Rhaif nodded. “It might take time for anyone to realize a certain bronze treasure isn’t sunk deep into the sea. In the meantime, if you wanted to lose yourself, those misty greenwoods might offer the perfect refuge.”
She turned to the raft’s drover. “Can we make it there?”
He sighed heavily and fired the nose of the craft toward the cliffs. “Maybe, but just barely.”
Llyra sheathed her sword but kept the blade in her fingers. “If you want to live, you’ll make that happen.”
They all gathered behind the drover. The dark-haired man hunched his lanky form over the wheel, deftly working the pedals with small squeaks of hidden wires and gears. From the open patch on his upper sleeve, he was Aglerolarpok. His ranch brand was scarred over with an X, like the scribe at the larder. An outcast, banished to forever ride the winds. It was a sorry fate, but one that had honed a skill that Rhaif definitely appreciated at this moment.
The sailraft continued to sink toward the seas. The cliffs rose ahead, as if intending to block them. But as they continued, the drover proved his skill. He finally reached that rising rampart and used the draft blowing up the cliff face to shoot them high over the edge of Landfall. Soon the keel of the raft was sailing smoothly above the mists that hid the greenwood below.
Rhaif searched ahead, studying his mother’s homeland. He ignored the peaks of black cliffs near the horizon, marking the distant Shrouds of Dalal??a. Instead, he fixed on a pair of closer breaks in the white, fluffy sea. They marked the location of two forest lakes, the green Eitur and the blue Heilsa, known simply as The Twins.
Rhaif pointed between them. “Can you reach Havensfayre?”
“Aye,” the drover said. “With the winds blowing us toward there, we should just make it.”
Llyra lifted a brow toward Rhaif. It was as much of a compliment as the guildmaster ever offered. Still, he was not fooled. While they might be uneasy allies at the moment, that could all change once they reached the woodland town.
He turned his gaze back to Shiya, who stared ahead, too.
Strange …
He recognized the oddity of this. He frowned over her shoulder toward the open stern, to the west, the direction where she had always cast her gaze before. Pratik caught his eye, maybe noting his confusion. The Chaaen tilted his head back to the east as if he knew something.
What does he know?
But now was not the time to address that question.
Llyra had a more important one. “Are you sure we can make it?” She leaned threateningly over the drover.
Rhaif focused forward again. The raft had drifted frighteningly lower. Its keel now swept through the clouds, like a ship sailing across a white sea.
“Don’t fret. I’m seeking the strongest winds near the treetops,” he explained. “I need every push I can muster.”
The skiff did seem to be going faster.
Still, Rhaif reached to one of the hanging leather loops, expecting to hear branches scrape along their keel, for trees to grab their fleeing craft.
“Hang on,” the drover warned.
What do you think I’m doing?
The ship suddenly shot higher, propelled by the winds out of the clouds. In another few breaths, they reached the northern break in the white seas and sailed high over the emerald waters of the Eitur, a lake that was said to be poisonous. Not a place they would want to crash into.
But Rhaif didn’t worry about that.
Instead, he caught glimpses of lamps glowing south of the lake, marking the misty town of Havensfayre. It looked like they were going to overshoot it. He began to question their trajectory, when the drover hauled the wheel hard. As they cleared the far end of Eitur, the sailraft turned sharply. Its keel skidded across the clouds. The skiff swung full around until its nose was pointed back the way they’d come.
Rhaif recognized he should never have doubted the drover’s skill.
The man now used the headwinds to slow them as he aimed back toward the hidden town of Havensfayre.
“Well done,” Rhaif whispered, clapping the drover on the shoulder.
The man grinned proudly.
Another was not as enamored of his talent.
A low groan rose behind him. He turned and saw that Shiya faced the stern, which now pointed east. Her countenance—what little that he could see of it—was a mask of pain. As they glided toward the west, she took a step in the opposite direction, then another.
“No…” he called to her.
She ignored him, drawn by whatever force pulled at her.
He let go of his leather loop and rushed toward her.
But he was too late.
Without ever looking down, she walked straight out the back of the raft. He reached the stern in time to see her tumble away, toppling end over end, and vanish into the clouds.
Stunned, unable to speak, he turned to the others.
Llyra’s lips were stretched in a line of pure fury. She pulled her sword, ready to exact vengeance, clearly believing this was some ploy.
“We have to find her…” he muttered lamely.
Llyra crossed toward Pratik, thrusting her blade at the Chaaen’s exposed back. The only thing that stopped her from impaling the man clean through was Pratik’s next words.
“I know where Shiya’s headed.”
ELEVEN
GRAVE SONG
Let us shadd our teres, until the dirt be salt’d by our greef.
Let us cast our laments heye, so the Father Above hears our sorrows.
Let us rip our hairs, so our payne reaches the shroud’d Modron.
Do all this—
So the Mother Below takes what you cherish in
Her warme embrace & preserveth it for all time.
—Fourteenth Sonnet from The Book of Lamentations
35
AS THE GROUP rested in the depths of the cloud forest, Nyx cradled the limp form of Bashaliia in a thin blanket.
My little brother …
She knelt in a layer of brittle leaf litter and parted the wool to reveal a small furry face, his delicate nostrils, his fold of soft ears. She had carried him the past day and a half. He was so light, as if his bones were hollow or blessed with some magick that turned them to air.
Or maybe the life has already left him, leaving only this weightless husk behind.
She drew him closer and noted the barest flutter of those petal-thin nostrils. He still lived, which both broke her heart and warmed an ember of hope. She straightened enough to note Frell looking at her with concern. The alchymist had done all he could. He had plucked the poisonous spikes from Bashaliia’s thin neck and pulled the jagged stinger from under a wing. He had smeared a balm of herbal medicum over those wounds but promised no miracle. We can only hope the M?r bats have some natural ward against the malignancy of the skriitch, he had offered.
Jace sank next to her, sitting cross-legged, his face forlorn, mirroring how she felt. “Is there any sign of him reviving?”
She shook her head and moaned, “No…”
Kanthe stood several steps to the side, his bow in hand. He had crafted a few crude arrows by sharpening sticks and using clipped leaves or stray feathers as fletching. He had learned such a skill from a former teacher, a scout of these same greenwoods.
Even Jace had fashioned a spear from a long stiff branch. It rested next to him. So far, they had encountered no dire threat in these woods, a misty forest said to be home to panthers and Reach tygers. On the first night, they had lit a fire, which might have helped ward off any predators. Still, distant yowls and screams warned of their presence. Otherwise, the only large beast spotted had been a curl-horned boar that had traipsed across their path, but it had run off when Jace yelled, his scream more of fright than anything.