Remnant

by Brenda J. Pierson

  It only took a few minutes to reach the coral wall. The portal floated on its dock just out of swimming distance. Brinelle and Windrunner had to climb onto the coral, letting it slice new cuts into their hands and knees and clothes, then lift the boat over it to reach the open ocean. From there they fought the waves for a few moments before docking at a wooden walkway inches above the rolling blue waves.

  The portal looked even more out of place up close. The solid gray stone didn’t belong in a fluid, ever-changing environment like this. Somehow the ramshackle, crooked buildings of Syrenia looked more natural in the shoal than this chunk of rock.

  Windrunner focused on the portal itself. It was identical to the ones he’d seen in the Farmlands and Nevantia. Hopefully somewhere there would be a clue to the Remnant’s location. Something more specific than “in the shoal where it won’t get washed away.”

  There were words etched along the top rim of the portal, but Windrunner couldn’t read them. It didn’t look like the wear of wind and waves—someone had scratched out whatever had been written there.

  “That isn’t much help,” he grumbled. Why had someone done that? To prevent anyone from finding the Remnant?

  “Windrunner, look.”

  Brinelle was kneeling at the base of the portal, pointing to something along the bottom edge. Small words had been cut into the stone. It pierces the heart of the interloper.

  No. It hadn’t been to keep the Remnant hidden. It was to make it easier to find. Whoever had been here had given them clear directions.

  Windrunner looked at Brinelle. They both knew where they had to go to find the Remnant.

  They had to break into the Syren after all.

  14

  Windrunner paced around his room. It was an hour or so until sunrise, but he’d gotten only a few hours of sleep. He couldn’t decide what was bothering him more—that they had to betray the trust of Tobain and the people of Syrenia by sneaking into their sacred ship, or that he was more excited about it than disturbed.

  He felt like he should be unhappy about the whole affair, but he wasn’t. He wanted to explore that husk of a ship and find whatever treasures might be hidden within—Remnant notwithstanding. So he had to venture into places others didn’t want him to go to do it. They’d made it clear trespassing was a terrible crime to them, but Windrunner shrugged. It would be worth it.

  That thought made him cringe. Yes, it might be worth it, but why wasn’t he even a little distressed about having to break the law? Syrenia had taken him in as one of their own. He should be a little more hesitant about doing something that could revoke that welcome, shouldn’t he?

  This was for a good cause, though. He had to stop the Shahadán. He needed the Remnant to do so. If they wouldn’t let him retrieve it, wasn’t it his responsibility to take action anyway? It was for the good of everyone. Not just Syrenia. The world.

  Windrunner could accept the necessity, but he still didn’t care about the consequences. Was that his dark magic talking? He hoped so.

  Urgent footsteps echoed down the hall seconds before someone pounded on his door. Heart racing, Windrunner opened it.

  Brinelle flew into the room, panic driving her every motion. “The Godspeaker’s men have arrived.”

  “What?”

  “I told you he would send people after us. If they find us …” She shook her head, unable to finish the sentence.

  “Then we can’t let them.” Windrunner retrieved his pack, stuffing his possessions into it. “Or the Remnant. We can’t let the Godspeaker have it—he won’t use it. He’d rather let the Shahadán run amok than use the magic.”

  “Agreed.”

  Fi’ar appeared in the doorway. He looked from Brinelle to Windrunner. “Good. Now I won’t have to wait for you, funny man.”

  “Shove it, Fi’ar. We don’t have time.”

  The urn warrior looked, if anything, impressed.

  “We need a plan,” he said.

  “We know the Remnant is in the Syren,” Windrunner said. “At least, that’s how we’ll find it.”

  “And once we have it? We don’t have a ship to escape on,” Fi’ar pointed out.

  Brinelle cleared her throat. “The Godspeaker brought a ship.”

  Windrunner perked up at that. Take revenge on the Godspeaker by commandeering his ship? He laughed, the thought too appealing for anything else.

  “You didn’t want to steal a tiny boat, but you’re happy to steal a ship?” Fi’ar asked.

