Page 39 of Fate of Echoes and Embers (Heirs of Elydor #3)

ISSA

“I wish you well on your journey.”

I made my way back down the secret palace entrance with Nerys where I would meet up again with Marek.

“Thank you for your support, though I do worry that Gyoria will not take your involvement well.”

“Then perhaps Balthor should keep his clan from supporting an unrightful claim.”

“Do you think he knows of it?”

“As king, it is his duty to know. More likely, he does not care.”

“Or supports any instability in Estmere.”

“Aye, or that.”

We emerged from the palace, Nerys’s guard not far behind.

“No sign of Marek.” She scanned the coast and then turned to me. “Issa,” she said, her gaze open and sincere. “I have known Marek a long time. He is insufferable and unwieldy, but as you must know by now, there is nothing he would not do for those he loves. And I have no doubt, he loves you.”

“I believe he does,” I agreed. “It took some time for me to realize. Marek hides his true feelings well. And I love him too. But my duty is to Hawthorne. Or it was,” I said. “Until I failed them.”

“You did not fail them,” Nerys said, steel in her voice. “I could not have taken the crown from Queen Lirael without support. Asking for, and accepting aid, is a strength and not a weakness.”

She was right, of course.

“I wish you had been able to speak more with Rowan. His situation was very similar to your own,” she said.

I knew some of Rowan’s background from Marek, but much of it was still a mystery.

“His family lineage is long and prestigious. He too struggled with the duties to which he was born and remaining here, in Thalassaria, with me.”

“Remaining,” I said, watching the ebb and flow of the tide. From here, I could not see Tidechaser , tucked away behind the rock outcropping, but would be glad to board her once again. “Rowan is doing much more than that.”

“Something he also never bargained for, and it’s not always been easy. We are no Gyoria, but there are many here who cling to the old beliefs.”

“Including a mistrust of humans.”

“Including that,” she admitted. “Some have been alive for hundreds, or even thousands, of years. Their memories are long and, sometimes, their tolerance for change short. But we have come a long way. As for Rowan and the decision he made, one you will too… the question is not whether you have failed Hawthorne, but whether you will allow that fear to dictate the rest of your life. I had to choose between my past and my future, between what was expected of me and what I truly wanted, as did Rowan. You must make that choice, too. But remember, if your heart is divided, you will never belong fully to either path. Choose, and do not look back.”

If your heart is divided, you will never belong fully to either path.

She understood me in ways I barely understood myself. Experience was a master teacher, but there were other barriers between Marek and me too. Ones she and Rowan had navigated.

“His humanity? And your immortality?” I asked, unsure how to phrase the question.

“We don’t have all the answers yet to that, I will admit.”

I’d been hoping for more, but her candor was appreciated.

As Marek appeared, my heart raced at the sight of him, as it always did. It ached too as I remembered the message Rowan had delivered.

There were casualties among those who opposed him.

I had no doubt Warren would be among Draven’s opposition.

“Take this,” Nerys said. I’d seen the leather satchel she carried and wondered at its contents.

“What is it?”

“Something I believe you will need. Open it after you decide.”

Could I wait that long? I was already intensely curious.

“Thank you for escorting her here,” Marek said, reaching us and embracing his friend. “And for your support. I was just at the docks. You ordered the Tidebreaker Fleet to follow us.”

“I did,” Nerys said.

What did that mean?

“Thank you.”

“Be safe,” she said, letting him go and indicating to her guard she was coming. “I am confident you will prevail.”

I wish I could share Nerys’s confidence.

Marek took the satchel from me. “What is this?” he asked as Nerys left, and we made our way to the ship.

“I’m not certain. Nerys gave it to me and said to open it.” I paused, not wanting to use her exact words. “Later.”

His brows drew together, but Marek said nothing. He held out his hand as we scrambled across the rocks and didn’t talk again until we’d readied the ship and cast off. Though it was cloudy, there were no signs of a storm, thankfully.

“Have you realized,” I asked as we passed the palace harbor, “I knew what to do without your guidance as we set sail?”

Marek steered us expertly through the water, not using any magic. On a day such as today, none was needed.

“I have,” he said, pointing toward the palace. “The balcony, where we sat last eve. Do you see it?”

