by Jenna Rhodes
Unlike him, she dropped to her knees and began a slow, inexorable crawl to the river. Behind her came a long pause and then she heard Sevryn follow her. He reached out and gripped her boot. “Grace. There is no way to make the horses crawl.”
She curled up to look back at him and then realized what he meant. Her face warmed. “Then we might as well run for it.”
“Done!” He handed her to her feet and literally tossed her aboard Glow, throwing the reins into her hands before turning and doing a running mount onto his horse.
As they kicked their horses into a run, birds burst out of cover to take wing behind them, adding to the sudden change from tension to fear. Grace leaned low over the neck of her mare, urging her faster. A whoop sounded behind them, leaving no doubt they had been seen.
But they had plenty of horse under them, crediting Sevryn’s caution, while the pursuers had to be riding mounts nearly played out, having ridden at top speed to catch up with them. Glow put her ears back at Grace’s words, and stretched out her nimble legs to eat the ground beneath them even faster, dodging the shrubs and low brush, her hooves cutting the distance away. The River Andredia ribboned before them, dark blue and white, frothing on the rocky coves as it made its way out of the valley Larandaril. What she thought she could accomplish there, she was not certain, but she knew it was their only chance.
Pavan drew even with Glow, their heads bobbing together, as they raced across the field toward the Andredia. His nostrils flared wide and he snorted, stretching his body out, his hot-blooded nature bringing out the desire to race and win, his senses driving him to run flat out. Clods of spring-tender grass clumps flew through the air. Glow answered his challenge by putting her ears down even further and angling away from him to give herself racing room.
Grace wrapped her hand about the right rein and began to tug on it, slowly, steadily, turning her mare in her path else they would not stop at the river but ford it at speed, and she didn’t want that. They had to be in the water. She did not breathe until Glow plunged into it, plowing a spray of ice-cold water about all of them, tossing her head and snorting as she beat Pavan by a mere step. Sevryn twisted in the saddle. He said nothing, but his brow went up in question. She put her hand up for silence. His mouth twitched. She looked to him, and her own brow quirked. He lifted a shoulder in a shrug and looked down at his hands, each filled with a throwing dagger.
Rivergrace lifted her own hands. The waters of the Andredia reached up in misty waves to fill her fingers before running through them. Glow tossed her head uneasily as water sprayed about her. The same unease filled her rider. Grace felt the Andredia sink through her skin, into her veins, into her very soul . . . cold and icy, fresh melted from the mountains, carried out of the font hidden within them, and down the hillsides throughout the valley. She could feel more than that in it, however. There was rainwater, fallen from the skies and drifting from far, far away, distilled from the air and seas themselves. They had no calling for the Andredia, but they had an answering for her. The Andredia did not want to give in to her will, would not let her braid it as she wished, did not want to bend to her asking, but she persisted. She was more than the heir to the Silverwing waters, more than the heir to its mad Goddess. She felt the ire of the Andredia’s soul and reminded it that she had helped to cleanse it, not that long ago. It owed her, though water seldom felt that it owed any living thing on the face of the earth. It simply was.
“What are you doing?”
Rivergrace did not glance up, merely letting a “Shush” go, her face bent to the river around them. Glow danced in the flow, splashing it vigorously, her chestnut dappled hide shivering. It was chilling her. It had already seeped icy fingers into Grace.
“Surrender now, and there will be no arms pulled against you.”
Her attention snapped up, as did Sevryn’s. Lariel sat her golden and silver-white steed, her shoulders thrown back, her mail gleaming in the early morning sun, and her eyes bruised with fatigue or perhaps it was sorrow.
“We deserve our freedom.”
“You gave an oath to me, Sevryn Dardanon.”
“I have given you more than one oath, my Warrior Queen, and upheld every one of them.”
Rivergrace’s fingers moved on their own volition, weaving, braiding, bending the recalcitrant river to her will. If not for the rainwater in it, it would not have listened to her at all, not with the queen of Larandaril so close. It finally conceded to carry one away, but only one. Rivergrace stayed cold. She told the river what she wished and it agreed to follow her desire.
