by Jade Kerrion
Chapter 21
Ashe awoke to the sound of a parrot snoring.
It was the most comforting sound she could imagine.
She sat up in the bed and drew the blankets around her for warmth. Her internal sense of time confirmed what the absence of light told her. Night had fallen.
And they were all still alive.
Yay for small blessings.
She reached for the cup by the bedside table. The tea was cold, but soothing nonetheless.
A wisp of air darted toward her, a split-second warning before the door opened and Varun entered. “Oh.” He flushed, and his hand wobbled slightly beneath the tray he carried. “I came to refresh your tea.”
She held out her cup. It’s cold.
“This one’s hot. I’ll trade you.”
They exchanged mugs, fingers brushing.
Ashe scowled at the odd tingling in the pit of her stomach. Really, it was ridiculous. They had seen each other naked, held each other close as they raced away from death, and she had even breathed life into him.
It was absurd to overreact to their fingers touching.
Varun shoved his hands into the pocket of his jeans and stepped back. “How are you feeling?”
Ashe sipped her tea. Jinn squawked on her behalf. “How’s the crew? How’s the ship?”
“The Veritas is all right. The lab and kitchen got a little messed up inside when the ship was pulled almost vertical by the…stuff underwater. Most of the mess has been cleaned up. They had to cut the sea anchor to save the ship.”
“The crew?”
“Anxious. I tried to gloss over it, but there’s too much I couldn’t explain away.” He sat down, without invitation—because she would never have issued it—on the side of her bed. “And how are you?”
She shrugged.
“You still look like hell.”
“Is that how you compliment a woman?”
He tilted his head, and studied her with intensity that upset her stomach. “Are you a woman? What are you? You’re not human. You’re not a mermaid either.”
“I’ve told you. I’m a Daughter of Air.”
“Which is what…exactly?”
“I’m an air sylph.”
“Like the nymphs of legend?”
She shook her head. Jinn ruffled his feathers. “They are protectors of sacred places. I’m not a protector of anything. I just try to keep bad shit from happening.”
Varun chuckled. “Sometimes, I can’t tell where you end and Jinn begins. Was ‘bad shit’ your choice of words, or Jinn’s creative license?” He shrugged that question away and refocused on the real issues. “Are the merfolk water elementals?”
“Of course not. They’re just creatures that live in the ocean, just like humans are creatures that live on land. They don’t magically control water; not the currents, nor the waves. They can do things that affect the water, but they do not actually control water.”
“So you’re more powerful than they are.”
Ashe shrugged. “Power is relative. I’d kick any Beltiamatu’s ass if we fought in the air, when my strength is all around me. In the water, it’s a great deal harder.”
“Can you die?”
She shook her head. “Not really.”
“What happens if you spend all your strength?”
“I disappear.”
“Do you return?”
“In theory, yes. In practice, I don’t know.”
He scowled. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Never spent all my strength before. Although, I came close yesterday.”
His fingers tightened into fists.
She narrowed her eyes to glare at him. “Stop crumpling my sheets.”
“They’re already crumpled. Damn it, Ashe. Do you have any idea what it did to me to find you passed out in your cabin? I need to know how to help you.”
She straightened. “No, you don’t. Go protect someone or something else. I don’t need your protection. If you had truly wanted to help me, you would have just left the water as soon as you could, or better yet, never entered it. I’m trying to get things done. Babysitting isn’t convenient.”
Varun shot to his feet and paced the breadth of her small cabin. “You didn’t even give a damn about the ocean until I went in. If I hadn’t forced the issue, you would have been perfectly happy to let the oceans die and the Earth with it.”
As Varun strode past Jinn’s perch, the parrot nipped Varun’s shoulder with his hard beak. Varun jerked away and cursed under his breath. Ashe gave her parrot an approving smile before turning her scowling attention back to Varun. “If you think I jumped into the water just to save you, you’re right. You’re part of my assignment, and whatever I feel about you, I do my job.”
