The Scourge of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood 3)

“She’s foundering! Captain, she’s foundering!” his face was livid with emotions, mostly fear. The sky keened with the wind.

Tomas turned back to Lia with a look of supplication.

Lia advanced, swaying with the ship and stepped out into the storm. The lashing washes had swamped the main deck and crewmen clung to ropes to keep from going overboard. She was blinded by the stinging saltwater, but she squinted as she pushed on, ignoring the howls from the crew when they saw her. She used her arm to shield her face, her vision blurring, and then she saw the gray-eyed crewman, Malcolm – the one who had brought her to the captain to begin with. He was drenched but his expression calm. He nodded to her slowly.

Lia summoned her courage.

Then a cry from one of the crew reached her ears. “Save us!”

It was picked up by another. Then another. “Save us! Save us! Save us from Sheol!”

“Shut your eyes!” she cried out. “Do not watch what I do.”

The Medium began to churn within her, before she even raised her arm to the maston sign. She gripped the wooden bar to keep her balance. Water splashed across her face. Foam hissed like ten thousand serpents.

She remembered the night of the Great Storm in Muirwood. It came back to her in a rush. Jon Hunter, sopping wet, holding rings in his hand. Pasqua refusing to bake the required loaves of bread. Sowe asleep beneath her blanket. Lia saw the Aldermaston’s eyes, heard the tone of his voice. The rains have plagued us quite enough. They will cease. Now.

“Be calm,” Lia said softly, gently, coaxingly. “Be still.”

The Medium roared inside of her, flooding her senses with light and force. She stared at the ocean, stared at the roiling waves as the wind died around them. The groans from the Holk settled as the waves slipped back down harmlessly. She lowered her hand and stared next at the crew and found them squatting, gripping their ropes or poles and shielding their faces from her as if she were too bright too look at.

The sea was calm. Gentle waves lapped against the hull as the water drained from the ports and doors. There was a hiss and curse in her mind. A presence retreating, fading into the distance. It was familiar to her. It terrified her. The Gift of Seering opened up her mind and she saw the darkness receding from the ship, tossed away like a heavy blanket. In her mind’s eye, she saw Pareigis hunched over a firewell within Muirwood Abbey, scowling furiously. The presence she had sensed was the Queen Dowager’s. It was familiar to her because she had felt it not just in Muirwood, but she recalled feeling it earlier than that. The night before the battle of Winterrowd, she had been plucked by an invisible hand, a hand so powerful she had assumed it to be the king’s will, his mind. But she realized it was another hand – it was the Queen Dowager who had been the puppetmaster.

The Queen Dowager is the form Ereshkigal uses to walk the earth. One of her many forms. It is her sanctuary you approach.

Lia’s feelings shriveled inside her when she finally realized that another hand controlled the Queen Dowager. She could sense that presence still, vast as a starlit sky. The Queen of the Unborn was on the earth. She could assume human form by forging a link through a Kystrel. Lia realized it fully that the Queen Dowager’s family were her chosen minions, her disguise to live in the world. From generation to generation she had been born and born again. Pareigis was young. But the being dwelling inside her was as ancient as Idumea.

* * *

“I am confused and miserable. How can I know the truth of what I am told? The Aldermaston of Dochte says that if the Blight is coming it may be my destiny to stop it and not just warn of it. I must pass the maston test soon, or it will be too late. The king has told me that it is my destiny to marry him, that our alliance will put an end to the civil war and make our kingdom mighty again. He is a kind person, so very thoughtful, but something in his manner makes me distrust him. Or maybe it is because in my heart, in the deepest part of my heart, I cannot bear the thought of marrying anyone but Colvin. I could be the Queen of the realm – yes, me! But I do not desire it. There is never time to sleep in this place. It is study and celebration, study and celebration. Every night going later and later. I am so weary. How can I pass the test when my mind is so tired? The Aldermaston thinks I am nearly ready. I can hear the whispers of the Medium now. They are all around me. This place is so full of the Medium. In Muirwood, I could scarcely hear anything. But after several days in Dochte, the whispers are clear. I especially hear them at night. What is my destiny? What am I supposed to do? Colvin says I must surrender to the Medium’s will. I do not think he understands what that means for every time I look at him, when his eyes seek my own and he smiles in encouragement, the Medium whispers that he will be mine. How I hope it is true. I would give up a kingdom to be his.”