“Like I said, it’s none of your business.” A strong wind accompanied my father’s words. A sudden burst of clouds. It sang under my skin, urging my participation. I inwardly stamped my foot, a child on the verge of a tantrum. Let me. Let me.
“Your power doesn’t frighten me, Athen. I caution you not to use it.”
“I think it’s time for you to leave,” my father said, all pretense of civility gone.
“It is well within my right to take her. She belongs to the tribe of her mother.”
With this declaration Sol stepped to my side, his hand curling around my wrist as though he was going to have to drag me into the water. Is this what Athen meant by things going bad?
“But for her sake,” Flores continued, his eyes softening when they fell on me, “and for her sake only, I have no intention of doing that. I understand the need for patience. But I do insist she make a declaration. I demand she participate in a Soulfast. Surely you won’t object to that.”
This seemed to mollify my father. Me and Sol, not so much. Though I was under the impression nothing Flores said would mollify Sol.
“We haven’t practiced that custom for many years. I’m not sure it would serve any purpose,” Athen said.
“I respect your position of autonomy, even if I don’t agree with it. But I have a duty, Athen. Give her the protection she needs. Her place in the tribe she needs. If you won’t, I will.”
Athen pondered his words, his silver gaze skating between me and Flores. Flores remained patient, standing tall and sure. Like a man used to getting what he wanted.
“I need more time. Like you said, she’s still ignorant of some of our more traditional customs. I’ll see to it she understands and is ready.”
Ready for what? What exactly was he agreeing to? I fumed. They stood webbed toes to webbed toes, negotiating with pieces of my life. As if I had no say. As if nothing was in my control.
“See, once again we have come to terms.” Flores smiled, inclining his head to me. “I look forward to hearing from you.” With those parting words, he gracefully dove into the gulf. Seconds later, Flores shot back out of the water and landed on the deck of his heavily-fortified boat.
Sol finally let my arm go, probably leaving bruises from where he gripped me. We watched Flores depart, his boat heading for parts unknown, the drone of the motor growing more and more faint until there was nothing to be heard but the whir of the wind. The silence stretched into long minutes.
Sol was the first to break it. “I can’t believe you agreed to his demands.”
“I agreed because, like it or not, he’s right.”
“He’s not trustworthy.” Sol’s whole demeanor radiated contempt. Whatever was between he and Flores, it tormented him. I’d felt it in the way he gripped my arm. The quiver in his body. The way he still held his knife in his hand as if he needed to protect himself against a man who was no longer here.
“No, he’s not. But he takes our ways seriously. If a Soulfast will satisfy him, it’s a small price to pay.” Athen turned his steely gaze on Sol. “You’re lucky you didn’t get a knife in the belly for pulling that stunt, son. You said you could handle it and instead you put yourself at risk. You put Caris at risk,” Athen admonished.
Sol’s head jerked back as if Athen had slapped him. He leaped into the water, still clutching his knife. I felt a wave of indignation on his behalf and might have followed him in a show of solidarity if not for all the unanswered questions.
Athen gripped the back of his neck, his sigh a release of pent up tension. His unsettled gaze fell on me. “I suppose you’re angry too.”
“It would have been nice to know I had an uncle. I’m not too fond of secrets either.”
Athen’s eyes stayed transfixed on my face as the boat bobbed on the choppy waves.
“Watching you these last few months, coming into your own, has been a miracle I thought I’d never see. How much do I tell you? How much can you hear before you regret ever coming back here, before you long for your old life back?”
“It’s too late for regrets now. My life is here. The people I love are here. Now, what exactly is a Soulfast?”
Seven
Was it just yesterday Jeb asked if I’d noticed females of my species were on short supply?
Well, I’d noticed. I knew one other besides me, not counting Mrs. Jacobs, and that was Quinn. What I hadn’t done was give much thought to the broader implications of a species being heavily populated by only one gender. An issue, according to my father, we’d been dealing with for centuries. Because of that, females were highly regarded and well protected. Traditionally, at the age of sixteen girls went through a Soulfast. A ceremony signifying the commitment of a young woman to her family and tribe. In exchange, she was offered the full protection of both. It was, in essence, a binding ceremony that would bind my soul to the tribes and theirs to mine, symbolized by the receiving and wearing of a pearl. Most of the time the pearl was offered by a family member or, in some cases, a potential mate. I had friends back in Kentucky that did the whole debutante thing, and what Athen described sounded similar.
Athen laid this out for me rather formally as he steered us over the emerald water, our slow cruising speed creating a soft wind in my face and a gentle rush of water against the boat’s hull. He also informed me some tribes took the Soulfast more seriously than others. Enter Sterling Flores and his demands. He was a traditionalist, and evidently, as my mother’s brother, tradition dictated he had some say over my standing in the tribe.
In recent years, some of Flores’s more lofty political aspirations had been realized. He held a position of influence in the community, acting as leader of a council for an alliance of a growing number of tribes. An alliance our tribe had forsaken in favor of a more autonomous structure. Flores was only interfering now because it was a matter of blood. My blood connected to his. Athen said he’d been anticipating this, but he figured he would have more time to ease me into the idea of not only claiming my place in the tribe but claiming him as blood.
