A tide of sippers scattered as she passed the threshold of the inn, where they had collected to feed at the edge of the ether leaking from the crack under the slops door. Several fell from the frame in passing, landing on her arms and shoulders. Saebrya swiped them away and slammed the door shut, again reminding her why she never spent the night at her friend’s home. Drunk or no, next time she would stumble to her own hut.
As she passed, the serving-wenches—who had been recruited to help Mum Omstead butcher a pig—gave her suspicious looks and Ryan’s mother nodded at her, the old woman’s gray hair becoming more white with every passing day. Someday soon, she would want to hand the establishment’s reins over to Ryan and retire. Saebrya dreaded the prospect, which would mean no more long days on the river with her. In fact, if she wanted to spend any time with him at all, she would have to give up her life in the forest and come help him run the inn.
Imagining that, remembering what Olea had warned about moving in, Saebrya got a sour taste in her mouth.
The rest of the village bore signs of Ryan’s presence, too. Strong silver spatters marked everything from the butcher’s sign to the netmaker’s hut. Because Ryan was essentially his mother’s gopher in town, paths formed of old splashes of molten silver worked their way down just about every road in the village, the ether in some of them thick enough to take up a downhill flow. Silver droplets new and old were in various stages of decay as the sippers congregated upon them, feasting off of Ryan’s leftovers.
Other people, too, had left gem-colored hints of their own presence—a drop here or there—but as Saebrya watched Ryan amble down the beach toward their boat, ether sloshed off of him in silver waves that soaked the ground and then drained away in rivulets. When he stopped to look back at her, the ether rolling off of him became too much for the ground around him to absorb and it began to flow down the beach, into the river.
“Cards day, right?” he called to her.
“Yeah,” Saebrya said. She snatched up her fly-covered bucket outside the inn’s back door and went to the butcher. Normally, seeing Ryan’s mother cutting up that week’s pig, Saebrya would have just asked for a few scraps from the carcass, but after the confrontation with Olea that morning, Saebrya just kept her head down and went to old Edwin Fael, unable to face the scowls of the two serving wenches that were helping her.
Upon seeing her, Ed took a deep breath of the crisp dawn air and let it out with a big, mustached smile. “Good day to catch some fish, eh, Saeby?” He was one of the few people in the village that treated Saebrya as a person, not some sort of scavenging, disease-bearing rat.
Saebrya glanced at the sky, giving it a good, long look. Edwin Fael leaned out over his counter, so he could look up at it with her.
“I don’t know,” Saebrya said finally. “Signs aren’t good.”
“Signs?” Ed said, trying not to sound too interested. Every fisherman in the village wanted to know how Saebrya consistently brought in the biggest catches of fish.
“The clouds,” Saebrya said, waving at them vaguely. She glanced down at the butcher’s table. “Waddaya got?”
Ed pulled himself back into his stall and took stock. “Well, butchered a sheep last night. Bannin’s girls got the intestines for sausages, but still got the head and tail in the top of the fly bin.”
“That’ll work.” Saebrya plucked the desired entrails from the stinking, fly-encrusted tub. “I’ll bring you a couple fish from the next catch.”
“Maybe someday you can take my grandson and I fishing,” Ed said. “Call it even.”
Saebrya grinned, despite herself, because the old man would doubtless spend the entire day trying to figure out how she caught fish. “That could work.”
As she left, Edwin picked up his meat-cleaver, the handle of which was smeared with earthy bronze droplets of Edwin’s ether, and jerked it in the direction of the inn. “And you make sure that boy’s mother feeds him some real food tonight, you hear? Fish ain’t good for a man his size. Send Alaine my way and I’ll give her a deal on some of that fresh lamb.”
Saebrya grinned. “I’ll tell her.”
Edwin Fael nodded and in a no-nonsense manner began to hack up a large, unidentified leg. From Saebrya’s limited knowledge, it looked like it could have belonged to a horse, but she couldn’t remember anyone in the village losing an animal recently.
