More than anything, she wanted to return to the university. She could learn to control her water shaping there. After her years away, Doma no longer felt like her home. Ophan never would be her home, and Ushil was gone.
She sighed. Maybe it didn’t matter what she saw. Maybe what mattered was that she find a way back to Ethea. If only she could reach Tan, ask for his help returning to the university, but the strange connection they had shared had failed since her healing, leaving silence between them. There would be no help from Tan or the kingdoms’ shapers.
Except, if the draasin and not the lisincend attacked in Falsheim, didn’t Tan need to know? They would need the kingdoms’ help then. There might not be anything she could do, but she had to know whether it was draasin or lisincend.
Distant smoke billowed away long enough for her to see that flames no longer seemed to burn in Falsheim. She glanced to the sky, wondering when the lisincend would reappear, but she saw nothing.
She couldn’t stay in Ophan, not if they were unwilling to do anything. If she made it to Falsheim, she could discover what happened, learn if it had been lisincend. There would be shapers in Falsheim who could help. If she was wrong, they could help her return to the university.
Only, how was she to reach Falsheim?
4
That evening, Elle waited by the rocks for the fisherman Toshun to leave his boat. Standing above Widows Ledge, she saw the small fishing boat making its way into shore. Toshun was a quiet man, gaunt and sun wrinkled, but with steady hands that worked the oars. One of his sons, a young boy named Jormund who Elle had discovered had a clever tongue, pulled on the netting, dragging it alongside the boat. Toshun’s older son didn’t seem to be with him.
When the boat beached, she remained hidden within the rocks. First they’d need to unload the day’s catch, then they’d work at cleaning and folding the nets. She could wait.
Her heart hammered with her decision, but a sense of calm had come over her. She’d waited too long to get away from the village. Now that something had attacked Falsheim, it felt right that she would attempt to reach the capital. She was a water senser of Doma. She was meant to go to Falsheim.
Toshun carried the day’s catch—six long silver pike hanging from hooks along a rope—over his shoulder. Jormund folded the netting quickly and then raced after his father, his small feet splashing through puddles and kicking up sprays of sand as he went.
Elle dared not wait too long. They would return and beach the boat solidly for the day. She wouldn’t be strong enough to drag it back to the water then, even if she had another chance to sneak away. This was it.
As she sprinted from her hiding place, Elle scraped her hands and feet along the rock. Water splashed around her and a brisk sea breeze gusted toward her. As she reached the boat, she rested bloodied palms on the bow. She had nothing with her other than the clothes on her back, but that seemed especially fitting considering what she’d come ashore with.
The boat rocked slightly with each wave, the water pulling slowly away as the tide rolled out. With a heave on the bow, she pushed, sending the boat skidding only a few inches across the sand. Elle pushed again, wishing she had earth shaping to strengthen her, and heaved. The boat slid and then stopped again.
Voices came from the other side of the small hill leading down to the beach. If she didn’t manage to move the boat now, she would lose her chance.
Please.
She pushed again, bearing down and through herself. Water splashed, sending spray misting around her. The boat shifted and then sprung free, floating into the waves.
With an excited yelp, she climbed in and quickly grabbed the oars. Everyone in Doman learned to work the boats, and Elle was no different. She thrust through the water, driving the little fishing vessel first along the shore and then out and away. By the time she heard the shouts, they were distant and too far to do anything to stop her.
She rowed steadily, chopping at the water as she pulled the boat to the east. The coastline would bring her part of the way, but when she had to cross the deeper water of the bay, she would struggle. If she failed? Well, then she prayed the Great Mother would let udilm save her.
Something splashed behind the boat and she paused, twisting to look behind her. Her heart leapt when she saw Toshun’s oldest son Ley swimming through the water after her.
“Leave me be!” She tried poking at him with one of the oars, but he wriggled to the side and avoided it, swimming like one of the dolphins.
His hand grabbed the gunwale and, with a motion quick enough to surprise her, he threw himself up and into the boat. “Elle? What are you doing?”
She shook her head at him. Like his father, Ley had been kind to her since she washed ashore in Ophan. “I’m trying to get to Falsheim.”
Ley glanced back at shore and then down to the boat. “In this?”
She shrugged. “I need to get to Falsheim.” He arched a brow at her. “If the lisincend attacked, we need to know. And if not, then I need to learn to control water shaping. Either way, I’m tired of Vina blaming me for things I have no control over.”
“Don’t you think there’s a better way for you to reach Falsheim, if you’re so insistent?”
“There’s no way of knowing when the next ship will pass through here and I’m not about to be stuck here if Falsheim falls.” At least on the other side of the bay, she could make her way into Chenir, and hopefully across and back to the kingdoms.
Ley leaned against the boat. “I’m supposed to bring you back. Father was pissing mad when he saw the boat floating down the shore. Thought Jor didn’t secure it at first, then they saw the oars working. It didn’t take long to figure out it was you.”
“Well, you’re going to have to fight me for the boat if you want to bring it back.” She swung the oar out of the water and jabbed it at Ley.
He grabbed it between his hands and casually threw it back toward the water. “I’m not going to fight you.”
