A few days after Imyra came into his life, Coyrifan had decided what he would do to save her. It was just a matter of finding the right moment in which to do it.
His luck bloomed full in the span of four tides, when his father organized a small expedition to travel to the shallows in the tribe’s north-western territory to hunt sweetcrabs. It was a fairly regular occurrence and a remote location to be sure, but there was always a risk of predators, the nets of manlings and their flying monsters’ hooked claws, or rogue merlings whose allegiance belonged to no one but themselves.
It was the latter he drew his intent from, well aware that it was not unheard of for a young and harmless heartbeast to be considered valuable plunder to thieves such as those. They were easy targets for ransom, or to be reared as disposable weapons, once their minds had been broken—and thus, the minds of their lifemates as well.
Twelve males in all, he and the other hunters had gathered their tools and companions, which included two tentacled razorbeaks that specialized in crab hunting and six sharks of varying breeds for general security, as well as hauling their nets and spears. Among the men was Coyrifan’s friend Vasadax, a similarly fair-haired merling with blue eyes and a particularly strong build that raised some suspicion that the two might have been traded between their parents at birth.
Coy had always envied Vasa for the impossible chance of stumbling across a northern lash pup several seasons ago and forging a loyal bond with it. It had since grown into a sleek, massive animal seven tails in length with a long, narrow snout for pinpoint vital targeting and short, wide rudder fins that gave it startling maneuverability for its size. The breed was incredibly rare outside of the frozen extremes of the ocean and was considered by most to have been designed by a divine hand to survive in the harshest conditions and take down the largest, most dangerous opponents.
Yet, over many generations, the merlings had forgotten to whom that hand had belonged, and lost any sense of awe or reverence at the whole idea of there being anything or anyone above and beyond their own degree of intelligence or power. After all, they were the lords of the ocean, where none were mighty enough to dare come and meet them.
Once in a while, however, there were strange happenings that stirred something in Coyrifan. He never quite understood what he was feeling in those moments, only that there was an odd, indescribable tickle, sometimes in the back of his mind, sometimes flickering in his chest.
It was on the morning of the sweetcrab hunt that he again experienced the strange sensation.
His father, Fair, arrived at the meeting place atop the coral mountain to ensure preparations were to his standards before they set off. About his thick neck he wore a moonstone bauble on a sunmetal chain. The pinkish-violet crystal had been cleanly cut into the shape of an upright cylinder with both ends sharpened to points, and encased in a frame of the same metal as the chain. It was a manling ornament that had been left a half dozen Floods before in one of their hideous cold, square stone dwellings in the Nilvar Shallows.
Though moonstone seemed as common as dirt to the merlings, who often wore it in the form of decorative jewelry and tail-scales, Fair prized that necklace highly for its origin and often wore it as a fortune charm. Bizarrely, it seemed to have the desired effect. With his joining the hunt, they were like to bring home twice as many crabs as usual, or if there were fewer crabs to choose from, they would be twice as large.
Not only that, but it apparently had other powers as well.
Responding to Coyrifan’s sudden mental disquiet, Imyra’s questioning thoughts brushed his awareness, as if someone had tapped him on the shoulder. He looked down and took up the pink-pearl spiral he wore on a cord about his neck, turning it so that the opening faced him. The transparent heartbeast peered at him from where she had curled inside the shell, too anxious to extend her head outside.
“Nothing is wrong,” he thought to her with a warm heart-smile, willfully modifying his own ruminations for her sake.
Not at present, that is.
The hunting party left home, cresting the coral mountain and making their way up toward the limits of the sea-sky in preparation for swimming above the field of boiling ground jets. Mirroring his father, Coy looked down and waved at Meeoa as they passed over her, the beast's dull gray eyes open and watching them go. No other part of her was distinguishable from the rock and coral around her.
She'd lain in that place so long between meals that some of her impressive camouflage was actual coral and plant life grown directly into her color-shifting skin. Coyrifan wondered how many seasons were left before she could no longer move at all. When the time came, it would be a slow, painful death for her... and for his father.
As they reached the line where the sea met the void that manlings called home, the water was already getting intolerably hot, though they were as far above the jets as possible. Six of the merling men worked together to lift and carry the two razorbeaks above the water, making sure their tender tentacles stayed safely out in the much cooler air. Similarly, Coyrifan held Imyra’s water-filled shell high.
Before they’d gone too far, everyone took a one-handed hold of a shark. The beasts were somewhat less influenced by the heat, and thus the party was able to maintain its speed.
Coy always looked down when he crossed the jet field, deflecting his faculties toward cataloging the decidedly sparse sea life that made refuge in the otherwise deadly place. Clustered around the tall, rock-like spikes that billowed black clouds of boiling hot earth-blood were thousands upon thousands of smooth-shelled mussels, their dark exteriors formed from the very same minerals that continuously surged around them.
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Among those agglomerations scuttled a form of crab in shades of yellow to black, with two massive pincers and a long, narrow body. Most of them were small enough that they could barely be made out from the surface between patches of roiling black silt, but a few had grown to gargantuan sizes, longer than a grown merling from head to tail fins.
