by Sandra Waugh
Ahead was the sea. I could hear it, storm-tossed and angry. Above, the clouds were massing dark and thunderous, the wind howling, whipping my salt-dried hair across my face. It stung harsh as nettles, but at least it deflected the worse pain of my burning hands. I gritted my teeth, groaned against all of it, and ran on into what stretched as gray upon gray. Behind me the Nahlgruth roared, shivering the very sand.
There! Out of gray rose the rock outcropping that I’d climbed before. The tabby cat was waiting—a tiny splotch of color against first heave of stone. “You!” I called to it. “Where do I go?”
In response the thing leaped onto the rock and skimmed right up the tall face. I clambered after it, hampered by the nest, by the vile resin, stopping almost every step to switch hands. I was lagging, too slow. The Nahlgruth roared again, loud, breath hot—I couldn’t tell if the beast was behind me or already above, waiting to swallow. Don’t think, Evie. Don’t think of anything. Just climb.
Barnacles gave way to a smoother face of boulders. I sank on one for a moment, dragging in breaths, juggling the nest and trying to peer through the thickening resin to see the shell. I remembered the satchel, yanked it into my lap, and placed the nest on top, thinking some cloth between skin and hukon would help, protect. But the resin burned right through the satchel with a hiss and stink of yew. I flung the charred bits off my frock before it caught fire, then paused. In the smeared ash on my lap was the lark feather. I plucked it up, gasping, laughing, rammed it through the middle of the nest—
Any hope the feather was going to stop the spell was brief. There was a flash of flame—the same way the cat’s claws had drawn fire across the table—and the feather was gone. My laugh cut short in defeat. And out of that same defeat came the Breeder’s cry exploding in my head, “You cannot escape!”
I jerked back, jamming myself in a gap, flailed there while the whole sky resounded the Breeder’s glee: “The amulet is finished!”
And I, who’d hardly ever been afraid, was terrified—terrified by what I’d done, terrified that this bellowing declaration was true.
No. No. No. I pushed fear from my head, refusing this ending, and wriggled free. No. I turned and crawled up the huge boulders, tearing skin on stone, staying low, for the gale threatened to pluck me up, dash me down. The Nahlgruth roared again; the wind howled. And behind that, somewhere far, far behind, I could swear my name was being called, carried along by the rush of wind. No. Dry sobs squeezed my lungs, or maybe I was just gasping for breath, for the air seemed to be taken from me. The clouds boiled black and huge…yet despite the ferocity of the looming storm, there was no rain.
And then I was up, on the top of the outcropping, tugging my hands from the nest. For a moment—just for a moment—I thought the wind paused, maybe in surprise that I’d reached the summit. I could see the wild sea, the salt flats on one side, and the ruined village of Haver on the other. There in the rubble the villagers clung together, shouting, bracing for the oncoming storm. I shuddered to look at them: to look and remember their misguided prejudice, to look and remember that I’d constructed a perfect little town to replace this rubble, and that my own construct was far worse than what they’d done to me. I turned to the sky, with the lightning streaks making silver what was black, with the crash of thunder that nearly silenced the howl of the Nahlgruth. And I was suddenly so sad for the villagers. They had no concept of what was erupting all around them, that Chaos was claiming our world. All they understood was that they were being punished, that the clouds above could boil and threaten and push wave upon shore to decimate their lives and it still would not rain. Whatever slaughter they offered to beg safety only drew them further into chaos. It took my breath, the realization that I’d helped sink them ever deeper.
It would never rain.
The voice boomed again and I ducked; the wind whipped up stronger, buckling my knees. “You cannot have the amulet!” I shouted.
’Twas meager defiance in the face of something so huge. I shifted the ruined nest from hand to hand, as if I could not have the amulet either. And in answer a harrowing sound shivered the outcropping, shivered the earth. The villagers from Haver were wailing.
I staggered toward the end of the point, where it jutted high and far out into the sea. The waves were in a rage, smashing at the rocks in fury, sending the spray arcing over the top.
