“My friend Ayah. She’s apprenticed to a palace librarian, always knee-deep in dusty books, and she’s originally from Od. You two would have a lot to talk about.” Talia sobered. “She’ll never know what really happened.”
“Maybe I can write to her. Explain things, tuck one of your letters inside of mine. Our wretched ambassador can’t have anything to say about that, especially if I send Ahned to see it personally onto a ship.”
Talia brushed her finger over the crackly envelopes. “I’d like that.”
“Den-Arras did have one good question.” Wen scooted closer to her, laid gentle fingers on her arm. “What have you done to your hands? They’re the worst I’ve ever seen. And don’t give me that nonsense about gardening. I’ve spoken with Anira—you disappear down to the beach every morning.”
So he had been paying attention. She didn’t know what to say—she just shrugged and shook her head.
He didn’t press her. Instead, he cleaned her hands, gently washing the dirt and blood away, bandaging the cuts in strips of white linen. “I wish you’d let me help you, with whatever it is you’re doing.”
She didn’t want to lie to him anymore. “I have to do it alone, Wen. I’m sorry.”
He sighed, like that was the answer he’d expected. “Then for the gods’ sake, Talia, be careful.”
But she couldn’t promise that.
Chapter Thirty-Six
IT WAS RAINING AGAIN, FAT DROPS AGAINST the windows. Talia sat reading in the parlor in her usual chair, pouring over stories about Rahn’s Hall for the hundredth time, while the white cat purred by her feet. A sudden spattering of hail rattled the glass and she started, knocking her pen off the end table with one elbow. The white cat pounced on it and batted it behind the bookcase, ink splattering all across the carpet.
“Caida’s teeth,” said Talia, sighing, and she got out of her chair to retrieve the pen. She scrabbled behind the bookcase with one arm, straining to reach, and hit something wedged tight against the wall. It came loose and slid to the floor in a swirl of dust. She sneezed, loudly. The cat leapt up onto her chair.
She sat back on her heels and pulled the object out: a sheaf of yellowed pages, pressed between two loose covers and bound with a length of dirty leather cord. She stared at it for a moment, brushing off the dust and wondering how long ago it had fallen behind the shelf and been forgotten. Or perhaps someone had hidden it. The edges of the cover glimmered with remnants of gold leaf. For some reason, it reminded her of the temple under the hill at the Ruen-Dahr.
She untied the leather cord, taking off the top cover with care. The pages, creased and brittle with age, were written out by hand in a tight, elegant script.
At the top was written: The Sorrow of Endain, as told by Ahna Groy-Aild, penned in the seven hundredth year of the Billow Maidens’ curse.
Talia’s heart began to race. She grabbed the lamp and rested it beside her, bowing her head over the ancient writing.
But Endain, the youngest Billow Maiden, grew weary in her binding. The power of the sea god flowed stronger in her than her older sisters, and she felt the weight of Rahn’s curse more acutely than the rest.
Every month she resisted the pull of the moon, staying at the base of the Tree when the other Waves had already swum to the surface. But the struggle cost her dearly. She could feel the curse writhing within her, stilling her heart, sucking her breath away.
And then her mouth would open of its own accord, and the sea would pull her swiftly upward. Helpless, she joined her sisters’ haunted chorus, and sang the sailors to their doom.
Every nine years she and the other Billow Maidens gathered the dead in Rahn’s enchanted nets, and dragged them down to the Hall. There, Endain plied the strings of her harp, waiting for the turn of the month and the rising of the crescent moon to call her up again.
She was death.
She was doom.
And she could never break free.
One night, when Endain had bowed under the yoke of her mother’s curse for five hundred years, the crescent moon rose out of the sea and she obeyed its bidding. She swam a little apart from her sisters, for she wished to sing in solitude. Their united voices drew the ships in droves; Endain alone sometimes drew no one. If the ships did not come, the sailors did not drown—it was her small rebellion.
But on that evening, the moon rippling silver in the water, a ship bobbed helplessly in the sea very near her. The curse tore the song from her lips, making it echo between moon and waves, louder with every note. She saw that the ship was ruined; its masts were cracked and the sails were sagging, water seeping into the fractured hull. The vessel was slowly sinking.
Only one sailor had survived the wreck, a dark-eyed man with skin that shone like polished copper and hair as black as ink. He was weak and ragged; he had fought hard against the storm that had already doomed his shipmates.
He heard her song and lifted his weary head and saw her there, watching him from the waves. He sat very still.
The curse drove her to swim nearer, and the sailor put his hands upon the rail and dragged himself upright. The ship shuddered and groaned, the water crept higher.
The song wrested itself out of her, and she stared at him and wished she could stop.
“Lady,” he said, his eyes fixed on her, “I know what you are. Would you think me a beggar if I asked you to spare me?”
And she found she could answer him, cutting off her music for a time. “I am a slave, sir. It is not within my power to spare you.”
“Surely a slave can go against her mistress’s bidding if she wishes it.”
“I can not.”
The wind stirred through her long hair, and she could hear her sisters in the distance, their music twisting like shards of bone in her heart.
“Spare me, lady,” said the sailor. “Deny the will of your mother.”
“If I leave you be, the sea will claim you.”
“Then take me to shore. I will show you the way.”
“You do not wish to descend with me into my mother’s Hall?”
“There is no life for me in Rahn’s Hall.”
“You do not wish to save me then. You think only of yourself.”
The sailor’s eyes looked long into hers, and she was troubled.
“You are the daughter of the sea god, and I am only a man,” he said. “What could I hope to do for you that you cannot do for yourself?”
The ship tipped into the water, the waves lapping at the sailor’s heels.
His arrogance angered her. “You do not understand the nature of the bond laid upon me.”
“Then tell me, that I might understand.”
“I must rise to the surface with every crescent moon and sing to the ships. I must gather the dead every nine years, and bring them to my mother. It is my doom, and I cannot disobey.”
“Does the curse say you must go down to the Hall again when you have sung?” the sailor objected. “Does the curse forbid you from going where you will the other eight years? Does it deny you the ability to visit the shores of the world?”