Billow (22 page)

I climbed in with shaky hands and gripped the edge.

Although it was the dead of winter, the water wasn't freezing. It calmly lapped against skin and clothes, but didn't soak or push into my space.

I peered into the bottomless depths of the pool.

What if Nexa was wrong?

Cold fear snaked up and breathing quickened.

Horrifying images of drowning flashed. Pictures of me choking. Suffocating.

Like the black dream that never went away. Like the panic that even now threatened to rise and…

Nexa knelt beside the pool. "You will not drown." Her voice rang with iron-clad strength. "Now go."

Fingers dug into stone.

You can do this.

Batty as Nexa was, she wouldn't put me into a situation where I'd die. Would she?

Heart pounded. I had to do it fast, before I got too scared to move.

Do it!

With one last deep gulp of air, I let go and plunged deep.

Water surrounded me with welcoming warmth. The very opposite of the terror seizing up inside.

I held my breath for as long as I could.

Lungs burned and still I held on. Fighting and resisting.

Black spots appeared on the edge of my vision and everything swirled in a panicked blur.

Oh, God. I couldn't tell which way was up. Which way was down. Wouldn't be able to claw my way back to the surface.

I glued my eyes shut, knowing I couldn't hold on much longer. The pain in my chest expanded, every cell demanding for air.

Wild desperation ripped away the last vestiges of control and my mouth snapped open.

No, no, no, hurt, have to fight the pain…

I braced for the rush of water into my lungs.

But it didn't happen. Nothing happened.

Air flowed in and out.

It took a few moments for that to sink in.

I pried my eyes open and finally grasped what the connective magic did.

It allowed me to exist as I was.

Dry, alive, and breathing though I was completely submerged.

The water knew. Acknowledged I was a child of both waves and land.

It's going to be okay.

Profound relief set in and I let out a deep breath. Clenched muscles relaxed. Fear subsided and heartbeat slowed.

My body sank into the soft pliancy of water. Secure in the knowledge it wouldn't let me fall, I let myself enjoy its comforting embrace.

With minimal movement, the accommodating ocean allowed me to adjust. White light expanded in a bubble and pierced through the unyielding darkness.

Rocky walls enclosed the tunnel, hairline fissures crackling across the surface from years of erosion.

The water shifted. Startled, I whipped around.

Sharp eyes gazed at me with unnerving clarity. Translucent whiskers twitched.

A seal?

The creature moved and light revealed the rest of its body.

No, not a seal.

A selkie.

Reverence and humility surged at the awe-inspiring sight.

Selkies rarely shared their seal form with others and very few ondines or demillirs had ever witnessed their shape-shifting.

I felt small and insignificant. It wasn't just because of its sheer size. It was the majestic strength, the breathtaking power emanating from it.

This wasn't the cute seal you saw at the zoo. The selkie's form was ancient, something only magic could have created.

The length of its powerful body easily spanned fifteen or more feet. Muscles contracted, shifting beneath a pelt of thick, short mahogany hair.

A pair of webbed hind flippers fanned open and swished side-to-side. Five short, lethal-looking nails gleamed at the end of each. Large foreflippers extended like prehistoric limbs. With five distinct digits, they ended in claws that looked sharp enough to slice steel.

The claws on the right were longer. Five blade tips glowed golden with the light of Essence. On the inner side of that flipper, an amber outline of a diamond the size of my fist rose from its pelt like a scar.

When selkies completed training and were inducted into the gardinels, the Armicant branded them with the elemental diamond, infusing a small part of their body with the magic of Essence.

Because of the way shape-shifting worked, the ability was only available in seal form. On land, their seal skin was contained within their
pedaillons.

I stared at that raised ridge and realized Garreth was right. The
kouperet
was a weapon for demillirs and ondines. It made things easier for selkies and was considerably less messy in battle.

But they didn't need it.

