Call of the Waters (Elemental Realms Book 2)

by H. L. Burke

  Karvir’s eyes narrowed. “What did he say?”

  “He’s not with my mother any more.” She choked on a sob.

  Karvir massaged her back. “All right. Breathe deep. It’s all right.” The news didn’t surprise him that much. Eanan’s responses about his remaining family had been cagey, and Karvir knew how he acted when he didn’t get his way. “I know that’s hard, but Willa, we haven’t seen either of them in two decades. People change.”

  “It’s not just that, and I feel so so silly for crying, silly and selfish and …” She drew a staggering breath. “When he came back, I wanted to forgive him, but I feel so bitter. Every time I look at him, I remember how he treated you when you asked for my hand. How he made me choose … how because of him, I didn’t even get a wedding.”

  Karvir hardened into his solid form and sat upon a crate. He pulled Willa onto his lap. “I thought you didn’t want a wedding.”

  “Of course I wanted a wedding! Every girl does, but it wouldn’t have meant anything without my family, and when he took that away from me … I told myself it didn’t matter; the only thing that mattered was being with the man I loved. A feast and music and my father’s approval wouldn’t make us any more married, would they? What matters is the promises we made to each other, that we’ve been together through so much.”

  He hung his head. “That’s as much my fault as his, Willa. I really thought you didn’t care. I could’ve arranged for something, perhaps nothing elaborate, but we could’ve at least had the feast and the music. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I told you: it’s silly.”

  “No, it’s not. It was important to you, and we passed it by.” He rested his forehead against hers. “I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. I flat out told you I didn’t care, and in the moment, I didn’t. My father had just ripped my world in half, and I wanted to bind myself to you then and there. I wouldn’t trade that memory for anything, even if Father’s actions made it bittersweet.”

  “I’m quite fond of those memories too.” He trailed his finger down her cheek. “So that’s why you’re crying? He didn’t say or do anything else?”

  She bit her bottom lip.

  Karvir’s chest tightened. He forced his voice steady. “What did he do?”

  “Nothing. He’s simply insufferable. He called you … a burnt out shell.” She rested her head against his chest. “People shouldn't speak ill of you. You’ve been through so much, and you’ve proven yourself to me more times than I can count. It infuriates me when someone looks at you and …” her voice dropped to a murmur, “all they can see is a Charred.”

  Karvir cringed. “Willa, everyone sees me that way, at least at first. You can’t blame your father for it.”

  “But he knows who you are! He knows what you sacrificed, and he still … How can he not respect you? If only for my sake, if only because he knows what you mean to me, he should.”

  “What I mean to you is all that matters. I don’t need your father’s approval.” He worked his fingers into her hair, allowing himself to partially fade so he could feel the strands like silk against his being. “Besides, as much as we would like to deny it, I am a Charred. What the Elementals left is hardly the man you married. I would give anything to be human again for you.”

  Her arms encircled him. “It’s not so bad. I won’t lie and say I don’t miss your eyes or your skin, but it’s still you.”

  “It is,” he whispered.

  The last time he’d seen her cry had been at the death of her friend Meghil. He’d forgotten how much he hated it, watching her suffer and being unable to fix it.

  “I brought Eanan here thinking it would heal old wounds, but it seems all it has done is broken them open. I want to make peace, but if he hurts you again, Willa, intentionally or unintentionally, he will no longer be welcome in our home. We fought too hard for what we have to let someone belittle it, father or not.”

  Willa gazed up at him. “You can’t protect me from pain, you know.”

  “No.” He frowned. “But I can protect you from him.”

  Chapter Six

  A short walk from the cabin, the stream widened and slowed, collecting in deep, quiet pools with rushes on the side and fish dancing in the depths. Quill waded in the shallows along the stream-bed. Her skirts were hoisted up and tucked into her apron, baring her legs from the knees down. Every few steps she bent and clipped a marshrush shoot with her paring knife.

