8. Maren
8
Maren
T wice, I caught sight of aquatic plants—only to swim closer and realize they were shield weed. My jaw hardened as I stared at them, defeated. They grew in narrow rocky crevices, too small an opening for me to reach in and snatch out. I couldn’t have eaten it, anyway. But Kye could have.
Even to my Naiad eyes, the seascape under the channel was alien. Dull water lay stacked in layers rather than a smooth transfer of color and light. The sides of the channel, like the countryside, were barren rock. Devoid of fish or wildlife. Stone walls dropped off into underwater cliffs and the light failed to reach the seafloor below, leaving the bottom black like a gaping hole.
I avoided looking down.
Born on an island surrounded by blazing volcanoes and turquoise water, I’d never realized how tortured the cold was. It had always seemed as distant to me as the stars in the sky. But now I knew—it was more than numb muscles and a slow skeleton. More than pins and needles along my skin.
I waited until I was far enough south that I could no longer see the ship, towing Kye along the rocks until I found some low enough that we could use to climb to shore. Then guided his hand to the corner of a ledge worthy of a decent grip, watching as his head met the surface, the sound of his lungs filling with air an unexpected relief in my chest.
He blinked water from his eyes, lashes wet and spiked, then turned his head to look at me, as alert as he’d been before I’d breathed for him.
I hadn’t transitioned back into my human legs.
It was one thing to let him witness water calling or to confess to my ability to seduce. And perhaps my fear was simply a relic of Nori and Olinne’s threats at the idea of my bringing a human to Neris Island. But instinct warned against allowing Kye to see my Naiad tail.
Fins curling into the rocks to hide, I watched his gaze rove the rough stone, jaw hardening as he took in our surroundings. Different from the line of cliffs we’d left. No ship within sight. And me, my lips probably beginning to blue, my shoulders hunched with cold.
He exhaled. “Did you do it? Take my mind?”
I grasped the rough stone as waves broke over my shoulders, pushing me into the cliffs then dragging me away with the undertow. My teeth chattered, and I ignored the icy barbs that sank into my back without his warm, hard chest snug against me in the water. “Do you remember anything?”
“Shapes. Shadows.” He pulled himself onto the rocks, a thin cloud of metallic heat lingering in his place.
So, he retained some form of memory. Not a full vacous then. But not really himself, either. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Alright.”
“And you told me to do it if I needed to.”
“I know I did.”
But despite the words, the scent of iron drifted from him. I tapped my fingertips against the rock, wondering what exactly had made him angry. The pirates? The swim? Our kiss? "You're welcome, by the way."
The corner of his mouth tugged, lighting a small fire under my frosted skin. He stretched a hand for me, but I leaned out of his grasp. His eyes left mine in sudden alarm, flashing as they darted to the deep gray behind me. “Don’t.”
“I’m already here,” I said, gesturing toward the channel at my back before I flung the drenched pack over the rocks beside him.
“Leihani.” He threw the word like a small curse. “Get out of the water.”
“I found seaweed.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“We’re both starving,” I snarled, unsure what exactly had offended me. I tossed the knife next to him where it landed with a wet clunk . “There’s no food on land. We’ve searched.”
“Theia-born stubborn woman.” Kye wrenched the dripping pack knapsack away from the waves, swinging his feet back into the water as he scooted to the edge, the scent of hot metal suddenly thick and porous in my nose.
He pulled off one boot, a small gush stream from it as he threw it away—
Without warning, a jolt of panic at the idea of him joining me sent me under the surface, leaving him to sit there alone. I gazed up at his wafty shape from below the waves as he slowly stood, silhouetted against the haggard sun, arms crossed as he stared down at the place I’d vacated.
A sliver of guilt wove my thoughts together. The thought of leaving him there, worried and angry. Alone.
But the pirate ship was far from sight, and he knew better than to start another fire before nightfall. With luck, I’d discover something to satiate our bellies below. I’d even take a handful of plankton. So, off I went, hunting for something. Anything.
But I found nothing. The cold leached into my bones, robbing my muscles of the ability to stretch, and I had to admit defeat. Stinging, cutting defeat, and even worse, a sharp lash at my pride as I imagined Kye’s face waiting for me among the cliffs.
I wasn’t sure if my stomach slowly turned in agony over the absence of food or the burn of failure as I rose to the surface to take in the sky and cliffs, searching for where I’d left him. Everything was gray and dead—the clouds, the water, the air—none of it recognizable. Mihauna , where was I? Dipping back under, I made to swim closer to the coast for a better look.
But when the lap of water smoothed over my head, I couldn't think. My blood had vacated my extremities, pooling around my core. Circulation lessened in my arms and tail, but my head—my head wobbled with dizziness. The cold wrapped around me like a blanket of iron, twisting tighter and tighter. Immobilizing me. Crushing me.
I grew drowsy.
My vision blurred as I felt myself nodding off, jolting awake in deeper water than I’d been the moment before. Suddenly, a vein of warm current stroked my skin. I latched onto it. Warmth—not only a soothing relief to my body, but perhaps the first sign of sea life. Sliding into the warm flux, I followed it, riding a liquid tunnel. It curved down into the water, away from the surface.
I didn’t notice my relief wearing away.
I didn’t notice the sleepiness that took its place.
I woke, the warm current suddenly gone, my body thrust into an icy embrace. There weren’t words for a cold like this. Like a slap across my skin. Blinding suffocation. I snapped awake and scrambled, as though someone had violently thrown a blanket off me, my body seeking the warm patches nestled between the down feathers in my mattress—and realized I wasn’t in a bed.
I was in deep water.
It was dark. Dark like Nahli’s cavern before I’d entered the illuminated center. Dark like the cargo hold of the Aspire at night. Dark like the underground, like things unseen, like promises made to unearthly shadow. So dark, I couldn’t see my own hands. Or anything else.
I couldn’t hear anything, either.
An omission of sound larger than the absence of wafting seaweed and fish. No wind or rain hit the surface of the water from above. No sound of waves, folding and unfolding toward land. No current echoing in my ears.
The beating heart of the sea had stopped.
Shaking myself more solidly awake, I didn’t know which way was up. In the stillness of black water, I lost light. Above, below, sideways?
I circled back around, searching for the ripple of warmth that had brought me here. But it, too, had vanished.
How long had I been underwater?
Tiny hooks of panic threatened to latch inside me, and I tried to calculate the time in my head to keep calm. My air reserves, the lowest lobes of my lungs, oxygenated my blood without breathing, allowing me to sleep underwater. But awake, Naiads could go only thirty minutes without a fresh breath. Perhaps a bit more—but not much. I tried to estimate how long I might’ve followed the warm thread of water before falling asleep. Not enough to send panic through my head just yet. Twenty minutes, perhaps?
Which meant I had ten minutes to find the surface.
Twelve, if I was lucky.
Calling to the water around me for perception, I exhaled a tiny mouthful, tracking the bubble as it wobbled past my belly and towards my feet. Water ripped apart and sewed back together as the air pocket forced its way to the distant surface. Air is mischievous underwater, lurching and teetering. As tactile as a slippery eel swishing through my fingers, I felt the bubble climb.
And felt something else stir as well.