Sages eyes had followed Amh as she swept from the room, breathing speeding up as the panic swirled around him. He forced his eyes closed, forced himself to breathe slower. Th gag didn't help things, of course, but after a few minutes of silent struggles he managed to get the knot from his hands loose.

Once his hands were free, he tore the gag from his mouth, taking a deep breath, taking in the oxygen he needed for a minute before moving to quickly untie the rest of the ropes around him. There was a chain connected to his ankle, but thank goodness he still had his hairpin to pick the lock with.

That didn't take long, and despite the door being locked from the outside, he managed to pick the lock there too, replacing the hair pin and stepping out. There was one guard at the end of the hallway, but he was facing the other direction, so sage quickly moved in the opposite direction.

He moved quickly then, scanning the ship, trying to find the storage hold. Of course, it wasn't long before someone spotted him moving down the hallway, and since he was unarmed, he just ran.

There was a large group following him quickly, close behind, but luckily he'd figured out how to get to the storage rooms. He grabbed a torch on his way down, barely pausing since now the men were hot on his tail, and unlike him they had plenty of weapons.

But this was his one shot to get this done.

He had to do this now.

His legs were nearly giving out under him by the time he reached the storage part of the ship, gasps rasing in his throat and vision wavering. His hand had been crudely bandaged, but the activity has caused it to start bleeding again, if it had ever fully stopped. He supposed getting a finger or two shot off would do that, but he didn't have much time to freak out about it at the moment.

He was tackled at the last moment, knocked over, torch dropped. He sort of slumped there as his hair was yanked as leverage, hands grabbed. Pinned to the floor roughly.

But his legs were still free.

Gritting his teeth, he twisted his body with a scream, kicking the torch so it spin around, once...twice...and then hit the gunpowder laying on the floor, having spilled from the barrels of the stuff around it.

The explosion was immediate...tearing through the hull of half the ship. Sage himself was blown across the room, and through the wall that the explosion went through. The cold water hit him, shocked him enough to keep him conscious. He supposed the men on top of him were what had saved him, so he clawed his way to the surface, sputtering out sea water and he desperately reached for a floating piece of wood as he felt his consciousness flicker, growing weaker by the second.

Sage had managed to grab a hold of the board and haul himself halfway onto it, spitting the water out of his mouth and blinking furiously in order to get the burning sea water out of his eyes as he fought to catch his breath, vision blurry and thoughts coming in and out.

The whole world seemed to echo, the ringing in his ears accompanied by blood dripping down his face. He'd probably busted his ear drums real good setting the explosion off.

His gaze turned to the ship then, the bits of the hull that were left slipping slowly under the waves. There were men still alive, shouting and grabbing ahold of things just like he was. He should run...or swim rather. Paddle maybe, but his body had given up, and he felt his consciousness slip out despite the panic bubbling in his chest as one of the men spotted him.

He needed to get back to land. Back to Jora.

But he couldn't.

Not yet.

He could just hope she was able to get out of the cellar. Find him. The men would haul him to shore...they'd been instructed to keep him alive. He'd get there. Jora would see. She'd be able to plan....figure something out. Even if it was pick off the ten or so men left before getting to him.

The men did indeed drag sage along with them as they headed to shore, camping out along the beach away from the house and tying the unconscious man to a tree nearby the fire they'd made, trying to try off and figure out what to do. Their leader was gone...missing, under the waves somewhere. And they had no boat. Nowhere to go.

Jora didn’t hesitate.

The moment the thunder of the explosion rolled through the island and the ground shuddered beneath her feet, she was already moving. Still—she forced herself to stop at Lyra’s side first. Forced herself to breathe.

Lyra slept on, blissfully unaware, curled small and warm beneath her blankets. Jora knelt beside her, hands shaking now that she finally let them, and pressed a kiss to the crown of her daughter’s head—soft, lingering, reverent.

“Stay asleep, my love,” she whispered, voice breaking despite her best effort. “Mama’s got this. I’ll be back.”

