Silver Eve (7 page)

I soared toward the clouds, leaving behind the beautiful castle. But then it seemed I hit some invisible wall, for I stopped hard in one searing jolt, thrown off flight. A jerk, a pause, and then a freefall; I went crashing down toward the couple, screaming and putting my hand out to break the fall. Only my voice was a caw, my hand a wing.

Wing or not, Lark sensed something. Her head shot up; she lurched forward on her horse to reach up. And whatever she saw—the beaded black eye of a seabird, or my own sea-blue gaze—she knew me. Eye to eye we clung, connected.

A sadness, sharp as any blade, stabbed through, a longing for the
before
—before Lark discovered the severed hand, before her journey and our terrible birthday, before the wound on her shoulder that would never quite heal and the young man who would take her heart…before the Troth would kill the man who'd offered me his. Lark felt what I felt, for there was longing in her eyes as well. She missed me as I missed her. And however happy, however beautiful this castle, however strong her love for Gharain, something else had been ripped away:

Innocence.

And then it was gone and there was something else in her stare—fear. “Evie,” she gasped, “what have you done…?” Her eyes lifted to something beyond, behind my wing. She screamed in warning,
“Evie!”

I looked up to see some hideous bird, grizzled and sharp and human-eyed. I spun sideways, flight recovered, and was winging fast away over the castle's wide terrace toward the dizzying cliff. Lark came galloping after, crying my name. I was high up; I could do nothing but watch as she raced across the grass, hair flying. She would go straight over the edge. Gharain was shouting her name, too far behind to catch her. And there were others it seemed, streaming suddenly from everywhere to chase her runaway speed with warning cries: “My lady!”

Yet her shining horse did not take her over the cliff, but ground to a halt. Lark slid off him, falling straight to her knees then stumbling up again, staring up, reaching arms high to where I circled.

“No! Evie, don't! Stop!” Lark begged until she was hoarse. Gharain was shouting too, galloping forward, sword drawn. Alarm rang all the way to the castle—people were spilling into the back courtyard, running to assist….

“ 'Tis but a shrieking fowl, my lady,” one old woman was calling. “No harm, no harm!”

But someone else was pointing beyond. “Not a fowl, a harbinger! They come!”

“Evie, look out!” Lark screamed. And I wheeled on my little wings as that hideous bird-thing swooped straight for me. I passed just under its breast, scorched by the heat. The creature swerved to attack again, but an arrow loosed from somewhere below shot the thing straight through the heart and it exploded above me in a crash of light and sound.

Gharain had raced in on that gray steed, his chestnut hair blown back. He clattered across the courtyard to the edge of the cliff, was off his horse, throwing his sword and running to scoop Lark in his arms in one sweeping move. And she half clung, half pulled from him, sobbing, “She's cast a spell, Gharain. Evie cast a spell! Look—the bird! Now they've spied her. They're coming—she's in danger!”

“It's all right, love. He is near. He will reach her.”

“How? He cannot know where she is!
We
don't know where she is!” Nothing would calm her, though an army of concerned faces surrounded. They murmured, soothed, and fussed while Lark reached up, imploring, “Stop now, Evie! Stop what you do!” Then she turned, frantic, looking to the others as if someone else would be able to speak to me.

But now their eyes were not on her, but on the sky beyond where I circled. Fussing turned to urgent warnings; the horses were sent galloping to their stables; Gharain was shouting, “Inside, everyone! Dartegn, find Ilone!” Lark spun back to look as well, her face turned dreadful. She screamed: “Run, Evie, run! The Breeders come!”

Two men lifted their swords, shielding Gharain as he grabbed Lark by the waist and tried to hurry her away. But Lark held, begging, “He
must
hurry! We must make him hurry! Laurent must find her!” She wrenched away, furious at her helplessness. “I have to see! I have to
see
….”

Gharain pulled her back into his arms and together they ran for the safety of the castle. I could not see if they reached it nor could it matter, for at the name
Laurent
I was winging up and away and swirling back to witness the answer to the last question, back to an image that I could not bear….

Smoke whipped around me. I was no longer high above the earth, but grounded flat against cobblestone, eyes stinging and choking for breath. I recognized Merith's market square and the confusion of the day of the Troths' attack. I recognized the blood that stained those cobblestones.

