As if released from unseen tethers, the ravens left their perches along the headboard and scattered throughout the chamber. Two hopped across the bed towards Goldenrod's bowed head, with one burrowing his beak under her hair to nuzzle at her cheek.

Goldenrod - Iralessa, Kelwas corrected himself - did not move from her place kneeling at the bedside. Head bowed, face hidden, key-hand weeping onto the sheets for her until she balled the sheet in her fist. Her brother backed away and hopped to the far side of the bed as her eyes met Kelwas. He almost raised a hand to shield himself against the full force of that gaze. It was as hollow and ragged as a cave with only howling wind rattling up out of its stony throat.

Kelwas wanted to comfort her, to lessen the blow of her father's words, but before he could herd his thoughts into any recognizable shape, she spoke and her voice was so lifeless and flat he imagined it would be the voice one heard drifting up out of the dark of an open grave. The sound of wind passing through bones.

"That is it, then." Her face was corpse-pale, serene and terrible. "Words, once said, unable--"

If thou could but wring water from stone, the old Lord had said, and this phrase reminded Kelwas of an old memory. Perhaps a rhyme his mother used to sing-song whenever he would cry. He could almost see her towering over him, a silhouette against the golden light of late afternoon, clapping her hands in rhythm. . . Something about across the ocean blue but the memory was slippery, wriggling away over and over again.

As Kelwas struggles to recall what might help Goldenrod reunite with her brothers, you are sure to have many questions. First among them may be: what of Rhud? Why introduce someone who only appears once and is not heard of again in the story? Well, what of him? Do you ask yourself the same about the harried matron, trying to comfort her squalling child, who you pass on the way to the market? Do you think she does not have her own story beyond that brief crossing with yours? To say nothing of her child, and why might they be crying? Is it because she would not buy them a sweet, or because they have not had even a crust of bread in the last three days? So it is with Rhud and the thread of his fate in this story - he appears but once, and in that ancient tale. However, know that among the wise there is little agreement about Rhud. Some say he imposed exile on himself to atone for his sins, others say he was cursed by the All-Father himself to wander the land for defying his wishes, but no one knows for certain.

Perhaps, you may say to yourself, he was the old king in the story and perhaps you are correct! Be warned, however: just as old Sirzei does not tie every thread he passes over his gums to the ragged webwork of fate, so it is with this story.

But set those questions aside, for an old, near-forgotten moment swam up from the depths of Kelwas’ mind. It had been a bright day, the first that hinted at spring to come and he but a small boy eager to run and play and burn away his frustrations at being shut in all winter, so he ran and played and slipped to scrape his knees, the palms of his hands - where bits of gravel had stayed buried well into summer--and he cried, oh how he had cried, hating it because he was convinced he had been far too old for tears, that crying was for little children, but then his mother was there, standing over him, her shadow large enough to blot out half the sky and she picked him up and cooed at him and smoothed away his tears, singing over his scrapes and no matter how big Kelwas thought himself he felt better and the tears dried up and even the pain - so very present and jangling through all his limbs, reaching his heart to ripple back out again - retreated as his mother blew ever so gently over his scrapes as she hummed and how did that song go again. . . Ah, yes it was 

Tears they fall from me, from you,

To flow across the ocean blue

For in our hurt we are not alone,

So weeps the great white stone

Long ago, split in two

It cries for me and cries for you

Goldenrod stared at him and after a moment said, "what was that? Please, sing it again."

Kelwas blinked, coming out of his reverie, unaware he had quietly sung the rhyme. He repeated it louder. Hearing the music, Wolf stood and crossed the chamber to lie near Kelwas - but not at his feet because wolves are proud creatures. After he finished, Goldenrod stood.

"I've seen it before, this stone," she said. She moved to the door, cooing at her brothers as she passed them. A few flapped and glided out onto the corridor, but little Krikhor perched on her shoulder. She gestured for Kelwas to follow.

