Yap cast off the lines holding the gig to Ice Lady and scrambled from the bow to hoist the mainsail, and then lunged for the stern to take command of the tiller. The gig heeled away in the gusting winds. Amberhill was impressed by how quickly the distance grew between them and Ice Lady, and he felt at once free and anxious. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
The storm rushed upon them as they made for the islands, slamming them with rain, waves washing over the rail. The gig strained, groaned, complained at the forces that battered it. Lightning slashed through the sky accompanied by deafening thunder. Yap fought with the tiller and Amberhill clung to the mast and sent up a prayer to the gods. The Ice Lady was completely gone from sight, vanished behind walls of waves and curtains of rain.
Both fresh and salt water assaulted them, burning Amberhill’s eyes. All he saw was water above, water below, turbulent darks and darker, visibility cut off by downpour and foamy crest. Yap was yelling, but the roar of wind slapped the words back at him. He pointed.
Amberhill peered over the plunging bow. Was there something ahead? When the bow reared back up and the gig climbed another wave, he saw only the gush of rain. The bow surged over the crest and this time, as they slid into the trough, he made out a pair of shapes darker than waves or rain or clouds, green and white froth dashing against them. They looked like monsters of the sea.
The Dragon Rocks!
The bow reared again. Monsters indeed—the currents around them would crush the gig. He glanced at Yap. The expression on the pirate’s face was one of terror.
“Steer clear!” Amberhill shouted. “Those are the Dragons ahead!”
Yap jiggled the tiller. It moved too easily. Amberhill did not hear the word, but read Yap’s lips: “Broken.”
Like the stick of driftwood Amberhill had imagined earlier, the gig was tossed around by the ocean, and when they neared the chaotic, churning currents near the pair of sea stacks called the Dragon Rocks, an enormous wave curled over them and Amberhill found himself wishing he’d taken an unexpected interest in seal hunting.
She walked among the wrack and blue mussel shells and the foam at the ocean’s edge. Bare of foot, she stepped surely, as though her toes knew every contour of every stone of the beach, every cobble and pebble. A hermit crab scuttled out of her way.
She liked to stroll the shore after storms, for the ocean tossed up so many interesting things. Sometimes they were secrets long hidden in darkling depths; often they were the flotsam and jetsam of far passing ships. Today, as gulls argued over a crab and an osprey tested its wings in air currents still restless from the storm, she found a bottle shining in the foam. She picked it up and discovered the cork still sealed, the wine safe within. That was a rare gift. Continuing on she found tangled fishing gear, some battered boards.
Soon she came upon more debris: wood planking, a barrel bobbing in the shallows. Perhaps she would be gifted with an entire cask of wine. She smiled.
A sheet of white undulating in the waves caught her eye, a sail, and it was snagged. It was snagged around a man. The gods were being very generous to her this day—if he still lived. She lengthened her strides to reach him. He lay half out of the water, his head resting on his outstretched arm, kelp trailing from his wrist. The sun sheened on wet black hair that straggled across a well-formed face. Much more handsome than the sailors she usually received.
He still breathed. A wave stirred his hand in an eddy. The red of a ruby on his finger flared in her eyes. She dropped to her knees and grabbed his hand to see the ring close up. She knew it, had known the ring before and the hand that had worn it, the hand that had caressed her so tenderly, so lovingly, so long ago. She stroked the man’s hair away from his face.
“Are you he?” Yolandhe, sea witch out of legend, asked. “Have you come back to me, my love?”
RETREAT AND RESOLVE
Something had gone terribly wrong. Grandmother had felt it like the snap of a bone in the small hours as they passed the night in the grove. She’d heard a horrible wailing in her sleep like some enormous beast receiving grievous injury, and upon awakening, she found the limbs of trees quivering above, and that the forest had grown uneasy. God said he’d ensure their safe passage home, but as they hurriedly packed and sought their way out of the grove, the forest was as hostile as ever, unseen eyes glaring at them, unnamed creatures lusting for their blood, and now they didn’t even have their groundmite companions to protect them anymore.
Grandmother had had to create a salamander compass to help them navigate the curling roads of Argenthyne until once again they found the main road around the lake. Even the lake was disturbed, its surface curdled and waves slapping the shore. When she glanced back toward the castle towers, they had grown darker as if decayed, dying, and then wet clouds swallowed them. Acrid raindrops began to pelt her face.
With two of her men gone—three if she counted Regin, who had been lost so early on in their journey—setting up camp for the night proved despairingly difficult in the rain, as if they’d never done it before. With a little help from Grandmother’s art, Cole did manage to get a fire burning.
Though Lala now had a voice, she said little. Occasionally she broke out in small snatches of song.
“Mum,” the girl said, cuddling up to Grandmother before the fire.
Grandmother’s cares and aches and chills melted away to hear Lala call her that, and she wrapped her arm around her little girl.
“I will teach you some songs one of these days,” Grandmother said.