Timing is everything. One might even say it was bad timing that Isbe was born in the same year the king decided to banish all of his mistresses from the land, ensuring the new queen would never be made jealous—and that Isbe would never know her own mother.
And because she understands how crucial timing can be, Isbe is not surprised to hear her spear whiz a few feet into the air before splashing uselessly into the sea, missing the rope entirely. Her palm stings; her skin’s raw, her pulse loud in her ears. Throughout the din of the hunt, she had been listening carefully to the high, faint whine of the harpoon’s rope as it pulled taut. It was the sound of fraying, of fibers untwining and splitting. She had tried to point her spear not at the whale but directly at that sound. Even though she missed, she was right about one thing: there’s a terrible wrenching sound as the narwhal gives a final angry heave—and the rope snaps.
A tiny spark of hope lights in Isbe’s heart even as her body is thrown backward from the aftershock and the icy waves envelop her.
The whale has gotten free.
She thrashes, as the beast had done. She tries to scream underwater. She burns from the inside. Her body struggles for many minutes, and then begins to let go, to soften. Her mind follows, turning numb. From that numbness, a faint pressure emerges, a pattern against her open hands. It’s a message. The sea is speaking to her in the same way Aurora does: by tapping in their secret language. Or maybe it isn’t the sea but Aurora herself, or a memory of Aurora. I’m afraid, the water pulses into her hand. I need you.
The tapping becomes angry, nonsensical, frantic. It is no longer a message. It is . . . wood. The end of a stray oar. Isbe grasps for it, but it eludes her. She tries again, her mind beginning to awaken. The desire to live shoots through her with the power of cannonfire and she grabs again, holding on as the slippery oar yanks her upward, toward the surface—and her face breaks free.
She gags on saltwater as air whooshes into her lungs.
Someone is pulling the other end of the oar.
Someone has saved her.