  Waterflies buzzed about in swarms. A fish leapt from a pool, swallowed a mouthful of them, and disappeared back into the clear water with a splash.

  Normally she wouldn’t harvest so late in the day, when the bugs were so lively, but the mood around the cabin prompted an escape. The negative emotions—from Mom, Dad, Eanan … even Brode, with his suspicion towards Gabrin—were crippling. She wasn’t sure how Mom could cope.

  “Nice knees,” a voice chuckled.

  Quill wobbled as she spun around. Gabrin grinned at her from the shore. After a moment’s consideration, she decided to keep her skirts up. Knees were knees, after all.

  She glared at him. “It’s rude to sneak up on people.”

  “Sorry. What are you up to out there?”

  Quill held up her basket.

  His brows furrowed. “Marshrushes? What for?”

  “Dinner. When they’re young, they’re quite tender.”

  He grimaced. “I’ll take your word on that. I’m more of a carnivore myself. Never cared much for plant matter.”

  “You have to be resourceful living out here.”

  “I imagine you do.”

  Quill tilted her head. Gabrin had a pleasant expression on his face, calm and attentive, not smirking or twinkling.

  “You made a rather bad first impression on my sister. She’s been rolling her eyes about you for days now.”

  “I was actually trying to flirt with her. Normally I get better results than that.” He sat down on a fallen log, still watching her. “Better for her, I suppose. I tend to break hearts.”

  “Oh really?” She arched an eyebrow.

  “Yes. You’re the empathic one, aren’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “No need to worry, then. I don’t do empathics.”

  She raised her eyebrow higher. “You don’t ‘do’ them?”

  “Too much emotion. Empathics tend to stick to their first love. They also have an annoying ability to tell when I’m being insincere, which is most times, admittedly. Takes the fun out of it.”

  The mud sucked at Quill’s feet. She bent down to claim another marshrush. “Are you and Eanan close?”

  “I've known him most of my life. My father captained one of the ships that colonized the islands. I was only five, but I still remember the crossing. Before the war, my father was a merchant, sailing up and down the coast from the northern fishing villages to the southern markets. Nobody bothered leaving the shoreline before the war. Explorers centuries ago failed to find sufficient land mass to be worth it, or any inhabited lands. Only scattered island chains like the one we ended up on. I love that they still tried, though. The early mariners fascinate me.”

  “I find it fascinating that I asked you about yourself, and you’re lecturing me on ancient history.” Quill smiled. The knife slipped through the spongy fibers of the young rush.

  He reached into his pocket and withdrew a silver compass. Flicking it open and shut, he shrugged. “It’s a passion of mine. You asked about Eanan, right?”

  She nodded. “Was he on the ship with you?”

  “No, a different vessel. When my mother died on the crossing, it ended my father’s love affair with the seas. He sold his ship and started a small farm. He kept his books on navigation and maritime history, atlases and ancient charts. We’d pore over them together sometimes. However, when I was nine, I heard that a man in the village was willing to give coin for old books and papers, so I sneaked out one night and found Eanan.” Gabrin laughed. “He caught on pretty quick, tha
t I didn’t have my father’s permission to sell them, a kid in the dead of night and all, but he worked out a deal to copy off them, and I watched. Turns out I have a knack for mathematics, navigation, and cartography. He sort of took me on as an apprentice. When my dad passed on, I got work charting the islands for the fisherman’s guild, but I’d always circle back to Eanan’s library. It was the only place I felt at home.”

  Quill lowered her eyes. “Would you say he’s a good man?”

  He rubbed the compass’s casing. “I’m not the best judge of that. I’ve been called a lot of things in my life.Good never made the list. I will say, however, I’ve never met a more passionate individual. When he locks onto something, he gives it his all. He’s going to see his quest through to the end.”

  Quill waded back to shore. Setting her basket down, she sat on the bank and rinsed the mud from her feet. “You seem just as eager as Eanan to find the Evermirror. If not more.”

