Kalie Rana

I knew without even seeing her that the voice I was hearing belonged to the Great Petrel, my grandmother. Her song rang louder as the moments passed, with her words themselves carrying a power that was palpable despite nothing noticeable happening yet. I had absolutely no grasp on what in the world was happening, but as the Great Petrel appeared upon the cliff above us, the water beneath sliced open, once again exposing the serpent.

“Kalie we need to leave now!” It was a shock to hear that name coming from Maria, but I understood why. There was no time for me to be strong willed, and there was no way that I should’ve stayed. But, knowing all of this, I couldn’t allow her to pull me away. There was something about that song that was practically rooting me in place. It was like her words were just as much of an invitation for me to stay as they were an attack against that beast.

“I can’t! Not just yet. Give me a moment, please.”

“M’lady, we can’t stay. It’s dangerous!” Maria was quick to grab me, but I slipped from her grip easily.

“I need to stay, go if you must.”

“M’lady please!”

I would’ve fought with Maria tooth and nail to stay and finish watching the fight. I had never seen anything that could ever compare to the fight that was beginning in front of me, and there was no way that I would allow this chance to pass by me. But, I didn’t get much of a chance to fight with her about it because my body had a completely different plan it would seem.

I braced myself on the stone bench as the first of the writhing waves of pain wracked over my body. Oscillations of pain reverberating through my body cracked through all the willpower I had built up since I woke up in the body. Unlike all the times before, the sound of my grandmother’s song was not a soothing lullaby, rather, it almost felt like it was those words that were causing the pain to begin with. The moment that I had to consider that possibility ended in an instant. As I collapsed under the strain that the pain had put me under, I suddenly found myself falling through the air.

Whether it was an aftershock of the pain, or a gust of wind, I didn’t know, but regardless of how it happened, the effect lasted for only a moment. Before I really even realized that I had fallen, I was already being swallowed whole by the freezing water at the cliff’s base.

Hundreds of thoughts roiled beneath the blanket of pain that had overtaken all of my consciousness. By the time that I forced my eyes open, knowing that not doing so would make for a certain death, I had already somehow managed to be sucked well out into the middle of the inland sea. I was suddenly aware, only a moment before it happened, that something very bad was about to happen. And, like I had known, the water only tens of feet away from me suddenly exploded. The leviathan, in all of it’s terror-inducing glory, breached the surface of the water. Making me suddenly extremely aware of the rows upon rows of teeth that were bearing down on my writhing body.

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If I could think anything close to straight, I would’ve asked why the beast was coming for me rather than continuing its rampage on the harbor, but I didn’t have the extra processing power to make that happen. Instead, like a fish fleeing a predator, I searched for an escape in the milliseconds before my death. But, as the first second finally ticked past, I was still alive. The howling winds ripping along the surface of the sea were replaced by a positively deafening shriek of air as the leviathan was pressed backwards in the air no doubt by another of the Petrel’s spells.

The second lease on life that save got me was probably not going to be enough for me to save myself however. Whether it was natural or otherwise, I was very quickly being pulled further and further away from any shore that I could see. While the cliffs of the fjord rose above me on almost every side, my brain couldn’t determine where I could possibly be safe. So, I did the only thing that I could.

I reached out. And I hoped.

Truly, it wasn’t exactly hope. It was something more akin to determination rather than hope. Determination in the face of overwhelming odds, the will to survive. All the sorts of things that I never had enough of in my past life. Through the blanket of pain, a single thought came to the forefront of my mind.

You’ve lost your own life once. You’ve stolen a life from Kalie. There’s no way in hell that you’re about to let yourself die now, are you?

I pressed onward, despite the utter hopelessness of the act. I forced myself to reach forward, to kick with every ounce of the energy that was quickly draining from my body.

In my outstretched hand, I suddenly felt something. It didn’t matter what it was, but in a way, it felt like a rope reaching out toward me. Grabbing it tightly I pulled, and then, with my other hand, I grabbed a little further on. Sea salt stung my eyes, but the sting was nothing in comparison to the symptoms of the mana sickness so I forced them open. With each grasp in my hand, I was a little closer to the cliff face in front of me. Seeing this, I continued on despite the explosions of water and shrieks of wind hurdling past my head.

Eventually, my life line came to an end, as I landed on the rocky shore. As I emerged from the water, there was nothing left in my hand but the clear liquid.

What in the world did I grab? The water?

Splayed out and freezing on the shore, I was only cold. Cold, but no longer in scream-inducing pain. The mana sickness that had been wracking my body had completely left it. In its place, I felt exceptionally weak, and freezing cold. But, I was alive. And that was more than what I could’ve hoped for only moments before.

Out in the water, the battle between the Petrel and the leviathan must have been over. All that I could hear was the soft lapping sound of the ice cold waves as they engulfed me before retreating back into the sea.

Holy shit.

Holy fucking shit.

How the hell did I survive?

Once again, as if to answer my question, my tired eyes fell upon a familiar, and kind face. The face of the Great Petrel stared down on me. The old woman was like an angel, color and light swirled around her in such a beautiful way that words failed me. The swirling complexity was so grand that even when my eyes were closed, I could still see it all as clear as the sun in a cloudless sky.

“So, you’ve awakened. And here, I was worried that was never going to happen again.”

“Ugh?” An undignified, distinctly un-princessly way of responding, but it was the best I could manage.

“No need to worry yourself my dear. You’ll understand everything soon enough. For now, just sleep.”

With a simple press of her hand to my chest again, the freezing cold numbness fell away, leaving only the warm embrace of sleep.