The rescue party, muddy, disheartened, and weary after three days wandering, came out of the fens, leading their horses, and walked into a world of wind and empty sky, so flat and featureless it might have been the world unmade and waiting to be created again. To the east and west, there was only silt and sand, unmarked except for occasional bird tracks. To the south the salt flats ended at a glittering sheet of water.
For a time nobody spoke; the sickening sense of failure was simply too great. All possibility of fulfilling their avowed task—to delay Winloki’s captors until King Ristil and his army might arrive—came to an end at the sea. The Necke was a barrier the King and his riders would never cross, not while half of Skyrra remained in Eisenlonder hands.
Sindérian was the first to break the silence. “Camhóinhann and the rest can’t fly to Phaôrax; neither can they swim.” Though her words were clearly intended to encourage the others, she spoke in a dull voice, entirely lacking the vitality and determination Prince Ruan had come to expect of her. “There may be news of them somewhere along the coast. Let us at least make certain they are no longer on Skyrran soil.”
They mounted and rode east into that vast emptiness, while a bitter-tasting wind off the sea tried to blow them back into the marsh. Sometimes they splashed through shallow saltwater creeks running inland; sometimes they could hear the muted roar of the sea, faint but threatening, like thunder heard at a distance.
In the afternoon they came into a village: about twenty houses gathered together on two crooked streets, and another half-dozen straggling along the beach. Most were only driftwood shacks, but a few of the better sort were of wattle and daub with seashells showing through the plaster. In Ruan’s experience, the great cities, the larger towns, they each had their distinctive character whether you travelled north, south, east, or west, but coastal villages were much the same everywhere. He saw little to distinguish this one from hundreds like it on Thäerie and Leal. There was even a ramshackle pier staggering out into the water, and a slatternly little tavern with a starfish tacked up over the door. He saw no boats, not even a sail on the horizon, but then, at this hour the fishing boats would be about their business far from shore.
Hunger and a desire for news drew the weary travellers inevitably toward the alehouse. Once through the door, the interior was smoky and unwholesome, so small that half of the riders chose to sit outside on the porch instead. The host served a surprisingly good thick soup, along with beakers of a dark local brew tasting strongly of seaweed, which made a satisfying meal. And before he moved on with his pitcher of ale, he regaled the princes and Sindérian with a tale that had been amazing people up and down this stretch of coast for the past three days: how some odd-looking foreigners had been seen in the town of Havneby thirty miles away, how a fine, large fishing boat had disappeared that same night, all of which had been followed by a mysterious gift of thirty-five riderless horses the townsfolk discovered grazing in their gardens or running wild on the beach the following morning.
“But why a fishing boat?” Kivik exchanged a bewildered glance with Skerry across the scarred plank table. “I always thought they would have a ship of their own waiting for them. If they are planning to sail to Phaôrax—”
“They have no such intention,” said Ruan. “They will be travelling overland most of the way, as they did before—although this time almost certainly not through the coastal principalities.” He took out his knife, began sketching out a map on the table. “The waters along Weye and Hythe are full of warships they won’t want to meet. And no one ventures into the empty reaches of the Thäerian Sea—or at least, no one has tried in more than a century. Those waters are known to be deadly perilous.”
Skerry turned toward Sindérian with a hopeful look. “Given luck and ingenuity, you said, a small party might do what a greater force could not—that is still true, isn’t it?”
She sat at the end of the bench, a little apart from the men, with her rough crockery bowl of soup untouched and an air of not listening to anything they said. But when directly addressed, she flushed and answered in a low, intense voice. “Yes. There was never much chance to begin with, yet what chance there was, it was never a matter of numbers.”
“But we have to be there to take advantage of any favorable circumstances that might arise,” Skerry insisted, leaning across the table to speak to her. “We have to be there—just in case.”
Her dark, abstracted gaze flickered briefly in his direction and then away. “I can’t advise you what to do. I hardly feel qualified to choose for myself.” Which was, in Ruan’s opinion, an answer so uncharacteristic as to alert every instinct for trouble he possessed.
