He found himself focusing on his feet, on the sound of the tide sliding through the rocks.
And when he went really still there was a tingle up his legs. “What is that?” he asked, unable to hold his curiosity in.
“It’s life.” Her fingers slid into his.
His eyes sprang open. Her eyes remained closed. She was still listening, breathing deeply, her chin to the sky. She looked so at ease, so peaceful. In her own world. Her other hand caressed her belly and a slight smile curved up the edges of her mouth.
“Isn’t it lovely?” she said, her voice full of wonder.
“Yes,” he whispered, watching her.
She opened her eyes, then, and looked at him. It was only a moment, but the earth tilted. And even when he glanced away, it felt as if he were being pulled closer. To her. As if a string drew him into her.
“So, this is where it gets fun,” she said, continuing as if nothing had happened. Perhaps nothing had, perhaps it was all in his muddled head. “You should kneel down.” She stepped into the tide pool, the water reaching nearly to her knees. She kept hold of his hand, drawing it towards the water.
He knelt at the edge so he wouldn’t fall in. “You’ll scare them all away.”
She chuckled. “Who’s teaching who?”
“How do you plan to get a fish that’s runnin’ off.”
“Fish don’t run,” she laughed louder.
“Very well, then,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Reveal your magical ways.”
Her laughter died down and she grew still. “Of course,” she whispered as she sunk slowly into the water, settling down until it nearly covered her swollen belly. The water rose and spilled over the pool even as the tide pushed more in.
And something about her . . . shifted.
Her skin seemed to take on a strange grey-green hue.
And that pattern . . . the swirling pattern appeared again, this time on her forearm as her hand moved slowly through the water.
Fascination filled him as he watched.
She brought his hand to float beside her leg and motioned for him to hold it steady. She kept her own hand, palm down, beside his. And then she closed her eyes again.
A tingle moved into his knees. The surface of the water seemed to vibrate.
And a silver fish swam right below their hands. It hovered there, its fin brushing along their palms. It was silky and slow. Peaceful. The hum of the life sliding up his arm.
She opened her eyes and smiled up at him as if she felt it too.
And then her fingers came together in a pinch, taking hold of the fin.
She tossed the fish onto the rocks behind him. It flopped for a moment, body slapping in protest.
Her grin widened. “You’re turn.”
Needless to say, Sareck had no luck making magic calls for fish to swim mysteriously into his hand. He did, however have a hundred questions crowding his head.
What in the name of Danu was she? What had the sea brought to his shores?
“We’ll keep practicing,” she said as they were walking back, as if it would ever be something he could do. She had the four fish she’d caught tucked in her tunic. “You’ll have them in your grip in no time.”
He scoffed.
“Don’t doubt yourself,” she scolded. “You’re like brittle stone.”
“Am not.”
“And grumpy,” she added.
“I have no fish power, woman.” he said on a tight laugh. “Whatever you are, I’ll never have that gift.”
She gave him a look. “Whatever I am? And what do you think I am?”
Curse his bones, he shouldn’t have brought it up. They’d been dancing around this matter for a while now. Neither of them had seemed to want it dug into. Because it was apparent she was far more than he was. Far more than human. And once the reality of what she truly was became evident it would place them in separate worlds. They’d not be able to ignore it any longer. “What does it matter?” he said, hoping she would simply choose to leave it be.
“Well, it matters to me. It mattered to the god who created me.”
“I have no right to know,” he said, a sliver of fear wedging itself into his chest.
“But don’t you wish to?”
“No.”
Her mouth curled down in disappointment. “I see.”
That night he dreamed of his war ax, stabbed into the sand on the shore, waiting.
He dreamt of fish, of pools of water blossoming red with blood.
A tide of crimson staining the sand.
And somewhere far, off a raven called.
Chapter 6
A scream tore through his dream, yanking him from sleep.
He sat up straight from his furs and looked around, searching the shadows franticly for the source.
A few feet away Alya sat, hunched on the pallet, panting, face splotched with red. But somehow, she was still pale as death. Her hair stuck to her sweat-dampened skin at the temples and on her neck.
She gripped her belly tight. Her face scrunched in pain.
And her grunt turned into a cry of agony.
He stared in confusion and panic, a wave of realization coming over him at once.
There was blood all over the floor. It soaked the pelts beneath her. Stained her hands and forearms. Smeared the tunic.
Blood. So much blood. Just like in his dream.
It was everywhere.
The babe was being born!
He scrambled to his feet and rushed to her side.
She grabbed him, her fingers digging into his arm as the pain grew. “It’s all wrong,” she cried. “The babe. She’s struggling. Help me.”
His terror sparked stronger.
Gods save them, he had very little awareness of childbirth. He’d helped his father when he was a boy, when the ewes would come due in their season. But that was a lifetime ago. What was wrong in his head that he’d encouraged her to stay, that he thought he could help her? Had he lost his mind? Breanne . . . he’d not even been there for his Breanne . . . this—
“What can I do?” he asked, desperation boiling up inside of him. He couldn’t fail. It wasn’t an option. He couldn’t get this wrong.
