The Burning Sea

by A. E. Rayne

  Jael put her hand over his. He was right; he was not there at all. ‘You will. We will. Soon,’ she smiled. ‘And when we get back to Oss, everything will be different. You will feel more like yourself again. Edela will help. I know she will.’

  Reaching up, Jael kissed him on the cheek. Eadmund frowned, confused, unsure whether he wanted more or not.

  ‘Just close your eyes,’ Jael said softly. ‘Lie down, and get some sleep. In a few days, we’ll be sailing for Oss. And everything will be better once we get home, I promise.’

  32

  ‘Any luck?’ Biddy wondered as Edela padded out of bed, eager for the warmth of the fire, her eyes barely open.

  Edela shook her head. ‘No,’ she croaked. ‘No sign of that symbol. But I did have another dream about Tuura.’

  Biddy stirred the porridge and picked up a cup of mint tea she had been steeping. ‘Here,’ she smiled. ‘It might still be warm.’

  Edela sat down and took the cup, sipping slowly. ‘Mmmm, it is, thank you.’ She patted Ido, who had come to say hello, and grimaced, easing herself down into the chair, trying to ignore the aches and pains in her old bones. Now was not the time to feel weary and weak.

  ‘What are you being shown about Tuura now?’ Biddy wondered as she left the cauldron and drew a stool towards Edela, reaching for her own cup of tea.

  Edela frowned, trying to piece together her thoughts. ‘Fire again. Tuura was on fire, but it looked very different. It was another time.’ She closed her eyes, trying to return to the dream. ‘The book!’ she exclaimed, her eyes popping open. ‘They talked about the girls being in the thrall of the book. As though they did it. Burned Tuura for revenge.’

  Biddy looked confused. ‘The girls you dreamed about? The beheaded ones?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which, I suppose, explains why they were beheaded!’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘But not why they burned Tuura in the first place.’

  ‘No, nor what happened to the one who escaped with the book.’

  Biddy got up and grabbed a fur from Edela’s bed. ‘Here, it is not warm this morning.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Edela smiled, lifting her arms so that Biddy could tuck her in.

  Biddy stirred the cauldron again, then stopped and turned to Edela. ‘What if she’s the Widow?’

  ‘The girl who escaped?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Edela shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. The Tuura I saw in my dreams is from long ago. Hundreds of years ago, perhaps.’

  Biddy crept towards her, her eyes wide with possibilities. ‘But no one knows the truth about her, do they? How she could be so old, yet still live? What if the book had a spell that made her live that long? What if she just disappeared with the book? Hid away, became the Widow?’

  Edela rested the cup on her knee, thoughtful, listening to the fire and the soft sucking of the porridge as it simmered. ‘That is an entirely plausible idea!’ she said at last. ‘I think, perhaps we need to pay a visit to Entorp after breakfast.’

  Biddy smiled and reached for a bowl.

  Haaron held his tongue as he watched the chests of gold being loaded onto Haegen’s ship. It was for the best, he tried to convince himself; a mere drop in the ocean of the real prize he would claim when they conquered Helsabor with the Furycks.

  But still, handing his gold to the Islanders made him furious.

  Bayla stood next to him, smiling. ‘You’re doing the right thing,’ she insisted. ‘Putting your family first, our kingdom first. As you should.’

  Haaron ignored her and turned to watch Lothar Furyck, further down the pier, giving final instructions to Rexon Boas, who was heading to Saala to bring back Jaeger’s bride. He smiled to himself. There was at least some pleasure to be found in that arrangement.

  Rexon nodded, wishing that Lothar would stop talking so they could get underway. The men were at the oars, shoulders tense, eyes on the Brekkan king who continued to mumble away in Rexon’s ear. ‘Yes, lord,’ he said again.

  ‘Gisila is my queen, your queen, so you must make her feel at ease. She will want to see her son, and her daughter, of course, so don’t forget to mention that they will both be here waiting for her,’ he muttered. ‘And don’t forget to get the Skalleson girl too!’