Saebrya unconsciously stayed off of Ryan’s gleaming silver trail as she made her way down to their skiff. Already, a few larger sippers had converged upon the bounty, and she eyed them warily as she moved past. One of them, almost the size and shape of a dog, darted forth and snapped up one of the round many-leggers feasting on Ryan’s trail, swallowing it with jaws that were much too long and toothy to belong to one of the village mutts.
It stopped and stared at her with hot green eyes, and she could see it contemplating whether or not she was worth attacking. Saebrya lunged at it and the thing fled, scattering smaller sippers in its wake.
Ryan had been watching her approach with a worried frown. “Big one?”
Saebrya grunted and hopped onto the wooden skiff, dropping the scrap bucket in the stern alongside the coils of hooks. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
As soon as she was aboard, Ryan drew up the anchor and shoved off. Together, they poled their boat upriver, though, since it was cards day, they purposefully stayed away from the shimmering clumps of fish she could see plying the murky water—once a month, they took one day just to themselves and played chits, cards, slept, and talked, pretending the fish just weren’t biting.
Once they’d found a particularly barren spot, they dropped anchor into the gray, debris-choked current and began baiting their hooks. Once they were ready, they cast the lines out behind them, buoyed off of the river-bottom with little air-bladders Saebrya had fashioned from waxed leather.
“Still clear?” Ryan asked once the lines were set.
Saebrya glanced out across the river, located the nearest school swimming against the far bank, their bodies glowing a blue under the water, and nodded.
Ryan sighed and stretched out in the boat. “Wake me up when it’s time to go home.”
“Oh, no.” Saebrya nudged him with her foot. “You’re staying awake as long as I’m stuck here with you. You make twice as much of that stuff as you sleep.”
Ryan grimaced. “I’ve got a headache like you stuffed a chit in my ear.”
Saebrya considered telling him about the centipede that had been crawling up his nose, then decided against it. Ryan was easily unnerved if she wasn’t careful what she said. The dog-thing, especially, would have terrified him. Its jaws had been the length of Saebrya’s arms and slender, like the beak on a fishing bird. Jagged little teeth had run down either side, and the last two inches had been a snaggle-toothed forest of fangs.
Though she didn’t tell Ryan so, Saebrya knew it could have hurt her very bad. Perhaps even killed her.
“Suck it up,” Saebrya said. “You go to sleep and they’ll get suspicious.”
Sighing, Ryan pulled out the worn deck of cards he had bought on a trip to the Siorus Markets many years before. “All right, then. You gold or silver?”
“Gold,” Saebrya said. “Silver’s your color.”
“I hate being silver,” Ryan muttered, but he dug the little game set out from under the prow and handed her the gold-flecked marker anyway. They set the board between them and he began to shuffle.
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After a prolonged silence, Ryan said, “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”
Saebrya deliberately misunderstood. “Nobody’s seen any dead Auldhunds in a while, so whatever happened is probably over.”
“You know what I mean.”
Saebrya tried not to let her unease show. As far as she could tell, he still didn’t remember anything that had happened to him as a prisoner of an Auld one and a half months ago. He’d never even truly questioned her about what had happened that day, only taken her word for it and moved on. He just…believed her. As ridiculous and cobbled-together her haphazard story had sounded to her ears, Ryan had just accepted it without even raising an eyebrow and gone on as if the world had gone back to normal.
Even to this day, eleven years after she had first revealed her unusual visions to him in the burned-out remains of her family’s hut, Saebrya was still amazed that Ryan believed her. He had always wholeheartedly believed her, and for that, she was more grateful than anything else in the world.
He even believed that he was different than the others, though he never questioned why. Saebrya had cherished that little blessing, not knowing what she would say to him when he finally did ask. Or if she could even come up with a convincing lie, after knowing him so long.
“I wouldn’t say it’s getting worse,” she finally said.
“But there’s more of it. The…stuff…coming out of me. I always watch the way you move, and lately, it’s like it’s up to your chest when you come get me.”
