The maid sank into the dark tides and never resurfaced.
“Jonas.” Sander nudged my arm. “We’re ready.”
I detested the first half of the plan, but it was the only way to get through shore patrols and take the palace straightaway.
My mother hid her vibrant hair under a dark hood and stood beside Raum at the rail of the ship. Daggers were tied to both her legs, and she kept one in hand. Maj didn’t care for swords or heavier weapons; she preferred lighter weight to sneak and keep her hands free to use her mesmer.
My father only left my side for his wife. He took her face in his hands, drawing her close. “Meet your marks, Mallie.”
“Always.” She kissed him, fingers around his tunic, then whispered, “Fight to the end.”
“Fight to the end,” rumbled down the longship, catching wind through the others until the sea was a dark declaration that battles would be won tonight or we would meet to laugh and dine with the gods in the Otherworld.
Sander embraced my mother briefly. I looked to the deck for a pause, despising farewells.
Wars of childhood deepened my fears of loss to the point of debilitation, but even then I could not stomach the fear of a last goodbye.
There will always be another hello, even if it is in the Otherworld. No one ever truly leaves. Words from Silas, one of the fae kings, had soothed me as a boy.
I clung to them now when my mother waited for me to meet her gaze.
I bested my mother in height long ago, and it did not ease the disquiet when she felt so small in my embrace.
“We will find her,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes, throat thick with emotion. “You remember the path through the wood? And what to say if any treetop folk stop you? Then the palace?—”
“Jonas.” She pulled back and clasped my hands. “I know my marks.”
I glanced down. “Be safe, Maj.”
She stepped to the rail, Raum and Ash at her side. My mother pressed a hand to her heart, a silent declaration to her men that she loved us.
“At first sight,” Daj grumbled, a heaviness to his own voice.
Raum gave a meager salute.
There wasn’t another word before my mother, Ash, and Raum dove into the tides. Nightseer only hissed once or twice at lingering merfolk to leave them be and watched through the clouds of darkness.
Ten breaths, twenty, time dragged on.
At long last, with a soft hum, Nightseer faced my father. “They be on land.”
The king propped his foot on the rail, looking through the shadows of his own mesmer. “Then we wait for her call.”
The first mark was set.
We were too close to the isle to shout commands lest we signal the elven we were here. Signals were passed across the longships through lanterns and hand gestures hidden behind the unnatural mesmer shadows.
As the word spread, the glide of steel against leather sounded over the sea.
I faced the shore.We’re here, Fire.
Time was the cruelest foe of all. Endless pockets of nothing, only the gentle lap of the sea against the hull of our ships was heard. My fingers ached on one hand from clinging to the hilt of my black steel short blade without rest, and my other from keeping my fist clenched.
Sander knelt by the rail, watching the endless darkness. My father kept to the stempost, unmoving, silent, waiting.
Beautiful thoughts of my wife kept me lucid and grounded when fears of what might be happening to her clawed at my mind.
