She didn’t say any more – she couldn’t. And he didn’t push. If she told him the truth, he’d hear the treachery in it – sense the doubt that filled her.
For Sebastian to let her near, she would have to lean on the feelings she was almost certain he had for her. Use the fact that their magic danced together – like it belonged – to convince him she’d come to help.Gods, how could she use that against him? She hated herself for even thinking it. It was good strategy. But betrayal all the same. She was planning to abuse the trust of the man who’d saved her life. She kept imagining his face when he realised her true intent – his eyes going cold, and full of hate.
Maybe, just maybe, if she said the right things, approached him in the right way, he’d tell her the truth about why he was doing this. Perhaps, even now, there could be a way out for him.
She almost laughed. Naïve.
Once she took that step, there would be no going back. Henry could never know what it would cost her. So she watched their fire burn itself out, circling the same thoughts.
Two hours felt like two days.
Once their valmares had rested enough, Henry stamped out the embers and they were back in the saddle. They rode under the moonslight, through the rest of the long, sleepless night. Mercifully, as the sun rose, and the further south they got, it became warmer – her fingers weren’t quite as numb on the reins.
“Kara, look.” Henry pointed to their left.
She glanced across to a small clearing off the roadside where the grass had been pressed flat. Recently. Blackened stones lay in the centre – the remains of a campfire – a thin curl of smoke still rising from the ashes.
Henry slowed his valmare, scanning the ground. “One set of hoofprints.”
The soil here was soft, damp from dew, the impressions deep. Kara swung down from the saddle, and reached towards the pit.
“It’s still warm,” she said.
Henry’s gaze tracked the road ahead. “We’re less than an hour behind.”
She’d never ridden harder in her life. The salty air thickened as the land fell away towards the coast and the morning drew on. The wide river that had been their companion on the road stretched downhill beneath a darkening sky.
“A storm is coming,” she commented. Henry just nodded.
The hilltop for Saltmoor, the southernmost village, came into view around the next bend, its low stone houses huddled close against the wind – Navyrian to one side of the river, Lyran to the other. Beyond it, the ocean stretched out, vast towards the horizon. The Water Temple stood above it all, cut into the cliffside, its archways facing the open water. But something was wrong. The hilltop was crowded with people – dozens of them, packed tight together, staring down towards the shore. Kara could hear their voices carrying over the wind: shouts, sobs, names called over and over. Some clutched each other. Others tended to bruised arms or shallow cuts, their clothing dripping with seawater.
No. Don’t let us have been too late.
Kara pulled Whisper to a halt and swung down fast, boots slipping in the wet grass. She stared down the hill in horror.
Half the village was gone. Submerged by dark water lapping at rooftops.
“What happened?” she asked the first man she saw.
He was older, with sea-weathered skin and a hoarse voice. “The tide came in all at once,” he said. “Like the ocean was thrown at us. The whole lower village–” His voice broke, and he turned towards the devastation. Kara spotted a couple of Navyrians waist-deep in water, halfway down the slope towards what had been half their homes, their hands glowing blue, threads snaking out into the ocean. The water didn’t move. After a few moments, they let their magic fade and shook their heads hopelessly.
Sebastian... what did you do?
Henry hurried to her side. As she turned to face him, her eye caught something on the opposite hill crest to the west: a fleeting glint of crimson. A figure, she was sure, stood there, then vanished from view. Her heart thudded painfully. Was that just what she wanted to see?
A younger woman nearby clutched a child to her chest. “Thank the Gods for the rider who warned us. Said Fatàn had foreseen disaster – told us to get to higher ground.”
He saved them?
“Thank the Gods?” A young man shoved forward, fists clenched. “Lily, hecaused it. He’s the Thorne Shard-stealer – I saw him coming out of the Temple covered in crimson. Then he went in the water.”
“What was he doing in the water?” Kara asked.
The man gestured towards another woman holding a small blonde boy. “She lost her little one in the chaos. He jumped in after him. I thought the sea had taken them both, but he came up with him in hisarms. Then he was gone.” The man’s voice turned bitter. “As if saving one life makes up for what he did.”
Kara stared over at the blonde-haired boy with his mother, saw the tears of relief streaming down her face.
But he saved him too. Like he saved Morra.
