CHAPTER 13
RIPPLE EFFECT
A standard Navyrian trading ship will carry a crew of no less than fifty souls.
– Navyrian Maritime Register
Kara woke Henry before dawn. They packed and mounted quickly, cloaks drawn tight against the frost that clung to the air.
Kara urged Whisper forward at a merciless pace.
The Water Shard was held in the Temple at the southernmost point of Navyrian and Lyran lands, on the border by the Solara Ocean.
Even riding hard, they wouldn’t reach it until tomorrow afternoon.
By the midday sun, the Sorrel hills thinned into the windswept flats of Lyra, the air sharp with a mineral tang from the great river that flowed through it.
Henry slowed his valmare and swept his hand through the air, releasing a faint shimmer of ice-white magic before it dissolved on the wind.
“What was that?” Kara asked.
“Sent a message ahead. There are Caldris teachers in every village. Someone might have seen him ride through.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” she called. “Sebastian can’t know we’re following him.”
“It won’t,” Henry said. “I didn’t use names. Just asked about a lone Thorne rider heading south. That draws attention to him, not us.”
An hour later, the ice-white shimmer reappeared in the air and Henry’s eyes unfocused. He slowed to a canter, listening to a voice only he could hear. When he blinked back to himself, his expression was severe. Kara looked at him questioningly.
“Report from two villages ahead,” he said. “They saw a Thorne valmare pass through this morning. He’s close. Half a day ahead of us, maybe less.”
Panic shot through Kara. Close wasn’t enough. She squeezed her knees around Whisper’s flanks and urged her on.
They passed through the small Lyran village of Melodar just before dusk.
The streets were mostly empty, and those few still outside moved quickly between doorways, heads down.
A lone fisherman by the river glanced up as they approached.
Henry removed his Caldris Creststone and slowed to trade a few words with the man.
Kara rode on, hood pulled low. Her mother’s family lived nearby – cousins she hadn’t seen for months – and the last thing she needed was them seeing her and asking questions she couldn’t answer.
“He saw him,” Henry said when he caught up. “Still alone. Riding by the river. Not three hours ago.”
Kara’s pulse jumped. “Straight for the Shard.”
Henry nodded grimly.
They kept to the river road, the wide, steel-grey water keeping pace on their right, separating Navyrian lands to the west, Lyran to the east. They were still hours from reaching the Shard’s location, and too far behind.
But the road had begun to fade into shadow and Kara’s hands ached from gripping the reins.
When Whisper’s breathing grew laboured, Henry rode up beside her.
“They need to rest,” he said, gesturing to their mares. When she looked mutinous, he added, “He will have to as well.”
She nodded reluctantly. “Two hours, no more.”
They pulled off the road under the drooping canopy of a large willow tree and set up a small fire.
It was hardly enough to warm their hands, but it was better than nothing.
Kara sat with her back to the trunk, staring at the dark road ahead – marking time.
Henry didn’t sleep either, just stared into the flames.
Finally, he broke the silence. “The magic they want you to use on him–” He rubbed the back of his neck.
A chill ran down her spine. “Yeah?”
“You’ve never done it on someone who wasn’t injured?”
Kara shifted uneasily. “No. I haven’t,” she said shortly. “But it doesn’t matter. I know the steps.”
“It matters,” Henry said. “He’s not just going to sit there and let you do it. You need to know how it feels when someone fights back.”
She tensed. “And you’re volunteering?”
“I’m insisting. I know how you feel about using this magic. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She hesitated, then gestured for him to come closer. “Fine. Sit. I need you close and unsuspecting – that’s the point.”
Henry smiled. “Unsuspecting isn’t exactly my strong suit.”
“Then pretend,” Kara said, holding out her hands. “We’ll start calm. The moment you feel it – fight me.”
He placed his hands in hers. “Alright, let’s see what you’ve got.”
She breathed deeply and allowed emerald magic to spill from her palms, winding around his arms. It was soft at first, like a caress. She snapped it shut.
“Now,” Henry muttered, and the calm shattered.
He yanked hard against the tendrils, trying to tear free.
He was strong, but Kara tightened them, forcing the magic up into his shoulders, his throat, then higher.
For a heartbeat, he nearly broke her hold – and she realised that if she hesitated, she’d lose.
She pushed harder, her magic binding him fast, until his breathing slowed, and his muscles slackened.