“Evie!”
The cry was faint against the roar of wind and wave. I’d imagined it. But it was there again: “Evie! Stop!”
I whirled around, the wind snatching the rest of my hair from its braid, whipping the strands. I pushed them from my eyes, staring stunned at the figure scrambling up the last boulders. And then I knew I’d imagined it. Laurent.
“No!” I screamed. “Get away!”
“Evie!” He was panting for breath, holding one hand against his ribs; the other gripped his sword. “Evie, come back!”
“Get away!” I screamed again. “You’re not real!”
Laurent lurched toward me. “Evie, I’m here. It’s me.” I couldn’t see his expression, the sky roiled too dark and he was too far away, but how he said it unnerved me. He fought the wind, his own body, and staggered forward.
The roaring grew louder—the beast was starting up the rocks.
I stood frozen. This was not the perfect Laurent that I’d constructed, who’d melted before my eyes. He was exhausted, in pain, filthy, and more beautiful for it, but—
“Stay back!” I screamed.
The Rider stopped. “Evie—”
“Tell me something I don’t know!” I begged him. “Tell me something of you that I wouldn’t know.” I could prove his realness that way, couldn’t I? If he told me something that had not been raked from my own memory.
“The white oak!” he shouted. “You wanted to know what healed the wound on my temple! ’Twas the white oak!”
The lump in my throat was cut through by a whimper. Maybe he heard it. Laurent took a step toward me. Somewhere behind I heard the Nahlgruth climbing. I should move. I should run….
“The ring.” I gulped. “Where is the ring?”
Laurent held up his hand. “Evie, it’s here.” The braided leather was on his little finger where I’d put it. Another step closer and another, and then he was telling me something else I’d not known: “You are the only one I have ever loved, ever will love.”
I sank down on the rocks feeling the wind whipping my clothes and hair sideways, salt stinging my cheeks. It didn’t matter. Racking sobs of relief, release. “You found me.” I gasped. “You found me.” I reached for him. I heard him running.
’Twas the briefest of joys. I was looking in horror at what I held—what held me. I’d forgotten to juggle the nest. The resin had sealed my hands into its poisonous mass, swallowed them so that I squeezed the searing hukon braids between my palms, and within them the little shell. Shrinking, drying, slowly forcing me to crush the amulet. Like stone, the resin solidified—the only holes in the glassy, soot-colored ball were where I’d stuck the lark feather through.
“Evie! What’s wrong?”
I lifted my burden to Laurent. He was slowing, realizing what I was holding—I, like a supplicant, begging, reaching hands engulfed in tar, desperately trying to separate them. If I kept the tension, pulled hard against the shriveling resin, I could slow the end. I could not hold out forever.
“You have to kill me,” I choked out. “Kill me before I destroy it.”
Laurent froze where he was. His voice was awful. “No.”
“You have to! It’s the only way!”
He shook his head. “I won’t, Evie. You have to stop it.”
“I can’t!” I cried. “It’s nearly done!” I yanked, tugged. My arms already ached.
“No!” he shouted back. “You have to!” Then, fiercely, “I won’t let you go.”
A shout, a terrible roar. I jerked my head up, then stumbled to my feet. The Nahlgruth had reached the top, stretching to its full and awesome height. Lauren
t was turning, lifting his sword, racing for the thing’s massive legs, the only place he could avoid a deathblow. The cat was back, leaping on the beast, climbing for its throat. I was screaming. There was no way out of this. The Nahlgruth would kill Laurent and I would kill the shell.
I remembered Lark’s terrible cry as she spied me high above Castle Tarnec: What have you done?
“What have you done?”
It was the Breeder. He stood before me, mimicking my thought with a hideous grin.
“Spare the Rider!” I screamed. “Spare him!”
The Breeder only laughed, knowing he’d won, and I hated him for it. I didn’t even think; I lunged at him, knocking the old man flat to the rocks and then doubling over, retching at my violent act. Do no harm. I was sick from it, and still enraged.
