Tide - By Daniela Sacerdoti Page 0,74

caught a glimpse of her arms. They’re purple with little bruises. She’s even been pinching herself in the effort to stay awake.

Sarah couldn’t read any more. She walked to the window, her arms folded, and looked out to the sea. It seemed to her that the salty waters were the tears that Mairead must have cried in that very room.

Low, ghostly music had started seeping up from downstairs. Sarah knew it was Niall playing, but to Sarah those were Mairead’s trembling fingers touching the keys in a song of sorrow.

“What happened to you, Mairead?” she whispered, closing her eyes.

And then she gasped, forcing herself not to jump, not to move, not to scream, as she felt a hand run down her hair, lift a lock of it, gently, and then another, and small, cold fingertips caressing her cheeks with infinite tenderness.

As quickly as she appeared, she was gone, leaving Sarah wondering if she’d dreamt it after all.

A short while later, Nicholas came looking for her. “I think Mairead was in my room,” Sarah whispered in his ear as they lay entangled on her bed.

“Was she?”

Sarah raised her eyebrows. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“Of course not. When the body goes, the spirit remains. For a while.”

“She touched my cheeks, and my hair,” murmured Sarah.

“Oh yes, I can see it. Look. She braided it.” Nicholas lifted a plaited lock from the back of Sarah’s head.

Sarah held the loose black braid in her hand, bewildered.

Come back, Mairead. Come back and speak to me.

“Who’s Martyna?” Sarah asked suddenly. The question had been whirling in her mind since Nicholas’s nightmare. She had to know. But she hadn’t planned to ask him quite so abruptly.

Nicholas’s face fell, and she could see a host of painful memories shaping his features into a mask of regret. “How do you know about her?”

“You said her name in your dreams last night. Is it … another girl?”

Nicholas resumed his usual calm demeanour, stroking Sarah’s cheek, and then her hair. He was back in control. “Yes. A girl I loved once. But she died.”

“She died? Oh, I’m so sorry.” Then a lingering question. She had to ask. “Was it the Surari?”

“Yes.” He looked at her intently. “It was the Surari.”

It was me.

“I’m so sorry,” repeated Sarah.

I’m so sorry, Martyna.

37

Darkness

In death is freedom

Alone in his room, his eyes once more on the sea and the sky, Nicholas listened to the whispers and screams in his mind. He knew another attack was imminent, and he knew it would be the deadliest yet. He couldn’t even trust his ravens anymore. The Elementals didn’t show him any loyalty now. He knew that any decision about the fate of Sarah’s friends was out of his hands, and that it was only a matter of time before the King of Shadows demonstrated the terrible extent of his powers. Juliet had been just the beginning – only Nicholas and Sarah were supposed to come back from Islay.

Even though everything he knew and understood was shifting, Nicholas was sure about what would happen in the next few days – he knew how his father worked. The Surari would be instructed to spare him and Sarah, and to kill everyone else, as was the original plan. Then he would be punished for having strayed, a punishment much worse than having his face pecked and scratched by his Elementals. So much worse – his thundering headache told him that. A taste of the brain fury. Enough of a warning.

But he would not be killed.

Not unless he betrayed his father’s trust.

Nicholas had never believed that there could be any other option for him but to obey his father. But after all that had happened, he could see it now. There had been a choice all along. He could decide that he didn’t want to be his father’s puppet anymore. He could lift the fog that was still blocking Sarah’s gift and allow her and the other Dreamers with her to dream again. Then they’d all know what was about to happen.

Nicholas put his head in his hands. The King of Shadows had terrible ways to kill his enemies. Would he be pecked to death by Spirits of the Air, drowned by Spirits of the Water, suffocated by Spirits of the Earth, consumed by Spirits of Fire? If all those failed – and they might because Nicholas was, after all, very powerful, and he would fight for his life – the Surari would intervene. And if by some weird occurrence the Surari failed to