She dropped her hands to her reins, fingers bone chilled, numbed with her effort, trembling in her saddle. Glow took a side step toward the river’s bank.
“How can I know that?” Lara asked sadly.
“At least one of those oaths will not be entirely fulfilled until one or the other of us is dead, for it is the vow of a lifetime, and cannot be upheld until our lives run out.”
Her gaze locked on Sevryn. “Do you tempt me?”
“No. I remind you that I have given you my word, and I see no evidence that anything I have done is treasonous.” Sevryn kept his daggers in his hands, but they rested easy on his thighs, and he made no move although Pavan, like his stable mate, danced a little nervously in the rushing tide of the Andredia.
Bistane kneed his horse in front of Lariel, partially blocking her, though whether it was to protect her or intercede for Sevryn, could not be discerned. “Come with us, you two, before the river freezes both of you. We need to sit and talk. I have word from the north and our queen has her own confidences to share.”
“I’ll come.” Rivergrace lifted her hand and made a summoning gesture. The Andredia answered with a roar, as she kicked her mare out of its waters, and onto the earth clear of its agitation.
“No!” Lara kicked her mount forward, knocking Bistane’s to one side in her fury. “How dare you seize the Andredia! I am its force, its power, its benefactor by pact, and it will do my will! It answers to no one but me.”
Rivergrace swayed in her saddle as Lara raised her fist, and an unseen but not unfelt power surged through the air. It smashed into her with a thunderous boom as though lightning had sundered the air. With great effort, she clung to her seat in her saddle and took a deep breath before turning to the other and smiling, sadly, answering, “Not entirely.” She made a final movement with her hand, before beckoning to Sevryn, calling out, “Aderro! Good fortune.”
“No! Don’t do this, Grace! Don’t do this. Trust me!” He dug his heel deep into Pavan’s flanks, but the horse stayed froze in fear at the panic in his rider’s voice. Sevryn cursed and jerked hard at the bridle and bit. The tashya stayed frozen in place, withers quivering, otherwise unmoving. He lifted a leg to throw himself off, to go after Rivergrace, to stop her sacrifice. He did not make it.
The air roared as a wall of water rose upstream. The waters of the Andredia reared in a flood tide, white spray and towering. The flash flood hit Sevryn and his mount full tide, sweeping them away as the horse screamed in terror. Sevryn bent forward to lace his arms about the creature’s neck in a frantic gesture to stay mounted. White foam rose like fog, obscuring them as they disappeared in the fury.
Bistane jumped from his horse and ran to Rivergrace’s side, grabbing the headstall with one hand and her arm with the other, both bracing her and protecting her from Lariel who threw her head back with a keening cry of anger.
RIVERGRACE THREW HERSELF OFF HER HORSE, landing on both feet but with knees that threatened to give out from under her, even as she dared not show any weakness. Sevryn’s anger swept away downriver, out of hearing, and she swallowed tightly. He would hate her for what she had done. Her heartbeat drummed in her throat and black stars danced at the edge of her vision. She shoved her feelings into the pit of her stomach to summon a smile at Lariel. “Trap me if you can.”
Lariel stood in her stirr
ups, reins knotted tightly around one fist as she raised her other hand, baring her teeth in a fierce growl as she swung her horse around to face Rivergrace. Her eyes flashed multiple hues of blue punctuated with flashes of gold and silver. “You were a guest on my land and in my kingdom.”
“Guest or well-regarded prisoner, I was never certain. But I have never acted as less than an ally.”
“You are my hostage for Sevryn Dardanon.”
“Never,” she answered. She couldn’t allow Lara to make her into a chain to bind him. She threw her head back, gathering her abilities within her, assessing what she could do to face Lariel and live. The woman who snubbed her horse into submission did not look at all like the young woman she’d made friends with, once upon a time. This then, was the person that men met upon the battlefield, and fell back from in awed retreat. “Whatever you think he has done, you don’t understand, nor do you understand the range of what I can do.” The air shivered about her with a rising heat from Lariel, but she ignored it. Water shimmered about her, drops too tiny to be seen or even to feel, but she felt them. They called to her and she called to her element. With a confidence she did not know she could feel, she lifted her arms and surrendered to the water. Rather than gather it to herself, she gave in to it. She could feel herself thin and grow unsubstantial, her life pulses change into an airiness that scared yet thrilled her, weariness leaving her body and bones as she became nothing more than a damp mist on the air, her empty clothes dropping to the ground. Glow whickered nervously and stepped away from her.
