I spent my morning moving from task to task, feeling as though I were in a dream, not understanding why the sight of Svetgin red-cheeked and laughing brought to mind a sudden image of a broken, drunken man looking toward me with desperate eyes, or why, in that moment, I felt the urge to glance down at my hand and be sure it had flesh on it.
When I helped Rolgrin bring up supplies of parchment and ink to our father’s business chambers, I did not know why, when I saw him, I also saw a grave young man only a little older than me asking me about a battle.
When my father gave me one of his rare embraces, I did not know why it felt as though the dead had come back to life.
And when — every time she passed me in a hall, or brought me a little bit of something to eat or drink — my mother kissed the top of my head or cheek or drew me into a cuddle, it made me shiver and cling back twice as tightly.
“My affectionate girl,” she whispered into my hair. “My sweet outdoor girl.”
And in the afternoon, when I rode my horse out to the pasture, and down to where the North River was swollen with spring melt, I did not know why I was drawn to the banks of the turbulent water and found myself leaving my mare to graze while I stood and watched the vigor and froth of the mighty river sweeping down from the mountains and swelling powerfully.
I studied the furor of the water and felt the spray upon my face and I felt a loss I could not name and a hollowness in my belly to which I could put no place. I only knew that it gutted me, hollowing me inside so that I could hardly breathe, my thoughts flying frantically within the confines of my mind like trapped birds.
I stared a long time at the raging waters before I returned home for the work and routine of the evening.
I returned to the river the following day to see it had swelled further.
And the following day.
And the next.
Until my father joked that at least we would have warning if there was to be a flood, and my brother joked that perhaps I had grown bored of my maidenhood and wished to be swept down the river to whichever hold had an empty spot for a mistress and was willing to take a half-drowned noblewoman to heart.
And still, I went, as the rains came, pounding the earth and filling the river, until great trees were swept down with blocks of ice and the last of the melt broke out the dams of both ice and beavers, and brought the flotsam of winter down our hills, intent on sweeping out upon the plains.
It was there, as I rode along the deafening banks of the swollen North River, that I saw the water foam up and rise — but rather than crashing back immediately it continued to build and shift until it was a great pawing stallion garlanded in river weeds. Branches that had been washing down the way formed the tail and nose and great legs and water, moving, foaming, rippling water filling out its form and spirit.
The great beast’s neigh was loud enough to be heard even over the crash of the river and to my surprise, it looked directly at me and I felt something release deep in my heart — something that somehow had been waiting for this, though I knew not how.
Something that was one with this great river kelpie, that soared with excitement even when the creature snarled and showed not horse teeth at all but massive gleaming spike teeth that were as apt to rip a creature apart as any predator’s.
This — this impossible legend, this fanciful nightmare — was what I wanted more than my own life.
I leapt from my horse’s back. He tore the turf up in clumps as he fled to safety, but I — I stood before the creature head flung back and arms spread wide, letting the freezing droplets of the river wash over me.
I did not understand myself at all. Never in my memory had I done such a wild, untamed thing. I had not reason to seek death, no motivation to fling myself upon the cold, uncaring draught.
Practicality demanded that I return home to my loving family. Good sense bid me now at least turn and walk away.
And I threw it all away as I offered myself to the rearing, pawing water horse, my heart pounding to nearly bursting in my chest and my lungs heaving with what seemed to be sobs though I couldn’t remember why I was crying and I couldn’t understand why — when I saw this impossible equine creature formed of magic and likely a good dose of insanity — I felt a surge of loss so great it nearly overwhelmed me.
And then a fractured memory I could not place split into my head as if someone had stabbed a knife into my mind.
A man with a white face and a tongue like a slug leaning over me.
My vision growing narrow and dim.
And behind that man, another rising like a king from his throne, his bare chest crisscrossed with silver scars, his pale skin growing suddenly flushed with life, his short beard blue — blue like a horse or a dog. A crown was on his head, and as he stood he plucked a rib from the crown, and thrust it into the neck of the pale white man with the beard that flowed like milk over rocks. And the creature choked, spitting blood white and thick as cream, and my vision spun and faded as the man called my name, stepping forward with a look very like panic in his rolling eyes.
“Izolda! Izolda!”
And now, this strange horse made of river and shadow rose up over me and rolled his eyes in just the same way and something in me called back to him.
I gasped, and though I did not know how I knew the name or why it made my whole body tremble, the urge to utter it was overwhelming.
“Riverbarrow.”
With water flinging in every direction, the kelpie spun in a sudden circle and as it spun, it grew smaller and smaller, and then, drenched from head to toe, the water washing right down him in sheets, a man stood where the kelpie had been.
