“Of course they know.”The monk laughed, but it was not a belittling laugh, just the laugh of a jaded, world-weary sympathetic.“But those with power must keep it, and your Saint endorsed onlythree branches of magecraft—the Stormsingers, the Magni, and the Sooth.Now, I am sorry I cannot help you more, traveler.But if you can, go to Oruse.”
I left the monastery with a satchel full of cures and a heart like lead.Tomorrow, we would make for the prison.Tomorrow, we would try to rescue my brother.
But was he worth saving if he would forever remain a monster?
FIFTEEN
Four Breaths
MARY
Thick snowflakes clung to my lashes as I surveyed the dark bulk of the prison.It lay on the other side of another deep inlet and the town of Maase, which clustered between the ridges and scented the breeze with wisps of hearthsmoke.The tide had made a dramatic retreat that night, leaving a series of small docks clothed only in icicles from mooring ropes down to the rocky inlet floor.There were no boats to be seen, perhaps still hidden in boathouses and huts for winter repairs.
The prison was a hulking fortress with thick exterior walls roping their way across uneven cliffs.Its three main bastions had obviously been built in different eras, with the newest rectangular, whitewashed and blending with a mantle of fine snow.Only a few windows were lit, but walls were bathed in torchlight, giving everything within them a sense of separation and foreboding.
The longboat bobbed on a particularly large wave, and I grabbed the gunnel.
Perched behind me, Illya nodded towards the shore.“Well?Are you ready?”
I nodded.
The rowers turned to their oars and, hidden by snow and darkness, we made landfall below the prison, beyond the edgeof town.We could not get as close to shore—not with the tide as far out as it was—but this, we’d decided, was to my advantage.
Instead of being left to scale sheer wave-battered cliffs, I set my boots on the uneven rock and frozen mud of a barren tidal shore.I pulled off my boat cloak and handed it back to Illya, revealing breeches and a practical wrapped Mereish coat, slit at the sides for ease of movement.
“Last chance to change your mind,” Illya prompted.
The rowers, all crewmembers I’d come to know well, watched me with varying degrees of uncertainty.
“Your confidence is overwhelming.”I gave them a smile and squinted snow-laden lashes.“Just be at the prison dock on time.”
The Usti nodded, the crew saluted or whispered farewells, and the boat shoved off.
I moved quickly and quietly, clambering up an icy ladder onto the town’s most distant, darkest dock.Then I found the start of a goat path and set off.
An hour later, I was hot, exhausted, and damp from melting snow.The storm had attempted to move inland halfway through my climb and now demanded a constant hum to keep it blowing.Thankfully, the snow itself muffled my song from listening ears.
It also muffled the footfalls coming towards me.It was the high click of ice-grips that finally alerted me, their tap-crunch at odds with my own careful steps.
I skittered off the path, whipping out a curl of wind to cover my tracks, and hunched behind a boulder.I stopped humming and the storm shifted, disconsolate and already turning inland again.
Three guards followed one another down the slope, muskets slung loosely across their backs.Though they didn’t speak, their demeanor wasn’t that of watchmen: they simply moved like tired humans, trudging home after a long night.
We can go now, Tane prodded.
I gathered myself, pushed off the cold stone, and began to hum again.The wind grudgingly returned to me, bringing a renewed veil of snow, and I continued towards the crest of the rise and the foot of the fort’s surrounding walls.
Just before I reached level terrain and the section of wall we’d marked for my crossing, I slowed and transitioned into a crawl.On my belly, I peered across an open, barely sloped shoulder of rock to the base of the wall.Not far off, a snow-capped watchpost lorded over the surrounding area.
I wouldn’t just need to be in the Dark Water to pass through the wall.I’d need to be in it to cross the open space too.
I swallowed tightly and focused on my breaths—too ragged after the climb, and in anticipation of my next challenge.Every part of me protested that I couldn’t afford to wait, that I should run now, sprint now.At any second, someone would see me and I’d be shot or captured.
My fingers twitched, and I clenched my eyes shut.I grounded myself in frozen earth beneath my belly, melting snow beneath my hands, and cold air in my lungs.
Then, in a gap between worry and fear, I pushed off—into the open space and into the Dark Water.A ridge of opalescent black rock rippled out beneath me, swallowing the grey and white human world.My feet thudded through puddles and cascades of the Other realm’s dark water, covering the rock in a constant, glistening sheath.Fae dragonflies scattered in buzzing clouds of gold and purple, and other more distant lights ignited in the gloom.
I swept the skies.No hovering, winged dittama.Just distant beings, glistening like stars in a sky with three waning moons.