His eyebrows drew together in the first hints of a frown. “What do you mean by ‘whatever I feel about you’? This isn’t about my great-whatever-grandfather, is it? Just because he didn’t love you back—”
Her jaw dropped. “Do you really think it’s about him? That it was ever about a man spurning a mermaid?” She burst out laughing, the sound edging on hysteria.
Varun stared at her. “If not that, then—” He shook his head. “You left your son.”
“And you think I would have left my son for your thoughtless, clueless grandfather? Your grandfather was an arrogant bastard. He saw nothing and thought of nothing beyond himself.”
“That’s not true. You destroyed his marriage, wrecked his happiness.”
She rolled her eyes. “Knowing what I do about him, I rather doubt it. There was only room for one person in his heart, and he already occupied that spot.”
“If not for him, then why did you abandon your marriage and your son?”
Ashe drew a deep breath. When Jinn spoke on her behalf, it seemed as if the parrot too abandoned its squawking tone for a quieter, reflective voice. “I was my father’s heir—the firstborn of his offspring.”
Varun’s eyes narrowed. “Hans Christian Andersen’s story said you were the youngest. It’s not true, then?”
Ashe glared at him. “His story made me out to be a lovesick, spineless wimp.”
“The story was about a mermaid who sacrificed everything for love.”
“Love isn’t love unless it’s returned. It’s just infatuation. But it was true. I sacrificed everything for love, but I didn’t love your grandfather.” She inhaled and tugged the covers closer around her. “The only person I loved was my son.”
Varun could almost ignore the fact that Jinn was talking. The parrot’s abrasive tones seemed overlaid with Ashe’s voice—at least the one he heard in his head. He did not know how much of it was physical, how much psychological, but he heard her.
“I thought I had everything,” she continued quietly. “But I didn’t realize how much I lacked until I held him—my son. Zamir. He would have everything our civilization could give him. He would someday rule all our people. But in the end, he would still dissipate into sea foam.”
“Humans die too. Our bodies return to the dust.”
“But your soul lives on.”
Varun’s eyebrows shot up, but he bit back his instinctively cynical response.
Ashe shrugged. The smile she offered him was sad, almost wistful. “Only those with the luxury of a soul can afford to be dismissive of them.”
He had forgotten she could read his mind. What the—?
“Mind the curse words.” Her half-smile turned wry “You wouldn’t want to be a bad influence on Jinn.” Her shoulders sagged on an unuttered sigh. “I loved Zamir with everything in me; I don’t think I ever loved anyone as completely as I did my son. I wanted Zamir to have everything. I couldn’t bear the thought of him dying, leaving nothing of himself behind.”
“So you went to find a soul for him?”
“I broke the surface often, looking up at the stars, seeking answers. We came from the stars, after all. If there were answers to be had, perhaps they were up there. I was out there one nigh
t when a boat, ridiculously overloaded, waddled out to sea. Your grandfather and his friends were celebrating something; his birthday, perhaps. He was loud, drunk, and boastful. But one thing he said caught my attention. His family’s library, he said, was the most ancient on the island, filled with religious texts about the afterlife.”
“And then a storm came in?”
Ashe rolled her eyes. “No, nothing so dramatic. There were strong winds, but the boat was simply overloaded. His drunken friends started pushing each other around. One of them knocked over an oil lamp. The boat was already tipping when it started to burn. All of them went overboard.”
“And you saved him.” A niggling fact turned into the snap of certainty. “Not out of the goodness of your heart, but because he had a library.”
“The Beltiamatu do not interfere with men.”
“But all those stories about mermaids saving sailors…”
“Nereids, usually. They’re softhearted creatures. The Beltiamatu have had more dealings with men. We know better than to imagine men capable of the vision and compassion that would make their lives worth saving.”
Varun stared at her. “Where does this blanket disdain of all humans come from?”
“Experience.” She ground her teeth. “Atlantis.”
