Beyond the mass of moving bodies, on the dark rock, rested Shi’as. Trisha straightened. Shi’as could wait. He could watch, but she was through listening to the serpent. He’d sent her on the cursed trip that nearly broke her.
Head held high, Trisha walked away from the place she’d gotten answers, but the snake’s voice echoed in her mind a long time thereafter.
22
Trisha hadto fix her lyre.
Despite her dream turning sour, she needed her voice back. The restless magic swelled inside her, each passing moment among the world saturated by the same threads that fed it, making it grow. Its demands were an insistent hum, ever since the night dance and Teoryin’s revelation.
Nameless gods, curse her. She had no strength to push it down.
I need your grief. Your pain.
She shut her eyelids, but the emotions were too much. Disappointment had dulled into a sore bruise. A quiet pain. Trisha’s parents had feared her magic enough to abandon her… Very well, then. They’d wanted her to forget. If so, she’d oblige.
Still, she couldn’t stay. She had to go back. Why, Trisha wasn’t even sure. Going back would mean facing the man she’d run away from in the first place. The thought filled her with nervousness. Would Blainor welcome her back? He’d never flinched from her magic. He understood enough. WasMoorhafen her destiny after all? The only man who saw her didn’t fear what she could do.
But to go back, she needed her lyre. Only the one who had crafted it could fix it. This brought its own set of problems.
When the Shadow Sisters went to Grentuff with a request for a new instrument, they brought rare and precious gifts: sparkling gems of starlight, ink-black flowers imbued with magic and blood, and hollow bones of creatures too old to know their names. She didn’t have such an option, nor the luxury of time. Every day wasted meant more questions back in Eichlandt.
“Is that all?” Rilka peered down at the gleaming coins Trisha had emptied from the purse. Her tiny lips bloomed into a pout before she skipped into the wind, landing between Dapple’s ears. “How about this creature?”
Dapple tossed his head, flinging Rilka back into the air.Creature? This insect has too loud a voice.
Trisha sighed. Their bickering wasn’t helping.
Sticking her teasing tongue out at the horse, Rilka floated before her and piped. “Grentuff won’t fix it for nothing. You do know that, don’t you?”
“Of course.” Trisha glared at the fairy before leaning against the rough bark of the linden tree. Through the canopy, the stars continued their endless spin. “He only accepts things he values himself.”
The king had taken her flower. What Tilia had were shells and smooth stones from the shoreline. Rilka carried her feathers and eggshells, hardly something to appease the cranky artist.
Trisha inspected the articles before her: dark copper and nickel coins. The wind stirred her long, dark hair, much like her mother’s. Grentuff had taken it once. Her shoulders sank. Finding a loose thread, she twisted it around her finger. Whythe thought ached so much, she wasn’t sure. Why was she still clinging to that memory—Trisha’s mother, taking her to the Undying Lands? Giving up her hair hadn’t hurt her as a child.
Huffing, she yanked the thread loose from her skirt. If only she’d had the forethought before she escaped from Moorhafen. She could have brought something else. Not just her wrinkled clothes, not her now-broken lyre, not these useless coins.
She swallowed the bitter thought. Dwelling on what-ifs and regrets wouldn’t help; she was here now. She’d find a way to fix her lyre. And then, she’d find Blainor. If Grentuff demanded her hair, so be it. It would grow back.
Clambering up, she beat the grass off her woolen dress, the discarded vest still where she’d left it. Trisha’s eyes narrowed, the thought taking shape while a few strides brought her to the garment. She bent and picked it up, running a hand over the velvety nap. Ordinary perhaps in the mortal world, but quite unique here in the Undying Lands.
Blessed Aine. If she ever saw the maid again, she’d hug her.
Rilka’s wings fluttered as she flew around Trisha, curious. “What’s that?”
Trisha stroked the soft suede, hope kindling in her chest. “My payment.”
“Then what are we waiting for?!” she cried with a clap, somersaulting toward the murmuring forests. Among the dark trunks, haloed lights palpitated to the slow beat of the Undying Lands, the ever-present magic—too sweet and cloying—thick in the air. “Let’s go see him at once!”
The artisan might sneer at her offering, but Trisha kept silent, following. Rilka’s ceaseless chatter filled the waiting hush as they made their way through the pathless path.
The trees stood in quiet sleep, exhaling dreams as the duo passed underneath their boughs. The eerie glow of floating lights reflected on their leaves, turning them to silver and ice.Her body wound tight, Trisha kept her eyes open for any movement. Sleeping trees, no music. Teoryin’s court had scattered, and though Shi’as had promised advice she couldn’t bear another of his poisonous lessons. Whatever he wanted, she’d best avoid him.
The forest thinned, her shoulders dropping, yet her heart thrummed in her throat.
Grentuff’s home looked just as it had in Trisha’s memory. Narrow trees surrounded a clearing and a pond at its center. Dark and bottomless, the light of the sleeping gods reflected on its surface. Rilka abandoned her hair, shooting toward the pulsating lights.
“Who comes?” asked a voice, raspy and low, the words warped through a mouth not shaped for spoken words.
