Chapter 45
The ocean throwing itself against the beach was a sound that Jenyfer was most familiar with.
If she closed her eyes and concentrated, she was back in her room in her aunt’s cottage, lying awake in the pre-dawn listening to the waves.
Whether the waves were rough or gentle, she had always heard music in them, and their constant rhythm was in her ears as she fell asleep each night.
It was in her heart, her soul. It filled her blood.
She was a creature of water, and she was marooned on an ocean of sand, of cracked and lifeless earth.
It hurt.
Jenyfer’s song was morose and out of time and the Singing Stone was fractious, pulling at her moods, her magic, her temper. It didn’t like being here either.
When they weren’t on the move or holding war councils, Jenyfer would sit somewhere quiet and try to shut out the world.
In her mind, she erected barriers of water between herself and the army Arthur had amassed.
She pushed all thoughts of Old Ones and war from her mind.
She didn’t think of her sister or her aunt, Bryn or the Chif.
She thought of the sea, the way the sunlight would coat the peaks of the waves with gold.
The way the water wound leave lace-like patterns on the sand, how it would pause for a second, as if allowing her a moment to admire nature’s artistry, before it vanished.
In her mind, she would curl her toes into the sand or run the tip of her finger along the delicate edge of a shell before slipping it into her pocket.
She imagined the wind pulling salted fingers through her hair and leaving traces of itself on her lips so that when she licked them, she tasted the sea.
But memories were not the same as reality.
At night, when she tried to sleep, water pushed at her insides desperately, and the song it sang was mournful and pained.
Ordes’ arm was draped over her, his head tucked close to hers, the warmth of his breath on her neck and the feeling of his body pressed against hers was a comfort. Something to anchor herself to when everything else was so out of control.
Tonight, even that wasn’t enough.
Anger had become pain. Jenyfer needed water.
‘Ordes,’ she whispered, trailing her fingers along the smooth softness of his cheek. He stirred, his arm tightening around her. ‘Ordes, wake up.’
‘I’m awake,’ he murmured.
‘Take me to the ocean, please,’ Jenyfer said.
He lifted his head. ‘Now?’
‘Yes. I need to see the sea,’ she replied. ‘I can’t explain it – I don’t feel like myself out here where there is no water, no—’
He kissed her cheek. ‘You don’t need to explain.’
‘You’ll take me?’
‘Of course I will. How do you wish to travel?’
Jenyfer smiled. ‘I’d like to fly, if that’s alright.’
She could smell the ocean, could hear it and her soul sang. Music exploded inside her and she practically jumped from Ordes’ arms the moment they landed on the sand. Jenyfer rushed towards the water and plunged in. Her whole body sighed in sheer relief, like a wound had suddenly been healed.
Jenyfer was waist deep before she stopped to look at Ordes over her shoulder. ‘You know,’ she called. ‘You’re still the most beautiful man I have ever seen.’
His lips curled. ‘Am I now?’
‘Indeed. I think you should come here.’
He was beside her in the blink of an eye, arms around her middle, lips on her neck. ‘This is better,’ he murmured against her suddenly aching flesh.
‘Is it?’
Ordes’ lips trailed the underside of her jaw. ‘You’re much more relaxed.’ He pulled back so he could see her face. ‘I think this is the first time I’ve seen you smile since…’
Jenyfer kissed him. ‘I don’t want to talk about that. I want this moment, Ordes, while we still can. Before it all changes and is totally out of our control.’
He slid fingers into her hair. ‘You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,’ he whispered, then kissed her deeply until she was squirming against him, the ocean curled around her, the Stone Song silent – even it was letting her have this moment to herself.
‘You’re the other half of my soul, Jenyfer.
When you breathe, I breathe. Your heart beats alongside mine and I can feel you beneath my skin, in my blood, my bones,’ Ordes said.
He pulled her closer. ‘Your pain is my pain, your sorrow, your joy – all of it.’
The despair that Jenyfer had been holding back pushed its way to the surface at the way his voice trembled.
She wound her arms around his neck and clung to him.
Body shaking, Jenyfer bit her lip, and before she knew it, she was sobbing uncontrollably.
The ocean brushed her skin, and Ordes’ arms claimed her, his hand cradling her head.
Jenyfer couldn’t speak through her tears as the anger she’d been carrying for weeks broke away and dissolved, leaving her free of the weight of it.
Caught somewhere between Ordes’ arms and the ocean, she rested her face in the crook of his neck. She hadn’t realised it was possible to lose someone who hadn’t gone anywhere yet.
But he was still here, and so was she. What time they had left, Jenyfer wasn’t going to waste it being consumed by anger.
She was going to love instead.
‘Do you still believe the stars are the souls of those who have died?’ Jenyfer asked. They were stretched out on the wet sand, the ocean kissing their legs, a canvas of blackness dotted with winking silver above them.
‘Maybe,’ Ordes said. His fingers tightened on hers before they relaxed. His thumb stroked hers gently, the touch setting the fire beneath her flesh ablaze. It was always there, simmering away, but had been doused in anger and grief. It was nice to feel it again.
