His exposed skin still tingling with static from the combined jags of lightning that had struck the air just moments ago, Coyrifan remained frozen in the rain, uncertain of what to do. An encompassing terror akin to that of the Howliths washed over him and made him afraid to move, as if even taking a peek beneath the surface at whatever creature had fallen would cause him to be swallowed up by a monster from the deepest bowels of the blackness below.

He could see the creature’s hateful stone sinking along with its dark silhouette through the water, the piece of Crylis glowing with a sinister light.

Imyra’s screams ceased both outwardly and in his mind, for she had retreated into herself in a desperate attempt to block the horrible sounds and sensations out. He knew it, but somehow he could still hear the animal’s tormented cries, their volume increasing steadily toward deafening.

Struck by a need to flee but unable to break out of the paralysis, the merling covered his ears and clenched his eyes shut, silently willing the terror to subside. When that failed to work, his thoughts began to deteriorate into incoherent, piteous appeals for relief. For rescue. For himself. For Imyra. He could not name whom or what he sent his pleas to, nor did he care. Just make it stop, was all he could think, the words repeating over and over until they meant nothing at all.

The moonstone.

Within the whirlpool of shrieking, spiraling agony, Coyrifan was barely conscious of the words, whispered in the faintest mist of a thought. When he did not respond, the elicitation echoed. One, twice, three times, the words softly urged him.

At last, he slowly pulled shaking hands away from his face to see his father’s moonstone in front of him, as if looking at it through the continuing swirl of a powerful ocean eddy. He leaned in, reaching through the spiral to grasp it.

“Please,” he begged, “be silent!”

The world went still.

Shuddering from his head to the tip of his tail, Coyrifan went under. He dropped the gem, cupped his hands for Imyra as she fled the confines of her shell, and held her closely to his chin.

When he was finally able to look up, he was shocked to see that the person who’d fallen was a few tail-lengths from the surface, still sinking within the cloud of bubbles that had formed upon splashing down. He couldn’t quite comprehend it, but only the merest of moments had passed while he was utterly overcome by that inexplicable fear.

With the terror silenced, he was drawn toward the suspended form, his eyes locked on the violet crystal that drifted down with it. It was cut in a strange shape: two half-circles with the curves facing upward and their outer ends connected with straight lines that stretched down and in to meet at a point in the center.

How was it possible? That stone… It was a Howlith.

With Imyra now clinging around one ear, her face pressed in against his cheek, Coyrifan cautiously approached the being and determined it to be a manling female.

She was pale like the inside of a shell, with a small face and night-colored hair just long enough to touch her shoulders. Young, perhaps within a season or two of Coyrifan himself.

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He found her intensely beautiful—though not in the same sense that he might have for a merling woman, of course. The two large limbs that protruded from her hips neatly nudged that particular aspect of the attraction out of the equation. Ugh, legs.

Legs were such awkward, clunky devices, lending themselves to an equally ungainly mode of locomotion. Unlike manlings and their clumsy way of stomping about like they were perpetually on the verge of toppling over, merlings always moved with some modicum of grace, thanks to the soft lines of their tails and the buoyant water they swam through.

What Coyrifan felt for the girl was much, much different than a romantic fascination. There was a stirring in his chest that blossomed in the same moment he laid eyes on her sleeping face. An excitement, an energy that threatened to burst out of him in a jubilant shout. A sense of an opaque curtain being thrown wide, revealing a vast open world filled with light and warmth. A sense of something more, beyond the trivial cares of his current life.

There was something extraordinary meant for Coyrifan, and him alone. An act of great valor, something that would alter the world forever. Whatever it was, this manling girl was the key.

If only she would wake!

He came to himself suddenly then, remembering that manlings drowned. Quickly scooping the girl into his arms, he propelled her to the surface.

Cradling her so that her head lolled forward, the merling watched with concern as she coughed and spat out a mouthful of seawater. Luckily, it seemed she hadn’t had time to take much in, for her breathing sounded quite clear. Her eyelids fluttered, but from what little he saw of them during the fluttering, her eyes were rolled up toward her head. She was delirious, if conscious at all.

Flinching at the sudden rumble of thunder, Coy realized that he had yet another critical concern to address: they were in the open ocean, in the middle of a rainstorm, with no land in sight.

A few seconds of panicked thought later, the merling remembered what had led him to this spot in the first place. The lanterns on the railings of the manling ship were still visible off in the distance, though dangerously far off. That was the only hope for the girl, he was certain.

After struggling to find a somewhat efficient position to carry her, Coyrifan settled on his side with the girl’s back against him, wrapping one arm under her shoulder and holding her head out of the water with that same-side hand. It was certainly awkward moving her dead weight in such a manner, but at least he could reach speeds enough that they caught up with the ship before his strength was too far sapped.

On the rear of the ship, the lone griffin jerked and screeched into the darkness at the unexpected sound of Coyrifan’s piercing whistle. Its call brought several more men onto the deck, all of them joining the griffin and its rider in scanning the rain-filled sky and waters around the vessel. Coy whistled again and waved, catching a few eyes.

There were shouts of anger and panic at first, until one of the lanterns passed over the merling and the girl he was hoisting out of the water as best as he could for them to see. That was when the griffin took off, circling and then coming down toward the water with open talons, its aim guided by the ship’s lanterns and repeated flashes of lightning.

Coyrifan was poised to take his charge into a dive if necessary to protect her, but the griffin slowed as it came near, clearly intent on rescuing the unconscious member of their own kind rather than attack the enemy that had suddenly appeared. The merling swam aside to allow the animal, a medium-sized gray, to collect the girl.

Once the griffin had deposited her on the deck, the men gathered the girl up and took her below to tend to her. A large manling with light hair tried to call Coyrifan near, but the merling dove underneath the ship to ride its wake, falling into a sorely-needed doze as he rested in the safety of its shadow.

Some hours later, Coy woke and remembered the hunting party he had left behind. They would be stranded beyond the Howliths until he returned with the moonstone that could silence them. In order to do that, he would have to leave the girl.

Trusting that they could handle themselves, he chose to wait until he could be certain she still lived, and was unharmed.

The day she came to the rail and looked over, searching for him in earnest, Coyrifan was satisfied, and left to return to his stranded friends and father.

He hoped she would remember him when chance brought them together again.