by Carrie Ryan
Fin and Vell exchanged a confused look. Then Fin frowned. He didn’t like being on the same page as his evil Rise.
“She was talking about the Master!” Marrill bounced onto her toes excitedly. “You will see me again someday, though time and tide render us both unrecognizable. That’s what she wrote. She was talking about Ardent becoming the Master and her becoming Rose.”
“You memorized the letter?” Fin asked.
Marrill blushed. “Just that part… I thought it was romantic.” She lifted a shoulder. “But I’m still not sure what it means.”
They were silent a moment, trying to think it through.
Vell rolled his eyes. “It means,” he said, “that she knew Ardent would become the Master and that she turned herself into Rose because she knew he would always come after her.”
Fin and Marrill both looked at him with wide eyes. Neither of them had expected Vell to contribute anything, much less something helpful.
He crossed his arms, jangling the little lantern as he did. “Likely to be somewhere that’s special to both of them. Somewhere that will speak to the part of him that’s still human. Somewhere that might cause that part to surface and beat back the parts of him that are pure destruction.”
Fin stared at his Rise, unable to believe it. Vell had solved the mystery. Vell, the arrogant jerk who only thought about himself and his precious Salt Sand King, had broken the code.
“Well, I’m not stupid,” Vell said.
Fin rubbed the back of his neck, feeling sheepish. “I didn’t think you were,” he said. “It’s just… you had to think about how people feel for one another to come up with that, and I didn’t think you had it in you.” He looked straight at the other boy. It really was like seeing another version of himself. “Maybe we’re more alike than I thought.”
Vell blinked. “Most people are weak, and their emotions are weaknesses. If I were Annalessa, I would have used that to manipulate my enemies to force them to do what I want.”
Fin slapped his hands together. That spell was broken. “Yeah, we are nothing alike,” he said. “I don’t really know what I was thinking on that one.”
Marrill waved her arms, refocusing their attention. “Boys, please. We have a job to do. We have to figure out where Rose would take Ardent to remind him of his humanity. A place that would be special to both Annalessa and Ardent.” She nodded with self-satisfaction. “And I have no idea where that would be.” She deflated with a sigh.
But now Fin had a challenge. Something that really motivated him: showing up Vell. He wasn’t about to let that opportunity get away. “Fortunately,” he said, “we know someone who knew both of them really well.” He looked toward Ardent’s cabin.
“You want to interrupt the Naysayer’s card game?” Marrill asked with a wink.
Vell shook his head quickly. “Leave me out.” His eyes darted around. The look in them wasn’t exactly fear. But it wasn’t exactly not fear, either.
Fin grinned. Mission accomplished; they’d finally successfully ditched Vell. “Come on,” he told Marrill. “They’re probably both cheating, anyway.” Together they approached the wide door. Cautiously Fin knocked.
The door cracked open. On the other side, Fin expected to see chests leaking various forms of gasses or sounds, the desk piled to overflowing with books and papers, bookshelves dripping with thick tomes, bizarre ornaments, things few people even dared imagine. That was how Ardent had kept the cabin: a perpetual mess.
Now, however, everything had been put away. The bed was made, the nightmare shield polished. The floor had been swept and swabbed, the shelves reorganized. Karnelius lounged on a pillow by the window, though the Naysayer seemed to have vanished.
It looked almost normal… well, as normal as any wizard’s chamber would be. And it felt entirely wrong. Like the spirit of Ardent had somehow been purged, though his belongings remained.
The only spot still in disarray was a corner by an elaborately carved bookcase. The shelves had been emptied, the dusty tomes that once occupied it stacked precariously in a semicircle around Serth.
Fin immediately recognized the massive, ancient book he cradled in his lap. It was a volume of Serth’s own words, the ones he had spoken after drinking Stream water. The ones that had foretold the coming of the end of the Pirate Stream.
The mad Oracle was leafing through the Meressian Prophecy.
