Chapter 61:

  They awoke as predawn mist had rolled in, chilled air settling on the pair of them. Ael was up quickly, years of the danger of this kind of mist spurring her to action. It was only after she was on her feet that she realized the danger was far, far less on solid nd. She retrieved their clothing from the night before, and dressed herself, piting her hair as Nereida stirred. Once the fire was going, and the egg was tended to, Ael allowed herself a moment to breathe, to think. She didn’t feel any different from the day before, aside from some additional sore pces on her back from their awkward sleep and night time activities. Clearly Nereida and the old crone had been wrong. She had not needed to sleep beneath the new moon, they had taken the risk for nothing. Almost nothing, she reminded herself, thinking of the pleasant way her wife had distracted her.

  Still, she hoped her wife wasn’t too disappointed that she was just The Admiral, not one of the dragon-blooded.

  They had just sat down to eat some of the chewy, awful rations, when a wave of nausea washed over Ael. She put the food down, her mind swirling. She vaguely heard Nereida calling to her, concerned words that meant nothing. All her mind could focus on was what she saw.

  She saw herself, beside Nereida, each in their three-colour outfits. They held a newborn, wrapped in a bnket, but she could not make out the features of the newborn. Between them was a fg, the siren fg, and shadows were rising to tear into the baby. The scene changed, to a ship on the horizon… her ship. Three fgs flew, three possibilities. If they flew the fg with the red moon, they would die. Ael saw Nereida hanging from the mast, her guts spilling onto the deck as a crowd of sailors cheered. If they flew the fire fg, the ship would sink against an unknowable foe, but Nereida, their sons, the egg would survive, stuck at her father’s side, an ancient man in a heavy golden crown. Epelda was nowhere to be seen. If they flew the siren fg, they stood atop a city in ruins. She did not know what city. But they all lived. She had something heavy on her head in the st vision, but could not see what it was.

  She awoke with a start, covered in sweat, nauseous. Nereida was holding her tightly, not saying anything.

  “I’m alright,” Ael managed. She was shaking. Nereida helped her drink from their water bowls. She was shaking too hard to hold it without spilling.

  “What happened?” Nereida asked worriedly.

  “Vision,” she bit out, feeling helpless and angry. “I… I saw… we have to fly the siren fg.”

  “We will. Hush now, drink some water, eat some food.”

  They tried to get back into routine, but Ael was pgued with fshes, images she could not interpret or tch on too. Nereida, appearing human, wearing a crown as she stood on a pile of ash that had been her home. Epelda, her neck broken, falling from the mast. Basiano’s infant, all grown, leading a pack of sirens against the demons. Egaz, his hand in hers, leading her through dense woods. The images were relentless, some disturbing, others hopeful, and all of them overwhelming her ability to be present. She was occasionally aware of Nereida, who kept getting her to eat and drink. At one point, she thought she slept, but that may have been another vision. Things did not calm until Nereida led her to the egg, helped her lie down, and pressed the egg into her arms.

  The images still came, but they were muted, less overwhelming. No longer a raging river, now the incoming visions were merely a trickling stream that ran through her into the egg. She heard Nereida's singing. She was singing a lulby. To her? To the egg? She could not be sure, she could not focus on anything except the images. She tried to find her breath, to calm herself, but even that was beyond her. And so she gave in, and let herself sleep again.

  When she next awoke, there was water dripping on her face. She heard Nereida cursing, the siren woman hastily trying to get the fire lit in the rain. Ael had rolled off the bnket and her head was out on a fern, the rain dripping from the canopy of trees down to her face.

  “Ner?” she croaked. Her voice sounded hoarse. Why did she hurt so much? What was wrong? Nereida abandoned the fire and raced to her side, kissing her face with desperate, worried kisses, tears in her eyes.

  “You weren’t waking up,” she sobbed. Nereida was trembling in fear. Ael kissed her salty cheek, and weakly held her worried wife.

  “I’m here,” she managed. “I’m here, I’m here.”

  Nereida helped her get back under the canvas, so that she could dry out. Ael wrapped herself in her outer coat, shivering. She felt as if she had been sick for days. She had brief memories of the visions that had assaulted her mind.

  “Did I hurt you?” she asked, fidgeting with the end of her braid, looking at her own toes. She remembered a vision of drowning, of fighting to get to the surface of the water. Her feet were cold from being damp. Was it from the rain or from drowning?