The two rugged species had been declared a felicitous boon the first time a vicious storm had blown a whole colony of them beyond the jet field, until the tribe attempted to consume them and found them to be completely inedible, offending every mouth with loathsome quantities of metallic flavors and a hideously fibrous texture that made it a trial to work even one bite from their carcasses. Since then, they were always left unmolested after a storm as they made their way back to their altogether unpleasant home.
He’d made the same trip dozens of times, but still, Coyrifan’s vision swam with more ability than he did by the time they were across the field and began to descend into cooler waters on the other side. If not for their sharks or a large enough heartbeast like Meeoa, it was unlikely that any merling would be able to cross it during the Dry, when the depth of the water was so low. As it was, one of the hunters called Fydiro was too ill to continue on his own and had to cling to Vasadax’s northern lash until he had recovered.
Coyrifan had long wished measures of such a degree were not necessary to protect his tribe, but with only one remaining heartbeast left to them after the last bloody feud, they were all but defenseless. It was a miracle that Meeoa had survived, and even more so that Imyra’s egg had been recovered intact. The others had all been stolen or destroyed.
In light of their shameful vulnerability, the chief had made the difficult decision to exchange convenience in several necessaries, such as access to substantial food sources, for a level of safety that was unmatched, and ultimately unmatchable by anyone outside of their diminished clan, once they had stumbled across the secret that yielded a way to gain it.
No one, save a single member of the Mivusa tribe, could harness the power of the Howliths.
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ERIN
Present day
“Howliths? What are those?” Erin asked, the words wavering a little from the cold that she was too immersed to feel. As he told his story, the merling’s style of diction had shifted, taking on a rhythmic, mesmerizing form worthy of a skilled thespian.
“They’re…not good,” Coyrifan’s disembodied voice said through her necklace. “We call them ‘Howlers’ for a reason. They’re—“ He paused, then spoke again so quietly that Erin could barely hear. “Silence. Someone is coming.”
She waited, staring at the necklace as if willing it to continue the story of its own accord. Though the pond she stood in was completely still, a thrill of unpleasant surprise rose up from her stomach, and the sense of Coy’s presence suddenly vanished, cut off like a switch had been flipped.
In the same moment, the infant seabeast Imyra squeaked audibly and disappeared beneath the surface of the murky water.
“Wait, come back!” the girl called, reaching toward the spot where she’d last seen a flash of the creature’s silvery skin. She’d been standing in the same spot so long that both of her bare feet had sunk into the muck at the bottom of the pond, and that first step was a fatal one. The nasty mud-sucking sound rudely interjected itself into the quiet as she took an involuntary dunk.
She came up sputtering, a hot panic quickly taking over as she realized she’d dropped her mother’s necklace. She flailed around in the cloudy water for a few seconds before she felt a shifting weight against her collarbones and remembered that she hadn’t actually taken it off from around her neck.
Clutching the purple heart in her fist, Erin sighed in relief, ignoring the water that now trickled out of her hair and down her face. She opened her hand and looked at it, marveling over what had just happened. Who would’ve ever guessed that a moonstone necklace could be used like a telephone?
Wait.
Her mother’s moonstone necklace. How—?
Erin’s breath caught as it hit her: If the necklace was a true moonstone, how did her mother get a hold of it on Earth?
The question struck her with a deep, morbid horror, though she couldn’t explain why. Cupping the jewel in her palms, she searched its glittering depths, impossible possibilities flashing across her mind’s eye one after the other.
In the end, it didn’t matter. Her mother was gone. Without some kind of diary or other record from home that she couldn’t access from Emerrane, if one even existed, it was almost certain that she would never know.
At the sound of approaching feet shuffling through the water, Erin shoved the necklace back into her shirt and turned around. Leslyn was halfway to her, while Arlis was a bit further behind, distracted by Imyra's circling as she attempted to entice him to play again. Surprisingly, Kaleit was also just coming along the shore, looking out across the water toward her.
"You all right?" Leslyn called.
"Fine," she said. "Just wet."
"Erin, you were just standing there." He was right next to her now, glancing guardedly about at the water around her before looking up and catching her eyes, his brows furrowed with concern. "Like you were in a trance."
"I was just listening," her stupid mouth said with zero input from her brain.
"Listening? To what?"
Again, she felt the weight of the moonstone under her shirt. If she admitted what had happened, what then? What if Leslyn told Koben or Xavara, or heaven forbid, Tannoran. What if they took it from her? It was the only thing she had left of her mother, and one of the only things that were really, truly hers in this world.
Not only that… it was her link to Coyrifan, too. She'd tried to be suspicious of him, but something about him just... she didn't really have words for it, but the thought of being cut off from him filled her with a strange terror. She had to hear his voice again—and the rest of his story.
"Birds and stuff. You know." She managed a careless shrug. "It's really peaceful out here.”
“I see.” Leslyn’s tone was dubious. “Perhaps you’ll have a better experience if you go closer to where the birds actually are. That would be anywhere around here that isn’t water.”
“Good point. A leisurely walk under the trees should do nicely,” Erin said, and swept past him, heading toward the shore. She flippantly saluted Kaleit when she got to the shore and crossed his path, continuing on to trek the same trail through the rushes that he’d just come from.
As she slowly circled around the Eastern Basin pond, Erin repeatedly clutched her moonstone heart and gazed out toward the water where Imyra swam and played.
I’ll be back in a couple of days, she thought. You’d better be there to pick up the phone when I call…