shut up, Harry!” the other two chorused.

“I don’t have to shut up! Why can’t I talk?”

“Because you talk crap and you always have,” Anna said, shocking the boys.

“Well I’m sorry. I never realised you all felt that way.”

“Well now you do, so shut up for a minute,” Luca said.

“Leave Harry alone!” Anna said to him.

“Why don’t you do us all a favour and shut up too, Anna?” Luca said, still steaming.

And so it went on, each snapping at the other. Round and round in circles, below deck they stayed, sailing closer and closer to the end.

“Fern! Wait!” Jane ran to catch up to him, grabbing at his elbow to slow him down. He shrugged her off and kept walking towards the end of the ship. They were on the deck and the day was particularly windy, so she had to yell for him to hear her.

“I’m sorry, okay?”

He either didn’t hear over the crashing of the waves, or he chose to ignore her apology.

“I said, I’m sorry!”

“I heard you!” he yelled.

“It was nothing against you—they were angry with me.”

“Forget about it.” He kept walking, and she tried to catch up with him, but the wind blew her against the railing of the ship so hard that she hit it with a bone-jarring thud. He turned back to her in alarm, but she signalled that she was okay, and he walked on. Jane felt bruised. The skies darkened to an intimidating grey and it started to rain.

“I’m not going to forget about it until you talk to me!” she yelled at his back.

It was hard to see him now, for the rain poured down in torrential sheets, and the wind threatened to knock her over. But she struggled on. Dimly she heard the warning bell. She couldn’t see through the rain, and didn’t know how to get below deck. The horrendous wind whipped the waves up around her.

Fern turned and realised that she was struggling, but just as she breathed a sigh of relief, it caught in her throat.

High above her, a tremendous wave came crashing down onto the deck. It smashed into Jane and washed her over into the merciless sea. Her body was hurled about by the rough waves, and the last thing she saw before the endless darkness was Fern holding onto the mast, watching her with wide, horrified eyes.

Then there was only water. Everywhere. Up her nose, in her eyes and her mouth. It was pulling her down. The waves picked her up and slammed her down.

As her head broke the surface, she could dimly see the ship, but it was growing smaller with every second that went by. She felt like she had been in the water for hours, though she knew it could only have been seconds.

Jane stayed conscious a long while, her body battered by the waves, but eventually she let go, only to swirl into endless blackness.

Elixia ran up onto the deck with Accolon, her heart racing. It had not been long since she had gone to their cabin yet the weather had changed so quickly. Fern clung desperately to the mast, his eyes scanning the sea. Elixia was battered by the huge winds, and her sight obscured by the sea spray. The skies were now black. Accolon reached Fern before she did, but she arrived in time to hear him say, “Fern, you must come below deck!”

Fern blinked, seeming to snap awake, and suddenly there was terror on his face. “Jane ... Jane!” he cried.

Accolon looked into the ocean, and Elixia saw his eyes grow wide with horror.

“She went over?” he cried, and his words seemed to snap Fern out of his stupefied trance. Without a word, he made to dive over the edge of the ship after Jane, but Accolon was quick, and caught him.

“No! What are you doing? I have to save her,” Fern screamed, struggling insanely.

“You can’t go in there. If you do, you will die,” Accolon shouted into the wind, desperately holding Fern back.

“Don’t you understand? If she dies, I don’t want to live!”

His words hit Elixia like a blow, and she started to cry.

“Get below deck, Elixia,” Accolon screamed at her, and then turned back to Fern. Her brother was extremely strong but so was Accolon. His arms gripped like iron.

Elixia clung to the railing with all the strength she had. Fern’s voice was hoarse from screaming, and he now threw his whole body into ripping free of Accolon’s clutch.

“Jane! JANE!” he screamed, and the sound seemed to come from deep inside him. A shriek torn from his soul.

Elixia realised that Fern was never going to stop resisting Accolon, no matter how firmly he was held.

“Knock him out, Accolon,” she sobbed, as loudly as she could.

Turning back to Fern, Accolon struggled into a position to hit him, but it was hard, for the wind was trying to push them both overboard. But before he could raise his fist to knock Fern down, everything changed.

Though the rain and wind still lashed them, the seas had calmed. As quickly as the ocean had risen, it was now as calm as a lake.

