‘Perhaps they’re spies,’ calls a young woman brandishing a driftwood spear.
‘Spies for whom, exactly?’ Fox asks calmly. ‘Everyone thinks you’re dead.’
‘As you shall be soon.’
‘Trust me,’ Fox says. ‘You don’t want to kill us.’
‘Give us one good reason,’ snarls the boy with the bow.
I draw a deep breath, clench my jaw and clamp my trembling hands into fists. Then I stick out my chin and say, ‘Because … because I’m a Rain Singer.’
Murmurs reverberate through the caves.
‘Lies,’ the boy scoffs.
The Elder silences him, then peers down at me through ancient, hooded eyes, her expression unreadable. ‘If you speak true – if you really are one of us – then prove it.’
I swallow and glance sidelong at Fox before planting my feet. For a long moment nothing happens.
Then – rain.
It’s light at first – a smattering of hazy droplets wrinkling the mirror-smooth surface of the lake. The shower soon intensifies, drizzle turning to raindrops in the blink of an eye. The sky darkens ominously, clouds hanging low and pendulous.
Dozens of Singers have emerged into the open, their frosty disbelief melting away.
Rain spatters across the pebbled shore, whipping the lake into frenzied peaks. Even over the rumble of thunder I hear the stunned gasps.
I raise my arms, my every movement fluid and precise, as though I am stitching threads, weaving my storm like a tapestry.
I hear it then – music like no other, a sound of such devastating beauty that I feel an ache in my chest. It’s pure, exquisite, ethereal in a way that seems to transcend realms: a symphony of souls that slips seamlessly between life and death and what comes after.
Rain song.
The Singers all climb down the gorge or take to the skies on dragonfly-back, swooping in and out of sight among the swollen clouds before landing smoothly on the rocky shore, their riders leaping off on to rain-slicked pebbles.
The downpour becomes a torrent. Yet I am shielded from it all.
The eye of the storm.
Lightning strikes the lake in a blinding flash of silver just as I cut the final thread and reel my power in.
The storm ebbs, then ceases entirely.
Hundreds of faces are gazing at me with such deep-rooted wonder that I can almost feel it thrumming amid the heavy silence.
Then, one by one, the Singers drop to their knees.
I’m panting, staring uncomprehendingly at the scene unfolding before me.
The Elder walks forward and kisses my hand. ‘I never thought I’d live to see this day.’
‘Why are they kneeling?’ I hiss at Fox. ‘What’s going on?’
‘You shall know when she has come, for the sky will weep tears of rain upon the earth and all the faithful will hear its song,’ murmurs the Elder, as if reciting scripture.
I blink at her, bewildered. ‘Whenwhohas come?’
It’s the boy with the bow who answers me, his voice hushed, reverent. ‘Om Shikara.’