CHAPTER 19
Remy Gets a Tattoo
Looking around, Marrill felt a stab of sorrow. The cabin was yet another reminder of how everything had changed. Was still changing. Without the clutter and junk, Ardent’s cabin felt abandoned. As though Ardent would never be returning.
Because maybe he wouldn’t be.
“Poor Ardent. Trying to make sense of my madness,” Serth said, snapping the book closed and tossing it with the others. “Using the Prophecy as a means to escape his own problems.”
Marrill frowned. Though a small part of her still cringed at the sight of Serth, she’d really started to get used to him. To like him, even. Maybe trust him.
But for Serth to talk about Ardent’s problems? Serth, the wizard whose actions had torn Ardent and Annalessa apart in the first place? That was more than Marrill could ignore.
“All his problems were because of you,” she said, mustering the courage to defend her former mentor. “He was trying to figure out a way to stop you.”
“All his problems? Really?” Serth arched an eyebrow. “You think I made him join the Wizards of Meres? You think love of me led him to divine the rituals I used to contain and drink the purest waters of the Stream? No, much like the Salt Sand King, Ardent’s biggest problem was his own ambition. Why else do you think he became obsessed with the Prophecy?”
Marrill threw up her hands in exasperation. “So he could stop you from releasing the Lost Sun!”
Behind her, Fin cleared his throat. “Um,” he said, “not to interrupt, but… what happened to the Naysayer?”
Serth shrugged. “He left an hour ago. Said something about seeing you in the Mirrorweb later. Peculiar things, those old creatures. Did you find Rose yet?”
Marrill’s mouth was still open to continue their argument, but Serth’s quick shift of topic threw her. “Sort of?” she offered.
“We think Rose is leading the Master somewhere that would help him be more human,” Fin said. “Somewhere that both Ardent and Annalessa would know, somewhere that would be important to them.”
“Makes sense.” His eyes snapped back to Marrill. “And you think I would know such a place?”
She nodded, hopeful, but kept her arms crossed, still angry at the wizard.
Serth moved forward, sitting on the edge of the big desk in the middle of the room. “Well then, I suppose now would be a good time to speak more about my old friend.”
His expression was almost sad. Like he felt sorry for her. She scowled at him. She didn’t want his sympathy. Besides, sorrow on him looked far too much like menace.
“I wasn’t joking about the reasons Ardent studied the Meressian Prophecy,” Serth explained. “He studied it because he wished to control the future. The Prophecy was a test. If the Prophecy was fulfilled, then it was proof that the future could be predicted—could be made certain. It was, in a way, a precursor to the Iron Tide.”
Marrill felt the blood drain from her face. “That’s not true,” she breathed. “He didn’t plan the Iron Tide. He was trying to stop you.”
“Was he?” Serth tilted his head slightly, his eyes unwavering. “Ardent Squirrelsquire was the smartest and most powerful wizard the Stream has seen since the Dzane. He may not have planned the Iron Tide as such—I don’t imagine the thought of destroying the Stream even entered his mind. That part’s all the Lost Sun’s doing. But certainly a wizard as powerful as Ardent could have found a way to thwart a simple prophecy if he’d truly wanted to.” He spread his hands over the stacks of books. “Everything he needed to know was here. The key to defeating me was in these pages. How
could he fail?”
Fin shook his head. “You’re making about as much sense now as you did back when you were spouting prophesy,” he said.
Serth leaned toward him, eyes narrowing dangerously. “And I was right then, too. Everything I said in these pages came to pass, did it not?”
“Fine,” Marrill said. “So why did he care so much about the future?”
Serth eased back and tented his fingertips beneath his chin. “Because he was scared.”
Fin snorted. “Yeah, right.”
Marrill nodded her agreement. She’d never seen Ardent truly frightened. “You said yourself he was the most powerful wizard on the Stream. What was he afraid of?”
“Himself,” Serth answered simply.
Marrill rolled her eyes. She was about to give up on the conversation when Serth added, “You didn’t know him before. What he was capable of, back when he was called Ardent the Cold.”
