Her heart quivered and the air in her lungs tingled. When his fingertips touched her, every nerve in her body came alive. She needed to push that feeling away. She was lying to him; or at least, letting him mislead himself about her. He might not think she was so special if he knew she wasn’t really a mage. And besides, what kind of future would they have? He was a siren who lived in the water. She was a mere mortal who lived on land. And both of their worlds were dying.
“Thanks,” she whispered, then she pulled away and continued walking. “But I can promise you, my village did not share those sentiments.”
“So you left them to focus on being a mage,” he offered.
She didn’t correct him. She didn’t tell him that they sold her off. “A mage from another part of the island found me and took me in,” she said. “She saw something in me, and nurtured it, and now...here we are.”
“Is that where you learned everything you know? From the mage who trained you to be the mage you are today?”
Such a direct question, but Kerina could not give a direct answer. To do so, she would have to admit she had been a servant, not a mage-in-training. “I wouldn’t say she taught me everything she knew,” Kerina said, “but she taught me a lot.”
That was true. So why did it feel like she was still lying to him?
The cave seemed to come to an abrupt halt, which thankfully had the same effect on their conversation.
“It’s a dead end,” Kerina said, staring up into Gabriel’s eyes. “Now what?”
Gabriel strode up to the wall and began running his hands over it. “That can’t be right. Why would the tunnel lead to nothing?” After a few more moments, he turned back toward her. “Perhaps you can use your magic to go through it?”
Kerina froze. Yes, real magic could open a wall. And she couldn’t suggest otherwise. After all, real magic had also turned humans into sirens. But Kerina didn’t have real magic. Kerina had herbs.
In a panic, she glanced around, hopeful to find another path. Perhaps there was a way down...or a way up. But there was nothing.
But then she realized Gabriel was speaking from desperation, and she was reacting from panic. After a deep breath, she knew what to say.
“Opening a dead end may get us out of here, but if you’re looking for something in these caves, we need to find another path. We must have missed something. Another tunnel back the way we came.”
Gabriel’s shoulders relaxed. “You’re right. It’s just that we’ve come so far.”
As he headed toward her, and back the way they had come, a rock protruding strangely from one of the cave walls caught her attention. She placed her hand on Gabriel’s arm. “Hang on a second. I think I found something.”
She strode over to the wall and inspected the rock that jutted out. She tried pulling it, but it didn’t budge. What had she expected? A secret passage? Her hope sank into her stomach, but her own desperation caused her to persist. This time, she tried pushing the rock up.
The rock moved under her weight. It sounded like stones were rubbing together, moving, and for a second, hope flared. But that moment passed, and still nothing had happened. The wall was still a wall.
When she turned around, Gabriel was smiling. “You did it!”
Kerina‘s eyebrows pulled together. “I moved the rock, but how does that help us?”
Gabriel turned to the side, looking to a space ahead of him that she couldn’t see from where she stood. He waved his arms forward. “A new path!”
“A new path?” Kerina repeated, jogging up to his side to look past him. Sure enough, a passage that hadn’t been there before was now open. “I guess our journey isn’t over yet.”
But as Kerina started to head into the passage, a large stone came rushing down the path toward them.
Gabriel lunged, wrapping his arms around her and taking her flying across the cave into a tight corner. She was pinned against the wall by his body. The boulder rolled by them with a thundering sound and disappeared out of sight.
Even after the stone had passed, they stayed in place, their hearts hammering against each other’s chests. Kerina’s whole body trembled. Gabriel looked down at her, lowering the rag from his mouth. His gaze seemed to dip lower than her eyes. Down to her lips. And soon, she was looking at his lips, too. Wondering if he might kiss her. They’d just escaped death, and yet, it seemed kissing him in that moment was all she could think about.
Gabriel smiled, and that smile turned into a chuckle.
“Finally,” he said. “Finally, I have returned the favor.”
“Thank you,” Kerina said. “For saving me.”
Gabriel licked his lips, and Kerina wondered if it was simply that his mouth was dry, or if he was also thinking about kissing her.
“I don’t think any more boulders are coming,” he said, suddenly stepping away from her.
“I guess we’re lucky for your fast reflexes,” Kerina said, trying to move on from their moment quickly. How foolish to think he was going to kiss her! “But where did that come from?”
Gabriel turned away, as though scanning their surroundings. “There,” he said, pointing in the direction they had come. “See that tile?”
Kerina came up beside him and followed with her vision to where he was pointing. Sure enough, one part of the cave’s ground was more sunken than the rest: a perfect square dipped about an inch below the surface, in front of the new passage.
Right where Kerina had stepped.
“I think we’ve been underestimating this place,” she said. “We need to be more careful.”
She continued past him. Without her source of light, which she had lost when Gabriel nearly tackled her, she had to gently trace the ground by rubbing her foot across it to feel for any ridges that might indicate other tile traps.
Finally, she reached where her bowl of light had fallen, scattering the contents everywhere, but at least it was still in one piece. She lifted it from the ground and refilled it with herbs from her pouch to recreate their light source, then waved Gabriel over.
