When we were done, we took out six nobles running hippocamp stables, including Prince Bart.

It was the last one, Duke Pastainell, hidden on a tiny, self-sufficient isle in the Vauxterel chain that gave us the idea to stay.

Why leave when we had this beautiful secret place? The only others who knew of the island were now feeding the sharks and crabs.

Captain’s Log, Mayhem

Captain Fraser Connell

****

Relief ran through me, this time straightening my spine and legs. I pulled back, slapping Bastion’s neck.

“Thank you, old friend.” I looked him over. His smooth hide and scales were glossy, and he was sleek with health. He’d made the journey here from the island alone through the open ocean. It seemed he’d had no problem living a wild life. “I was worried when it took you so long.”

He shook his head, causing his long, cascading mane to shimmy and dance, flinging drops of water everywhere. His ears swiveled back halfway and his eyes narrowed. He even shrugged, bobbing his neck and lifting his shoulders as if to say, “who me?” Through the bond, I sensed he hadn’t exactly hurried, that he’d been … distracted.

“Enjoy your trip here?” I asked. I had a good idea what had slowed the stallion in his travels. Then he confirmed my suspicions and flashed me a series of images. Memories of him finding a band of wild hippocamp mares. And a sense of smugness. Which explained why it had taken him so long.

“You could’ve let me know. I was worried!” Bastion only snorted and tossed his head in equine laughter, along with the impression he didn’t think I’d welcome a distraction. An additional set of images flowed through the bond of me and Ozora, and more.

“That is not true. You know nothing about her!” He jerked his head back in surprise at my outburst, rolling his eyes and snorting with derision. His doubt and scorn were clear, pulsing down the bond.

++ Not true. ++ His words rang in my skull, loud and clear.

My bond with Bastion was the strongest I’d had with a hippocamp. He was also my first bond in a very long time, but none of my other hippocamps had spoken telepathically. Or laughed and accused me of lying.

The damn stallion had known about my memories of Ozora since our bonding.

He sensed our reunion, and felt my longing, even from a distance. Which he interpreted as me distracted by a pretty mare and figured he had time for the same. The big stallion got just one minor detail wrong. He couldn’t tell the difference between my day-dreaming and reality.

I didn’t quite know how to explain the reality to him.

“At least you got lucky.” I muttered, giving his crest another good scratch. My lips twisted in amusement as his twitched with pleasure. His eyelids fluttered, and he sighed, leaning into the scratch. “I’m just glad you’re here and okay.” I gave his neck one last affectionate slap before stepping back and up a couple of stairs. “But I don’t want people to see you. Yet.” I pictured a little cove below the keep out on the point, and shared it with Bastion, ensuring he’d be able to find it. It gave him the perfect place to rest and stay safe. “Go. Stay there for now. Let me know if there’s trouble.”

He snapped his jaws in protest, but backed off the stairs. Pushing with his forehooves and pulling with his thick, powerful tail, Bastion floated into the deep water beyond the end of the quay. He sank into the bay, pausing just long enough to give me one last reproachful look before disappearing below the surface. I watched the ripples from his passing spread, then shatter themselves against the stones under my feet.

I waited until the water was once more glassy and still.

“Is this where you come every morning?” Ozora’s voice drifted over my shoulder. No edge. No bite. A tinge of curiosity.

I’d heard her soft footfalls. Those strappy leather sandals she loved to wear made almost no sound when she was trying to be quiet. I’d still heard them.

Felt the pressure of her presence behind me as she paused, holding her breath. Waiting. Not for what I’d say, but how I’d say it.

For the last two weeks had been … tumultuous.

I know I said things I regret.

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“Yes.” I turned to face her. “I like to check in on Mayhem.” Neutral. Like her.

A thick braid coiled round her head like a crown, with several loops of braids trailing from the elegant style. The rest of her hair fell in a long straight curtain of night that spilled over her shoulders. I knew just how soft and silky those inky strands were, and caught myself rubbing my fingers together. Yanking my memory away from savoring how they felt running through my hands and across my palms took effort.

“You’re wet.” Her brows twitched, and she waved a finger in my direction.

“Yes, I know, Miss Obvious, thank you.”

“You like to swim in the harbor?” Ozora’s tone, along with her widened eyes and pinched lips, all spoke of distaste.

“Did you come all the way down here just to discuss my morning routine or—”

“Cleobah sent me. Said you might have something to show me?” She cut me off, but Ozora's response was uncharacteristically neutral. Not even a hint of sarcasm.

So, even though a slew of responses raced through my mind, most either rude or raunchy, I gave a non-answer to avoid sparking something I didn’t want to finish.

“Not sure what she’s talking about, except the view out here is pretty. Closest I can get to being out at sea right now.”

