Prisoner (The Scarred Mage of Roseward #2) - Sylvia Mercedes Page 0,115

. .”

Somewhere far away, a chortling voice sang out in the darkness.

Nelle froze. Then her head slowly raised, her eyes slowly widened.

Had she mistaken it? Had she dreamed it? Had she—

The song repeated. A little louder, an answer to the first call.

“Wyverns!” she gasped.

The next moment, she scrambled back onto the bench and grabbed hold of the oars. Guessing at the direction, she stuck one oar into the water, heaved the boat around, and rowed. The splash was too loud, too frenetic. She forced herself to slow, to pause, to listen again.

There it was. A third song. Faint but distinct.

Adjusting course slightly, Nelle set to with a will. She ignored the pain in her side, the many lacerations across her skin, even the panic rising inside her, telling her not to believe it, not to hope. She couldn’t help herself. She did hope. Desperately, fiercely.

Soon the air was full of wyvern song, and she spied flitting shapes overhead. “I see you!” she cried, her voice frenetic with sudden joy. “I see you, you spittin’ beauties, you! I see you!”

Had the little spell beasts ventured out into the Hinter, straining against their bindings in search of their master? Or perhaps the terms of their imprisonment bound them to him and not to Roseward!

Either way, they had come. She followed them, followed their song while the dreadful blindness of Noxaur gave way to the darkness of an overcast night. Now and then the clouds parted, offering her glimpses of stars and even a little sliver of moonlight.

Then it wasn’t dark at all. Dawn broke on the horizon, spilling light out across the water in ripples of pink and gold almost too beautiful to bear. Shading her eyes, Nelle turned on her seat. There was Roseward, much closer than she’d realized. She saw the lighthouse high on its cliff and the little stretch of beach where she’d first met the scarred mage. Dozens of wyverns circled overhead, singing and chortling and burbling the most beautiful song she had ever, ever heard.

Strength revived, Nelle guided the boat up onto the beach, glorying in the moment the prow crunched against sand and stone. She leaped out and dragged the boat as far she could, which wasn’t far at all due to Soran’s added weight and her own exhaustion. Then she staggered a few paces until her legs simply folded up, and she collapsed in the surf. Water lapped around her knees and calves, drenching the folds of Soran’s borrowed robe. She sat for some while, breathing, shivering, weeping perhaps, and laughing as well.

At last she forced herself upright and staggered to her feet. Soran. She couldn’t leave him in that boat, wounded and unconscious. She had to get him out. Maybe she could run up to the lighthouse, find a bottle of qeiese stashed away somewhere? That ought to be strong enough to revive him. Or maybe she could—

“Ginger?”

Nelle whirled, staring along the stretch of beach. The rising sun cast a harsh glare off the water and into her eyes, so she raised a shading hand and squinted. A shadowy outline approached—tall, rangy, and familiar.

“Ginger, is that you? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“Sam!” she cried.

Soran lay in blood-soaked darkness. This was the end. It must be. He’d collapsed before completing the spell, and the Thorn Maiden would be swift to finish him off.

So why did this not quite feel like death?

Granted, he didn’t know exactly what to expect from death. The darkness felt about right, and it made sense that pain would follow him into the afterlife. If the seven gods were just, as theologians claimed, his eternal end ought to be one of pain. His crimes were numerous enough.

She’s clever.

Soran stiffened. The sickly-sweet redolence of the Thorn Maiden filled his nostrils. He couldn’t see her in this darkness, but her nearness, her hovering presence, oppressed him. Had she followed him into this pain-filled afterlife? Would she be his eternal torment? Could he never escape her, even in death? His soul quailed at the thought. If this was hell, it was a just hell . . . cruelly just.

Don’t whimper so. Her voice hissed in his ear like the sound of a hundred leaves slithering against one another. You’re not dead. You’re asleep. And I am bound yet again.

What? No. No, this must be some strange form of torment. He knew better than to grasp at such a foolish hope. He had failed to complete the binding; of that he was sure. And there