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.