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nails digging into the railing. “Oh, Hyas ... name of Elua, let us come ashore!”
    He shook his head, locks stirring, fingers still outstretched at the sea and a crooked smile quirked his mouth. “I can’t, Phèdre, don’t you see? I don’t dare. You’re the only ones I’ve let get this close, and I wouldn’t if I didn’t trust you. Once you set foot ashore, the geis is invoked.” He bowed again, this time to Drustan. “Half the riddle is done, my lord Cruarch; you have wed Ysandre in love, Alban and D’Angeline united. For the rest...” He shrugged. “I will not ask anyone to take my place.”
    I was weeping open-eyed, the tears running heedless down my cheeks. As if from a distance, I heard Drustan say, “There was a storm that was no storm, ten days ago and more. What does it betoken?”
    “He is dead.” Hyacinthe’s voice was quiet, yet it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. It had never been so, in my memory. “The one you called the Master of the Straits. What you have seen is the passage of power.”
    “Then come!” I caught my breath, regaining control of my voice, and spoke fiercely. “Come with us! Let it be ended.”
    Hyacinthe smiled, and his smile was terrible, not reaching the dark-ringed abysses of his eyes. “Do you think I can?” he asked, and relaxed his fingers, making to step onto the surging waves that bordered us.
    All at once, the world lurched . I can find no better word to describe it. While we remained stationary, adrift on the waters, and Hyacinthe sought but to take a simple step, the very mass of the world itself shifted in a nauseating fashion. And in that few feet of water, something changed, opening; an abyss deeper and darker than aught in Hyacinthe’s eyes, a bottomless, sickening void around which my world suddenly pivoted and in its depths, a radiant and dreadful presence moved, a defiant, destructive rage. I thought, for an instant, that he had done it, had completed the step and bridged the gap between us ... and then the world righted itself, and I found we were adrift still, the abyss and the presence gone and Hyacinthe bent over double on the shore, gasping for air. He raised his haunted eyes, and his voice, when he spoke, belonged to the Tsingano lad I remembered.
    “You see ?” he panted, sweat beading his brow. “It cannot be done. Merely to try is like dying. I ought to know, I’ve done it enough times.” He straightened slowly, as if the motion pained him. “Let it be proclaimed,” he said formally, “since you have come, that the Straits have a new Master. Let it be proclaimed that all who seek passage will be welcome. The Cruarch’s truce holds. While Alban and D’Angeline find love in common, the Straits shall remain open.”
    “Hyacinthe.” I felt Sibeal’s gaze upon me and said his name like a desperate prayer. “Is there no way to free you?”
    He looked up at me, almost close enough to touch, and the sorrow in his eyes was ocean-deep. “I have not found it, Phèdre. Have you?” When I shook my head in wordless denial, he gave his terrible smile, fine lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes. “Then let all knowledge of my curse be buried and forgotten. If you love me, Phèdre, let them forget. For you see, I am still young enough and new enough at it to scruple at passing it on to any other. While my will holds, no vessel shall be allowed to land on these shores.” Hyacinthe spread his hands. “But I am getting older, you see,” he said softly. “The Master of the Straits was Rahab’s get, on a woman who was first-born to Elua’s line. I am not him, with three parts ichor in my veins to one part blood, to endure eternity unaging.” He swallowed, then, hard. “Let them forget. Then, when all I have known and loved has passed from this earth, when I am a withered husk, then when my scruples give way, I will have less on my conscience.”
    My dream came back to me with terrible clarity; the gap, the widening void of