Love Turned to Hate
The tide was out, and the cage was dry, but Irian Guinne had eaten no food for days.
She scanned the sky, but Carla Venasque was nowhere in sight. Irian held Koo in both hands.
‘Koo,’ she said. ‘I need you to help. Can you do that? Can you fetch something for me?’
‘Fetch! Koo fetch.’
‘Fly over there – do you see that glasswort, the green seaweed? Pick it, and bring it back to me. Do you understand, Koo?’
Koo flew out of the cage, fluttered the length of the beach and returned with some brown bladderwrack seaweed. ‘Yours?’ he croaked.
‘No, Koo. I can’t eat this. The green – the glasswort, over there. Fetch it. Little green shoots.’
Koo flew again to the shore. This time he returned with a shell.
‘Yours,’ he said. ‘Fetched it!’
She seemed about to weep. Instead, she lifted the bird and kissed his head. ‘I will have to talk to Anya about your education,’ she said.
There was a cry in the sky above her, and she thrust him inside her jacket. ‘Stay there. Don’t move, remember? She’s got the look of a woman who would kill for sport.’
Carla landed. She wore a cloak, thick wool lined with silk, which she spread on the ground, and sat on.
‘Shall we continue?’
‘I need food,’ said Irian. ‘And water.’
Carla pushed a half loaf of black bread between the bars. ‘While you eat, I’ll tell you the story of how Nighthand and I parted. You’ll enjoy it.’
‘And what if I don’t want to hear it?’
‘I’ll tell you anyway. It will show you the true nature of the man.
Nighthand had scorned me. And yet humiliated as I was, I still loved him.
Rejection only made me long for him more.
One day we landed, just he and I, on Freondell.
Ratwin was doing business on Brogan. I was wary: they were dangerous men, I said.
But Nighthand insisted – they had ormolu pearls to trade.
‘We spent the night in the company of pirates.
Nighthand drank three bottles of whisky and headbutted a full-grown roc.
I woke to find that both the pirates and the Neverfear were gone.
I searched the entire island for him. I thought that the Neverfear had been captured and Nighthand murdered.
I searched for days. I asked everyone I met. I wept for him.
‘And then I heard from the ratatoskas. Nighthand had heard of a good trading opportunity in the north. He had weighed anchor that morning and sailed, taking with him on the boat everything I owned in the world – my money, clothes, all my belongings.
‘I was nothing to him.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Irian.
Carla ignored her. ‘Three days later, Ratwin rejoined the Neverfear and asked where I was. Nighthand swore at the inconvenience and threw my belongings on to the dock at the next port for me to find. He left me a message: it wasn’t personal; it was business.
I finally understood: he was fearless, and it meant he was unafraid to hurt me.
And then, at last, my love turned to hate. ’
‘What did you do then? Did you join another boat?’
A blankness came down over Carla’s face.
‘That is my secret. But I suffered bitterly. And then – a few months ago – I heard of you. I heard from the ratatoskas – their squeaking pleasure, the gossip of it: “The Berserker of Glimt loves the nereid-scholar …” ’ Carla stood and leaned against the bars.
‘ “Loves,” they said. But that cannot be true.’
‘He’s changed. Finding the Immortal changed him. It gave him purpose, to have something to protect. And he has learned to love. He’ll come for me.’
‘Yes. He will come, when Astor Morax says it is time for him to come. And when he comes, I will kill him and you together. Then …’ Carla smiled.
The smile transformed her face and made it both beautiful and hideous, and Irian moved away from it as you move away from the sharp edge of a cliff: ‘Then I will be free.’