Princess Elodi's Arc

Chapter 31 of 55

The letter changed everything, but a letter could not carry Elodi across the sea. She walked the harbor the next morning and asked at every ship. Captains shook their heads. One old sailor spat on the boards. "Past the green water? No chart shows it. No man comes back." Elodi held her father's letter tight. Her father had sailed those same waters eleven years ago and never returned. Now she meant to follow him, and not one captain would take her. Evangeline found her at the last dock, worn down and quiet. Her mother's gold gown dragged in the salt spray. Once this woman had locked every door against Elodi. Now she stood on a foreign harbor, offered nothing but her own fear. "They all refuse," Evangeline said. It was not a question. "I lost your father to that water. I cannot lose you to it too." But her hands did not reach to hold Elodi back. They only trembled. "I have to try," Elodi said. "He wrote to us. He is out there." She looked at the gray line where the sea met the sky. "But there is no ship." A shadow crossed the dock. Wings beat the air. The griffin dropped down beside them, and Damon climbed from the saddle. He carried a bundle strapped across his back. He had helped her flee her castle on this same creature, over this same sea, when no other path was left. He grinned as if the whole thing were simple. "No ship needs the water," Damon said. He unrolled the bundle at her feet. Dried meat, bread, blankets, waterskins. Weeks of food. "I packed for a long flight. The griffin has crossed the sea before. It can cross it again, and farther." Elodi stared at the supplies, then at him. "You would fly into uncharted sky with me. Past where anyone has gone." "Another adventure, my love," Damon said. "I would have it no other way." Elodi turned to her mother. She saw the old panic rise in Evangeline's face, then die. Her mother had promised no locked doors. She was keeping that promise now, even here. "Go home, Mother," Elodi said. She took Evangeline's cold hands. "Sail back to Avalonia with your men. I will venture forth and find what I can. I will return to you with any news of him. I swear it." Evangeline held on one long moment. Then she let go. "Bring him back if he lives," she said. "Bring yourself back either way." Elodi loaded the food behind the saddle. She lifted the otter onto her shoulder and climbed up behind Damon. Below, her mother's ship raised its plank and turned toward home. Elodi did not need a captain now. The griffin spread its wings and rose over the water, past the harbor, past the last known shore, into the empty sky where her father had vanished.