by Kyrja
Sea God of the Sands
Book One of the Firebird’s Daughter Series
By Kyrja
Text Copyright @2016, Kyrja
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Cover Design: SelfPubBookCovers.com/ktarrier
Dedication
To those who have the courage to tell the story.
Table of Contents
Prelude
Chapter One - Jarles
Chapter Two - Aidena
Chapter Three – P’onyem
Chapter Four - Kerr
Chapter Five - Savaar
Chapter Six – Under Water
Chapter Seven – Chared’s Lesson
Chapter Eight – Amphedia’s Son
Chapter Nine – The Crystal Goblet
Chapter Ten – Amphedia Meets Jarles
Chapter Eleven – P’onyem’s Regrets
Chapter Twelve - Simoon
Chapter Thirteen – Through Oculis’ Eyes
Chapter Fourteen – After the Storm
Chapter Fifteen – P’onyem Returns to Giya
Chapter Sixteen – Silver Swordfish Sisterhood
Chapter Seventeen – What Happened to Drena
Chapter Eighteen – Secrets and a Tear
Chapter Nineteen – Chared’s Confession
Chapter Twenty – Aidena in the City
Chapter Twenty – One – Jarles Remembers
Chapter Twenty- Two – Amphedia’s Offer
Chapter Twenty- Three – Eruitt’s Errand
Chapter Twenty-Four – Amphedia’s Tears
Chapter Twenty-Five – The Gathering Storm
Chapter Twenty-Six – Wings and Blood
Chapter Twenty-Seven – Family Ties
Chapter Twenty-Eight - Transformations
Chapter Twenty- Nine - Broken
Chapter Thirty – Sons of Amphedia
Chapter Thirty-One – Fire and Water
Chapter Thirty-Two - Partings
Chapter Thirty-Three – The Savior
Chapter Thirty-Four – The Heir
Chapter Thirty-Four – Epilogue
Glossary
People
Prelude
“Drena,” the young woman whispered to herself, accepting the awful reality of the name as truth. She’d sworn to reclaim the name of her birth as evidence of her oath. It had seemed such a small thing at the time, especially weighed against the burdens of the rest of the vows she would carry. But even whispering the name aloud, here in the depths of the stone halls of the water people, alone - so alone now – seemed to make even the shadows in the corners feel heavier. Oppressive. She closed her eyes, squeezing them tightly, hoping to refrain from spilling precious moisture from her water-ripened skin. Tears, even those shed in love and respect of his sacrifice, would no longer serve Jonath. She should, in fact, begin the ritual to reclaim his water immediately. But it was hard. So hard. Stupid, stupid, wonderful man that he was, Jonath had even brought the tools she’d need to anoint his body in proper desert fashion before she absorbed his water as her own. If only he hadn’t loved her so deeply, or she hadn’t been chosen from among the thousands of young women to have trod this same path, Jonath’s lifewater would still flow from his heart through his veins. He would still be here, in her arms.
“No, daughter,” a throaty, distinctively-feminine, almost sensuous voice called quietly, disturbing her sorrow and the utter stillness of the dark, always-damp stone walls. The young woman raised her eyes, seeking the source of the sound, wondering if this time she would finally allow herself to be seen. Faith was hard, sometimes, to embrace, but Drena had done her part. Would she do hers? She felt the wetness still clinging to her eyes, tiny pinpricks of tears pooling near the bottom edges. Satisfied even that much wouldn’t be wasted, although such an infinitesimal quantity was hardly noteworthy in skin so bloated with the richness of having lived so near the sea for nigh on a full year, she shifted her eyes further, seeking some movement, some indication she had come. She purposefully kept her hand laying over the stilled heart of her lover, refusing to give up her claim to his mortal shell. She stilled herself to smallness, waiting. Listening. Her muscles had bunched, prepared to fight at the first syllable she’d heard whispered, but she countered the instinct now, absurdly aware that mere reflexes and skills would hardly be a suitable match against a goddess.
And then she was there. Standing so close beside her, Drena could feel the fabric of her dress against her own skin, still drenched in the musky slickness of Jonath’s sweat. In another time, she might have even questioned the sensation; why would a goddess require clothing? But now, she merely noted the touch of the cloth against the bareness of her arm and back, as she knelt on the cold floor of stone. In one heartbeat, she’d been alone, with the dead body of her lover. In the next, the goddess had her fingers sunk into her hair in a loving gesture of reassurance, petting her head as if she was a mere child in need of someone to listen to her cry.
