“Yes,” Runa said. “I’m fine.” She smiled, a tight press of the lips that Lyric didn’t quite believe, but when she looked into Lyric’s eyes, her own softened in a familiar way. Reaching out, Runa squeezed Lyric’s shoulder. “We’ll be fine,” Runa said. “We’ll make it to Raendashar; I’m certain of it.”
Lyric blinked. Runa thought the worry in her face was about the Shore?
“Yes,” Lyric said slowly. She wanted to ask about Elenora, and if the awareness of each other’s feelings had deserted Runa too. Had their bond changed when Runa reunited with her body or was it because of something else?
Don’t let me lose her, Lyric thought, beseeching Ethethera. The goddess never answered her, but she’d always felt akin to the One who formed the trees and land.
Runa squeezed Lyric’s shoulder again and turned away, seemingly unaware of the roiling thoughts inside Lyric’s head as she opened the door. Muted light streamed inside, illuminating Runa’s face as she stepped through.
Stomach shifting uneasily, Lyric followed her sister outside. The morning was calm, the sky a soft shade of gray. Green-tinged waves lapped lazily against the dark sand. There was debris on the beach, but no more than before.
Joining Runa at the railing facing the open sea, Lyric looked north up the beach, following the cliffs with her eyes. She still couldn’t see their end.
Kell, Elaina, and Meara walked out onto the balcony.
“Not a bad night,” Meara declared, staring at the beach. “If you stick to the packed sand you should make good time as you head north.”
“If our luck holds,” Elaina said. She seemed ill at ease, and guilt tightened Lyric’s shoulders. She hadn’t given much thought to how their mother might feel about returning to Raendashar. Elaina had cut her father from her life, painted him as a monster. She’d tried to warn Lyric and Runa away, but here they were, forcing her back to her old life.
Meara moved towards her, interrupting Lyric’s thoughts, and reached for her hand, pressing it gently between hers. “May you walk in Ethethera’s light and find safe haven on your journey,” Meara said, smiling.
“Thank you,” Lyric said. “And may Ethethera’s light shine on you, as well.” She wasn’t sure of the proper response to Meara’s farewell, but her answer seemed to suffice, for the woman nodded and turned to Runa.
Meara repeated the same statement to everyone, including Kell, then untied the rope ladder and lowered it down.
Elaina descended first, followed by Runa, Lyric, and finally Kell. Walking out from beneath the shadow of Meara’s house, they stepped quickly across the damp sand until they were out of reach of the lapping waves. Turning back, they waved farewell to Meara.
She’d already pulled up her ladder and held up a hand high above her head. Then, with a look into the sky, Meara turned and walked around the side of her house, disappearing.
“Let’s walk as quickly as we can,” Elaina said. “I’d like to reach Beyn’s house before nightfall.” She set off, leading, and Lyric and Kell followed after her. Runa, drifting several steps behind them, brought up the rear.
Kell’s unease seemed to grow the farther they walked from Meara’s house, and Lyric held tight to his hand and tried to distract him. She asked him about the different birds she saw winging through the gray sky and was pleased when Kell latched onto the topic, talking about their light bones, the colors of their wings and the different calls they made.
As she listened, eyes on the sky, Lyric’s mind wandered. Why did the Taint affect the beach and water, but not the air? Kell said he’d thought it was airborne when they’d seen the destruction of Kratho, but if so, why were the birds above them untouched? Why were they even here? What could they eat if there was no food? Did Meara call them somehow with magic? Would the skies be empty without her? Not wanting to return the Taint to Kell’s mind, Lyric kept her thoughts to herself.
By the time they reached the Cliffs of Salta around noon, Lyric had coaxed several smiles from Kell. But when his eyes drifted to his old home, his face shuttered closed. His eyes went hollow, and the chords in his throat protruded like hard reeds beneath his skin.
Lyric gripped Kell’s arm, holding on to him as they walked beneath the city’s shadow. The abandoned capital had been grand once, the decaying houses rising into pale, conical towers that spiraled into the sky like the tightly-wound whorls of seashells. The green rot was worse here, covering the city’s pearlescent stone in a thick web of unnatural lines. Salta was breathtaking, despite the destruction, and Lyric barely breathed as they passed beneath it.
“It’s incredible,” Runa said, her voice reverent. She spun as she walked, her head tilted back to stare up at the spiraling towers.
Elaina didn’t seem to look at much of anything, and her hands never strayed far from her belt.
Uneasy and worried about Kell, Lyric led him past the city as fast as she dared. His left hand spasmed up to his throat, as though to loosen a collar that’d grown too tight. “I can’t …” he whispered
“I’m here,” Lyric said. She didn’t know what else to say.
When they finally reached the outskirts of Salta, and the cliffs transitioned back to natural walls of dirt and stone, Lyric loosened her grip on Kell’s arm. Her fingers cramped painfully, and she worried she’d left bruises on his skin.
With Salta at his back, Kell’s breath became less labored, his eyes turning a calmer shade of blue. He wiped sweat off his brow with his sleeve, then glancing sideways at Lyric, bent his head and brushed a kiss across the top of her forehead.
Lyric nearly tripped over her own feet as heat raced through her. She smiled at Kell, feeling foolish and giddy and so relieved she thought she might cry.
“Thank you,” Kell said.
Lyric nodded.
“Is it weird that I’m hungry?” he asked, grinning.
“No!” Lyric laughed. “I was thinking the same thing. We’ve been walking for hours. Maybe we should stop and —”
“What’s that?” Runa asked.
Lyric stopped and turned her head. Runa stood beside her, staring up the beach.
Following Runa’s gaze past Elaina, ahead of them, Lyric saw something large and black on the sand. “What is it?” Lyric asked, squinting.
“A seal?” Runa asked. “Or driftwood?”
“No, it’s … cloth,” their mother said. “We should go around it.”
“We should see what it is,” Runa said. She strode forward past Elaina.
Lyric, curious despite their mother’s expression, trailed after her sister.
The smell hit her when they were within a hundred paces; a foul, sharp smell that burrowed into her nose. Gagging, Lyric covered her nose and mouth with a fold of her cloak.
Kell made a disgusted noise and quickly covered his face. “Maybe we should stay away from it?” he asked, his voice muffled.
Runa looked at him, face pinched but eyes fierce and determined. “Where’s your sense of adventure, choir-boy?” she asked.
Elaina, looking green, but breathing through her mouth like Runa, gestured again away from the black lump. “It’s nothing good,” she said.
“I have to know what it is,” Runa said, stubbornly. She strode directly towards it.
Everyone followed.
Now almost atop the thing, Lyric thought it looked like a bundle of black rags with something long and bony jutting out from one side. Perhaps it’d been dumped off a ship and affected by the Taint in the water. She leaned closer, peering around Runa.
“That’s a hand!” Lyric gasped.
Runa, finally covering her mouth as she bent forward, studied the hand. The fingers were abnormally long and sharpened into claws.
“Whatever it is, it’s not human,” Runa said.
Elaina, acquiring a stick from somewhere, lifted the tattered rags and uncovered a hairless head, turned to the side. The abnormally large eyes, caught in wrinkled folds of skin, were filmy with death. Its features were delicate but twisted, and r
idges covered the creature’s face. Some of the seams were sharp and bony, and the rest appeared to be hardened flaps of skin like the opening of gills.
“Female perhaps,” Elaina said. It was her teaching voice, analytical and unruffled, one Lyric remembered well from childhood.
Lyric felt her unease shift, soothed by their mother’s tone, and she leaned over Runa’s shoulder to look more closely at the creature. Its mouth, slack and hanging open, was filled with needle-sharp teeth. “I think it was human,” Lyric said, frowning. She looked at their mother. “How is that possible?”
“I think you’re right,” Elaina said. Her eyes filled with sympathy, and she looked at Kell. “This may have once been a resident of Salta.”
Gasping, Lyric straightened and turned to Kell. His face looked strained, and tears glinted in his eyes. He swallowed and pressed a fist to the side of his head, then turned away from them, looking out at the ocean.
Lyric hurried towards him and slid her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek against his chest. “I’m so sorry, Kell,” she said.