She nodded slowly, unable to look up at him. Ether flowed from his hands, dripping down the fan of cards he held and onto the game board between them. Five years ago, it would have been a steady trickle. Now, the boat had overflowed the moment he had stepped into it, and it had spent the last hour gushing a silver waterfall into the river. Even then, she could see his silver ether flowing in the water behind them, diffusing into the river like the bloody chum from fish guts.
Gently, Ryan set his fan of cards down and said, “So what’s happening? Is my soul leaking out or something? Am I dying?”
Though Saebrya had considered this, she shook her head. She was pretty sure it had something to do with that day he’d appeared to her formed from the ocean of his own veoh, but he didn’t remember it, and the last thing she wanted to do was remind him.
“I don’t feel like I’m dying,” Ryan said, as if he hadn’t seen her denial. “I feel pretty good, except for the ale last night.” He started, as with an epiphany, and slapped an open palm against his broad chest, spraying shimmering silver droplets into the river. “You think it’s my heart? I’ve had palpitations recently.”
“You’re fine,” Saebrya said.
“Sometimes, when I’m with you, I feel short of breath.”
“Take up jogging.”
“My eyes play tricks on me. When I look at you, it’s like I’m staring at the sun.”
“Wear a hat.”
Ryan sighed and leaned back, sloshing more silver ether into the river. “I wish you’d stay over more often. I hate the idea of those things eating me in my sleep.”
“Play,” Saebrya said.
He sobered, reaching for her hand. “Saeby.”
She let him take it, feeling the dual sensation of its physical heat and the itchy rush of ether seeping into her skin. “I’m nineteen, Saeby.”
“So?”
“Men I grew up with already have three, four kids.” He released her hand and placed a card.
“Most of them are miserable,” she said, distracted by his play.
He spread his hands wide, flinging more silver droplets. “Not at all. Terrin’s doing great,” he said, mentioning Olea’s brother. “You should see him with his little girls.”
“No, Ryan. You want kids, go find yourself a wife.”
“I found one, thank you.”
Saebrya’s heart gave a stutter, but she schooled her features. “Not interested,” she said. She plucked a card from her hand and laid it on the board between them.
“Already talked to the priest,” Ryan said. “He said all I gotta do is drag you to the temple. Seemed real happy about it, that I’d make an honest woman outta you.”
Saebrya’s mouth fell open. “No way.”
“Uh-huh. He somehow came by the idea we’ve been doing all sorts of interesting things in the stables at night, and thinks it’s time I cinched the knot…” He returned his attention to his hand, laid a suitable match, and grinned. “Your go.”
Saebrya numbly tugged a card from her hand, stunned and a little anxious he had gone that far. “You wouldn’t.”
“Thinking ‘bout it.” He plopped down another card, along with another spatter of silver. “Hah. Take that. Six oaks.” He moved his marker forward on the board and took three chits in passing, which he dropped into his stack.
“Ryan…” she began.
“Your move.” His bright green eyes locked on hers. She felt her heart twist under the stare. Any woman in the village would probably crawl to his room on their knees if he gave them so much as a brow-wiggle of interest, but Saebrya had stalwartly refused to let him seduce her in the interest of keeping their relationship stable. Those barriers, however, were quickly crumbling.
As he dropped his cards to the tiny table between them and moved toward her, a hungry look in his eye, Saebrya realized she had to do something to stop him before she lost that little stability she had. She glanced around the boat, searching for a net that needed mending, a hook that needed baiting, a knife that needed sharpening…
His big hand slid into the small of her back and immediately she could feel the itching tingle of her skin absorbing the silvery stuff that flowed from him. Ducking, she quickly picked up a rag and began wiping pig blood from the inside of the boat.
“Look at all these spatters,” she said. “Gods, Ryan, you need to learn how to bait your hooks without throwing the stuff everywhere. Look at this.” She scrubbed harder at the spots, some of which were dried from many months past.
Ryan’s hand trapped hers against the side of the boat and he leaned into her, pressing her against the deck. Huskily, into her ear, he said, “I think that preacher’s gonna have visitors tonight.”