He had watched her grow increasingly silent, increasingly remote, these last few days, and he thought that killing the Eisenlonder perhaps weighed on her mind. Sometimes he had seen her lips move, shaping words he could neither hear nor quite make out despite his keen eyes and quick ears. At other times she would shake her head emphatically, as if holding some internal debate. And if Sindérian in one of her stubborn, reckless moods gave him ample reason to fear for her safety, to see her so subdued as she was now was absolutely hair-raising. Wizards, to Ruan’s way of thinking, were all a little mad—his ten years of tutoring by Elidûc notwithstanding—and healers were the worst by far, liable at any moment to turn volatile and emotional and self-destructive.
Skerry, however, did not seem to notice anything amiss. “Our minds are already made up: Kivik and I will be continuing on. We made a vow before we left Tirfang that we would do everything in our power to rescue or avenge Winloki. If Ouriána’s priests had chosen to sail to Phaôrax…” He shrugged and made a wry face. “Well, there is no saying what we would have done, or tried to do. Something foolish, in all likelihood, for we know no more of ships and the sea than we do of wizardry. But you say they will be travelling most of the way by land, and that at least is something we know how to do.”
“To the land’s end and no farther, that is what my father said before we left,” added Kivik. “Which is why we never told him, Skerry and I, of the oath that we swore between us. But that vow binds no one but ourselves; I can’t in good conscience ask any of my men to continue on, not when the King has ordered otherwise. And by what you say, five may do as much, or as little, as a larger company might. That is—I suppose there will be five of us?”
“Our way lies south in any case,” Ruan said absently, half of his attention still on Sindérian. “And unless you can find a fisherman willing to take you across the Necke, you’ll need someone with you who knows how to sail a boat.” Then the Ni-Féa part of him flared up, and his eyes kindled. “Nor do I have it in me to refuse a challenge.”
Sindérian’s response was a long time coming. Almost, Ruan thought, as if she were afraid of saying too much. “I will follow Winloki, too,” she finally answered in a colorless voice. “Wherever that takes me.”
Evening brought the fishermen home, two or three boats at a time. If the Furiádhin had been reduced to stealing a boat, that was not to be the case with the King of Skyrra’s own son. Once word spread of Kivik’s presence at the alehouse, nearly every boat in the village was offered for sale, “if the Prince would deign to look at it.” Fortunately, he had carried a pouch of amber and ivory coins in his saddlebags ever since Lückenbörg, and having had little occasion to dip into it since, he could afford to pay a fair price and still retain a sufficient amount for the journey ahead.
But the actual choice of a boat he left to Ruan and Aell. While they made their final selection and paid out a handful of his coins, he and Skerry said farewell to his men. Orri and the rest had insisted they would accompany their prince to the ends of the earth if he should ask; nevertheless, they were all of them obviously relieved when he refused them.
In the confusion of their departure, Sindérian found an opportunity to slip away and wander along the shore beyond the houses, still debating within herself.
My fault, she thought. Without me, everyone would have made it out of the marshes days ago. Why didn’t I warn them I was under a curse? And how can I possibly justify continuing to expose them to my danger?
Ahead of her, the last level rays of sunlight turned the beach to dull silver; driftwood lay scattered above the tideline like the runes of some forgotten spell. Yet even as she watched the little green waves come in with a hiss and go out again, dragging sand with them, she was keenly aware of other, invisible tides that would shape the rest of her journey.
The power she feared most was ebbing as the moon diminished, but it was still formidable. And who was she to set her own limited experience against Ouriána’s will, linked as it was to the primal forces of the sea? Indeed, where was safety, where was refuge for anyone, if Ouriána could subvert the very elements?