That sardonic expression meant Ozora wasn’t buying it. She had this way of half-frowning when she didn’t believe a word of my bullshit, like she considered no more effort was needed to show her scorn. I wondered if the sphinx she’d been so buddy-buddy with of late had given her tidbits from my past.

Cleobah had no trouble talking about that and where you’d messed up. It was just the future that caused her to speak in riddles. I’d discovered there were unexpected up and downsides to living with a creature that could see all possible futures and pasts.

Ozora held her tongue, no matter I could almost see her thoughts racing across her shifting expression. To my surprise, she took the last few steps to join me at the end. Some six feet below, the water was deep and clear, the cut stone block wall disappearing into the depths. She turned her gaze to the horizon, out where the sea met the sky. A single line divided the blue of the deeps from the blue of the heavens, but I wasn’t looking out to sea. I was looking at her.

I dragged my eyes away from her face before it got awkward.

Well, damn, it already was.

The silence stretched between us. Of all the things we couldn’t say. The words piled up like blocks knocked over by a rampaging toddler. Disjointed, half-formed thoughts that just wouldn’t come together.

“Cassyrra wants us scouting the town today.” One of us had to break it. Ozora kept her eyes on the horizon, as if that were easier than looking at me. “Wants us searching for signs of magic. Says it’ll be good for you and might help kick in your magesight.”

I couldn’t see the energies, the numin.

I’d never learned how.

Every mage in the West or East uses magesight to see the numinous energies that craft their spells. Ozora described it as seeing a sort of glow, or line, or splash in every color, outlining or pulsing around every living thing and the spells cast by mages.

Ozora could read spells with her magesight like she was reading lines from a book. It’s what made her so damn good.

Me, not so much.

I could feel them, like I could feel the emotions from Bastion and others. Like I could feel the energies of the tides and the pull of the moons.

Magesight never meant anything to me, nor did I need it since I wasn’t a mage. I’d always presumed it meant seeing images the way I see my own memories. Or psychics see visions. Ozora had loved pointing out how wrong I was on day one of our training.

“Nope. Magesight means seeing the numinous energies like you’re seeing them with your eyes. It’s like you’ve never used your own numin before.” Since day one, every training session, unless Cassyrra was there, Ozora had some reason to scoff.

The magesight discussion had been only the first fight in our first week. All because I told her that all nereids use numin but not all nereids are mages when she’d given me a spicy retort.

“Well, you’re a mage now! How did you live this long untrained with all that numin? How are you burning through it?” Ozora's specialty when irritated, and she thought you were being stupid, was asking rapid-fire questions.

I knew. I just didn’t want to tell her. Picking a fight was the easy way to distract her.

“You wouldn’t understand, it’s a nereid thing.” Ozora hated to have the holes in her knowledge pointed out to her. It worked, the fight was on.

Bonding with all the hippocamp mares and Bastion was how I burned through my numin. Being this far away had slowed that drain to less than a trickle, but the past two weeks of training more than compensated, draining away the energy. My distraction worked. Ozora stopped wondering how I’d survived with all that numin, but she’d glared at me for days because of that fight.

I wasn’t ready to tell her about Bastion or my island.

I learned to use my numin in the coral cities under the waves and on my uncle’s hippocamp ranch. With water magics, feeling is more important as the numin passes through the water. Nereid mages have magesight, but I never studied magecraft. I hadn’t needed to. When we’re in our element, numin flows through us, it’s not something we have to store or hoard. Ozora had no way of knowing that because she’d never encountered a nereid before me.

“Isn’t it enough that I can feel it?” Which I could. I could find any spell Cassyrra or Ozora laid by passing my hand over the spot where they anchored it. The numin would send a tingle up my fingers and arm. It was the same question I’d asked her on our first day that sparked the fight. She gave me the same answer today.

“Nope.” Her eyes remained locked on the horizon. I couldn’t read her expression, and I braced myself, thinking I had another fight coming.

“I have some ideas, though. I think it’s just a matter of retraining your brain.”

The idea of Ozora messing with my mind was both terrifying and exciting all at once.

“What like I’m a dog?” I crossed my arms and turned to face her.

“Never guessed you’d be into that, but no.” Faint distaste wrinkled her brow, and she shook her head, making the tiny braids trailing from her wrapped crown dance. “Eww. Anyway. You learned to bond with hippocamps? Do I remember that right?” I nodded, unsure I wanted to say more, as she turned her gaze from the horizon and faced me. My shoulders relaxed. It didn’t look like she was spinning up to continue our fight.

“I have an idea, but I don’t know yet if it’ll work. Want to come and have breakfast with me and we can talk about it?”

She waved her hand at me again. “At least that’s what I was going to ask you, but I didn’t expect you to be taking a dip.”

I shook out my clothes.

“I’ve got extra on Mayhem. Let me change and check in with my contractors. I know of a cafe nearby.”