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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE ARDENT OARSMAN

T he Oarsman’s stooped posture straightened. I saw then that the object he was leaning on wasn’t a walking stick at all.

It was a stone oar.

The Omen sighed a great, rasping breath, dropped the flask, and returned, like the sprites, into shadow.

Rory tugged my sleeve. “Come on.”

The mountain path was wet. Precarious. One wrong step and I might slip—fall and splat upon rock like I did in my dreams. But I kept my balance, and Rory his, and the two of us followed like specters over the ridge, careful not to step within the moon’s silver glow, watching the Ardent Oarsman as he maneuvered through shadows.

We were getting closer to the roaring waterfall. Far in the distance, I could see the shapes of the nobles—the knighthood, standing at the lip of the water, watching Benji in the nets. And while everyone was looking at the king, no one was watching the waterfall.

No one saw the Ardent Oarsman lift his oar into the waterfall’s roaring froth—and vanish.

Rory and I stopped in our tracks. “The oar,” I said. “He can travel through water with it.” I threw my head back and measured the roaring waterfall, its mist wetting my hair. “We need to get up there. Can you toss your coin?”

Rory was scowling. “It’s too high.”

There was no climbing—the rockface was sheer, slick. And the mountain path ended at our feet. The only way to scale this peak… was not to scale it at all.

“I have an idea.” I turned to Rory. “He might not like it.”

Five minutes later, Rory reappeared with a flash of his coin, holding the gargoyle by the wrist. “Unhand me, you brute!” he wailed, thrashing. “Oh, Bartholomew, thank heavens you’re here. I’ve been abducted !”

I pressed a hand over his stone mouth. “Stop yelling, no— no , do not bite me.” I looked up at the waterfall. “We need you to fly, gargoyle.”

He was not pleased. He was not pleased when I flattered him, calling him brave, and he was not pleased when Rory grinned at the sight of me groveling. He was not pleased when he took flight, lifting from his feet and soaring up, up, and over the crest of the waterfall, and he was not pleased when he returned.

“Well?” Rory stopped pacing. “What did you see?”

The gargoyle yawned. “Nothing of import.”

My shoulders fell. “There’s nothing up there?”

“There’s a flat tableland nestled within the peaks and a body of water upon it, and an assortment of rocky beasts that lie at the mouth of an ugly stone castle. Like I said—nothing of import.”

Rory’s head tipped back, like he was praying to the night sky for patience he did not possess.

I put my palm to the gargoyle’s stone cheek. “Take us up there.”

He was still sour to be ordered about. But then the gargoyle put one arm around Rory, one around me, and pressed us together so tightly I let out a sound. Rory’s front slammed against mine, and when he looked down at me, dark lashes fanned his cheeks. He held out his arms. Asked, a little breathless, “May I?”

I nodded, and he wrapped his arms around my waist.

I remembered flying with Benji. The pain, the exertion, of keeping someone else from falling. “Tighter,” I told Rory, slipping my arms up and around his armored shoulders.

His eyes flared, and his grip around my waist grew firmer. “I’m not going to drop you, Diviner.”

The gargoyle sprang into the air.

Rory swore, tightening his hold on me, and we met the sky, battered by wind and the waterfall’s dampening mist. The gargoyle held fast to us, his wings beating with impressive strength, and when we reached the lip of the waterfall, he glided up and over it, landing us upon a flat tableland that had been impossible to glimpse from below.

Our feet hit stone, and the gargoyle’s arms retracted from around me. Rory’s didn’t—he was taking in our surroundings, his cheeks full of color, his eyes alight, his hair windblown. He looked so—so—

His gaze collided with mine. He let go of my waist, and I his shoulders. I heard the shaky sound of his exhale, and then we both looked away. Fast.