  Rexon nodded again. ‘Of course, my lord.’ His eyes wandered towards the helmsman who looked even more impatient than everyone else. He was sailing with a full crew of Hestians, in one of Haaron’s few remaining warships. Rexon was not looking forward to the journey, but at least he was going to be left behind, which was a relief. He was desperate to get word to his wife.

  ‘Well, I shall let you go then,’ Lothar said, at last, standing back, leaving Rexon to clamber into the ship. ‘Do remember to reassure my wife and daughter that all is well. There is nothing to worry about! They will be perfectly safe!’

  Rexon turned towards the man on the pier, who unhooked the rope and hurried to jump into the ship before the oarsmen could gain much purchase.

  Lothar smiled tightly, watching the ship ease away. His entire body was tense. He would not feel right until he had Gisila in his bed again, and certainly not safe until Amma belonged to Jaeger Dragos and their families were united in peace. He sighed and turned reluctantly towards his host, sweat beading along his upper lip.

  It was a warm place, this Hest, but for all that Lothar was enamoured with the size of Haaron’s castle and his obvious wealth, he was uneasy here. He wanted to return to Brekka, to his throne in Andala.

  He longed to feel like a king again.

  Axl watched from a first-floor window above as Rexon sailed away to get Amma; as Aleksander stood on one of Haegen Dragos’ ships waiting to head back to Skorro with the gold. He curled his hands into fists, desperate to scream or punch the brutal stone wall of the chamber they remained imprisoned in.

  His shoulders slumped. He was supposed to protect Amma, yet here he was, watching as everyone conspired to marry her to a monster, unable to do anything to stop them.

  Osbert lay on the bed opposite the window, his eyes closed, but no doubt that was just for show.

  ‘There’s nothing you can do,’ Gant murmured as he joined Axl at the window. ‘If you can accept that, then you can move forward. Act when you need to.’ His voice was low, his eyes on Osbert.

  ‘It’s not an easy thing to accept.’

  ‘No,’ Gant agreed. ‘But to help her, you need a clear head and an empty heart.’

  They were alone in the locked room, just Gant, Axl, and Osbert.

  Waiting.

  Axl frowned. ‘An empty heart?’ he mumbled. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘The best kind of decisions are the ones you make up here,’ Gant whispered, tapping Axl’s head. ‘Not here,’ he said, pointing to his heart. ‘But it is far easier to say than do, of course.’

  Axl sighed and turned away.

  Osbert muttered to himself and rolled over, groaning at the pain in his arms, but happy at the thought of Axl’s misery, and Amma’s, which was yet to come. And then there was the dream of Helsabor and all that land. He smiled, remembering that King Wulf was rumoured to have a particularly beautiful granddaughter.

  Perhaps his father wasn’t such a fool after all?

  ‘You need to tell us what you know of her,’ Edela demanded. ‘I’m dreaming of this for a reason. The Widow is involved in it, somehow, I’m certain now. Certain too, that you know more than you’ve said. Do you think she has the book?’ Edela went on. ‘It must be the only way she has lived this long, surely? Magic?’

  Entorp spluttered under her attack, tipping a cup of fresh milk all over his knee. He put his cup on the table and hurried away to look for a cloth.

  ‘Do you know her?’ Edela continued, her eyes following him. ‘Have you met her?’

  Entorp sighed. He dabbed at his trousers with the cloth and returned to the fire, accepting that he was not going to escape Edela’s questions, nor evade Biddy’s determined eyes.


  It was, perhaps, best to face everything head on.

  ‘No, I have not, and no, I do not,’ Entorp said quietly. He bit his lip, his head bobbing nervously as he wobbled on his stool. ‘What I know of the Widow... is that she is evil. She is pure darkness, absent of any light. Without a soul. Timeless. Ageless. All seeing. She lives in the shadows, strikes down those who would wish to control or kill her. She is powerful beyond any words.’

  Edela’s eyes were wide. ‘But perhaps not always that way?’ she suggested. ‘Perhaps the evil of the book corrupted her? If she is, in fact, the girl I saw in my dreams? That girl was lovely and innocent once.’

  Entorp looked unconvinced. ‘I couldn’t say,’ he said, jumping at a sudden clap of thunder overhead. He looked up the smoke hole as rain started falling. ‘I am not familiar with who she was. I only know the stories of who she became.’