Raif was there, eyes closed, lifeless. Shock slammed into my gut again, then the dizzying spiral of agony, the horror that I was too late to help Raif, that there was nothing I could do to save him.

And…that I had not told him that I loved him.

Brutal knowledge, bitter pain. They overwhelmed, consumed, left me stunned and empty. The rampaging Troths had been forgotten. I'd not thought to look if I was safe. I'd not thought at all. And even when I did look up in that sudden moment and saw the Troth leaping for my throat with teeth and claws bared, I felt only mild surprise, and then the fierce wish:
Kill me now.

But my wish went ungranted. The Troth was stabbed through in midleap and gone, and in his place was the one who'd saved my life. A Rider. The strong, dark-haired, blue-eyed one. The one I learned was named Laurent. Our eyes caught briefly in that moment. Only briefly.

See
was the last question. I thought I'd been thrown back to Merith to relive Raif's death, to witness once more his prone body and my terrible regret. But the spell was showing me something else: what I'd truly seen in that frenzied rush of battle and despair and never before recognized.

It was Laurent's gaze I met, clear-eyed, raw, and nakedly honest.

And then that moment too was ripped away and I was flinging back—from cobble, to sky, to stone, to water, to earth. With a great shudder and gasp my eyes flew open and I gagged for breath, hard-slammed into the ground as if I'd been thrown down from the heights I'd flown.

Night. The Insight spell had held me from morning until past sunset. Stars twinkled above; the grass was soft beneath. Something was different, though—maybe it was the marsh. Maybe it was I. I blinked and gingerly turned my head at the sound of a bleat. There were the goats still tethered as I'd left them. And there, the little stream was still bubbling its way along its banks. I lifted my arm to inspect: arm, hand. No more wing. I was whole. I was alive. I'd survived my spell making.

But not unscathed.

LAURENT.

A hollow whisper in my ears. I ignored it, stood up, wobbly and dazed, and began unmaking the circle as ritually as I'd fashioned it. I struck the cinder stone and lit the beech limb, then stuck it into the ground to burn as a torch. I returned the stone, the singed lark feather, and ring to my satchel, gathered the remaining ash from the three offerings, and sprinkled it into the stream. I scoured the cup with sand from the stream bottom and brought it back to the hut. Stone by stone I undid the circle and scattered them into the stream as well, the way one might sow a field.

Laurent.

The second whisper caught me by surprise in midstride; I had to stop to shake it away before continuing on, to clear the fog. I untethered the goats, went to my store of provisions, and ate handfuls of blackberries and dandelions, breathing deep while my body slowly calmed and righted. The kid was there, nudging for some of the greens, and then the whole goat family surrounded me with hungry interest, and so I shared my store. Then I scrubbed my teeth and hands in the stream, spread my turquoise cloak on the grass, and lay down for sleep.

Laurent.

“Stop!” I hissed loudly to the night sky. But the name only whispered again, so I shut my ears and closed my eyes to will the name away. Still it stayed.

“What is this?” I muttered, sitting up. It made no sense. I should not have survived the spell only to have this name take all the space in my head. There was a shell behind a waterfall, there was Lark in her castle, there were rumblings of something monstrous, and Lark's terrible fear….

And I was thinking on a name.

I'd shared a single glance with that Rider—even if I now recognized how powerful that glance, 'twas still only the briefest of moments. He'd caught the Troth with his sword, caught my eye as he flung it away, then galloped on while I sat with Raif until Quin and Kerrick Swan came to carry him from the square.

Eleven of the twelve Riders came that day to Merith,
eleven,
not one. They all did their part in saving our village. None stood out more heroic than the next. Food was prepared when the dead beasts were carted away, when the smoke cleared and the stone was swept. The Riders stayed for that, grateful for a hot meal as we were grateful for our rescue, but I was not there. I stayed with Raif—washed his body, sewed the gaping wound shut, and dressed him while they supped in grim celebration. The eleven were gone soon after, their hoofprints soon erased. Later I asked Quin the name of the Rider with the dark curls and bluest eyes. I asked, because it seemed polite to do so, to put a name to the one who'd erroneously spared my life.

