“What are you talking about?” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
Father frowns. “Mind your tone, Son. I know this is a lot to take in, but I’m still your commander and father. If you must know, I’ve arranged everything. A perfectly suitable bride will be brought from ice country. The ice country King, his name is Goff, wrote a long letter telling me her name is Jolie and that she’s very pretty and moldable.” The way he says the last word makes me think of the clay that the men sometimes dig up in storm country for the children on the ships to play with.
“Jolie,” I say, trying out the name. It’s pretty, but… “Why would she marry me?” I ask, still not understanding where this is all coming from.
Father shakes his head. “Son, she’s a girl, it doesn’t matter what she wants, only that she will. Your mother…” He trails off, as if he’s thought better of what he was about to say.
“What about her?” I say, sharpness creeping back into my tone.
“Nothing,” Father says. “She was just a hard woman to live with sometimes.”
How dare he? How dare he speak of her like that? My fists clench and my teeth lock and I know I’m dangerously close to doing something stupid, but…
My mother was an angel.
And I couldn’t save her.
“There’s something you should know about her death,” he says, and that’s when the rains start falling from the dark clouds I didn’t even notice moving in overhead.
~~~
Our conversation ends at the worst possible moment, because Father’s off and making sure the men on all the ships are placed to capture the rainwater, which will save the men onshore a lot of effort of finding drinking water in creeks and streams.
And I’m left as alone and muddled as the puddles forming in depressions on the decks. I just let the water dampen my hair, stream down my face, soak through my clothes. Because my world’s been turned upside down. A bride from ice country? Something my father has to tell me about my mother’s death? When did the sky become the ocean and the ocean the sky? When did the sands from storm country pour onto our decks and the saltwater and fishes become the beach? When did I become so stupid?
And then she’s there, watching me, clinging to the mast, as drenched as I am. She motions to The Mermaid’s Daughter and I turn to look. The solitary boat is being hauled aboard, along with its contents: the bags of dried seaweed.
I nod and turn away from her, because I feel a presence nearby. Hobbs is behind me, looking at her, and then at me. “I’m all over you,” he says.
I push past him, back to my cabin.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sadie
With Passion nibbling grass around the trunk below me, I watch the Soakers from a branch high above. Many men come ashore, moving off into the woods a safe distance from me, presumably to gather food and water. A couple men scoop seaweed into bags. The stuff they trade to ice country for the children. Don’t they know what we’ve done to the Icers? That we’ve killed the Icer King?
A few blue-clad men mill about on the ships. Officers, giving orders. Two stand out, because they’re keeping so still, next to each other. From a distance, they are but two blue lines, one somewhat taller than the other. They appear to be watching the seaweed gatherers.
Eventually, however, when the seaweed boat is returning to the ship and the rain has begun to fall, the two blue men split apart. The way the small one walks reminds me so much of the boy I almost killed.
You have to decide…
My father’s words run over and over in my head as I climb down, never touching the ground as I climb onto Passion’s back. Never has a choice been easier, I realize as we gallop back to the camp.
I’ll kill that Soaker boy if it’s the last thing I do.
~~~
Our tent—no, my tent—despite its relatively small size, seems enormous with only me in it. I stretch out onto my back and extend my arms and legs as far as I can in each direction, but there’s still so much empty space. Space usually filled by…
I can’t be here. Not tonight. Or at least not until I’m so exhausted that the moment I slip inside my feet collapse beneath me and I fall asleep before I even hit the ground.
I leave with that goal in mind, wearing my Rider’s robe, pulling the hood over my head against the wind and the rain, which comes in waves.
The night is quiet, save for the rain patter and occasional murmured conversations of the border guards. I consider going to the stables, but I won’t begrudge Passion her rest, not after our long run across storm country.
To my surprise, a ridiculous thought springs to mind. I picture myself sneaking into Remy’s tent, waking him up, forcing him out to keep me company. A girl with less pride might take the thought seriously, but I cast it away before it can so much as dig a single root into my head.
Instead, I make for the edge of camp. I pass by two border guards, who are sitting and smoking pipes. They stand quickly, open their mouths as if to refuse me exit from the camp, but then close them even quicker when they realize I’m a Rider. Privileged to come and go as I please.
I ignore them as I stride away.
With an occasional burst of moonlight through the clouds, and from memory, I guide myself into the forest, relying on outstretched arms and cautious feet to avoid colliding with anything dangerous.
Thankfully, the place I’m looking for isn’t too far in, and I know I’m close when I hear the unceasing gurgle of the creek I drank from earlier that day. When I slide my back down the trunk of the tree, I’m not surprised to find the ground dry beneath me.
My father died here today.
“Father…” I say aloud, because I’m tired of hearing only wind and rain.
Yes, he answers, on the wind. I know it’s not really him, but I can still hear his voice.
And then: I love you, Sadie.
“I love you, Papa. I’m scared without you.”
You are strong. Stronger than even your mother was.
“I’m not.” Am I?
Your choice and your choice alone…
“What does it mean, Papa?”
It will change everything…
“What will? What?”
The voice deepens, darkens, and it’s not Father’s voice anymore, but something that lurks, that tears at flesh and gnaws at bone and enjoys the sound of screaming. You mussst kill the onesss who dessstroyed your family.
“The Soakers?” I ask the night.
Yesss. But not only. Ssstab and ssslice.
“The Icers?” I say, feeling the wood close in around me.
Yesss. Cut and crusssh.
“Who are you?”
I am vengeance and retribution.
“What? No? Papa says—”
I am life and death.
“You’re not…you’re—”
I am you!
And with a final burst of wind the tree shakes, spraying droplets of water from its leaves, marring the previously untouched circle of dry earth. The heaviness lifts from my shoulders, the clouds part, and the moon shines, shines, shines, full and bright, surrounded by twinkling stars on a night that’s as perfect as my father was.
The forest is evil. As usual, Father was right. Are all the stories true then? That there’s something that lives in the forest, some Evil that preys on the weak, the brokenhearted, filling their minds and souls with dark thoughts. And if so, has it entered me?
Screams shatter the night, and they’re as real as the rough bark of the tree behind me. Death has arrived.