June

Issue 33

Sareck knelt in the water beside the still form of a young woman that lay upon the shore. The waves reached out, grasping at her toes, trying to claim her once more. Her hair spread out around her, woven with sea-grass and little shells. A crab scuttled across her open palm.

He wondered what her name was, where her kin lived. He reached out with a tentative touch. His fingers brushed her brow. So cold, like the frigid sea that had claimed her life.

Should he move her? Bury her?

A chill ran through him. Her body did not seem to fit among things of earth and stone. She seemed to belong to the sea, her skin the same white as the foam, the sand sprinkling her like diamond dust.

So he took her in his arms and carried her up the path to his little fisherman’s hut. It sat alone on the cliffs, leaning with the fury of the winds. The crooked door creaked as it shut behind him.

Sareck laid her on his pallet, covering her with a woollen blanket. Then he sat for a time beside her, unable to keep from watching her. She was softness and beauty. Like the brightness of coral, and the reflection of sunlight on water. He wondered if she was real.

He looked away, staring into the fire. His thoughts wandered, and he whispered prayers to the unseen Almighty. Prayers for the girl’s soul to cross the veil in peace. Prayers for those he had left behind long ago.

After so many years of being alone on these shores memories of Tiaya, his former home, were fading, like bright colors left too long in the sun. Whatever, whoever, he had been was lost the moment Silvia had been taken from him. His valor had not saved her, he had not saved her. What good was a knight’s standard coated in blood? He had no care for serving a king when all he breathed for was lost.

So he had come here, to these wind-swept shores across the gulf, an unlikely place to find a knight. The perfect place.