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.Ronan hunched his shoulders under the weight of it.“For how long?” he said wretchedly.“You’ll know.”Liss pulled down her sheaf of hair.The wind caught at it and the dark tresses fluttered loose.Ronan saw seaweed shining purple in her hair.Her skin was as white as polished shell and gleamed with water.She plucked a strand of hair from her head.“A boy such as him might be hard to find,” said Liss.“Just as it’s hard to find the wind, though it blows all around us.Hard to find and easy to lose.This will lead you to him, for all things, in drips and drops, find their way down to the sea.”Ronan said nothing.It seemed as if Liss no longer had any resemblance to a woman, had never had any resemblance to a woman.She was only shell and sand and water and glistening seaweed and her eyes held all the cold darkness of the watery deep.“And for you, a gift.” Liss opened her hand, and there, perfect and blue, was a pearl.“The sea wears away all things with a gentler hand than that of time, and this too will wear away one day.When it’s gone, Ronan of Aum, then you’ll find what you seek.”She stepped to the edge of the cliff.“Wait,” he said.“What is your name?”Liss stopped.A slight smile crossed the face of shell and sand and shifting water.“My name?”The wind hushed and the boom of the surf below ceased its restless return.Her eyes brimmed with moonlight.She opened her mouth and there came a whisper of sound like music, a strange music breathed through water and light and having nothing to do with human ears or human voices.Pain struck at Ronan.He staggered, desperate for the touch of earth or air, for all he could feel was water pressing around him, heavier than stone.It felt as if his body was dissolving into water.But he gripped the pearl in his hand with all his might and he could feel the strand of her hair wound about his fingers.Those two remained and did not change.The pain vanished.Liss smiled at him again, somewhat sadly this time.The wind sprang up and her form collapsed into foam that blew off the cliff and drifted away, down into the darkness and the sea waiting below.CHAPTER THIRTY-THREEHER NAME IS FEN“‘Ware the gate!”The moonlight shone on faces looking down from the top of the wall.A torch flared into life.“Who goes there?”“Lord Gawinn! Open the gate!”An excited murmur filled the air.Voices called out behind the gates and the portcullis creaked and groaned as it was raised.The gates swung open and spearheads gleamed in the torchlight.A young lieutenant hurried forward, his face beaming.Horse hooves rang on the cobblestones.Owain Gawinn and his men had returned to Hearne.“My lord,” said the lieutenant.“Welcome home.”“Thank you,” said Owain.“Have the horses seen to, and hot ale for the men.”“Very well, my lord.”The city was dark as Owain rode through the streets.A great weariness took hold of him.He had not realized how tired he had become over the last days.He’d be glad to have a hot bath and a decent meal.Sibb.The children would all be asleep by now, but she would be awake.Shadows, but he missed her.The puddles in the streets gleamed with moonlight.The wind sighed by and brought with it a flurry of rain.The air was cold and sharp and he wondered if winter would come early that year.“Tracking in the snow,” Owain said to himself.His horse’s ears went up at the words.“Those are the days you’d much rather be warm in your stable.Believe me.”High above them, on the cliffs overlooking the city, the regent’s castle loomed against the stars.Light shone on the towers and castle wall.He thought he heard the sound of music wavering on the wind.“Dinners and dances,” Owain said to the horse.“You see? We’ve been spared unutterable agony at the hands of the court.Smiling through those endless banquets until your face aches with the pain and pomposity of it all.Limping through the minuet with some fat cow of a duchess, making pleasant conversation while she stamps on your feet with all the delicacy of a stone-fed ogre.Not catching our quarry, sleeping in the mud and cold for days, and saddle sores—courtesy of you, my friend—it was all much more enjoyable.”The expedition had been certainly well worth the trouble.It was a beginning.It had yielded another thread, a thread to be followed in patience until the mystery had been unwound.Botrell would be forced to give the problem his attention now.His horse’s ears again perked up, listening for something.Owain eased back in the saddle.His mount slowed and then halted.Then, he heard the sound of hooves clip-clopping and a figure emerged into view in the moonlight.The horse and rider drew closer.“Just passing this way myself,” said Hoon
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