“Just follow the path I took. There are no tiles there. But be careful.”
He joined her at her side, and they stared down the new passage.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
She nodded, holding up the bowl of light to illuminate their path. “We don’t have much choice.”
Chapter 11
The need to be careful slowed Gabriel and Kerina’s passage through Tua’s caves. Gabriel went ahead, pausing often to check the cave walls and the ground, probing it with his spear shaft before moving forward.
“Watch your step here,” he warned Kerina as he stepped around another floor plate.
He didn’t know what kinds of traps it might have triggered, but it didn’t matter. He did not think his heart rate was back to normal yet from the runaway boulder as it was. It skittered erratically whenever he thought of Kerina getting hurt. The same feeling happened whenever she got too close and he could smell the flower-like fragrance of her hair, too.
She was warm, vibrant, and alive in a way he had never seen in a woman.
And when he had pressed her against the wall, their hearts thudding to the same beat...when she had looked up at him, he had wanted to kiss her.
Gabriel grimaced. Mage. Siren.
It doesn’t work.
A stray thought flickered through his mind. Surely, if she chose, Kerina could turn herself into a siren and live in the sea with him. Or turn him back into a human to live on the land with her.
A muscle twitched in his cheek. That was not an option. He was a clan chief. His responsibility was to his people under water. And Kerina’s responsibility as a mage was to guide the humans on land.
It doesn’t work.
If he repeated it often enough, perhaps reality would finally sink in and—
“Gabriel?”
He jerked to a stop and looked over his shoulder. “Yes?”
Kerina stood less than a foot away, both exotic and be
autiful in the pale glow from the light she carried. He ground his teeth. Tension knotted his shoulders. Yes, she was alluring, but she was also a mage, damn it, not a mere human villager to be seduced for the sheer novelty of the experience.
Besides, her powerful magic would likely make him regret any presumptive stupidity on his part.
“What should we expect next?” Kerina asked.
“Moñái, most likely.”
Her eyes widened. “They have names?”
He nodded and extended his hand to her to help her across a wide pressure trap set in the cave floor. After she made it across the trap, she hesitated, but did not tug her hand out of his. He didn’t want to let her go either. Probably best to not make a big deal of it.
Their fingers still entwined, they continued down the dark passageway together.
“Did the other two have names?” Kerina asked.
“Teju Jagua and Mbói Tu’i.”
“So, they’re not just monsters?”
“Monsters have parents, too,” Gabriel said. “Tua—”
“And where did Tua come from?”
Gabriel shrugged. “It’s said that he’s the personification of evil.”
Kerina’s fingers squeezed his. “You’re really casual about taking on the ‘personification of evil.’”
“When stories become myths, and myths become legend, even the smallest petty thief may become the leader of a feared gang of bandits. All I know are the legends—not the truth.”
“And the two monsters we met—how close were they to legend?”
Gabriel winced. “Almost entirely accurate.”
Kerina scowled. “And they are the children of Tua?”
“It’s said that Tua abducted a human woman—Kerana.”
Kerina jerked, yanking her fingers from his grasp. “Kerana?”
He, too, had noticed the similarity in the names. Gabriel paused and turned to face Kerina. “She was from the Guaraní tribe that used to make its home in the forests and foothills of Chile.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” she demanded, hands on her hips.
“It’s just a name. The similarity to yours is entirely coincidental. The Guaraní people live here, in South America. There’s an entire ocean separating the Guaraní and your people.”
“But you knew. And you chose not to mention it.” She lifted her chin, her eyes narrowing. “Did you think it would frighten me off? That I would say no to you if I found out before leaving my home?”
“Kerina, I—”
“You did, didn’t you? And you’re telling me only now, when it’s far too late to turn back?”
Was he so transparent? His jaw tightened. “Kerina—”
“Don’t pander to me, Gabriel. Don’t try to keep things from me just because you don’t think I’m strong enough to handle them.”
“I didn’t lie to you.”
“You omitted the truth! Truth that might have changed my mind—” Her voice cracked, and she turned her back on him.
Panic coated his throat, slick and bitter. “Kerina…” His mind fumbled for an excuse, for a reason. “Kerana was just a name from a story. I don’t know how much truth there was to it—maybe all, maybe none. It wasn’t going to change anything we were going to have to face anyway. How could it possibly matter?”
“Wasn’t that for me to decide?” Kerina’s broken voice trembled.
Was she crying?
Panic escalated into shock. “Kerina, please. I…I was afraid you’d say no, and it was such a small thing. I didn’t think it would matter.”
He grasped her upper arms and turned her to face him. He swallowed hard through the tightness in his throat. It was still almost impossible to inhale through the crushing pressure against his chest.
Kerina wasn’t crying, yet—but her eyes were moist, and she did not meet his gaze.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t want it to matter to you. To us.”
“You should have let me decide.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged off his hands and looked down the dark passageway. “What happened to Kerana?”
Gabriel hesitated. His breath whispered out in a sigh. “It’s said that Tua married her. Or that he raped her. They had seven children—cursed, born as monsters.”
