“Wen—”
“You look so beautiful.” He held out his hand. “Would you care for a dance?”
“I’m not dressed for dancing.” She was wearing a plain gray-and-rose gown, the sturdiest garment in her wardrobe.
“Of course you are,” he said, and folded his fingers around hers.
He drew her close, one hand pressing against the small of her back, the other resting lightly on her shoulder. She didn’t pull away. They danced together quietly, easily, out of time with the quick-stepping jig that poured from the ballroom. She felt her resolve crumbling. Why was it so hard to leave him? It shouldn’t be.
She pulled suddenly away and he did too, a careful distance in his expression. “Are you all right, Talia?”
She scrambled for an answer. “I thought—I thought perhaps I’d change into something better for dancing in. Would you wait for me?”
His smile started in his eyes and spread to his lips. “I would like nothing better, Miss Dahl-Saida.”
“Ten minutes, and I’ll be back.”
For an instant more she studied him, the freckles on his nose and the stubble on his chin and the lines pressed into his forehead. And then she turned away and went upstairs to her room, pausing briefly to leave two letters on her bed—one for Ayah, one for Wen. She passed quickly through the hall and down the servants’ stairs, then out a side door into the night.
The wind sang through her hair as she galloped along the shoreline toward the hidden cove, Ahdairon’s hoofbeats thudding in the sand. Her knapsack thumped heavy against her waist, its contents making her uneasy. She thought of Wen, waiting for her to come back downstairs to dance with him, not knowing she was already gone.
But there was no turning back.
When she reached the cove, Talia reined in the mare and swung down. She took off the bridle and tied it to the saddle so the reins wouldn’t drag. “Off home you go now,” she told Ahdairon, smacking her flank. The horse eyed her with confusion, but started obediently down the coast the way they’d come. She should get back to the Ruen-Dahr without any trouble.
The ship was waiting for her, its bow poking through the trailing vines, water lapping quietly at the hull. Moonlight illuminated the words she’d painted on the bow only yesterday, her name for the ship: Endain’s Heart. The tide was rising. She loosed the boat from the driftwood post where she’d moored it, then wrapped the rope securely around her shoulder and tugged it out of the hidden cove. She felt calm. Steady. Certain.
She climbed into the ship, raised the mast and lashed it securely in place, her patchwork sail furled and ready. She double-checked the knapsack and secured it with her other supplies in the bottom of the boat, before covering everything with the waterproof tarp.
Everything was in order.
There was nothing left to do but set sail.
She scrambled back onto the shore, putting her shoulder to the stern of Endain’s Heart, and shoving it out into deeper water. The waves caught the boat and her final decision was made for her—all at once she was fighting through the water, grabbing the side of the ship and pulling herself into it.
She caught her breath and checked the sail and rudder, then cast one last glance back to the shore.
Someone was standing there in the moonlight, arms windmilling. Shouting at her, though the words were lost in the sound of the surf.
It was Wen.
Part Four:
SHIP AND SEA
So Rahn made a white ship with silver sails, and she cast it away from the shore and was seen no more upon the land.
Chapter Forty
SHE TORE HER EYES AWAY FROM THE figure on the shore, steeling herself against the sound of his voice. She couldn’t go back. He’d die if she did.
She fumbled with the knots keeping the sail lashed tight around the mast, and it unfurled all at once, a hodgepodge of color in the fractured light of the moon. The wind caught it, filled it. The ship cut through the rising waves.
“Talia!”
She glanced back to shore just in time to see him rip off his jacket and plunge into the sea.
“No!” she screamed. “Wen, go back!”
A wave crashed over his head but he wrestled to the surface again, fighting the current. He swam toward the ship.
The water was rough and choppy away from the shore. The wind was rising.
Wen would drown.
She cursed and grabbed for the sail, wrestling with the patchwork fabric to furl it once more. She adjusted the tiller and grabbed the oar stowed in the bottom of the boat, paddling desperately back in the direction she had come. Wen’s head poked up above the water.
Just a little closer.
A wave crashed into the ship, drenching her through, but she hardly noticed. Wen disappeared from sight. She dug the oar in harder, praying to every god she knew that he wasn’t lost forever.
And then there he was, bursting back to the surface again, close enough to touch.
Talia cried out, leaning over the side to grab his arm. She hauled him up into the boat, which rocked alarmingly at the sudden addition of his weight, more water splashing in.
He coughed and choked and sputtered, and she stared at him, shaking so hard her eyes could barely focus. “What are you doing?” she demanded, her voice high and tight. “You could have drowned!”
“What are you doing?” he shot back.
“Following my fate!”
“Do you mean killing yourself?”
Another wave crashed over the side of the boat, the sea churning beneath them. The wind rose stronger, whipping Talia’s hair loose from its braid. Thunder growled, and the ship lurched. It grew suddenly dark, knotted clouds blocking out the moonlight.
“We have to get back to shore before the storm hits!”
“I’m not going back!” she told him fiercely.
A sudden gust of wind slammed into her, nearly knocking her into the ocean, but Wen caught her wrist and held her back. They both fell to their knees. The sail unfurled as the wind loosened the knots, and Talia leapt up to wrestle it down again before it was torn apart. Wen helped, steady hands beside her in the dark.
“Talia, we have to go back.”
“I’m prepared for storms.”
“A fisherman wouldn’t dare go out in this old tub on a sunny day—what makes you think you can cross the ocean in it?”
“I’m not a fisherman!” she shouted above the wind. “The sea is in my blood and I’m not going to die.” At least not yet, she thought.
“This is madness!”
The rain hit like a wall of ice, and any chance for conversation was lost.
No matter what Wen wanted, they were too far out to sea now to turn around in this squall. And she was prepared, even if she hadn’t thought she’d face adverse weather so soon.