Chapter 11: Bringing Him Down

The sea climbed the sides of the Hall barge.

The witnesses scrambled back from the rail with their notebooks clutched to their chests.

The anchor chain snapped with a crack, and the whole deck tilted.

"Stop him!" Caldrion shouted across the water.

He was gripping a mast with both hands, and for once nobody was looking at his smile.

"Ilsa, stop him! He'll drown us all!"

"You begged me to be your mage last night," Ilsa called back.

"Ask him yourself."

Caldrion's mouth worked, but nothing came out.

Tuva clung to his coat and sobbed.

Ilsa turned her back on both of them.

Oren stood in the bow of Bryn's boat with his arms at his sides and the gold light burning in his eyes.

The water rose around his bare feet in slow black coils.

It was not angry, she realized.

It was glad.

It was a whole sea, remembering its king.

"Bryn," she said.

"I'm not rowing into that."

"Then hold the boat."

Ilsa stepped over the rail and onto the water.

It held her.

It rose under her boots, cold and trembling, and she walked up to Oren and laid both palms on his face.

"Oren."

His gaze moved over her without seeing.

"Look at me," she said.

"It's Ilsa. It's me."

A shudder ran through him.

The gold flickered, and for one second she saw the green underneath.

"Ilsa," he said, in a voice like rough stone.

"I can hear every drop of it."

"Then hear me instead."

She went up on her toes and kissed him.

It was a hard kiss, open-mouthed, and he answered it.

He dragged her against him, one arm around her waist, the other hand knotted in her hair.

The whole sea gave one great sigh.

On the barge, three Hall witnesses forgot how to write.

"Not here," Ilsa whispered against his mouth.

"Take me home."

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