2. Milo
Milo
Shit. This was bad.
Scouting close to human territory always had its dangers. Being seen by them being the obvious. They had no idea we existed, and it was in everyone’s best interests to keep it that way. Being perceived by them wasn’t the only danger, though.
While I was rather fond of the inventions and weird trinkets that often found their way to the sea floor, a lot of them posed dangers too. Dangers that I perhaps didn’t take as seriously as I should and had now got myself into a situation because of it.
Pain sliced up the base of my tail as I pulled. Red seeped into dark waters. Shit. I was stuck.
I’d just wanted the bottle. Dark green and glass. So pretty. It would have made some beautiful jewelry, but it was buried beneath a human net and I’d somehow managed to tangle myself in it as I tried to retrieve it.
Raq’s teeth dug into the rope, trying to help me get free. He didn’t like coming here. It was too close to human territory for one. But it was also technically Aarlinuk territory. We really shouldn’t have been here.
He pulled again, and pain shot up my spine. “Stop, that hurts!” I mentally projected at him, and he halted immediately. Teeth weren’t going to get us out of this. I needed fingers.
Even in seal form, Raq had a way of giving me a disapproving glare as I shed the top half of my coat. He followed a moment later, flippers and fur peeling back to reveal skin, arms, and hands.
Dark gray fingers and claws yanked at the ropes, but any way I tugged just seemed to make the knot tighter rather than looser.
“Let me try,” Raq projected back, and I gave a final tug before letting go and allowing him an attempt.
Time was limited. We couldn’t hold our breath as long when we were half shifted like this, and the rope was far too heavy for me to attempt getting to the surface with it, even if Raq helped.
He pulled, and I snarled, precious air escaping from my lips in a silent groan of pain.
“Milo, I swear to the goddess once we get you out of here, I’m going to kick your ass all the way back to Aanaa.”
The threat of violence was second to the threat my grandmother posed if she found out about this. She might have been small and ancient, but the goddess chose her to be our leader for a reason, and she was stronger than she had any right to be.
I’d worry about that later, though. She wouldn’t even have a grandson to cuss out if I didn’t get out of here.
“Shit, how did you manage to get it so knotted up?” Raq scolded.
Because it was me, and I got myself into situations without even trying.
“The bottle. Maybe if you break it, you can use it to cut the rope?”
With a small pang of regret for the loss of what I could have done with it, I suggested the only thing I could think of, and Raq looked around until he located where I’d dropped it when the rope had tightened around me.
He smacked it against the rocky floor until it cracked and broke. Again. Until he managed to get a sharp shard. This would work. This would be okay.
Danger. My body tensed. So did Raq’s. A simultaneous chill running up our spines as instinct clawed at our souls.
The goddess didn’t speak to us, not with words.
But her guidance pulled at our instincts like magic.
Sometimes it was subtle, more of a nudge.
This instinct hit with a force that made me nauseous. Escape.
It was dark this far beneath the surface. It was dark at all hours of the day this time of year. But the way the darkness seemed to amplify suddenly had my body chill from more than just the frigid waters. A shadow passed over us. Another. Larger.
Aarlinuk.
“Look, Kova. Dinner has delivered itself right to us.” A low voice rippled through the water. It wasn’t through the link all seal folk shared. It wasn’t blessed by the goddess’s gifts. It was unholy. Dangerous. The laugh that followed even more so.
“Raq, you have to leave!” I projected, knowing the Aarlinuk couldn’t hear us through the link.
“I’m not leaving you, Milo!”
“I’m not asking. Go now. While you still have a chance.”
“I. Won’t. Leave. You.”
Raq held the shard of glass firmly in dark gray fingers as he put himself between me and the approaching beasts.
The Aarlinuk were giant creatures. Not quite as large as orcas, despite the resemblance their coloring and lower half bore to the whales, but substantially larger than us. There were two of them. An adult and a child.
I was tall for a selkie, but the child was around my size.
My heart thundered in my chest as it constricted with the need for air. A weight settled over me, squeezing tighter than the rope fastened around my bleeding tail.
I wasn’t making it out of this.
“Go, Raq. Now.”
“No.”
Stupid loyal bastard.
I couldn’t see a way we would escape together. Even if I got free of this rope, I was injured. Bleeding. And these devils could easily follow me all the way back to the colony. I couldn’t go home. But Raq might still have a chance. I just had to convince him to leave me.
“Give me the glass and lead them away.”
“But you—”
“I’ll be fine. I feel it.”
Being the next chosen after my grandmother meant that I felt the goddess's pull stronger than others. Second only to Aanaa. I could sense the war in Raq as he decided whether he could believe me or not.
