TANWEN
The driving rain slowed to a sprinkle, and Diggy took a deep breath.
Words poured from her again, quieter. Calmer. “I was on that ship a year. When we docked in the Islands, I ran away. I hid in a cargo crate and was delivered to the Kanaci dock. But as soon as they missed me, they sent out search parties. They rallied the islanders and offered a large reward. I mattered so very much to them, you see,” she added bitterly.
“I’d made friends with Kawan already,” she went on. “He said the islanders would hunt me to my end, because the offered ransom was so big. So we decided to fake my death. The captain was furious. He had made sure to let the islanders know I was to be kept alive. Because I mattered. But Kawan is a good actor. His mother was in on our secret, and her testimony convinced the captain and crew their valuable plaything was gone.” Her gaze dropped. “Once their business was done, they left.”
She turned over one of the knives in her hand. “But I couldn’t stay on Kanac after that, of course. The ransom would still be delivered if I was returned to the captain alive, so I had to go somewhere else. I came here. It’s been uninhabited for centuries because it floods terribly during the rainy season. Kawan visits me sometimes, but mostly it’s me here alone.” She looked directly at Mor, eyes dark. “This is all I want.”
Mor again reached out toward her. “Diggy . . . come with me. We’ve already made arrangements to acquire another ship. As soon as we get what we came for, we’ll head back to Tir with you. There is so much more for you than this.”
Diggy laughed. “I sincerely doubt that.”
“Please,” he begged. “We could be a family again.”
“I have no need of family.” She turned and headed for the trees. “Go home, brother. Enjoy your ship and your pirating and whatever else you do these days.” She looked over her shoulder and smiled faintly at him. “Yes, I noticed the gold in your ear and those shark-leather boots. What would Father say about you turning pirate?”
“I’m legitimate now. Sailing under the queen’s banner.”
“The queen?” She stopped walking and turned. “There is a queen on the throne?”
“Braith En-Gareth.”
Diggy’s eyes narrowed. “The daughter of Gareth? You sail under her banner?” She snorted and turned back to the trees. “Why am I surprised? Go back to your queen, Mor Bo-Lidere.”
“Diggy!”
“No, we’re finished.”
A bolt of lightning shot from Mor’s hand in frustration. It snapped against a tree trunk at the edge of the jungle. But even at that, Diggy didn’t turn back.
I paused a moment, then hurried after her. “Digwyn, please wait!”
The trees had swallowed her completely. I turned in a circle but saw no sign of her. “Diggy?”
“Is my brother your beau?” The sound came from the canopy of tropical trees above me.
I looked up, and there she was, perched in the trees like a little puff-prowler. “What?”
“Does he fancy you? Is he your beau?”
“Those are two separate questions.”
“True enough,” she said. “So?”
For some reason, I answered her plainly. “We fancy each other, but your brother is not free. Truthfully, I’m not either.” I didn’t suppose shoving my engagement band back into Brac’s hands was an official-enough break. I certainly owed him an explanation when I returned.
“Interesting.”
“Complicated, more like.” I paused. “Mor has suffered, too, you know.”
“Just when I was beginning to like you . . .” She pulled up her legs, preparing to jump to another tree.
“Wait.”
She paused.
“I just meant . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to speak specifically. “Diggy, you have been horribly hurt. I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through. It must have been . . .” My mind couldn’t find the words.
She tilted her head to the side and looked ever more like a wild critter.
I began again. “It would be easy to think that while those terrible, evil things were happening to you, Mor was off having a grand adventure on his stolen ship. That he abandoned you and lived in comfort because of it. But that’s not true. He’s been on the run as many years as you’ve been gone.”
She sat, still listening.
“A lass he cares for very deeply is dying. We all care about her. That’s why we’re here in the Islands. We’re trying to find the cure for her. It was important to Mor to stay with her and do everything he could to help her”—I hesitated—“because of his guilt over you. He knows he should have fought for you, and the regret and shame eat at him every moment. Everything he does for Gryfelle is what he so desperately wishes he’d done for you.”
Nothing about her expression changed. “He abandoned me.”
“But he’s found you now. He had heard you were dead. But he searched anyway. He came, hoping for a miracle. He wants to make right what went wrong four years ago.”
“Nothing can make that right.”
What else could I say to help her see? “Hope is not lost, Diggy.”
“It’s not?”
“No. At least I don’t think so.”
“Why?” She looked genuinely curious.
“Hope is never lost as long as you’re willing to fight for it. And I do think there is hope for you.”
Diggy paused like she might be considering it, really and truly. But then she shook her head. “Some ships are best left at the bottom of the ocean.”
Before I could stop her again, she swung up and away, out of my sight.
I took in a big breath. I had failed too. She would live like this the rest of her days, hating the world, hating Mor, and I almost couldn’t blame her. What she had endured was unfathomable.
But that was why she needed to be surrounded by people who loved her. Mor was right. We could be a new family for her.
As I stood there, feeling defeated and useless, Diggy’s shriek pierced the air. “What have you done?”
She appeared in the canopy, swinging from branches and vines, and dropped before me with an accusatory glare. “What have you brought here?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” I took a step back. “Our ship was wrecked. We’ve barely brought anything.”
“Wrecked by who?” Her gaze ripped through me.
“I . . . I don’t know. It was some kind of magic.” I hadn’t given enough thought to who was behind the dark strands, for all those roads seemed to be dead ends. It was an unusual sort of magic no one understood. “They were strands,” I told Diggy. “Like story strands, but warped, somehow.”
Diggy turned and sprinted toward the beach where Kawan and Mor still stood.
“Mor!” she yelled. “What have you done?”
He looked too startled to respond.
“Look!” She pointed.
Mor turned. Off in the distance, a giant thunderhead rolled along the ocean toward us. As I watched it, I realized it wasn’t a thunderhead. It was a colossal mass of strands, and they weren’t headed toward us. They were headed toward Kanac.
“What have you brought here?” Diggy stared at the roiling strands growing ever closer.
Mor’s face tightened. “We didn’t bring them, Diggy. Not on purpose, anyway.” He looked at me. “What do they want? They already sank the Cethorelle. Is it the cure they’re after?”
“Why would it be wanted?” I asked as I stared at the mass, bewildered. “They seem able to twist strands however they want without the help of the ancients.”
But then the memory of something Father had said struck me. “A weapon.” The threads of thought came together slowly in my mind, muddled by all my memory loss, no doubt. “Remember, Mor? Father said whoever is behind the strands is hunting us.”
“We have nothing for them anymore. Not even a vessel.”
“The weapon.” I whirled around toward Mor. “Us.”
“What?”
“Remember what my father said?” I gestured between us frantically. “We are the weapon. Whoever is behind this . . . just look at what he’s doing with these strands. They’re story strands, but twisted. He wants storytellers. Linked ones. He wants to use us to do more of that.” I pointed to the torrents of ill intent speeding over the waves.
“Cethor’s tears.”
The mass was too close for comfort. “Better start talking to the Creator instead.”
“We have to get back to Kanac.”
My heart tripped. “Father’s there.”
“And Gryfelle,” Mor whispered.
Kawan was already at the canoe, dragging it into the ocean. “My mother!”
That was all the prompting Diggy needed. She bolted down the beach. “I’m coming.” She spared Mor half a glance over her shoulder. “Well? Are you?”