She wouldn’t of course, she knew, but wondered just what value the lack of tears could possibly have for the goddess of all the world’s seas. The Tuq’deb - desert people, she mentally rolled her eyes, forcefully reminding herself to use the words the priestess insisted she substitute lest she offend someone with her native language – cried rarely. Trained from birth to cherish the smallest drop of moisture, to cultivate each tiny plant so it might grow to provide life one day in the future, to cherish even the taste of a companion’s blood when need was great enough, desert people (she heard the words echo sharply in her mind now, purposefully injecting the hated substitute for the language of her birth with bitter sarcasm) cried and screamed unabashedly and with great abandon when someone they loved died. In her mind, Drena scoffed even at that inadequate word. “Died” had no character to it. No feeling. No investment of sacrifice or how one was cherished. When a Tuq’deb’s water was stilled, their heart no longer flowing with life, their soul only departed once enough tears were shed to know they had been loved. This “dying” of the water people – the Puj’hom – had no music, no melody, no beauty. And certainly no hope of rebirth. Which, of course, was exactly the reason she wasn’t crying now. Jonath had sacrificed all hope, all right, to rebirth by choosing to die. For the terrible crime of having loved her too much.
“He wouldn’t still be in your arms, you know.”
Drena let the hated words flow over her, knowing them for truth, no matter her heartache. No, of course not! The retort – as useless as it was true – was hot on her tongue. The need to scream at this horrid, useless, trickster of a goddess was aflame in her chest. The ache to pummel her to nothing more than a wet, bloody pool of gore – less meaningful than a puddle of camel piss in the sand – was scorching her very blood. She was everything Drena hated about the Puj’hom. If she’d never hated them before – and she had … oh yes she most certainly had – then she did now.
Stop it! Stop it! Just stop it! she told herself. She was right. She was horribly, terribly right. Unmistakably, profoundly and profanely right. Denying it would serve no purpose. If Jonath hadn’t agreed to the disgusting proposal the goddess had dangled in front of his nose, she would never have even known the utter joy of having had him inside of her. Never would have known the passion of his body, the feel of his naked flesh against hers. She
would have had every other part of him, every other part of his heart and soul, but never his body. Nor he hers. He would never have relented. Not ever. Instead, she would have been forced to go through with the coupling – the breeding – with whatever “Mating Merlarn” among the current stock the priestesses had corralled in their secret cult of horny priests who was deemed suitable for the supposedly sacred act of procreation. And Jonath would have had to live with it.
She inhaled deeply then, feeling the warmth of the moisture-ladened air as it was drawn in through her nostrils and deep into her lungs. She’d grown accustomed to the weight of each breath in the time she’d been among the water people, having learned how to not feel as though she was drowning with each indrawn breath. Soon, though, she would be back among her Campania and her body would have to relearn how to do the simplest things to which she’d never even given any thought. Until now. After nearly two years away from her beloved desert, her reflexes would have been dulled, her sense of the desert and its natural order diminished. And, of course, there were the new things her body would have to learn; she’d never been a mother before.
“He would die a little each day,” the voice insisted, drawing Drena back to the reality of the stone beneath her knees, the body beneath her hand, the ache beneath her breastbone. The words, though spoken quietly, even soothingly, so as to remind her tenderly of an ungentle truth the speaker knew would not be welcome, thundered through her heart with all the force and volume of a raging storm held at bay only by the speaker’s iron will.
Those were the same words Jonath had used in his arguments to her. He simply wouldn’t have been able to bear the thought of her in the arms of another man, not even for the requisite three moons declared by the priestesses to be sufficient for mating between an Undia and a Merlarn. She’d wasted precious time and breath trying to convince him otherwise. Even the pointed declaration she would mate with others once he was dead had provoked nothing more from him than a gentle smile of resignation; once his water had mingled with hers, it would no longer matter, he’d insisted. No other man could ever touch her as deeply as he would; the lifewaters of her body would forever be awash with his presence, the very liquid of her heart pounding with his name.
He’d given his life, not in sacrifice to his faith, nor even in obedience to the dictates of a goddess who’d proclaimed him – a Tuq’deb, and not the long-looked for Puj’hom – the father of the savior of her people, but out of love. True, gentle, unquenchable love. His reward was nothing more than a single night’s coupling with the woman who would bear his lifewater within her own veins and grow his seed into a child destined to “save” the water people. It was madness, utter madness, and she hated him a little for loving her so deeply. How would she bear the price? How could she live knowing he had not only paid with his life, but with his very soul?
“Everything has its price,” the Goddess interrupted her hollow thoughts again, her hand stilling on the crown of Drena’s head, no longer petting her as gently as waves lapping against a moon-kissed shoreline.
“I made him for you, daughter,” the goddess whispered, but this time Drena heard the pounding of the surf in her words, a primal throb in the undercurrent of her voice, the rushing of the tide as it hurried into shore, bringing life with it. “Are you not pleased?”
Drena knew her answer. No matter that Jonath lay still beneath her hand, his heart no longer beating with joy, the sweet, deep pools of his eyes forever closed, she was, indeed pleased he’d been hers. Nor had their coupling been the extent of the happiness they’d found together. The whole of their lives they’d been as one. Not even as far apart as two halves of one whole. They’d simply, and always, been one. Jonath had completed her, grounding her when she’d wanted nothing more than to flee her responsibilities, and tempering her wicked, wild nature that had so discouraged her mother. She, in turn, had filled his empty places, hearing his heart when nobody else cared to listen, encouraging his decision to defy the elders by taking up the flute instead of the sword. She’d taught him to use a staff instead, and he had taught her to embrace beauty instead of shunning it as weak and useless.
