Last week she saw her face in a pool of day-old rain and did not recognize it. That was all she needed to say. That face – the long, gaunt face that had once glowed as bright and as soft as starlight, the expression that was once described as windows with shutters thrown wide open and now – now – said the rest.

For a long time she had sustained herself on the desperate logic of a cornered animal. Find Raistlynn. Make him take her home. Finish the ceremony. It was simple enough, she’d told herself, cultivating that little kernel of hope through the long days, the long nights spent searching; in her little girl way, she believed it because she couldn’t imagine an alternative. She was the Wild God’s Bride. She was Vesperborn, Daughter of Seven Stars and Dearest Ever Dreamt. Bad endings did not exist for girls like her.

But the days passed and still nothing. Her hair fell from its coif, grew dirty and coarse from lack of comb, lack of care. Her coat lost its shine the same way her jewelry did, dulled by a patina of weather and a bone-deep sorrow that followed her like a second shadow, that she dragged behind her like ball and chain, leaving tunnels in the leaves and the loam as she pressed on. She slept fitfully, always, and woke with a start at the crack of dawn.

(The night before, she dreamt of a crocodile. Terrible. Gigantic. Its smile framed her like a prison. The night before that, a storm, and the smell of fire.)

It was the sound of the sea that dragged her forward again, out from behind the thick curtains she’d pulled shut, the mourning veil hiding her eyes – she saw the sand first, and scrabbled backwards thinking she’d come to the Flats again – and then the big evening-dark bar, drawn against the horizon. The hiss of surf. The swell of tide and the call of – “Birds,” she breathed, raspy with disuse. Birds she’d never seen before. Water she never knew.

They hadn’t even had stories about it.

And it was there that Ultima saw him, stumbling out of the sea, as wobbly as a child. 

She watched him for a long moment, making her way down a sand bank and nearly tumbling as she neared the foot, her hooves unsteady, wings flaring briefly for balance. Naïve and sheltered as she was, Ultima had little fear of strangers; the concept of being harmed by another of her kind was inconceivable, even as odd a man as this one seemed to be.

“I say,” she began, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat, and louder, steadier, “What are you doing?”

command me to be well.

The stranger gawked for a minute. And then roared.

Her poll drew back on reflex, ears twitching apprehensively as his volume dove into a whisper.
What had he said? Had it been Common Tongue or something else? Dimly she wondered when she’d last spoken to someone, anyone; she’d seen others on her slow march through the countryside, and she dimly recalled their voices, but the sounds were distorted, as if heard from a distance. She shook her head as if to beat out the dust, tassels swishing on either side of her face, and thought back—

‘Helovia!’

Ah.

“They call it that, yes. I’ve no idea where th— God bless you,” she said, misunderstanding the words ‘chort fungus’, “—where the Edge is, but I’ve heard of it. I rather thought this was the Edge, actually. Looks quite like the end of things to me. Everything there is. Everything to come.”

Evening was rising, the far horizon flushed with the last dregs of sunlight. Without meaning to her head had turned towards it, her gaze skipping across the waves pulling, pushing against the shore. One stopped just shy of her foot and she danced aside, watching half-affronted as the water receded and shoved out again, closer each time.

Like the river, but wider – far wider than she could fathom. Or the goldfish pond, but scaled forward by a hundred times, a thousand even, likely even more – she couldn’t conjure up anything to compare it to that didn’t make her heart shudder and fold like a house of cards. Best not to try, she told herself, a little breeze coiling in her bedraggled mane, stirring the sun-faded locks. and with her third-most dismissive flick of the head set her sights back on the boy.

His coat was flaked with salt and smears of seafoam. Something green was clinging to his knee, and a lantern hung among the tines of his antlers. She supposed it was magic what kept it lit, even after clambering out of the wet – they’d had ones like that in the Wood, flickering as rain surged through the canopy but never quite guttering out.

The girl made a wry face, clearing her throat as properly as one possibly could. Brides don’t cry, she reminded herself, Ultima’s own haughty ghost flashing through her eyes, the distinct tang of pride on her tongue.

“I gather you don’t live here, then. In— That.” She paused, considering her options. And, childlike to the end, unafraid to ask questions, “What’s the word for That, do you know?”

command me to be well.

The boy’s head fell, and initially Ultima thought she’d said something offensive. But it was relief, wasn’t it? She blinked curiously at him and then glanced off across the sea, murmuring, “Think nothing of it.” The words put a strange taste in her mouth – shy envy, probably. She would’ve liked to change places, click her heels a few times and wake up in the goldfish pond with watercress in her hair. Alas.

“Ocean,” she repeated, testing the syllables, the soft hush of a transition that sounded like the surf’s hissing, sh sh sh. It was like secret-keeping, don’t tell or we’ll be caught! And it was like a lullaby, too, the light snuffing out with a wink in the west, only the halo of the boy’s lantern left standing. (And the stars. But even the stars were different here; she never wished to them; she didn’t know what they were saying.) Minerva used to sweep in before bed, regal as a crane, humming something phenomenally soft for an old bird with vocal chords like a steel file – now, lightyears away from anything familiar (anyone who loved her), Ultima rather regret saying as much. 

She laughed, a fairy bell ringing bittersweet in the blue dark.

“Oh, very far. I couldn’t even begin to say how far. There wasn’t any ocean there. We had forests, though, and a million songbirds, and a m—” The m drew out for a beat. “—ountain.” There was another little gust of air and she lifted her chin into it, tassel-threads brushing against her neck. Lost as she was, it seemed some things never changed: the night was wider but brought the same calm it always had, and the lantern’s glow lent it a certain warmth, a certain comfort. It felt like sneaking out after hours to watch the jasmine bloom, ducking behind the hedges and cursing her bright coat. She always came home late, fetlocks stained grass-green—

“But I suppose you’re already very late, aren’t you? Getting home?” Ultima turned on him very sharply, her rough little voice shot through with urgency. “Were you lost? Did you get carried away? Does that happen? … Often?” (She’d once been swept off by the river, not very far, but it’d sent the entire household into a frenzy. Cautious, she took a small step back from the rising tide.) “Golly, you ought to run.”

command me to be well.