Free Moonkind (Winterling) by Sarah Prineas Page A

winding around dunes covered with long, dry grass that hung limp in the still air. He followed the path, the setting sun glaring over his left shoulder, breathing shallowly to keep out the stench that hovered over the mudflats. He walked and walked; the path led on; the sun squatted on the edge of the sky.
    He stopped and looked out, shading his eyes. The sun had been stuck in that spot since he’d arrived. It should be night by now. He shook his head and went on.
    At last, the path came out on a wide stretch of sand. Squinting, he saw, way down the beach, a huddle of dark shapes. People, it looked like. He set off across the hard-packed sand. The sun still sat on the horizon; no wind blew. The sound of his boots scuffing on the sand sounded loud in the silence.
    Finally he reached the people. They watched him come, wide, dark eyes in dark faces, then turned their heads again to stare out at the faraway sea.
    They were seal-people. They had long, plump bodies and short arms and legs with webbed fingers and toes. Sleek, brown fur covered their earless heads; the men had spiky whiskers around their mouths. They sat close together, as if taking comfort from one another.
    The seal-people were wildling, he realized—their Lord’s broken oath was turning them into wild creatures that would soon forget that they’d ever been people. Their land was dying before their eyes. They were unbound and adrift, and they were feverish and frightened.
    They might be too far gone to answer his questions. Awkwardly Rook stepped closer and crouched next to a seal-woman. “Has your Lord been here?” he asked. His voice sounded rough and too loud.
    The seal-woman looked at him. “Our Lord has gone away.” Then she turned her head again to stare out at the sea.
    Rook found himself staring too, and shook his head. The air was so heavy here; it made his thoughts slow. If Fer was here, she’d brew some sort of medicinal tea to help the seal-people, but there was nothing he could do for them.
    The seal-woman turned her head back. When she spoke, her words were slurred, as if she had almost forgotten how to talk. “The sea comes in,” she said forlornly. “The sea goes out. Then it comes in again.” She gazed out over the mud. The bloody sun was reflected in her eyes. “Then the sea went out and it never came in.”
    She was talking about the tide, Rook realized. The sea washing in and out according to the movement of the moon. The seal-people were waiting for the sea to come back. If the tide went out and never came in . . .
    It meant the Lord’s broken oath had broken something in his land. And it meant the Lord had abandoned his land and his people.
    This land was stuck. The coming and going of the tides, the turning of the moon—those things were changes, part of the rhythm of the land. Because the Forsworn would not change, their lands wouldn’t change either. Maybe all the lands of the Forsworn were like this. Abandoned, dying.
    He looked out over the mudflats; the smell of death washed over him again. The seal-people sat, hunched and unmoving. Waiting. They would be dead soon too.
    He needed to warn Fer. As a part human, she was the force of change in the lands. If anybody could do something to save the lands of the Forsworn, it was she.
    But he’d been away from his brothers for too long. He needed to see them first.
     
    Lately the pucks had made their home in a huge tree in a forest made up of other huge trees. Just the cracks in the bark of those trees were deep enough for a puck to hide in; the trees themselves were a hundred paces across, and so tall, a puck could climb up them all day long and never reach the top, and if he did, he’d find strange creatures and plants living on those high branches, and maybe strange people, too. The land of the tree-giants was rainy and damp most of the time, the ground covered with ferns and pine needles. A good place for sneaking, because no footstep ever made a sound.
    The tree his