Around us, the peaks were indeed like claws fixed upon a seven-fingered hand. And in the palm of that hand, smooth as glass, was a basin. Rory and I and the gargoyle stood upon rocks and looked out over the water. Fed by mountainous snowdrift, this basin was a mother to the waterfall—a mother to the entire Tenor River. And yet it was vast enough to be unmoving, still as the surface of a mirror. Even in the darkness I was struck by how clear it was—so pure it was as if we’d sullied it just by looking upon it. Only I had looked upon this water—this basin—before. Thousands of times.

But always in my dreams.

Reflected upon the water, next to the wrinkling visage of the moon, was a castle.

Tall and ancient and crude, it was the same gray hue as the mountains, as if whoever had carved it had harvested shale from the Peaks themselves. Its entry was lifted, and upon the stone stairwell, leading to a great stone door—

Sprites. At least ten of them, the same shale variety that we’d seen earlier. They lay curled around themselves in sleep, their rocky chests rising and falling.

My hands fell to the hammer and chisel upon my belt. “Should we get the others?”

“Benji will still be in the water. Wouldn’t want to give the Oarsman time to vanish,” Rory whispered, stepping forward. “No sudden movements, all right?”

“I say, Bartholomew—”

“No talking, either.” He nodded at the stairs. “We go very, very quietly.”

My feet were silent and so, so cold upon the castle’s stone steps. I held the gargoyle’s hand in a vise and Rory took the other, his right hand balled in a fist around the Artful Brigand’s coin.

The three of us walked in a silent, crooked line up the stairs.

The shale sprites slept on, their sleeping breaths low growls. A few stirred, others sniffed the air—rows of teeth peeking behind thin lips. One even stuck out a jagged tongue as I passed, nearly grazing my bare foot. I flinched, tasting my own heartbeat.

But none woke.

Rory squeezed my hand. Kept pulling me forward. Rain pinged against his armor, and then we were past the sprites, up and up until there were no more stairs to climb.

We stood before the weathered castle door. Rory tried the handle. Locked.

“Someone ought to knock,” the gargoyle whispered.

Rory looked back at the sprites. Swallowed—then pounded the door.

The clamor resounded in the palm of the mountains, as if he’d knocked on the peaks themselves, and then there was a shuffling of footsteps, a low, terrible creak.

The sprites sprang awake, and the castle door opened. From it, darkness spilled, a cloaked figure within it.

He was taller than me—taller than Rory—wide in the shoulders and tapered at the waist. From the long spool of his tattered wool sleeve was a hand composed of gray skin and jagged joints.

The Ardent Oarsman clutched his stone oar and looked down upon us.

I couldn’t see his face. The mouth of his hood was all darkness. Still, I could feel his gaze. When the Oarsman spoke, his voice was a low rasp that put a thousand prickles on the back of my neck. “Who comes?”

“The king’s knight.” Rory stepped forward, lazily hunched. Had I not understood his back, his shoulders tighter than a bowstring, I might have thought him bored. “With a Diviner and her gargoyle.”

“A Diviner?” The Omen said it sluggishly, as if all the surprise had atrophied out of him long ago. “There must be some mistake.”

“There is no mistake, Oarsman.” My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “I’ve come for answers.”

Rory’s voice was dangerously even. “And to take up the mantle.”

The Oarsman stood eerily still. Slowly, he lifted a hand—withdrew the hood of his cloak.

I swallowed a scream. The Harried Scribe’s face had been flesh, but the Ardent Oarsman’s face was akin to the mountain sprites—gray, smooth in some places and rough in other. His eyes were smooth, pallid.

Made entirely of limestone.

His lips pulled back in a smile, and I saw that his teeth were fangs. Shattered, sharpened stone. His gaze shifted between Rory and me and the gargoyle. He lifted his oar, pointing it into the dark castle, and that terrible serrated smile widened. “Won’t you come in?”

