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.
18
In Apharos on Phaôrax, the Empress surprised everyone by grieving nine days for the son she had never seemed to value while he was alive.
It was not a desperate grief, and not, perhaps, a very deep one, but it was human, and therefore a revelation to those around her. Sometimes, it appeared, the goddess within gave way to the woman and the mother.
The funeral ceremonies were elaborate. The entire court went into black, the women covering their faces with gauzy veils as though they had all been simultaneously widowed. Indeed, some of them had taken a tender interest in the gallant and handsome young Prince, a passion none had dared to express during his lifetime, considering he was more often than not out of his mother’s favor. While Ouriána herself spent most of her time brooding in an upper chamber, or else sitting in the throne room—dry-eyed, inscrutable, the tresses of her auburn hair coiling like serpents—a golden coffin (minus, of course, a body) was paraded through the streets, and rituals and additional sacrifices were performed each day inside the sprawling monstrosity that was the New Temple. At night torchlit processions trooped through the city, and the lights in the streets made patterns as complex and various as the Hidden Stars.