He shook his head. They were getting off track. It was so hard not to jump down those rabbit holes when she dropped facts like tantalizing trails into Earth’s greatest and most pervasive mysteries. “You saved my grandfather, and then what?”
“I decided, several days later, to search his library. I bid farewell to my son—” Her voice caught, and Varun knew that the moment had been far more shattering than her matter-of-fact statement made it appear to be. “I went to Medea, the sea witch, and traded my voice for legs.”
“Then you went to him.”
She nodded. “He took me in. Treated me like a pet, really. Assumed that because I couldn’t talk, I was also stupid, but I didn’t care. He left me alone often enough that I could explore the library.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
“No. I wanted to know how to attain a soul, but humans are born with souls. The process of gaining one is completely irrelevant, so none of your books discuss it.”
Varun nodded. He, too, had no idea how a conversation about attaining a soul would even begin. Some people cared—and others didn’t—about their souls, but obtaining a soul was never a problem a human had ever wrestled with. “So it was never about loving my grandfather.”
Ashe shook her head. “Of course not. It was about his library.”
“So, why didn’t you just leave when you couldn’t find what you were looking for?”
Ashe shrugged. “Returning to the sea was not an option. I gave it up forever when I traded my tail for legs.”
“Wait…so killing him would not have returned you to your mermaid form?”
She shook her head. “My half-sisters came to me with the dagger they’d bargained from the sea witch. I couldn’t return to the sea, not ever, but I could still get a soul for my son.”
Varun’s heart stuttered. His mind froze. “My grandfather’s soul—”
“I could have killed him. The dagger, attuned to my son’s life-force, would have delivered your grandfather’s soul to Zamir.”
“Why didn’t you? Did you love my grandfather after all?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. He really wasn’t a good or impressive man in any way. He wasn’t good enough for Zamir.”
“Wait.” Varun held up his hand. “You’re telling me that you didn’t kill my grandfather because you didn’t think his soul was good enough for Zamir. That you would rather have let your son die without a soul than give him my grandfather’s?” Varun sat back. “Was my grandfather really that much of an ass?”
“Like all humans, he was selfish and close-minded. Those are not attributes to inflict upon a Beltiamatu who would someday rule the ocean.” Ashe glared at Varun. “My son deserved better. He deserved his own soul, or at any rate, a better soul.”
The muscles around Varun’s jaw tightened. “The dagger. The one my grandfather found in the bedroom. The one that’s now displayed in my library. That’s the dagger your sisters gave you.”
Ashe nodded.
“And it’s still attuned to your son’s life force?”
“Yes.”
“So, if you strike someone with that dagger, that person’s soul will go to your son?”
She nodded again.
Varun grimaced. “Do you have any idea how hard this is for me to swallow? I deal in facts. With data. With things I can see and touch. Not whimsical fancies and magical soul-stealing daggers.”
“And yet you almost got your ass kicked by mermen, and narrowly escaped being Big Thing’s mid-morning snack.”
He scowled at her. “I’m still trying to wrap my mind around a new reality.”
“It’s not a new reality. We were here before you.”
“We?” He paused. “You haven’t fully let go of your identity as a Beltiamatu.”
“It’s not as if I have anything else in common with the other Daughters of Air except elemental powers and a track record of bad decision-making.”
“Like trying to find a soul for Zamir? You love him. How is it wrong for a mother to desire the best for her son?”
She stared up at him, her eyes wide and vulnerable, as if she were hearing, for the first time, affirmation of a mother’s love. She averted her gaze, however. “It’s wrong when it ends up twisting him. Zamir cannot forgive me for abandoning him, whatever the reason. He believes I left to seek a soul for myself.”
“But he’s seen you. He knows you didn’t find a soul—at least not for you.”
“But he wants a soul. If it was important enough for his mother to leave him, it must be important enough to have.” Ashe sighed. The sound, quietly uttered, was heartbreaking. “He’s destroying the oceans to gain a soul.”
