The bird curled his claws around her shoulders, spreading his wings and straining upward with all his strength. Slowly, he rose with her through the water, the earth groaning and shaking beneath them.
Fear pressed black in his mind, for he could feel her fading, the last spark of life in her heart nearly gone out. So he beat his wings, yearning for the sunlight and the air, and he drew the woman with the silver tail up and up, away from the horrors of the broken Hall.
A crack of thunder shook the sea, and the bird who was once a man felt the heat of a terrible light. The Tree turned black before his eyes, charred with the fire of the splintered Star, and it too began to sink into the ground. Dead branches reached out to pull the bird and the woman down with it, but he jerked them away, ever upward, ever onward.
She was dying, his strength was fading, and he could see no end to the bitter gray waves dividing them from air. From life.
On he drove himself through the water, his claws holding tight to the woman’s shoulders; beneath them the sea shook, and the Tree was swallowed up by the earth.
The last of his strength gave out. He resigned himself to the inevitability of her death, and his, and then all at once they broke through the surface, and air rushed into his lungs.
He pulled her head out of the water, but she didn’t breathe. She lay still as stone in his grasp, not moving or speaking or opening her eyes. But he could still feel that faint spark in her heart, and he knew she wasn’t beyond all hope.
The sky was dark with knotted clouds. The wind bit sharp and cold, and the waves beat against him, iron gray capped with white. There was no sign that the Tree had ever been there. He mourned its passing: the last good thing from the beginning of the world, gone.
Once more he spread his great wings, and, strengthening his grasp on the young woman’s shoulders, he rose with her into the sky. The Words gave him the power to lift her, but even her slight weight was too much for him. His wings felt like they were being torn from his body.
He screamed in pain, but he did not let her go. He would never let her go, even if it meant falling with her back into the sea.
Words burned in his mind and spilled from his beak, Words to give him the strength to carry her, away from the boiling waves and the last resting place of the Immortal Tree.
All day he carried her over the sea, his muscles straining with every beat of his wings.
Night fell, and he flew on, because there was nowhere for them to stop and rest. Stars appeared over the water. Half a moon climbed the arc of the sky and sank back down. Dawn burned red on the horizon, and he didn’t stop.
Day turned to night and night to day, again and again and again. Still he flew, finding no end to the black water. Still the woman in his claws did not wake.
But he didn’t regret his task. His love for her and the power of the ancient Words drove him on.
The seabird bore her many leagues across the wide reaches of the Northern Sea, through searing days and bitter nights. Icy rain stung his wings. Raging winds lashed him about in the sky, tearing at his feathers, trying to rip her away from him.
But he didn’t let her go.
He flew on, coming after countless days to a chain of brilliant green islands, jagged cliffs crashing down into the sea. He had wished for land since pulling her out of the Hall, but he didn’t stop now. He knew that once he laid her down he wouldn’t have the strength to bear her up again.
On a night alive with white stars, as the round moon dipped low near the horizon and the sea lay black and glittering beneath, a song rose on the air, a song he knew. He looked down and saw a great Whale, passing through the waters, his body scored with many wounds, healed and faded into scars. The bird listened, and felt new strength rushing into his weary body. When he looked again, the Whale was gone, but the song echoed in his ears, buoying him up.
On and on he flew, the power of the Words and the song fading slowly away. His bones weakened and his sinews tore. Every day he flew a little lower in the sky, because his wings began to fail him.
There came a day when the seabird who had once been a man felt the last of his strength slip away from him. He knew he had only moments before exhaustion claimed him, and he plummeted like a stone into the sea.
But then he saw the line of the shore he had yearned so long to see. It rushed up toward him almost before he understood—a long stretch of sand, jagged black rocks, waves falling cold upon the beach. The towers of a stone house, a ragged banner snapping in the breeze.
And on the shore where Talia Dahl-Saida had once stood, staring out into the sea, the white seabird who had once been Wendarien Aidar-Holt laid her gently down, resting her head in the sand.
Exhaustion overwhelmed him and he collapsed beside her, laying one protective wing over her body. He fell into the sweet nothingness of sleep, and dreamed of ships with silver sails and a great white Tree swallowed up by the waves.
Chapter Fifty-Three
SHE DREAMED OF FLYING OVER THE WIDE, dark sea, of wind rushing through her hair and tugging at her tail. She saw tall ships and green islands; she brushed her fingertips against the freezing stars; she flew into the pathways of the sun. And all the while she heard the whir of wings and felt the jab of thorns in her shoulders. She tried to pry them out but she couldn’t. It was the only thing about her dream she didn’t like.
And then one day she laid her head on a cloud of white feathers, and fell asleep.
Chapter Fifty-Four
TALIA WOKE TO THE GENTLE TOUCH OF snow on her skin, and the sound of the sea washing endlessly over the shore. She felt sad, and old, and impossibly tired.
Something prickled at the edge of her consciousness, something she should remember, but didn’t. She tried to pin down her thoughts like insects on a board, arrange them into a coherent order. She glanced down the length of her body, and was confused to see a pair of bare brown feet peeking out from beneath the hem of a ragged white dress. Didn’t she have a tail?
Her memory came rushing back: sailing with Wen on the Northern Sea, the storm that had wrecked the ship, the Whale. Wen, in the form of a bird, refusing to leave her. The serpents cutting the Whale to shreds, the shadowy ghost of her mother, Wen rushing at Rahn, the Star-light held high.
Wen flying backward in the Hall of the Dead, his bones snapping, his neck bent at the wrong angle.
He will die for the love of you.
All the breath rushed out of her body. She wheeled around to see him lying pale and still beside her amid the wreck of a great white bird. Feathers clung to his arms and hands, his eyes were shut tight, and he wasn’t breathing. Snow gathered soft in his hair.