Now the rushing, frothing and smashing of water were just whispers above her. Here the sea was quiet but no less strong. The current tugged her down. She saw figures in the water, garments floating around their still bodies and, at first, with a thrill of shock, she thought they were corpses. But their heads turned and they stared at her with large, black eyes. Fuathans.
Help me! she thought. But they just watched her. One with greyish mottled skin, like a seal, looked at her with pity in his face. Help me, Tarshruth, she thought, directing her message to him alone. He just shook his head sadly, his long seaweed-hair waving in the water.
She flailed, looking up to the light-speckled surface, her limbs growing heavier. She’d been under too long. She thought of her mother and her father as the Fuathans’ mournful, haunting song pierced through the water, a lament without words. She hadn’t been able to save either of her parents. She thought of Donnan and Mairi standing on the beach. At least they had each other. Tell me, Tarshruth, before I die, who did this? His thoughts began to form in her mind before they were cut down into inaudible, scattered fragments.
An involuntary breath and water cut into her lungs like knives. Pain. Her vision blurred but she saw Tarshruth raise his arms towards her and cold seeped through her chest. Like water but not water. Like ice but not ice. And then she felt nothing. She was numb. No more pain. Tarshruth nodded.
Something tugged at her neck and she thought that one of the Fuathans had taken pity on her and was trying to break her neck to let her die more swiftly. Thank you, she thought to the figure above her. But her neck didn’t break. Another arm grabbed her shoulder and she watched the figures of the Fuathans recede, gasping a ragged breath as her head broke the surface of the water. The patch of water surrounding her was oddly calm now, though the turbulent waves persisted mere yards away. The shore drew closer and soon she was clawing at shingle, coughing as she crawled.
Donnan lay beside her, panting, a rope around his middle. Arran and Aleas collapsed to their knees, crying in one another’s arms and Mairi stumbled towards them. Kaetha gripped Donnan’s arm. “This was dark magic,” she whispered. “Whoever did this wanted them dead. I swear, if I find out who it was, my face will be the last one they see.”
THIRTY
The Wreckage
The sea had drawn back now, lapping against the shingle with no memory of its former fury, no grief for the dead which it had swallowed and no concern for the living scattered along the beach, failing to comprehend what had just happened.
Did the silent ones keep their vow? Kaetha wondered. Or did they scream, curse and pray? She knelt, inspecting a patch of stones darkened by water. Her fingers numbed as they slipped over them. Ice, she thought, the magic left a trail of ice.
The gentle waves had brought five lifeless bodies to the shore. Just five. Hundreds must have drowned. Kaetha didn’t recognise the faces of any of them but saw that each bore a long cut on the cheek or forehead. She felt numb as she, Donnan and Mairi hauled the bodies further up the beach in a line and draped a torn sail cloth over them which had also washed up along with part of a mast. Oddly, covering the bodies up made them seem more dead.
Strains of the Fuathans’ mournful song echoed through Kaetha’s mind and, after standing for some time alongside the Murchads, looking out to sea, she felt tears running down her cheeks. Mairi removed Kaetha’s wet cloak, replacing it with her own, before she and Donnan walked Aleas and Arran back to their cottage. Kaetha heard their footsteps fade as she sat gazing at the sea but she knew she wasn’t alone.
“Did you see it happen?” she asked, without taking her eyes from a jagged piece of wood which had washed up onto the shore. Thin strips of metal were attached to it such as she’d not seen in a ship before. Even they had bent and snapped from the force of the wreck.
“I saw,” replied Tam.
“Whoever did this, I want to kill them.”
“Do you truly think you could, if you had the chance?”
“After this, aye. Aye, I could.”
He paused. “If there were any Fuathans here, they would have felt the magic as it happened. They might know where – perhaps even whom it came from. With your Air magic, you might be able to—”
“Hear their thoughts? I tried. I asked them who did it but they wouldn’t tell me.”
“You can send your thoughts to them?” He looked impressed. “Try again. Anything they say could be helpful.”
She sensed fewer Fuathans in the bay than there had been. Tarshruth, she thought, latching onto his familiar presence lurking in the water. I wish to talk with you.
I have nothing to say. His other thoughts whispered uneasily, edged with fear.
After you just watched my friends die and did nothing, after you were willing to let me drown, you owe me something. The least you can do is answer my questions.
They watched as a patch of the sea broke and the head and shoulders of the Fuathan emerged from the water. His skin was grey, white and brown, smooth like a seal, but shiny like the scales of a fish, seaweed hair fell lank and dripping over his shoulders. There was wary defensiveness in the expression of his sharply angled features. However she read guilt and sorrow in his eyes.
“You
