A Sky of Spells

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Reece grabbed hold of the thick, knotted rope, leaned over the edge of the ship, and threw up yet again, as the ship tossed and turned on the rolling seas, as it had been ever since he left the mainland. He grabbed hold of the thick knotted rope and did his best to straighten himself. He leaned back and wiped his mouth, grateful that they were close.

Despite the summer month, Reece shivered. It was unforgiving here in the Upper Isles, at least twenty degrees colder than it had been on the mainland; the currents, too, were more turbulent, and the cool ocean spray hung in the wind, keeping him wet. It had been an awful journey, sailing into a driving wind, the boat carried high, then low, on the sea the entire way, nearly all of its passengers throwing up.

Reece did not know how they had made it this far, in this raging ocean, in this desolate place. It had not been a long journey, and yet it felt like years. There was something about the climate here, the endless, monotonous grey, that just put him in a foul mood. The damp cold had sunk into his bones, and he could not wait to set foot on shore and get himself beside a roaring fire.

Beside Reece stood Krog, also grabbing the railing, but not throwing up as the others. On the contrary, he smiled down at Reece.

“Looks like one of us has a stronger stomach than the other,” Krog mocked, grinning wide.

Reece caught his breath, wiping his mouth. Krog’s mockery made it all worse.

“I hate you,” Reece said.

Krog smiled wider.

“Why have you joined me on this journey?” Reece asked. “To help me? Or to torture me?”

Krog grinned, patting Reece on the shoulder.

“Maybe a little bit of both,” Krog replied.

Reece shook his head, overcome with yet another wave of nausea. He was not in the mood for Krog.

“I never should have saved your life,” Reece said.

“You’re right,” Krog replied. “That was your first mistake. Now you’re stuck with me. Loyalty dies hard.”

“You call this loyalty?” Reece asked. “You have a funny way of showing it.”

Krog shrugged and turned away.

The ship jerked, and Reece looked up and watched as they narrowly avoided a long stretch of rocks, then finally touched shore, the ship landing on the sand with a jolt. All hands rushed forward and dropped the anchor beside Gwendolyn’s fleet, then hurried to lower the planks and secure the sails.

Horns sounded up and down Gwendolyn’s fleet of ships, their unique pattern heralding the arrival of a member of the royal family, and on the shore below Reece could see, lined up, dozens of Gwen’s soldiers, ready to greet him in a show of respect. Reece noticed that Tirus’ people were conspicuously absent from welcoming him.

Standing before all the men, Reece spotted Matus, Tirus’ eldest, his cousin, the one person here he had remembered most fondly from his youth. He hurried forward, shielding his eyes from the mist and helping the others secure the planks, clearly excited for Reece’s arrival.

Reece’s men lowered the plank and Reece hurried down it, Krog and the others following; the wind picked up and sheets of rain poured down as Reece reached the shore.

Matus hurried forward and Reece embraced him, clasping forearms.

“Welcome, my Lord,” Matus said.

“I am not a lord,” Reece said, “I am merely a member of the royal family, as are you, cousin. Thank you for greeting me.”

Matus smiled.

“I would have it no other way. Srog asked me to apologize on his behalf—he was detained by an urgent matter at court and asked me to give you a tour first, then bring you to the castle—if you don’t mind my company.”

Now it was Reece’s turn to smile.

“I would have it no other way,” he said. “I wish to tour the isle first anyway.”

The two of them turned and set off, Reece walking side-by-side with Matus, all of their men falling in behind them.

They walked for hours, covering all the landscapes of the Upper Isles, the sun finally breaking through the clouds as Matus filled him in on everything. The two of them talked like brothers, and it all came back to Reece, how close they had been as children, how well they had always gotten along. They were each the youngest of their siblings, and each the same age, and each knew what it meant to grow up in an ambitious royal family.

They caught up on their childhood, on all the affairs of the MacGil families, and as Reece passed through various towns and villages, some childhood memories came back to him in flashes. He remembered playing in certain places, waiting for his father outside certain forts. He remembered, even back then, it being a cold, hard place, a climate he did not wish to return to.

As he went, Reece took in all the stares of all the locals, observed as much as he could, and noticed they were not all that friendly. He sensed some tension in the air.

“It is quite different being here now than it was when we were young,” Reece said. “When I was a child, there was harmony upon our arrival, a great respect and fanfare shown my father. Now, I observe a certain coldness in your people.”

Matus shook his head apologetically.

“I apologize for them,” he said. “You indeed have a keen eye. Our people are still upset about Tirus. They are humiliated about the failed invasion of the Ring. They are malcontents. That is their nature. They are an obstinate people. I am from here, and yet I still don’t completely understand them. Then again, I’ve never felt much like one of them.”

“No,” Reece said, appreciating Matus’ honesty, “you have always been more like one of us. Sometimes I think you were born to the wrong side of the royal family.”

Matus roared with laughter.

“I think so, too.”

They walked and walked and Krog followed, several feet behind, closer than the rest of the entourage, and Matus glanced back and gave Reece a curious glance.

“Who is your friend?” Matus asked.

Reece grimaced.

“He’s not my friend,” he said.

“You got that right,” Krog chimed in.

“I told you to wait for me at the ship,” Reece said to Krog, exasperated.

But Krog ignored him, continued to follow, one hand resting on his sword hilt and looking all about, as if on the lookout for danger.

“I intend to protect you,” Krog said.

“I don’t need protection,” Reece said, annoyed.

“I intend to repay my debt,” Krog said. “And I don’t trust these Upper Islanders.”

Matus raised an eyebrow.

“Is your friend always this suspicious?” Matus asked, glancing back over his shoulder.

Reece shrugged, annoyed but resigned to the fact that Krog was uncontrollable.

“He’s not my friend,” Reece repeated.

They continued on their hike, and finally crested a small hill. From here, down below, Reece spotted, not far away, a small lake in the hills. He noticed a woman, carrying an empty bucket, kneel beside the lake and begin to fill it up.

Reece watched her, curious. There was something about her which seemed familiar, but he could not figure out what.

Reece took several steps closer, examining her profile, wondering how he knew her.

Then, she suddenly raised the bucket, turned and faced him. She was shocked to see him, and she froze.

She stood there, and as her eyes locked on Reece’s, the bucket slipped from her hands, splashing at her feet. She did not even bother to look down it.

Reece could not have moved if someone pushed him. His heart pounded in his chest as he stared into those yes, losing all sense of time and place. They were hypnotic. They were eyes he knew, eyes that had been embedded into his consciousness. They were eyes he had, for many years, dreamt of.

Standing there, hardly a few feet away, Reece was shocked to realize, was his cousin. Stara. The love of his childhood. The girl he would stay awake for, late at night, dreaming of. The girl he had never forgotten. The girl he had secretly hoped to marry most of his life.

There she stood, and now, she had grown into the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

As Reece stared into her crystal blue eyes, however much he tried, he could not summon thoughts of Selese. All thoughts of the woman he was about to marry flew from his head. He could not help it. Reece was hypnotized by Stara.

And as she stared back, unmoving, her eyes perfectly still, crystal-clear, like the lake behind her, Reece could see that she was as equally hypnotized by him. Their love, the strongest thing Reece had ever felt in his life, so strong it pained him, had never died. It had never even faltered.

Reece forced himself to turn his thoughts to Selese, to their wedding. But standing here, before Stara, rooted to this place, all free thought was impossible. He was in the grip of something greater than himself, something he did not understand. As he stood there, he knew that fate had interceded, and that his life, and the lives of everyone around him, whether he liked it or not, was about to change forever.