Before my horrified eyes, the Breeder stood back up, still laughing. “You cannot stop this.”
I will. Then, out loud, fierce: “I will!” And it came quick, something I could do, what I hoped could stop disaster. I turned and pushed through the wind, struggled toward the edge of the promontory.
“Stop!” cried the Breeder. His command resounded above the gale, making the Nahlgruth pause. Laurent sank to his knees, dragging breaths.
“Spare the Rider!” I screamed it at the Breeder. I backed up, stumbling, threatening. “Spare him!”
The Breeder shrieked, “Stop!”
“Show me! Bring the Nahlgruth to me!”
The Breeder hesitated, so I whirled and thrust my way to the very edge of the rock, teetering with each gust.
Something was yelled, for with a roar the Nahlgruth turned to face me. A step closer, another, shaking the boulders beneath.
“Run, Laurent! Run!” I screamed at the Rider. But Laurent only staggered to his feet, yelling, “Don’t, Evie! Don’t do it! Stay there!” He’d not leave me.
“Crush the shell,” the Breeder seethed. “Give up!”
I shook my head. I could hardly speak—my throat thick and raw, my body shuddering. The tar was sucking in my hands with excruciating strength.
“Crush it! And I will save your Rider!” He screeched as I shook my head again. “There will always be another beast, another Breeder. You cannot stop this. It is forever!”
Forever racked through me. The struggle of Balance, the Keepers’ endless vigil. I looked at the Breeder, suddenly clear. “I know,” I said. “It is our burden.”
“Evie, please!” Laurent shouted, desperate, forcing his way forward. “Don’t do it. Don’t!”
“Rider,” I called out. “I love you.” My voice broke. I tried louder: “I love you!” The words were taken by sobs and I realized it was not salt spray on my cheeks but tears. I’d never cried but I was crying now, weeping both for what I’d lost and for what I’d found—for all the beauty that had been, and for all the beauty that could still be glimpsed in the midst of darkness. “I’m sorry!”
The last words Laurent didn’t hear, for he’d reached the Breeder and stabbed his sword straight through. It caught the Breeder mid laugh, turning it into some curdled shriek. The Nahlgruth swung its hideous tentacle, tossing the Rider like a rag doll. I screamed, thinking Laurent had gone over the rocks, but he was there, clawing his way back, dragging himself to stand, hunched and pained and refusing to give up….The Nahlgruth turned to me.
I shouted with relief that the Rider lived, laughing through tears. Then my gaze met the beast’s and narrowed. “I’ll take you with me,” I gritted as the thing thudded toward me, huge and horrible. I closed my eyes.
Ask for help, the Sea Hags had said.
I raised my hands high above my head to lure his focus, the tarred shell strained between, took a step back, and another.
Help, I whispered. Help.
The wind gusted, raced around me between my arms. The shell tugged, wind whipping through the little holes I’d pierced with the lark feather, resonating.
Sounding.
Hollow, deep, a pure tone that made the resin vibrate. Everything else seemed to pause to listen. A moment’s hush before the Nahlgruth bellowed in agony and leaped for me, a moment’s hush before I stepped back into space, into wind, and Laurent cried, “Evie, no!”
My cloak billowed like a bluebird’s wing, lifted me. The beast was in midair, writhing, swiping, and then dropping like a stone to the waves. It burst into flames as the water claimed it, swallowed in a hiss of steam. Laurent was running, shouting my name….
But none of that seemed to matter. I was buffeted out and away, falling far and free into the arms of the sea, and thinking: The song, the shell’s song.
And there—the sky, the clouds were responding, yielding…
And there—the first drops of rain.
EPILOGUE
TEARS. RAIN. SEA. One bleeds into the next. They taste the same.
I am warm, weightless. I am safe.
