Chapter 64
The water in Jenyfer’s body was a thunderstorm, quaking and rolling with rage as she paced her room. Her feet left water marks on the stones. Anguish flooded her veins, reshaping her as Ordes was reshaping the world. She’d let him do this. She should have fought harder, found another way.
She’d promised him she wouldn’t break, but that was a lie.
She would break, not like glass or pottery, but like a wave – furious and powerful and unforgiving.
It was night, the sun long sunken beneath the horizon.
Jenyfer chewed her lip, pacing her room, refusing to look at anything because everything reminded her of him and what she had willingly given up.
Lamorna had called her selfish, once.
Bryn had called her selfish.
She’d never thought she was, but now, she was going to be.
It had only been a few hours. She had time. There had to be time.
Jenyfer hurried from her room and to her sister’s, easing the door open and sneaking inside.
Lamorna was sleeping, golden hair painted silver in the moonlight that poured through her window.
Melodias’ sword rested against the wall.
Jenyfer crept forward and snatched it up, then stared at her sister until her eyes blurred.
She didn’t know if she could make it to the Otherworld alone, but she needed to try. If he was dead, that was where he’d be. ‘Lamorna,’ she whispered.
Her sister’s eyes cracked open. ‘Jen?’
‘I’m sneaking out,’ Jenyfer said, forcing a smile. ‘Cover for me?’
Lamorna sighed and nodded. ‘I always do.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Why do you have that?’ Lamorna asked, waving sleepily at Melodias’ sword.
‘I thought I might return it,’ Jenyfer said.
Lamorna nodded and rolled over. ‘Good. I don’t want it.
’ Within moments, she had fallen back to sleep.
Jenyfer leant over, pressed a gentle kiss to her sister’s head, then hurried away.
She was used to sneaking about in the darkness and it was easier than she thought it would be.
She slipped past the guards in the bailey but found herself standing in front of a pair of locked gates.
‘Jenyfer?’ It was Iouen. He approached her slowly, eyeing the sword in her arms.
‘Are you on guard duty?’ she asked quickly.
He sighed. ‘Always on fucking watch it seems,’ he grumbled. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To get him back,’ she whispered furiously. Iouen looked at her curiously, so she told him everything. Everything that had happened, where Ordes had gone, what he was doing, speaking so quickly she wasn’t sure she took a breath.
Iouen’s eyes filled with tears – the pirate dashed them away.
Jenyfer blinked her own tears away. ‘I don’t know how or if I can, but I’m going to try, Iouen, and you can either let me out or I’ll sing my way out.’
He didn’t hesitate. ‘There’s a door. Come with me.’
She followed him into the watch house. Iouen didn’t speak as he opened a small door for her. She hurried through, finding herself standing on the edge of Camlann’s green sea, sparkling silver in the moonlight.
‘Thank you,’ she breathed.
Iouen nodded. ‘Tell him… just find him.’
Then he was gone.
Jenyfer stared at the landscape in front of her.
To reach Lyonesse and then the Otherworld, the most logical path was over the mountains and to what remained of Kernou, but she knew from Lamorna that the journey would take her almost a week.
Failure beat at her already, but she scowled and pushed the feeling away.
She needed transportation. She couldn’t grow wings or move herself through time and space like Ordes could. Arthur’s dragon was an option, but how the fuck was she going to convince a dragon to let her ride it?
Her eyes widened. She set the sword down and pulled her dagger free, the blade hovering over her palm.
She’d seen Olwen do it. Jenyfer didn’t have any idea how blood magic worked, but she was willing to try anything.
She grit her teeth and drew the blade through her skin, but instead of blood it was water that pooled in her hand.
She stared at it, stunned, then instinctively turned her palm towards the earth.
A shudder rippled through the earth and a horse made of water grew before her eyes, shifting and shaping itself until it stood a head taller than Jenyfer, mane dripping and glassy, liquid eyes piercing into hers.
Jenyfer swallowed, bending to scoop up the sword. She’d never ridden a horse before. The animal tossed its head, droplets flying from its mane. It stamped liquid hooves on the ground, leaving puddles that glistened in the moonlight. The water-horse blinked at her and tossed its head again.
She tangled her hands in the mane and hauled herself onto the animal’s back. Its watery skin twitched beneath her. Jenyfer stared at her palm – the slice from the dagger was closed, nothing but a thin ocean-blue line etched across her skin. The horse snorted impatiently.
