Chapter 7 Dylan
Dylan
I’d fallen asleep on the cliff’s edge again.
Mother would be furious if I was late for dinner.
But there was something about the crashing of the waves against the rock that always lulled me to sleep.
Sneaking in a nap wasn’t the only reason I’d ventured to the cliffs today.
I’d hoped to be able to talk to her again.
Who she was, I still wasn’t sure. I’d been visiting this exact cliff to talk to her for some time now.
In the beginning, I was convinced she was some kind of siren.
Calling me to come drown in the waves where she remained hidden beneath.
After a few questions went unanswered, I learnt that she was unable to hear my responses.
The pathway of communication only seemed to work one way.
That was fine by me; sometimes, I would lay there for hours, just listening to her talk.
I hadn’t told a soul about my discovery. Mother would only fuss, Uncle would think I was going mad, and my brother... Well, my brother would probably have beaten the stupid idea out of me.
I stretched, yawning deeply. My body was exhausted from the last few days of training with Uncle. He was confident I was only a few more weeks from my full power emerging.
The salt from the ocean still clung to my tongue.
My morning had been spent diving between the waves, my long hair already tangled into matted knots.
I would need to comb them out before dinner, or the whole court would be rife with whispers that the Son of the Sea turned up to dinner looking like he’d been dragged through a rockpool backwards.
As the tide ebbed and flowed on the beach below, I let my eyes close again, just for a few more seconds. The eternal sunshine from our various suns warmed my damp skin.
Then, a gust of frigid wind whipped my hair into a stir. If my mother could control the weather, I would have sworn she was the one to send the chill to encourage me indoors.
I opened my eyes, but the usually clear sky was now a deep, bottomless black.
Something was very wrong.
A tremor shook the ground beneath me. I shot to my feet, expecting to see the section of the cliff I lay on crumble away. It was rare, but due to the age of this land, the rock occasionally gave way, causing small landslides into the ocean below.
But there were no fissures in the alabaster rock beneath my toes; it remained pristine as usual.
Another tremor threw me off balance, this one more violent than the last. The usually calm sea below was now a flurry of uncontrollable waves.
This couldn’t have been my power emerging. Uncle had said it started as a surge of raw magic through my veins that would leave me feeling stronger than ever. And right now, I’d never felt so weak in my life.
A boom echoed across the coast. I turned to run in the direction of the palace, but the solid rock beneath me vanished.
Maybe I had slipped off the edge of the cliff?
But the water never reached up to claim me. Instead, I fell into a sea of shimmering darkness.
One second, I was breathing the briny air of home; the next, I was sucking in shallow breaths of frigid shadows.
I kicked out, moving my arms and legs frantically. But they met no resistance; I was floating into nothing. No light, no sound, just endless darkness.
Then I felt it. A tug in my chest. No, not a tug. A command.
Cold claws wrapped around my ankles, dragging me down deeper into the nothingness.
The current in these shadows wasn’t natural. It didn’t twist or turn; it guided. Intentionally carrying me to its master’s desired location.
I opened my mouth to scream, to demand I be taken back to my home and family. Did this thief know who they’d just stolen? Uncle would behead every last one of my captors when he found me.
In the distance, a light no bigger than an apple came into view.
As the cold hand around my ankle continued to pull, the light grew. After an undetermined amount of time, it became clear that it wasn’t a light at all but a doorway.
What lay beyond was too far away to pick out any detail—I could only make out vague shapes and colours. But the moment my foot touched the edge of the doorway, the darkness surrounding me shattered.
The pain of being pulled out of the darkness into something new was unbearable. Every inch of my skin felt like it was being scalded over and over again.
Through the agony, I could hardly focus on where this pull was taking me.
But I somehow knew I was no longer falling through the shadows as ice-cold water surged up and wrapped around me.
They weren’t the waters of home; I knew those waters like the back of my hand.
They’d never be able to drop to such freezing temperatures.
I’d gone from a prison of darkness to a prison of unfamiliar waters. My voice was raw from screaming as I slammed my fists against the impenetrable wall of water.
At some point, I’d shifted, my legs giving way to my true form.
I put every ounce of strength I had into smashing at the walls of my prison. It was only when a lasso of silver light wrapped around me that I was finally freed.