  “I suppose it’s my chance to be one of the explorers I idolize, finding, or at least re-discovering, something important. My father came from a long line of mariners, also, and the Water Folk were considered patrons of sailors.” He sat cross-legged beside her. “This has been passed down through several generations.” He flipped open the compass. The insides glistened a pale, icy blue.

  “That’s icestone,” she whispered.

  “Yes. Have you ever handled it?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. People use it to make weapons, and I can’t hurt other people or even animals without feeling their pain.”

  “I know how it works. This isn’t a knife or an arrowhead, though. Take it.”

  She held the compass open in her hand and traced the crystal-blue metal. In spite of the warm day, it was cold to the touch. Small shocks prickled her finger. She gasped.

  Whispering tickled her ears. The chill spread up her arm into her chest, but she couldn’t pull away. Her heartbeat slowed, and her breathing all but stopped.

  “Hear us. Child, hear us,” a voice like a burbling brook sang in her head.

  She gasped, her eyes widening, and the compass toppled into the grass.

  Gabrin stared at her. “What just happened?”

  “Lost in thought.” She turned away from him, trying to quiet her pounding pulse.

  “Your eyes were glowing blue.”

  Her heart jumped. “No they weren’t.”

  “Yes, they were.” He took her hands. “And your skin feels like ice. What were you … Did you see or hear anything?”

  Her hands shook. She yanked them away from him. “My eyes couldn’t have been glowing.”

  He tilted his head. “You’ve had something like this happen before, haven’t you?”

  Sweat broke out on her brow, fighting the cold that gripped her. “You're imagining things.”

  “Then prove me wrong.” He held out the compass. “Touch it again. See what happens.”

  She shied from it, stepping into the stream. The water swirled about her feet, cold and alive. It trickled up her legs like fingers of ice. She gasped and stumbled to the bank, but it followed. It swelled around her, a curtain of water, like droplets of rain frozen in place.

  Gabrin's mouth dropped open. “How are you doing that?”

  “I don't know. I'm not trying … I can't stop it. Get that thing away from me.”

  Gabrin stepped back. The water bubbles burst, spraying Quill with a fine mist.If that had happened when Dad was nearby … It would've killed him.

  She backed away from the water, then leaned against the nearest tree.

  Gabrin laid his compass on the ground before approaching her. A smile split his face.

  “You’re a Water Speaker,” he said. “Eanan said empathics are prone to it. This is fantastic!”

  “No, it's not!”

  His fingers circled her wrist. “Calm down.”

  “I’m not a discovery,” she snapped. The excitement radiating off him grated against her already-raw nerves. “I’m a person, and I don’t want this.”

  “How do you know?” His smile grew patronizing as if he were speaking to a hysterical child.

  “Because I’ve seen what it does to people. Meghil was like family, then one day he started having strange dreams and hearing voices. It controlled him, burning him from the inside, making him hurt people.”

  “He was a Fire Speaker?”

  “I guess that’s what you’d call it.” She hung her head. “I tried to save him … and I failed. He died. Then the fire took Uncle Ketyl too.”

  “That’s rough.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Rough?”

  “I’m a man of numbers, not emotions.” He held up his hands. “Look, what happened to your friends is sad, but that doesn’t change the fact that what is happening to you is amazing. Does your family know?”

  “No, and I don’t want to tell them. I wish it would just go away.”

  He clicked his tongue. “This is completely wasted on you.”

  Quill clenched her jaw and gathered her stuff.

  “Hold up! Don’t get mad.” He started after her.

  “Now you care about my feelings?” she called over her shoulder. “Do me a favor, Gabrin? Go burn yourself.”

  He stopped. “Blast, when you and your sister get riled, the claws really do come out.”

  She fled through the woods, relieved when the trees blocked him from her sight.

  ***

  Eanan’s pulse pounded in his ears. He grasped Gabrin’s shoulder. “You’re sure?”

  Gabrin nodded. “She hasn’t told her family, but I thought you should know. Having a Water Speaker with us could make all the difference when we find the Mirror.”

