“Five miles in all this snow?”
He shrugged, another smile playing about his lips. “Better than waiting out that interminable dinner.” He waved one hand at the inn behind him.
“True.” She looked at the blanketed road, winding its slow white way up to the Ruen-Dahr. Her heart felt quieter with Wen there.
“Shall we?” He offered her his arm.
She rested her fingers lightly on his sleeve; she’d forgotten her gloves inside, but she wasn’t about to go back and retrieve them.
They walked awhile in silence, snow catching white in Wen’s hair and caking the hood of Talia’s cloak. The world was hushed and still around them.
“Thank you,” she said softly, leaning into him as they went.
His eyes were bright in the winter storm. “At our wedding,” he said, his tone mild and teasing, “let’s skip the luncheon.”
At that, she did laugh.
Chapter Thirty-Two
LOSING CAIDEN WASN’T AS HARD AS SHE thought it would be. She didn’t feel like she would die, or that there was a knife twisting in her heart, or anything melodramatic enough for one of Ayah’s stories.
She simply felt empty.
A ship without a course.
A bird without wings.
But she refused to stoop to pining for him like a neglected hound.
Winter settled heavily over the house, the snow there to stay. It was too cold to go riding. Too cold to do anything but scour the library for answers she was unsure existed, plot out her repairs for the ship, and try not to think about everything she’d lost.
Sometimes she sat with Wen in the music room or had tea with him in the parlor. His presence relaxed her, his easy smile warming her from the inside. But then he would ask what she was reading about in the library, and she had to lie to him. He knew it, too—she could see it in his eyes. But he never pressed her.
One evening, halfway through Caiden and Blaive’s honeymoon, Talia went up to the library as usual and peered again at the titles on the shelves. There were hardly any books of myths left that she hadn’t read, but she grabbed one of them and settled by the fire, pulling a blanket over her knees.
She was scarcely two pages in when she realized it was the story she had been searching for without realizing it—the story that would save her, or damn her. Or both.
Long ago there lived a maiden called Lida in the land of Od. She dwelt with her father and sister in a tiny village on the edge of the sea and her father, a painter, was very poor.
Both Lida and her sister, Dahna, were beautiful: Lida had hair the color of light, while Dahna’s was black as the void.
And Lida loved Cyne, the governor’s son, for he was kindhearted and handsome and never seemed to stop smiling. She cherished him a long while, mourning because she had no dowry. But her heart was full of laughter and goodness, and Cyne saw it and came to love her in return, though he kept it to himself.
On a cloudy day in spring, Cyne saw Lida walking alone upon the seashore, and his heart was pricked, for she wept into the wind. He came up to her and took her hand, and asked her the cause of her sadness.
“Oh, my lord,” she said. “I love a man who is above me, and I can offer him no dowry, for my father is poor.”‘
Then Cyne wiped away her tears. “A strange tale indeed,” he said, “for I love a lady whose father is poor, and I care not for any dowry.”
And Lida looked into his eyes and saw the love he had for her, and she smiled.
Then Cyne gathered her into his arms and kissed her, and they pledged their troth as the sea crashed upon the shore.
But Dahna saw Cyne kiss her sister and was filled with rage, for she had loved Cyne many years. The wind rose up and her hair blew wildly about her, a crown for her head, raven black.
Preparations began at once, for Lida and Cyne were to be married with the autumn. All the village women aided Lida in sewing linens, tailoring the bridal gown, and readying the house she was to share with her husband.
And Lida was filled with joy, her radiance increasing as the wedding day drew near. But the blackness in Dahna’s heart grew until it had consumed her, and she knew only jealousy and hatred.
On the eve of the marriage, Dahna clothed herself in false smiles, and asked Lida to walk with her on the beach, that they might share one last evening together before her husband took her away.
And Lida was glad and consented, and the sisters wandered together over the sand as the Sun sank westward in a blaze of yellow fire.
They walked very far, and Lida began to grow fearful of the coming night and exhaustion in the morning. “Come, sister,” she said. “Let us go back.”
“It is not yet night. Come with me, just a little further.” And Dahna pulled her on.
The sun dropped out of sight over the rim of the world.
“Please, Dahna,” said Lida, touching her sister’s arm. “We must go back now. We have walked too far and I am very tired.”
Then Dahna turned in a rage, and, seizing her sister with a grip of iron, dragged her into the sea.
Lida cried out in fear, for the waves grasped at her, choking her breath away, and her sister was strong. She struggled and looked up into Dahna’s face and saw that she was laughing.
“You shall not have him!” cried Dahna. “If I cannot have him, neither shall you!” Then Dahna pushed Lida’s head under the water and would not let her up, no matter how Lida writhed in her grasp. She held her there until Lida grew weaker and weaker, and her body was at last limp and still.
Then Dahna looked up into the sky and felt very cold, but she did not regret what she had done.
She did not return to the village, not that night nor any night after, and no tale tells what happened to her.
It was three days before an old fisherman found the body of Lida, and sent her to rest beneath the waves, as was his custom. When Cyne heard it his heart broke, for the sea had robbed him of even one last glance at his bride. He mourned and raged, longing for death to claim him too, that he and his love might be together for eternity.
He wandered often along the shores of the sea, staring out into its endless waves. He remembered the stories he had heard in his childhood—tales of the Immortal Tree, of Rahn and the Hall where she sat enthroned, the dead of the sea dancing before her. He thought of Lida alone in the faceless masses in the Hall of the Dead, and he determined not to resign her to such a bitter fate.
So Cyne built a ship with the wood of a few scarce trees that grew on the shore of Od, and he strengthened it with the ancient Words of power and set off into the deep waters, on a night that burned with stars.
Long years he sailed on the Northern Sea, and his love for Lida made him strong.
One morning, he lifted his eyes and at last saw the Tree, reaching up from the depths, the blue-and-silver serpents circling it. But Cyne was not afraid, for he bore his father’s sword. It burned with white fire, and was said to have been made in the days when mankind dwelt under the shadow of that selfsame Tree.