Chapter 20:
Trust Him
The four of us walk again. Trevus and Marcellus take the lead, and Giddius follows up behind me. I feel his glare on my back. He hasn’t spoken since leaving Balin – no arguing about who’s the greatest, no crude jokes about sexual exploits, not a single word.
My foot catches in the forest underbrush. I trip. My hands snap forward to break my fall. I land in a combination of bark and dead sticks.
After tugging my boot free from the dry brush, I push myself to sit up. My heart jumps – a face is on top of me. Trevus is on one knee, bringing us eye to eye.
His gaze runs up and down my frame. “Have you sustained an injury?”
It takes a moment to regain my bearings. My arms absorbed the impact, and my hands are a little sore. Twisting my arms around reveals bark and dirt caked into the sleeves. The material protected my skin from nasty scrapes.
“I’m fine. I just need a moment,” I say.
Trevus nods and stands again, continuing with the march.
Dry leaves are kicked over my lap, making me flinch. “My sincerest apologies,
princess
,” Giddius says. He stops and offers a hand.
I hesitate, studying his expression. He was barely concealing his rage this morning, yet now he’s offering to help me up.
Rejecting his proposal will only provoke him further. I take his hand.
He pulls me up to my feet, but his grip remains tight. We’ve fallen behind the others, and I can’t free my sleeved hand.
“Why not share what you and Trevus discussed this morning,” he says at a volume only I can hear.
The corner of my lip tugs up. “Trevus wouldn’t want me to.”
His grip further tightens, making my hand ache.
“Thanks for the hand,” I raise my voice. Trevus and Marcellus look back in our direction.
Giddius releases his hold and continues on the path. My plan is working. He’s growing paranoid. Trevus needs
me
to infiltrate Nepolis. He doesn’t need Giddius.
There’s a soft buzz in my ear. I follow after the group, but leaves crunching under my boots drown out the buzz.
I still again, listening carefully to pick out the sound. A low, distant rumble is coming from somewhere.
Is it an army of horses? I scan the surrounding forest. There’s nothing but tall trees and canopy shadows. Horses couldn’t charge through a forest so thick – could they? It’s hard to be sure. I’m not like Trevus and the others. I’ve been thrown into this militaristic world knowing nothing about war or battles.
“Jade?” Trevus grabs my attention. He’s stopped now that my distance from them has grown.
“There’s a rumbling,” I say. “Listen.”
“There is.” His voice doesn’t carry the urgency I’d expect if it was an approaching army. “’Tis expected.”
Expected? I catch up with them. The rumbling grows louder as we walk. Trevus and Marcellus stop at the top of a ridge. The noise is deafening now. I follow after them, and the sight at the top makes me take a step back, nearly slipping.
This ridge is the last piece of solid ground. After that, there’s a ten-foot drop into a raging flood of water. It’s so loud that I can’t hear myself think. The gray torrent swirls in every direction, smashing against rocks and ejecting clouds of mist that coat my face.
“The Merk,” Trevus says.
This is the Merk river? Did I mishear him? “How could this be a river?” I almost have to shout over the noise. My village was near a river, and it was nothing like this.
Trevus points across the water. The forest continues on the other side of the flood. “Behold, Mephia,” he says. “Merk currents can wash away regiments. If one nation wishes to aggress the other, they must cross narrow bridges at settlements. The Merk has drawn our borders.”
“How far is the next bridge?” I ask.
“We shall cross here,” Trevus says.
My heart flips in my chest. I cautiously lean over the ridge, before quickly retreating back again. The gray turbulent water below has no bottom. In my entire life, I’ve never been in water higher than my waist.
All three of them take off their boots and begin unbuttoning their shirts. Surely we can’t be crossing this? Trevus just said the current washes away armies. There are only four of us.
Trevus and Giddius drop the saddlebags off their backs. The three men stuff their shirts and boots inside the bags.
“Hand us everything you wish to be kept dry,” Trevus says to me.
I’m frozen. I can’t cross that raging flood of water. I can’t.
Trevus ties his bag shut and hands his sword to Marcellus. Both Marcellus and Giddius step off the ridge, sliding down the muddy slope and landing waist deep in the water.
Trevus grabs my arm and tugs. “No! No! No!” I shout. My frame topples forward, and I lose my balance. My feet have no purchase. I scream as my body hurdles toward the dark water.
Splash.
Trevus’s grip on my arm keeps my frame upright and my head dry. The freezing water climbs up to my chest while my boots sink further into the mud below, chilling me to the bone.
The current yearns to topple me over. I latch on to a crooked root poking out of the muddy riverbank, wrapping both arms through it and hugging tight.
Trevus taps on my shoulder. “Observe!” he shouts over the raging water. His finger is pointed at the other two men. They’re deep in the torrent, and the river is pulling them further from us. Marcellus holds their weapons over his head to keep them dry, and Giddius does the same with his saddlebag. The waves look even larger contrasted against them. “The current shall pull us east, correlating to how it pulls them, but we shall reconsolidate on the shore!”
Holding his bag high to keep it dry, Trevus steps deeper into the Merk. His whole head disappears for a moment, and he pops up again further down the river. The water is deeper than he is tall, and it pushes with so much force that even a strong man like Trevus can’t oppose it. I don’t stand a chance. I tighten my hold on the root.
Trevus steadies himself against a rock that pokes out above the water. “Follow me!” Trevus shouts.
I can see it all now. I’d step off this little mud bank, and the gray water would swallow me whole. The liquid would burn my eyes, making it impossible to see or breathe. I’d scramble and panic until the water impaled my body across sharp rocks.
“No!” I lock my grip around the roots, pressing myself as close to the bank as I can and further coating myself in mud.
“What is the conundrum!? Cross the Merk!” Trevus shouts back.
“I can’t!” I’m not like him. I can’t fight such a powerful current.
“You are able! Release your grapple!”
“I can’t swim! I can’t swim! I can’t swim!” Just being chest high in the water is terrifying enough. I can’t bear any more. The river will kill me. I have to get out of it now. I dig my boots into the muddy side and try push myself up. My feet fail to find purchase, and I fall back into the water.
“You cannot climb the bank! The only path is forward!” Trevus shouts.
No. I shake my head. Digging my boots into the mud again, I find a solid root. The vegetation is the only thing holding the bank together. Straightening my leg lifts my body a little higher out of the water.
“I shall keep the Merk from carrying you off!” Trevus says.
I dig my other boot between the roots and push myself higher. This is working.
“Jade! You must place your trust in me!”
I twist my head to look back. Trevus’s still waiting by the rock. Without his shirt, I can see his stature boasts great physical strength. Maybe he is strong enough to help me cross, but how can I trust my life to the hands of a man who holds me captive?
To climb further, I need to move my hands up. There’s another thick root just above my head. I can reach it.
Taking a deep breath, I unlock my grip from the first root and reach up. My hand touches the next root, but the vegetation supporting my boots tears apart. I fall. The water engulfs my body.
It’s black. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. My body tumbles. My limbs flail wildly. I push and push to swim up, but fresh air escapes my grasp. The river sucks me deeper, taking me to be buried in the riverbed.
A solid rock hits my abdomen, and my body is lifted to the surface. I gasp for air but choke as a wave splashes over me. My head goes under again, the loud noise of the river turning back into a low rumble.
Something has a grip around my chest, dragging me through the water with ferocious speed. My arms fight against the torrent to try find air. I’m lifted up out of the river again, and the loud roar assaults my ears. There’s an arm wrapped around my chest, and it’s holding me up above the water.
I twist my head around. My eyes sting, but they’re wide open from the fear of drowning. Trevus is holding me. He’s the rock that pulled me from the waves.
“You are breathing!?” Trevus shouts over the roar of the water. He holds my middle with one arm and anchors us to a boulder with the other. His arm is the only thing preventing the river from carrying me away.
“Don’t let go!” I cry out. My back is to his chest. My arms flail, desperate to latch onto him for security, but it’s impossible from this angle with the sleeves on. Of all my time in captivity, at the mercy of guards and noblemen, I’ve never felt as helpless as I do now. Please keep my head above this terrible water.
“I shall not lose hold!” He shouts, but his grip loosens. I scream as my body begins to slip, but he quickly pulls me back in, this time flipped to face him. We’re chest to chest, and my arms wrap tight around him. He’s my life raft.
“We shall cross,” Trevus says. His lips are close to my ear, making it easier to hear him over the current.
Barely moving my head, I glance at the riverbanks to regain my bearings. We’re just a quarter of the way through the raging flood. My hold on him tightens.
“Jade, you must place trust in my capability,” he says.
I nod. Trevus is my only way out of this river alive.
“Do you believe I can ferry you to shore?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Good. Prepare yourself. You must wait under the water until I raise you up. You must not latch on to my torso.”
“What!?” The last thing I want to do is go back under that water.
“A drowning man will drown their savior in a futile attempt to stay above the current,” he says.