“So there’s a big party and at some point I’m introduced formally to the tribe. I choose a male family member as a protector, presumably you. I get a cool piece of jewelry and it’s over. I finish high school, everything goes back to normal.”
Well, my new normal anyway.
“Yes.” He chuckled, steering with his wrist, one foot propped up on the seat.
Sounded harmless enough. Might even be fun. I was always up for an excuse to buy a new dress. And I was anxious to learn more about tribe life. The only sticky part of the Soulfast was my father. I’d be acknowledging him in a public way, accepting him as part of my life in front of witnesses. It was one thing to do that on his boat with no one else around, it was another to do it in front of the whole tribe. What he’d done to my mother was wrong. It hurt her. Fully accepting him seemed a betrayal of that hurt. I hadn’t yet said the words, “I forgive you,” and honestly, I didn’t know if I ever would.
“Is this being normal important to you?” he asked.
I looked at him across the deck. He’d put on a shirt, covering the tattoo on his shoulder, and secured his hair behind his neck. I was beginning to appreciate his looks. The silver eyes so like mine. The long, silken hair. The strength of his arms. He was admittedly a beautiful man. He must have been breathtaking when he was younger. Extraordinarily not normal.
“I thought it was.” My back rested on the cushion behind me, my feet propped in front. I shouldn’t be this easy with him, this comfortable. He made me not want to be normal. He made me like what I was, what I could do.
When I was with my dad it was so clear. I loved my life with him. I loved the things we shared, our history. But I couldn’t deny the thrill I’d felt earlier at the power coursing through my blood, the way the sky answered to me. The thought of it made my skin sing. I wanted to embrace it, wallow in it.
“Did my mother participate in a Soulfast? Did you know her then?”
“Yes. An
d even then our tribe was in a state of decline. We’d abandoned many of our traditions. In fact Lara, Noah’s mother, was the last to go through a Soulfast formally. And your mother’s tribe, they did everything so much bigger and grander than anything I was used to. Their tribe was big. It’s still one of the biggest. I hadn’t been prepared. She was only sixteen. Like everyone else, I expected her to choose her father as protector. When she walked up to me, her eyes so big and brown, her Song filling my head. I took the necklace off my neck right there and put it on Rena’s. The whole beach was silent. I think even the waves stopped in that moment.”
“What happened?” A fairy tale, he was describing the fairy tale I’d always imagined she lived. Somewhere it had gone horribly wrong.
“Sterling, the bastard, challenged me to a trial.”
“What’s a trial?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. It’s the right of a male family member to make the chosen prove his worth through trial. Prove he can protect her in hand-to-hand combat of some type with either fists or the weapon of the challenger’s choice. In Flores’s case, it was knives.”
“Did you prove your worth?” I asked, intrigued by the romanticism of the idea.
“Yes, barely. Flores is ruthless with a knife.” He held up his left hand, spreading his fingers. “I was lucky I only lost the top of my index finger.” Sure enough, his index finger was missing from the first knuckle up. “It angered him that she chose me over him or his family.”
“What would have happened if he won?”
“I would have been declared unworthy. And Flores would have gotten to keep her.” He looked askance at me. “She was like a prized pet to him. One he could never win.”
“She loved you. Or at least she was fond of you. What happened?”
“I happened. I got too possessive. I stifled her. I became her brother, and in the end she hated me for it.”
I sat in silence, contemplating what might have been.
“I’ll stand up for you, Caris. Offer you the wearing of my pearl and be honored, but I’m not your only choice. There’s always Flores.”
I thought he might be joking, but I wasn’t sure. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Partially. But he is wealthy and lives a luxurious life. His influence is growing.” He shrugged. “If that kind of thing appeals to you.”
“It doesn’t, though I get the feeling Sol might not agree with you.”
“Sol made a mistake and I’m sorry to say he’s still paying for it.”
I wanted to ask what that mistake was. What Flores had done to Sol to cause the life behind his eyes to die. But Athen’s face was a blank slate, and I knew he wouldn’t share it with me. After a few minutes, he looked at me inquiringly. His ponytail had loosened in the wind and a few strands of hair blew across the sharp line of his cheek. His gaze dropped to my wrist and the pearl I already wore.
“A hundred years ago that would have signified an engagement,” he said.
I fingered the bracelet on my wrist. Noah’s pearl made from a tear I’d seen fall from his eye and form into this treasure. So green, like the water surrounding us.
“Don’t worry,” he said in response to my startled look. “It no longer holds such significance, but it does say a lot about how Noah feels about you. Pearls are not given lightly, even today.”
“Noah said as much. Sometimes I wonder if I should have accepted it. Especially now.” I’d never voiced these misgivings before. It was a powerful magic, the way my mind reached out to him, the way he answered. Maybe even more powerful than my ability to shake the sky. My Song created its own kind of storm, and more and more Noah was the center.
“Do you care about him?” Athen offered the question casually.
“I love him,” I said, suddenly eager to see Noah again. Not the least embarrassed to admit my feelings to my father.
