The Tidebound
Prologue and Chapter 1

Prologue — The Square Stone

The ship struck something that had no business being so square.

Wren saw the corner through the water as the hull rolled over it: pale dressed stone, a groove cut clean along its edge. Then the deck rose and threw her against the rail. Her cup broke at her feet. Tea ran between the planks while, overhead, loose rigging swung the lantern out above the sea. Its flame lit the hollow of a wave before the glass shattered.

She caught the rail with both hands. The ship settled against the corner, splitting timber somewhere beneath her boots. A rushing sound came up through the deck. She looked down for the water.

Across from her, the scholar was still gathering his papers.

“Leave them!”

He looked up with a page stuck to his cheek. Ione: she had learned his name that morning, after he refused a second blanket and sat shivering under the first.

“They’re charts.”

The broken chest slid toward the gap in the rail. He tried to pull clear, but its splintered corner had hooked his belt. Wren let go of the rail to reach him.

The man in the soldier’s coat was nearer. He caught Ione beneath the arms, stamped through the rotten lid and dragged him free as the chest tipped overboard. Papers scattered around his boots. Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow; he blinked it away and looked over the side.

“Steps. Below us.”

Wren reached the gap. The ship lay across a drowned wall, with white ledges one above another on its sheltered side. Foam uncovered the nearest, a short drop below the deck, then covered it again. Beyond the wall the water was black.

“Can you stand?” she asked Ione.

“Perfectly.”

His left foot turned beneath him. The soldier took his weight before he fell, and Wren ducked under his other arm.

“Keep off that ankle.”

“It isn’t broken.”

“Then don’t put your weight on it.”

They tried to move him together. Her foot slid; Ione dragged against her shoulder. Near the stern, men were shouting over a boat caught in its lashings. Wren called to them and pointed down at the ledge. One turned toward her. She was still trying to catch his eye when the mast cracked and a sweep of rope drove the men to their knees.

“One at a time,” the soldier said. “I’ll take him. You follow.”

He lowered Ione through the broken rail until his boots touched stone. The scholar clung to a square post. The soldier dropped beside him, leaving room for Wren to swing a leg over.

The next wave took the rail out of her hands.

She struck the water chest first. Her boots scraped the wall without finding the ledge. A hand caught her wrist and held her there until she could get a knee onto the stone and haul herself against the post. All three bent over it while the water passed across their backs.

The soldier was speaking into her ear. She could hear the voice before she could make out the question.

“Your name. What’s your name?”

“Wren.”

“Corin. Hold him here.”

He put her hand on Ione’s sleeve. Ione had shut his eyes. In his other fist he held three pages, crushed so tightly she could not have taken them from him without tearing them.

Corin edged past the wreck with one hand on the wall, testing each place before he trusted it. Beyond the ship the ledge widened. Lamps ran along it toward the island.

“Can we reach those lights?”

Wren looked north, where the harbor should have been. Its lamps stood high for approaching boats. These were low, throwing their light straight down onto the wet stone.

“That isn’t the harbor.”

“Is there land beyond it?”

“There should be.”

Another wave broke across the ledge behind them. Corin looked back at it, then toward the lights. “We’ll try.”

Ione put his foot down. The sound he made was small, but his hand closed hard on Wren’s shoulder. He would have to walk along that ledge. She could see Corin reckoning the distance with the weight of another man on him.

“Wait,” she said.

She knelt in the post’s lee and loosened Ione’s boot. The swelling bulged over its edge. She eased the leather away, set her fingers around the joint and called warmth into her hands.

Nothing came. Her hands were cold; she could not finish breathing out before she needed air again. When Ione moved, her fingers pressed too hard. She rested her forehead against his knee.

“A moment. Give me a moment.”

His hand settled on her shoulder. Corin braced his shield against the next wash of water. Neither asked how long.

At the tide chapel, she had practiced with a bowl balanced on each knee. Spill one, begin again. Her teacher could wait all afternoon beside a girl who thought she was being kept from useful work. Wren remembered the weight of the bowls. She let the air leave her slowly and kept her hands where they were.

Warmth gathered. Beneath her fingers the swelling eased, and Ione’s grip on her shoulder loosened.

“Lean on me first,” she said. “Now try.”

He lowered his foot, cautious this time. A little weight, then more.

“Better.”

“It needs rest.” She fastened the boot as loosely as she could. “This will have to do.”

Corin lifted his shield away from the post. Under the nearest lamp, something moved.

Wren knew shore trolls. In daylight they turned wrack with sticks, looking for anything the tide had left. This one wore a copper chain around its forearm, green links ending in a heavy fish hook. She had taken its shoulder for part of the lamp post.

