3. Chapter 3 #2
His brow scrunched even more. “I’ve never heard of Eldmere.”
“No? It’s a village in Branfrie,” I said, curious if that name was still known to the outside world.
The shroud that had been erected around Branfrie was for the express purpose of hiding it and its existence from anyone but its inhabitants, but before the shroud had been erected, Branfrie had been a kingdom similar to any other.
His eyebrows pinched together. “I don’t know that name.”
That was best. The world outside of Branfrie hated magic, and I had no wish for them to suspect that I had magic—or rather, that I used to have magic.
“And I am well versed in the geography of this area,” he pointed out. His stern expression seemed to suggest that he thought I was hiding something, but I was just as lost as he was.
“Then perhaps you can tell me where I am.” I kept squeezing my hair, the strangeness of the situation coming to the forefront of my mind and beginning to bring panic with it.
“You don’t know where you are?”
“I know I’m on a ship, in the…sea.” Squeeze and wring, squeeze and wring.
His eyes studied me for several moments, then he went to the door, closed it, and returned to me. “What ship were you on before?”
“I wasn’t.” My hands fisted around my hair, trying to hold on to something.
His eyes narrowed. “Pardon?”
“I wasn’t on a ship,” I reiterated.
“Did you swim?”
I threw the cloth on the ground and the blanket slipped from my shoulders. “I don’t know how to swim.”
“Well then how—”
“I don’t know,” I snapped as all the questions, insanity, fear, and unknown rose up to drown me.
“It’s madness. I shouldn’t be here. I’ve never even seen the sea before, much less touched it.
” My voice rose with each declaration as my eyes darted about, trying to find anything around me that would make sense.
I wanted to see something familiar, something that felt real, but I was unmoored, so I kept rambling as he moved closer.
“It shouldn’t be possible. I was in my room.
I was finally leaving my room. Leaving that tower. But then I fell and…”
“You fell from a ship?” he interrupted, his voice loud to match the volume of my own even as he pulled the blanket back over my shoulders.
“There was no ship!”
“There had to have been a ship,” he insisted. “Perhaps you just don’t remember.”
“I remember it perfectly.” I burst to my feet, and he had to step back as I ranted, trying to put into words something that I still couldn’t fathom.
“I fell from my tower, and instead of falling to my death, I was dropped in the sea. I told you, it’s madness.
Impossible. I don’t understand it, but I’m here, and I’m wet, and you’re real, and this room is solid, and I don’t know how that could be when a few minutes ago, I was just trying to get out.
I was just trying to get away.” I covered my eyes with the heels of my hands and dug my fingers into the front of my hair, breathing hard.
TAVRIC
She was trying to get away…from who? Despite all her answers to my questions, which truly weren’t answers at all, that was the one detail I was stuck on.
It shouldn’t have surprised me. A young lady would not end up swimming—or rather drowning—in the middle of the Lantis Ocean without some sort of trouble putting her there.
Despite the fact that I’d been looking for a mermaid, I hadn’t actually expected to jump into the ocean and save one from drowning.
She’s not a mermaid, my mind reminded me. Yes, I know, but she’s very pretty, my heart responded. It was a constant battle between those two.
My heart, of course, was correct. She was extraordinarily pretty.
Porcelain skin, fine features, lovely curves, which I happened to know all about thanks to her drenched condition.
Her dress was not a fashion I was familiar with; it was light purple, laced up the front, and had small puffed sleeves, one of which had slid off her shoulder along with her blanket when she'd burst to her feet, ranting about her strange predicament.
I would have loved to say that she was simply confused from her fall, and surely she’d just gone overboard from another ship.
But few ships traveled at night, and I had a fine lookout up in the crow’s nest. I knew very well that there had been no ships in sight for more than an hour, and the coast of Islewyn was only barely visible on the horizon.
Lyrielle claimed she couldn’t swim, and I was prone to believe her.
Her situation did not make sense, but logic failed to provide me with the answers I sought.
Magic? I immediately rejected the thought.
Though sailors still liked to believe in the existence of mermaids, there was no evidence of real magic.
The length of her hair still astounded me. I’d seen some of it floating on the waves, glistening in the moonlight as it stretched out endlessly. Why would anyone have hair that long? And how? It didn’t seem natural.
“Well,” I said in what I hoped was a calming tone, though I’d been told many times that my presence was less than soothing. “You got away.”
My statement of the obvious made her go still, and her breathing became less panicked. When she looked out from behind her hands, her eyes were a little less wild.
She sat abruptly in the chair once again, bringing her down almost to my eye level as I knelt in front of her. She stared at me, her green eyes deep, fathomless, and glistening.
Then her tears welled, her breathing raced anew, and she fell apart in front of me, curling over with her hands fisted in her hair, sobbing.
Suddenly, the how of her arrival on my ship no longer seemed to matter. I was just glad that she was alive, and that she was here instead of wherever she’d come from.