Princess Elodi's Arc

Chapter 30 of 55

Elodi closed her stall at midday. She could not knit with her hands shaking. All morning the ship had grown from a speck to a shape on the water. Avalonian colors. She packed her wool, took Damon's hand, and walked to the docks. The otter rode on her shoulder, its jeweled collar bright in the sun. "You don't have to face this," Damon said. "I do," Elodi said. "I need to know who's on it." She did not know if her mother had come herself, or a rider who never got word of her release. They waited at the edge of the dock. Fog rolled off the sea and swallowed the ship. For a long moment Elodi saw nothing but gray. Then the bow broke through. Sailors threw ropes. The plank dropped. Elodi held her breath and watched the top of it. A woman stepped down in a gold gown. Her dark hair sat in a high bun. A crown caught the light. "Mother," Elodi said. Her voice cracked with confusion. This was not a rider. This was Queen Evangeline, who had promised no pursuit, who had set her free at this very harbor. Yet here she stood again. Evangeline crossed the dock fast. She took both of Elodi's hands in hers. Her fingers were cold and trembling. She did not scold. She did not command. Elodi saw fear in her mother's face, but not the old fear of losing her. "This came days ago," Evangeline said. She pressed a folded paper into Elodi's palm. "I could not send it. I had to bring it myself." Elodi opened the letter. The hand was not her mother's. She knew it at once, though eleven years had passed. She had last seen it on a note left by her bed when she was seven. She read aloud, slow. "My dearest love, I have made it to a beautiful land, past the salt, past a sea of green. I cannot wait to return to you and our little girl." Elodi's hands went still. Her father wrote this. King Erik, who sailed away one night and never came home. Who everyone said the bandits had killed. The paper was old but real. The ink had not faded to nothing. "Where did this come from?" she whispered. "A trader carried it across the sea," Evangeline said. "He said an old man gave it to him. An old man with gray in his dark beard." Her mother's voice broke. "Elodi. He may be alive." Elodi looked at the letter, then at the ship, then at the wide gray water her father had crossed and never returned from. She had built a home here. She was free at last. And now the sea held something she thought was buried. "Then we have to find him," she said. Her voice did not shake. She folded the letter and closed her hand around it.