A second rose behind it with a bow. The three pages slipped out of Ione’s hand.

“Those lamps weren’t marking a harbor,” he said. “They were marking us.”

Corin drew his sword. “Stay together. We get off these stones together.”

With Ione against her left shoulder and the wall behind her heels, Wren had nowhere to give him room. Over the first troll’s shoulder she could see the arrowhead; she heard the bowstring draw.

“Down.”

She pulled Ione with her as the arrow broke against the post. Corin met the hook with his shield and shoved the wrecker toward the water, its bare feet scraping stone. Ione reached past Wren and sent blue light into the archer’s chest. It struck its post and dropped out of sight.

For a moment they had room to move. Wren looked up to judge the distance to the next lamp—and stopped at the flame. It stood straight inside an open frame. The rope above it thrashed; Ione’s wet hood snapped against his cheek. She tried to think what such a still flame meant, what she should tell Corin.

The hook caught his shield before she spoke.

He twisted free, but the troll took his sword arm in its other hand. Wren struck its wrist with her staff. The fingers did not open. It turned its teeth toward her, pulling Corin with it, until he drove his shoulder into its chest and forced it back.

“Keep moving. Past the next post.”

They gained a few yards. Behind them the burned archer crawled onto the wall and reached for its bow. Ione kept a hand raised; whenever light gathered there, it ducked. Wren looked beyond the lamps for the shore.

There was the inn.

Its roof stood against the last pale sky, one upper window yellow. She knew the room behind it. She had slept there when storms made the chapel roof leak, under blankets Maren complained were too good to lend. Tonight there would be a fire in the kitchen. Maren would be cutting bread.

“Across the water,” Wren said. “That’s home.”

Corin followed her pointing hand. “How far along the wall?”

She searched for the place where it joined the land. The roof was so clear she ought to have been able to show him the path to its door.

“I can’t see.”

“Stay close, then. Watch your feet.”

At the next post she braced Ione while Corin backed toward them. His sword hand had dropped. Blood ran over his knuckles and washed pink in the spray.

A third troll approached with a shallow dish, spilling white grains over its fingers. It stopped behind the wrecker and bent its head to mutter. The archer jerked upright. Its burned chest drew together under the smoking cloth.

Ione’s hand wavered.

“Can you stop that?” Corin asked.

“If I can reach it.”

Corin put himself between Ione and the hook. “Wren. Now.”

She covered the cut on his forearm. He kept the arm still for her while the skin drew together, then raised his shield as the troll with the dish flung a handful at them. Corin turned his back to her, pulling her under its cover. Grains rattled against the painted face.

The noise stopped. Wren looked past him. The water had left the ledge.

Weed lay flat on exposed stone. Beyond the wall the sea drew away from the wreck, uncovering the square corner beneath it. She heard water dripping from the hull. Even with Ione breathing through his teeth beside her, she could hear each drop.

“The water.”

Corin looked out. The surface was lifting.

“Run.”

Ione managed two steps before he caught her arm again. Behind them the ship shifted off the corner and struck the wall. The stone moved under Wren’s boots.

From beneath the ledge came a voice.

No words: a note she could hear through the crashing water. She looked down for the person caught there, among the weed. Ione tugged her sleeve.

“Wren.”

“Listen. There’s someone—”

Corin reached for them. The wave rose above the broken bow and took the sky. Wren saw his open hand, the white scar across his thumb, and tried to put Ione’s wrist into it.

Water hit her waist. The hand, the sleeve, the wall were gone.

She went down among the splinters, kicking toward the pale surface. Something caught her skirt; she dragged a heavy boot free and struck stone with her shoulder. She tried to push away. The water turned her, hiding the light behind the wall.

Her fingers found a groove in the masonry. She pushed them into it until her nails bent, trying to hold herself in one place long enough to find the way up. The groove was too shallow. The current peeled her hand away.

Her chest heaved. She knew that movement. She had felt it beneath her hands while trying to help other people breathe. She clamped a palm over her mouth.

Her body took the breath anyway.

The sea came in.

She fought until there was no strength left to fight with. Her hands opened. The current eased and carried her through the dark without striking anything.

The note continued.

Far above, or far below, a yellow window moved slowly toward her. She could not tell whether it belonged to the inn or to a house beneath the sea.

Then even that light went out.

Chapter 1 — The Kettle

Maren found them on the lower steps, with gulls gathering around their feet.

Wren woke to the birds calling above her. Something tapped the stone beside her ear. Her cheek hurt; her throat hurt more. She tried to raise her head and retched seawater onto the step.