In seal form, selkies used those five deadly nails as weapons. They killed Aquidae by thrusting a part of their own body through the Origin. In human form, they possessed enough physical strength to decapitate one with their bare hands.

A shiver shot through me. It was mind-boggling.

The selkie dipped its head and I understood. An underwater attack against dessondines hadn't occurred in over a hundred years. But elementals still assigned gardinels to protect them.

And this one was here to take me to Jourdain.

With a twist of its muscular body, it turned and undulated forward.

I followed.

Water pushed me along and I kept up with the barest of movements. Weightlessness pervaded, leaving my body light and nimble.

We exited the tunnel and the wide expanse of ocean opened before us in a wash of inky blue.

Elementals had heightened eyesight for a reason. The white light helped me see at the beginning. But my eyes had already adjusted and I no longer needed the illumination.

The selkie's left foreflipper beckoned in a playful gesture. It whipped around in a beautiful rotation and suddenly plunged straight down.

Laughter bubbled up. I dove after it and the thrilling exhilaration of the chase took over.

The insulation nature provided was a sensation I instinctively sought on land. At the cove. Behind Cafe Rivière.

Now I reveled in the freedom that came from the total removal of unwanted weight. The carefree abandon from my life being wholly mine.

Just for a moment
.

The selkie dipped and turned. Enjoying the sheer joy of unfettered movement, I flipped and spiraled through the sleek waters.

It gradually led me deeper, winding us lower into the mysterious belly of the ocean.

And the further we went, the more my initial thrill waned and wariness returned.

Waters darkened, the blue now threaded with shades of ebony. Rainbow colored formations lined the bottom like the landscape of an alien planet.

The selkie slowly navigated through a maze of jagged rock clusters. Odd shapes and shadows flickered. Coral branches reached like twisted limbs and undulating rose and chartreuse fronds tenderly brushed my skin.

Occasional flashes of movement caught my eye as creatures hid at our approach. One boldly came forward and watched with bulging silver eyes. The upper torso and head was a goat with sharp, glistening horns and matted white fur. But its scaly bottom half curved in an iridescent fish tail.

A capricorn. Just one of the thousands of races in the water elemental world that didn't make the transition to land.

The first dessondines emerged, hovering above shadowy juts. Pale creatures with webbing between their fingers and toes, their black eyes took up the entire socket. Like ghosts, the androgynous bodies hung suspended in the water, their hair drifting like thick rubbery pieces of seaweed.

I suppressed a shudder at the chilling visages.

How many had once been ondines? How many were called back to their ancestral form, unable to mate with someone of human blood by the age of twenty-three?

Are you willing to become a dessondine? Give up your mortality?

I replayed Julian's words as more of those spectral beings came to greet us.

A combination of pity and revulsion filled me. The dessondines were certainly powerful. Magical. But they were frozen for all eternity underwater.

I didn't want to be that. Could never be that.

The selkie stopped. I drew alongside it, floating just above the rocky bottom of the ocean.

"Welcome,
sondaleur
." The ancient voice that was neither male or female echoed.

Jourdain rose from a wall of tangerine coral. A faint yellow light shrouded her entire being like a halo. She was as terrifying and creepy as the first time I'd seen her in the Council Chamber. The nearby dessondines lowered their heads, bodies bowed in respect.

Black eyes crawled and energy scraped under my skin as if she were prying.

The selkie suddenly lunged in front of me.

"He is worried." Jourdain's mouth didn't move. It was as if her voice came from water itself.

The selkie ducked and circled in agitation. I couldn't hear anything, but it seemed to communicate with her.

"Do not forget yourself." Disturbing eyes whipped to it. "The
sondaleur
is my child. I shall not harm her."

The commanding tone snapped through the waters and several dessondines flinched. But the selkie remained, its body maintaining a protective curve.

I wanted to say something to it. That I appreciated what it was doing, but I was here for a reason.

I'll be okay.

