Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
After a mostly uneventful night, the barges are pushed off the shore by a crew of determined-looking fae guards.
There were a few incidents. Hard to avoid so close to the water. Before dawn, a couple of watersprights crawled out of the river ready to attack the camp, but were pushed back by the guards on duty.
I watched it all from the barge’s side, on which I spent the night perched like a curious bird. Sleep was beyond me, I discovered, and I couldn’t be sure that any random drunk fae guard wouldn’t try to assault me if they found me asleep and vulnerable.
But now we’re once more setting off in the direction of the World Pillar and the anaktor .
Legend has it that the fae found an old, ruined palace there, from a time who knows how many Reversals ago, and rebuilt it for their ceremonies and festivals in honor of the Pillar.
Here is the interesting thing. The fae honor and revere the Pillar holding up the Nine Worlds because they believe it caused the last Reversal. That Reversal was a pivotal event, for it granted them access to this world and hopefully to more in the future.
At the same time, humanfolk and merfolk lament the last Reversal not only because it killed so many, not only because we had to start once more from scratch on this earth that for a thousand years was our sky, but also because it brought the fae and led to the loss of their freedom.
By reversing the worlds, turning the underworld into an upperworld and thus smudging the boundaries between the sacred and the profane, reality and myth, first turning the earth into the sky and the sky into the earth, and then as the water and debris fall through the opening gates turning deserts into seas, and seas into mountain ranges and wet plains, every Reversal is said to reshape both the universe and fate.
I wouldn’t know much about it. The last one happened long before my time.
As for me, I’m going to the festival for my own reasons.
I touch the symbol painted on my neck, marking me as a pilgrim. Quite a few humans will be there, those converted to the fae Empire’s beliefs, convinced that they need the Empire to protect them against the monsters falling through the rifts and caverns in the sky.
The human race seems divided between those fighting tooth and nail to topple the fae king—as if there’s any chance of that, especially since he has both magic and a drak rider army on his side—and those who have accepted their fate.
Glancing over my shoulder, I see the cages reflecting the dawn that’s spreading over the firmament. The dark forms huddled inside look like shadows.
In contrast, the shadow warrior, the King’s Sword, is nowhere to be seen.
I settle on the first barge again, chewing on a blade of grass I picked on the shore, trying to clear my mind. Telling myself everything will go according to plan.
As much as planning this whole thing was ever possible.
The guards seem on edge as the punters slide their long poles into the murky bottom of the river, pushing us forward. This close to the Pillar and the Central Sea, no human settlements are to be found, except for the occasional ruin.
A few white arches.
A few crumbling walls, overcome by lichens and moss.
Some scraggly trees, dark with rot.
The remnants of what must have been an inn or a mansion, a darakin—the smallest kind of dragon, elusive and cute but deadly—circling over its walls.
The river narrows around another bend, rocks on one side and an ancient wall on the other. The convoy slows down, the punters shouting directions at one another across barges. The deck underneath me wobbles as they push and maneuver the long, flat boat so it doesn’t hit the banks, edging toward the wider side to avoid the rocks.
A splash at the side of the boat has the guards tensing, lifting their spears. The water ahead bubbles and ripples. Long hair spills on the surface, green, blue, and gold.
Heads rise over the surface, and a song unfurls, silvery and sweet, rising and falling on the breeze like chimes and bells and sorrow.
“Mermaids!” a guard yells. “It’s fucking mermaids! Stuff your ears!”
The guards lift their hands to their short bronze helmets and lower leather bands with some sort of ear stoppers.
Nice touch. Looks like they’re prepared for a number of eventualities on their journey, which shouldn’t surprise me. It is, after all, an annual event. They have had three hundred years since the last Reversal to organize themselves, though I admit I barely knew what to expect of them when I stood on that sinking boat.
Then someone yells, “Human girl! Your ears!”
I stare as the guard stomps toward me, lifting a hand to catch my attention. I recognize Tru.
“Block your ears!” he thunders, then he mimics the action—once again thinking me deaf. Or maybe he’s the one who’s deaf now, with those things stuffed inside his pointy ears. “Mermaid song. Don’t listen! It will mean your death.”
Mermaid song makes you reminisce, lose yourself in memory and dream. It tugs at you, makes you want to jump into the water and follow the melody… until you drown.
Song, voice, sound. That’s the merfolk’s greatest magic. I know that. Everyone knows that.
And Tru is still yelling at me to save myself.
Obediently, I stick my forefingers into my ears as it dawns on me that I might be susceptible to the music now, with the spell muting my magic.
Behind us, the humans rattle the bars of their cages, moaning, shouting, and screaming. I can hear them through the stoppage in my ears, as well as faint wisps of mermaid song.
The barges sway in the water.