‘Take me to Ordes,’ Jenyfer whispered, and then she was racing across the green stretch of the newly healed Camlann Plain. She wound her hands tighter into the animal’s mane. Moonlight glinted off the horse’s watery coat, glimmering like strange jewels.
The horse was fast, never slowing, never tiring, and soon they had moved through the mountains, following the path Lamorna would have taken with Mordred and Kernou’s refugees.
They passed the stone circle where Jenyfer had broken the rules and spoken with korrigans – the air shimmered and the korrigans were there, three of them, as usual. They watched her pass.
Kernou was empty, filled with ghosts. Jenyfer did not look up at the clifftop where her aunt’s cottage stood. She did not look at anything. The ocean in her blood was roaring, and her song wove through it as the horse burst onto the beach, watery hooves gliding across the sand towards the waves.
She thought it would stop, but it didn’t, ploughing into the sea, leaping over the waves as it galloped across the face of an ocean flecked with silver moonlight.
Jenyfer twisted in her seat. Kernou was barely visible, caught in the shadow of the spine of the mountains.
On the shoreline, three women with dark hair danced.
Jenyfer watched them for a moment, then turned back.
She would have to face her father. She would have to beg him to let her follow the river into Ankou’s realm, and there… she didn’t know.
But if she had to bargain for Ordes’ life, she would.
Jenyfer woke when the water horse crawled from the ocean onto the rocky shores of Lyonesse. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Her cheek was wet where she’d rested it against the horse’s neck. Swallowing, she slipped off its back.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. The animal tossed its head and vanished, leaving behind puddles that slid down the rocks and returned to the ocean.
Dawn was teasing the world. How long had he been gone already? She couldn’t remember but had the horrible feeling she was too late. Tears pricked her eyes. She didn’t even know what she was going to do, if she could do anything at all. But there was absolutely no way Jenyfer wasn’t going to try.
She couldn’t live without him. She knew that as surely as she knew the feeling of sand beneath her feet and water washing over her toes.
Her fingers brushed the hilt of the sword strapped to her hip.
Her father’s sword. She wasn’t sure why she’d brought it with her at all.
Perhaps she wouldn’t need to beg him for anything.
She’d give him back his sword as payment.
The Singing Stone around her neck thrummed.
She reached up to cup the pouch in her fingers, feeling the stone’s magic.
Melodias could have it back as well. Jenyfer never wanted to see the thing again.
‘Ophine!’ Jenyfer yelled. Her voice bounced off the waves and rocks and came back to her, angry and drenched in panic. ‘Ophine, where are you?’
Nothing but her voice, echoing and throbbing with anguish.
The last time she was here, it was Ordes who had led the way, knowing either from experience or instinct where to go.
Jenyfer stared wildly around, wind whipping her face, not knowing where to start.
Every windswept, salt-encrusted rock was the same.
Desperation clawed at her throat. She was not giving up, not after coming so far.
The heartfire was a dull burn in her chest, the Singing Stone beating against her breastbone furiously. Jenyfer frowned. She wasn’t sure whether to focus on the heartfire and hope its magic was strong enough to guide her to Ordes or let the Treasure lead her to her father.
She headed east, picking her way over the rocks. Anger sizzled in her blood, mingled with a fear, a loss so profound she wasn’t sure she’d ever recover from it.
She could not fail.
The further east she went, the more the heartfire and the Stone responded. She was heading in the right direction. The last time, she and Ordes had entered Lyonesse through a magical portal that had made Jenyfer’s skin prickle. Then, they had tumbled through the darkness.
There was no sign of a portal this time. Jenyfer’s eyes burned as she stared at the place it ought to be. Where was it?
It hit her like a punch. Ordes had closed the realms, like he promised. The entrance to Lyonesse was lost to her. Jenyfer sank to her knees, her body trembling. She swallowed, refusing to cry.
‘I won’t give up,’ she vowed through gritted teeth.
The sound of water tickled her ears. Not waves or the ocean pushing relentlessly at Lyonesse’s rocky shore, but…
flowing water. Jenyfer rose to her feet, following the sound, the heartfire and the Singing Stone thrumming in time with each other as a river, black and slick as the night, came into view.
She’d found her passage to Lyonesse, and beyond it, the Otherworld.
Without hesitation, she threw herself in.