7. Maren
7
Maren
K ye and I walked the coastline two more days, pausing where the rocks sank into the water to sit on the edge and pass the fishing line back and forth.
For two days, our hook came up empty.
There was simply nothing alive in the channel. I was almost sure of it, though without diving in and searching myself, I couldn’t be certain. Each time we wound the line up, our eyes met, quiet failure snapping between us.
“It’ll be fine. Just be patient,” Kye said, though I caught the hesitancy in his voice. He began angling his eyes opposite the sea, and I wondered if he was looking for roads. If he’d begun doubting the decision to follow the channel.
The only thing I doubted was that the water could harm me. In the aftermath of my last swim, with my naked body pressed against his warmth, the sound of his plea in my ear, I’d strengthened all resolve to heed his warnings, even if they were unnecessary.
But I’d begun to crave salt on my body. My skin felt tight without it, as though by neglecting the urge to swim, I denied myself the ability to molt and stretch. The sea taunted me as we walked. Humming and crashing, the distant spray brought by wind wasn’t enough to satisfy the need to float and stroke and dive. The rumble of my hollow stomach didn’t help. The longer we walked on empty bellies, the more worry nestled between my muscles.
Could I let us starve, just to assuage him?
The channel stretched wide, disappearing into fog over the sea—shallow at first, but it deepened enough that the water grew black. I kept my eyes open for the indication of other Naiads, though I couldn’t imagine they’d live here in these frigid waters. If there was a colony here, their monarch would have already sensed my presence in their water. Walking the cliff line beside Kye, my hand often found the back of my neck, feeling for the prickled chill of spiculae . But my spine remained quiet.
Though it kept to a fairly straight line, the channel seemed to grow on and on. I tracked the points on the horizon where the sun emerged and dropped from view. I counted swells, memorized wind patterns. At night, I charted the stars. Kye watched in pensive silence, a wistful look in his eyes.
The land only grew more barren. Even the weeds had vanished.
“Don’t, Leihani,” Kye said. Finding the bottom hem of a freshly scrubbed shirt, he paused before donning it, gold eyes cutting mine as I approached the edge of a cliff to search for a meal. Fish, kelp, sea creatures—I had to try and find something .
Stomach growling, I shook my head. “We can’t keep this up. The channel killing me is a possibility, but starvation is a given. I can’t let us just die when I can do something about it.”
His jaw firmed, eyes darting over the vast, empty wasteland. “Following the channel was a bad idea.”
“Well, it’s not as though we had options,” I said, pulling my own shirt off in front of him with firm resolution. He crossed his arms, watching me in disapproval.
Layered under my clothes, my satin dress unrolled over my hips as my pants dropped. I hadn’t yet found a way to mend the ripped seam, which left a slit up the side to my waist, but it hardly mattered when Kye was my only audience—except that I’d left all my underthings on the beach at Cynthus Castle, leaving me effectively naked under the thin satin, a fact I often tried to hide with crossed arms and huddled knees. At least the dress made it easy to transition and hide my tail while swimming.
Kye’s eyes narrowed. “The channel is cursed .”
“They said that about Neris Island, too,” I mused, shaking warmth into my arms before they inevitably drowned in the cold. Preparing to dive, I eyed the water with scrutiny. Kye’s hand snatched my arm.
I made to shake him off, but he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze was fixed on the corner of the horizon.
Where a ship was slowly sliding into view.
My heart leapt in my chest. Kye swiveled, facing the fire, and began shoveling wet gravel into the flames with the side of his foot. I hastened to help, though the line of smoke rose into the sky over our heads, a direct beacon to our location.
Kye muttered a curse to Aalto, hurling his shirt away and swinging back to look at the ship again. Smaller than the one that had stolen us from the beach. Quicker.
Flagless.
My lungs seized as I contemplated the only type of ship that would sail so close to the cliffs without a flag. In a channel no ship entered.
“Run,” Kye said, slicing through my thoughts. He didn’t wait for my answer to pull me away, legs already churning in the opposite direction. His hand found the small of my back, pushing me ahead of him, and my knees locked as I scrambled to keep my weight over my feet.
Mother moon curse the day I became a stupid Naiad. I’d gone too long without fish. Within seconds, dizziness swept over me. My head spun from sudden running. A shake I couldn’t banish entered my hands, and I slowed for fear I’d trip over the rocks.
Kye stopped with me, his hand glued to my side. “I’ll carry you,” he said, already reaching to lift me up. But I stepped away, taking in the sight of him. His own hands shook, his face paler than it had been two weeks ago, his cheeks hollow.
“You’re fooling yourself. Come on.”
"Leihani!”
His voice was an angry hiss in my ear as I turned and hurried back toward the sea. My knees wobbled, too weak to run. I pushed them anyway, listening to the crumbling rocks under my toes as he caught up to me. Mihauna , I needed fish. Mercury, iodine, salt, something .
“What are you doing?”
“The water,” I said, pointing a shaking hand.
“We can’t go in the water.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” I snapped, stopping at the extinguished fire to pick up the pack. My arms had hardened to lead and I struggled to fit the straps over my shoulder.
He ground his teeth, taking the pack from me and sliding his own arms through the straps. “This is madness,” he said, eyeing the waves with glaring mistrust.
