She lay blinking for some moments, then shifted stiff limbs and aching back—why aching?—only then remembering the blow that might have severed her spine if it had landed with all its force. She had fallen into the sea, tried to swim, but her legs would not respond. She remembered sinking … looking up to see the water’s surface from underneath, a long narrow shadow that must have been the galley, then deeper and deeper. Vague memories then of the light fading, fish flashing past in silver and blue, and other sea creatures staring at her. Then, in the dim green-blue light, a time of rest on soft mud. She could not have been breathing … but she did not recall feeling any distress.
What, then? Swimming? Walking? No, being pushed or pulled or carried or otherwise moved through the water.
Surely it had been too long for a human to stay alive underwater. But past the initial moments, she remembered no fear, no struggle not to breathe, no helpless gasp for air that filled her mouth with bitter salt water. Just peace and strange noises—squeaks and clicks—she had never suspected lay beneath the waves.
Perhaps a dream? But the pain in her back proved—when she put her hand back to feel it—a definite bruise. Surely she couldn’t dream so realistic a bruise. She sat up finally, the jewels she had lain on shifting beneath her, coalescing into a narrower and taller heap until she sat on a sort of chair. She felt weight pressing on her head, a rim on her brow, and, lifting her hands, met a familiar shape—the crown she had first seen in the hidden niche of her study.
“You,” she said aloud, her voice hoarse.
No words this time but a sense of joy.
From her seat, she looked up and down the shore. Sand nearby, a long stretch of it, but in the distance a headland of dark rock. Aside from the strange seat on which she rested, no sign of humans—no footprints on the sand, no sails on the sea. Inland, the sand rose to dunes, and behind that more dunes, and some distance away—she could not tell how far—rough rocky hills backed by higher mountains. No grass, no trees. Rock and sand alone and the jewels that now gave back the sun’s light.
“This is Aare,” Dorrin said. “And this is where you wanted to come. Give back your water, then, and restore the land.”
You. Your magery.
“I don’t know how.” Looking around again, Dorrin saw no sign at all of fresh water or anything that might be food. Though the sea might be full of creatures, she had no idea which were edible or how to find and catch them. For a moment that was funny—a woman brought up inland, in forested country, skilled with bow and sword, now alone on a sandy shore where none of her skills—or for that matter the bow and sword, if she’d had them—had use.
You go here.
Into her mind came a vision of a place and a sense of direction: inland, past those mountains, a void in the land wider than she could see across … rocky cliffs in different colored rock down to a lumpy, unlevel bottom … what a huge lake or inland sea might look like, she realized, without its water. Near the rim of it, the ruins of three towers and a tumble of fallen white stones around them. A thread of trail down, a flat place, a circle of something flat and pale. Sand? Dried mud? She could not tell.
The vision faded, but the sense of direction did not.
Queen of Water … bring us there.
While she sat there, the sun and breeze had dried her; her boots and her leather jerkin were still damp. But she had nothing in which to carry the jewels that made up her seat … and though a shirt had held the bones from the well, it would not hold these. And besides—she had no water, no food, nothing but the clothes she wore and the crown on her head.
Then the goblet from the set of regalia rose in front of her as the crown had done before.
Drink.
The goblet moved closer. She reached out, took it, brought it to her lips. Cool water eased her salty lips, ran down her throat … she only then remembered the frightening verse engraved in its rim. But nothing bad happened.
You are the Queen of Water.
Dorrin stood; the stones slithered down from the seat shape into a pavement beneath her feet that extended perhaps ten strides in front of her in the direction she felt sure was right. Well, then … she took a step; the jewels supported her in the sand.
“Won’t that damage you?” she asked, not entirely sure whom she meant.
You are the Queen of Water; you cannot hurt your element.
Dorrin walked forward; the jewels rustled along the sand on either side of her, moving to the front of the strip as fast as she walked. It was easier to walk on than loose sand. The regalia that had not attached itself to her—the crown to her head, the rings to her fingers, the necklace now draped around her neck—floated along on either side.