A name—it meant nothing. So why should a Rider be the answer to Harker's challenge to open my eyes?

I got up from my makeshift bed and paced the perimeter of the little island under the starlight. I trailed my fingertips along the rushes so that their rustlings drowned the whisper of his name. Still, I tasted the word on my tongue, whispered it myself once, then twice. Laurent.
Laurent
—

I stopped my mouth with my hands. I loved Raif! I would have been
glad
to wed him—his warm smile, his calm strength, bountiful harvests from the orchards and market days, the cottage at the west edge of the village, and pudgy, red-cheeked babies and an herb garden—to fill our world with laughter and sweet fragrance. I yearned for those lost plans; it was ridiculous to focus on a name, as if it took precedence.

“There, and be done with it!” I clapped my hands three times and threw them wide to dispel the thoughts. But there was still a whisper in the air. So I chafed my bare arms and legs with my palms to still the trembling and erase the Rider's name forever. But when I stood up, the whisper lingered.

“A fool's suffering,” I bit out, walking away from the reeds. But the whisper suddenly wafted from the far edge of the marsh, and I could not help but turn to look. Nothing was there. But then another whisper hinted from the near border, and then again behind me. I turned, turned again—

Whispers were floating from all around the marsh. I almost laughed at my obsession, except the sound was curdling, resolving into something else entirely—

She…

Whispers doubling, then growing tenfold.
She…She…
I stopped and stared into the wall of reeds. Darkness, all of it; there was nothing to see. The whispers rebounded now, bouncing from one end of the little island to the next. And there was too the faintest rattle of stems—a rattle when there was no wind.

And then, not just a rattle, but a cracking, a breaking of stems. The night lost its hushed privacy. Three days I'd spent in silence, but now things were in the marsh. Things that sensed.

Things that searched.

She…She…She…

I backed away from the boundary, stunned by the suddenness of company, the little thrill of threat that ran with those whispers. Not Troths, Troths had no words. Not Kelpies, for they were singular menaces. But these whispers were likewise hostile.
She…She…
A drumbeat. Ominous and closing in.

And then I remembered Lark's terrified cry:
Run, Evie! Run! The Breeders come!

I whirled, unprepared, standing empty-handed in my undershift. My mind worked fast—there were none of the plants I'd need to fashion a barrier, but there was a broom in the hut. I ran across the grass, pulled on my frock and cloak, crammed into my sandals, and threw my satchel over my shoulder. The rustlings were louder—how much time? How many were coming? I raced to the shelter of the hut and felt my way in the darkness, sending a brief thanks skyward to the owner who'd left a simple tool, something that might fend off an attack.

Attack
—a shuddering, unexpected word. It made me think, suddenly, of Raif's grandfather suffering the first attack of the Troths. Lark said the old man accepted his death with noble dignity, as any villager of Merith might. I didn't think I could stand still like that, didn't think I could surrender. I'd planned my death over and over these months, wished for it, but the Healer in me immediately armed against it.

I found the broom, stamped on it to splinter the handle for a spear. It was the best I could do. No one from Merith ever learned how to fashion a weapon properly. To us, violence was appalling.

I stepped back outside and held, listening. A silence had taken hold of the marsh—an abnormal silence. I looked up. The stars seemed fainter in the rich blue expanse, which meant the moon was rising. I looked at the goats. They huddled at the side of the hut, panting and restless, so I walked away from them toward the center of the lawn and planted the spear at my feet like some makeshift soldier, ready to defend.

Our little island waited, poised. The silence deepened—a held breath. Then—

The goats bleated in panic, shattering quiet. I spun to catch the first intruder; but it was just a shadow skittering across the grass, gone before I could blink. I whisked the other way as another little blur darted out of the reeds and was gone, and then another and another. Shadows, 'twas all, harmless little swipes as quick and silent as bats. But then a thousand hisses of
She!
exploded from the reeds, and dark things poured out of the marsh aiming straight for me.