“What happened to Kerana?”
“No one knows. That’s where the stories end. She was human, unlike Tua and their children. If she was real, then she’s probably dead.”
“Do all stories end so unhappily?” Kerina asked softly.
“No,” Gabriel said immediately.
“Haven’t they so far? No one’s had a happy ending in so long.” She folded her arms across her chest. In that moment, her shoulders subtly hunched, Kerina seemed both fragile and inaccessible.
Gabriel took a half-step forward before he realized that his touch was probably not welcome. After all, he had lied to her—if not deliberately, then at least through omission. He shook his head. His words were uttered quietly. “I think that the endings are what we make of them.”
She tilted her head. “You think happiness is a choice?” Her smile turned mocking. “Really? You have lived a sheltered life, Gabriel.”
He had lived a sheltered life, he realized with a prick of shame and guilt. Until the monsters arose from the deep, the sirens had enjoyed the abundance of the sea and the prestige and safety of being among the top predators in the ocean. As son of the clan chief, he had been raised with exquisite care, trained to lead, and given the best the clan could afford.
And now, when everything was going to hell, he would have to prove that he was worth the mantle of leadership he had taken on. In truth, happiness was not something he had thought much about, but now, looking back, he realized he had been content, if not precisely happy.
In his life, there had been nothing to be unhappy about, but nothing to be happy about either.
None of the siren women had caused his breath to catch or made his heartbeat quicken with that odd, elusive feeling.
But Kerina had—
Gabriel shook his head sharply. It couldn’t work, he reminded himself. He forced himself to step back from Kerina and continue down the tunnel. After a moment, Kerina’s footsteps followed him. The tightness around his chest eased.
For a moment, he had not been certain she would continue on their mission.
The tunnel widened, and Gabriel slowed before pausing to look around the sharp curve in the passageway.
It was not just a curve. The passageway swelled into a cavern so wide and so deep that he could see neither the sides nor the far end.
Kerina peeked around his shoulder. “What’s that?”
Gabriel frowned as his gaze traveled over the massive mound in the middle of the cave.
“Is it treasure?” Kerina asked, her voice quietly awed.
There might have been some valuables in that cluttered heap, but there was also a broken ox-plow, a crooked garden seat, and a child’s rope swing.
“It’s…trash,” Gabriel replied. “Humanity’s debris.”
“What’s it doing here?”
“I don’t know.” He reached for her hand, gratified when her fingers squeezed his lightly. “Let’s see if we can get around it.”
Within moments, Gabriel realized that getting around the mound was only slightly less difficult than climbing over it. The random assortment of things—all shapes, all sizes—tumbled off the massive pile. He winced when he saw a rusty sickle, sticking up from among the refuse.
“Something sharp is over here,” he told Kerina. “Stay closer to the wall.”
“I’m trying,” she grumbled under her breath.
Their weight, pressing down on the unevenly stacked heaps of things, caused the pile to shift beneath them, slipping and sliding, never stable. His chest heaved from the physical exertion, yet he tried not to breathe too deeply of the dry rot in the air.
The mound suddenly shifted. The stacks of farmi
ng implements, household tools, and children toys tumbled and rolled, forming new mountains and new valleys. Kerina shrieked as she lost her balance. Gabriel lunged and grabbed her wrist before she was swallowed beneath an onrushing flood of refuse.
Breathing hard, he pulled her onto a tiny rock ledge against the wall. It was scarcely wide enough for two, but at least it did not move with the waves of trash roiling through the cavern.
“What was that?” Kerina demanded. “An earthquake?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who is the next of Tua’s children?”
“Moñái. It’s said that he…” Gabriel’s gaze flashed around the cavern. “He steals and hides his misdeeds in a cave.”
“I think we’ve found his cave,” Kerina murmured. “His mother should have told him to clean up his room.”
Gabriel stared at her. Their eyes met, and Kerina’s lips twitched. Her eyes sparkled.
He laughed softly. Would Kerina’s unexpected sense of humor, her way of lightening every situation, ever cease to amaze him?
She wrinkled her nose and gently kicked away a broken table. “Not very selective, is he? Other monsters have caves heaped high with treasure. This is just stuff.”
“Just stuff can be priceless, depending on the owner.” Gabriel bent to pick up a plastic doll wearing an elaborately made dress of silky material and fine needlework. “It’s said that Moñái’s theft led to a great deal of discord. People accused each other of stealing their precious belongings, never imagining that the thief might have been a monster.”
Kerina stroked the doll’s hair, her touch as gentle as if she were holding a child. “A little girl must have loved this.”
The way she stared at the doll made him think she had never had the luxury of a simple toy.
The way she held the doll made him wonder if she longed for one of her own—not a doll, but a child. She had spoken of a life lived on the fringes of society, isolated by her power, but also by what others saw as a deformity. Did she fear that she would never have the joy of children, of family?
Kerina set the doll down with as much care as she would have if it were a living child. “I think the ground has stopped moving. Can we go on?”
Mage’s Legacy: Cursed Seas Page 10