  Eanan rubbed his hands together. “There’s no way her father will let her accompany us.”

  Gabrin fiddled with his compass. “She’s, what, eighteen? Nineteen? That’s old enough not to need permission.”

  “Karvir rules his family like a tyrant, though. He has Willa so subjugated she thinks it’s her own idea.” Eanan closed his eyes. He should’ve barred Karvir from his home before he’d had a chance to seduce Willa. That boy was obviously trouble, raised on the battlefield with no regard for human decency. He opened his eyes. “No, I doubt she’ll leave without his say so.”

  “So we just give up?” Gabrin paced. “We only intended to stay here a few days. Still, maybe it would be worth extending our visit, to convince her that our mission has value.”

  “Are you interested in her water speaking or something more personal?” Eanan asked, feeling a tinge of hope. He liked Gabrin. The boy used his brains, had an adventurous spirit, and was interested in things that interested Eanan. If he'd been born twenty years sooner, perhaps Willa would've fallen for him instead of Karvir. Also, it would serve Karvir right, having his daughter abandon him for Gabrin.

  “I’m too busy to want that sort of distraction now.” Gabrin waved his hand. “Besides, since when are you the protective father figure?”

  Eanan shrugged. “I suppose it's a bit late for that. Let’s keep an eye on her. Does she have the ability to control it?”

  “I don’t think so. The way it manifested seemed involuntary, based on contact with the icestone and the water. Do you think we could use that? Offer her the ability to control it?”

  “But I have no idea how she could. I won't lie to her.” Eanan stared through the trees.

  “We can’t offer the knowledge, but the Elementals might be able to. They used to teach people, didn’t they? That was the whole point to the sanctuaries.”

  “I suppose it was.” He straightened. “Let me talk to her. I know how empathics think. They’re altruistic, selfless, and cautious about making decisions that could cause others pain.”

  “In other words, the complete opposite of me.” Gabrin snorted.

  Eanan laughed. “You said it, not me, but yes, I may have more luck with her than you did.”

  ***

  Quill finished paring a dozen tuber roots
and took the basket of peelings down to the chicken coop. Her skirts clung to her still-damp legs as she walked, but she didn't wish to hike them up for fear of Gabrin lurking nearby. She dumped the peelings into the yard. Leaning against the fence, she watched the birds scratch at the earth.

  What happened today was just a dream. I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I could have fallen asleep right there on the bank. I was dreaming, and Gabrin took the opportunity to tease me, burn him.

  The late afternoon sun warmed her face. I could test it. Father’s old axe has icestone in the blade. If I touch that and nothing happens, then what happened at the creek was all a dream … but what if I touch it and it happens again? What if next time it doesn’t stop? What if I lose myself? What if I hurt Dad?

  She rubbed her arms, her flesh suddenly goose-pimpled. When it first manifested, she hadn't even been touching icestone, and she still woke covered in water. The way the water had magnetized to her, then sprayed every which way when its hold broke, made her a walking death-trap for her dad. He couldn't survive more than a few drops. If this continued, she'd have to get away from him.

  Perhaps she could talk to Freda again. Freda had been there when Meghil had his struggles. She’d understand. Or Mother. Mother might be able to heal her, drive it out of her.

  But what if they can’t? What if I end up like Meghil? Dying alone, a danger to those I love? Oh Creator, please, I can’t end that way. I need my family around me. I need to keep them safe.

  “Quill!” Brode called.

  She turned and watched him come down the path.

  “Have you seen Pet?” he asked. “Willa wants her to take a bath before dinner, and she’s nowhere to be seen.”

  “Have you checked her tree house?”

  “First place I looked.”

  Quill bit her bottom lip. “She might be at the fishing pond.”

  “I was thinking that or the blackberry bramble. She always tries to pick them before they are ripe.” Brode wiped his hand across his brow. “I just thought I’d check with you and save myself some time.”