I swore and took off running. They pursued—shreds of darkness, racing fast. No faces, no true arms or legs, just wisps—brushing across my face and arms like a sweep of stinging nettles. I yelled and lashed out with my broom handle. I hit some of them, I think, for there was an ugly ripping sound and a stink of sulfur. I stumbled forward, hacking at the air, trying to beat back the shadows, but I was already surrounded—they hovered and swallowed. Their sheer numbers turned the night black like some turbulent and hostile cloud that lifted me off my feet and hurtled me, dangling, through the miles of marsh at breakneck speed, leaving a wake of broken reeds.

I kicked and slashed, but anything struck was only replaced by countless more, an endless swarm of shadows buzzing
She! She! She!
until the word blurred into a single drone. I was gasping from the struggle, the speed, the suddenness—

And then, just as sudden, we broke through the end of Rood Marsh, where the moon ascended above a wide, shallow pond that bled from the rushes. It lit the surface in a sweep of silver. It lit my hair silver too, a beacon in the midst of the black. The abundance of light seemed to shock the swarm, for they abruptly scattered in a fury of hisses, dropping me belly-first into the water.

I sank, resurfaced, and then stroked fast away from the marsh. They were shaky strokes—I moved by some mechanical reflex, hardly thinking. But it was a mistake, my release; the things were not done with me. In a shriek the swarm regathered and clouded above my head more frenzied than before. I ducked under. My cloak and satchel dragged leaden around my neck, but the water was only chin-deep. I half swam, half stumbled toward the shore, popping up for another gulp of air, and the things attacked from the left, propelling me back out to the center. When I came up for air a third time, they were there on the left again, pushing me north.

They were herding me.

I took a deeper breath and dove under, tacking back toward the marsh. I scrambled onto soggy ground and made for the reeds, but there the moon betrayed me. Even wet, my hair shone—I might as well have shouted, “Here!” for the swarm was on me, surrounding, suffocating, buzzing….

“Get away!” I screamed, swiping at the wisps. “Get back!” I gulped a lungful of air and dove back into the pond, shooting to its deeper center. But it didn't matter; I wasn't escaping, only buying time. I could hold my breath long, but I couldn't think of what to do next. I opened my eyes underwater, trying to see where I'd lost the broomstick—

Help came least expected.

I have swum in the river at Merith and in Fresh Pond at Dann. There are crays and periwinkles and tiny green baits that nip and swim through the strands of my hair as if it were lakeweed. But I'd never before witnessed the glimmers of light that sprinkled through this pond.
Moonwater.
I'd heard of it—a phenomenon that happens only in full moon, only in silted ponds, and so rare as to be more legend than truth. Where moonlight washes a path over such water it frays into fizzy spirals—
true
light, not merely reflection, trapped in tiny droplets and set adrift. They shimmered and danced above me so beautifully that for a brief moment I forgot the black swarm and watched the little glowing swirls. I reached my hands up, and they gathered at my fingertips and clung….

Light.
I burst up directly under the swarm, flicking my fingers at the wisps. They bolted away before regrouping and I shouted at the discovery—that these remnants of light disturbed them—and ducked under to do it again. And again. I was exhilarated; the wisps infuriated. They splintered, returned, splintered again. Each time I came up splashing, the swarm scattered, enraged, their buzzing reaching some fevered pitch.

They'd have to give up; they'd have to wear out. I flung the moonwater with a vengeance, saw the shadow break and scatter, then ducked under once more to gather the fizz. The hostile wisps had worked themselves into a fury, their buzzing pounding like hooves upon stone—

I gasped, inhaling water and light, and came up choking. Somewhere out in the darkness real hooves were pounding closer. Hooves, carrying the weight of horses—
not
ponies, I knew, for I'd never seen a horse until the eleven Riders came galloping into Merith that day, and I would never forget such a sound.

Galloping. The wisps sensed the approach. They lifted as a piece, leaving me, and shot across the pond. Moonlight expanded over the water again; I could see the swarm rebuilding—shaping itself like some gargantuan creature with arms spreading wide to swallow whatever those hooves brought.

Hooves—and grunts. Grunts, shouts, and the faint clank of sword slashing at the suffocating folds. The stench of sulfur gagged; the swarm surrounded and smothered, too thick for me to witness the fight. There was a horse's harsh whinny, then his rider was swearing and shouting at the dark—and I realized there were not eleven as before, but a single steed and a single rider. One man alone had stormed into the fray.