  ‘How?’ Biddy wondered, pulling her stool closer as the rain grew heavy and loud.

  ‘My wife,’ Entorp said, at last, his whole body aching with the pain of digging up such deeply buried memories. ‘She belonged to The Following.’

  Irenna had finally received word from Silura that her father had survived and was in a far calmer state as she walked through the hall beside Bayla and Nicolene, her two-year-old daughter, Halla, smiling on her hip.

  ‘We are going to have to work fast,’ Bayla was muttering to Nicolene. ‘The girl will have nothing suitable to wear. Her father says she is about your size, so you will find one of your dresses for her.’

  Irenna tried to suppress a smile as she glanced at Nicolene’s indignant face.

  ‘And make it your best dress!’ Bayla snapped, quickly cutting across any argument Nicolene had been preparing. ‘And you,’ she went on, turning to her least annoying daughter-in-law. ‘You will see to the flowers and musicians.’ Bayla flapped her hands around urgently as she walked. ‘There are so many flowers around at this time of year. But try to make it as tasteful as possible,’ she warned. ‘Nothing too bright and hideous.’ She stopped, inhaling the scent of warm bread wafting from the kitchen. ‘And I will see to the food and wine. It will not be a large wedding as there is little time to invite anyone from the Fire Lands.’ She frowned. ‘Come to think of it, I don’t imagine your father would be eager to return this way after the disaster he was led into on the Adrano.’

  Irenna inhaled sharply, not wishing for the reminder.

  ‘But what about Jaeger?’ Nicolene wondered coyly. ‘He is hardly going to be pleased with the idea of a wedding, is he? Not so soon after Elissa...’

  Bayla set her lips in a tight line. ‘His father is paying ten thousand pieces of gold to bring him back, after he was responsible for the loss of our fleet and all of those men. I hardly think he is in a position to argue about anything that has been planned, do you?’

  Nicolene shrugged herself away from Bayla’s harsh, blue eyes.

  ‘Besides,’ Bayla went on, working hard to convince herself more than her daughter-in-law, ‘it will be good for him. He needs sons. Even if they are to be half Furyck. At least this time he will be marrying someone with royal blood.’

  Irenna was only half listening as she tickled Halla under her chubby chin. Her mind had wandered to Haegen and what sort of battle he was going to have on his hands, trying to convince Jaeger of that.

  He had their attention but was suddenly reluctant to go any further.

  ‘What is The Following?’ Biddy wondered, inclining her head.

  Entorp stalled, pulling on his wild beard, wondering suddenly where he had last seen his comb. ‘It is an old sect, a hidden society that started in Tuura.’

  Edela frowned. She had never heard of such a thing. ‘And what do they do, this Following?’ She shivered as thunder boomed again, closer this time, shaking the door of Entorp’s little house.

  ‘They come from the time of Raemus,’ Entorp said quietly. ‘The First God, he who was made from the Darkness. They were his followers. The ones he entrusted with his magical secrets. The ones he entrusted with his book.’

  Entorp sighed as the fire spat angrily. He picked up his iron poker and nudged the logs. ‘I’m sure you know the story of Raemus. Of how he wanted a return to the Darkness, to a time when it was just him and his wife, Dala. But she had brought light and life into the world. She would not return to a time of such bleak emptiness, so she refused. But Raemus would not give up, so he wrote the book as a way of destroying the world, to end all life as we know it. He enlisted people to help him. Tuurans. Of course, we were all Tuurans once in this land,’ he smiled wistfully.

  ‘But I’ve never understood why those people chose to help him? If it meant that they would ultimately die and just exist in a world of darkness?’ Biddy wondered. ‘Did they not know what they were doing?’

  ‘I am certain they did,’ Entorp said firmly. ‘They believed that he would provide them with a new way of being. That he would set their souls free. Give them freedom from the pain of life. They wanted immortality, to exist as a god. So, they took his teaching, and they practised the darkest magic, destroying all around them, destroying Tuura.’

