I look at the talisman for the first time in what feels like forever. I remember the cold of the stone as Larkin slipped the pendant over my head, where it rests in the groove of my clavicle, warmed by my skin. A symbol to the world that we belonged to each other. Twin crescents on our necks.
‘It reminds me of your father.’
I see the quiver of the lip, the angry tears welling in her eyes. Soon she’s sobbing and clutching at my waist. She’s still a child. Sheconducts herself in such strange, otherworldly ways that I forget this sometimes.
‘I’m sorry, I know this is hard. But listen, when we get to the mainland, I need to find someone who can help me. Maybe we can find someone who can help you too?’
She stares up at me and then lets go. ‘Others like me? Not at the temple?’
I bind the loose strands of my hair as I consider. ‘Most of them are there. I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard of others who have – powers like you.’
A glimpse of her hopeful sunshine smile parting through the grief clouds. She’s showing me her soft underbelly.
Fetch whines and scratches at the door to the cottage. I reluctantly open it and he comes bounding it, covered in dirt and happier than anyone on the farmstead.
‘Couldn’t keep him away for long. He knows something’s happening,’ Vullis says patting the dog on his head. Biba kneels, wrapping her arms around Fetch’s neck. I’ve tried to discourage coddling the working dog but even I can’t grudge her this.
I see Ryla and Kopiro crest a nearby hill laden with bags. They set them down near the barn and come over to greet us.
‘Are you sure you can manage?’ I ask, looking at their weather-worn faces.
Ryla smiles and looks to Kopiro. ‘We separated but we can still stand the idea of sharing a home.’
‘It’s a lot of work on top of your own businesses,’ I insist.
‘We’ll make arrangements,’ Kopiro says, giving me a reassuring look. ‘You’ve got other things to worry over.’
They’re right. I can’t put this off any longer. I’m touched they’ve all come to see me off. Truly, I underestimated how the years canbind you for life. We have been witnesses to each other’s loves, heartbreaks, and losses. Small flames of hope extinguished and reignited. Family legacies weighing like anchors around our necks. They held me when Larkin abandoned us. I wailed in the night as I cried and exorcised everything from my body. They would fight for what is mine, would protect Biba with their lives.
The farmstead looks so small from the Alev port. I can’t believe I’ve spent the majority of my life, on this same patch of land. When I was a child the stone buildings always looked so imposing, the sheep such beasts. It didn’t seem that way when I came back, Biba growing inside me. A little wrinkle by my father Jon’s eye, a slackening of the skin under Father Nimu’s chin. When Larkin and I came here, I had thought Biba would run wild in the fields as I did, sitting on my knee at the loom as I did with my parents, small fingers slowly becoming strong and nimble over the years. It’s what I dreamed of when she was still inside me, with her father pressing his ear softly to my belly, to hear her little heartbeat. Quiet and consistent. We dreamed up the fantasies of people deeply in love and untouched by grief. I didn’t realise how many dreams would be dashed.
The tattered map lies next to my skin inside my dress as I take one last look at the farmstead in the distance. The sun is peeking over the horizon, the dawn of a new day. I wanted to creep away in the small hours, unable to bear the idea of the whole Spring Isle coming to watch, with their questions and concerned looks.
‘We will keep home safe for you,’ Vullis says, setting down our bags on the boat’s deck with a grunt.
‘Is that home?’ I ask, nodding towards the farmstead. ‘Or is it packed here?’ I look over at the bags.
‘Not much in the way of worldly possessions,’ Ryla says with a wry smile.
I look down at my hands, fingers callused and red from years at the loom. ‘I worked my fingers to the bone for their pleasure, and now I get to die for their cause.’
‘Hush,’ Kopiro insists. ‘You won’t die out there.’
‘You’re too stubborn for that,’ Ryla agrees, trying to lighten the mood. Their quips are always used as shields.
‘What do you think you’ll find out there?’ Vullis asks. ‘Other than death and destruction?’
I swallow hard. I might find fortune. A whisper in the back of my skull tells me I may even find Larkin. I grab the taffrail. ‘I can’t stay here and wait for them to take everything from me. My only hope is finding whatever the queen wants beyond the Maelstrom.’
‘She could stay with us,’ Vullis says quietly, looking over at Biba.
He’s turned her attention to Kopiro and Ryla now, a serious look on her face as she points to Biba and across the farmstead.
I close the distance between myself and Vullis. ‘She could,’ I agree gently. ‘But I’d never forgive myself if something happened to her.’
‘Is she any safer out there with you?’
There’s a storm of feeling inside me. The fierceness of my desire to protect Biba. The urge to run. The broken pieces of this quest before me. I can’t answer Vullis’s question but that is the risk I have to take.