It rolled over to look at me. I held its dark gaze and said a few more similar sentences in my mind.

For a long moment, it stared as if unsure of what to do. But it finally dipped its head in acquiescence and swam to the side. In the middle of such strange surroundings, its presence was reassuring.

I forced myself to meet Jourdain's eerie stare.

Why am I here?

"You are the one chosen to bring an end to the war. I wish to know you."

The brightness around her intensified. Rays of pale white light curved, flowing out in long tentacles.

The vines of magic brushed against my skin and I forced myself to remain still. Tentacles slowly wrapped around my forehead, upper arms, wrists, thighs, and ankles.

And then they began to tighten.

I jerked.

They injected me with a powerful dose of magic. Sharp shards of energy slithered under my skin and reached everywhere. Probing. Seeking.

Body locked under the excruciating pain. Heart pounded so hard I thought it'd explode out of my chest. Every muscle instinctively fought against the intrusion.

"Relax, my child."

No. The magic was too strong, like looking directly at the sun after coming out of a dark room.

It was blinding. Too much.

"This magic is your heritage, whether you remember or not." The tendrils of energy continued pushing, digging deeper. "Let it in. Trust in it. Accept it."

Everything inside screamed to resist. The way it did when I first plunged into the water. I wanted to hold my breath, fight against it.

But I'd caused myself pain by not trusting the water.

Maybe I had to let go and trust in this magic.

I concentrated on inhaling and exhaling.

With each breath, I forced myself to relax. I consciously loosened my muscles inch by inch and allowed the magic to fulfill its course.

Pulse slowed and the pain lessened.

But it was difficult to maintain.

Everything was open and exposed. Magic pushed through walls and barriers I'd had for months, even years. The energy greedily searched through locked boxes, the secret places no one saw.

My fingers twitched. I wanted to shove it out.

"The magic pains you." Her voice now pulsated with the energy inside. "You fight against it."

She spoke in a flat tone.

It's natural to fight against pain.

"How strange," she continued in that detached voice. "I created the ondine race in the hopes of combining ancient elemental magic with the clever resourcefulness of the human race. But parts of mortality remain a mystery to me."

Don't you feel pain? Sadness? Joy?

"Yes, we feel. But it is different for us."

The faintest stroke of magic grazed my head. "Our magic and immortality embrace the entirety of existence. Pain is but one color in an infinite palette of emotions flowing through us. We do not live with it the same way mortals do."

Living with pain was the first lesson I'd learned. Enduring it. Fighting through it.

"It has been a while since we met like this,
sondaleur
."

The Council session I attended was almost seven months ago. Long, but definitely not long enough. This visit alone would probably haunt me for the next year.

"It was before you were born." A slight note of discontent entered her tone. She'd heard my thought. "Your mother came with you inside her. She wished to know if you might be the prophesied one
.
"

Marcella said my mother's mood darkened a few months after she returned to Haverleau from the hospital. Was it because she suspected what her child would be?

Insides clenched and the pain from Jourdain's magic reflexively shot through me.

"I told her I sensed something. It was possible you may be the
sondaleur
, but we wouldn't know if you possessed the other traits for years to come."

Magic brushed against memories of my mother. Her fierceness during our relentless training sessions. Hazel eyes constantly demanding more.

To be stronger. Faster. Better.

Jourdain saw them. "As
sondaleur
, your life is one of sacrifice. You will be asked over and over again to give that which you will not want to give. It is the nature of your fate."

The statement rattled me. Magic reacted to the tension and a sharp ache jolted up my spine.

I'd already given everything
.
How much more could I give?

"When the war began, elementals dreamed of
le
son de la fleur
and the ondine who would one day exemplify it. The
sondaleur
." Jourdain tilted her head. "It means 'the sound of the flower.'"

Whenever the
sondaleur
was mentioned, it was always in conjunction with future events. The eventual fulfillment of a prophecy. I didn't know about its origins.