“The sea,” she gasped. “Must . . . water . . . go.” Her words turned into a screech, filling the room.
Muninn echoed the sound, repeating it again and again.
“Stop!” Sareck snapped at the creature. It obeyed, but still gave an annoyed caw. He turned back to Alya. “What are you saying, you want the water?”
She nodded franticly.
“I can go, bring you some—”
She shook her head. “No!”
“No.”
“Go. Take me. To the sea.”
Danu save them, she wanted him to take her to the shore? She was bleeding. So much could go wrong! This was such a precarious trial she was facing. “But Alya—”
Her cries rose, cutting him off. They took form, unintelligible, insistent. But he knew what she was trying to say. The sea.
“Yes, very well.” He reached out, nudging her to wrap her arms around his neck. She complied instantly, tucking herself into his chest as he pulled her into his arms.
He carried her out into the night and across the yard. The moon was full in the star-scattered sky, lighting the water with its white glow.
Her blood coated his arms, ran down his stomach. So much of it. How did it keep coming?
Don’t let her die, he pleaded silently. He wouldn’t allow Death to have these souls. Not them too.
He wouldn’t.
They reached the shoreline and she seemed to settle in his arms a bit. “Take me . . . into . . . the tide.”
Doubt filled him as he watched the waves. How could this be right? “Please, Alya,” he said, desperation filling him. “The babe—”
“She must be born . . . in the sea,” her voice was pleading now, echoing his own horrible desperation.
He thought of how he’d found her, dashed on the rocks.
How her body was covered in barnacles and kelp. The scales.
The fish that gave themselves up in offering.
He’d known from the start she wasn’t human. She wasn’t of earth or air. It had been clear from the beginning.
She belonged to the sea.
And so did her child.
He stepped into the tide, moving quickly, letting it draw him out. The water swiftly wrapped around his knees, then his waist to his chest, tugging him farther and farther, until he no longer had strong footing.
Her body grew colder and colder against his.
So cold.
“Thank you, Sareck,” she whispered, eerily calm now. “You can let me go. Please.”
His grip tightened at her words, how they echoed his dream. “What? No.”
“It’s all right,” she assured him. She reached up and touched his cheek. “Just for a moment.”
He struggled, searching her eyes, so many things he wanted to understand, to say. He couldn’t let her go . . . he couldn’t.
But as he watched her, the moonlight cast her features as the ghost she’d been before. Her aspect shifted, her humanity not as clear in her face. She wasn’t his. She was Other. And the knowledge of how close he’d allowed her, how entwined in his life she’d become, so quickly . . . it was suddenly thorns in his heart.
He’d let it happen. He hadn’t even meant to. But he’d let her in.
And now he had to let her go.
His grip slowly released. And she slipped from his arms. Floating away, increment by increment. Into the sea. Into the night.
Until the tide swallowed her whole.
He waited. For her to reemerge. To return. The moon crossed over the horizon, then faded as the sun began to rise.
He waited. Standing in the current, pulled and pushed. Exhausted. Even as he watched intently for a sign of her dark hair in the silver water. Even as his eyes scanned the waves for the millionth time.
He waited. Still, she didn’t surface from the water. She didn’t appear in the mist. She didn’t return to him.
His legs grew weak after many hours. They buckled as he stumbled from the water. He found himself on his hands and knees, crawling up the sand. He collapsed, gasping, his chest tight with panic and sorrow.
She was alive, he knew. He somehow . . . knew. The child. The woman. They lived.
But he was alone once more.
Just as he’d wanted.
He shouldn’t have let her into his life.
He shouldn’t have let her go.
He released a groan. Pain filling every inch of him.
He sank into the sand, broken. Lifeless. Images of Breanne merging with images of a strange ghost that had haunted him for a while. That had infiltrated his heart. And he could no longer tell one agony, one loss, from another.
His raven woke him, pecking at his shoulder.
They come, whispered through the salty air. Muninn flapped its wings, flying off as if startled.
Sareck squinted at the sun, confused. How had he gotten down here on the beach? Alya would be annoyed he’d fallen asleep. It must’ve been midday, she’d be starving by now—
Wait.
He remembered . . . the blood, the moon, the sea. The sun had already begun to sink back into the horizon. And she still hadn’t returned. The tide had taken her away. How long had he been sleeping here on the sand?
The bitter ache flooded back through him.
She was gone. Well and truly—
“I hope your slumber replenished you,” came a voice above him.
Sareck jerked his eyes open, his aching body protesting.
The prince hovered, casually gripping the curved blade at his side. “I’d hate for the Morrígan to receive you half broken.” He smirked.
The brother stood beside the prince. “Where is Alya?” came a second voice. “Where’s my sister?” He leaned down and pressed a short sword into Sareck’s side.
Sareck groaned, but he couldn’t move out of the blade’s path. He couldn’t answer their questions. She’s gone.
How long had he waited here on the shore?
“Have you lost your wits, mud man?” the prince asked, sounding as if he enjoyed that idea.
Sareck wanted more than anything to kill him. This was his fault. He’d driven her away. Sareck wanted to rip the prick’s spine out. He wanted to separate his head from his body. But Sarck’s battle ax was buried in the earth still, tucked into the cliff. Which is where he was likely to be after the prince had his way. “Gods curse you,” he muttered to the white-haired bastard.
