David Farland - Chaosbound

But water was calling to her, summoning Myrrima to war.

Borenson will find a ship, Myrrima realized. Water will make a way for us to reach that far shore. My powers there will be needed.

A giant green dragonfly common to the river valley came buzzing over the water nearby, a winged emerald with eyes of onyx. It hovered for a moment, as if gauging her.

Myrrima knelt then at the edge of the old river channel and laved dirty brown water over her arms, then tilted her face upward and let it stream, cold and dead, over her forehead and eyes. Thus she anointed herself for war.

There had been a time in Myrrima’s life when she’d made a ritual of washing herself first thing each morning. As a child she’d loved water, whether it was the sweet drops of a summer rain clinging to her eyelashes, or the tinkling of a freshet as it darted among the rocks. It was her love of water that gave her power over it. At the same time, water had power over her, too—enough power so that she often felt pulled by it, and she found herself wanting to go lie in a deep river, so that the water could caress her and surround her and someday carry her out to sea.

Six years back, she had purposely given up the ritual, afraid that if she did not, she would lose herself to water.

But this morning was different. Worries wormed their way through her mind, and she had seldom felt so tired.

So when she reached camp, she found Sage and led her to the nearby stream. It was only a trickle at this time of year. A little water roamed down from the red-rock above. In the winters the rain and snow would seep into the porous sandstone, and for centuries it would percolate down through the rock until it hit a layer of harder shale. Then it would slowly flow out, and thus seeped from a cliff face above. Myrrima was so attuned to water that she could taste it and feel in her heart how long ago it had fallen as rain.

Not much water escaped the rocks, barely enough to wet the ground. But there was a boggy spot where the streamlet stole through the moss and grass.

Wild ferrin and rangits often came to drink here, and so had trampled the grass a bit.

So Myrrima took Sage and with stones and moss they dammed the small stream, so that it began to rise over the course of the morning.

Rain came to help them, bringing some clay that she had found nearby. As they padded clay between the stones of the dam, Myrrima told the young women of Borenson’s plan to return to Mystarria.

“It may be a dangerous journey,” Myrrima said. “I can understand why you would not want to go. I hesitate to ask you, Sage. Landesfallen has been your home for so long, I will not force you to come.”

“I don’t remember Mystarria,” Sage said. “Draken sometimes talks about the vast castle we lived in, all white, with its soaring spires and grand hallways.”

“It wasn’t grand,” Myrrima said. “I suppose it must have seemed so to a tot like him. Castle Coorm was small, a queen’s castle, set in the high hills where the air was cool and crisp during the muggy days of summer. It was a place to retreat, not a seat of power.”

“I should like to see it,” Sage said, but there was no conviction in her voice.

“Much has changed in Mystarria, you understand?” Myrrima said. “It’s not likely that we’ll ever live in a castle again.”

Rain had just brought some mud, and she halted at the mention of Mystarria, her muscles tightening in fear. The girl knew how much the place had changed far more than Myrrima did.

“I understand,” Sage said.

“I don’t think that you do,” Rain told them. “When we left last year, the place was in turmoil. There is no peace in that land, and I think that there never shall be again. The warlords of Internook have been harsh masters, harsher than you know. When my father fled the land, he left a prosperous barony. But months later we heard that all of the people in the barony—women, children, babes—were gone. One morning the warlord’s soldiers came and marched them all into the forests, and none came back. But that evening, wagons began to arrive filled with settlers who had shipped in from Internook, and the houses in the cities were filled, and farmers came to reap crops that they had not sown.

“The warlord Grunswallen had sold our lands months before his soldiers began the extermination. My father had sensed that it was near. He said that he’d felt it coming for days and weeks. He’d seen it in the superior smirks that the Internookers gave us, in the way that they heaped abuse on our people. My family fled just two days before the cleansing occurred. . . . I thank the Powers that we were able to exact a small token of vengeance against that pig Grunswallen. The Internookers wear hides made of pigskin because they are pigs in human form.”

Myrrima peered up at Rain; she worried that the young woman would turn Sage away from the course.

Perhaps that would be best, Myrrima thought. I don’t want to take Sage into such unstable lands. I don’t want to make life-and-death decisions for my child.

“There are other dangers, too,” Rain said. “The mountains and woods are full of strengi-saats, monsters that hunt for young women so that they can lay their eggs in the women’s wombs. You cannot go out by night. The soldiers do a fair job of keeping them away from the towns and the open fields, but each year the strengi-saats’ numbers grow, the monsters range closer into the heartland, and the nights grow more dangerous.”

Sage looked to Rain. “You don’t think I should go?”

Rain stammered, “No—Perhaps there is no right choice. But I think that if you go to Mystarria, you should know what you’re up against.

“And since the change in the world—who knows what things will be like in Mystarria now?” Rain hesitated and then explained to Myrrima: “I heard your husband talking last night about creatures called wyrmlings . . . .”

Myrrima’s heart skipped. If the girl had heard about the wyrmlings, then she’d heard much that Myrrima would wish to keep secret. “What else did you hear?”

“I know that your son Fallion is responsible for this . . . change .” Rain hesitated, her keen green eyes studying Myrrima for a sign of reaction. “But I don’t understand it all. Draken told me that his brothers and sisters had all gone back to Mystarria; I’d already known that Fallion was a flameweaver, but I’ve never heard of a flameweaver who had powers like this.” She shrugged and swept her arms wide, pointing to a ledge nearby where an outcrop of rock was still covered in coral.

“Who else have you told?” Myrrima asked.

Rain had been keeping her voice soft, and she glanced over the deep grass to where the folks in her own camp were beginning to stir. “No one. Nor shall I tell. I think it is best if no one here ever learns who is responsible for this . . . debacle.”

Myrrima found a knot of fear coiling in her stomach. She was worried for Fallion and Talon, for all of her children. What would people think if they knew? Half of Landesfallen had sunk into the sea, millions of people were dead. Certainly, one of their kin would seek vengeance against Fallion, if they knew what he had done.

Yet Myrrima’s worries for her children went far beyond that. Fallion had planned to go deep into the Underworld, to the Seals of Creation, to cast his spell.

With all that had happened, Myrrima could not help but fear for Fallion’s safety. She worried that the tunnels he’d entered had collapsed. Even if the structures had survived, they had been dug by reavers, and it was well known that every time a volcano blew or a large earthquake struck, the reavers grew angry and were likely to attack during the aftermath, much like hornets whose nests have been stirred up.