Not even a flickering candle lent animation to the castle. Dark and full of angles, with no carpet, no hearth, Rory and the gargoyle and I were led into a hall, the sprites stalking in our wake. The east wall was opened up to the night, a low breeze blowing. Through a row of columns, I could see out into the peaks—see the basin of crystalline water and the moon over it.

Cold and entirely inhospitable, the hall bore only three adornments. A pool, hewn into the stone floor, brimming with water. A throne, gray and lifeless as everything else—

And a mountain of gold.

There were piles of it, stretching like pillars to the lofty ceilings. Coins, gold trinkets. I even saw the rich colors of jewels. A king’s fortune, as vast as the Harried Scribe’s library—all of it covered by a thick layer of dust.

“Quite the banquet hall you have,” Rory said, the room throwing his echo back at him. “Though reaching it proved a bit of a task.”

“I built it myself.” The Ardent Oarsman rounded his pool and stood on one side while Rory and the gargoyle and I remained on the other. “Culled granite and shale from the Peaks. It took time—I’m no stone mason.” His eerie eyes fell to the hammer and chisel on my belt. “But I learned a few things from my time upon the tor.”

His gaze rose to my face. “Was it you who left the spring water for me to find?”

I nodded, staring at his heaps of gold. The shale sprites lay down at its base, like dragons protecting their plunder. “Where did you get all your coin?”

The Ardent Oarsman laughed. A rough, barking sound. “To be feared, to be venerated, to be an Omen , bears great influence—and influence is owed affluence. Aisling’s gargoyles bring me many riches.”

I turned to the batlike gargoyle, but he merely shook his head. “’Twas not I.”

“What will you do with it?” I asked the Oarsman. “Your great wealth?”

“Do with it?” He frowned, as if he did not understand the question. “Measure time by its growth, I suppose.”

Rory scoffed.

But the Ardent Oarsman kept his gaze, unmoving, unblinking, on me. “But you are not like that, are you, Diviner? You have not been brought to me like one of Aisling’s treasures. You’ve simply…” He opened his arms. “Come. Like a little insect, beckoned by a flame.”

“I’ve already said why we’ve come.” Rory’s voice was hot iron. “The new king is taking up the mantle.”

The Ardent Oarsman ignored him. His focus had drifted, now aimed upon the stone oar in his hand. He smiled at it, showing those horrible teeth, and lowered its handle into the pool. Shut his eyes.

And vanished.

He appeared directly in front of me. Took me by the throat—ripped me away from Rory and the gargoyle.

I screamed, a sickening rush stirring my stomach, and then I was vanishing with the Oarsman, his oar propelling us back across the pool. When my feet hit the ground, his stony grip fell from my throat to my waist, and then he was pulling me backward, onto his body—

Slamming the both of us into his throne.

The sprites rose to their feet and screeched.

“Stay your hand, knight,” he called in a booming voice. Then, as if only just seeing the coin locked in Rory’s grip, the Ardent Oarsman barked a laugh. “Where did you get that?”

“Nipped it off an Omen.” I thought I’d seen hate in Rory’s eyes before. I hadn’t. Not like this. “The Artful Brigand is dead. You’re about to join him.”

The Oarsman snapped his teeth, caging me against him. “Throw that coin and I will take a bite out of your Diviner’s throat, and my pets will do the same to you.” He nodded at the shale sprites. “One word from me, and they’ll eviscerate you. Starving things are loyal when fed.” For some reason, that made him laugh. “I would know.”

The gargoyle’s wings were spread, his bottom lip trembling as he watched the Oarsman’s hand return to my throat. And Rory—

Rory was looking at me. Raw and desperate and intent, like he was trying to tell me something. His gaze flickered to my belt.

The Oarsman loomed over me. “I can smell it on you,” he rasped. Hard fingers prodded my hips, my ribs and stomach. “Aisling’s spring water.” His stone eyes were devoid of life. And yet he looked at me with so much hunger. “How much have you swallowed, dreaming in that cathedral of yours?”