‘We should get back,’ she said regretfully. ‘If they discover us gone, they’ll lose their minds.’
Ordes brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, then stood, holding out his hand to help her up. As Jenyfer placed her hand in his, she froze. The Singing Stone around her neck began pulsating with warning.
She scrambled to her feet, eyes scanning the ocean. She already knew who was coming. She could feel him, just like the Treasure could feel its former master.
There was no grand entrance this time. The waves simply paused and then Melodias was there, water streaming from his unbound hair.
‘I want to speak with my daughter – alone.’
‘It’s alright,’ Jenyfer told Ordes. ‘I’ll be fine.’
He nodded and moved away, far enough to satisfy. Jenyfer kept her chin lifted as she looked at her father. The barely contained fury on his face surprised her. She had seen him angry, annoyed, sarcasm and displeasure practically dripped off him, but she had never seen this.
He looked powerful, capable of destroying worlds and of creating them, of tearing the fabric of the universe to pieces if he wished it. He looked like the God he was. She refused to let it rattle her, keeping her eyes locked on his.
‘What do you want?’
‘Andromache told me something interesting,’ Melodias said casually, his voice at odds with the rest of his taut face, every muscle pulled tight.
Moonlight caught on the scales on his temples, winking silvery-white.
He took a step closer to Jenyfer. ‘She’s been…
it doesn’t matter where she’s been. But when she first told me, I didn’t believe her.
I thought no, they wouldn’t. They couldn’t possibly be so stupid to do something like that. ’
Jenyfer’s blood froze. He knew. Somehow, he knew and…
‘Lamorna,’ she mumbled, shaking her head. They’d told Lamorna. ‘How?’
‘Your sister was the one to have the courage to tell us what you and that boy king are planning,’ Melodias hissed.
‘What do you want us to do?’ Jenyfer challenged. ‘Change our minds because you’re not happy with the arrangement?’
‘You’ll leave me with nothing!’ her father roared.
Jenyfer took a hasty step back, away from the savage rage of a God.
Ordes was at her side in an instant, but Melodias paid him no mind – his anger was for Jenyfer.
She took courage from Ordes’ presence and from her knowledge that it was the right thing to do, regardless of what it would cost her.
‘We’ll leave you with your life,’ she snapped. ‘That will have to be enough.’
‘Enough? For a mortal perhaps, but I’m a God!’
‘That’s precisely the reason we’re going to do this,’ Jenyfer argued.
‘None of you can be trusted. Even if you got on your knees and swore you’d leave the mortal realm alone, I couldn’t trust you, Melodias.
None of us could. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.
’ When he opened his mouth to argue with her, she held up her hand.
‘If you’d helped us instead of played games with us, stolen our map, allied yourself with Mordred…
maybe it would be different. But you’ve proven that, like all the Old Ones, you’re only looking out for yourself. ’
‘What will happen to the seas without me?’ he demanded.
‘The sea doesn’t need a master,’ Jenyfer said, folding her arms.
‘How do you know?’ Melodias demanded. ‘How do you know that once you go through with this stupidity and close off my realm that the creatures of the sea will continue on, that the tides will continue to kiss the shore – how do you know that you won’t be dooming the world?’
‘I don’t,’ Jenyfer said. A shiver of worry crawled along her spine, but she ignored it.
‘Then why?’ her father asked.
‘Because what other choice is there?’ Jenyfer asked, her voice rising.
Melodias considered her for a long time and before he spoke, his eyes flickered to Ordes standing behind her in the darkness. ‘You’ll truly let him die for this new world of yours?’
Jenyfer shook her head, heat surging through every part of her. ‘Don’t try and manipulate me.’
‘It’s a genuine question, Jenyfer. You’re willing to let the man you love be snuffed out of existence for an… experiment?’
‘It isn’t my choice,’ she whispered. ‘It’s his life.’
Melodias stared at her like she was mad, and maybe she was. ‘That’s incredibly selfless of you.’
‘It isn’t about me,’ Jenyfer argued. ‘This is about what’s right.’
‘If you tell yourself that enough, will you believe it?’ All the scorn, the fear and anger, was gone from his voice.
‘Maybe.’
‘You don’t have to do this,’ her father said.
‘Yes, I do, and there isn’t anything you can do to stop it,’ Jenyfer told him. ‘Unless you’ve come here to kill me, or Arthur.’
‘What if I came to kill him?’ Melodias gestured to Ordes.
‘I’d like to see you try.’
Melodias sighed. ‘I’ll fight it.’
‘You’ll fight the magic of the Grail?’ Jenyfer asked in disbelief. Was that even possible?
‘Water always wears away the rock, Jenyfer. So, lock me up. I’m patient.
I’ll be free again,’ Melodias said. ‘And by the time I am, none of you will be around to stop me. You’re not immortal, daughter, and neither is that boy king of yours.
The only one of you who could potentially keep my realm closed off forever is about to sacrifice himself for this fool’s errand. ’
With a final look of pity at Ordes, he vanished, so quickly Jenyfer was left wondering if the conversation had even happened at all.