Far above, through blue-gray mist, a figure struggles atop a rock outcropping. He stumbles to the edge, then drops to his knees. He reaches down. The waves are violent; they surge and crash just beneath his fingertips. They can take him if he simply leans a little.
The figure strains, conflicted. He wants to jump, to fall. To save…to die.
I will him not to. I watch him fight.
I do not fight.
—
Blue of turquoise sea and lapis stone, blue of the bright sky and coldest flame. It surrounded and shimmered. Beneath was the silver of purest white sand. I was neither drowned by wet nor crushed by weight, but inside a bubble within the infinite blue. A singular droplet in a vast ocean…suspended.
Water—the element to sweep clean, to hold secrets.
It washed me clean, leaving me clear-eyed and understanding: I’d not failed. Curiosity and need and twisted fate mattered not, for if every mistake led me here, then I was here—one small victory against a tide of threat. There would be no shell’s song if not for the Breeder, the poison, or the lark feather I’d picked from a path. If not for curiosity and need. Every mistake still offered choice, an opportunity. They were mine to own and mine to heal.
And I did heal. ’Twas in my hands all along, such power—when I stopped resisting and embraced the poison, bestowed my energy against yew and hukon. Warming through; wearing away. Thumbs, then fingers slowly freeing, hardened sludge peeling apart. The little shell emerged, whorls and knobs and pearly opening all as they were when first found. Another victory.
But once released, the shell was gone, secreted away by the sea. To where, I did not know. And the sea would hold me her secret too. How long, I did not know.
It wasn’t mine to know. I’d only asked for help.
—
Water holds no intent, but I think it did bear a tiny prejudice to my plight, for it offered me something—a hope to hold on to, perhaps a window in. Words murmured, washed over and through like the tide, like a lullaby:
The deepest place, no light to spare,
A small thief sleeps who brings two to air.
Stolen book, broken bond, the dark city burns.
By wing and surrender the Healer returns.
I wrapped my cloak, sank down to wait, to sleep, and, this time, to dream.
—
Somewhere above, the rain was pounding, feeding the Earth. Somewhere above, Trethe was keeping Lark from slipping into darkness, and all of Castle Tarnec was watching over their queen. Somewhere above, the seer was searching for his books and a Guardian was awakening. Hope in all of it. The reason to endure.
And…somewhere above, Laurent was calling for me. I felt it in my heart, my bones. My soul. He would not let go. Nor would I. That was not hope. It was truth.
“Love cannot die, Laurent.” I whispered up last promises. “It cannot.”
Nay. It will not.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THERE IS A path I sometimes walk. It leads through a narrow trail in a marsh, where reeds once grew so high you could not see beyond its bend. The reeds were cut down recently, I suppose to
open the view. I miss their mystery. I miss what inspired this story.
But if inspiration created, then others supported and nurtured, and I am very grateful to them: the most wonderful editor, Diane Landolf, who challenged me with gentle voice and astute eye to make everything better; the intrepid and brilliant agent, Jenny Bent, whose encouragement has never failed to amaze; the authors in my writing group—Tatiana Boncompagni, Melanie Murray Downing, and Lauren Lipton—who offered honest opinions and good friendship along the way; and my husband, who was always there to read, and to calm.
Thank you as well to the artist Marcela Bolivar for such exquisite covers in this Guardians of Tarnec series, and to art director Nicole de las Heras for all her efforts in bringing such gorgeous design to fruition.
Last but never least, thank you, Jonathan, Christopher, and Jeremy, for maneuvering around my inconveniently placed writing chair with humor, patience, and enthusiasm, despite my gnashing teeth. You are the loves of my life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SANDRA WAUGH grew up in an old house full of crowded bookshelves, in walking distance of an old library that allowed her to drag home a sack of six books at a time. It goes without saying, then, that she fell in love with an old house in Litchfield County, Connecticut, because of its many bookshelves. She lives there with her husband, two sons, and a dog who snores. Loudly. Silver Eve follows Lark Rising in the Guardians of Tarnec series.