With the inner Sight, she saw her own death in a hundred different guises: crushed under stones, shattered by a fall, strangled in her own hair—so vivid was that image, Sindérian put a hand to her throat—but most of her deaths involved drowning. She could see herself sinking, sinking through fathoms of clear green water, the surface of the sea like a shining roof overhead. She could see her own bones lying on the sandy ocean floor.
The sea flicked out a narrow tongue and licked at her boots. At the same time, she felt something nudge at her mind, the very lightest touch. Startled, and then alarmed, she gathered up her skirts and backed away from the water.
But the second time Faolein’s voice spoke more clearly. Sindérian swung around, her head tilted to the skies and her heart lifted at the sight of a single pair of dark wings speeding over the marshes, coming closer and closer with every wing-beat. When he was over the beach, the sparrowhawk began descending in a long, beautiful glide. Then she felt the familiar prickle of his talons as he landed on her upraised arm.
I bring greetings from King Ristil, he said. He hopes that his son will understand why he was unable to keep his end of the bargain. When I last saw him, he was in the midst of a skirmish with Eisenlonder settlers.
Sindérian received this information without surprise; it was no more or less than what she had expected since encountering all of those new settlements along the way.
Turning back toward the village, she gave him a brief account of what they had learned in the alehouse, what the princes planned to do next. She had wandered farther down the beach than she had realized, until the village was only a dark smudge against a sky that looked like it had been powdered with gold leaf. She had a long trudge back in the loose sand; even so, she did not tell her father everything that was on her mind.
There was no need, for he sifted through her words with uncanny precision, swiftly drawing his own conclusions from what she had not said. You have no intention of going with the others. You intend to find your own way across the channel—alone.
Reluctantly, Sindérian admitted it. And once she confessed to that much, the rest came out in a rush, everything she had been concealing since they were wrecked on the coast: the aniffath—the ill luck she carried with her—the revelation that came to her while she was wandering through the marshes. This time she held nothing back. But if she meant to unburden herself, there still remained a cold lump of guilt and fear. My company will be even more perilous in a boat out on the water. Unless I am much mistaken, Prince Kivik and Lord Skerry can’t swim a stroke.
The hawk walked up her arm to perch on her shoulder. I wish you had told me these things before. Such matters are—complex. An aniffath is not like any other curse: it grows and changes, reaches out to engulf others for whom it was never intended. By this time we are all of us almost certainly hopelessly enmeshed.
Sindérian caught her breath, came to a sudden stop. My fault, then, for keeping silent. At the very least, I might have saved the Skyrran princes.
Do you think you could have dissuaded them from accompanying you, whatever you said? her father asked gently. And Prince Ruan, what would he have done? How long will you pretend not to know what he feels for you? He would never allow you to face this danger alone. As for the curse: that came about through no fault of your own. What were you to Ouriána before we left Leal? There can be little doubt we have Thaga to blame that she even knows you exist, and if I had not been supposed dead, her curse would have fallen on me. Think of that, when you feel inclined to blame yourself for anything that has happened.
The knot in her chest began to unclench; her breathing came a little easier. How comforting it would be to believe what he told her! But it was always his way to think and hope for the best, hers to question and doubt.
Faolein swiveled his head around to look her in the face. The hawk’s fierce yellow stare was nothing like the mild glance of the wizard. And suddenly she found herself wondering, as she had not wondered for many months, what changes he had experienced during that time they were apart after Saer. What had he seen and known when Thaga unmade his body and cast his spirit out into eternity, in these moments between unmaking and transformation? We are caught in a web of Ouriána’s weaving, and we can’t break free. But while she has chosen the threads and selected the pattern, be sure of this: hers is not the only hand on the shuttle: she may not be the one who determines the ultimate design. She has not grown so great that the stars or the seasons obey her; they are not hers and never will be. And there are other sorceries in the world, forces more potent than any our enemy knows or commands. Become their instrument.
If you wish to save the others, Sindérian, you can’t be like the weathercock, changing your direction with every wind. Be the lightning rod instead. At the very least you can draw the danger away from our friends—at the best, you may take the power and direct it where you will.