“Oh, the broken human has a spark in his belly after all.”
The brother, Aram moved his blade away from Sareck’s side. Anger roiled in his grey-green eyes. “He’s not going to tell us. Are you sure you felt her spirit awaken? I don’t sense her here at all.”
“She’s here,” the prince said, still staring down at Sareck. “Or she was. Her blood is all over him.” He motioned to the faded stains on Sareck’s tunic.
Aram turned back to Sareck, his features pinched in pain. “Blood?”
“There was a babe,” the prince said. “Wasn’t there, mud man?”
“But she wasn’t with child when she disappeared,” Aram said. “She would’ve told me.”
“Your sister was a liar and an oath-breaker. There wasn’t a man or beast she wouldn’t manipulate into—"
“No,” Sareck growled, “Enough!” Rage billowing through his limbs, propelling his body up. He stood on shaky legs and considered how to kill the two men. “Leave these shores before I pull your guts from your carcass. There’s nothing here for your kind. She’s gone,” he said. “Left for good.”
The prince stalked forward, death in his eyes. “Left with my child,” he said, his voice tightening. He didn’t seem to like Sareck growing his balls back.
“You said we’d find her here,” Aram snapped at the prince, desperation filling his voice. “You said you heard her call to you. Now you tell me you lied, that there’s a child? You should have left her be, Doran. Why—?”
The prince spun on his heel and struck out at the boy. The back of his hand met flesh with a meaty thud.
Aram stumbled, blood instantly sprouting from his lips, his nose.
The prince kicked his side, hard, a heavy crack braking the air. “What should I have done little bastard?” he spat. “Say it again. Give me your orders.” He kicked again. And again.
And Sareck decided to kick back.
He lunged, crashing into the prince, tackling him to the sand.
The two men rolled, the prince’s large dagger flying from his grip.
The young warrior was lightning fast, though. Sareck only got a single strike in before the prince regained his head, tossing Sareck off, sending him careening across the sand.
Crashing into a rock. Blood instantly filled Sareck’s mouth.
The prince was on him in a heartbeat, gripping his throat, lifting him off the ground as if he were ragdoll. “Defending her brother, and her honor, are we?” His fingers squeezed, sending agony crashing through Sareck’s skull. “And yet she has abandoned you. She cares for no one but herself, mud creature. She’s left you to my wrath, and I shall thank her for it later with the tip of my blade. The bitch doesn’t deserve your care. She’s a wicked, devious whor—”
His words cut off with a strange hiss of air, face contorting. His mouth opened, moving wordlessly in surprise and his fingers loosened on Sarecks throat.
Sareck fell to the sand.
Confusion and relief filled him. Had the brother recovered and attacked?
The prince stumbled sideways for a moment, shaking his head as if to clear it.
A blurred figure behind the prince stepped back. It was releasing the hilt of a familiar ax.
Sareck’s battle ax.
But how?
The prince growled low in his throat regaining his balance. He turned slowly to meet his attacker, revealing the head of the ax.
Imbedded deep in his spine.
But still, he stood, his muscles clenched in rage. A dark swath of blood slicked his back.
“You bitch,” he seethed.
Sareck didn’t pause to think as instinct took over his limbs.
He surged up, gripping the handle of the battle ax. Yanked.
And swung.
The prince’s head rolled from his shoulders, hitting the sand with a meaty thud. His white hair fluttered in the breeze, severed from its ties with the slice. Sea-green eyes stared at the sky.
The body fell a moment later.
And blood spilled out of the neck in a flood of crimson, soaking into the sand, the stain growing wider and wider. The red current spilling into the tide.
Sareck dropped the ax, collapsing to his knees.
“Goddess, save us,” came a voice. She was before him. Alya. Was he imagining her? Was he dead? No, his head hurt too much.
“Are you all right?” Her hands checked his neck, his chest, his face.
“This is a dream,” he said.
“Forgive me,” she whispered, kissing his brow, his cheek. “He arrived much quicker than I imagined he would. Thank the gods you’re in one piece.”
“I’m dreaming,” Sareck repeated. He couldn’t believe it was true. She’d left him.
Hadn’t she?
“No, I’m here, Sareck.” She cupped his cheek, brushing a thumb over his chin. “You’re bleeding.”
“He hits hard.”
“Sister.” Aram groans, trying to sit up.
Alya turns but doesn’t move to go to him. “How could you come with that monster? He’d have had me by the hair, back in chains.”
“I thought . . . I could protect you from him.”
She turned back to Sareck. “I don’t need you for that anymore.” She nudged him up, pulling him awkwardly to his feet. “Come now, we need to get you lying down, Sareck. I’ll make you fish stew. Fish stew fixes everything.” Then she said to her brother. “Clean up your mess, Aram. And go. Go and never return. Forget me. I’m well and truly dead.”
“Wait, sister!” Aram managed to sit up, gripping his side. Blood leaked from his nose, from his ear. “What of the babe? Doran said you had a child.”
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