They moved through a series of corridors, Kelwas falling behind because of Wolf. When they at last caught up, Goldenrod stood in yet another dim hall, faint light drifting down through swirling dust to fall upon a threadbare wall hanging before her. Woven into it was what Kelwas took to be a map of the Riverlands, here and there dotted with elongated figures in the midst of battle. Some atop equally gangly horses, others holding long curls he understood to be bows, yet others holding aloft banners, blowing horns, or pinned to the ground by spears, their small faces eerily placid. To the West, the whitecaps of the Great Dawning Sea were festooned with long loops of serpents which were perhaps an artistic flourish of those long-ago weavers, perhaps guarding the white island Goldenrod had raised a hand towards.

"This has to be it," she murmured, voice trembling with conviction. She glanced back at Kelwas, "Right?"

Kelwas dragged his gaze from her towards the tattered fabric and back again before mumbling some vague agreement. Understand that much like so many peasants who relied upon farming the land, the turning of the seasons was as part of Kelwas as his bones. So, instead of feeling a thrill when adventure crooked its finger at him, he could only think of his mother toiling alone, struggling but failing to bring their entire crop in for the season. Visions of Kelwas standing at the prow of a ship, salt spray kissing his upturned face jostled shoulder to shoulder with what he knew should be his obligations.

"This island is The Stone," Goldenrod said. "Because it is the resting place for the Stone, I suppose. Isn't that odd?" She turned to Kelwas, with a smile that faded when she saw the clenched expression on his face.

"I know I made you a promise," Kelwas said. "But I made an unspoken one to my mother, and without me she will not have enough to survive the winter."

"Winter?" Goldenrod's eyes flashed, and steel once more crept into her voice - an echo of the Lady she would become. "But that is still months away--"

"It is sooner than you think," Kelwas countered. At his side, Wolf's amber eyes moved between them. "Already, the north wind's breath frosts the ground at night, and our fields, small though they may be, require much work before the first snows come shrieking out of the Rimelands."

You may be forgiven for giving a long sigh, asking yourself and perhaps grumbling to those around you why Kelwas, the Brave Kelwas, the Strong Kelwas you know from your stories, hesitates at the promise of another adventure. You, who live swaddled by walls, by gates, by people, so many craftsmen and bakers and others who blunt the teeth and claws of the seasons. Yes, you may think Kelwas a dawdler and a fool for not rushing off like you imagine yourself doing, without considering how many obligations you may have surrendered to others. For Kelwas and his mother, there is ever too much work to do on a family farm before winter, and they depended on each other to keep the snows and cold at bay.

"So," Goldenrod said, like steel being drawn. She gestured at the dusty ruins of the hall. "You have seen my--our--need, and now you can abandon us?"

For the first time since they had met, Kelwas felt genuine anger towards Goldenrod. How could she think he would surrender her to Sirzei's rough and fumbling hands? He let his hot words cool before trusting himself to speak. "Of course not. You and your brothers are more than welcome to return with me."

Goldenrod's expression softened.

"Come spring, we can find a captain willing to sail there." He nodded towards the wall hanging.

Goldenrod's face thawed completely and she rushed into Kelwas' embrace.

"But we'll have to teach your brothers no stealing."

Goldenrod laughed into his chest amid her tears.

And so it was that on a morning in late summer, with the air sullen and still with heat, Kelwas returned home. Goldenrod would be a few days behind him, needing to prepare for the voyage. Then, she would whisper the charm that would preserve the ruined hall and her ailing father the way a gray-hair seals a brining jar. Kelwas sang a tune as jaunty as his pace, Wolf trotting at his side. He shrugged off the ruined hall's still, stale air like an old, musty cloak, glad to feel the sun on his cheeks and the wind caressing his hair. The very Wildwood seemed eager to see his back as well, the path leading him back home seeming wider, less tangled with undergrowth and old roots, and with a slight downhill slope.

Not long after, Goldenrod arrived, all her brothers save one with her (pity little Khrikhor, always left behind) - on the wing or perched on her shoulders - reunited once more. You may wish for a full accounting of those long summer days, but be content with knowing they were happy ones, but much like you - who can only point back and recognize when you were happy - they did not realize it at the time.