“I’ve studied at the university, Ley. I know things.” And if she could reach Falsheim, and hopefully the shapers there, she might be able to return to the university.
He arched a brow. “Like how to steal fishing boats?”
“I didn’t want to steal it. There’s no other way for me to reach the other side of the bay.”
Ley stretched his arms over his head and his mouth turned in an amused smile. “No other way? You couldn’t have simply, you know, asked?”
Elle took a deep breath and shook her head. “I tried telling them what I saw, but they don’t believe me. Rolf thinks it’s an elemental attack—”
“Well, the fleet has brought word of giant flying creatures of fire. Said they haven’t been seen in centuries,” Ley said. He tipped his eyes to the sky, cupping his hand over his brow as he did, as if one of the draasin might drop down upon them.
“They’re called draasin and I don’t think they attacked Falsheim.” Great Mother, let her be right. If she were wrong, then would anything short of finding Tan and all of the kingdom’s shapers be able to protect them?
“Draasin?” Ley repeated the word and then shrugged. “You seem to know more than you should, Elle Vaywand.”
She slapped at the water with the oars, sending a spray up the sides of the boat. Ley only smiled at her. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say since I washed up here! How do you think I was saved, if not for the udilm?”
“Father thinks you’re a sea bride.”
“Your father listens too much to Vina.”
“Probably,” Ley said, laughing. “She’s his sister.”
Elle sagged. Of course she’d choose Vina’s brother to steal from. It would only make the woman angrier with her, as if the condescending way she looked at Elle could be any worse. “Well, she doesn’t know anything. She’s probably never left the village.”
“Not many have,” Ley said. “But Vina? She studied in Falsheim for a while before returning. Tried to find a husband, but I don’t think she presen
ted herself too well. You know how they can be in Falsheim.”
Elle didn’t, but she refused to give Ley the satisfaction of showing her ignorance. She glanced back to shore. They continued to drift, growing farther and farther away. The swells that were little more than whitecaps from the beach now rocked underneath them, sending the little boat soaring up and down over the waves. With much more wind, it would be an uncomfortable trip, enough for Elle to begin to think she might have made a mistake.
Ley only watched her, lounging back against the boat seemingly unconcerned about trying to get her back to shore.
“How did you reach me, anyway? I’d rowed too far away for you to have swam,” Elle asked.
Ley sat up and cupped his hand over the side of the water. When he brought it up, water swirled above his palm, creating something like a funnel.
“You’re a shaper?” she asked. She hadn’t known that anyone in Ophan could shape. If they could, why wouldn’t they have sensed the fire shapings?
Ley shook his head. “Not really. Whatever I can do is weak. Pretty much limited to stuff like that. Not much use to shapings so limited, are there? But I can swim well and sometimes I help my father get the boat back to shore a little faster.”
Elle’s eyes widened. Now she understood why Ley had come after her, and why he seemed so unconcerned about turning the boat around. He didn’t have to row them back. All he’d have to do would be to shape the water to guide them to shore. And Elle couldn’t fight with him.
5
Elle brought the oar around, readying to hit Ley with it. If he managed to bring her back to the village, she’d be stuck, likely put to some sort of council justice. After seeing the field of wheat burned, there was no way the village would offer to feed her for another season. And now that she’d stolen the boat, it wasn’t like she would be welcomed back. Her only hope was reaching Falsheim.
Then what? Even were she right, there wasn’t anything she could do against the lisincend if they had attacked. Falsheim had shapers trained by the kingdoms, men and women powerful enough to extinguish the flames.
Only, they hadn’t.
Elle saw flashes through the smoke in the distance where Falsheim still burned. If the shapers had managed to stop the fires, they should be out by now, except she saw no sign of that. Were she more skilled with speaking to the elementals, she might have a chance of asking the udilm what happened, but there seemed no point. The last time, she’d been rewarded with a storm and then punished by the village, as if the sea sought revenge for the village giving her refuge.
She had to try. What else could she do?
Ley held up his hand, preparing to catch the oar again. Elle glared at him. “You’re not bringing me back there, Leyand!”
He ducked under the oar and came up on the other side of the boat. “Tell me why I shouldn’t?”
“No one believes me. Why should you?” She swung the oar again, rocking the boat as she did.
Ley ducked easily, a broad smile on his face as he did. “Because otherwise I’ll send the boat back toward shore?”
“And maybe I’ll ask udilm to scoop you out of the boat and send you crashing into Widows Ledge,” Elle snapped.
Ley froze. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“I might if you don’t leave me alone. Let me take the boat to Falsheim. What do you care if I leave?”
“It’s my father’s boat.”
“Well, you can have it back once I reach the other side of the bay. Then you can go and shape yourself back across and neither of us has to say anything more.”
She held the oar steady, her eyes narrowed as she glared at Ley.
His smile returned and he leaned back and shrugged. “Whatever you say. So long as you don’t crash the boat, I don’t care.”
“Crash the boat? What do you think I am, some fool from the kingdoms who’s never been around water?”
“You’re the one who said you studied in the kingdoms, that you know stuff. Time away from Doma is bound to make you a little careless.”
