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Miranda closes her eyes and listens to the crashing waves, and in her veins she feels the tide of magic.
A soft swirl of grey lies over the horizon, darkening the endless waters below. Everything is soft, on the afternoons like this - the wind, the grass beneath her palms, the rustling of the olive trees in the copse behind her, the sway of the water as it rolls over the sand below the cliff. Her mother had always told her to keep an eye on the rhythms of the island - "even the wildest tempests have a path," Prospera had told a very small Miranda, keeping her eyes trained on her daughter as she carefully drew her knife across her newly-carved staff, "and any place will have a pattern, if you look for it."
Well, she thinks, most of the time, anyway. She reaches her fingers across the grass and feels the magic seeping up from them, teasing, testing. Mother had only taught her the barest amount of magic and sternly forbidden her to use it outside dire circumstances. But then, Mother had always been full of secrets. Shaking her head, Miranda draws up her hands along her body, drawing the power of the island into herself. Surely, she reasons, I'm old enough to deserve a few secrets of her own.
Miranda concentrates on the magic, tugging the wind just a bit to the side so that it blows less upon her face. It's not quite as difficult as pulling the fallen logs for firewood, which is the first task Prospera had set Miranda to when she first began to teach her daughter magic, but when Miranda has finished sending the wind a new direction she still lies back on the grass, breathing hard. Her legs are tangled beneath her and her neck barely pressing against a tiny stone, but it doesn't bother her. For all her mother speaks of seeing patterns and pulling them to your own will, Miranda has always been better at listening. The island speaks to her in a way she can't explain to anyone else, not even Ariel; it sang to her during storms and laughed in the light, and once, in the very deepest and darkest of dreams, it had whispered Sycorax. (That, too, was a secret she kept from her mother).
A prickle shivers up her back, and out of the corner of her eye - a shadow.
She starts and sits up - please, please not Caliban - but no, the shadow is too insubstantial to be that creature, or any of her mother's thralls. It descends from the copse of trees, a pool of darkness against the gentle midafternoon light. She stands and tries to grab it, but it throws itself over the cliff and skims over the water, leaving her hands clenched around a mist.
The storm follows right behind it.
Rain lashes across her face, the wind catches her feet and shoves her forward towards the cliff's edge. She falls to her knees, covering her head with her hands - if I get up she thinks wildly, will it be the wind or the magic that carries me away?
It must be Mother's doing, she realizes. But why? Mother has controlled the weather before, but more often she brings a gust to send away a ship that comes too close. This...this is unlike anything Miranda has ever seen her mother perform. At that moment, she would almost rather this be the return of Sycorax than have to imagine what her mother might be capable of. At least Sycorax would be something they had faced before.
The ocean churns with white peaks taller than the olive trees and swirling currents strong enough to tear through wood, and Miranda can feel the magic coursing through the water, sending the fish diving to safer depths. And there, in the midst of the waves - a ship, lurching and diving with each beat of the gale. She reaches further, and she can feel...humans, she thinks with a shock. They are human. They have hearts like hers and Mothers, rapidly beating; their voices reverberate in her ears through the magic, and they sound like not like the strange music of the island or the whispery chimes of its creatures but full and loud, and desperate. And they will die, she knows, if the storm continues this way. Humans are so much more fragile than magic.
She pulls from all of the magic she can touch, drawing the life of the island into her. Her heart pounds in her ears; every inhale brings in rainwater. These arts are strange and potent, Prospera had warned her, once when Miranda had accidentally called down a hail of stones while she was trying to build a shelter. They will throw you into the depths if they can, as a ship in a tempest. You must control them, not they control you.
But Miranda has never been one to exert her will upon others. When she releases the magic, it flows alongside the roaring gale and skims over the raging waters; try as she might, she cannot pull the elements from their course. She can no longer tell if the wetness upon her is sweat or rain or tears as she tries to send a breeze to catch one of the sailors from falling (there is something strange about him, about the heart she can feel in his chest, and she wonders if his voice is one of the ones she heard in her dreams).
With a final burst of effort she falls forward, catching herself on her hands and knees before she can tumble over the cliff. She squeezes her eyes shut and gasps for air, and even without the magic in her she can feel the echoes of the sailors' despair in the distance.
Shaking, she climbs to her feet, takes a few more weary breaths. Mother, she thinks. Mother is the one who brought this, and Mother is the one who must end it. And Mother, now is the time you will give me answers.
With a last glimpse at the ship, she turns and runs.