Henry swayed. “Alright – enough–”
She released him immediately, letting the tendrils dissolve.
He blinked hard, rubbing his arms. “You got me under faster than I expected.”
“Then it’ll work. I just have to get close.” Kara’s voice shook.
His brows knitted together. “You think you can get him that close?”
Kara didn’t look away. “I think so.”
“Good,” Henry said, but doubt shadowed his face.
She stood, shaking out her hands. Her pulse still raced, and a ghost of the magic crawled unpleasantly over her skin. “It’s wrong to use my magic like this. I hate it.”
Henry met her eyes with understanding. “I know. But you’ll hate it more if you freeze when it’s him.”
She made a non-committal noise, sitting down again at the base of the tree as Henry lay on his bedroll.
“Have you thought about it?” Henry asked. “What you’re going to say to him? To get close?”
Kara tensed. It was all she’d thought about.
“Yes,” she said, firmly.
She didn’t say any more – she couldn’t. And he didn’t push. If she told him the truth, he’d hear the treachery in it – sense the doubt that filled her.
For Sebastian to let her near, she would have to lean on the feelings she was almost certain he had for her.
Use the fact that their magic danced together – like it belonged – to convince him she’d come to help.
Gods, how could she use that against him?
She hated herself for even thinking it. It was good strategy.
But betrayal all the same. She was planning to abuse the trust of the man who’d saved her life.
She kept imagining his face when he realised her true intent – his eyes going cold, and full of hate.
Maybe, just maybe, if she said the right things, approached him in the right way, he’d tell her the truth about why he was doing this. Perhaps, even now, there could be a way out for him.
She almost laughed. Na?ve.
Once she took that step, there would be no going back. Henry could never know what it would cost her. So she watched their fire burn itself out, circling the same thoughts.
Two hours felt like two days.
Once their valmares had rested enough, Henry stamped out the embers and they were back in the saddle.
They rode under the moonslight, through the rest of the long, sleepless night.
Mercifully, as the sun rose, and the further south they got, it became warmer – her fingers weren’t quite as numb on the reins.
“Kara, look.” Henry pointed to their left.
She glanced across to a small clearing off the roadside where the grass had been pressed flat. Recently. Blackened stones lay in the centre – the remains of a campfire – a thin curl of smoke still rising from the ashes.
Henry slowed his valmare, scanning the ground. “One set of hoofprints.”
The soil here was soft, damp from dew, the impressions deep. Kara swung down from the saddle, and reached towards the pit.
“It’s still warm,” she said.
Henry’s gaze tracked the road ahead. “We’re less than an hour behind.”
She’d never ridden harder in her life. The salty air thickened as the land fell away towards the coast and the morning drew on. The wide river that had been their companion on the road stretched downhill beneath a darkening sky.
“A storm is coming,” she commented. Henry just nodded.
The hilltop for Saltmoor, the southernmost village, came into view around the next bend, its low stone houses huddled close against the wind – Navyrian to one side of the river, Lyran to the other.
Beyond it, the ocean stretched out, vast towards the horizon.
The Water Temple stood above it all, cut into the cliffside, its archways facing the open water.
But something was wrong. The hilltop was crowded with people – dozens of them, packed tight together, staring down towards the shore.
Kara could hear their voices carrying over the wind: shouts, sobs, names called over and over.
Some clutched each other. Others tended to bruised arms or shallow cuts, their clothing dripping with seawater.
No. Don’t let us have been too late.
Kara pulled Whisper to a halt and swung down fast, boots slipping in the wet grass. She stared down the hill in horror.
Half the village was gone. Submerged by dark water lapping at rooftops.
“What happened?” she asked the first man she saw.
He was older, with sea-weathered skin and a hoarse voice.
“The tide came in all at once,” he said.
“Like the ocean was thrown at us. The whole lower village–” His voice broke, and he turned towards the devastation.
Kara spotted a couple of Navyrians waist-deep in water, halfway down the slope towards what had been half their homes, their hands glowing blue, threads snaking out into the ocean.
The water didn’t move. After a few moments, they let their magic fade and shook their heads hopelessly.
Sebastian... what did you do?
Henry hurried to her side. As she turned to face him, her eye caught something on the opposite hill crest to the west: a fleeting glint of crimson. A figure, she was sure, stood there, then vanished from view. Her heart thudded painfully. Was that just what she wanted to see?