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It was all noise that mixed with the waves as we crossed the break, our ferry rocking and swaying in the cresting waves. I could just make out Tayln on his journey back to the shore, a few cloaked figures masked against the fog. Whoever he traveled with was swallowed in the morning mist long before we docked against the Qit and I stepped onto the floating city that was my home. It always had been, it had always been the only consistent thing. I suppose this would be the last time.
Still, there was nothing but that buzzing numbing that had begun to slide into a panic.
“Caspyn!” Amari’s joyful cry pulled me from my haze and I turned to the girl who sat on the edge of the Qit, her bare toes dangling in the ocean waves.
“Ri, isn’t it early in the day for you to be out here?” I tried to push joy into my voice, but I was not sure she would have noticed. She jumped to her feet, practically dancing around me.
“Did you see another walker over there?” she asked, pausing her dancing to look across the waves as though she could see the shore from there. “Pa sent a note, said he was coming in on the next wagon. That would be this one. Did you see him?”
“Pa?” That numbing was getting worse, it was turning into a roar that was infesting my mind, that was sitting heavy against my skin and making everything crawl.
“Yes, silly. My Father! Theadore! He’s coming home today. You can’t miss him, he’s the only walker without a beard!” She put her hands up and laughed and danced, still looking across the waves for a man that wasn’t there.
A man I had put my blade through only minutes before.
By the Goddess. What had I done?
The ferry was already pulling away, Grynd snarling as he moved back into the waves. I took a flying leap through the air and only barely landed on the edge of the ferry. The motion sent everything rocking and Grynd swearing but I ignored it all, grabbing the rope to pull us across faster as I yelled back to Amari.
“I’ll find your Pa! Go get Jayse, tell her to meet me on the dock!”
Amari stood on the dock, staring with a confusion that slowly turned to worry as I turned away, heaving the rope with a strength I didn’t think I possessed.
Grynd only scowled, as if he already knew what I had done.
Chapter 20
Caspyn
Grynd said nothing when I jumped from the ferry, my cloak flowing behind me as I raced toward the bend in the road and the copse of foliage and beach-beaten trees where I had hidden his body.
Theadore.
My great-grandfather.
I could no longer hear the garbled noises of a fading life as I approached, not that it mattered, I was already pulling my magic to life, the cold drifting over my skin as my eyes dipped to a matching shade.
I hadn’t been able to pull much time from the plants before, but I used it all as I ran, time moving away from me even as I drifted through the sludge of the Ether. Dampened voices drifted behind me in that familiar garble, the Wave Walkers re-emerging from the ferry as they moved backwards, my own shadow appearing behind them as I raced from the spot in the trees I was trying to reach.
The Wave Walkers’ voices were still in the distance, my own body racing after them when the magic ran out and I continued forward, the two versions of me racing in opposite directions, one toward the ferry with no idea what he had done, and I toward the man who I could hear gasping for breath in the trees.
Branches broke as I reached him, dropping to my knees with a crash and a gasp. He stared up in confusion as I gathered up my cloak and pressed it against the gushing hole in his chest. I had only just left him, snarling about his death, and now I tried to save him, the numbing I had felt since leaving vanishing as I stared into his wide eyes.
“You are Kryamri’s father,” it wasn’t a question, he nodded in confirmation none-the-less. I pressed my lips together, he already knew I could jump time, possibly because his King could do the same. All the pieces that didn’t match up, all the pieces that this man might have the answers to.
“Kryamri is my grandmother.” His eyes widened at my confession and he gasped, only to have more blood flood his mouth. He coughed, the specks of red going everywhere as I pressed my cloak harder against his chest.
“You have traveled far.” The words were broken by the amount of blood in his mouth. “You know…” he coughed again, more blood flying from his mouth. “You know what is coming.”
I nodded, even through the blood that dripped from him I could see the wide panic in his eyes. See the terror. It was the same that had lived in me for so long, that fear that continued to pull me forward.
“You have to stop her.” His blood soaked hand wrapped around my tunic, pulling me closer. So close all I could smell was the blood.
“I am trying. I will kill the queen.” I was determined, he shook his head.
“Not… It’s the… the queen…” he coughed again, droplets of blood flying over my face. I didn’t dare move. “The queen… she has the princess… you have to find her… kill the princess…”
“Kill Princess? Elara?” I shook my head, the princess was the one who stood up to the queen. She was the one who was supposed to save us. He was shaking his head as intensely as I was.