Marrill shook her head in protest, but it was halfhearted. She glanced toward Fin, who’d slumped into a chair. He seemed just as stunned as she did. She took a seat next to him.
“There was a time when Ardent and I were comparable in power, but we were never equals. His strength was in study—he read and learned and practiced. My strength was my brashness, my willingness to embrace the magic.”
“He said you were the more powerful wizard,” Fin broke in.
Serth smiled and tapped his fingertips together. “Untrue, unfortunately. I was just less constrained. I was willing to do the things he wouldn’t. Take the risks. Push the envelope.” He shook his head. “We were the ones who understood each other best. We urged each other on. And in many ways, we were each other’s nemeses as well. It was a constant game of brinksmanship, of finding that line the other wouldn’t cross.”
Marrill thought she knew where he was going. “That line was drinking Stream water.”
Serth nodded. “He was never willing to risk it all. That was his saving grace. In the old days, everything was about the magic, the quest for power and knowledge. We put that ahead of other people, ahead of what others might call right, or wrong. Back then, Ardent often seemed—and at times was—incredibly cold. Callous, even. But the truth is, he had a conscience, where I often did not. He had a heart.”
He moved to the window. Outside, the night was black. No stars. No moon. No lights on the horizon. Marrill realized just how accustomed she had become to the soft golden glow of the Stream. In the world of iron, it had all been extinguished.
“Annalessa was that heart. Or so he saw it. And with her gone, the last restraint on his unimaginable power has fallen away. That’s who the Master is. Ardent unbridled. Ardent the Cold, deprived of his one source of warmth.”
“You make him sound just like the Salt Sand King,” Marrill said, her voice a whisper. “Destroying everything through his desire for power. But that’s not who he was. You don’t just forget to have a heart.” She swallowed. “Ardent had a huge one.”
The cabin was quiet as the words settled around them. Marrill stared at the corner of Ardent’s empty desk, trying to understand how it had come to this. How a man who’d once seemed so kind, whose heart had been so full, could now be so empty.
“True,” Serth said at last. “We would likely be in a different place if it wasn’t. If he were heartless, Ardent would never have given in to the power of the Lost Sun contained in that wish orb. If he were heartless, he would never have unleashed the Iron Tide.”
Marrill looked at him quizzically. “What are you saying?”
Serth’s eyes locked with hers. It was still difficult to meet his stare, even after all they’d been through. “Those without a heart do not bleed,” he replied. “I am saying that I believe Ardent’s pain at losing Annalessa is what drove him to encase this world in unfeeling metal. So that all the Stream might be just as numb as he is.”
Marrill thought back to the way Ardent had lashed out in the end, when he found out Annalessa was gone.… That was definitely in line with what Serth was saying. But to destroy the whole Stream?
“Also, he’s infused with the essence of elemental destruction,” Serth added. “So that’s probably a factor, too.”
The cabin fell silent once again, everyone’s thoughts stuck in the past. “So how does that help us figure out where Rose would lead him?” Marrill asked.
Serth rose up before her. “I can only think of one place that would fit. His tower.”
Fin clapped. “Great! Let’s get a move on!” He turned and headed for the door.
“There is a problem,” Serth added.
Fin froze in his tracks. “Of course there is,” he sighed.
Serth let out a long breath. “I am still not ready to do battle with the Master. But it seems I will have little choice.”
Marrill looked up at him. For the first time, she noticed the deep bags beneath those black-tear trails. The gauntness underneath those pale cheeks. Serth was not doing well, she realized.
Until that moment, it hadn’t hit her how much she’d come to rely on him. And how much it scared her that he might fail them all. But not because he might still be evil. She didn’t worry about that anymore. What worried her was that he simply might not be strong enough to save them.
“Can you… stop him?” she asked.
Serth twisted his lips. “Yes, of course,” he chided. “I was just waiting for this one dramatic moment to reveal that. Sorry for the delay, but I do so love a good statuary.”
Marrill crossed her arms sternly. “No one likes a smart aleck,” she told the dark wizard.
