Page 37 of Scourge of the Shores

The Foretold Heartache

Men and women jumped from the ships anchored in the bay and swam to shore under the evening sun.

Once they emerged from the waves, their shouts and screams announced Cain’s defeat, accompanied by wild, waving arms. The islanders came out of their huts and fell to their relieved knees.

Many covered their faces and cried tears of joy.

Shrills and shrieks filled the air. The fighters rushed to their friends and family, jumping in celebration.

Soon, a bonfire lit the sky, and music replaced the shrieks. Danna watched from a rowboat as Lucas rowed them to shore with others injured.

Danna glanced to her left and right, and more rowboats with the injured poured in. The pain in her stomach strained the breath of peace she tried to draw. Lucas watched her with concern etched in his brow. She lowered her gaze and lifted her shirt.

The red and indigo clashed with the ashen-tinged skin in a warped swirl up her belly and lined her ribs—the temporary mark of victory against her nemesis. Danna groaned as she lowered her shirt again. Her belt slung low on her hips, no longer able to wrap around her waist.

The only hope that kept her from collapsing was that Cain was dead, never to rise again, and maybe Ma would return to the life she once knew.

The rowboat struck the shore, jolting a tendril of pain through Danna’s core. She winced with a bent back and hunched shoulders. She gave Lucas a quick smile to assure him she was fine, but his keen stare was hard to deceive.

She stepped on the shores of her home, followed by the rest.

Lucas lowered his hand to her shoulder. “I’ll see to the injured. Get home; see yer Ma,” he told her.

She nodded, trying to keep her core perfectly still and avoid the anguish. Her hands clenched at the anticipation of walking the long way up to the hut at the top of the village.

Each step burned, but she forced her legs forward, her breath hissing through clenched teeth. The laughter and cheers of the islanders faded behind her as she climbed the hill toward the hut. One step. Another. One more.

“Make it to Ma,” she whispered through ragged breaths. “Ignore the pain.”

She repeated as her mantra until she reached the porch. Darkness nipped at the edges of her vision. She gripped the doorframe to steady herself before pushing the door open. Her shadow fell across the whole room.

“Danna?” Her mother’s voice was faint. Isabelle had been left to tend to the hearth and feed Ma in their absence. Danna scanned the interior. It looked clean and vibrant. The fire was warm and inviting.

“I’m here, Ma,” Danna said, her voice clogged with angry tears. “Cain’s gone.”

Ma sighed. “Oh, Danna. Oh, I’m so glad to hear it. Now you can be happy, my girl.”

“What?” The word ignited a fire in her belly. “No, no, no,” she spat, quelling the agonizing flame coursing through her torso. “ Now ye can be happy .”

The words came out in spurts as Danna strode into the room, enduring the pain that radiated through her gut. This was not how it was supposed to go.

She scooped her mother up into her arms, stumbled forward, nearly falling, but she refused to stop. Ma’s weight was light, but the wound in her belly screamed in agonizing protest with every step, warping around her side and back, taking her breath.

“Stop, Danna,” Ma ordered, trying to push against her chest with her one good hand, but Danna held Ma with an iron grip.

Danna bit down hard against the twitch in her legs and carried her outside with stiffened arms to alleviate the scream pulsing through her body.

“Take me back, Danna.” Ma covered her face with her one remaining hand. “Right now.”

“No, Ma,” Danna choked out. “It’s time to live.” Each word was a struggle. She chewed her lip, searching for another breath.

Her knees wobbled, but she clenched her jaw and pressed forward. Just a little more. Just a few more steps. She sat Ma down in the sand with a loud grunt.

Her legs buckled, and her knees hit beside Ma. Danna’s gaze lifted. “I did it for ye, Ma,” she said through tears and clipped breaths. “For ye, Ma!”

A fresh wave of pain sliced through her stomach and stabbed through to her back. Her vision went white.

A sharp cry ripped from her lips. She grabbed her belly as she crashed to the ground beside her mother.

“Danna!” Ma’s scream barely registered.

Lucas came running to them and rolled Danna onto her back. He lifted her shirt, and Ma screamed again at the grisly sight of the injury.

“Why’d ye not wait for me?” Lucas yelled at Danna and shook his head.

Danna winced. “I just wanted”—she took a shallow breath—“Ma to live again.”

Her shoulders sagged, releasing the tension from her corded neck.

Her legs splayed out in final resignation.

The position of the dirt mounds beneath her lower and middle back relieved the pain in her side, and Danna decided that was where she was going to stay.

“Leave me,” she whispered. “I’ll be well. ”

Lucas took two fingers and gingerly pushed on her belly and ribs, feeling.

Each touch made her grimace. He drew in a deep breath.

“Ye do what I say, and ye’ll live, barely.

Got a few broken ribs and some damage in the gut.

Rest only, Danna. Don’t pick nothin’ and no one up. Don’t move unless I tell ye to. Savvy?”

Danna spurted, “Aye.”

Lucas cradled Danna’s cheek before placing a hand on Ma’s shoulder and leaving to tend to the injured once more.

The bonfire’s light played with the shadows of Ma’s face as she watched in silence. Danna closed her eyes, listening to the life that filled the island. The fear that kept their laughter at bay vanished.

Danna’s lips curled into a tight smile. Her home was free. Her home was safe. Her home could live again, even if Ma didn’t.

