“Endain’s daughter,” thundered the powerful voice all around her. “The sea means you harm.”
Once again she was lifted out of the water, beyond the grasp of the waves. The creature swam steady beneath her, a leviathan of the deep, strength rippling beneath its skin. It could crush her in a moment, it could swallow her whole. But it didn’t.
Her fear of the creature was outweighed by her desperation for Wen. “We have to save him,” she begged. “Please.”
She heard the low rumble of the Whale’s deep voice. “Then save him.”
Lightning streaked the sky and there he was, clinging to a scrap of wood with both clawed feet, one wing dragging limp. She slid into the water and swam to him, wrapping her arm around his strange feathered body, pulling him back onto the Whale. The bird shuddered and shook and she held onto him, not understanding what he had done, or why he had done it. Not understanding how everything had gone so wrong.
“He spoke the Words to change his form,” said the Whale, deep and dangerous. “He thought he could save you.”
Tears stung her eyes. “Can’t you change him back?”
“Only he could do that.”
“Then why doesn’t he?”
“I do not think he knows how.”
The bird huddled close to her, his broken wing hanging awkwardly away from his body. She tore strips of cloth from her soaked skirt and bandaged the wing as best as she was able. When it was done, the bird gave a shuddering sigh and laid his head in Talia’s lap. She stroked his feathers, tears dripping down her chin.
The storm seemed a little less wild now, the waves not as high. But her fear was deeper than before, the reality of what she was doing stark and awful.
Lightning flashed, and the sea devoured the remaining fragments of her ship. The rain dwindled to a few icy drops, and the wind stopped roaring. A slice of moon cut through the clouds.
“Why are you here, daughter of Endain?” asked the Whale.
She blinked out over the sea, her fear of the creature tying her in knots. “I’m going to the Hall of the Dead.” Her voice sounded ragged and rough to her own ears.
The Whale made a low hmmmm sound beneath her, vibrations rippling through his skin. The wind wrapped around Talia, the scent of roses mingling unaccountably with the lingering rain. Silence stretched into the darkness.
“Do you so despair of your life, that you seek Rahn’s Hall?” he said at last. “Do you not wish for a future?”
She screwed her eyes shut and saw before her the Ruen-Shained, the white cat curled purring in the corner, the spot in the sitting room where Wen’s raina would go. Wen, sitting at the instrument, scribbling notes on paper, ink spots all over his hands. Talia, coming in with a tea tray, Wen looking up with a smile.
The realization unfolded inside of her like jasmine flowers drinking in moonlight. How cruel to understand she wished for that future, just as all hope for it was gone. She looked down at Wen’s white head, an immense sorrow weighing heavy. “My future can’t matter, not now. I’m going to destroy Rahn. To end her rule and free my mother’s soul. Will you take me to the Tree, Whale? Will you take me back the way you once carried Endain?”
Stars gleamed suddenly through the remnant of the clouds; the scent of roses bit sharper. “That is why you called me, is it not?”
Chapter Forty-Four
NIGHT TURNED TO DAY, THE SUN BURNING gold behind the torn threads of clouds, and the Whale didn’t say anything more. Talia sat tense and afraid on his broad back with the seabird sleeping beside her. She felt lost. Alone. Powerless. She was at the mercy of a creature from a story, adrift in a dark sea.
She hadn’t expected him to answer her call.
There was a footnote in the account of Endain that her many-greats-grandmother had written—an explanation of how Endain meant to call the Whale back to her, and a Word spelled out phonetically that was supposed to mean “Come to my aid.”
That’s what she’d shouted over and over into the storm.
Now a Whale made of Starlight four centuries ago was carrying her through the sea, and Wen wasn’t Wen anymore. The Words of the gods were more powerful than she had thought possible.
How could Wen have done this to himself? To save her, the Whale had said.
She wished to the gods he hadn’t followed her. And yet what was left for him at home if she failed?
“You have the power to heal him,” came the Whale’s earth-rending voice, shocking after such an extended silence.
Talia jerked her head up. “I can change him back?”
“You can heal his wing.”
“Oh.” For a moment, she’d thought everything could be well again. “How?”
“Use the Words,” said the Whale.
“I don’t know the Words. Wen tried to teach me, but I couldn’t—”
“You called me with a Word, Endain’s daughter. Do not fear. I will tell you which ones to say.”
His voice calmed her. Water lapped over her knees and she stroked Wen’s feathers, taking a deep breath. The Whale spoke a Word that sounded like a deep, brassy note, strong enough to shake the stars from the sky. She shut her eyes and let the Word sink into her until she felt it belonged to her somehow, even though it still didn’t make sense. It was different from the Words Wen had tried to teach her—she could hold onto this one without it slipping away.
She opened her eyes and looked down at Wen. She mimicked the Whale’s voice, and the Word left her lips, piercing and clear. The bird stirred in his sleep. Talia caught a breath of sweet summer air.
“Is it done?” she asked the Whale.
“Look and see.”
She eased the bandage gently from Wen’s wing, and saw that it was healed, the bone knit straight and any trace of blood entirely gone.
The bird ruffled his feathers, experimentally spreading his wings. He flexed them and leapt suddenly into the air, flying in a wide circle above Talia and the Whale.
She stared up at the white bird, afraid he would fly away and leave her alone with the Whale. She was scarcely able to breathe until he landed again and settled beside her.
The day passed, slowly and quickly at once. Without the ship to sail or her charts to study, there was nothing for Talia to do but stare into the waves, tangled up in her own mad thoughts.
Her knapsack was still miraculously slung over her shoulder, the pouch fastened tight. The faint pulse of Starlight behind the leather comforted her, and for a while her worries fled away.
Night spread over the ocean, a clear black sky blazing with more stars than she had seen in all her life. The Whale swam on through the Northern Sea and Wen flew above them, a flash of white in the dark.
She had no desire to sleep, but she felt hazy around the edges, like she was caught somewhere in the space between dreams and waking. The sea ran calm, its music sad and aching in her ears.
“What is your name, daughter of Endain?” Once again, the Whale’s voice startled her.
“Talia Dahl-Saida.”
“A strong name.”
“I have never felt strong.”
“And yet you are here.”
A sickle moon rose up out of the waves.
“What are you?” asked Talia quietly.