  “This is different,” Windrunner said. “This is the Godspeaker’s ship. If anyone deserves it, it’s him.”

  They had little trouble making their way to the Syren. The few residents who were up this early either took no note of them or gave them polite greetings and went on their way.

  Windrunner’s heart was about to beat out of his chest. He found himself walking faster and faster, his excitement pushing him almost to a run.

  The Syren loomed above them, the rupture in her hull a gateway into the forbidden unknown. It was black as pitch inside.

  Brinelle’s belantra naan flickered to life in her hand, but she didn’t advance right away. She stood in the entrance, staring into the darkness. Windrunner couldn’t tell if she was scared, or searching for threats, or just hesitant about breaking the rules. After a moment she took a deep breath and plunged into the ship. Windrunner ducked in after her, Fi’ar close on his heels.

  The air was musty with rotting wood and water-born decay. They had entered into the bilges, where seawater would have collected and festered even when the ship was in perfect order. Lying stagnant for more than a hundred years had made the odors worse, he suspected.

  Brinelle was a little ahead of him, the tiny flame in her hand struggling to illuminate the massive space. Behind him, Fi’ar was little more than a collection of eerily wobbling orange tattoos and a pair of black eyes catching the firelight. The urn warrior was creepier than the interior of the Syren.

  Everything was tilted sideways—support columns lay at steep angles rather than running straight up. They walked across the walls of the ship more than the floor. Windrunner was glad to have his staff with him. It made a pretty nice walking stick.

  The hole in the hull ran all the way through the bilges and into the upper decks, toward Windrunner’s right. “Whatever ripped this hole must have been massive.”

  “It would certainly pierce the heart of the Syren,” Brinelle said. Her voice sounded distant and shaky.

  “Right. We follow the damage, we’ll find whatever it is.”

  “And therefore, the Remnant.”

  He nodded, smiling to himself. For a brief moment, everything had been normal between them. They’d had a conversation—albeit a brief one—where Brinelle hadn’t condemned him for being a Varyah. She’d even met his eyes and gotten close to a smile.

  They made their way up the walls, scrambling for purchase on the slick algae and rotting wood, until they were able to crawl into an ancient storage hold.

  Every scrap of furniture or cargo was long gone from the Syren. A few broken bits were left, but even these looked picked over—Windrunner didn’t see anything that could be useful. The crew had stripped everything from the wreck to construct their town.

  Despite the emptiness, Windrunner still felt the excitement of discovery. His imagination ran rampant visualizing the bustle of the ship when it had been in order. His curiosity piqued when he saw crabs or rats scurrying into shadows. What waited to be found around the next corner?

  The sound of bone knives being slid from leather sheathes wasn’t a loud one, but in the silence of the Syren it was deafening. Windrunner froze, his heart racing. His grip tightened on his staff and the blood-soaked wood grew warm in his hand.

  “We’re being followed,” Fi’ar whispered.

  “Is it the Varyah?”

  “No,” Brinelle said. “I’ve not sensed Destruction magic for some time.” Windrunner didn’t need to see her to feel the glare she sent his way. Yeah, I get
it. Except mine.

  Still, it was a relief to know it wasn’t the Varyah. Windrunner wasn’t eager to feel that mature, crushing Destruction magic any time soon. He was getting close enough to it on his own. “The Godspeaker’s assassins, then?”

  “Possibly. Or perhaps it’s the townspeople come to defend their ship.”

  Neither option was a good one. They were headed toward a fight either way—he just hoped it wouldn’t be too bloody.

  Unless it was the Godspeaker’s men. He wouldn’t mind showing them a beating for what they were trying to do.

  Windrunner took a breath and very consciously loosened his grip. The magic in the staff was responding to his own, and he didn’t need any more encouragement to lose himself to the fear-born anger building within him.

  “Whoever it is, we cannot be seen,” Brinelle whispered.

  Windrunner nodded. It didn’t matter who had followed them in here. Townsfolk or Evantar—it was best to avoid them.