The two women stayed silent until the moon was high in the sky. Danna finally opened her eyes and saw Ma’s fingers tapping to the beat of the music.

“Lyin’ in that bed forever, Ma, it’s nothin’,” Danna said through the pain. She turned her head to her mother with burning eyes.

Ma’s finger-tapping stopped. “When Lucas is finished making his rounds, he’s going to take me back.”

“No, Ma,” Danna gritted. “I gutted a sea dragon. For ye. For this entire isle. Thirteen years. Thirteen years, I fought. Now he’s dead,” she rasped. “I don’t even remember what life was like before Cain came. But ye do.”

“And I had legs then, Danna. I had two arms,” she said in a broken cry.

“I’m just an invalid on an island where you got to be worth your food and shelter.

Don’t want anyone seeing me like this. Killing Cain don’t change that.

Don’t change that I’m in the same useless body every morning. Don’t change that I only got one arm.”

Her voice broke on the last words, and for the first time in years, Danna heard something new in it—something deeper than bitterness—a raw, quiet grief.

Danna’s limbs tingled with desperation. Cain’s death still had not healed her mother. “Ye’re loved, Ma.” Danna’s voice cracked. “They miss ye. I miss ye.”

“I see you almost every day, Danna.” Ma peered over her to Danna lying on the ground.

“I’m sayin’ ye died thirteen years ago, Ma,” Danna said, her voice caught in her throat. The next words were raw and broken. “And I want ye back.”

The fire’s light flickered over Ma’s face, revealing tear tracks down her sunken cheeks.

* * *

Late into the night, Lucas helped Danna back to their hut and returned for Ma.

Danna lay on her cot, covering her body with the blanket Ma had made her when she was a child. It was too small now, but she didn’t care.

She faced the flames, listening to the lingering cheers, dancing, and songs that filled the air outside.

Lucas’s heavy boots thudded behind her. He thudded inside and plopped a sleeping Ma in her bed.

She stirred, and Lucas ensured she was comfortable before sitting beside Danna. He placed a warm hand on her ankle.

“How ye feeling?” he asked. His eyes, intent on her.

“I’ll heal,” she whispered amid the agony. “Just a bad bruise, maybe some broken ribs as ye said.”

Lucas patted her ankle. “That’s not what I meant,” he said with care.

Her chest swelled with grief in response.

She touched her bottom lip with a trembling finger, remembering Robert’s kiss.

A deep, unseen wound tore through her, raw and aching, like the bruise in her stomach had stretched all the way to her heart.

Her fingers fell limp at her chin. The ache in her ribs grew worse.

A cruel trick of the body: how heartbreak could make every injury hurt more.

“I’m fine.” The crack in her voice betrayed her words. Her flickering smile faded to a frown.

Lucas sighed and gave her ankle a comforting squeeze. His shoulders slumped.

“I warned ye, Danna,” he said, but his voice lacked its usual sharpness.

Danna shut her eyes and bit back every rage until it came out as a calm breath. “I know, Lucas,” she managed to whisper.

He continued, eyes reddening, glistening in the firelight. “I told him to leave ye alone. Neither of ye listened.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed again.

“I know, Lucas,” she snapped, but her voice cracked, betraying her. Her whole body tensed, as if sheer willpower could force back the grief clawing at her throat.

“I tried to protect ye.” He shook his head.

He kept talking, and she clenched her jaw, her nails biting into her palms. “I know, Lucas,” she repeated, harsher this time.

A warning, a plea, a desperate attempt to stop him from saying something that would break her completely.

Agony burned in her stomach. She fought back hot tears.

She was a Chadwick, and Chadwicks didn’t cry, especially over a man.

But then he whispered, “I just wanted ye to have peace, Danna.”

Her breath stilled. The words struck like a blade, slipping between her ribs. She let out a shaky breath—rage, pain, exhaustion all tangled together.

Ma stirred, but his warm embrace on her ankle never moved. Lucas had always been there for her, just as her father would have been. Their gazes locked, and he remained silent.

“Ye were right,” she finally admitted, the words scraped the back of her throat. “Ye’ve always been right.” A whisper. Her tears flowed freely down her cheeks.

For a moment, Lucas just looked at her. He studied her broken face with eyes shining with unshed tears.

With a deep breath, Lucas patted her ankle and drew back the blanket.

He lay beside her, cradled her in his arms, and whispered, “Wish I weren’t.

I hate bein’ right. I told ye at the graves that ye’d fight this alone, but I lied, Danna.

I’m here. I’ll be here. I’ll help share this hurt as much as I can. ”

Danna sniffled and released a shaky breath at how her ache pained him, too.

Lucas kissed her cheek and rubbed her injured arm with the care only a father could give.

“An enchanter told me before ye were born that a worthy man would come on the sea and wed ye,” he murmured. “Maybe Robert ain’t him. Yer heartache’ll pass in time. But if it was . . . then maybe the sea ain’t done with him yet.”

Her hands slid to the collar of his shirt as she gripped the fabric. “I hope ye’re right at least once more,” she whispered.

But doubts lingered.

If Robert wasn’t the man in the prophecy, why did it feel like she’d lost a piece of her soul—something the sea had no right to take—something she was never meant to live without?

And if he was, how long would she have to wait? How much hope did she have left?