The Omen lowered his mouth to my neck. Ran his cold, wet tongue up my throat. He lifted a gnarled finger to my shroud—

I slammed my chisel into his leg.

An inhuman scream echoed through the hall. Blood spilled onto the throne, onto the floor, and then I was fleeing, sprinting around the pool, throwing myself between Rory and the gargoyle, the three of us bracing for the sprites to attack.

They didn’t. The Ardent Oarsman hadn’t commanded them. He was too busy wiping his own blood onto his hand. Bringing it to his mouth.

Licking it clean.

My words came from the dark dregs at the bottom of my stomach. “Tell me the truth. Tell me that you are not a god—that Aisling is a lie. Tell me what has become of my Diviners.”

“Not a god?” He stood from his throne, blood pooling upon the stone seat. “My oar is magic . I dip it in my basin, and can change the tide. Folk look to my waters for portents, for food, for vigor. I am Traum’s life force, her Tenor River, her strength—unceasing and unyielding. What is ungodly about that?”

I felt as I had with the Harried Scribe—as I had in every dream. The animal urge to run. But Rory’s hand found mine, and the gargoyle took the other, and suddenly we were bigger than the looming Omen in front of us. “Tell me where the Diviners are, Oarsman,” I said again.

“The river cares not for the rain. Your demands are nothing to me. But…” His fingers idled over his oar. “Never say I am not a benevolent god.” His lips were bloody now. He peeled them back in a horrible grin. “I know all about Diviners. Aisling’s willing, obedient flock. I know where they come from, and where they’ve gone. Stay here with me, and I will tell you everything.”

Rory’s hand flexed around mine. When I turned, he held my gaze, imploring with his eyes, his taut lips—the overwrought lines of his body—that I refuse the offer.

But he said nothing, letting my words alone fill the cavernous space of the Ardent Oarsman’s hall.

My voice trembled. “I have always been afraid to dream. Afraid to be watched by gods who lurked in shadows. It was my greatest shame.” I looked over the Oarsman’s heaps of gold. “But now I see you with my eyes. You are not a dream. You’re just a man, paid like a king to playact as a god. A facade, hoarding wealth, yet claiming to starve. You have no love for Traum, its Stonewater Kingdom, nor for the people who call you hallowed. Your glory may come from Aisling, but it was earned by the dreaming, the drowning , of Diviners like me.”

The truth bolstered me, no matter how horrible it was. “You say the river cares not for the rain, but it is the rain that feeds the river. In time, it can even wear away stone.” My words were like the fall of my hammer. Strong. Exact. “I am not afraid of you. Because without me, you would be nothing .”

The gargoyle let out a raucous hoot, and Rory—

There was a world behind Rory’s dark eyes. It was as if he could see everything all at once when he looked at me, and it was far too much, but he wanted all of it.

Ahead of us, the Ardent Oarsman let out a rasping laugh. “Have it your way.” He waved a gnarled hand in the air. “Your Diviners are lost. You will never find them, and I will tell you nothing of their fate.”

“You will.” Rory dragged his gaze off me and faced the Omen. “I challenge you to your craft, Oarsman—a match of vigor. And when I defeat you, the river will bow to the rain. Your oar will belong to the king, and you will answer the Diviner’s questions.”

“My craft.” The Omen’s fist tightened around his oar, and the sprites stirred, snapping their jaws. “Do you know what that means, knight? A challenge of vigor ends when strength is spent. If no one yields—a match against me is a match to the death.”

My stomach twisted. I looked up at Rory.

But his gaze was forward. Undaunted. “Give me three days to prepare.”

“Three days.” The Ardent Oarsman spat into his pool of water. “Agreed.”

Rory stepped back, leading the gargoyle and me toward the castle door.

“One more thing,” the Omen rasped. “Since it is your Diviner who requires answers upon my defeat—”

He was smiling once more, his jagged teeth coated in blood. “She must be the one to face me.”