  “Let’s keep going,” he said. “We’ll worry about escaping once we have the Remnant.”

  They did their best to hurry through the ship without making any unnecessary noise. Several times they stopped altogether, straining their ears to identify every creak and crack of the derelict ship.

  Finally they reached the end of the damage. The ship was completely devastated here, huge chunks of the decking reduced to splinters as it had come to its final resting place. At the very heart of the damage was a giant column of coral, almost as wide as it was tall. Shadows flickered across its surface, dancing in the light of Brinelle’s belantra naan. It looked like a tumor that had grown amidst the ship and killed it.

  They circled the coral, spotting a hole near the base big enough for a single person to fit through. Windrunner peered into it, but couldn’t see anything through the darkness. He could feel something, though. Something warm and reassuring, like the first sip of hot cocoa on a cold night.

  This was Creation magic. It had to be.

  Windrunner squeezed into the hole. It was tight for only a step before it opened into a dome large enough for a dozen people. Coral of every color imaginable grew around him, forming walls more intricate and dazzling than any artist could have created. Water streamed down from the ceiling, glistening in the light of Brinelle’s belantra naan as she entered behind him.

  “Can you believe this?” Brinelle asked, her mouth open as her eyes darted around the room.

  “No,” Windrunner replied. He’d seen a lot of amazing things since leaving the Farmlands, but nothing had prepared him for this. Everywhere he looked he saw another breathtaking formation, more spectacular color. He could stand here for hours and never run out of things to look at.

  Incredible as it was, Windrunner’s attention was drawn away from the coral to the center of the dome. He sucked in a breath and couldn’t seem to release it.

  There it was. Sitting amongst the coral like a crown was a blue-green stone, roughly faceted but polished to a mirror shine. Creation magic radiated from it the way Destruction magic had radiated from the Shahadán. This close to it, even Windrunner could feel his magic responding to it. It was the same sense Windrunner got standing among his crops, on those rare days that were so pure he could almost feel the plants growing.

  Brinelle stopped a few paces before to the Remnant. Windrunner stopped beside her. She was looking up at the dome of coral, then to the Remnant, her eyes wide with fear.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “The Remnant … it’s holding this entire place together,” she said. Her voice was shaky. “If we take it away from here, all of this will crumble.”

  Ice spread through Windrunner’s chest. He looked up at the coral too, the brilliant colors mesmerizing. “This entire place. You don’t just mean the coral, do you?”

  She shook her head. “All of Syrenia is being sustained by the power of the Remnant.”

  Windrunner had already figured out Syrenia was formed with Creation magic, but that it was being sustained by it … he should have thought of it before. Something had to be keeping the waves from breaking the coral wall, refilling the shoals with kelp and fish and fresh water. Syrenia could never survive without the magic constantly remaking it.

  His eyes returned to the Remnant. It was even more beautiful than the coral. Not just because of its appearance, but from the magic within, too. It was Creation magic in its truest form, warm and soothing. It was the antithesis of the Shahadán. Their way to rid the world of the horror Windrunner had released.

  They had to get it. No matter the cost.

  He reached for the Remnant, hesitated. Part of him didn’t want to touch that stone, so saturated with Creation magic. Would he sully its beauty with his dark magic? Would it reject him, refusing to let him touch it?

  It wasn’t the Remnant that rejected his touch—it was Brinelle. She grabbed his arm before he could reach the stone and held it fast. Her eyes bored holes into his.

  Windrunner backed off. If he even tried to argue about this, Brinelle would … he didn’t know what she would do. He didn’t want to find out.

  Fi’ar stuck his head into the coral cave. “We only have a few minutes before whoever’s following us arrives.”

  No time to hesitate. They had to get the Remnant and disappear before they were found.

  Brinelle cast him one more warning glare and reached for the Remnant. Even Windrunner could feel the spark of power when her fingers touched it. It was an intense wash of Creation magic that filled him with energy the same way Brinelle’s healing magic did. How much power was in that stone? Windrunner had known it would be powerful, but he hadn’t expected that.