Long before midnight, they had loaded up the boat with supplies they bought in the village, and by the time the tide turned in the small hours, they were ready to depart.
“I was beginning to think you would not be coming with us,” said Prince Ruan when he looked up from his place in the boat to see Sindérian standing on the pier, her face blazing like the moon.
She swung over the side, landed softly in the boat beside him. “You are the one who always had doubts,” she replied, flashing him a bright, challenging smile. “I’ve always believed that chance or the Fates would throw some opportunity in our way. Why should I think any differently now?”
Why indeed? thought Ruan, watching her take a seat near the bow, while the hawk landed on the gunwale beside her. The change in her was remarkable: all the color and light restored to her face; her eyes clear and confident. Yet, there was a steely edge to her smile, a hard brightness to her glance he had never seen there before. He would have given much to know what had passed between her and Faolein on her father’s return.
Kivik and Skerry boarded next, one after the other, making valiant (but unsuccessful) attempts to hide their trepidation. Observing how they unconsciously flinched at every slight dip and roll, Ruan could only hope that neither would be sick once they reached rougher water.
Aell loosed the rope and leaped into the boat; then he and Ruan took up the oars. For a time all was silent except for the gentle slap of water against the hull, the splash of oars breaking the surface. When the village was only a faint, dark blur in the distance, Ruan took charge of the tiller while Aell put up the weatherbeaten sail. They sailed for what remained of the night, always with a light, following wind.
Morning dawned wet and misty grey, though the fog burned off quickly and they continued on at a good clip for many hours over the sunlit waves. A meal of cold fowl, hard biscuits, and seaweed-flavored ale put heart into everyone, and as no one, so far, had shown any disposition toward seasickness, it began to look as if the the voyage would be a short and uneventful one.
But in the early afternoon, more ominous signs began to appear. Clouds began to boil up on the horizon; the wind increased and the light darkened. Gulls whirled overhead, caught in the vortex of the air.
Even so, the storm caught them unprepared, it hit so suddenly and with such force. Within minutes, the wind was screaming in their ears. Rains lashed at them, and greater and greater waves battered the hapless little boat. No natural storm could possibly have moved so swiftly. There was barely time to take down the sail.
Struggling with the rudder to hold a steady course, Ruan tried to pierce the curtain of rain up ahead. But it was too dense, like a solid wall of falling water; even the far-seeing eyes of the Faey could not penetrate it. The boat reeled, now leaning so far to one side that it seemed she would capsize, then tipping the other way. With every wave that washed over her, with the weight of water that she had already taken on, he thought that she must surely sink. He believed it was only the will of the two wizards that had kept her afloat so long.
Sindérian stood upright in the bow, shouting back at the wind; how she maintained her balance, he did not know, nor how she kept from being flung over the side. At one point, Ruan saw Faolein fighting the air and almost being blown away, before finally landing on his daughter’s shoulder. Poor Skerry had finally succumbed to seasickness; he was down on hands and knees retching helplessly into the bottom of the boat. Aell and Kivik were frantically bailing.
Giving up his battle with the rudder, Ruan went to help them. Once or twice, he looked back toward Sindérian to see how she was faring. Her hair was streaming with water, the green cloak clung to her like seaweed; she looked more like a mermaid than anything belonging to the land. He thought he could hear her chanting the same lledrion over and over, and had just enough knowledge of the Old Tongue to guess what she was doing: not trying to command the elements but wooing them, not adding to the turmoil with a counterspell but trying to create a safe passage within the storm.
The boat bucked and rolled; she fell into a trough between the waves and hit the water with stunning force. Between the hammer of the wind and the anvil of the sea, it seemed they would all be flattened. Somehow they stayed afloat. In between singing her lledrion to court the elements, Sindérian must have been working spells to keep the boat from breaking up.
But by now she must be hoarse with shouting, exhausted with her efforts to bring them safely through; Ruan doubted she could keep it up much longer.