Draks circle overhead together with birds of prey, probably waiting for the chance to grab one of us for breakfast. I can’t make out any of the Great Dara.
The guards move around on the deck, shoving with their spears at the mermaids who are trying to climb the boats. I can make out claws digging into the wood, bare breasts, long gleaming hair, beautiful faces, and sharp teeth.
Some guards hesitate to push them off, startled by their beauty, to their detriment. One of the fae men screams as a mermaid pulls him off the barge and into the sea. There’s barely a splash as she carries him down into his watery grave.
The shove and pull rocks the barge even more, and I press my back to the side of a bench where punters sit to rest, curling into myself. Pain flares low in my back, roughly where my birthmark is, though I can’t remember getting hurt.
It’s nothing. A bruise, most likely. I hadn’t expected so many attacks, if we’re being honest.
Then again, having the humans in those cages is probably evoking all sorts of feelings in the finnfolk—ranging from raw hunger to indignation and anger. Some finnfolk are allied with the humans, while others don’t give a damn and just want a fresh meal. Who’s to tell?
By the way, where is Athdara? Does he only help if he feels like it, on a whim? Is he sitting a few barges back, eating peeled grapes and drinking wine, resting his eyes while everyone else is running about in pure, unadulterated panic?
He’s an aristocrat, the king’s favorite, a stuck-up fae lord and a butcher, kidnapping and killing humans for the king’s pleasure. I mean, what else is the King’s Sword but that?
“Oh, come on, you know he’s crazy. Everyone knows.”
Tru had reacted to that declaration like a mad cat, hissing and spitting. Truth be told, it doesn’t make any sense. A famed warrior, the King’s Sword, a man sent to gather prisoners and protect the sacred convoy back to the Sea Palace, can’t be mad.
Which means he’s simply arrogant and vain, as expected.
We finally leave the mermaids behind, the convoy rocking back and forth as the last barges make it through the straits and around the river bend. The river widens again, straightening, flowing toward the sea. Swamplands surround us, the banks dripping leafy branches into the water that trail bright green in the murk.
It’s a slow-moving river, but we’re finally making good headway toward the blue expanse of the sea… and our destination.
From here, I can see gleaming spires. Is that the Sea Palace? Letting my hands drop to my sides, I stare at the distant white needles piercing the dawn’s colors.
As the day rolls on and we move downriver, the spires become clearer. The palace is on an island in the sea, connected to a second island with a bridge, and now it’s visible, too, a gleaming pale arch. I stand up so that I can see better, shading my eyes against the glare of the glowing sky.
Another shape, this one much closer and on the riverbank, comes into sight. A few low buildings, a squat tower.
A fae outpost.
It’s obvious we’re heading there. It may be the last outpost before the sea and the palace, so I’m not surprised when the punters start shouting instructions at one another in that unintelligible tongue of theirs, full of clicks and whistles, said to have been created to carry over the wind and distance, directing one another to the docks.
I’m lightheaded again. Famished and bone-tired. The tattered hem of my once-white dress flaps around my shins as I step closer to the prow. The outpost stretches over the riverbank, composed of barracks and the watchtower.
The squat design of the buildings makes me think they were also human once, nothing like the spires and arches the fae seem to favor, the delicate design brought over from their own world.
A world that was, apparently, green and full of trees, until the water of the last Reversal filtered into it, creating the need to build high, or so the story goes. It’s probably all excuses to justify the fae invasion of our world, and?—
The barge lurches sideways, bumping into the dock, and I stumble with a gasp, reaching for something to hold onto and finding nothing. The guards are busy checking around the boat for any sprights or other river life, and I fall.
Over the prow.
Toward the water, a mirror showing me my face, my wide eyes, and the painted mark on my throat?—
Hard hands grab me, yanking me up and swinging me away from the water. “What in the hells were you thinking?” Athdara snaps, setting me on my feet, his hands like nightgold gripping my hips when my knees give away. “The water is dangerous.”
And what do you care if I fall? I think, staring back into eyes like the velvet dark of night, shadows under his brows and the hollows of his cheeks, those dark designs curling under his eyes like flowers and wings.
A scent of smoke and leather wafts over me, laced with a whiff of bitterness like tea and burnt wood.
He shakes me a little, looming over me, his square jaw clenching, dark eyes flashing. “Did you hear me?”
“She’s mute, Athdara,” one of the guards says. “Can’t speak.”
At this pronouncement, I have the satisfaction of seeing his dark gaze go wide for a few precious moments, shock glancing through it, before I’m unceremoniously shoved away.
Why the shock? What does he care if I cannot speak?
I watch him stride away, crossing the barge and jumping down onto the dock, hair lifting like a raven’s wing.
And he’s gone, an angry storm, leaving me shivering in his wake.