Very well - know then that they heaved together to finish the harvest, Kelwas helping Goldenrod with some of her tasks. His mother cooed over her hands the first week, spreading a bitter-smelling salve over her blisters and boiling rags for bandages for both, wrapping her key-hand and putting it into a sling. She even placed a cap made from an old feed bag over it. Goldenrod's brothers also did their part, though more often than not their attempts ended in raucous squabbles and plucked tail feathers.

Kelwas gathered the late summer apples with Wolf from the hunched little tree that grew amidst their fields. He also walked beyond their fields, to the very edge of the Wildwood to gather honey. Where another might swaddle themselves with thick cloth and weave something to protect their face from the swarm's fury, Kelwas soothed them with but a low song. He swung open the part of the trunk his father had hollowed out when Kelwas was a boy and broke off a piece of the comb. Inside, the bees merely clung to the hive, and the few he had shaken loose looped drunkenly around his head.

So, they celebrated the end of the harvest with a feast, and though you might not think it much if you had been given a place at their table, the roasted apples and honey and hazelnuts glimmered like a vein of amber in the firelight.

In the quiet before the stars came out, Mother told the lengthening shadows, “It was a night like this, all those years ago.”

Kelwas did not say a word and surreptitiously gestured that Goldenrod should do the same. He knew that if pressed, Mother would demur from continuing, claiming no one would ever trust her with telling a good tale.

“But now,” she said after a long silence, as if arguing with her past self. “I must — for who else is left to tell the tale?”

She reached a trembling hand out to Kelwas (who took it in both of his) but spoke to Goldenrod once she began the telling.

“No one’s trusted me with a good tale, and perhaps for good reason, but know that it was a night like this, with a fire like this blazing and roaring, and all the villagers smiling and dancing around the blaze and giving me sweets to eat and things to drink and other more substantial things. A sleeping baby carved from wood, smooth and pleasant in my palm, lengths of bright cloth and a soft, leathern sack clinking with jars. Gifts for the little bride, they said and lit their torches. Ah, ah, but don’t forget for whom they are for, others added, torches overhead as they followed into the Wood. Following my father as he led me deeper into the trees, I missed when the knot of villagers had frayed and dwindled down to the circle of light and Father and I at its center. By the time my thoughts had stopped swimming and I thought to ask where are we going it was just us. And soon even that would change.

“Here you go, Father said, lighting a spare torch from his. I can go no farther. You must continue on to Grandmother Owl’s house on your own. Stay on this very path, he continued, over my stuttering objections. I hadn’t even begun to feel afraid, yet. Daughter, heed me. You must stay on this path. Do not stray, stay on it until you see the peak of Grandmother Owl’s cottage, the faint curl of smoke rising from her chimney. Stay on the path and by all the locks of all the river saints do not let anything under heaven nor earth tempt you from it.

“But father, I began to say only for him to raise his voice.

“Heed me in this, daughter! His voice was harsh. To make her take you in, you must offer her the gifts we gave you as a dowry. Now, go on and keep on the path, he said as he pushed me in the direction he pointed.

“I will not linger on how Father convinced me at last to leave my childhood behind. That I had to do this at all was cruel enough. After some time, however, I did make my way slowly along what I knew to be the path. I have little memory of how I knew but perhaps it is similar to the how the geese know how to reach their nesting grounds on the far shores of Paradise. The farther into the Wood I walked, now footsore and exhausted, the darker and darker it became. Until the shadows caressed my cheeks and the very light of my torch seemed to shrink.

“Tears came, all the more frightening because of their silence. I didn’t know why I hadn’t seen Grandmother Owl’s cottage nor the curl of smoke rising from her chimney. I wanted to believe that somehow, I had wandered off the path and not what you certainly have guessed.

“What I cannot remember is how long I kept walking, walking, walking. Perhaps one night, perhaps several but the know that the darkness of my thoughts drew back as the sky grew lighter.

