I ran back the way I came, tripping and stumbling as the ship rocked. Some of the women stared at me but were too frightened to be upset by my urgency or to think anything of it.

By the time I reached Nahara’s side, my knees were covered in scratches and my hands full of splinters from the hard, wood floor.

“Nahara!” I dropped down beside her and shook her awake. “Nahara, wake up!”

“Ingrith,” she scolded gently. “Ingrith, how many times must I remind you to call me ‘Mother’?”

“Mother!” I hissed. “Mother, you must get up. Men are coming to take away all the elderly women and throw them into the ocean. You must get up!”

“You’re talking nonsense, my lovely. What reason would they have to do such a thing? And I am not elderly.”

“They will think you are because you have white hair! Get up! We must hide!”

She sat up slowly and I pulled the hood of her cloak over her head to hide her hair, then tugged at her hands. “Get up! We must hurry!”

She seemed then to recognize the seriousness in my voice and let me help her to her feet. I led her as safely as I could to the curtain, and there we stood behind it, listening.

There were footsteps, at least three pairs of feet heading our way, and I shoved Nahara behind me, wishing desperately for her not to be seen.

Three men pushed aside the curtain, striding past us with big, heavy footfalls. They began walking, some crawling, through the pack of women, throwing back blankets and pulling away hoods. Ten. I counted ten elderly women that they seized and dragged with them to the curtain.

No one made any move to struggle. It was as though fear had left them paralyzed and frozen, and they allowed themselves to be bound. Only one, a young woman with hair the color of wheat, stopped them as they removed an old woman from her grasp.

“What are you doing?” she cried. “That’s my mother, leave her alone!”

“It’s for your own good,” the sailor informed her indifferently. “Don’t be hysterical. Let go.”

“No!” She dug her fingers into her mother’s arm and held on. She glared up at them. “I won’t let you hurt her!”

The sailor’s hand came down in a vicious arc and struck her across the face, leaving her stunned on the ground.

“Stupid wench!” he snarled. “Do you want us all to die?”

“Don’t hurt her, please,” the mother whispered to them. “Please, don’t hurt her, I’ll go with you willingly.”

“Mother,” the girl cried. Tears coursed down her cheeks and tangled in her hair. “Mother, you can’t! I—“

She didn’t have a chance to finish what she was saying. The sailors led their group of bound women toward the exit, and the girl’s hands were left grasping thin air.

“You!”

I started as one of them stopped and peered at me.

“She’s young,” one of the others whispered to him. “We’re not supposed to take the young ones.”

“Let me see that woman,” he commanded, and his silver eyes were daggers in my heart; just as frightening and just as sharp. “Let me see the woman behind you.”

“She’s not old,” I told them desperately. “She’s hardly fifty years. Her hair is only white because she lost her daughter some years ago—Stop! You mustn’t take her!”

“Move,” the man commanded sternly, shoving me aside.

“Caible,” his comrade hissed. “Caible, it’s alright to let one go. We have enough now to make a difference.”

“My order was to take all the old women up to the top deck, and that’s what I’ll do.” The sailor removed his hand from Nahara’s shoulder and rested it against the wall to steady himself as the boat rolled.

“But—”

I had a split second to decide what to do, and I didn’t. I didn’t think at all. I just gripped Nahara’s hand and took off running as fast as I could, the only possible way that there was to go. Up. Up through the passageway, up the stairs, and up into the nightmare of the top deck.

The sea was a monster. A huge, swelling beast with waves that climbed higher than houses, and waters blacker than soot. The wind whistled like a shriek in my ears and tore my hair across my face. The froth of the ocean that ate at the boat was susurrus and cold as it leaped like sparks to burn and touch my skin.

Above us, the sky was invisible, hidden from the clouds that cried and wept thick droplets of rain down onto the deck and blurred my vision.

I was petrified. Petrified and exhilarated.

I had never stood on the brink of such madness; such danger; such terror. And while it was frightful, it was thrilling.

The lightning that painted itself across the darkness vibrated in my veins, and for a moment I thought I would stand there, and I would die. Only I couldn’t die. I had never felt so alive.

We rose up, up, up, then came crashing down and I was thrown to the floor of the deck, Nahara tangled up beside me.

We were doused in water, soaked to the bone and blue from the freezing cold.

It woke me up, and I crawled painfully to where Nahara lay spluttering and coughing.

“Let’s go!”

I had to yell to be heard over the groan of the ship, as the masts creaked, and the structure moaned.

“Go where?” she cried.

“We must find someplace to hide!”

“From the sea or the men?”

“Both, if we can help it! Come, don’t stand up, crawl like me!”

We moved slowly, hunched against the wind, clutching at the wood beneath us to keep from sliding away.

There was nothing. Nothing at all.

What there might have been before had been washed away, and what there was now, was filled with water or rolling along the deck with us, but I refused to stop. I refused to look back. I refused to think that there was nothing to do because there had to be. I would not lose someone else.

“Stop!”

I heard their voices; I heard them struggling toward us, but I paid them no heed.

