Page 58 of Beneath the Haunting Sea

She opened the book.

The Billow Maidens, who were the Waves, mourned the death of their father, and silenced their harps in the great Hall at the base of the Tree, which Rahn had made into a realm of the dead.

But Rahn wore the Star upon her finger, and had great power over them. She commanded the Waves to pick up their harps and let their music resound once more through the sea. Yet they would not.

And Rahn grew angry. She gave the Billow Maidens charge over the great nets she had woven. By the power of the Star she compelled them to go into the wide reaches of the sea every nine years to cast the nets and collect the dead, and bear them back to her Hall.

The Waves wept at their task, and their tears spilled into the sea as their father’s had done, and all the waters of the ocean were mingled with the salt of their sorrow.

As the years slipped away, the Billow Maidens grew bitter and weary of their task, and they mourned for the dead souls who were made to dance in the dark of Rahn’s Hall. The goddess delighted in torturing the dead, stripping away every ounce of their humanity until pain and fear were the only things left. The Waves could do nothing, and they began to hate the very sight of their mother.

They agreed they must take the Star from Rahn’s hand, to end her power and her rule. The strength of Aigir flowed within them, and they were assured of their purpose.

So the Waves stole the Star from Rahn’s hand while she was sleeping, and fled away out into the ocean. But the power of the Star was too great for them—they had not the strength or understanding to wield it, and they could not contain its fire. It burned them, and they feared they would die.

Then Rahn was filled with rage. She summoned her serpents and they pulled her swiftly through the sea to where the Waves were gathered, weeping, for they could not escape the fire of the Star.

And Rahn rebuked them, and took the Star and placed it again on her finger. The Billow Maidens wept all the more, for they feared their mother’s wrath. They begged her forgiveness, but she would not heed them.

In her fury, Rahn lifted the Star high toward the heavens and cursed the Waves, binding them to sit silent nine hundred years in the Hall of the Dead, taking their power away from them and making it her own. There they must wait, unless some mortal braved death and life and the power of the goddess of the sea to come and free them.

But Endain, the youngest of the Billow Maidens, fell before her mother and groveled at her feet. “Please, please, oh Rahn our mother, must we never again see the sky? The darkness of your Hall will consume us, and we shall surely perish.”

And Rahn looked at Endain and pitied her. “When the moon rises as a crescent in the night, you may go up to see it, and there you shall lift your voices to the sky, so that any who hear you may pity you and come down to the depths to seek your freedom. And that task which was so revolting is yet upon you: Every ninth year you shall gather the dead and bring them to my Hall.”

The Waves wept, and descended once more into the Hall of the Dead, and Rahn compelled them take up again the harps that Aigir had made for them. So they plied the strings, and their music gave voice to their great sorrow.

And in the darkness of night, when the crescent moon showed the splinter of its face in the sky, the Billow Maidens rose up to the surface and sang, long and sad. Any man who sailed those waters and heard them singing was drawn to their voices. And whoever looked upon the Waves loved them and cast themselves into the sea and were drowned.

The Billow Maidens grew weary in their waiting, mourning the souls of the sailors they themselves called to their deaths.

But the Waves could not stop singing.

Up in the tower library, music slipped in through the window, a strange, haunting song that wrapped all around her.

Calling, calling.

Callingher.

Can’t you hear it?

Hear what?

The Waves. They’re singing.

They’d called her mother to her death—what were they calling her to do?

Talia cursed and leapt up from the chair, hurling the book as hard as she could against the wall. A sense of helpless panic was rushing up to swallow her. She didn’t want to die like her mother. She didn’t want to throw her life away chasing aftera story. But how could she go on living if all of this were real? Rahn and the Billow Maidens, the Star and the Tree. Her mother damned to the Hall of the Dead until the end of time.

She unlatched the window and flung it open wide, cold sea air rushing in to swallow her.

“I don’t believe in you!” she shouted into the night. “I don’t believe in you,I don’t believe in you!”

But it wasn’t true.

The music curled into her ears, wrapped around her heart.

The Waves. Singing.

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