of gold buried again, the dirt packed down hard and smooth, he said, “What now?”
“We wait,” said Kare, “and we choose our story. I think it best that I never had a niece. None of our neighbors have seen her. A brawl, insulting words, and he ran storytelling for spite.”
Her calm imagination did nothing to lighten his dread. He thought of the stake in Traitorsquare, the grizane’s shadow-hidden eyes, the cold look of Andiene when she spoke of Nahil, her enemy, her kin.
“What then?” he asked.
“We wait, to see if they will believe us.”
Chapter 5
Andiene turned from the light and warmth of the fisherman’s cottage to follow the harsh whisper that clawed at her mind. “Come, come,” it called. It was dry like the scurry of rats running over dead leaves. It crackled like the flames that devour the kindling twigs. It was filled with power like the wildfire that runs across the summer-dry plains.
She had fought it so long. She had hidden from it. Now, there seemed no more reason to fight against it.
She picked her way down the narrow sea-cliff path, a rock and dirt trail irregularly stepped with stones. The storm blinded her with wind-driven rain. The rocks were wet and slippery. The air was cold and numbed her fingers. But there was no room in her for fear.
It was so much easier to go where she was led, not to question, not to fight. Though she stumbled in the soft sand, she rose and went on. Waves washed against her and retreated, eating the sand from under her feet. She did not even notice when her hand unclenched itself and let the two ringstones fall into the sea.
A boat bobbed nearby, moored to a rock. The water was deeper there. Andiene caught at the rope to hold herself up, as a wave broke over her head. The salt stung her eyes and blurred her vision like the tears she had never shed. She blinked to try to clear her eyes, as she looked up to the high cliff. Flames leaped up like a beacon fire, and the men moving at cliff top were outlined darkly against the light.
The knot that tethered the boat to the rock had been tied strongly and well; Andiene’s hands were too weak. She tore at the rope with her teeth, a musty taste on her tongue like clothes laid in a damp chest. The torchlights were halfway down the cliff path before the knot gave way.
Then she climbed clumsily over the side of the boat; it dipped and swayed under her weight. She knelt in it, hardly knowing what she did. When she turned and looked back, the fire and torchlights were farther away, slipping still more quickly away.
Though Andiene knew then that she was in the grip of strong magic, she had had no dealings with the sea, so she did not know how fearful it seemed to those on shore who saw a boat with no sail, no oars, slip to sea against the tide.
She huddled in the boat, the dimming firelight behind her, the open sea before her. “No land to the west,” the minstrels had sung. “No land till they came to the edge of the world, the endless waterfall.” Still, the boat steered itself to the west, and she was not afraid. She did not think she had come so far from that blood-stained courtyard to die on the open sea.
The storm cleared. Bright-night was upon the land again, and long threads joined the stars in webs more complex than the lace she had knotted for Kare. Wheels within wheels, intersecting, overlapping—she stared until she could almost understand the pattern. She had not often seen the stars, for her nurse had guarded her carefully. At last, she slept.
The sunrise woke her, dazzling her with more gold than would be found in any king’s hoard or dragon’s cave. She looked north, east, south, west, and saw nothing but light gleaming from the waves.
A great sea-hawk, gliding far above, saw her, closed his wings, and plummeted toward her, claws spread as wide as a man’s long fingers. In the moment before he reached her, he saw that he had found no fish. The great leathery wings beat and spread, and slowly he lifted himself into the air again. He hung above her all the day long, his shadow passing over her as he circled the wide sea winds.
Night came, and the sky patterns were not so perfect. The