“There,” Maren said. “On your side. Let it out.”

Wren recognized the voice before the hand reached her shoulder. On the crossing she had pictured stepping onto the dock with the cloth-wrapped parcel from her bag. Maren would pretend it was ordinary tea, despite complaining for years that the mainland sort was the only kind worth brewing.

The parcel was gone.

She was lying on the inn’s lower steps in a tangle of rope. Beside her, Corin sat with his back against the wall, watching his own hands. Ione was folded over his knees, hair dripping down his face. All three wore their boots.

“The ship,” Wren said.

Maren eased the rope from beneath her arm. “Later.”

“There were people—”

“I have people looking along the shore.”

Wren tried to stand. Her legs failed almost at once.

Maren caught her under the arms. Her hair was pinned in its usual knot. Wren stared at it while she tried to get her feet beneath her. On the ship she had imagined sitting across from that face, telling Maren about the crossing.

“Every dawn,” Maren said, “the sea leaves something on my shore. Driftwood. A boot. This morning, three of you.”

Corin looked up. “Thank you.”

“Breathing, too. That’s the good kind.” She shifted Wren’s weight. “Kettle’s on.”

There were four steps to the kitchen door. Wren counted them because each required a separate effort. In the kitchen, the same iron pot hung over the stove. Someone had repaired the crack in the window with a strip of blue glass. The table was scarred with knife cuts, the long deep one from the winter Maren had attempted to split a frozen fish without thawing it first.

Maren put Wren in the chair nearest the fire.

“Home at last,” she said, quieter. “Bring your friends inside before they freeze.”

The others had followed them to the doorway. Corin helped Ione inside. Ione’s ankle seemed to bear his weight now, and he eased his arm from Corin’s grip. Corin kept looking at the fire.

“Your coat,” Maren told him.

He looked down.

“Unless it’s sewn to you.”

He began to unfasten it. His hands were trembling. Wren had seen him hold off the troll on a strip of stone narrower than this table, and now he could not manage a button. She reached to help. He turned away before she touched him.

“I’m all right.”

Wren withdrew her hand. Maren put a blanket around her shoulders.

“All right can dry by the fire with the rest.”

They took turns behind the pantry screen, peeling off wet clothes while Maren fetched dry ones. Ione emerged in a patched shirt and trousers rolled twice at the waist. Corin’s borrowed trousers stopped above his ankles. Wren pulled on an old wool dress she remembered seeing on Maren.

The tea was too hot to drink. Wren held it against her chest, waiting for her hands to stop trembling. Across the table, Ione was watching the window brighten.

“How long?” Corin asked.

“Since I found you? Half an hour.” Maren took up the bread knife.

“Since the wreck.”

“The ship came in at dusk. It’s morning.”

Ione put his wet hair behind his ears. “All night.”

Maren began to cut the loaf.

“We weren’t floating,” he said. “We were under it.”

The blade stopped in the bread. Wren looked away from it, toward Corin. His eyebrow had bled all the way down his face on the wall. A narrow pink scar lay above it now. She turned her own hands over. Where the staff had torn the skin beneath her fingers, there was nothing to show him.

Ione saw. He drew his leg beneath his chair without a word.

Maren finished the slice and put butter on the table. “You’ll want that. It isn’t getting cheaper.”

Corin stood. The chair scraped hard enough to make Ione flinch, and Corin stopped with his hand on its back. He lifted it clear of the floor, set it straight and asked the way to the harbor.

“After you’ve eaten.”

“I need to see it now.”

Maren held his gaze, then pointed left. “Follow the gulls. Don’t believe anything the Salvager tells you about docking fees.”

He went out in the borrowed trousers with a piece of bread still in his hand. Wren started up after him.

“Give him room,” Maren said.

“He hasn’t a coat.”

“He can come back for one.”

Wren sat. Come back: Maren could say it so easily. A man could walk out of this kitchen and return when he was cold. Wren held the cup closer and tried to let that be all it meant.

“The stone we struck was worked,” Ione said.

“Yes.” Maren laid another slice on the board.

“A wall. Not a reef.”

“There are several.”

He waited until she looked at him. “What was there?”

“Morrow,” Wren said, before Maren could answer.

She knew the name from the chapel, from candle observances and a question that had made her teacher turn the page of an old account. Older islanders fell silent about it when the tide reached the inn steps. She had always put it with things that happened before anyone she knew was born.

Maren nodded.

“That’s underwater,” Wren said. “You mean the city?”

“Before my grandmother’s grandmother was born.” Maren set down the knife.

