Chapter 5
The salt marsh was a vast tapestry sprawling along the coastline.
Marsh reeds speared skyward like pikes around me, while waders and wildfowl were buffeted by the surf.
Eventually the stone track spilled me out onto the causeway, which looked to have been reinforced with durable nabyrium to offset the tides’ relentless erosion.
Gradually the reeds thinned, the bay opened out in front of me, and I was faced with an expanse of steel ocean beneath a dull sky.
Bower Island was a dark smear, a suggestion, on the horizon. It looked immensely far away. Nine miles, I recalled Rhama saying back at Arbenhaw—a three-hour journey at the plodding pace of this mare.
I swivelled, but Egard and Belamy were hidden by the reeds. I supposed I might have fled over the mudflats, but the tide wasn’t going out all at once—it was ragged, rivulets snaking around me. I saw ditches in the sand, great frothing pools, areas of mud that looked like they might swallow me…
Egard had been right: I had nowhere to go but onward.
Besides, there was no way I was going to miss that meeting, miss the opportunity to find out more about Zennia—and that meant surviving this placement, at least for the next week.
So I sat and watched the endless uncovering of the causeway ahead, seaweed laid across it like clumps of dark hair.
An hour passed by, then an hour and a half.
The clouds thickened and thunder rumbled in the distance.
Behind me was a constant cacophony of screeching: gulls feasting on the delicacies left behind by the tide.
It was clear, I thought as I watched redshanks wheel above me, why this whole stretch of shoreline was called the Chorus Coast.
About halfway along the causeway, I came to a stone harbor, which looked to be built entirely of nabyrium. The sea sloughed off it in sheets as it emerged. There were no boats, of course, not at archwater—only iron rings set into the stone.
The harbor must have cost a fortune to build.
Nabyrium—volcanic and almost as strong as diamond—was rare and not widely available.
The coastal Houses used it to counter the tides, while the rest of the Hundred liked it because we couldn’t damage it—though a very determined Mudmouth might shake a nabyrium tower down.
The waves broke ahead of me, drew back out, came back in again.
It was monotonous by now, even a little mesmerizing.
I found myself gazing at the emerging sands, wondering if here, or there, was where Zennia had struggled…
I was sinking back into that black hole of grief, wallowing, pulled under by the movement of the cart.
I closed my eyes, almost nodding right off, when abruptly—
Crack!
The cart jolted violently.
I clung on as the mare reared, nearly upending the cart—and me. The wheels groaned; something scraped against the stone. Before the mare could send us toppling onto the mud, I sprang down, tottered briefly, and caught hold of her reins.
“Steady. Steady.” I had no idea how to manage horses, but I spoke as calmly and firmly as I could, and she seemed to respond, whickering gently. Once she was still, I went to inspect the damage.
“Hells,” I muttered as I dropped into a crouch. A fitting had splintered near one of the wheels, and something else important-looking had cracked right through. I mentally cursed Egard and Belamy for securing the cheapest cart-for-hire they could find in Port Rhorstin.
As I straightened stiffly and gazed out at the island, closer now but still some distance off, I saw the tide drawing inexorably away from me, the gap between us lengthening even as I stood there. The mare had no saddlebags, not even a saddle—no means of carrying either me or my case.
I chewed my lower lip. I’d just have to walk. The broken-down cart—surely no loss to its owner—would fall victim to the next tide, smashed to splinters and scattered.
I unfastened the mare and used some of the rope to fashion a makeshift handle for my case, then took her by the bridle, yanked the case down off the cart, and began to drag it behind me up the causeway—just as a thin rain began to fall.
“Hells, hells, hells.”
A far-off growl of thunder answered me.
We plodded along, our pace hampered by my case. But the mare seemed happier to travel this way; with no bulky cart to pull and the tide disappearing, she seemed calmer and even nudged my hand companionably.
It wasn’t long, however, before a new sound reached my ears.
I turned, squinting back through the drizzle to the mainland. Two dark shapes, speeding toward me down the causeway. The noise I heard was the beating of hooves.
Riders. I would have to make way.
