Ro says there’s no telling how long Caiden will be gone—could be a day, could be three weeks. It’s absolutely maddening. What if he forgets about me? What if yesterday didn’t mean anything to him? What if he kisses every girl who turns up on his doorstep?
You always were the romantic, Ayah. If you were here, you’d convince me that I’m madly in love with Caiden and come up with some elaborate scheme to get me out of my betrothal to Wen. But I’m too sensible to imagine myself in love with a man I met five days ago.
At least I think I am.
But what do I owe Wen, anyway? What do I owe Eda? What’s to keep me from leaving this wretched house, stowing away on a ship, and finding my way back to you?
Raindrops fell suddenly on her paper, smearing the ink. She didn’t know the answer.
Chapter Nineteen
THE HOUSE SEEMED QUIETER WITHOUT CAIDEN. THE Baron stayed upstairs for meals. Wen spent hours in the music room. Talia tried not to let the boredom drive her mad.
And she tried not to listen to the constant, whispering music of the sea, drawing her toward something she didn’t want to understand.
But the hours stretched on as relentlessly as the ocean, and on the third day of this insanity she went back up to the library.
It was just how she’d left it—in rampant disarray, smelling of books and smoke and long-dead flowers, a moment of time frozen in a drop of amber. She still caught that sensation of power, sparking somewhere just beyond her vision.
She didn’t want to read, not really. Her eyes scanned the shelves and she felt the stories call to her, whispering in her mind to crack their spines and turn their pages and let the myths play out before her eyes. Wasn’t that why she’d come up here?
She decided to clean the place, instead.
She picked up all the books and returned them to the shelves. She collected the pieces of broken teacups and shattered inkwells into a little pile on the hearth. Then she swept up the ashes and dumped them in the dustbin.
With nothing else to do she paced around the chamber, wanting and yet not wanting to read more myths, to understand the extent of her mother’s madness and why she chose to take her own life. Why her mother left her to face the ghosts in this drafty old house all alone. Why the sea was now calling to her.
She grabbed a book at random off the shelf and dragged one of the armchairs over to the window, clouds still knotted gray above the sea. She sat down, and examined the book she’d chosen: Song of the Sea: Of Rahn’s Betrayal and the Doom of the Billow Maidens.
Talia’s mind went back to the long voyage, and Hanid’s words to her on the deck: You haven’t heard the stories? The Billow Maidens, singing in the storms to wreck the ships and drown the sailors.
The wind blew hard against the tower, and Talia opened the book.
She didn’t remember ever hearing this story from her mother.
In the days when the Stars had been plucked from heaven and night had fallen over the world, there dwelt a lesser spirit on the shores of the sea, and her name was Rahn. Long ago she had lifted her voice to the Stars and was a servant to the goddess Raiva of the wood. But Rahn had long since parted ways with her fellow servants, many of whom chose to go to their rest beyond the circles of Endahr. But Rahn was not done with the world. She wished to become a goddess in her own right, and wield the power she felt herself born to.
Day and night, she strayed alone upon the shores of the great Northern Sea, for she knew Aigir had borne the second Star with him into the depths. She desired that Star above all things, and with it, the strength of the Tree.
So Rahn made a white ship with silver sails, bound together with the ancient Words of power she had learned from the gods. She cast the ship away from the shore and was seen no more upon the land.
Nine years she sailed upon the waters of the Northern Sea, for it is said the Hall of Aigir is hidden from those who might seek it. But Rahn did not despair.
She made an island rise up from the sea near the place she felt sure the Tree grew. She dwelt there three hundred years, and it is called the Isle of Rahn to this day, though few have ever seen it. There she spoke certain Words filled with darkness that she twisted to her purpose, and awoke a pair of sea serpents from the depths. Rahn bound them to her will and they obeyed her, and she sent them into the far reaches of the sea to await her call.
One day, Rahn lifted up her eyes and saw it at last—the great Tree that had been hidden from her for so long. She sat on the edge of the island and put her feet in the water. She raised her voice to the sky and sang the songs Raiva had taught her and her fellow servants at the beginning of the world.
She sang all day, and when the sun had set beyond the rim of the world and the moon had risen in the sky, Aigir ascended from the depths of the ocean. He looked on Rahn and he loved her, for she stirred in him memories of a time before the world had been broken.
“What is your name?” he asked her.
Rahn ceased her song, and smiled. “I am Rahn of the Stars. I lived beneath them at the beginning, and ate the fruit of this Tree.”
“What do you do here, Rahn of the Stars?”
“I have come to see the Tree once more, and to speak with you, for my fellow spirits have deserted me and I am lonely.”
“Did you not go to Huen?”
“The Lord of the Earth shut me out.”
“Did you not go to Mahl?”
“The Lord of the Wind shut me out.” Rahn sensed the light of the Star that Aigir wore on his finger, but she did not look at it. “Tell me, Lord of the Sea, will you too shut me out?”
“I could never shut you out, daughter of light.”
“Then may I go down into the depths and see the great Hall that you have made?”
Aigir considered her. “I know not. None have ever seen my Hall, save me alone.”
“Then I shall wait,” said Rahn. “I shall wait here until you know.”
Aigir returned into the depths of the sea, but his heart had been struck, and he would never again be complete without her.
Three years Rahn sang to him under the sky, the songs that Raiva had taught her beneath the light of the Stars. Every morning Aigir came out of the waves to hear her, and every night he descended to his watery Hall.
He loved her, and there came a time when he could no longer bear to be parted from her.
One evening, when the stars shone cold above and the thread of a moon sat in the cradle of the sky, Aigir looked on Rahn and stretched out his hand. “Come, daughter of light,” he said. “Bring your beauty and your song to fill my empty Hall, for it is cold as death without you. Come, and consent to be my wife.”
Rahn smiled and took his hand, and he brought her down into the sea, to the great Hall that he had made with the power of the Star.
So Rahn wed Aigir, the god of the sea, and was counted a goddess among the Nine Guardians, and Aigir loved her and dwelt with her, and was content.