I stumbled, turned, stared out at the cove’s entrance. I could hear it clearly now.
The rising tide.
Gripping the knife harder, I sawed frantically at my gag. It soon came away, and I pitched it onto the sand. But there was still a rope looped tight around my ankles. I squatted, my pulse pounding heavily in my skull, and as I got to work on it, another noise reached my ears: the first greatboomagainst the rocks outside the cove.
My palm was burning with the motion of the knife. The rope resisted, frayed, then began to come apart.
Anotherboom.I glanced up, saw the first fountains of surf.
Then steel-gray water came barrelling down the gorge.
Funnelled by the bay, and now the cove’s twisting entrance, the Waking Tide raced in like a horse at full gallop.
I barely had time to cut through the rest of the rope before the trough of the next wave fanned out around me, white veined and frothing. I was misted with spray. I staggered back, saw the next wave already rearing, but knew I should steer clear of those jagged cliff walls…I could be dashed against them, knocked senseless. And drowned.
The wave loomed, made monstrous by the gorge ahead of me. I braced myself, and a second later, it crashed down, knocking me from my feet, sweeping me with it. I caught a fleeting glimpse of Rexim’s broad silhouette, the wide eyes of the siblings, the still-murky sky, before I was under, bitter salt filling my mouth, my eyes stinging and my body seizing with the cold.
I was a strong swimmer—all trained Floodmouths were—but this was a far cry from the practice pools at Arbenhaw. I broke the surface, flailing in a desperate dog paddle, but the dark water was rising, bearing me toward the cliffs. Rather than take the next wave head-on, I ducked under, my body lurching with the current.
At last, a single thought broke through:You have to get hold of yourself. You have todosomething.
“Please,” I choked, bubbles streaming from my mouth. “Still your waves. Grant me passage.”
But it was laughable to think the tide would heed me, with my panic spilling over, consuming me completely. It was stubborn, belligerent, a bull charging its fences. And I couldn’t shake that overwhelming sense of its immensity. By comparison, I was a fly buzzing at the bull’s ears.
Frantically I surfaced, took a huge, gulping breath, then sankagain, preferring the muted buffeting underwater. I squeezed my eyes shut, tried to conjure my red ball of panic, but all I kept picturing were the Shearwaters’ faces. Vercha’s wide smile. My own messy demise.
With a wrench, I forced myself to picture Zennia’s face. But already, even though I’d seen her only a month ago, it was fuzzier at the edges; I couldn’t bring her into focus. I was adrift here, in this wild, lonely place. Cast out like a fishing line, but never to be reeled back in.
Another wave broke then, tossing me backward. Stone scraped my spine, and I cried out in pain. With the next wave, I knew I’d be flung against the cliff face.
Again I braced myself. This time for my death.
But then I felt a sort of…ceasing. Not in the raging sea around me but in my own mind. My body. A shutting-down of sorts.
I would die here—I was as certain of that as of the sunrise—and that was all right. There was nothing I could do. And because I was powerless to change my fate, surely there was no point agonizing aboutit?
A memory came to me. Zennia’s face, clearer now. The first time she taught me the calming trick, explained to me how she pictured her emotions. We’d been paired off in one of Caerig’s classes, and as usual, the Instructor had showed no mercy. I’d panicked, convinced this was the day my mask slipped and Caerig saw the turmoil that churned withinme.
I remembered Zennia’s whispers as we treaded water in the pool, our blouses ballooning, our hair slick against our faces.
“Mine looks like a hole ripped into a piece of paper. I repair it, bit by bit, until there’s just the tiniest tear…”
I swayed in the tide’s current, waiting for the next wave, content that my friend’s face would be the last one I saw—and as I sensed the growing swell, my red ball popped into being.
In this new, serene acceptance of my end, the ball was smaller, wavering. Pinkish, like a sunset. Curious, I prodded at it. Shrunk it to an acorn. Then I cracked my eyes and lips open and said, “Please.”
The wave looming above me paused, teetering right on the edge of breaking. With my panic now tempered, the tide seemed to belistening, though I got the sense this was a begrudging reprieve. It shrunk a little, then shattered, shoving me back toward the cliff. I still impacted hard against the wall behind me, my clothes snagging, my bare limbs bruising, but I was able to cling onto an outcrop of rock.
I tried to dampen any jubilation—joy, relief: they were still emotions, they could still hamper my plea, turn the tide back against me—but the sea’s rage ramped up again almost immediately, the next building wave looking to be the biggest yet. Hastily, I concentrated on climbing. One hand, one foot, onehaulat a time.
A wave smashed into the rock face, barely missing me, its spray stinging my grazed knees and calves. Turning, I risked a glance out at the cove. The water was furious, its waves head-high and merciless, climbing the cliff face almost as fast as I was. I forced myself upward, my muscles on fire.
It took what seemed an inexorably long time, but I finally neared the lip of the steep wall. I was well above the tide now—it had risen to its peak—but the pain from the scrapes on my hands and feet, the burning in my arms, tipped beyond unbearable, and I slipped, my body swinging out over the drop.
A brisk gust of wind, strong as a hand on my back, blasted into me, nudging me back against the wall. A fortuitous sea breeze, I guessed as I clung there. More powerful up here, without the shelter of the cove.
Finally, arduously, I flung a hand up over the cliff. An arm appeared, enrobed in velvet, and heaved me upward, seeing me safely over the edge.