Her entire body was afire with ether and hormones, but the six-legged sipper that skittered across his face allowed her to refocus her attention. She reached up and plucked the palm-sized creature from his cheek, then flipped it into the water, where it floated away downstream.
When Saebrya looked back at him, Ryan was still holding her hand against the boat, but his eyes were narrowed. “You faked that one.”
“No,” she said.
“What was it, then?”
“I dunno. Beetle, maybe. Ant?”
Ryan slumped against her. “Saeby, if you had any idea how badly I want to be yours forever, you wouldn’t do this to me.”
“Yes I would,” she said, trying to push him away. The silvery stuff was seeping into her, just like it seeped into the ground, and it was making the weird mark in her chest feel uncomfortably like it was some sort of funnel, sucking it into her… Even then, she could feel it burning inside her chest, like extra-hard cider. Not painful, but definitely not pleasant, either. It felt like it was balling there, coalescing…
Ryan released her suddenly. “Believe me, you wouldn’t.” Sighing, he stretched his big frame out in the bottom of the boat again, propping his curly black mop of jet black hair against the prow. “My head’s still ringing like Kaer’s anvil. Wake me when it’s time to go home.”
Saebrya let him sleep, glad for the reprieve. Anguished, she watched the silver veoh seep from him, overflowing the boat, sloshing it with every breath. She knew that a man had needs, and while she had never had them explained to her, she vaguely understood they resulted in babies. And, while she liked Ryan, she was terrified of having his baby.
On the other hand, she was equally terrified of him getting bored with her rebuffs and finding someone else with whom to spend his time.
Torn, she watched the empty fish lines bob in the current behind the boat, weaving around the silvery discharge that Ryan expelled in even greater quantities as his breaths grew deeper and his body relaxed.
A massive part of her wanted to accept what Ryan was offering. The other part was terrified it would change everything. Olea’s confrontation in the loft earlier that morning had only confirmed it for her—she still wasn’t accepted by the village, and to become Ryan’s bride would be to bring him ruin.
As an orphan with no family and very little of value besides her gutting knife and her boat, Saebrya had nothing to offer him. Even the river cottage technically belonged to Ryan, since he had bought trees from one of the logging flotillas heading down the Idorion and had commissioned the carpenter’s sons to craft them into useable lumber for them. She had no idea what that had cost, but she had seen the envy in the inn’s kitchen help afterwards, so she knew it had to be a lot.
Hell, to her, a single spark was a lot. Every once in a while, Ryan would bring a spark along with whatever else he’d gotten for her catch in trade, saying one of the merchants eating at the inn had appreciated the freshness of the fish, and had given him a tip. He’d always bring those to her to keep for them in the cottage, since he felt she deserved it as much as he did. They were up to twenty-two of them, now. Enough, Ryan claimed, to move to the north and start a new life somewhere in the mountainous frontier between Ganlin and Vethyle lands, or even abandon civilization entirely and get lost in the Idorion.
Part of her—a huge part—ached to do just that.
Watching the ether flow downstream, she tried to suppress the nagging fear that had been tugging at her soul lately. Ryan had been a good friend her whole life…yet the relationship was changing. It had started with his kidnapping and the strange mark—spirals within spirals within spirals—appearing on her chest. Now, as much as she had tried to avoid it, Ryan had changed the rules on her. She knew that, sooner or later, when he realized she truly did not want to pass whatever it was she had on to another human being, he was going to turn to someone else, and the friendship they had built up for so many years would finally start to die.
It was as she thought about this, watching their bobbers in a near-trance, that she first saw the dark shape moving under the water. She frowned, sitting up to get a better look. Whatever it was, it was huge. Easily the length of the village, and weaving back and forth through Ryan’s discharge like a feeding predator. Her heart began to pound.
“Ryan,” she whispered.
He didn’t stir. Ryan had always been a heavy sleeper.
The dark shape moved closer, flowing under the boat. Saebrya held her breath, hoping it would keep going.
When the head surfaced at Ryan’s side and its faceted black eyes fixed on her, however, Saeby screamed.