  Brinelle took hold of the Remnant and tugged, but the stone was held fast. “It’s stuck,” she said, taking a step back.

  He and Brinelle circled it, looking for a weakness. The coral had grown up around it, anchoring it soundly. “We could try to break it off,” Windrunner said. “Some of this coral looks pretty fragile.”

  Brinelle glared at him, and he could see just how much she hated that idea. But he could also tell she didn’t have a better plan. Finally she nodded.

  Windrunner stepped up, opposite Brinelle.

  You’ve more than earned your place among us.

  Tobain’s voice rang in his ears. In order to get the Remnant, Windrunner would have to ruin all that. Destroy the place that had taken them in as one of their own. It might not be gone in an instant, but months or years from now Syrenia would be reclaimed by the ocean. And it would be Windrunner’s fault.

  It’s not like you have much choice, he thought. If you don’t take the Remnant, the entire world will fall to the Shahadán.

  Windrunner put down his staff, grasped the Remnant with both hands, and braced himself. “It’s for the greater good,” he said. And pulled.

  The Remnant resisted the pressure, but Windrunner could feel the coral straining to hold it. Small pops sounded as the coral cracked. He pushed against the stone, rocking it back and forth in its cradle. The coral was giving way, slowly, but the Remnant was far from free.

  Fi’ar squeezed into the coral cave. “They’re here,” he whispered.

  Brinelle doused her belantra naan. Oppressive darkness fell over them, the only light a faint bluish glow from the Remnant. “Did you see who they were?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t hurt anyone until we know who they are,” Brinelle said. Windrunner could feel Fi’ar bristle at the comment. The urn warrior was ready for action. He was ready to hurt someone, whether they were locals or knight-priests of Evantar.

  Windrunner understood the feeling. Whoever these people were, they’d followed them into the Syren and stalked them all the way here. Now Windrunner and his friends were trapped, and they would never be allowed to leave with the Remnant, noble intentions or not. They would have to fight their way out, and the idea was growing more appealing to Windrunner by the moment.

  Fi’ar was mumbling under his breath in his native languag
e. Brinelle paced, every few steps pausing to listen for any sign of approaching danger. They heard nothing from their pursuers, though they could all sense their presence outside the cave.

  Windrunner poured his anger into trying to break the Remnant free. The coral was cracking violently now, but he swore the Creation magic was making it grow back as fast as he could destroy it. The stone refused to be taken.

  “Damn it, coral,” he growled between clenched teeth. “Let go already!”

  The Remnant was loose in its housing as suddenly as if his opponent had let go in a game of tug-of-war. He stumbled backward, Remnant in hand. The whole top portion of the coral was gone.

  Had he Destroyed the coral without even realizing it? His blood ran cold at the thought. He’d used his magic a handful of times, and already it was starting to take over his life.

  He didn’t pause to consider the victory of retrieving it or the means by which he’d done it. He didn’t dare stop to think of the consequences, either. Syrenia would be destroyed, eventually … but Windrunner didn’t have a choice. He needed this Remnant to stop the Shahadán.

  “All right,” he whispered, slipping the stone into his pack to keep his hands free for his staff. “I’ve got it.”

  Fi’ar moved to one side of the opening, Brinelle to the other. The urn warrior peeked out into the ship, his orange tattoos shifting like tiny embers. After a moment of stillness he squeezed back out of the opening. Windrunner took up his vacated position, staff growing warm in his hand. His heart was racing. He couldn’t wait to get out there and see who’d been following them. If it was Evantar … the Godspeaker had asked for it.

  Stop it, Windrunner. Escape is more important than revenge.

  He followed Fi’ar into the ship, staying in the dark shadows around the coral mound. He couldn’t see anything without the light of Brinelle’s belantra naan, but he knew they weren’t alone. He could sense others lurking in the shadows, could feel the malevolence wafting from them. They had to be Evantar. As much as the people of Syrenia valued this ship, Windrunner couldn’t imagine them being quite this bloodthirsty.