Princess Willowyn's Arc

Chapter 45 of 70

The griffin carried them east for two days. Willowyn watched the ground for the grain road she meant to walk between two angry kings. She had planned to carry words. She had planned to share a toll. But when the pale beast dipped over the eastern fields, her plan died in her throat. The road was gone. Brown water covered it end to end. A river had swelled and broken its banks. It had swallowed the whole path between the kingdoms. Carts sat half sunk in the mud. No grain moved. No cart could cross. Willowyn landed the griffin on a rise above the flood. Kai swung down beside her. He had left his father's golden castle to ride with her, and she was glad now she was not alone. He stared at the drowned road. "They can't trade at all now," he said. "There's nothing left to argue a toll over." "It's worse," Willowyn said. She pointed to the two camps on either bank. Both flew war banners. "Each king thinks the other broke the river to starve him. I came to share a road. There is no road." Kai turned to her. "You held back a whole river once. You raised the sea into a path. Can you not send this water back where it came from?" Her chest tightened. She remembered the last time. She had held a river three days and fallen from the drain of it. But this was not war she needed to stop. This was water. Water was hers. "I have to try," she said. She walked to the flood's edge. The mud pulled at her silver hem. She raised both hands and reached out with her mind, the way Raven had taught her. She found the water. She felt its weight and its rush. She did not command it with anger or want. She held it with a steady, patient will. The brown flood shivered. Then it lifted. A wall of water rose along the drowned road, slow and shining. Willowyn guided it back toward the broken bank. She poured it into the river's true channel. Her arms shook. Her breath came hard. "Almost," Kai said. He stood at her shoulder. "I've got you if you fall." The last of the flood drained off the road. Wet mud steamed in the sun. The grain path lay open again from one bank to the other. Willowyn dropped her hands and swayed. Kai caught her arm and held her up. On both banks, the camps went still. Soldiers came to the water's edge and stared. The road they had lost was back, cleared by an elven girl in a silver gown. Then one king's rider crossed the open road at a gallop. He did not carry a sword. He carried a white flag, and he rode straight for Willowyn.