TANWEN
I fought for my voice. “Gryfelle, stop!”
Pale-green song strands swirled around Gryfelle, and only then did I realize she was singing. She didn’t seem to hear me or Mor shouting.
Lavender, powder blue, sunset pink, sunrise yellow. Wispy tendrils of melody flowed over Gryfelle’s body, and for a moment, her ashen skin, sunken cheeks, stringy hair, and skeletal form were replaced by what Gryfelle ought to have looked like. Young and rosy, with elegant, high cheekbones and piercing green eyes, pale-golden hair flowing down her back.
Her song strands glowed as she poured what remained of her life force into them. Brighter and brighter, until I could barely see her anymore. Then the glowing strands lifted her into the air. Up she rose, toward the haze of smoke penetrating deeper over the island.
“Gryfelle!” Mor’s cry was lost in Gryfelle’s song.
She lifted her arms around her and seemed to draw a deep breath. “I’m ready to do my part, at last. It is time to return home.” There was music in her words. Gryfelle lifted her face toward the sky.
A burst a hundred times as strong as whatever Diggy had created at the stone head pulsed over the whole island. The next thing I knew, Mor and I were down in the sand together. The force of a windstorm surrounded us. I heard a tree crack and topple. Mor clutched me close.
Shouts swirled, as if on the wind. Sand pelted my bare skin. I tucked my face into Mor’s chest to escape.
Another pulse rattled the earth. I closed my eyes against it. If we were about to die, I didn’t really want to see what it was, anyway.
But a moment passed, and I still felt my heart pounding. Mor’s arms held me. The wind was calm, the sand no longer showering us with stinging grains.
“Tannie!” I heard Father’s voice calling me frantically.
I forced myself up and blinked against the sudden brightness.
The mass of dark strands was gone. Several trees were downed, and about a hundred fronds littered the beach. Warmil slouched against Dylun, dark blood spreading over his side.
I pulled myself up and stumbled over to Father. “What happened? Is everyone all right?”
But of course everyone was not all right. And the moment I spoke it, I knew. I turned to look, and there she was.
Gryfelle’s body lay crumpled in a heap on the beach.
I pushed away from my father and ran toward her.
Mor, Karlith, and I reached her at the same time. I dropped to my knees in the sand. Tears choked my throat.
Karlith was crying, too, as she touched Gryfelle’s face. “Shh,” she whispered. “Be at peace now, my dear girl.”
Mor looked like he had taken a whole sheaf of arrows to the gut.
Karlith positioned Gryfelle so her limbs weren’t splayed strangely. So that she did look at peace. At long last.
“But—” My sobs overtook my words. “The cure. We have it. We have it!” I wanted to hurl curses at the blasted black swarm that had swallowed the time we needed to heal Gryfelle.
Karlith was stroking Gryfelle’s hair. “So beautiful she is.”
And she was. All traces of the curse had left her body. Gryfelle didn’t look haggard and ill anymore. She looked like herself—lovely, young, and perfect.
My heart broke into a dozen pieces. “We were supposed to save her.”
“She saved us instead,” Karlith said gently. She laid Gryfelle’s head back on the sand. “And if her sacrifice isn’t to be a waste, we need to go.”
“Why?” I stared out over the peaceful ocean. All signs of the black cloud were gone.
“It will be back, won’t it?” Karlith looked up at me. “They won’t retreat forever, and if I’m not mistaken, that’ll be the end of us all except you and Mor. I think you know they want to capture you.”
So she knew too. They would kill everyone else.
“Yes, Karlith. I know.”
“Tannie, if they catch you, they’ll use you just like in ancient times.”
“We won’t let that happen,” I said.
Karlith nodded. “Then we have to go.”
Mor was whiter than milk.
So I turned to Father. “Is the new ship ready yet?”
He held a hand over his heart and looked at Gryfelle’s body like it hurt him. But he had heard me. “Jule has been working on it, but I don’t know if the ship is ready to set sail yet.”
“Digwyn.” We all turned. Kawan was running down the beach toward us. “Diggy, you must go.”
Diggy looked at him sharply. “What is it?”
“You were seen. Recognized.” He glanced at the rest of us. “And they’re saying you brought it.”
“Brought what?”
“Whatever that was. The dark.”
Diggy’s eyes hardened. “And now they want to kill me. Again. Always.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t go back to my home. They will follow.”
“Yes.”
After a long moment, Diggy turned to Mor. “I guess I’m coming with you.”
Mor nodded. But not even Diggy joining us could bring joy back into his face.
“Warmil.” I looked at his wound. “Is it bad? Can you make it to the docks?”
“If Dylun helps me, I can make it.”
I was suddenly aware of the searing burns around my middle.
Karlith could help, but only if she had the supplies. I prayed Jule and the men had stocked the new ship well.
“And Aeron? Is she back in Narwat’s hut?”
Warmil closed his eyes and shook his head, still clutching his wound. “She’s with Jule and the crew. I thought to move her to the ship in case something went sideways.”
Good planning, that.
Father knelt beside Karlith. “I will carry Gryfelle.”
“Don’t forget this.” Zelyth jogged toward us, box in hand. “I think Tannie still needs it.”
I nearly had forgotten it—the cure we had traveled around the world to retrieve. I’d almost left it lying on some Kanaci beach without using it.
“Kawan.” Diggy looked up at him, and it was plain to see the friendship that passed between them. There was still something very human, very fragile about Digwyn En-Lidere, whatever she tried to make the rest of us believe.
“Good-bye, Dig.” He brushed her hair back, then kissed her on both cheeks, like they did in the Islands. “You will come see me someday.” He kissed her forehead.
She winced. Pulling away from this man—the only man she trusted—physically hurt her.
Father scooped up Gryfelle. “Let’s hurry.”
We ran as fast as we could manage, carrying our injury and death, dismay and heartbreak with us.