“Don’t look back!” I warned Nahara in front of me as she turned her head.

“You mustn’t look back! Keep going, we’ll find something!”

“I can’t.” She was gasping, and she slumped against the ground, white hair plastered wet and tangled across her face. “I cannot. I’m exhausted.”

“You must!” I grabbed a fistful of her dress and tried to haul her back up, but she remained where she was.

“Get up,” I begged. “Get up. Your daughter is asking you to get up.”

It was too late. Hands were grasping at me, and at her. Nasty, rough, uncaring hands. I kicked away from them, punching, biting, and screaming. Doing anything I could to keep them away from the woman lying limp on the deck.

“Fool woman! Do you want to be killed?” one of them cried as I raked my hands across his face. I felt the blood and skin curl up underneath my fingernails and two others caught my arms, pinning me down.

“It’s not safe out here!” one of them growled.

“I won’t let you take her!”

I felt that I understood the other girl’s feelings exactly at that moment. The anger. Anger at them, for trying to take someone precious away, and anger at myself for being so helpless.

I bit down hard into the fleshy arm of one of them who held me down and he let out a string of profanities, then slapped me, so hard my head hit the ground, and lights danced in front of my eyes like stars in the rain.

“Enough!”

Everything stopped. Everything except the rain and the wind and the water.

I turned my head.

Nahara stood tall, holding on to the edge of the boat to keep from being tossed back down. Her eyes were wild, dangerous things, and her hair, white as snow, snapped and whipped in the wind.

“You want me. Don’t hurt her,” she said, and though she only spoke, I heard every word, and my stomach filled with dread as I realized what was about to happen.

She smiled at me. No, she smiled at me. Me. For the first time in weeks, her eyes were clear, and the tears rolling down her cheeks were for me.

“I cannot continue,” she told me. “I cannot. You see that don’t you?”

I could see it, but I closed my eyes and became blind to it.

“No,” I said fiercely.

“I am sorry.” She turned and began to climb, first one leg, then the other over the side of the boat.

“Stop her!” I cried to the men still holding me down. “You must stop her!”

But they didn’t stop her, and I couldn’t. I could only watch as she turned her head to the side, just enough so that she could see me.

“Judeth,” she said, and I knew that it wasn’t only rain that wet my cheeks.

“Judeth, beloved; thank you. Thank you for letting me forget what I did. Thank you for letting me love my baby as I should have.”

Then she was gone, and I struggled to leap up, but they caught me and slammed me back down, my chin hit the deck and a boot pressed down between my shoulder blades.

“Nahara!” I screamed. I screamed it again and again because somewhere in my wild disbelief and horror, I thought she would come back if I only screamed her name loud enough.

“She will not answer you!” a voice shouted in my ear, and I hated the pity in it.

“Nahara—” My throat convulsed as I forced out a strangled sob, and suddenly I found that I no longer had the strength to struggle.

“Mother,” I cried, the salt of tears and seawater mixing on my tongue.

Whether she saw me or not, I would have given anything for a mother to take me into her arms.

Mother, why did you have to chase me away?

They bound my hands behind my back with a rough, thick rope, even though I had stopped struggling long ago. Then I was slung over the shoulder of one; the sharp hardness of the bone digging into my stomach as I let him carry me, limp, shocked, and wet, back down the deck; back down the stairs; back down the passageway and back into the hold.

Only after I was placed on the ground and made no attempt to run away, did they undo the rope.

There was an apology in their hands, I thought. They were guilty and felt sorry for me. One of them spread his own coat over my body.

It was disgusting. I wanted to lift my head and snap at their fingers, but I couldn’t. Every ounce of strength I had regained after the fever had disappeared, and I could only lay there and shiver as my rain and sea-soaked clothes clung to my skin, and the stares of strange women bore into me from behind.

I didn’t move. Not even when it was announced that the clouds were clearing and that the storm would soon be over.

It was too late.

It had already taken from me the only thing of worth that I had, and we could all drown now, for all that I cared.

The rest of the journey passed in a dreary cycle of waking, eating, drinking, and sleeping. Food was less than before, and even more so was water, but it did not matter. I was no longer hungry, or thirsty.

I took to laying still, closing my eyes, and trying to dream. I rested in a black mist that allowed no sunlight to penetrate it. A mist that only faded when it was announced that we were in sight of Seaggis.

I couldn’t help but feel my spirits lift when we were led above deck and stood underneath a darkening evening sky, and breathed fresh, cool air into welcoming lungs.

The breeze was warm here, and this made me realize how long I had been away from home. Spring was making its way to the continent.

My stomach growled at me, and for the first time since Nahara’s death, I felt truly hungry, and I looked forward to eating real food again. Food that had a taste as well as a texture filled my mind as it did my stomach.

From the excited murmurings of my fellows, I supposed that this must have been on their minds as well. The thought of solid land, grass, earth, and bedding drove away our anger and hurt.

I had been surprised at first to find so many had set their sights on Seaggis, but the surprise had faded over time. James couldn’t have been the only person on Sunah who thought of the small island as a safe place of refuge.