“The grey light of dawn found me still trudging along, with leaves caught in my clothes and dirt in my hair. That’s how the young boy foraging for deadwood found me and led me back to his family’s tiny shack and set aside my gifts and fed me and coaxed me back to fully into myself.

“That young boy grew to become your father,” Mother said, meeting Kelwas’ eyes. “Know also that it was a night like this, all those years ago that he left to forage. You would not remember it for you were too young, but it had been a very hard year, and you were so hungry — we all were. He even turned to wave at me before entering the Wood.

“And now, on this night —” her voice caught, whatever else she had meant to say spoken more eloquently by squeezing Kelwas’ hand.

Know that they comforted her, and promised to return. First Kelwas as he embraced her, and kissed her cheek; then Goldenrod joined, and even Wolf joined in his own manner. Know that they shared in that silence that follows communion: which is an imperfect silence, sometimes interrupted by small sounds of little consequence.

As the fireflies began to wink under the twilight sky, they all felt more than heard a clear chime tremble and reverberate within their very skin, and with it, a light bloomed over their fields. Like a star alighting, a Tziren emerged from the dazzle perched atop the old apple tree Kelwas and his mother and Goldenrod and even her raven brothers had eaten, steaming from the hearth with spoonfuls of honey.

Rejoice, our daughter, she said, and the sound of her voice was like the clear ringing of silver bells. Thy grandmother was made aware of thy need - here, the Tziren inclined her head towards the ravens, silver circlet flashing as it caught the last light of the sun - and sent me to guide thee.

She spread her wings, feathers the burnished copper of autumn leaves brightening to red-gold, and the warm evening, the tree, the very fields around them rippled the way reflections will waver when something disturbs the surface of the water. Suddenly, it was as if they could see past the surface and into the depths, so the apple tree - gnarled and hunched - was also a slender mast; the Tziren's circlet - gleaming with a cold light - was also the bright fire of the Seaward Star hanging low in the sky; her voice - faint and ghostly - came to them, telling Goldenrod her boon was a ship. The fields, bare hummocks shorn of their harvest, were also low waves, stretching far beyond what their eyes saw.

Just as the sun sets in the East, you know there are waters that run under this world. Despite this belief being decreed as heresy a century or more ago by Elizhar IV, Grand Hierophant in holy Mirdhras - may the memory of its temples live on - despite his calling for every priest to gird themselves as judge-questioners, a righteous army bent on the eradication of this belief from the faithful. For all the lowborn put to the question, the belief remained; an unseen current coursing beneath the worship of the All-Father. They run, full of their own ebbs and flows, eddies and currents, and even Sirzei must endure his threads being swayed this way and that. Istan the Elder called them invisible tides, and continued to do so even in the midst of his trial for heretical teachings. With every attempt to purify him by water, he resurfaced, spluttering and gasping out the same phrase. It is whispered that his final words to his judge-questioners were, "go on, then; you only return me to the waters that brought me here."

Rumor is, this very scene was the subject of Pallas of Qawaat's lost paintings: a ray of light falling upon the heretic's upturned face, held between his two judges - their faces turned away, unseen, perhaps weeping - Istan's son pleading from the shore, a crowd gathered on the banks behind him, and Istan's long beard trailing into the welcoming river.

Yes, you dare not speak of this, but if you doubt it, merely dig deep enough. What comes gushing out of that wound in the earth but water?

Like a phantom star only seen from the edges of your vision, the sandbar pointed towards the black waters beyond. A sleek ship was pulled up onto it, its sail furled and tied to its mast. A dark-skinned woman with her hair piled into a headwrap awaited them, her hand on the ship's hull. She smiled and bid them welcome. One of her front teeth flashed with gold, showing her allegiance to one of the Qen-Abari ship clans. They found the captain's gold tooth an oddity, and imagined she came from a land where gold must be so plentiful one might trip over it walking along the shore.

"Come then," she told them. "Come then. This tide, she will not tarry much longer."

