I didn’t see Ryaa for several days but Brother Roberts came to visit me during that time. I learned that Shepherd Stone had become mysteriously ill the day my cell changed. Rumor said that he must have caused the miracle in my cell. The other priests saw me as a redeemed demon and less of a threat, though they avoided me. The tainted food stopped coming and I felt my strength return rapidly. The only thing that hadn’t changed were the ghosts. Only one remained in the pool, lost and insecure. It sang to me at night though I could not see it, it warned me to be careful of the demon.
I was curled in the sandy bed of my pool singing when I heard a thump that meant my cell door had been opened. I continued to sing, I didn’t feel like being bothered by anyone. A hand splashed in the water and I ignored it, singing louder to drown out the sound. Finally little stones were thrown in. Angry I swam up, burst through the surface of the water and cleared the water by four feet. I saw two surprised faces, one Ryaa and the other an unknown woman. I dived back down then leaped again and landed on the shore feet first. They both scrambled back from me with fear and I laughed at them. “What do you want?” I giggled.
“Um… I wanted you to meet Claire, my girlfriend,” Ryaa said motioning to the woman beside him. She had blue eyes like him by her hair was like Sun-hair’s.
“You’re right, she’s beautiful,” Claire said in a small voice that reminded me of crystal. She watched me warily then held up a bundle wrapped in brown paper. “This is for you.” I was careful not to touch her as I accepted the bundle. I opened it and found my noble robes inside fully mended and clean. I ran my fingers over the soft fabric while tears pricked my eyes. Besides the betrothal necklace around my neck, this was the only connection I had to Vael. I pressed the robes to my cheeks and let out a soft sob. “Is she ok, she’s crying.”
“She’s fine, I wager she just misses her family.”
“Tempest and waves, I wasn’t sure if I would see these again. Cia would scold me if I lost them.” They both looked at me waiting for me to say more but I bit my lip. How much should I share with the Landwalkers? The demon had told me he wanted to know about my home and my name. What was to stop him from using others to gain information from me? I shuddered as I thought of the information that I had already told Brother Roberts and Ryaa. ‘Even the simplest of information could be used as a weapon’, my mother used to tell me. These were strangers, I told myself. I should not let my loneliness make me incautious. “Truth, Ryaa, why have you come?” He looked at Claire then shrugged.
“Have I offended you?”
“You need to answer my question first. Why are you talking to me? I thought you hated Waterfolk, what has changed you?” He seemed to withdraw into himself as I battered him with questions but I didn’t care. I needed to know, not just for my safety, but for my father’s, my family and Vael. What was his motive for coming here, what did he want to say to me when he turned me over to the temple?
Claire moved in front of Ryaa spreading her arms out protectively. “Leave him alone demon! I am grateful that you spared his life, but in the end your soul will be swept under the current of Death’s river and bashed against the Stones of Punishment for all eternity.”
“See here you little sea cucumber, I am not a demon! Just because I am different does not make me evil. Below the waters you are called land crawling demons that would kill us on sight. Your people brought this war to us!” Tears sprang in Claire’s eyes making me feel guilty as her bottom lip quivered.
“Your kind drowned his sister!” Claire shouted suddenly making me take a step back. “She lived happily on the coast until one of you began hunting her. She threw herself off a cliff after being shunned by her kinsmen and was drowned by a group of you.”
“Claire stop!” Ryaa shouted. He pulled her away from me as tears spilled from his eyes. “Go home.”
“But Ryaa!”
“GO HOME!” he roared. Claire folded in on herself than ran for the door. She didn’t have to knock as the door was opened wide by my guard. Ryaa waved him away then turned back to me. I reached up to touch his cheek and he pulled away. I let my hand drop to my side then went to sit on the edge of the pool. Minutes passed by while we sat in silence, him by the window leaning against the wall, his arms resting on his thighs. “She had always been enchanted by the sea,” he said suddenly. I turned to look at him over my shoulder while I flipped my fins in the water. “She was older than me by almost ten years. She was so fierce and very kind at the same time. You remind me of her sometimes, especially when you laugh at odd times.”
