Princess at Sea by Dawn Cook

Author:Dawn Cook [Cook, Dawn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 9780441014248
Publisher: Ace
Published: 2005-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

Land was coming. I knew this. The first of my zephyrs had touched it, arching up like angels to heaven, racing over the top of my wind and falling back to tell me.

Land, the zephyr sang to me, my heart clenching in thrill. Soon I’d be free of the black voice that held me down, whispering promises of freedom after my task was done.

I told the zephyr that when I reached the land I would free it. But I lied. The wind was mine. I would never let it go.

The zephyr swelled into a frenzy at my renewed promise, and a surge of wind smashed into the already bulging sail. A cry tore from me at its ferocity. It was beautiful in its uncaring that it might capsize us. Water black from the as-yet-unrisen sun sloshed over the raft, soaking me. The voice and arms that had imprisoned me woke from his fitful slumber.

I chafed at his grip, and he frantically sent his fingers over the silken knots he had tied about us, keeping us against the mast after I had tried to wash us off the raft. The mast was humming with the power of wind and water. The thrum had burned in my blood all night.

The voice behind me sang, too, but his song paled beside the glorious ferocity of the wind pushing on my face in brutal gusts. I laughed, watching the swollen canvas slowly grow first white, then pink as the sun neared rising. The last of the stars were caught by the wildly shifting rigging, and they vanished from the bluing sky in shame.

But the land was coming. I’d soon be free of the black voice whispering in my ear of things I no longer cared for. But he had promised to let me go.

Stronger now, the first of the real wind touched upon the shore, sending a reverberation back to me, inciting a stronger force. My hair blew to hide my face, and the sail began to tear as it rebounded, and we raced ahead.

Soon. Soon we’d be free. The black voice had promised. And then the wind would be wholly mine to do with what I pleased. My existence was a rushing sound of wind and water, and the rays leapt around us, trying to become one with both worlds, the sea and the air.

Behind me, the black voice whispered. I hated him. I couldn’t hear the wind properly with him intruding. I wanted to hear the wind alone, to lose myself, but he was always there, an unwelcome rise and fall that hung and buzzed.

Sunrise was a silent thunder of heat. Red and swollen, the sun rose—my sly companion, my agent provocateur. It was where the strength of my wind was born. Silent, steadily moving, heating and cooling the earth and water to give my wind its power. The black voice holding me shuddered. He was afraid. I could smell it.

And then I saw it. An unbroken line took shape from the haze of sun gold clouds.

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