And this was how they knew they must make their goodbyes, much quicker than they would have liked. Kelwas embraced his mother, and murmured his farewells, and though he knew not how long the voyage took, again promised, and then once again, to return before winter howled across the steppes. When it was Goldenrod's turn to lose herself in his mother's arms, Kelwas turned to Wolf and found him already sitting next to the captain, ready to go, his amber gaze eager.

"Come then," the captain said when they began to bundle the remains of the feast to take with them. "Listen to your Captain Xio, now. We shall have everything we need aboard The Spindle. Food and water for the voyage, all gifts. You need but say the word, and yours they are. Come along. Come!"

While she beckoned with more urgency, she, the boat, the black waters of the sea stretching away, growing faint, billowing as if painted on sheer cloth and the wind was beginning to blow. Understanding they must make haste, Kelwas approached the ship. He bowed to Captain Xio before they both set their shoulders against the stern and pushed it out into the waves. Once he was more than ankle-deep, he paused to first pull off one boot to toss it into the boat, followed by the other, before continuing. Holding the vessel against the current, Kelwas called for Goldenrod to jump aboard. This seemed to bring her out of a spell, and she waded through the water to clamber aboard. Wolf splashed his way towards the boat and leapt aboard, tongue lolling. Next, Captain Xio pulled herself up, leaving Kelwas to push them out until he was chest-deep when at last he heaved himself on board.

Kelwas raised a hand to his mother, who faded into gray with distance and the diminishing of whatever magic had drawn the shore of the great Dawning Sea and the steppes together. He was certain he saw her raise a hand in response before everything rippled again and they were alone, bobbing upon black waters.

Once farther out, after Wolf curled up next to Goldenrod and the ravens - tired of soaring alongside the ship - had huddled together in the forecastle, Captain Xio untied and unfurled the sail, shaking out the fabric. It shone as if woven from starlight and had a curious pattern woven along its edges. While easing the boom into place, Kelwas was convinced it was writing - until he looked directly at them. Then, the patterns squirmed out of his grasp and into incomprehensible shapes.

"The sail is made of talespun cloth," the captain said. "It will catch the wind, yes. But what pulls it taut and sends us scudding across the waves is your breath, spent telling a story. And what this talespun sail loves most are stories about its former master."

Behind him, Goldenrod asked the question on Kelwas' lips: "Whose vessel was this?"

"Old Gaunt," Captain Xio said. The lapping of the waves was loud against the hull, and her gaze grew distant. "Far and away, for to pursue the setting sun, across the waves went he," she murmured in a low sing-song. A gull's shrill cackle drifted down, answered by a croak from one of the ravens. Captain Xio blinked and the spell was broken.

"It's an old story," she said, flashing her lopsided smile. Behind her, the sails rippled and snapped as if catching a crosswind. "He falls in love with the sun, but she flees from him, running headlong to the very edges of the world where she at last falls to the ground, dead. There, a kindly old couple find her, put her on their sledge, which they pull over the edges of this world, across the pack ice, under the cold light of strange stars that shine upon the underworld, until she is returned home to her people again."

The creak of timbers passing through water surrounded them, and the low, mournful call of an albatross came to them from ahead in the night. One by one, the ravens near the forecastle had already tucked their beaks into their feathers, and Wolf dozed with his back against Kelwas' leg. Even Goldenrod kept nodding off. Every time her chin touched her chest, she would awaken with a glare, before her eyes slid sideways once more and it started all over again.

"That should be enough to keep us moving until dawn," Captain Xio said. "Best to get some sleep while you can," she told Kelwas. "Tomorrow night, you'll take a watch."

He lay with one arm behind his head, Wolf warm against his side. His eyes searched for Zhiblintza the Bear or The Albatross in the night sky, but the stars seemed strange with a lone moon peeking over the edge of the world. After a time, his eyes drifted and he must have dozed because when he next awoke, a huge pillar rose out of the sea to divide the sky, the full moon resting atop it. No - not a pillar at all. A statue, carven muscles milky in the light. Where its head should be floated the moon. Whether they sailed past it, or under the vast gateway its legs made was not known to Kelwas since sleep overtook him once more.