“Call it what you want.” I snatched the dagger and turned to face him. The ship slithered closer. Too close. Near enough to make out its bowsprit, its sails, the ropes hanging from its scuppers. The tide pushed it toward us, traitorous waves assisting in our doom. And it would be here any moment, aiming for the thread of smoke woven into the clouds above our heads. I held my breath, watching as men piled into a rowboat, turning its nose and racing our way. Kye’s eyes darted to the sea-faring vessel, then down to the water beating against the cliffs. He reached for me, opening his mouth in what I knew was a final attempt to lobby an argument.
I jumped.
Seconds flew. Wind rushed over my bare legs and arms. My hair streamed behind me. The sea rose to drink me in, catching me in a bath of icy salt and yanking me down into the cold. Water broke above, bubbles bursting in my ears as Kye followed me in. His knapsack somehow dislodged from the fall, slowly sinking away. He struck for it and treaded a moment, fighting the downward momentum from his own jump before finding my waist and kicking back toward the surface, human instinct directing him to the air above.
I grabbed at him, yanking him back down. But he just pulled me closer, aiming for the sky.
Frigid water stabbed at my fingers as I clawed at his chest. He reacted much the same, demanding we rise back to open air, but I climbed up his torso like a frantic cat, nails sinking into flesh as I scrambled to keep him under.
Stay below, you insufferable man.
His arm curved behind my back, locking me into place, and I felt him lengthen his spine to swim. But I’d reached his shoulders, my hands finding the groove of his neck, holding him into place as I met his mouth with mine.
His body froze. Light shot for us in thin filaments from the surface, shimmering in his hair, but he didn’t move.
Didn’t twitch. Didn’t open his mouth for my air.
I’d stunned the poor human into oblivion.
Could I coax his mouth open? Hand on his chest, I pushed him into the rocky wall behind us, bracing against the alcoves of cold stone, and wrapped my legs around his middle. My arms wound behind his shoulders, fingers knotting in his hair as I pressed my body into his, ignoring the heat that bloomed low in my belly, the electricity that fizzled down my spine, branching out through my muscles, a slow and impatient burn for more.
Come on, Lout. Open your mouth for me.
His heart thudded in his chest, louder under the waves. His arms still held me, a single thumb sliding a few inches across my spine, and I wondered whether he was confused or if something deeper stalled his response.
I trust you, Leihani.
Did he really? Would I trust me, were the roles reversed? I wasn’t certain I wanted to consider the answer. I nudged in closer, my mouth seeking the center of his, begging for him to let me in. His head slowly tilted to the side. Hands traveled up my back and through my hair, grasping the nape of my neck, and I squeezed my thighs, driving away any of the water that separated his hips from mine. Smooth, soft, his lips parted, the heat of his mouth calling my name, and I answered, as hungry for the taste of his tongue as I’d ever been for the taste of freedom.
I forgot the sea was cold. I forgot we were lost in Rivea. I forgot that somewhere above, a ship neared the rocky shore. All I knew was pinned between me and the underwater cliffs, and the world turned slowly around us, pirouetting on an axis only we could claim.
I’m not sure how long we stayed there, his kiss engulfed in mine. Long enough for his mouth to widen, for his tongue to sweep the surface of my lower lip, for me to recognize the taste of clean and minty rain on my palate. It was when he began to pull away that I realized he’d reached his limit, that the breath he’d been holding sought to escape his lungs. The world came snapping back. I sealed my lips over his and exhaled.
The breath I gave him was long. Deep. He froze, hands loosening from my hair, muscles slackening as his lungs expanded. I finally pulled away enough to look at him, finding his eyes open and dazed, and suddenly remembered how potent Naiad air was to human lungs. How it had left me disoriented not long ago. How the water in the sea had seemed to fracture and connect, foreign and familiar all at once. How, for a moment, I’d lost the ability to care that Nori and Olinne had dragged me under, or that Selena waited beside me to finish my first transition.
Kye blinked, watching with numb curiosity, almost as though he didn’t recognize me. I might as well have sung him a moon-damned song.
Guilt prodded the confines of my chest as my eyes searched his. Not dilated like a vacous’s , but wholly unaware. My finger grazed the scar on his lip. I swallowed, wondering if he’d remember the kiss. If he’d remember what was happening now. Or if my siren breath had stolen it from him forever.
I couldn’t decide which one I hoped against.
A shadow passed overhead, calling my gaze to the surface. The wooden keel of a small boat headed for the rocks.
Still pounding from the feeling of Kye’s mouth against mine, my heart thudded in my chest, pumping in my ears. The boat stopped, rough voices penetrating the rushing tide.
I should have tried to sink their boat. But I didn’t have the energy within me to call a wave as monstrous as I had when I’d sent Darkness’s Hourglass to the black depths of the sea. I didn’t trust myself to try—the risk of failing, of giving our location away, felt too high. The water cut through my skin with its icy grip, but we couldn’t leave its safety until we’d traveled far enough to purge the ship from our view.
Shapes dropped into the water.
Two of them. A blur of legs and arms amid a sudden gasp of bubbles. They swam for us, and I grasped Kye’s arms before I even saw their faces, wrapping them around my shoulders and settling my back into his chest.
Transitioning, I snatched our pack from the rocks and struck for somewhere south along the coastline, as far as my waning strength could take us.