Varun stared at her. “That makes no sense. How could that even happen? Did he actually say that?”
She nodded. “Implied it, as did Medea.” Ashe’s gaze grew unfocused. “It’s in the archives, too—a systematic plan to take out the breeding grounds and coral reefs. More than forty percent of the ocean has already succumbed. Any more than that, and recovery may not be possible, even if we stop the spread.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Varun insisted. “The ocean is just the ocean. It’s not as if it has a soul to steal.” His heartbeat quickened. “Does it?”
Ashe shook her head. “The ocean is just the ocean, just as the land is just the land. It isn’t sentient, but it harbors life—infinitely, perfectly balanced—and in that respect, it has a soul.”
“Figuratively. Not literally.”
“No, not literally.”
“So what the hell is Zamir doing? How does destroying the ocean earn him a soul?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who’s giving out the souls?”
Ashe’s gaze snapped up to him. “I don’t know.”
Varun resumed his pacing of the room. “Either way, we have to stop the corruption of the ocean. If the ocean goes to hell, the land will soon follow. After all, life began in the water.”
Ashe frowned.
Varun studied the elusive flicker of emotions on her face. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing…” She raised her head to meet his gaze. “Just something you said seemed to make sense, but I can’t pin it down.”
He did not have time for hypotheticals or other random mysticism. He dealt in the real world. Yeah, right. He recoiled from the cynical twist in his mental voice. “So, what can we do to stop Zamir?”
Ashe’s shoulders drooped. “I should never have left. If I had desired less, craved less…if I had just stayed with him, he would never have wanted a soul. He would not have destroyed the oceans in his quest for eternal life.”
Varun wanted to grab her and shake her. He
settled for glaring at her. “Zamir’s a grown man, as they say. He makes his own decisions. He owns the consequences.”
“Just as I should own mine.”
“And you paid for it when you gave up life in the sea forever. I think you’re still paying for it.” He stared at her. “The ocean is still in your heart. You can never fully give it up.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I know. I tried.”
She looked at him, an eyebrow arched.
“My first love was the ocean. I listened to it every night; the soft, unhurried rhythm of the waves sang me to sleep. I swam before I could walk. I learned how to deep-dive when I was seven, and every day, I longed for my escape to my watery heaven. I knew I wanted to live out my life by the water.” Tightness closed around his chest. “And then, my sister died. She was two. I was supposed to watch her. She was asleep under a tree, and I thought she would be all right for a while, so I went diving.” He swallowed past the painful lump in his throat. “When I surfaced, I found her body floating facedown. She had woken and followed me into the water.”
He sat across from Ashe. “It was never the same after that. I loved her, and the water had taken her from me. And of course it was my fault. I abandoned my duty, and she died. I stopped diving, stopped swimming. I asked to leave the island—I couldn’t stay, surrounded by the ocean, a constant reminder of what it had stolen from me—and my parents sent me to a boarding school in Athens. I didn’t come back to the island until I graduated from college. It was supposed to be a short visit before starting work at a firm in Athens. I avoided going down to the water every day of my visit, but on the last night, I went to the beach—back to the place where she had been sleeping.” He sighed. “I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was to say sorry, or goodbye. I sat under the tree and watched the waves, and I realized that time had moved on, but I hadn’t. The water washing up on the beach was not the same one that had taken my sister from me. The water had moved on. Even my sister had moved on. And I realized it was finally time for me to move on, too.”
A smile touched his lips. “I went swimming that night—the first time in a long time, and I realized that while many things had changed, some things hadn’t. I still loved the ocean.” His smile widened to a grin. “The next morning, I called the company that hired me and told them I wouldn’t be starting after all. Then I went back to grad school. I wanted to be a marine biologist. I didn’t need an excuse to be near the ocean, but I wanted to do more than be just an observer. And here it is…the biggest damn thing to happen to the oceans, and I feel as helpless as a…flounder.”