Barb Hendee - Through Stone and Sea

A dim, tall figure took shape in the doorway.

Head low, dark blond hair draped around his face. One of his hands clutched the opening's edge.

Reine saw sallow fingers with faint undertones of sickly green. Or was that just the light in the sitting room reflected by mineral-laced walls?

"It will pass," she whispered, stepping closer. "Just one more night."

She would never cry in front of him. He didn't need that further burden.

"I'm here now. Everything will be all right … my Frey."

The seawater reached Chane's knees, and even he grew hard-pressed to advance. He could only guess how bad off Wynn must be.

The steel hoop had long ago cooled and been stored away. The more gates they reached, the more the tide gained on them, until the bars were too deep in cold water to heat up. He had to force them by sheer strength. The last—the sixth—had taken too long.

Shade suddenly vanished in a splash.

Wynn grabbed his arm, about to shout, and Chane quickly hooked the pry bar in his belt, ready to jump in. But Shade resurfaced and paddled back until her forepaws caught on something. She rose, standing only chest-deep.

Chane looked beyond her, clenching his jaw. There was a dropoff beneath the water.

Wynn's forehead pressed against his arm.

"Damn dead deities!" she whispered. "If they don't want anyone to get in, why not just trap the place, kill us off, instead of these endless—"

Chane clamped his hand over her mouth.

He had already wondered about the same thing, thinking that perhaps the tunnel had other uses than simply to let in the sea. But right then, he looked ahead, uncertain of what he saw.

A faint light glowed somewhere down the tunnel.

Glancing down at Wynn, he laid a finger across his lips and slowly lifted his hand from her mouth. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, "Look."

Wynn lifted her head, eyes widening.

Chane glanced down at Shade, once more laying a finger across his lips, and then he peered down the tunnel again. Perhaps twenty, maybe thirty yards ahead, he thought he saw vertical lines of black over the light.

Another gate.

He tried to release fatigue and sharpen his sight, but he still could not be sure. The opening looked smaller than any they had breached … or maybe the bars were just thicker?

Had they finally made it all the way?

Chane carefully slid his boot along the tunnel's submerged floor. His toe slipped off an edge, and he lowered his foot over. He sank above his waist, soaking his tied-up cloak before hitting bottom.

Perhaps it was a reservoir, keeping the end pool filled longer than a high tide. Wynn would sink to her chest. Their packs might get wet, and he would not like that for all the precious books he carried. There was little to be done for it.

"Hold your pack over your head," he whispered. "I will try to lash the staff to your back, crystal upward."

Wynn slipped her pack's straps off, so he could secure the staff, but he was still worried about his books. The ones from the healers' monastery might survive, but Welstiel's journals had some entries made with charcoal sticks. He slipped a pack off his shoulder and pulled out those journals.

Wynn scowled at them, and then at him.

She knew what he intended and did not like it or the sight of them. But she took the journals and roughly shoved them in her pack.

Chane knew better than to thank her and hoisted on his packs.

"We go slowly—silently," he whispered. "And Shade must let me hold her afloat. We cannot have any splashing."

Wynn nodded and touched the dog's face. Whatever passed between them, the meaning must have been clear. Shade only twitched a jowl as he wrapped one arm around her chest. Wynn stepped over the dropoff, and he grabbed hold of her belt.

Chane waded forward in slow steps, flinching every time water splashed even slightly. How would he break through the last gate in silence? With his strength waning, the prospect was almost more than he could face.

This had to be the last one.

Reine sat upon the couch holding Frey reclined in her lap. He was thin and pale, and it didn't matter how many times she'd seen him like this; each time was worse, because each time he looked worse.

At least he was dry, so he hadn't tried to drown himself again. Still, everyone around her—from Chuillyon and Cinder-Shard to all of the family—said he must have seawater to touch as well as gaze upon. It was all that kept him from slipping into pure madness.

But Reine saw the hunger in her husband's aquamarine eyes.

It was worse than that first night she'd met him, when he'd stared out the castle window. Now and then, in his quieter moments, she still saw the semblance of thought in his frail features. His eyes would shift, and suddenly he'd glance up, seeming to notice her for the first time.

"Yes, it's me," she said calmly, again and again. "Just me, Frey."

He squinted as if recognizing her only then. But any turn of his head exposed his throat.

Triple sets of faint creases marked both sides, like the faint beginnings of wrinkles that would deepen with age. But these were too perfect, too straight and parallel, placed so high near his jawline. They appeared only at the highest tides each year, vanishing again as the tide receded.

Frey suddenly rolled his head toward the opening to the pool's outer chamber.

Reine felt him go rigid in her lap. His eyes didn't blink.

"They're coming," he said hoarsely.

Sick of the terror, Reine couldn't hide it anymore and began to shake. Not because of what might—or would—come … but because he longed for it.

"No," she whispered, and then more sharply, "No!"

Frey rolled from her lap, though she tried to hang on to him. By the time he gained his feet, she'd already blocked the opening. How many times had she stopped him from beating himself nearly unconscious upon the pool's gate?

"Frey, stay," she ordered.

He held his place, staring over her head.

"Listen to me, love," she whispered, hanging on to calm. "The water can wait … until the tide passes. Then you can …"

She lost her voice as his head cocked. His brow creased in concentration as he swayed slightly with effort to stay on his feet.

"Not … them?" he croaked.

Frey's lost gaze drifted down to Reine and then rose beyond her again. Puzzlement in his expression shifted first to suspicion and then hardened to anger, enough that Reine hesitantly glanced over her shoulder.

The outer door was still shut tight, but she heard the softest scrape of metal. Its echo in the quiet left her uncertain where it came from. She backed one step through the opening, glancing toward the pool… .

Reine toppled aside as Frey knocked her out of his way. Her back hit the pool chamber's rear wall, stunning her as she heard the splash. She went cold with fright.

Beneath the pool's rippling surface, a mute wavering form moved along the bottom toward the gate.

Reine leaped off the edge and sank to her chest. She thought she heard another splash, but as her feet hit bottom, she was clawing into the water, trying to find a grip on Frey.

"Chuillyon!" she screamed.

At the tunnel's end, Chane looked through stout vertical bars. Beyond the gate, seawater collected in a wide pool within a roughly hewn chamber. What light filled the space came from the glittering walls and more from an opening in the right wall's far end. Whether someone was in there, he could not tell, but he spotted a stout door in the rear wall's left side. Worse was that it held a white metal oval in place of a lock.

This last gate was smaller than any others, and its bars were not as thick as he had first thought.

"Can you do it?" Wynn whispered.

Her voice startled him, and then he noticed her blue-tinged lips. He had to succeed. They would never make it out of the tunnel any other way.