Noxx's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Four days of travel brought them to a thin place in the air. The ground went quiet. Even the bat on Noxx's cloak stopped twitching. Vesper reined his pale charger to a halt and dismounted. He stepped toward a shimmer that hung between two dead trees. The shimmer was a veil, and Noxx felt it pull at her skin like cold water. Vesper raised his gloved hand to the veil and whispered. Noxx could not catch the words. The air split open with a sound like a held breath let go. Beyond it, water stretched flat and black under a gray sky. A great ship stood in that water, its sails dark and still. No wind moved them. No sailors walked the deck. Noxx did not move. Her black horse shifted beneath her, uneasy. She looked past the ship to the far shore. There, pale figures walked among lit windows. Some of them glowed. Some of them did not. She could not tell the living from the dead. Her hands tightened on the reins. This was his home, and she had never seen a land like it. "I want to turn back," she said. Her voice came out small. She hated how small. Vesper led his charger onto the ship's ramp. The horse's hooves rang on the wood. Then he hopped down and walked back to her. He did not pull. He did not promise the land was safe. "I was raised among these people," he said. "The dead here are not cruel. They are only dead." He held up his hand, palm open, the way he had opened the veil. "You frightened every lord in your father's hall. You are not someone who runs." Noxx looked at the open hand. She had chosen to come. She had crossed the veil for a man she picked herself. Running now would unmake that choice. The bat lifted from her shoulder and flew toward the ship, unafraid, as it had always been unafraid of the dark. She dismounted. Her boots touched the strange ground. She took Vesper's hand. It was warm, and that surprised her more than any ghost on the far shore. "If I hate it," she said, "I leave. You take me back." "I take you back," he said. "That was always the bargain." She led her black horse up the ramp behind him. The dark sails caught a wind that came from nowhere. The ship slid forward across the black water. Noxx stood at the rail and watched the veil close behind her. The pale figures on the shore grew clearer. One of them raised a hand in greeting, and Noxx, after a breath, raised hers back. She was in his kingdom now. There was no veil left to run through.