Page 113 of Beneath the Haunting Sea

But with one final smile, her mother turned and disappeared into the ranks of the dead.

The chariot was full, the dead all accounted for. The Waves in their horse forms harnessed themselves to the chariot, and began to pull it away.

Endain looked back at her, and Talia saw she was wholeagain, her eyesight restored.

“Your sailor is waiting for you,” said Talia, the grief and the pain shaking her to pieces. “Beyond the circles of the world. He never forgot you.”

Endain smiled. “Thank you, my daughter. I go to him, now.”

Talia blinked, and the chariot vanished from sight.

And then she was slipping, sliding into the boiling ground, the sea overwhelming her.

Words poured fromher mouth, Words of strength and protection. Words of healing and transformation.

She collapsed onto the ocean floor and the dark waters of the sea folded over her.

The Hall of the Dead fell into the depths of the earth, and was swallowed whole.

Chapter Fifty-Two

SO THEHALL OF THEDEAD SLIPPEDinto the earth, and the Tree shuddered and the sea moaned.

A young woman lay in the dust of bones and coral, half-transformed into a fish, a shining tail where her legs should have been. The waves whispered over her, caressing her face, as if mourning for a fallen queen.

Three paces from her a white seabird who had once been a man lifted his head and saw her laying there. She hadn’t had enough Words to save herself, but she had said enough to heal him, to change his form before hers.

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.

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