She ran . . . no, floated . . . away from cries and shouts on the air after her, noise that buffeted her misty being harmlessly, if annoyingly. She had not known she could do this, but she had thought she might be able to, from the way the dew condensed on her and tickled her skin and whispered to her that she could follow it wherever it went . . . and now, she did. She let the wind take her, high up into the hills of Larandaril, with the pounding of hoofbeats being left farther and farther behind her, just as she had left her cloak of flesh behind. They would not catch her, not just yet, not in this form, although she could not hold it long or she would lose herself entirely and disappear into the fogs on the hills forever. She drifted on the wind, driven, a spray splashing upon the high ridges that ringed Larandaril, and she nearly lost herself in the fog.
Her watery self did not consider this a bad thing: it was the way of water. Evaporation, condensation, precipitation and all over again, a cycle of nature. She was outside that cycle, outside the nature of water even as she wore its form. She had to remember that. Remember or be lost forever.
The air still held a bite from winter, but the chill felt good upon her face as she turned it toward the sky laced with clouds. She could feel the moisture beading in the sky, not heavy enough for rain but gathering. To the east, to Abayan Diort’s dry lands, this rain would come. It would please him, this spring storm, and his farmers, and the lakes and streams of his hard-pressed land. The knowledge brought a smile to her face. If only it could always be so. But there would be storms and droughts and little else she could do anything about except to sense and know beforehand. The knowledge prickled along her skin and through her body before sinking deep into her bones. She could, if she wished, release the rain that gathered now in premature, misty sprinkles here, but they did not need it and she hesitated to interfere with the natural way of things. She had not been taught to be a Goddess, but she did not have to be to know there was a responsibility in the ways of nature. And, after all, if she was a Goddess, it was only as a minor River Goddess, in place of the one who had gone . . . did Goddesses go insane? Perhaps her predecessor had gone demonic. It wasn’t something she liked to dwell upon. She had been branded with the fire from the same Demon. Did she carry the same fate as well? The backlash which ostracized her warned her that it was a clear possibility. Lara’s harsh words gnawed at her, because finding out the truth might endanger all those she loved, and she had to know the truth, if she hoped to be able to hide or quell her secrets.
She could hear the call of dark water more clearly now that she was far from Vaelinar shouts and pursuit. It touched her, faint, yet persistent, as one might hear a drip from a leaking roof hidden deep within the eaves. She did not think it had tainted her or was even sure that it had the ability to do so. Here was a power and a pervasive one. Rivergrace hesitated, momentarily thinking of turning back to whatever punishment Lariel might yet impose. Perhaps she deserved it.
Her mother Lily would tell her emphatically, no; she was not nor could she become Narskap. The weaving of her life had been different and, though a thread here and there might be the same, the pattern emerging was so different as to be night and day. For one, she was mortal. Her flesh, her heart, her soul, her loves and hates all mortal. And there it was, the truth that should blind all of them. She couldn’t be a Goddess or a hound to evil because she was mortal. What she held within her was only the ability to read the waters of the rivers and of the clouds and to know its mind. Added to that the ability to call Fire, and control it briefly, aim it before loosing it, setting it within a parameter that it could not cross until it burned to bitter ashes. To harness Fire cost her reserves of strength that calling Water never did. Water came to her as naturally as breath, and she could feel it in any living object. Any water-Talented Vaelinar could do the same.
Only no one in their living memory had touched a Goddess of Kerith. She had not only touched the Being but had been cradled by Her for decades of her early life, held in a protective cocoon of not-being yet preserved, until the Goddess released her in her all-too mortal form.
Rivergrace thought of flesh. If it were not for Sevryn, and Nutmeg, and all her Farbranches—Lily and Tolby and her three brothers—she would not know who she was. They anchored her, but she held a core inside herself that made that possible. She would not accept Lara’s condemnation for being different. Like a twig or a slender sapling, she had bowed as much as she could. Now it was time to seek the sun and grow as she was meant to grow, strong as well as supple. She was the daughter of Dwellers who believed in strong roots and had given them to her. She would betray herself as well as them if she stayed in the shadows of Vaelinar distrust. She would be who she was meant to be.
She smiled within her misty self as she crossed a brooklet of river water, and sent a prayer to all those she loved so much through it, knowing that it would be carried into the valley and then into the sacred Andredia before heading to the vast sea. She passed along dewed grasses into the foothills and the darkness of a cave where water called her yet again, to answer a voice she did not know.
The chase lost far behind her, she paused, a wisp upon a rocky outcrop just behind the border of Lara’s lands. The mountains here, sharp hills really, with catacombs which had caught her once before, called out to her now.
Stone, sharp and cold, with a voice that begged to be heard.
She paused and listened for a long time. No. Not rock. Not granite and jasper and agate and plain old dirt. Another kind of water trapped deep within its confines, like a dark jewel in its shadows. It was water that called to her, water deep and secret. It called to be discovered. She hovered on the hill, undecided, until a rising breeze threatened to dissipate her altogether sending her fleeing into the mouth of the stone hill. With a chilling efficiency, it sucked her in, her senses sent whirling about her until she screamed, knowing and fearing that the cavern mouth was undoing her entirely.
Suddenly, she sat stark naked on the cold stone floor, physical and whole, shaking in every limb, stony pebbles bruising her flesh. Grace anchored her quivering hands over her mouth and jaw, holding her lips still and steadying herself until her breathing quieted and her hard-drumming heart slowed. Finally, she moved her hands up her face to rub her eyes. Had she lost any of herself to the mist, to the rocks? She couldn’t tell. Physically, she had all the flesh she’d been born with. Spiritually, she could not take an inventory. Were th
ere memories torn from her? Whole lives missing?
Grace pulled a lock of her hair, a gesture Nutmeg used to do whenever she fussed, saying, “Stop that!”
Her words fell on deaf stone. She got to her feet carefully, her eyes adjusting to the dark. She hated it and, worse, she stood barefoot. She had the tender-soled feet of the shod class of society, and walking here would be excruciating eventually, notwithstanding her nakedness. Despite the fact she had been deposited so far inland of the tunnel, she thought she knew her direction and that the mouth of the cave lay at her back. She could turn about. It wouldn’t solve her nudity, but she would find the sun and fresh air even though the voice of the dark water now tugged at her, as if realizing she had arrived to accede to its demand. It tugged determinedly at her as it held a leash to her heart, pulling harshly. Sharp pains lanced through her chest as she took a wobbly step backward. Water could not rule her if she did not let it. She raised a hand instinctively, filling it with fire, and cut the invisible cord with a slash of her fingers. The dark water recoiled as it was wont to do in the face of its opposite.
Rivergrace drew herself up, straight and tall. There had been a time when closed-in spaces and darkness gnawed at her, captured her, and held her still and tight in fright so sharp that she could not escape. No more. Perhaps she had grown from those days when she was no higher than her mother’s knee and they both were enslaved in the mines, or perhaps it was because she had faced darkness and more in caves often enough that it no longer held a threat. Rivergrace did not count the dark side of the earth as a friend either, but it no longer ruled her. There were many things these days that had no power to control her. She would ferret out what cowered in the depths, determine what comprised it, and what she might do about it. She smiled faintly as she walked into the deeps, her fingers trailing lightly upon the right side walls, keeping track of her path as her senses sought that which called her. The walls were sculpted yet rough and grainy from the centuries that had passed since their first carving under the hills. Great, scaled worms had traveled them, according to the Bolger tales, followed centuries later by the Mageborn who’d woven their own magic on the earth to make themselves pathways for war and intrigue. She could not know of either, being young even by Kerith standards. She did know that the stone and the water were far older than any worm or magician. Far, far older, as old as the birth of the world itself, for how could it be otherwise?