“The Baron won’t like it.”
Wen smiled ruefully. “Caiden will be fine. We’ll write to him when we reach Od. Explain everything.”
“Letters!” said Ahned. “I almost forgot, Miss Dahl-Saida—this came for you while you were away.” He drew an envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to her.
It was from Enduena, postmarked a year past, and she instantly recognized Ayah’s handwriting. She broke the seal, drinking in every word; her friend was safe, and was returning to Od—she’d taken a position as a librarian at the University. She read it over twice before folding it up again and tucking it into her own coat pocket.
“Are you ready?” said Wen, his fingers warm around hers.
She squeezed his hand. “I am now.”
And they went out into the snow.
Chapter Fifty-Six
THE SUN SANK INTO THE SEA, A globe of scarlet fire, and Talia shut her eyes and drank in the tangy air, the last tendrils of light caressing her face. She brushed her fingers across the ship’s rail, listening to the creak of wood, the slap of waves, the sound of the wind filling up the wide sails.
It was a long way to Od: four thousand miles northwest of Ryn, a voyage as lengthy as the one from Enduena. But she could never be too long out here, caught between the sky and the sea and the last ragged remnants of her fate.
It was strange to be leaving Ryn, to be leaving the Ruen-Dahr and what she’d once thought would be her future.
She didn’t hear Wen’s step, and she started a little when she felt him wrap his arms around her from behind. He nestled his chin on her shoulder, and she sighed and leaned into him.
“You’re going to miss it, aren’t you?”
She knew he meant the sea. “I’ll always belong out here, among the waves. I think part of me went away with them—my mother, the Billow Maidens. I don’t hear their music anymore. It makes me ache.”
“Every time I fall asleep I dream I’m flying,” he told her softly.
She turned to look up at him, touching the patch of white hair that fell across his forehead. It matched the threads of white running through her own dark hair. Half a year had spun away while they journeyed to Rahn’s Hall and back again. Neither of them had come away unscathed.
“We’ll visit the ocean,” he said. “As often as we can. As often as you like.”
“It won’t be the same.”
“I know.”
She thought about everything awaiting them in Od: Wen would pursue his music; she would study myth and history, joining Ayah if she could, and write down the Words fading fast from her memory. She wanted to preserve them. But she couldn’t quite shake away her sorrow at having to leave the sea. She laid her head on Wen’s shoulder and he held her tight, the fragrant wind wrapping around them. “The Whale told me you were going to die,” she said, voicing the thought that had been bothering her.
“The mirrors told me you would drown.”
“Then why are we still here?”
He laced his fingers through hers. “We changed our fates, you and I.”
She nestled tighter against him, blinking out into the darkening sky.
They watched together as night unfolded over the sea, Wen’s arms wrapped warm around her, waves lapping quiet against the ship.
Epilogue
STARS SPRAWLED WHITE AND COLD ABOVE THE little valley where the musicians waited, rosining bows and moistening reeds and tightening strings. Pages fluttered on stands, illuminated by the torches that ringed the ensemble in bright flares of orange. Up on the hill an audience waited too, pulling shawls and coats tighter around them in the chilly autumn wind.
Talia stood with the rest of the crowd on the hill, but she didn’t feel the cold. Away to the east she could see the silver shimmer of the sea, and even from this distance it filled her up, made her strong.
Below her, Wen stepped up to the ensemble, his silhouette bold against the torchlight.
“Your husband certainly is a solemn fellow,” said Ayah beside her, her wild orange hair escaping out from underneath her hood. “I don’t know what you see in him.”
“Gods, Ayah!” Talia punched her in the arm.
Her friend just laughed. “You know I’m teasing.”
She did. Ayah had stood witness at their wedding—three years ago, now—and she often dined with them in their little cottage on the outskirts of the University. She’d listened in awe to their story, asked them to repeat it over and over as she wrote it all down in a book. Talia thought of that book gathering dust on a library shelf one day, forgotten with the other impossible stories. It made her sad.
Sometimes, it all still felt like a dream. But when she shut her eyes and heard the waves whispering, when she saw the way Wen walked, stooped slightly like he carried an impossible weight he could never be free of, when she felt the fire of the Star, burning forever in the palm of her hand—she knew it had been real.
Her heart felt quieter when Wen turned to the hill, looked up at her through the haze of torchlight. Smiled.
Then he faced the ensemble again, and lifted his baton.
Music filled the valley, and Talia staggered backward, gasping.
Below her, Wen’s symphony spooled out the music of the waves, a perfect replication of the song she’d heard every day from the Ruen-Dahr, calling her to the sea. Melody poured into her, washed over her. Sparks of gold flew up from the instruments like fireflies in summer—echoes of the Words woven into the music.
She left Ayah, slipped down the hill to stand near Wen. She drank in the song of the sea, let it overwhelm her. Tears dripped down her cheeks.
She could have stood there listening for a lifetime, but the symphony ended before she was ready, the last firefly notes quavering on strings.
For a moment, there was only stunned silence from the listeners on the hill, but then they broke into wild applause.
Wen didn’t acknowledge them, just turned to Talia, seeking her approval.
“Beautiful,” she whispered, wrapping her arm around his waist.
He kissed her forehead and drew her close.
“Did you know that’s what it sounded like? The music of the sea?”
“It’s how it sounded to me, in my head—I kept trying to capture it, back at the Ruen-Dahr. I always heard it more strongly when you were near. Now it’s finally finished.”
She breathed him in, ink and soap and the faint tinge of wildness that had clung to him ever since that day on the beach.
“We won’t stay in Od forever,” he murmured into her hair. “If the sea calls you again—when it does—we’ll follow.”
“I know. But not yet.”
“Not yet.” He laced his fingers in hers, and they turned together to the still-cheering crowd on the hill.
Not yet, she thought. But soon. She caught the sudden faint scent of the sea on the wind, and it made her smile. Somewhere far away she thought she heard the Whale, singing down the stars.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS