Page 1 of Lore of the Tides

Part One

TheLavender Lark

Chapter 1

The earth pitched and shifted beneath Lore Alemeyu as panic clawed up her throat, thick and choking. Oh gods, was this another earthshake?

She couldn’t see. The room was dark, black as a new moon night. Were towering shelves about to crush her—the ceiling above poised to crack in two?

“Finndryl?” Lore rasped, offering the name into the darkness like the small candle of hope it was. Her throat was raw and scratchy, her tongue dry from thirst.

Silence answered, punctuated by the howling of a storm, the rustle of branches in the wind.

Were they not just together in the hidden garden? With Ember the fox? No, Ember the moth.

Wingbeats fluttered delicately upon her shoulder. Lore brushed aside curls to nudge the fox-turned-moth, but there was no sweet moth nuzzling her throat.

A phantom memory.

Lore shook her head. Her thoughts seemed to drift, as though they existed apart from time. A fog, swirling her memories and scattering them like birdseed.

The room oscillated again. Prickling vines of fear climbedup her spine. Lore reached for her magic but felt no familiar warmth—no ignition ofSource.

It was night, she should be able to call on her magic. Unless... unless her grimoire was gone.

It had been months since she’d been without her grimoire. An ache crested within her as she realized what it meant to be without it—as though she were missing a hand.

Dread twisted in her gut, tighter than the tangled sheets clinging to her trembling limbs. She extricated her legs from the sheets and placed bare feet on the floor, holding on to the bedpost for support as the room spun around her—a dizzying kaleidoscope of blacks and smears of grays.

She swayed on her feet against this unceasing, sickening, rhythmic sway.

An earthshake would be over by now.

Lore’s stomach heaved, her chest constricting. She pressed the back of one hand to her mouth, scrunching her eyes shut and urging her stomach to settle. Though her thoughts were slow turning, like a stagnant swamp, this was not an earthshake. There was something decidedlyotherabout this motion; it was unfamiliar.

Lore stretched out an arm, searching in the suffocating darkness. Scrabbling for purchase, she brushed her fingertips along the smooth surface of a table until she found an oil lamp and the cool, rough texture of a flint striker.

A spark. A flicker of flame. She spun the knob, adjusting the wick length. In the sudden swell of light, a door came into focus.

Lore stumbled toward it, only to collapse against it; her legs felt insubstantial, the weakness a horrifying echo of the wildwood, of when poison had coursed through her veins delivered on the sharp edge of an Alytherian guard’s sword. But unlike that time, Finndryl wasn’t by her side.

She clasped the door handle with trembling fingers. Twisted. The handle did not yield. Locked. Of course it was locked. Thereseemed to be no doors willing to open for her without an insufferable amount of effort.

Lore surveyed the unfamiliar room as despair coiled around her heart, a serpent tightening its viselike grip with every passing second.

The chamber seemed a cruel mockery—a lavish cell gilded with silk cushions, plush rugs, polished floors, and velvet curtains. A bloodred vase bursting with flowers—dahlias, peonies, and dripping displays of lilies of the valley—which had begun their descent into decay. Their once sweet perfume now hung heavy in the air, cloying and oppressive.

She lurched toward the window, ripping aside the thick curtains to unveil the truth. Sunlight, harsh and unforgiving, flooded the room. But it wasn’t the comforting warmth of a familiar dawn. This was a relentless glare. Lore’s breath hitched as her eyes adjusted.

The view crashed over her like a rogue wave, stealing her last vestiges of hope. Where there should be earth, trees, and hazy mountains was a churning sea of foam-capped blue.

She’d thought the sound was branches brushing against the window, but no, the swishing sound was the hum of water.

Lore was on a ship, and there was no land in sight.

Time stood still as it all came crashing back to her at once.

The tower. The fight with the steward. The women and children. Katu and Milo...

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