His heartbeat was loud and quick beneath her ear.
“Did you know?” Lyric asked.
“No,” Kell said. His arms moved around her back, holding her tightly. “I — I knew about the creatures, but I thought they were animals, had been animals.”
“How did this happen?” Runa asked. “You said the Taint kills things, destroys, it doesn’t transform. Not like this.”
“I don’t know,” Elaina said. “I wish I did. My father must know about this.”
Lyric shifted in Kell’s arms so she could look at their mother. “You think he did this?” she asked, incredulously.
“I don’t know,” Elaina growled. Her face darkened with a mix of frustration and fury. “We’ll get answers; I promise you that,” she said. Her fierce, gold-green eyes shifted to Kell’s back, still turned away. “We’ll hold him accountable, Kell, I swear it.”
Lyric stared at their mother, unsure of what to say, what to feel. Could King Rakarn truly be responsible for this tragedy? Had what happened been an accident or something planned, expected? Was her grandfather a monster?
“We need to keep moving,” Kell said, his voice tight. “We can’t be out in the dark.”
“Yes,” Elaina agreed. She stood, gripping the stick in her hand like a sword, then dropped it onto the sand. Her face smoothed, the anger tucked back deep inside her. “Come, Runa,” she said. “We’ve wasted enough time here already.”
13
Lyric
Night fell faster than Lyric expected, the sun disappearing into a dark mass of angry clouds. The wind lashed at her face and cloak, simultaneously trying to rip it away from her fingers and send her lurching across the sand. Her braids had all but unraveled, her hair flailing around her face and getting into her eyes and mouth.
The waves crashed large and angry against the beach, drowning out any attempts of conversation. Lyric worried that the wind was blowing Tainted water into their faces. Could that kill them? Could the drops of water turn them into the twisted creature they’d found on the sand? Memories of its teeth and claws filled her mind. Maybe she was already transforming.
Nervously, Lyric squinted into the gathering darkness. They needed shelter. Where was Beyn’s house?
They’d found nothing since leaving Salta, the beach stretching empty ahead of them save for scattered detritus, foul and green, that they could barely see to avoid. The wall of cliffs to the west offered no protection and somehow intensified the wind whenever they drifted towards them to get away from the waves.
As the night deepened around them, they fell closer together, walking no more than a handspan from each other. Elaina, scavenging through a clump of driftwood untouched by the Taint, fashioned torches and passed them around, using flint and steel from her pack to light them.
They held their torches high, but the spitting flames were too weak to chase away the shadows. Sounds became amplified and full of menace. Lyric shrieked when a piece of wood cracked loudly beneath someone’s foot.
Heart still thudding in her chest, Lyric felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. “Did you hear that?” she asked, raising her torch and staring at the waves. She grabbed Kell, pulling him against her, finding comfort in the solidness of him against her side.
Something moaned in the darkness.
“There!” Runa hissed, pointing up the beach.
Dark shapes were flying towards them, nearly invisible in the night.
Runa held up a hand, and a tiny flame flickered above her palm.
“No!” Lyric yelled, but Runa had already thrown the ball of flame.
It soared through the air, arcing up and then exploding as it hit the ground. A gust of heated wind rushed into Lyric’s face ripping back her hair and illuminating what was coming. In the momentary light, she saw six creatures racing towards them. They resembled huge disfigured bats; wings tucked as they dashed forward. The creatures shrieked as the remnants of Runa’s magic washed over them, their skin rippling and glowing. Instead of slowing down, the displaced magic infused them with energy.
“Remember what Meara said!” Lyric yelled as darkness reclaimed them. “They eat magic!”
Runa glanced back, her hair blowing across her face, teeth gritted in frustration. Crouching, she clawed at the ground and scooped up several stones into her hand. She turned and holding her torch high, began to sling the rocks, one after the other.
Lyric dropped Kell’s arm and raised her torch like a club, ready to hit anything that got close.
“Run!” Elaina yelled, brandishing her torch. “Hoods up! Stay together!”
The creatures descended.