He hit his head against the wall as more tears streamed from his eyes. “I loved her so much, but I couldn’t protect her. I knew she was scared, but I wasn’t strong enough to take care of her. When she ran from the village I followed her to the cliffs. She gave me a hug and kiss and said… she said, ‘don’t be afraid, it’s not your fault,’ then threw herself into the sea. I could see a group of de-Waterfolk in the water below. They carried her away; that was six years ago.”
I wrapped my arms around my stomach as my own pain came crashing down on me. My mother had died six years ago. The pain of her absence had lessened over the years, but some days it would strike me like a blow to the belly. “What was her name?” I whispered. For a moment I thought he didn’t hear me.
“Melinde, her name was Melinde. She is the reason why I couldn’t kill you. I was 11 when she died.” I looked at Ryaa sharply, he was 17? With all the hair he grew on his face he looked much older.
“You’re younger than me?” He seemed to perk up at my response and stared at me.
“How old are you?” I snorted and flicked my tail again.
“20, my birthday is in the winter months.”
“Claire’s my age and she’s taller than you. I haven’t seen that many Waterfolk, but are all of your women as short as you?”
My height was a sore spot with me. Though others said I was fierce enough to be a warrior they always mocked my size. For some odd reason I never gained my mother’s height. Many who did not know me thought that I was younger than I actually was. Could this be the reason that Ryaa was being kind to me?
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Ryaa moved to sit next to me and stripped off his boots and stockings. He hissed as he stuck his feet in the cooler water than relaxed. “Do you hate me?” he asked.
I let my confusion show on my face.
“No, why would you think that?” I asked cautiously.
“Because… because we’re different, because our people have been at war for over 400 years. Here it is not so bad, but I’ve heard stories of places farther west and south.”
I touched Ryaa’s shoulder than squeezed when he did not protest. “No, I don’t hate Landwalkers. Maybe I should because my mother was killed by one, but she was a warrior, she knew the risks. The one I hate right now is me.” Ryaa looked surprised as he stared down at me his blue eyes seeming to pierce my soul. “If I had never crossed the Forbidden Line you would not have fallen off that cliff and I would not be here now.” The young man wrapped his arm around my shoulder surprising me with such a tender gesture. I shrank away but he still held me.
“Don’t be mad, but I’m glad you crossed whatever line you did. You… changed the way I’ve thought about Waterfolk and I want to change the way you think about Landwalkers.” He tilted my chin up with his free hand then brushed my lips with his. I froze as he pulled away. My breath caught in my chest as his eyes held me captive. My blood rushed through my ears like a roaring torrent as I immediately thought of Vael.
I threw myself into the pool.
After Ryaa left the demon came to visit me. He huddled under a thick cloak that covered his entire body. Only the green light of his eyes reached me as if he had created an impenetrable darkness within his cloak. The sun had set hours ago in a radiance of color that reminded me of Vael’s painting. Even in the darkness I could see the rest of him clearly.
“I see that you’re looking better,” he rasped. His voice sounded as if it had been scraped along the cliffs. He tilted his head to the side as if listening to something then reached into the air and pulled out a body.
I jumped causing ripples to spread rapidly in the water. At first I thought it was dead but it rose to its hands and knees then looked at me through the fall of black hair. I gasped as I saw how much like my father she resembled. “Who’s that?”
“Ah, she speaks to me. Funny how family can get people to do the most amazing things.”
“Family?” Though this woman looked like my father I did not know her. Who was she? I looked closely at her starved body. Her clothing hung off of her in ratty rags and nowhere did I see her Grace. What had happened to it?
The demon grabbed the woman by the back of the neck with a gloved hand. Was he harmed by the change of my cell just as the water harmed him? “I have had this one in my possession for several years now, she is your sister found on the sands of our coast fighting for life for herself and her child. Unfortunately only she survived.” The woman shuddered but remained silent as the demon spoke. “She was brought to me and we made an agreement, she would give me her Grace in return for something only I could give.”
