Free Ashwalk Pilgrim by AB Bradley

 
    “I won’t let him have you,” she whispered. “Please, Six, Burning Mother, any of you, help me. I will finish the ashwalk. I swear I will. Just please, give me the chance. I’m at your mercy.”
    She waited for Kard’s rough, calloused grip. She waited to fall into the cold, unforgiving waters. She waited for the coral sharks to nibble at her feet.
    But Kard’s grip never came. No waters embraced her, and no sharks tasted her flesh.  
    Mara opened an eye. Kard still stood at the prow of his skiff, his two companions holding the oars behind him with trembling grips. No longer did the sailor have the confident, hungry glimmer in his eyes. No longer did his chest swell with arrogant pride.
    The color drained from his skin. “S—Silent son…” he stammered, falling back into the rowboat.  
    A shadow slipped over Mara like the boughs of a tree sheltering a weary nomad. Mara’s heartbeat thundered in her ears. She cupped her son’s head and slowly looked behind her.
    A towering figure stood upon the calm waters. A black drape covered the silent son from the crown of his head to the water’s surface, making him appear to grow from the Sapphire Sea as a tree grows from soil. Like all priests of the Loyal Father, he wore a pale mask where his face should be.
    He lifted an arm. A porcelain hand extended from the black. Its palm flattened before Kard’s skiff, and the boat gently careened away, picking up speed as it headed for the distant, open sea.
    The sailors paddled frantically. Kard yelled curses at them, his voice growing more panicked as the boat glided in circles toward the horizon.  
    Mara sat as a statue. She had never seen a silent son and only knew they served the Loyal Father. Neither had she ever seen an act of magic.
    Gathering her courage, she turned as calmly as she could toward the cloaked figure. “Did you hear my prayer?”
    The silent son said nothing. She knew he wouldn’t. Those of their order bound their voices to silence until death claimed them. Still, she had to try.
    Like a ghost, the silent son wafted toward her. He reached the edge of the boat.  
    Mara cowered in his shadow. “Please, don’t hurt me.”
    He extended a hand sculpted from starlight and reached for her. She winced and closed her eyes, pressing her son against her bosom.  
    “Please,” she whispered.
    A touch soft as silk and light as a feather caressed her jaw. She opened her eyes, and they met the expressionless stare of the silent son’s mask. The man’s long fingers traced the curve of her jaw and stopped at her chin.
    He cupped her cheek and squeezed so gently, she almost didn’t notice. Straightening, the silent son grasped the lip of her skiff. He pushed the boat, and it glided toward the shore as if the vessel skated over ice.  
    The silent son shrank against the dark table of the Sapphire Sea. A few moments later, he disappeared, and the skiff came to rest upon Sollan’s rocky shore.

CHAPTER SEVEN
Sollan

    Alone on the edge of a raucous tempest of revelry, Mara stepped from Olessa’s small rowboat and onto Sollan’s rough and unforgiving shore. So many crowded the docks the land seemed to sway with the drunken dancing of men and women working their way through foaming mugs of ale or tin cups sloshing with saltwater gin. Multicolored ribbons and banners of Harvest Festival fluttered above the packed and winding roads leading deeper into the city.
    Mara trembled and wrapped her arms around her son. The city had always been so close. She had often dreamed of visiting. Yet standing on the dark shore, staring at the streams of bodies laughing and rocking to the rhythm of drums and mandolins, she wanted nothing more than to crawl into the sky and paddle back to the House of Sin and Silk.
    Despite her fervent searching, she spotted no children with knives or villainous scoundrels licking their teeth within Lower Sollan’s shadows. “Sollan’s not evil at all.”  
    She smiled, the spark of her