Luce sighed wearily and went on. There was no telling how long it would be before she could rest, though her tail muscles burned and her head swung heavily with the urge to sleep. The wind screamed as she surfaced again, and she strained to force her way against the current that seethed between the two islands in front of her. Billows of snow were falling, hissing like embers as they met the waves. Luce began to sing, trying to call a countercurrent the way she’d done before. If she could just make her way between those islands she might have a better chance of finding shelter.

The song-current came at her call, but this time it wasn’t strong enough. The thrust of the water was still carrying her backwards, and the towering waves lifted and dropped her again and again. Each time the blow would knock all the breath from her lungs, and her voice would die until she could manage to reach the surface and seize another quick inhalation. Luce realized she’d never seen a storm like this before. It was fierce and unyielding, intolerant of any effort she could make to fight it.

An ice floe pitched at her so suddenly that she had no time to duck out of its path. With a sudden instinctive lunge Luce threw herself on top of the white coarse surface instead, almost skidding straight off its far side before she managed to get a grip on the jagged edges. The floe was longer than her body and roughly triangular, tapering to an end narrow enough that she could wrap her arms partway around it. She gasped in relief. Wildly as the floe bucked, harsh and dizzying as it was to ride it like a raft, it was still wonderful to stop struggling with the water. She let her tail go limp, let her fins flop over the brink. Shooting stars of pain coursed through her muscles, and she felt herself shuddering from sheer exhaustion.

So many waves were crashing over her that there was no chance her tail would dry out, at least. She pressed her cheek against the ice and accepted that the storm was stronger than she was. It was senseless to pretend she could fight it, and she closed her eyes and surrendered.

Luce clung hard to her ice floe as it lurched on wildly through frothing darkness that could be either night or day. She had no idea where she was going.

∗ ∗ ∗