“Mmm, you’re a meaty one,” the elder Aarlinuk chuckled as he sized up Raq. “Don’t you want to escape? It’s more fun if I get to chase you first.” A dark tongue licked over serrated teeth and his black upper lip.
“Go!” I yelled through our bond, and Raq finally spurred into action. He slapped the glass shard into my waiting palm, pulled the top half of his coat over his head, and took off in the direction we’d come.
At first, the Aarlinuk didn’t follow. Pure black eyes watched with amusement, the bright white circles that surrounded them making them look even more sinister.
He chuckled, the sound rippling through the water in a way that seemed to surround me as I ducked to try cutting at the rope with the shard.
“I’m going to play. Watch this one, Kova. Even you should be able to manage that.”
With that, the giant creature took off, the power of his tail propelling him forward as he chased after my best friend. Be safe, Raq.
I wasn’t. Not yet. The remaining Aarlinuk may be a child, but he still had huge advantages over me.
My fingers fumbled as I worked as fast as possible to cut through the rope, waiting for the child to try and stop me at any moment. But he didn’t. He stayed right where he was, simply watching.
Perhaps he was like his father, waiting for me to escape so he could have the thrill of chasing me. Though the further away the larger one got, the more that sense of danger from the goddess seemed to subside. I still needed to breathe.
I could have sobbed with pain and relief when the rope tugged, slicing deeper into my tail but snapping. It was loose enough for me to pull the rest away with my shaking fingers.
I looked up at the child. Kova. He watched me with a vacant expression. Unreadable. Hair, pure black and much longer than his father’s, drifted around his still form.
Aarlinuk looked so similar to us in our half-shifted form, with an upper body that was almost human, though where our skin resembled a human’s, besides our dark gray fingertips and pointed ears, theirs was pure black and white.
Where our bodies shifted into seals, theirs permanently resembled the orcas they commanded and hunted with.
They were wild in ways we weren’t. Savage. Hunters that lived for war and called it a game.
I needed air. There was every chance the boy would chase me, but either way, I was dead if I didn’t get moving.
Heat burned up my body as I attempted to move my tail, more red clouding the surrounding water. If I pulled my coat back on, there was no way I could swim fast enough to get to the surface. So I pulled it off, tucking the bleeding coat beneath one arm as I kicked my legs to propel myself higher.
The boy kept watching. His eyes darkened as a tendril of red drifted past his face, but he didn’t follow me.
My leg burned where the injury echoed into this form, but I still managed to get to the surface. I sucked in desperate and greedy gulps of air. I couldn’t go back to the colony. Not while I was bleeding. I needed to find somewhere I could rest until I was healed enough to travel home.
Wind and rain whipped at my face, the sky as dark as the water below. I expected to be dragged back under at any moment, for Kova’s game of hunting me to have begun.
There was a sheet of ice in the distance. If I could make it there, I’d be safe. Aarlinuk couldn’t leave the water like we could.
Not that way. I’d barely made a single stroke through the water when instinct pulled at me, warning me against the plan I’d just formed. Then where?
I turned, trusting my goddess as I instead began to swim toward the open sea.
Nothing happened for far longer than I expected.
Not until my muscles ached and my lungs burned and my body grew heavy. My coat still bled, leaving a trail behind me as I swam. A trail that was followed.
One tall black fin to the side of me. Another behind. Orcas.
Thunder echoed the sound of my heart as it roared above.
Why? Why had my goddess led me to this fate?
Waves crashed against ice ahead. Maybe it wasn’t too late to try for land.
Not that way.
Desperation and rage tore through me. Was I supposed to die here? I didn’t want to. I wanted to live.
Thunder crashed again. Lightning. Illuminating the sky for only a moment. But it was long enough to catch sight of something up ahead. Something that wasn’t ice. A boat.
I’d seen them before, from a distance. When humans would come drop their nets and sharp ropes into our water so they could steal our fish.
Faster.
My legs and arms burned as I continued, the orcas closing in on either side.
Aarlinuk were also forbidden from interacting with humans. If I could make it there… they shouldn’t be able to get me.
“Help me!” I screamed out, hoping whoever was on it would be my savior. “Help!”
A head straightened. A pale face turned to scan the sea.
“I’m here!”
He was close enough that I could tell the moment he spotted me. The human turned his boat, heading toward me. Yes.
The man leaned over the side as he rapidly approached, a large hand reaching for me.
Something nudged at my leg, and I screamed as my body was suddenly airborne, propelled out of the water by a giant slippery orca tail as it played with its food. Then the boat was too close. My head smacked against the hard side of it as gravity pulled me back down.
I barely registered the hand that wrapped around my arm, yanking me up out of the water.
“I’ve got you,” said a low voice.
Safe, said the goddess.