“Then it’s good. That gives you two choices, three if you count your brother. I can’t say Sol wouldn’t be a good choice. He’s very dedicated to you. I hadn’t thought him capable of being so concerned with anyone other than himself.”
“You’re assuming they would both stand up for me.” I threw at him.
“They would. Don’t doubt that.”
He made it sound so ideal. And crazily, of all the candidates, he was, in my mind, the best choice. In some ways the safest choice. Obviously Flores, family or not, was no choice. My life was here. And my brother, well, he might not be the healthiest choice. Noah was a choice I wouldn’t even let myself contemplate, mostly because I wanted him so bad. We were already bound by my Song and the pearl I’d accepted so innocently. I didn’t want to add to his sense of obligation to me.
“I won’t lie to you, Caris. We haven’t had anyone go through a Soulfast formally since before the epidemic. This could be the start of a new era for our tribe. A symbol of our recovery from a bad time in our history as a community. It’s the other reason I agreed to Flores’s demand. It will benefit us too.”
“But wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Noah had told me some of what they referred to as the epidemic. A bacterial infection run rampant amongst a people whose immune systems were ill-equipped to handle it. Like many such infections, it targeted the old and the very young. Though I hadn’t known them, my grandparents, Athen’s parents, died during that time.
“Yes. I think it’s time,” he said with a note of resolution.
I looked toward shore when Athen slowed the boat to a near idle. We were behind my house and we’d been on the water long enough the sun was past setting and gray had taken over the sky. I stood up, stretching through a twinge in my back. The moon peeked over the trees, round and bright, promising a beautiful night.
“There really should be a handbook you know. Like a Waterbreather For Dummies.”
He grinned, but some serious thought stayed in his eyes. “Thank you for today. For giving me a chance. I’m sorry Flores ruined it.”
I wasn’t sure he had. I was still a bit high off my newfound sense of power and with it came a sense of self. It had never quite settled under my skin. Even now it waited for the slightest provocation.
“And what if I said no to the Soulfast? What if my choice was not to make one?”
“I’m afraid that’s the only choice you don’t have.”
* * *
Is this being normal important to you?
The question wouldn’t let me go. The afternoon had brought with it revelations, but it had also given me a better understanding of who I was as a waterbreather.
Was normal important to me?
Not here in the Deep with the water soothing over my body, fueling my arms and legs. When I stood on the deck of Athen’s boat earlier today and the skies opened, I loved how not normal I was. I loved, in that moment, that I was like him. I loved what he’d shown me.
I didn’t have to be afraid of myself anymore.
When I came out of the surf behind my house, I stood on the beach, listening to the slow turn of the waves. I stared at the back of my house. The windows dark as though no one lived there. Tonight, I didn’t live there. Tonight, I wanted to live here on the beach with the sand under my feet, the wind on my skin, the sound of the gulf in my ears. If this was my home now, I longed to relish in it. I’d been searching for control, settling for normal, only to realize it’s not what I needed. Not what I wanted. I’d been denying myself too long. Stifling my Song for fear of hurting Noah. Running from my ability to call the wind and the rain for fear of myself. I was tired of control. I wanted to be out of it. Let my mind do what it would, let the energy bubbling under my skin flow unimpeded.
I turned in a slow circle, ever aware of my surroundings. The air, the water, they asked a question, and I answered.
Yes.
They responded immediately. A build of wind, a gathering of clouds shrouding out the rising moon. I flung my arms wide, the storm my mind conjured becoming a quick reality.
I did have a choice. I could choose to be myself.
I laughed and it joined the thunder rolling over the Deep. My skin soaked up the rain. I opened my mouth, let it fall on my tongue, and tasted my own power. A few people had come out to enjoy the rise of the moon and they ran for the cover of houses, back to their cars. Any sane person wouldn’t stay outside for this. Any normal person would run from it.
Disenchantment rose, an ache in my chest. Someone had to see this. Someone had to see me. The real me. She was here, on this beach, in the rain. Commanding it.
I could show Noah. I could let him see who I was, what I’d become. I opened my mind further and called him. A request. A demand. A promise. He’d begged me to call him when I needed him, and I needed him. Not because I was in danger. Because I was danger. I was power. And I needed him to see me.
My Song was the wind. It sang around me, the notes blowing through my hair, over my skin. It lifted the waves in a crescendo. It rolled over the beach, vibrating in my chest, a steady drumbeat. Lightning spiraled from the night sky like clashing cymbals.
And then Noah appeared, coming out of the water as if I’d called him right out of the storm. If he noticed it, he gave no indication. His eyes focused on me, intent on my face. I braced myself for his touch, knowing when he touched me the sky would explode. Knowing I would let it.
When he put his hands on me, I closed my eyes and swayed into him. The wind surged, a roar in my ears. The earth trembled under the reign of thunder. I was the storm. The storm was me and it was Noah, and when his mouth crashed down on mine, I swear the sky split wide open, the rain beating so hard it hurt. But nothing could hurt me. I was high on the potency surging through me. High on the want that fueled it. As long as we kissed, it raged, buffeting our bodies until Noah was holding me up.
Waterdreamer (The Emerald Series Book 2) Page 9