  ‘But Dala stopped it. She killed Raemus, and the book was lost,’ Edela insisted.

  ‘She did, of course,’ Entorp said thoughtfully. ‘But The Following survived and spread throughout the ages, especially when the Furycks came from Osterhaaven and tore Tuura apart, bringing their own gods, taking our land. They flourished in secret, working in the shadows as they tried to find the book again, to bring back the Darkness that Raemus had so desperately sought. They believed they would find him there, waiting for them.’

  ‘In my dreams, a man gave the book to one of the girls,’ Edela said. ‘Who do you think that was?’

  Entorp shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he was a god? Who else would have possession of it?’ He frowned. ‘If that book had surfaced again it would explain the destruction you saw in your dreams. The book has a way of claiming souls.’

  ‘And the Widow?’ Biddy wondered. ‘Was she in The Following? Is that how you know of her?’

  ‘No, my wife told me about her, about the things she would do. She was banished from Tuura, hundreds of years ago, but she lived, turning up all over the land, hiding from all but those in dire need of her particular type of services. She would appear, for a price, my wife said. She was not part of The Following, though. They did not claim her as one of their own. They thought she had the book, which is why they were so determined to find her.’

  Edela frowned, remembering how Marcus, the Elderman of Tuura, had sent those men after Aleksander because he had visited the Widow; because his mother had, and her mother before her. She shuddered.

  ‘And what about your wife?’ Biddy asked delicately. ‘Did she believe in Raemus and the book? Did she want a return to the Darkness?’

  Entorp shook his head. ‘No, never,’ he murmured, his heart aching with loss, remembering the woman he had loved so many years ago. ‘No, she was not a true believer... which is why they killed her.’

  Eydis sat on the bench, stroking the cat who had soothed her with his visits; his sleek, warm fur so gentle to touch. The repetitive motion of brushing her hand across that smooth little body had calmed her when she felt ready to cry, when she felt as though there was no hope. But there was, she knew. She had found Jael and Eadmund in her dreams, and they were still alive.

  Amma sat next to her, silent, as she had been since Eydis had revealed her dream about her. Gisila had tried to encourage her to take a walk along the beach, but Amma had refused, content instead to sit on the bench with Eydis and wait for word.

  Any word.

  ‘Someone is coming for us,’ Eydis said suddenly, confident in her vision at last. ‘They will take us to Jael and Eadmund. We will all be together again.’

  Amma blinked. ‘You saw this?’

  Eydis nodded, smiling for the first time in days. ‘They are waiting for us.’

  ‘And you saw no one else?’ Amma asked,
grabbing Eydis’ arm.

  ‘I saw your father,’ Eydis said carefully. ‘He was there. And your brother.’

  Amma frowned. ‘But not Axl?’

  Eydis shook her head. ‘That doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. We were arriving on a ship. There were many people there to greet us.’

  ‘On a ship?’ Amma swallowed, anxious. ‘To where?’

  ‘But why?’ Edela wondered carefully. ‘If she was a member of The Following, why was she killed by them?’

  Entorp sighed. ‘You are born into The Following,’ he explained. ‘It is not a choice. They trust no one. They allow no one in but those who marry followers, and even then, we are all considered very carefully before a marriage is approved.’ He stopped. The rain had become so loud that it had started to drown him out. ‘My wife, Isobel, was no believer. She was hesitant to involve me in it, but I insisted. I loved her. I wanted to keep her safe.’ His eyes burned with tears that had not come for so long now. ‘She was a dreamer, as many in The Following are. She saw things, heard things that made her uncomfortable.’ He swallowed. ‘One day she told me that we were in danger. To this day, I still don’t know why. She said that we had to leave immediately, that very night. So, I hurried to organise more horses. We had two children, you see. A boy and a girl. We had only one horse, but I wanted four. It took some time. And then there were supplies, weapons, food...’ The memories were sharp with pain now. He didn’t want to say any more. ‘I was gone for much of the day... and when I returned to our house... they were dead,’ he said slowly, tears filling his eyes. ‘All three of them.’

  Biddy and Edela gasped in unison. Biddy reached out and placed a hand on Entorp’s shaking arm.