Her hand lingered just a second longer, fingers brushing Lyra’s hair, committing the feel of her to memory like a talisman. Then she stood, jaw setting hard as steel.

Jora slipped from the cellar, armed and silent, moving through the trees with a predator’s focus. Smoke rose from the shoreline. Shouts carried on the wind—ragged, panicked, fewer than there should have been.

Good.

She reached the edge of the beach just as the remaining men hauled a limp figure from the surf.

Her heart nearly stopped.

Sage.

Bloodied, barely conscious, dragged like cargo instead of a person. Rage flooded her so fast it stole the breath from her lungs—but she didn’t rush in blindly. She melted back into cover, watching as they tied him to a tree near a hastily made fire, their movements sloppy, leaderless. Broken.

They were scared.

That was their mistake.

Jora counted them. Noted weapons. Spotted the gaps in their awareness. Her hand tightened around the hilt of her blade as she watched Sage’s chest rise—shallow, but there.

Alive.

Jora didn’t remember drawing her weapon.

One moment she was hidden among the trees, lungs burning, vision tunneling on the shape of Sage bound to the trunk near the fire—bloodied, slack, alive—and the next her body was moving without permission from thought. Rage flooded her so violently it drowned out fear, pain, even the careful plans she’d been forming seconds before.

They had touched him.

They had broken into her home, dragged him from the sea, beaten him, bound him like an animal.

Something inside her snapped cleanly in two.

The first man died without ever knowing she was there.

Jora came out of the trees like a storm given flesh, silent and fast, blade flashing in the firelight. She took him from behind, one arm locking around his throat as the knife slid home—precise, brutal, final. She let him fall before his body hit the sand, already pivoting toward the next.

Shouts erupted. Panic. Scrambling hands going for weapons.

Too slow.

She moved through them with terrifying purpose, every strike fueled by the image of Sage’s blood in the water, the way his body had gone limp when they’d dragged him ashore. One man raised his gun—she threw a dagger and took him through the eye before his finger found the trigger. Another rushed her with a blade; she met him head-on, caught his wrist, twisted until bone snapped, and drove her knee into his chest hard enough to drop him. She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t look away.

The beach became chaos—men stumbling, slipping in wet sand, firing wildly into the trees where she was no longer standing. Jora was everywhere and nowhere, moving between shadows and firelight, teeth bared, breath harsh and feral.

One tried to run.

She tackled him from behind, slammed his head into the ground once, twice, until he stopped moving. Another begged—hands up, voice shaking.

She didn’t hear him.

All she saw was Sage, bound and bleeding.

When it was over, the fire crackled alone.

Bodies lay scattered across the beach, some half in the surf, others collapsed where they’d fallen. The smell of smoke and salt and blood hung heavy in the air. Jora stood among it, chest heaving, hands slick, trembling now that the rage had burned through its fuel.

Her head snapped up.

Sage.

She was at his side in seconds, dropping to her knees in the sand, hands suddenly gentle—achingly careful—as they framed his face. He was cold, soaked through, skin pale beneath grime and blood. His chest rose shallowly.

“Oh gods,” she breathed, voice breaking at last. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Her fingers shook as she cut the rope at his wrists, then his ankles, working fast but controlled, every instinct screaming at her to get him free now. The rope fell away and she caught him as his body slumped forward, pulling him against her chest.

She pressed her forehead to his, eyes squeezed shut, breath hitching.

“You stubborn, infuriating man,” she whispered fiercely, one hand cradling the back of his head, the other splayed protectively over his chest. “You don’t get to leave me. Not like this. Not ever.”

She checked him quickly—pulse, breathing, injuries—cataloging damage even as panic clawed at her ribs. He was alive. Hurt. Badly. But alive.

That was enough.

For now.

Jora shifted, hauling him closer, positioning herself between him and the open beach, eyes lifting to scan the shoreline one more time. No movement. No voices. Just the sea, swallowing the remains of the ship that had brought this nightmare to her door.

Good.

She leaned down and pressed a kiss to Sage’s temple—fierce, grounding, a promise burned into skin.