Elle pulled the oar away from him and started working with it again, rowing with more force than was needed. Ley was nearly as bad as Vina, though at least he was more pleasant to look at, with his sun-bleached hair and pleasant blue eyes. She sniffed, pulling her eyes away from him. Looking at him like that did nothing but make her angrier.
Swells of water pushed them forward. Elle’s arms grew tired the longer she went, and they were still nowhere nearer the other shore. Every so often, she looked over at Ley and saw him studying her with that satisfied smile on his face, almost as if waiting for her to give up. Then he’d likely as not shape them back toward the stupid village, where Vina would string her up, maybe even throw her into the sea from the ledge. When those thoughts came to her, Elle pulled with renewed vigor.
After a while, the air shifted as it often did. Usually it blew in off the sea, twisting with a fury that sent waves crashing along the Doman shores, but occasionally it would shift and blow out of the north or the west. When it did, the scents and heat of Incendin came with it.
Elle sat upright and tilted her head toward the air. Something smelled off. Not just that it had warmth to it that shouldn’t be there, but the warmth felt forced and hot. Elle had breathed it only days before. Incendin air.
Ley smiled at her as she shifted on her seat. “Getting tired? I’ll admit, you’ve gone on for a lot longer than I thought you would. If you want, I’ll shape you for a bit, though out here, it won’t take us very fast. My shaping isn’t like those you learned from in the kingdoms.”
She ignored the taunt. “Can’t you feel it?”
Ley frowned. “Feel what? The boat slowing?”
Now that he mentioned it, Elle did notice that she’d let the boat slow, but that wasn’t what she meant. With the shifting winds, the waves eased, leaving them in a lull of the sea, almost eerily calm.
“Hurry, help me,” Elle said. She worked the oars with what was left of her strength. Maybe she shouldn’t have left Ophan. What had she been thinking, that she could row across the bay? Even the most skilled of the fishermen never dared a crossing. Oh, they might have once, back when Doma was still new and there was no other way to reach Falsheim, but now there were transport ships large enough to give the village a chance to row out to them and go into Falsheim, avoiding the need to make the treacherous crossing.
Ley reached across the gunwale and touched the water. As he did, they started moving with more speed than Elle could have managed alone. He turned so he could watch her as he did. “What is it?”
“The air. Can’t you feel how it changed?”
“You’re not from Ophan, Elle. Those changes happen from time to time. Nothing to worry about with them.”
She snorted. “As if Ushil was so different? I know how the winds can shift. It’s not so bad when you’re on the shore, but it is when you’re out in a small fishing boat in the middle of the bay.”
Ley frowned at her. “It’s only wind.”
One of the things she’d learned from sitting through all the lectures at the university had been an understanding of the elements. Wind against wind. Something had to give. That was what Master Palin said.
If they were caught in the middle, what would give?
Elle knew the answer, even if Ley didn’t. The water would shift and swirl. Clouds would crash against each other. And she would be caught on the bay, unable to stop the storm.
She worked the oars as fast as she could. Wind whipped at her hair, coming from every direction. Had she managed to master speaking to the udilm, this might not be an issue. Or maybe it wouldn’t matter. Even were she to reach out to the udilm, would they listen? Would they answer?
Elle craned her neck, looking for any sign of shore. “How far do you think we are?” she asked.
“A little over halfway. We’re moving west as we go. The current draws us.”
Elle wondered about that. A strange current to pull them upstream, as if flowing into
Incendin. Shouldn’t the water dump out into the sea? But she didn’t know this part of Doma. She grew up north of Falsheim, where the dark spires weren’t visible except on the clearest of days, and then only to water shapers able to turn the sea into a lens.
“Can you guide us directly across the bay?” she asked.
He laughed lightly, his relaxed posture making it clear that he was not bothered by the coming storm, not as Elle was. “What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? Look, I’ve told you I’m not very strong. When it’s only me and I’m swimming, I can push faster, but you’re asking that I help push the entire boat. There’s a limit to what I can do.”
Elle understood limits. She lived with them every day. “When the wind shifts like this, you’ve got two competing systems,” she said, trying to use the terms she’d learned from Master Palin. “See how calm the water’s become?”
Elle waved the oar over the water. A soft, greenish tint seemed to coat the bay here, likely algae growing where freshwater met salt.
“Now I do. I’m trying, Elle, but there’s only so much I can do. Maybe if you wouldn’t have stolen my father’s boat, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“And maybe if you’d stop harassing me and get to shaping, we’d be across the bay by now!”
He actually smiled at her, pale blue eyes flashing, catching a reflection off the water. “At least I’m trying. You’ve stopped rowing. Come on, put your back into it.”
Elle glared at him and began pulling at the oars. Her body ached from the effort and she wanted to lay down and rest, but if she did, she feared what would happen.
The wind shifted again.
This time, it blew in off the sea. Water whipped around them, whitecaps sending spray against the hull. Ley was tossed back into the boat and tried reaching for the water. Who ever heard of a shaper needing to touch the element anyway? Maybe his weak shaping required it.
Shaper of Water: The Cloud Warrior Saga Page 3