Plant your seed for Glorian,
Give your kiss for El’Dorian,
Sing your song for Ordanus,
Strike your hammer for Alexandros,
Walk your trail for Pagetto,
Dig your grave for Treseano,
But for me it is Heskatan with her snorting horses,
And Markanos will guide me through battle’s courses,
And your love will fade, my dear, as my death takes me
And in the Nightwaters, all ten gods I’ll see.
Perhaps my Lieve sees the ten gods now, though his war was not with men but against an angry sea. Perhaps he’ll have seen which god bargained with me—Okeanos, most likely, as this is his temple.
When dawn creeps in, my bones ache from sitting on cold stone all night. To my surprise, Turbote is not with me.
I walk through Talasa like one in a dream, a lump in my throat for every scattered line of wood or stone I see where once there had been a dwelling, a rough exhale for walls toppled and wells filled with brackish seawater. In the top of one tree is a dead goat. They’ll have to climb to bring him down again.
I feel as though I am a ghost walking through my own land. My eyes skim over roofless houses and matchstick remains, unable to settle on just one loss under the bulk of so many.
I reach the docks—dry now and accessible—in time to find Turbote weeping.
Washed into shore at his feet are Lieve and Rasale and pieces of the wreckage of their boat. I barely recognize my beloved husband without the gleam of life in his eye. His fists grip a line so tightly that we must leave it in his hands. He did not surrender to the sea; it tore his life from him.
Rasale, Lieve’s crewmate, looks more peaceful. Perhaps he did not mind the last embrace of the waves. I linger over them, tasting bitter dregs in my mouth. Had I been just a few moments faster in my prayers, perhaps they would yet live. There is no sign of Carmante, who sailed with them. He did not make the journey back.
I do not need to look at my husband’s lifeless body to know he is gone. I have felt his absence keenly all night. I do not have to hold his empty corpse. I do not have to look once more into glassy eyes. I do not have to lay him out on the door we find blown off a dockside shed, or arrange his limbs, or tear fronds from those plants that survived to garland him.
I do not have to. But I do.
Which is how I miss seeing the first boat return.
Idosee Turbote, though. He is opposite me, where he has been doing for Rasale what I have done to honor Lieve. It’s when he freezes in horror that I know what has happened.
“Your Serene Majesty,” he chokes out.
Anyone can step on a dock. And with every boat and ship we had filled with people fleeing the storm and the floods, is it any wonder that in the distance I see craft upon craft bearing down upon us like migrating butterflies in a swarm?
But fastest among them, quickest to return to the fold, is not the fleet of rescuers promised by Andalappo. It’s not the rest of the council. Not a merchant boat’s ruddy-cheeked sailor or a huddling family clinging to one another.
Instead, a lone sailor in a tiny boat with a single sail—thename scrawled across the prow illegible in the peeling paint—ties his boat to the other end of the long pier.
I have never seen Turbote run. I’m not sure I’ve seenanyman of his age run. He tears down the pier screaming, waving his arms. The part of me who is watching all this thinks it’s almost funny. The part of me gently holding my dead husband’s hand thinks nothing will ever be funny.
Turbote makes it almost halfway. It’s a valiant attempt. But he does not succeed.
The survivors close to the pier, surprised to see Turbote sprinting, follow him, but even through the small crowd I see the moment the man—a fisherman, I’d guess, based on the nets hanging along the side of the boat—stumbles onto the pier. He’s either badly beaten or much the worse for drink. He can’t walk a straight line, and he falls into a quickly retreating Turbote as if embracing a long-lost relative.
Turbote shakes him off, and I get one glimpse of the man. His skin is sunburned. His hair an indistinct color slightly bleached by the sun and pulled back into a gnarled knot. He’s bearded. His clothing is ragged and hangs over his body in a way that makes it hard to tell his height or width. But he’s a man. And I suppose that means he’ll be my wedded husband soon enough.
Turbote is speaking loudly and with hands waving—likely explaining the situation to this man. He pays Turbote about as much mind as I usually do.
