Page 114 of Beneath the Haunting Sea

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 wasthe 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 OFsnow 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 lengthof 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 rushingat 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.

She cried out and folded his hand in hers, but it was cold. It was so, so, cold. She couldn’t feel anything. No pulse. No faint hope of life. “No,” she whispered, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Wen, no. Please, please, no.” And she cradled his head in her arms and rocked him back and forth, sobbing. She loved him. She loved him so deeply, and she’d realized ittoo late. She hadn’t ever told him.

She wept into his hair, entirely broken.

“Daughter of Endain,” came a voice, as strong as the sea, “why are you weeping?”

She lifted her head and saw the Whale, swimming a short distance from the shore, one black eye fixed upon her. “Whale,” she breathed.

“I am here,” he rumbled. His voice sounded as if it was coming to her through all the weight of waterand time, down from the beginning of the world, and on past its ending.

“But you were dead.” Snow swirled around her, diaphanous and white.

“And so I was, for a while.”

“I don’t understand.”

The Whalehmmmm’d, low and long. “Rahn’s power was broken when she was destroyed. The wicked things she and her servants did are now undone forever.”

“Can you save Wen?” Her fingers curled tight aroundhis pale, cold hand, willing herself to feel a heartbeat. But there was nothing.

“You already did,” said the Whale. “And now he has saved you. He was the only one who could.”

She thought of her dream, flying so long, thorns digging into her shoulders. Not thorns—claws. “He carried me here. All the way from Rahn’s Hall.” Her voice broke. “You said he would die for the love of me.”

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