The journey to Isla Sombre was a trial by water. The "good wind" Captain Moreau mentioned was a bullying gale that shoved the small cutter through steep, choppy waves. Hadrian spent the first hours desperately not being sick, focusing on the horizon with the determination of a condemned man. Kaelen, at the helm, was a granite statue of competence, her eyes squinting against the spray.
"Not quite the royal yacht, is it, Your Highness?" she shouted over the wind, a hint of a grin on her weathered face.
"More functional!" he shouted back, earning a bark of laughter.
Functional it was. He helped where he could, securing loose gear, brewing bitter coffee on the tiny galley's swaying stove. He was useless as a sailor, but he was a diligent mate. The two crew members, young Aquillian ratings, initially treated him with stiff formality, but his silent endurance and lack of pretense gradually wore it down.
Isla Sombre lived up to its name. It was a jagged tooth of black volcanic rock, shrouded in mist, its shoreline a violent lace of white surf. There was no calm bay, just a leeward side marginally less furious. Kaelen expertly positioned the cutter, judging the swell.
"The dinghy ride in will be wet," she stated. "You sure about this, sir? I can go."
"The requisition needs a royal seal," Hadrian said, though the truth was he needed to do this himself. "I'll be fine."
The dinghy ride was a brutal, soaking rollercoaster. Icy salt water crashed over them, drenching him to the skin. By the time they scraped onto a narrow slip of gravel beach, he was shivering, his hands raw from the rope. The supply hut was a rusting metal box half-buried in scree. It took both of them to wrench the door open against the wind.
Inside, it was dark and smelled of rust and rat droppings. They found the ceramic filters, thank god, still sealed in their waxed crates. Hadrian used his signet ring to stamp the manifest. As he did, his eye caught on something else—a small, water-stained logbook left by some previous researcher. Flipping it open idly, a sketch on a faded page made his breath catch.
It was a detailed drawing of a coral formation from decades ago, flourishing, vibrant. And in the margin, a notation in familiar, precise handwriting: "S. Valentoire, age 16. First independent field survey. Found hope here."
Seraphina. She had been here as a girl, full of hope, documenting a world that was now dead. He carefully tore the page out, folding it and slipping it into his inner pocket, next to Freya's sextant. It was a relic from a time before the void, before the weight of crowns and crises.
The return to the cutter was even more treacherous, the dinghy now heavier with the crate. A wave caught them broadside as Kaelen gunned the small outboard, and Hadrian, clinging to the filter crate, was thrown off balance. A searing pain shot through his side as he collided with the gunwale. He stifled a cry, his vision swimming.
Back on the cutter, as they stowed the precious cargo, Kaelen noticed his pallor and the way he favored his right side. "You're hurt."
"Bruised rib. It's nothing," he gritted out.
She didn't believe him but didn't press. "We need to get back. This weather's settling in for worse."
The return sail was a gauntlet. The gale intensified into a proper storm. The cutter was tossed like a toy. Hadrian's side screamed with every lurch, but he forced himself to work, to focus on the task of survival. He thought of Seraphina on the Aethelwyn, waiting for this filter, trusting him to bring it. He thought of the hopeful, sixteen-year-old girl in the sketch. He would not fail either of them.
When the lights of the Aethelwyn finally glimmered through the sheeting rain, it was the middle of the second night. The transfer of the filter crate in the heaving darkness was a feat of desperation. As he finally hauled himself, soaked and trembling, onto the main deck, a figure broke from the shelter of a hatchway.
Seraphina.
She took in his drenched, disheveled state, the obvious pain in his posture. Without a word, she stepped forward, slipping a shoulder under his arm, taking his weight. Her body was solid, strong, real.
"The filter?" she asked, her voice strained.
"Secure. In the hold."
She let out a shuddering breath that was half a sob. Then she began guiding him, not toward their cabin, but toward the ship's tiny infirmary. "You're a mess," she muttered, but her arm around his waist was firm, anchoring.
In the bright, sterile light of the infirmary, as the ship's doctor prodded his likely cracked rib, Hadrian looked at her. Her hair was plastered to her head by the rain, her field clothes filthy. She looked exhausted, fierce, and more beautiful than he could ever remember. She had not waited passively. She had been on deck, in the storm, watching for his return.
The doctor finished taping his ribs. "Rest. No heavy lifting."
When the doctor left, the small room was quiet, the storm still raging outside. Seraphina stood by the door, her arms crossed, studying him.
"You got it," she said finally, as if confirming it to herself.
"I told you I would."
A faint, exhausted smile touched her lips. "You did." She hesitated, then walked over and picked up the damp, ruined jacket he'd discarded. As she did, the folded page from the logbook fell out, fluttering to the floor.
She bent and picked it up, her eyes widening as she recognized her own youthful sketch. She looked from the paper to him, her expression unreadable.
"Why did you take this?"
"Because," he said, lying back against the thin pillow, every breath a knife of pain, "I wanted to see the hope. I wanted to know what we're fighting for. Not just what we're fighting against."
She stood holding the paper, the ghost of her hopeful past between them. The romantic void on the ship was now filled with the howl of the storm, the scent of iodine and bandages, and the palpable, weary, undeniable reality of each other. He had sailed into the tempest and brought back what she needed. And in doing so, he had finally given her something more than silence or solutions. He had given her proof of his word. It was a foundation, laid not on land, but in the teeth of a gale.