“I’m here,” she murmured again, stronger now. “And I am not letting go.”

Then she braced herself, gathered him up as carefully as she could, and prepared to get him home—back to the island that was still theirs, back to their daughter, back to the life they would defend with everything they had left.

Sages consciousness had gone in and out as he was drug ashore, stuck to the tree. Left there like nothing more than supplies. He supposed he should just be grateful they didn't leave him in the ocean...it would have been easy to be lost to the sea once he passed out.

But he was on land.

Now he had to trust Jora to do the rest.

He was dimly aware of commotion around him. Yelling. Screaming. Blades being drawn, bodies hitting the floor. Jora. It had to be. He struggled to wake up, to open his eyes, to do something, but his body betrayed him. He couldnt. He just slumped there, falling back into unconsciousness even as jora fought around him.

When he woke, he was in their bed, hand bandaged tight enough to staunch the bleeding there. His head and face had bandages there too, and a few other places with worse scratches and stuff. His head was still ringing, a little bit, pounding as his eyes opened and his vision cleared, looking around the room groggily.

He half attempted to sit up, but when that failed he sort of sighed and angled his head to peer around the room a bit better, since bandages were covering half his face.

"Jora?" It was quiet. Gravelly. Barely a breath, through his exhaustion. But he needed to know they were safe. The house was ok. The men were gone.

When Jora appeared above him, he couldn't help the grin that formed on his face. She was alright. And if she was alright, that meant their children were all right too. His ears were still ringing a bit, her voice a little muffled....no doubt that was just because of the explosion messing his ears up a bit. But he could hear her clear enough.

That was really all that mattered.

He stilled when she sat down on the bed with him, knowing not moving was probably for the best, at least for now. Though, when she mentioned taking care of him properly he grunted in agreement. "We may as well do that while I'm awake," he noted. He wanted to know the extent of the damage ...and he knew far too well how quickly infection could set in. He'd been in the ocean, which certainly wasn't clean, and in the sand, drug along like a bag of seeds. He should probably take a bath, wash up a bit. Let Jora care for him.

Only problem was he wasn't sure he could make it to the bathroom quite yet. That did make him paused for a second, giving Jora an amused look after a moment. "Did you carry me," he asked with a slightly surprised chuckle. He figured that was the only way he'd gotten here....but it was a surprise to say the least.

When she confirmed the ship was gone, alongside it's men, he let out a soft breath of relief, muscles relaxing slightly. He felt tears welling in his eyes from the relief, and he closed them briefly, trying not to just start sobbing. The salt would hurt.

But they did need to get rid of the bodies. He wasn't sure he'd be much help there, and Jora couldnt do it all herself. "We need horses and a sled," he groaned, shaking his head then wincing when it sent a pang through his skull.

Her next comment brought his smile back though. Tired. Small. But it was there. "Together," he promised. Though that made him feel guilty about breaking that promise before. He let out a sigh. "Sorry I locked you up," he breathed. "Had to take out the ship....didn't want you anywhere near the explosion."

Sage couldn't help the laugh that slipped past his lips when she mentioned he was heavy when he was unconscious, though he quickly stifled it with a wince when it hurt his head. Even so, the amusement shine through his eyes as he peered up at her fondly.

He let out a relieved sigh when she didn't seem upset about being locked in. "Figured you'd have been furious," he mused. "At least at first." She probably was. He'd heard the way shed been pounding on the door.

When she mentioned taking care of that later, and just letting her take care of him for now, he nodded once, a small gesture of agreement. "Let's find out what the damage is, then, shall we," he noted with a sigh, half moving to attempt to sit up against the headboard of the bed. Jora helped, of course ... actually she did most of the work and he was already out of breath by the time he flopped against the wood, vision spinning for a moment as she moved to grab some things to clean him up and rebandage things, that sort of thing.

"How much you want to bet on how many stitches I'm going to need," he noted, attempting to make a joke out of the whole thing, then offered her a somewhat sheepish grin when she threw him a glare. It didn't hold malice in it or anything, but he knew she didn't really find this funny.