“I am an only child, I have no sister!” I yelled.
“Rose that must feel like a wound to the heart. Your own sister denies you just like your father and mother.” The woman, Rose, made an incoherent noise and trembled. The demon pushed her away and she immediately folded upon herself. “I’ll leave you two here to get reacquainted.”
I stared at Rose for ten minutes, she did not move from where she lay curled in the sand. Watchful I moved up the edge of my pool and pulled my tail clear of the water.
“Inevitable.”
I paused, surprised as the woman looked at me with her shining eyes. I felt a chill go through my bones and strike my soul, something was dangerously wrong with this woman. I doubted that she was my sister, but she could be distant kin, a lost cousin perhaps.
“He’ll get you too. He’ll take that rag from your bloody bones if he has too,” Rose rasped. She pushed her upper body clear of the sand and wavered there for a moment before sitting properly. “He’s killed all the others and soon he’ll have you, but not me, I made a deal. He needs me and I need him.”
“What in the deeps are you talking about?”
She cackled, her hands curling into claws as her spine bowed back. “You must be so young sister. Lemuete needs our Grace, it possesses the power he needs.”
Instinctively I clutched my Grace tight to my body. The thought of being parted from it sickened me. My first dinner with Vael had been the first time I had been parted from it and I had vowed that it would be the last. “He will not take it from me, I’d rather die.”
“Such careless words, he does not care about our life, though our Grace is stronger when its owner is living. Take my advice, give him what he wants”
“Traitor!” I shouted then realized with horror that I recognized her voice and words. She was the spirit that had been whispering to me in the water. It was her voice that kept me awake at night with nightmares. Suddenly I could feel the oily sensation of dark power rolling over my skin and I gagged. My throat and eyes began to burn.
“You are so sensitive to our power, is it because the one that clothes you is so strong?” Rose asked as she stood up. Through the blur of my tears I watched as she changed into a strange skeletal creature with eyes that burned with a fierce inferno. “Our family cast me out because I was pregnant with a land-child. If it was any of our kind I would have been given a chance to marry. Ma and Papa turned their backs on me in shame and let the warriors tow me away.”
“You’re lying,” I choked. My body felt heavier as if a weight had been attached to each limb. Slowly I moved my legs toward the water, it just beyond the reach of my toes. “I… am an only child.”
“You were raised alone, but in truth they had children before you, but only two of us survived the womb. “ I felt the water against my toes and the underside of my feet. With great effort I twisted around and threw myself back into the water just as Rose’s hand grabbed my ankle.
I screamed as my skin burned. Water surged into my mouth choking me. I had not changed, I could not breathe. Her hand gripped tighter and she dragged me out of the pool before I could change. “Let me go!” My left foot struck her in the jaw and she reeled back her grip still tight. I screamed in pain as her nails dug deep breaking my skin. Before I could react she yanked her hand down taking skin and blood with it.
For a moment all I could do was stare at the palm sized wound exposing the muscle beneath then the pain hit all of my senses. I choked on a scream as I clutched my foot protectively. I would not be weak, I thought to myself as I forced my body to obey me. I gained my feet, falling several times in the process as my right leg seized. Nausea swept through me knocking me back a step. Rose was suddenly on my injured leg biting deep into my flesh where she had wounded me moments before. I brought my fists together and slammed them into the back of her head, the force enough to kill a Landwalker, but only concuss Waterfolk. She was sturdier than I had thought and continued to hold on to my leg sinking her teeth deeper until I screamed in rage, the noise reaching the ear splitting pitch it had on the cliffs over a month ago.
Rose clutched her ears screaming as blood flowed from them. She hopped away still clutching her ears making me think she was done with me when she straightened, lunged and punched me in the jaw so hard that I briefly saw stars. I was knocked into the air and landed in the pool. The cool water surged over me; taking away my pain as I sunk beneath the surface.
I drifted for a moment dazed. Where had my pain gone? The fire like burning had receded from both my leg, now tail, and my jaw. Slowly darkness crept over my vision and I knew no more.