Lyric raised her arm, trying to shield her head as the monsters twisted overhead. Terrified, she could feel the weight of them as they darted above her, their shrieking hurting her ears. A claw struck her arm and cut through the hood of her cloak. She screamed, waving her torch.
Keep moving! Lyric told herself. Don’t stop!
Her foot sank into the sand and Lyric stumbled, nearly falling onto her face. She scrambled forward, around a mess of algae, her eyes finding Elaina and Runa’s feet. They were still ahead of her running. She couldn’t lose sight of them.
Lyric heard her torch sputter as she blindly flailed it around her head. She prayed the thud of torch against flesh was a creature and not Kell beside her. Blood dripped into Lyric’s eyes, and down her arms, more splattering across the sand ahead of her.
“Kell!” Lyric gasped, worried she’d receive no answer. All she could hear were her own terrified pants and the creatures’ shrieking.
“I’m here!” Kell called. His voice was breathless and pained, but he was still alive.
He gasped suddenly, an agonized sound, and Lyric snapped her head up, staring sideways. She saw Kell pause, his back arching, his face exposed to the sky, then he crumpled forward, shielding himself, stumbling on.
“Kell —” Lyric gasped, reaching for him.
“Keep going!” Kell yelled. He grabbed her hand and pulled her forward.
Lyric stumbled, holding tight to his hand. A creature dove towards her, needled mouth opening, and she swung her torch up hard. Heat seared down her arm. She was bleeding again.
“They’ll kill us!” Lyric yelled. Her hood flew back onto her shoulders, exposing her head.
Elaina glanced back, eyes huge in the sputtering torchlight. Blood dripped down her face from a gash on her scalp. She looked at Lyric, meeting her terror-filled eyes, then at Runa.
Runa was spinning, teeth bared like a cornered animal, her torch knocking one of the creatures away with a powerful backhanded hit. Sparks flew, and she whirled it back up.
Elaina met Lyric’s eyes one more time then threw up her hands, screaming out a spell. Her words ignited every torch they held, sending the flames up and out. Fire exploded around them in a shell of flame.
Lyric gasped as heat washed over her, scorching her skin. The beach was bri
ght, illuminated by the sudden red-orange light.
Caught by the eruption of fire, the creatures ignited. They shrieked, spinning and flapping like burning cloth in the wind. One by one they dropped to the ground, their death screams cutting off as the fire claimed them.
Flames still falling, Lyric saw a large shape swoop down beneath the spreading fire.
“Mama!” she screamed.
The creature’s claws ripped open the side of Elaina’s throat, and it drove her toward the ground. It gnawed at her neck, blood spurting over its jaw, as its hands gripped her shoulders.
Elaina screamed, but the sound was quickly cut off, reduced to a horrible gurgle.
Lyric ran forward, raising her arms.
Runa got there first. Sprinting from the side, she slammed her torch into the creature knocking it away.
It reared, eyes bulging; its mouth wet with their mother’s blood.
Released from its claws, Elaina hit the sand. Her torch rolled from her fingers, and she clutched at her neck.
Lyric screamed the word for wind, releasing a gust that sent the creature tumbling back into the falling flames. She felt a peculiar tug in her chest, pulling her towards it, then the monster hit the fire.
The burning creature screamed and died.
Shoving her torch at Kell, Lyric dropped to her knees beside Elaina. She tore through her pack, searching for something to bandage their mother’s throat but there was nothing. Thinking quickly, Lyric ripped a strip of cloth from her skirt’s hem and wrapped it around Elaina’s neck. She had to stop the bleeding. The cloth darkened beneath her fingers and she pressed her hand against her mother’s throat.
“Are they dead?” Lyric asked, looking at Runa who’d kneeled beside her.
Runa nodded, her face white. “I think so, but there might be more. We need to hide.”
Lyric stared around them. The fallen creatures were burning on the ground like campfires, sputtering and dying on the sand.
“We have to get Mama to a healer,” Lyric said. “I don’t have supplies, and this … this may be beyond my skills.” She tried to shove aside her fear. She couldn’t think about that or the mess of flesh and muscle on their mother’s neck.
Daughters of Fire & Sea Page 16