“I’m asking where we were last night,” Ione said.

Wren looked at him. He had left the bread she gave him on the edge of his plate.

“On its wall,” Maren said. “That much you’ve seen.”

“And beneath it.”

Maren pushed the board toward him. “Eat before it goes hard. The gate opens down into Morrow. You can look at it when you can keep your feet.”

Ione did not reach for the bread. Wren waited for him to ask how the gate could answer what had happened in the sea. Instead he said, “Which gate?”

“The old one. Far end of the island.”

Wren could remember its weedy joints and the worn steps beyond it. They had raced past on the way to the chapel. She could recall the scolding for running better than anything through the arch.

“It goes down now?”

“It always went down.”

Maren was gentle with the correction. Wren searched her face for the patience she remembered from childhood. It was there; so was something that made another question difficult to ask.

Through the window came Corin’s voice at the dock. He wanted a ship, a sailing date. Each question narrowed the one before it.

“Something down there still sings at dusk,” Maren said. “I’d like it to stop.”

Ione tightened his fingers on the cup. Wren heard the note beneath the fire’s crackling and lowered her tea to the floor before she could spill it. Maren watched her do it. She did not reach to help.

“Out on the water. You heard her too, didn’t you.”

Her. Wren looked up, but Maren had turned toward the kettle. It had stopped steaming.

“A voice,” Wren said.

“Yes.”

“Whose?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

Wren waited. Maren kept her eyes on the stove.

***

By midday the searchers had brought back a broken tiller, two sailcloth bundles, and a passenger’s shoe. Nobody else had reached the inn.

Corin met them on the beach. Wren watched from the inn door while he helped carry the bundles above the tideline. He searched the shore afterward, walking with his eyes on the water, until the wet hem of the borrowed trousers had turned dark to the knee.

Later a runner reported sailors found breathing in the far cove. Other survivors had reached the fishing steps. Wren tried to follow, but Maren caught her elbow. The chapel had blankets, she said, and people to tend them. Nobody could give a full count yet. Corin went back to the beach. Wren held the doorpost and watched him until he passed out of sight. She tried to count the people she had seen by the ship’s boat. She could remember only the man who had turned toward her.

Ione’s chest was gone. The three pages he had dropped lay on the kitchen sill where Maren had spread them to dry. Ink had run through the paper in blue-black veins. He worked at the edge of one sheet for an hour, lifting it a little, laying it down whenever the paper beneath began to come with it.

Wren brought him bread. He moved his elbow for the plate without looking away from the sheets.

“Can I hold that end?”

“It’ll tear.”

“I can see that.”

He stopped. Then he made room for her at the sill. She held the lower sheet while he tried the corner again. A tiny triangle came away between his fingers. He put it back where it belonged, though it would never join the page.

“Leave them,” he said.

Wren took her hands away. Ione stayed at the window a moment before coming to sit opposite the bread. He broke off a piece, turned it in his fingers and set it down.

“I was told something in these waters holds the tide at a fixed height.”

“By whom?”

“People who write books from the safety of rooms without a view of the sea.”

It was the nearest he had come to a joke. She sat opposite him.

“That’s why you came?”

“It seemed worth seeing.”

His eyes went to the sill. Wren thought of the ship’s passengers and the stone beneath its hull. She reached toward his hand. He tucked it beneath his arm before she could touch it.

“You couldn’t have known.”

“That’s a convenient distinction for a scholar.”

She left her own hand on the table. After a while he took up the bread. Wren ate too, keeping him company without asking him to try the papers again.

Corin stamped water from his boots at the door. He was still wearing the pair he had worn on the ship. The sea had brought them back too.

“A fishing boat comes through when the weather turns,” he said. “Possibly.”

Maren was cleaning a lamp at the far end of the table. “Possibly is a popular schedule here.”

“The man on the dock said there was work below.”

“There is always work below.”

“For enough coin, a boat could be hired.”

He folded Maren’s borrowed coat over the chair and smoothed it. Wren watched him check the empty pockets. He had no fare to offer the fisherman.

Ione looked toward the gate beyond the kitchen window.

“If we’re going to be here,” he said, “we ought to understand where we are.”

Maren set the clean lamp down. “You don’t owe me a descent.”

Wren looked up at the exhaustion in her voice. Even in the long winters, with half the island needing food, Maren had seldom sounded so tired.

“This is home,” Wren said. “Whatever’s happening below, I’m not leaving it to you.”

Maren reached across the table and straightened the fold in Corin’s coat. There was nothing wrong with the fold. She did it twice.

Then she stood.

“Well,” she said. “You can’t go in those trousers.”