“Fair enough,” he said, the corners of his mouth lifting into the smallest of smiles before flattening again. “But no, to answer your question. I cannot stop him. With the help of our new friends, I may, however, be able to slow him down enough for you to collect Rose and get back to the Mirrorweb. That will have to do.”
There was a deep sadness about him as he glanced toward the stack of books. The pages and pages of Prophecy he spouted over the years in a magic-induced insanity. Perhaps this, Marrill thought, was what the Meressian Oracle had been crying about all that time.
“The end has already been written,” Serth said. “Ardent knew that. In a certain respect, we both knew it would be this way. Us against each other. And we both knew that when that day came, Ardent would win.”
The deck was nearly empty when Marrill and Fin emerged from Serth’s cabin. The Ropebone Man steered the ship, the world around them silent as they cut through the twilight. Vell lounged on one of the yards, back to the mast, lantern dangling from his finger. Marrill couldn’t tell if he was asleep or ignoring them; either was fine by her.
Fin yawned and headed belowdecks, but Marrill wasn’t ready to go to bed quite yet. Instead she sat on the steps to the quarterdeck and stared into the gloom.
She pulled the shard of mirror out of her pocket. The Salt Sand King’s lantern, glowing amidships, cast just enough light for Marrill to catch the edge of her mother’s reflection. Still alive. Still healthy.
Still waiting for her to come home.
“What you got there?” Remy asked, descending the stairs behind her.
Marrill sighed, slipping the shard back into her pocket. “Nothing,” she said quickly. “Just… a reminder of home, you know?”
The older girl settled in beside her. “Yeah,” she said. “Home.”
They sat quietly for a long minute.
“I need to tell you something,” Remy said at last.
Marrill’s eyes perked up. “Oh boy,” she said. “If I said something like that, you’d be asking me if I got a tattoo.”
Remy’s laugh was forced. “Funny you mention it,” she said. “Because… I did.” She rolled back the cuff of her sleeve, revealing a knotted rope drawn in ink. It stretched across the smooth skin of her forearm and snaked around her elbow.
Marrill’s heart stopped. She recognized the design. It was the same as Coll’s. The living tattoo that traveled over his body, guiding him
from port to port. The tattoo that made him immortal. The tattoo that meant he could never stay in one place for long.
“No,” she whispered.
Remy gave her a sad smile. “Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, kid. Back at the Sheshefesh, remember, one of the spines was about to strike you? And I pushed you out of the way?”
Guilt washed over Marrill. She felt tears threatening. She swallowed thickly. “It got you instead.” She closed her eyes. “Oh, Remy, I’m so sorry.”
Remy scoffed. “Sorry for what?”
It wasn’t the response Marrill had been expecting. “That because of me you got the mark of the Sheshefesh?”
The older girl waved a dismissive hand. “You didn’t make us go to the Sheshefesh, Marrill, and you certainly didn’t ask to be attacked by a massive ink monster. And if there’s one thing I know as northern Arizona’s best babysitter, you do not let your charge get tattooed. Not on my watch.”
“So that’s why you’re so good at sailing all of a sudden,” Marrill declared.
Remy arched an eyebrow. “I’m also a fast learner, I will have you know. I was going to kill the ACT.” She shrugged. “This is cooler, though.” She narrowed her eyes. “But don’t think for one second that means learning isn’t cool, young lady.”
Marrill laughed. They sat in silence for a long minute. “What does it feel like?” Marrill asked at last. “How does it work?”
“Itches,” Remy said. “A lot. And it can tickle when it shifts along my ribs or behind my knee. It went totally bananas in the Mirrorweb, like having poison ivy in your eyeballs.”
Marrill shuddered. At least that explained the full-body cover-up.
“As for how it works?” Remy shrugged. “No idea. It moves, and I just know where we are. Pretty neat, eh?” She dropped her sleeve and leaned against the railing.
Marrill nodded. But there were a few things Remy hadn’t mentioned. Like the whole bit about how she was bound to the Sheshefesh and could never stay in any one place for long. “But the curse…?”