The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“Poor girl,” she said disapprovingly, but her gaze was caught by a thicket of dense shrubs hugging the shoreline, branches brilliant with red berries. “Look at the hawthorn!” she cried with real passion.

Briefly the land rose out of the mire, and poplars and willows took hold, leaves flashing as the wind disturbed them, before the ground leveled again into grassy banks that looked inviting but were more likely sodden, swampy traps infested by the ubiquitous stinging flies. He scratched his chin, batting away a swarm of gnats; it was bad enough out on the water.

“Hathui …” He wanted to speak, but he was too afraid.

“Yes?” When he did not reply, she went on. “Did you mean to say something?”

“No, no. A strange country, this one. There aren’t many people living in these reaches. I admit I never thought a river could seem more like a marsh or a lake than a river.”

“Yet there’s still a current that pulls us east. Have you seen the Heretic’s Sea?”

“I have.”

“What is it like?”

“Filled with water.” Slavers had captured him within sight of those waters. “The shores are crawling with heretics and infidels. Thus the name.”

“What do the heretics and infidels call the sea?”

Surprised, he looked at her, but she was studying the shore, smiling as she watched sheep grazing on a spit of land watched over by a skinny boy and his companionable dog which ran to the edge of the water and barked enthusiastically, tail wagging. She kept her gaze on them until they were lost to sight and at last she said, “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

Nothing, he wanted to say sourly, but he was ashamed of his ill temper. “The infidels, who worship the Fire God whom they name Astareos, call it the Northern Sea, because it lies north of their own country. I don’t know what the Arethousans call it. Maybe they call it the Heretic’s Sea, too.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because they think we are heretics!” he said with a laugh, but Hathui stared at him.

“How could they think we are heretics when we are the ones who worship God in Unity in the proper manner? The skopos is God’s deacon on Earth.” Her expression darkened as it always did when she thought of Darre, and Aosta, and the stricken king. “I pray we will find what we seek, and quickly.”

“The grasslands are wide. Do not think it will be so easy to find anything on those trackless wastes, and especially not griffins and sorcerer women.”

“Have you ever seen these Kerayit?”

“I saw one of their war bands but I’ve never seen the cart of one of their sorcery women. Nor have I seen their masters, the Bwr people, the ones who were born half of humankind and half of a mare.”

“Are there really such creatures?”

The water slipped past, a mottled brown ripe with vegetation and dirt. “I have seen one in my dreams. I was never more frightened than at that moment.”

“Never?” she asked softly.

He flushed. “What do you mean?”

“Never, Zacharias?”

He said nothing, and when it was clear to her that he would not answer, she glanced toward the prince and spoke in a different tone, as if introducing a new subject. “What about the merfolk?”

“Let it be, Hathui! I beg you. Let well enough alone.”

But he had exasperated her, although it was the last thing he wanted. “You can never be content, can you?” she said. “That’s why you left the village, isn’t it? You can’t find peace.”

“Peace was torn from me by Bulkezu! It’s his fault I can’t find peace!”

“Nay. You won’t let yourself be at peace. You suffered. You did what you had to, to survive. I don’t blame you for that. We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of. But don’t think you can run away from the Enemy. The demons can’t give up their grip on you until you let them go.”

He did not answer, and at last she let him be. For a long time they simply stood at the rail together, watching the shoreline slide past. It was a measure of peace. It was as much as he could ever hope for, that much and no more.

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