I moved to the edge of the causeway and stepped off it, yelping as icy water curled around my boot. I teetered for a second, then sat down hard on the stone.
The gray mare whickered as I scrambled to my feet. By now, the riders were almost upon us, and I turned to face them, my cheeks growing warm. They’d already had to pick their way carefully around the cart. Now the mare and I would slow them down further.
The first of the riders pulled up abruptly, reins snapping, his stallion’s mane tossed wildly by the breeze.
For it was a man—a young man—standing in his stirrups to peer at me.
I caught an impression of fine clothes, fashionably cut.
A lean, rangy frame. A practiced ease in the saddle.
I quickly brushed the grime from my travel-worn garments.
Cantering up behind him came a much shorter and older man, suntanned, his long dark hair streaked with gray. He was dressed in servants’ livery, a deep, rich violet.
“Who are you? Why do you trespass on our land?” The young man’s voice was frosty, his accent well-heeled.
He pulled his steed around, and I could see him more clearly.
Brown-gold hair, slicked back but tousling in the rain.
Smooth featured, striking, but in a fine-boned, birdlike sort of way.
He was dressed in deep navy, a froth of lace at his collar; laconite glinted down his chest and on his cuffs.
“Corith Fraine,” I said, raising my voice above the din. “House Shearwater’s Floodmouth.” I swallowed painfully. “Their new Floodmouth.”
His lips tightened. “Brigant Shearwater is my father.”
I’d suspected as much. I wondered if I ought to bow.
“That broken-down cart back there,” he continued. “That was yours?”
I nodded, knowing my cheeks were still pink.
He tipped his chin, indicating the gray mare. “You and your horse will drown if you continue as you are. You do realize it is the middle of archwater? That the returning high tide will catch you in”—he consulted a pocket watch grimly—“a little over a quarter of an hour?”
I blinked, then turned to look out at the dark island. Certainly more than a quarter of an hour away at the glacial pace the mare and I had been maintaining.
“Why are you alone?” called the long-haired man behind him. He had a low voice, neat features, weathered and furrowed skin. “You should have at least one guardian with you if you came all the way from Arbenhaw.”
Hearing the name of my former home felt strange.
“They…preferred to remain on the mainland,” I said diplomatically.
He shifted in his saddle, a shade of suspicion entering his gaze.
The Shearwater studied me, looking over my grubby garments, and I flicked my eyes away, uncomfortable under that close stare.
But he only shook his head, as though something far more pressing occupied his thoughts.
As though my presence—my predicament—was an irritating interruption.
“You didn’t think to at least look at the tide tables in Port Rhorstin?
Everyone in this region knows the tide times by heart.
Those who don’t dice with death, sooner or later. ”
My face heating, I thought of the engraved plaques in the square, the dense rows and columns of symbols and figures. And I thought, too, of Zennia. She’d surely have learned them, at least by the time the accident happened.
I caught the young man try to throw off a small shudder.
“We left on time, but…well,” I answered stiffly, gesturing to the broken-down cart. It wasn’t my fault it had fallen to bits.
“If you’d known the tides, you’d have known to ride your mare, or turn around and return to the mainland if you couldn’t.”
The man behind him cleared his throat. “Speaking of the tide, my lord…”
“Hells,” the Shearwater whispered. He darted another glance at his pocket watch, then beckoned me. “Come on, quickly. Hand that case up to Tigo. We don’t have time to idle here any longer.” He eyed me, suddenly wary. “You’ll have to sit up with one of us.”
“I’ll take her,” said the man called Tigo. “Pepper here is bigger.” And indeed, his black stallion was the largest I’d seen. Circling Pepper, who harrumphed at me dubiously, I passed my case up, then clambered into the saddle.
In the distance, I realized, I could no longer see the sea.
The Shearwater brought his horse around expertly and grabbed the reins of my puzzled mare. “It’ll be a tight one,” he said to Tigo, sounding strained. The rain had turned his hair dark; the breeze buffeted it into his eyes.
“We’ll be fine,” came the rumble of Tigo’s voice behind me, and we set off, my thrumming heart like wings beating in my chest.