My heart clenched as I acknowledged that so few of them had made it to their goal, and a warm flash of gratitude and relief brought tears to my eyes as I finally accepted that I was not one of them.

I had made it. I was alive and could live.

Thank you, I whispered inside my head, to whoever might be listening. Thank you for keeping me safe.

The ship docked, just as night was falling, and everyone poured off it in a stampede. Some collapsed once their feet hit the sandy ground and cried.

Some prayed. Some kissed the earth they stood on.

“You’d best get off now,” a sailor told me gruffly, and I wondered if the sentimental scene had softened his heart. “Get off or we’ll be taking you back again.”

I closed my eyes.

Asetha’s warm little fingers took my left hand; Nahara’s slender, kind ones took my right, and James’s lips pressed against my brow in a kiss.

Go, I felt them whisper to me.

I opened my eyes and took a breath. Then I made my way off the ship and onto the sand leading toward the village behind the group in front of me. I never looked back. If I had, I would have seen my footprints trailing behind me in the sand; my first steps toward my new life.

“I am sorry, but I don’t have a place for you here, we’re packed full.” The seventh house I visited said the same thing, this time a woman; a mother holding two infants in her arms while three more children clung to and hid behind her skirt.

“I don’t need a bed,” I pressed. “Just some food and a blanket, that’s all I ask.”

“I am sorry,” she repeated, just as one baby began to wail, and, after giving me an apologetic bow of her head, she shut the door in my face.

The next was answered by a very tall man with a beard and head full of wild, red hair.

“Did you try The Stork’s Nest?” he referred to the inn I had gone to upon my immediate arrival.

“They were full.”

“What about Niamh Shaen? She’s taking in boarders.”

“Also, full.”

He frowned sympathetically. “I’m sorry, girl. The invasion has been driving many people here, and our island is small as it is. Most of us are hosting some already.”

“I understand,” I told him, though I didn’t. Was it that hard to give someone a blanket or a loaf of bread? Here especially, far from the reaches of the turmoil of war.

“Try the butchery. I don’t know that they got much room in the house, but they have a barn. Perhaps they could lend a stall to you. For a night.”

“Thank you.” I bowed my head to him and trudged wearily back in the direction he had pointed out. It had started to drizzle; not terribly, but enough to be irritating. Irritating enough that when I knocked on the door, I was fully prepared to demand a place to stay, if demanding was what was needed.

“I’m sorry to bother, but could you offer me a place to sleep tonight?” I asked the thin, vulture-like woman with a hair cap who met me on the doorstep. “Or something to eat? I’m just off a three-month journey by ship, and I’m starving.”

It was a butchery, so I felt it was safe to assume that it had a bit of food stashed somewhere. Most shops did.

She shook her head apologetically and my stomach sank. “The hearth’s taken by the dog; the bed’s taken up by my nieces; the other bed is taken up by my sister-in-law and the floor is taken up by me. I haven’t got room for you.”

“I couldn’t help but notice—” I stopped her from closing the door, holding it open with one hand, now desperate. “You have a barn. May I sleep there? Just for a night? That's all I ask.”

“I’m sorry. There are already three women sleeping in my barn, and two cows, a bull, a horse, and six pigs. I’d say yes if it weren’t that I should think you’d rather not be sleeping in the water trough.”

“Does it have water in it?”

“Can’t very well let my animals die of thirst, can I? But I’ll tell you what I’ll do.”

She disappeared for a moment and came back holding a blanket folded in her arms. This she placed in my hands. “It’s warm,” she promised. “And you needn’t worry. You’ll find a place. If you haven’t by tomorrow, you can stop by again and I’ll find something for you to eat.”

This time I let her shut the door and stood outside it, wondering where I could go next.

The drizzle had become a steady downpour by the time I had been turned away twelve times, and I was sure that it must be almost midnight if it weren’t past it already.

Now away from the beach, the sand had turned to earth, and I trudged through thick, dark mud in search of anything now. A tree, a bush. Something to keep the dratted rain off me.

The welcomely warm breeze from the evening had all but disappeared, and I could see my breath puff out in clouds.

I had reached the outskirts of the village. Giving up, I picked my way to the rock wall cutting off the houses from the sudden incline that began just outside it.

I wrapped the gifted blanket tightly around my person and sat down, hugging my limbs to my chest and trying to blink away the terrible fevered heat that crept like an insect into my head while I waited for relief to come in sleep.

I almost wished I was back on the ship, just to be out of the rain and have somewhere marginally dry to sleep.

“You couldn’t drown me when I was on the water.” I glared at the sky, feeling intensely resentful and full of self-pity. “So now you’ll try to do it while I’m on dry land. Have you no shame?”

There was no answer, and the rain only fell harder.

Sometime later I dozed off, thankfully. My dreams were uncomfortable, lonely, and confusing; full of the moans of the dying; the stiff, cold of the dead, and then the most beautiful sensation of warmth, and a cool, unfamiliar touch to my brow.