It was far into the distance, but I could see the portion of the palace he referred to.

“Aye.”

“A high-ranking Navarch stayed there, when I first came to the palace, who resigned not long after. He never got on with Queen Lirael. They called him the Warden. He was as respected as any sailor in Thalassaria. They say when he was put through the Stormcaller’s Rite, his instructors thought he might be our next king, he was so powerful.

But the Warden’s magic, he told me once, wasn’t stronger than the queen’s; he knew better how to listen to the sea than most. He advised me to feel the rhythm of the waves, the shifts in the wind, and understand the sea’s will.

I thought of him when we were in the Depths, when you correctly reminded me not to fight the storm. To let it guide us.”

“What happened to him?”

“The Warden lives in Ventara, a beautiful, clifftop village north of Corvi.”

We were quiet for some time, sailing past first the palace and its harbor and then the capital. I could understand how the Thalassari had become independent, complacent to the struggles of humans and disconnected from Elydorian politics. These lands were a paradise, untouched by our troubles.

“I cannot stop thinking of Warren, and Edric, my maid?—”

“Rowan offered wise words to me, just this morn,” he said. “‘The past is over. And the future is uncertain. Look to the present if you wish to truly live.’ I’m sorry for it, Issa. So very sorry. But what’s done is done. We will face what comes next together.”

Wise words that were easier to agree with than to practice. Nothing could change the signs I had not seen, or the warnings I ignored.

“My father became infallible after his death,” I said, not wanting to admit the truth, even to myself.

“If I am honest, we had a difficult relationship while he was alive, though I loved him very much. I believe my memories are clouded by guilt that I could not save him, or my mother. I trusted Draven because he did, convinced my father had never made a wrong decision. He was the most honorable, and loyal, man I knew.”

“We all have flaws, sereia.”

“Father too.”

“Aye. Even those lost to us.”

Sometimes, I forgot Marek had dealt with the same pain as me.

“Perhaps your mother simply made a poor decision,” I said quietly.

“Trusting a friend too much. Perhaps,” I ventured, “those waters were not cursed but simply… dangerous. In the way the Depths were dangerous even before Galfrid hid the Crystal there.”

Glad that Marek appeared open to discuss this, a topic that was difficult for him, bolstered my confidence to continue. “You said yourself the Depths do not forget. That the oldest legend tells of its long memory, as if it were a living thing.”

“The sea, to us, is alive.”

“Right. And if you remember the journal entry. ‘She called upon the sea, but it answered in hunger. Not offering the tide its due. The Depths demand more than courage. They demand a heart willing to break.’”

“A sacrifice. I remembered that entry when you were willing to accompany me.”

“Perhaps it was nothing more than a recounting of the legend you had heard. But maybe, it’s more than that. If the Maelstrom Depths are not just a place, but sentient in some way?—”

“As I’m certain they are.”

“Then they absorbed centuries of magic, sacrifices, and lost souls. They remember every life taken by the sea. When an artifact as powerful as the Wind Crystal entered the water, the Depths, perhaps, absorbed its power. Taking it back was like ripping out a piece of the Depths itself. Maybe that was the sacrifice? Or maybe it simply didn’t belong there, an Aetherian artifact in Gyorian waters. ”

Marek stared at me. “You’ve thought a lot on this.”

“I have. Though at times, I wonder if they are meanderings of thought that bear no consequence.”

His smile was slow to form, almost sad. Unlike Marek’s usual easy grin.

“There is nothing I’ve ever wanted more than to sail the open sea, solving its mysteries with you, Issa.”

My breath caught at his words. I could imagine it. The adventures we would have. Every part of me craved his touch. Craved to be with him again. But I was as certain that I could not do that, and be separated from him again, as I was that my duty called in one direction, my heart… in another.

“The Warden,” he offered, so suddenly, I’d forgotten his tale for a moment.

“The Warden,” I repeated, my mind meandering back to Marek’s story.

“You’ve learned on this journey, Issa, to read the waters of your life. You no longer need me, or anyone, to steer for you. Like the Warden, you’ve always had the ability to navigate. Trust yourself. And whatever decision you make…”

I understood his sadness now. Marek knew well the weight that held me down.

“I will support you.”