  “No. You were sleeping, but no matter what I did you would not wake. I pinched you, I even spped you!” She swallowed heavily. “I’m sorry about that,” she added sheepishly. Ael chuckled.

  “I probably deserved it.” She winked, trying to hide her own fear in the easy banter. Something nagged at her. “How long?” she asked after a moment.

  “Three days.” Nereida’s face crumpled. “I did what I could, kept the fire going, managed to get you to drink. Kept the egg safe, us safe.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t think I slept much… I kept waking up, thinking you were…. You can’t leave me alone here. Please, Ael.”

  “I have no intention of it,” Ael replied softly, taking her wife’s hand. “Come on, let’s work together to get the fire going so we can warm up, yeah? Think you can make some kind of finger-wiggling barrier to keep the rain from falling on the fire?”

  “Probably.”

  It was a struggle, but in the weeks she had been on the isnd, Ael had become more proficient with building the fire from nothing. They kept emergency dry sticks beneath the canvas, and she used those to build a fire while Nereida used her magic to keep the rain off her and the slowly rising fire. Once the tinder had caught and was burning merrily, Ael added thicker and thicker branches until the fire burned hot. The rain was gentle enough that it could not stop the roaring fire she made. Nereida’s song tapered off, and the rain hit the fire, but the fire did not falter.

  They heated stones with the fire, tending to it and then using the stones to keep themselves warm. When one cooled, it was returned to the fire ring. Nereida held Ael tightly in between tending to the fire, as if she could not believe her beloved was alright.

  “It’s done,” Ael said, the strange certainty sitting heavily on her shoulders. “I won’t be lost again. Not like that.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise,” Ael replied. “I feel…” she made a face, struggling to find the words. Feelings were sacred things, and not usually to be shared. But this was her wife, her partner, and they had promised to keep things equal, to never pretend. “I feel like I have been upside down for my whole life, and things are not where I expect them to be.” She shrugged. “I’m still me, though. Right?” Nereida kissed her lips and smiled coyly.

  “Taste the same,” she said. Ael ughed, the tension easing from her body.

  “Incorrigible witch.” Ael returned the kiss, then pulled her wife into her arms. Nereida was chilled. “I’ve got you.”

  Thunder sounded in the distance and the wind began to howl.

  “Get the egg,” Ael ordered. Nereida jumped and picked up the egg from the back of their shelter. In the terrible wind, the canvas began to shake, the sound of it overwhelming as the trees bent to the wind’s will. “Lay down,” Ael continued. “Put her between us, and I will pull the cloak around us.” She took a moment to grab a few of the stones before the fire was completely extinguished. She could hear the water coming toward them, that terrible sound of a downpour. The two wives and their egg cuddled beneath the rge wool cloak as the wind tore through trees, lightning struck something overhead, and the thunder was loud enough to drown out even Ael’s thoughts. It shook them.

  The storm raged for nearly an hour before the wind shifted, pushing it away, taking the rain with it. Ael was the first to crawl out of their ruined shelter. One of the trees they had attached to the canvas too was partially uprooted. The canvas was torn nearly in two and would not be good for anything except as a patch. Their water bowls had blown away. One was broken in two pieces, sitting beneath a nearby tree, the other she could not see. They still had all their clothing, as Ael had shoved both the over dress and the jacket around the egg to keep her warm. Her?

  Ael blinked, looking at the egg. The egg seemed rger than before she had begun to have visions. Was her magic, Nereida’s magic, feeding it in some way? The chaos of their camp suddenly seemed less important. She checked the egg for damage, finding no cracks. The blue and grey marbling was far more pronounced now, more vibrant. Did eggs normally grow after they had been id? She wished she knew.

  “She’s okay,” Ael told her wife, gently handing her the egg. “Can you carry her until we can rig up a new shelter?”

  “I suppose so,” Nereida replied. “She’s not as heavy as carrying Egaz.” She looked around at the devastation. “We are going to have to move aren’t we?” Ael opened up her mouth to answer, but suddenly felt the need to turn around. She gnced over her shoulder at the ocean and promptly began to ugh like a madwoman. Nereida looked newly concerned, until she happened to look in the right direction. She burst into relieved tears, sinking into the wet sand.

  Red and white sails on the horizon. The Tooth was here!