When she’d been proclaimed Undia, he had, of course, been the first to step forward to be her sentry for the time she would have to live among the water people. How he’d borne her stubborn insistence she would never serve as a breeding sow among the Puj’hom, with such sweet patience and empathy, she would never understand – not if all the sand fleas in all the deserts of the world all stood up together to sing a tale of epic proportions in perfect harmony! He’d always been so maddeningly calm! Always at peace with himself and with the world. All through her ranting and raving, he cheerfully coaxed her into accepting the blessing – the blessing! – of having been gifted with the ability to find water.
“Come, S’ray,” he would say, as she laid against his chest, hidden in some rocky outcropping, or against the side of a camel, late at night, stroking her hair while she fumed at the indignity of being valued for her womb instead of her hard-earned fighting skills, “think of all you will teach your daughter.” He would smother her protests and outrage with laughter, tickling her until she was forced to give up her fury and objections either by fleeing from him, or fighting back. Never had he lost his temper with her, no matter what she did. No matter how cruelly she lashed out at him in anger over someone else’s words or some other thing that had piqued her ire. Always, he had been there, heart of her heart, spirit of her spirit, more a part of her than her own blood and bones.
The only thing he’d ever truly denied her was his own body. He’d held her all through the night the Yahlah and the High Priest had told her of their decision she was to be included among the Undia. That night and many others. Over and over Jonath had reminded her she would continue to follow her path, to do everything she’d ever dreamed of, everything she ever wanted to do, that a single year away from the desert would change nothing. She was destined to be a warrior and she would remain a warrior. Just because she gave birth to a child would not mean she would be barred from her choices. “You will be everything you ever wanted to be,” he repeated, holding her once her fury had turned to sorrow and despair.
But he’d been wrong, Drena knew. She’d never be his wife or lifemate. She had tried to convince him otherwise for years. She’d only seen eight summers when the Yahlah had come upon her, playing alone in the sand as it had cooled with the sun’s setting. She’d been sitting in the dark, her chores already completed, waiting for her turn to eat. Jonath hadn’t finished with his chores, and she’d grown bored. She’d called a tiny trickle of water to her – she’d felt it flowing beneath the sand most of the day, the reservoir growing larger and nearer the surface, the closer the Campania had traveled to the oasis – just something to do to pass the time without being noticed by the adults and called to do some other senseless work. She’d already done her share.
It had been nothing more than a tiny damp spot in the flatness of the eternal dunes. She’d known enough even then not to let anyone know she could feel the water beneath her, let alone call it to her. People who felt the water were sent away, and the women always came back fat and bloated with children growing in their bellies. The men all went crazy sooner or later. She was never going to have children; she’d known even at a young age she had no desire to have her body so fat and unwieldy as to let it get in her way of being a true warrior. Children were annoying. Loud. And very demanding. She had other things in mind. If she ever did get a baby in her belly, she was going to give it away for the Campania to raise and would not ever, ever let anybody tell it she was its mother. Most babies got raised by their own mothers or fathers, but not always. And it didn’t really matter anyway, since some adults were more likely to punish you than your own parents. Drena knew that since she didn’t want to be a mother, any baby she might get in her belly would be better off with someone else taking care of it.
The Yahlah, the leader of their Campania, was an old man. A very old
man. Older than anyone else Drena had ever known, even in the other clans and tribes she’d seen. But he was tricky. Everyone knew that. His bones were creaky, but he could still sneak up on you if you weren’t paying attention. And he knew everything. He was almost blind, she’d heard, but everyone said he still saw everything, as if he was somehow blessed with a kind of sight that had nothing to do with his eyes.
Drena must have really been bored that evening, sitting in the sand, allowing her mind to wander, or else the Yahlah had been very sneaky. For suddenly, he was there, squatting across the sand from her, his long, thin hands resting in the space between his stick-like knees, his darkened face aimed at the small hole she’d made, giving the water back to the gods below. She’d never been so close to the man before, but even in the dark, with the light of the banked cooking fires behind him, his face hidden in the shadows, she’d known it was him. His breath was sweet, almost sickly sweet, from the crunchy laknor nuts found rarely throughout the desert. Being the Yahlah, everyone gave most of the ones they found to him. Drena’s mother said it was so he would be kind and sweet, but Jonath had told her the nuts made him sleep better, so he wouldn’t be such a cranky old bastard.
“You are too young, yet,” was all the old man had said, his voice a raspy wheeze, and then he’d touched her forehead with the heel of his left palm, giving her his blessings. He’d stood up and left her alone. But everything had changed after that. The Undias had started paying attention to her, giving her small tasks to perform, to test the strength and depth of her skill. She resisted their efforts at friendship as far as she dared, without being obviously disrespectful, and began to pester each of the warriors for their advice on how to hone her fighting skills. She even begged to be taken along when the hunters went out. Anything to make herself valuable and strong without the need to draw attention to her water-finding abilities.