“What if the water keeps me down until I choke?”
“You must trust that I shall raise you up for air.” Trevus’s hand latches on to the back of my shirt collar. My arms are the last connection keeping our chests together. “You must let go.”
Let go? If I let go, the water will suck me under again. His grip on my shirt will be my only hope of returning to the surface. If his fingers slip, or his attention is pulled away from me for just a moment, I’ll choke. My dreams of living a life free of my connection will drown with me. My safety will be anchored by nothing more than Trevus’s grip. I wouldn’t even risk closing my eyes in front of Versillian soldiers before, but now I have to trust one with my life.
My gaze meets his. Trevus is different. There’s concern in his eyes. It distresses him to hear about the suffering he’s caused, and he doesn’t want my death on his hands too. My life is not meaningless.
I release my hold. The current takes me around the rock, and my shirt draws taut, twisting my back to him.
“Take breath!” Trevus shouts.
I shut my eyes and pinch my nose. The water engulfs me again, and the river’s roars are replaced with a low rumble. My body is swept through the water in Trevus’s wake. I curl my limbs close, staying still to prevent another panic episode. Trevus will look after me.
My head is pulled to the surface. I take a huge breath of fresh air, but I keep my eyes shut. A moment later I’m under the water again, with the grip on my shirt carrying me through the current.
I’m brought to the surface a second time. I gasp and twist my neck around to catch a glance of the riverbank. We’re more than halfway across, but I can’t see Trevus. There are only waves. His arm brings me back below the water, and he pulls me further along. Trevus is taking turns with me above the surface, and he swims further on his turn.
River debris slam into my middle, and the pain makes me scream. Air escapes my lungs, and water rushes in. I begin to choke. My arms flail in panic.
Trevus pulls me above the water. I cough and cough. His hands snap under my arms, and he drags me to shore. Finally on land again, I crawl on all fours and hack the water up out of my lungs. It
hurts
.
After a few minutes of coughing, soon all that’s coming up is my own saliva. I collapse onto the ground, my cheek resting against the mud. My entire body is exhausted.
A hand rests on my back – Trevus. I remain still, taking labored breaths. It’s over.
For the first time in ten years, I’m back in my home country.
It’s fantastic!
Yes – one of the most important things to consider when rescuing drowning victims!
😂
Rescuers always need to be mindful of people drowning because their panic poses a threat – they may nearly drown their rescuers in a panic.
😂
Yeah – thanks for that Trevus 🙄
😂
I almost feel bad that she’s doing this 🙈 for Trevus I guess but I understand that she needs to escape 😅
It almost sounds like she burnt Marcellus’ carving to try pin it on Giddius – shame poor Marcellus 😂
I mean he could have given a bit more warning before 😂😂
stop now i wanna know what happened 😭
I did too
Definetely
🥺
Yes, but she’s not thinking about the mission. She’s thinking of escaping 😂
Let’s see if she can uphold the stakes on her favor
Indeed. She got through him it seems
oh
Honestly yeah! She was terrified but now shes just trusting things will work out
Yeah Trevus hasnt done anything to hurt her…
Yeah its terrifying…
Yeah she’s not running or making a fuss, just stopped walking.
My brain went to bee hive, but I guess that’s too literal lol
Also she cant fight herself other then her power (which she doesnt want to use) so she does need these guys to protect her to some degree
Yeah she’s really playing some games here…
I wish the hand glove’s got swept away by the river lol
Damn even I panicked
Now I can’t get it out of my mind😂😂
Omg
like that one scene from the spongebob movie. David Hasselhoff
a child lmao
phew!!!!
Giddius is probably taking great joy in this
She’s got a lot of willpower
But at least this one actually cares about your safety
That’s very hard when the mind is in a blind panic
Feeling helpless, it’s important to have a rock (or in this case Trevus) to keep one grounded with a sense of safety
Oh, poor thing
We love our supportive king, but I can’t help thinking of a funny reality where he just stares in surprise as she gets carried away by the current like “huh” lol
He’s being so patient and supportive
He dosen’t even question if she can swim, I’d be doggy paddling for my life
He dosen’t expect misbehavior in moments like these, just genuine concern on why she has stopped following
‘He dosen’t need Giddius’, girly, the more force a group has the better they are to escape and fight back if things go sour, he NEEDS everyone lol
she really is the embodiment of gaslight, gatekeep and girlboss XD manipulative lady
That was a quick moment
She’s successfully made the bear crave her head on a stake lol
If you were the few lucky early readers, you win a: Reread!