Barb Hendee: Through Stone and Sea

Wynn went numb.

Dawn would come soon. Chane and Shade were waiting. And there were more preparations to make. Even more secrets than before waited to be unearthed.

Cinder-Shard turned away up the tunnel.

"See to the honored dead," he told the others. "Return peace to their rest."

He didn't look back at her as he stepped through the tunnel's stone wall. All of the other Stonewalkers followed likewise—all but one.

Ore-Locks stood just beyond Chuillyon, watching Wynn intently. Then he too vanished into stone.

Wynn was left alone with the tall, duplicitous elf, who stepped quietly toward her.

She stood her ground, waiting for whatever half-truth he might try this time. She was too weary and hollow to put up with anything from him. Everything had ended in loss. Even this final moment had come and gone so quickly.

Chuillyon merely passed her by, heading down the tunnel's faint slope.

"Are you coming?" he asked.

Wynn picked up her cold lamp crystal and followed him toward the ocean shore.

Awhole day passed, and the sun had set.

Wynn climbed the boarding ramp of a two-masted Numan ship in Sea-Side's lower port. The ship would leave at dawn and round the point below Dhredze Seatt into Beranlômr Bay, for the short journey back to Calm Seatt. She dropped all three packs near the rail.

So much had happened since Wynn had left the guild. Only bits and pieces lingered in her exhausted mind. She tried to push even these aside, to gain a moment's respite from worries, mysteries, and guilt. But her thoughts slid back to the previous morning.

They had all stumbled from the tunnel's mouth, wet and exhausted, with dawn approaching. Chuillyon offered passage to Calm Seatt. He seemed the only one to openly acknowledge that the duchess's life had been saved by Chane's decision to flee and Wynn's hand in finishing the wraith.

But morning was not far off, and they headed quickly down the rocky shore toward the port.

Wynn had been forced to tell another lie, while asking Tristan to hold the ship another day. She had to get Chane inside as soon as possible and see to his hunger. Even a voyage belowdecks during the day wasn't possible yet. She'd used the same excuse of a skin reaction to harsh sunlight as they had with the wagon driver on the way to Dhredze Seatt.

No one questioned her weak explanation. The captain recognized Chane's efforts and did not press the matter. The duchess merely walked away toward the ship.

They hurried to the same inn Chane used during Shade's extended search for the sea tunnel. Falling through the door, he'd collapsed into dormancy just barely before the sun rose. Wynn set aside trying to find him blood and fell into a deep sleep herself.

This evening, she'd awoken to see Chane crack open the little room's door. He wore his cloak, with the hood pulled up. She'd sat up quickly.

"Where are you going?"

"I need … to purchase a new shirt … and some things for myself."

Wynn knew better, and that he didn't like to discuss it, but she wouldn't let it pass.

"I can get you some blood," she said, as if it were nothing extraordinary. "There might be a cold room or slaughterhouse here … before the meat is taken up to market."

"No," he answered. "I will see to it myself. Meet me on the ship."

"Give me moment to dress, and I'll come with you."

He slipped out and shut the door.

"Chane, wait!"

By the time she'd reached the common room and stepped outside with Shade, he was gone.

Chane was in a bad state. She'd seen hunger in his face after they'd breached the sea tunnel's many gates. It had only worsened from there. He'd faced down the wraith more than once, exchanging injuries with it that no one else could see—that no one else would've survived. He'd done it all on one urn of goat's blood she'd bought in Bay-Side.

That act had caused him embarrassment, resentment, or maybe both.

Now he wanted to find a butcher and see to his need on his own. She understood and simply returned to the room and gathered their things. He would find her later. He always found her.

Now, aboard the ship, Shade padded out across the deck. As Wynn followed, she spotted Captain Tristan by the forward dockside rail. She thought he was looking at her but noticed his gaze was too high. Wynn followed it.

The duchess stood near the stern. By the slight turn of her shoulders, she was looking past the southern tip of the Isle of Wrêdelîd, and out to the open ocean.

Wynn leaned over the rail and scanned the shore for Chane, but the water-front was empty of any tall humans. Left with Shade for company, she couldn't help glancing toward the duchess. It wasn't a good idea, but she went aft, slowing cautiously in approach.

"May I join you?" she asked.

The duchess didn't answer or even turn. Wynn settled on a storage trunk to the port side. Reine wasn't wearing a cloak. Tendrils of chestnut hair quivered in the evening breeze, lashing across her profile and vacant expression.

"What happened to the prince?" Wynn asked suddenly.

Impertinent, especially for her hand in his loss, but she couldn't help it. She already knew too much, as far as the duchess and her people were concerned. Yet her reasoning, her guesses about the youngest Âreskynna, needed confirmation in some small way.

"He went home," Reine whispered.

It wasn't an answer, but Wynn waited.

"Have you ever wondered how I know your premin?" Reine asked.

The sudden change of topic confused Wynn at first. "The royals have always had close ties to the guild."

"Closer than you think," Reine said, spite creeping into her voice. "I asked her to look into a certain matter … what might be known rather than rumored … concerning my new family. The Âreskynna told me what they knew, but it wasn't enough … not nearly enough for me. I sought help from the guild."

Wynn shifted to the trunk's edge, her fingers clutching the edge of its lid.

"I learned nothing more than what the royal family told me," the duchess continued quietly. "Lady Tärtgyth, your premin, found only hints that a marriage was arranged between a ‘lord of the waves' and a forgotten female ancestor of King Hräthgar."

Wynn's mind was already filled with previous assumptions.

"You know that name?" the duchess asked.

"Yes … Hräthgar is attributed with uniting territorial factions in what later became the Numan Lands. Supposedly, he became the founder and first king of Malourné. It's said that event marked the beginning of the Common Era, as measured on our calendar from the Lhoin'na. But how far back was this ancestor who married a—"

"A lord of the waves?" Reine cut in. "What a veiled reference to a Dunidæ, even from history."

That quizzical reply, sharply edged, didn't need a response. Even Wynn had never understood where the name Âreskynna—the Kin of the Ocean Waves—had come from. Not until she'd seen Freädherich.

"No one knows when she, this ancestor, lived," Reine went on. "Perhaps even in the time of the sages' Forgotten History … during or before the war. I pity her, whoever she was, being used for such an alliance … and I hate her for the legacy she left to Frey."

Wynn understood the pity, but the hate would gain nothing.

"For all your learning, you couldn't understand such things," Reine added.

Oh, yes, Wynn could, though she wouldn't say so to this woman. She had lost three friends, each oppressed by a heritage they hadn't asked for. But she also wondered …

Why did the unique in this world always seem to suffer the most?

"But …" she began, struggling in hesitation. "But why Frey? Or do others of the royal family face this same affliction?"

Reine gripped the aft rail with both hands, taking long, hard breaths.