Out of those still waters came Aegir, the sea god, and in his arms he carried Jane. He put her limp body down onto the deck, and Accolon finally let Fern go.

“She will live,” Aegir said quietly and there was a different kind of cry in the air then. Elixia realised that he was talking to her, and she tried to compose herself.

“Thank you, Aegir. She is very precious to us all.”

“Yes. I see,” he said, nodding towards the group of people who had come to huddle over the still form of Jane. “It was not her time to die. She has important things to do here, even if she does not yet know them. Nevertheless, she is safe for now. The storm will rage again—it is not in me to hold it back much longer. I bid you goodbye.” Then he was gone.

Elixia watched the sea for a moment, then shouted.

“Quickly! We must get her below deck before the storm starts again.”

Elixia’s words brought them all to their senses. Fern insisted on carrying Jane below deck despite his exhaustion. He laid her on the bed in her cabin, and Elixia made Accolon and Fern leave them.

She gently stripped Jane’s drenched clothes from her body. Elixia dried her and arranged the single pearl that always hung around Jane’s neck. Jane looked deathly pale and her lips were slightly blue. Parts of her were badly bruised and Elixia took great care. Jane’s dark hair lay in tangles over the pillow, but somehow, lying so helplessly, she looked more beautiful than ever. Elixia felt a warm power radiating from the pearl.

Elixia left the cabin and found Fern waiting by the door. “She is powerful. Did you know...?” Elixia looked to her brother and made a gesture towards the girl lying on the bed, covered with a blanket.

He went to her side. “Yes. I’ve known she’s special for some time now,” he said quietly, stroking her cheek. “She is just so much more than I deserve,” he breathed.

Elixia was alarmed, for Fern was not a man inclined towards self-pity. But of course he thought himself to blame for her ordeal. It was always the way.

“Fern, listen to me,” she said urgently, firmly. “This was not your fault.”

He looked at her for a moment, then said, “Aegir said it himself. It was not her time, she was above deck in the storm because she was trying to talk to me. She could have died because of me.” He paused for a moment, and when he spoke again, his face was dark. “It is too dangerous for her to be around me.”

Elixia shook her head. “Fern, you’re being foolish.”

He shook his head bluntly. “No. I’ve put her in danger too many times. I need to get her away from me.”

“She will not listen,” the queen said slowly. “As long as you still love her, she will follow you.”

“Then she must be convinced that I do not love her,” he said flatly.

“You cannot,” Elixia pleaded. “It would be cruel.”

“This relationship can only cause her pain. Help me, sister.”

Elixia sighed, closing her eyes. “You must make her believe she has wronged you and that you cannot love her for it,” she said, a harshness in her voice.

“I can’t do that!”

“You must. It is the only way. You asked for my help, now take it.”

“What if I—” he tried, but she stopped him.

“She will not believe you otherwise.” Then she softened her voice. “This is the only way.”

He put his head in his hands, his body shaking. Then he looked up. “But she has done no wrong.”

“Nothing at all? There must be something.”

“No,” he sighed as though remembering something. “There is one thing, perhaps...”

Elixia wanted to stay with him, but he sent her away.

She went back to her room and climbed into bed. She didn’t sleep. Her mind was filled with sorrow for her brother. He had always made sure that he would never care enough about anyone to let them hurt him. She had truly believed that he would never fall in love, never make a commitment to anyone, but just continue through life as though it was entirely about having fun.

She let her mind slip over her conversation with Accolon in that very room, not long before.

She had come down to be alone after their conversation on deck, but it had not been long before Accolon followed her.

“Elixia. You are too kind and too lovely to be lied to. Satine ... she is my life. I can’t explain this very well, but I have to try and protect her as best I can. I promised someone a very long time ago. The truth is, though, I love you too. You’re my wife, and that means so much.”

That would have to be enough for her. “I know, Accolon. I know. I can be your wife, and I can live with the sort of love you can give me. But you must promise me something.”

“Anything, Elixia,” he said without hesitation.

She took a deep breath.

“I want you to promise me that you will never be unfaithful.”

“Elixia—what do you think of me?”

“Even with Satine,” she said quietly, and saw him falter.

There was a long hesitation before he replied, and he did so whilst avoiding her eyes. “I promise I will never be unfaithful to you.”

And that was when they heard the noise from the deck. They had been so engrossed in each other that they had not noticed the raging storm going on around them.