It led into a wider cave, still made of coral and mostly empty except for a few crabs. It felt dank, even though an underwater cave couldn’t be dank.
If I had to return to the surface to breathe, I wouldn’t have gotten this far. I was probably safe as long as I stayed here. But I was hungry and thirsty and tired and there was only one way out of the cave – through that tight tunnel.
Worry seized my heart. I’d made it inside, but what if I couldn’t go back out? I couldn’t stay here forever.
I chewed my lip as Nasataa crawled into my arms and curled into a ball. I stroked his head and back gently. His scales felt sleeker underwater and his wings, fins, and tail felt filmy in the water. He was so beautiful and so vulnerable. He needed someone to take care of him. Someone better suited to the task than a hunted teenage girl.
“Don’t worry little buddy,” I tried to say underwater, but it came out garbled. “I’ll take care of you.”
He didn’t seem worried. He’d already drifted off to sleep in my arms.
I clung to him, worried enough for both of us as the bright water filtering through the holes in the porous rock faded darker and darker until I was sure it must be night outside.
What was I going to do?
Chapter Nine
Eventually, I nodded off, still clutching Nasataa. His warmth and his little fluttering heartbeat reminded me that I wasn’t alone. I had this little guy to keep safe.
I woke with a start in the dark. Long, eerie beams of blue light rippled into the cave, but they were faint, as if lit by the moon. I blinked and it felt strange in the ocean water. I was chilled to the core – but not as cold as I would have expected. Was that a part of this special ability I had? – and so thirsty. I snorted a laugh, surprised by the spurt of water from my nose. How funny was it to be this thirsty while completely surrounded by water?
Gently, I eased Nasataa off my lap. By now, my pursuers must be done chasing me. By now, it must be safe to leave this cave and go find my family.
I’d check first and then come back for Nasataa if the coast was clear. I slipped down the rocky tunnel to the smaller cave and peeked my head out. A flare of light surprised me, and I ducked back around the rock.
Light? Where was that coming from?
I poked my head back out of the cave entrance and gasped.
Yellow light danced from a waterproof lantern hanging down from the side of a boat into the water far above me. It was small enough from that far away that it was hard to make out details but in the glow of the lantern, a diver leapt into the water, streaking down through the sea’s embrace toward my cave.
I jumped in surprise. They knew where I was! They hadn’t been able to get to me yet, but they knew!
The diver froze. He’d seen my surprised jump! He surged forward and I ducked back into the cave, scrambling into the tunnel and back into the wider cave beyond. Fear surged through my veins as my heart hammered in my chest.
It’s going to be okay, Seleska. Just find another way out.
I scrambled along the edges of the cave, looking, but while the rocks were porous and there were many holes, none seemed large enough to fit me.
Gasping in frustration, I returned to the center of the cave where I’d left Nasataa. I’d just sit with him for a moment and compose myself and then I’d think of another plan. That would be best, right?
But where was he?
The little Blue Dragon wasn’t where I’d left him. My heart leapt into my throat as I swam in circles. What if he’d wandered off? What if he’d gone out of the tunnel and the cave like I had, only the diver had snatched him and brought him up to the boat?
I couldn’t let anything happen to the poor little guy. He was only a baby!
I tried to call his name, but it distorted in the water. Frustrated, I spun again, darting down the tunnel and back out to the first cave. Had he snuck past me when I was looking at the boat?
Where was he? Was he lost? Hurt?
I poked my head out of the cave and into the sea beyond. I just needed to see. I just needed to know if he was okay. Fingers tangled in my hair and with a gasp, I looked into the eyes of the man who had grabbed me on the boardwalk. His hair swirled in the dark water and his cheeks and eyes bulged with surprise. I planted my feet against the rock and pulled backward, tugging at his grip. He was too strong. His eyes narrowed as he fought me, but then a look of panic filled his eyes and he released me, kicking in a sudden flurry toward the surface. He must be out of breath.
I breathed a sigh of relief, but I didn’t have time to revel in my escape. Another two divers were already streaking toward me and there was no sign outside the entrance of a little Blue Dragon.
Frustrated, I dove back into the cave. I couldn’t go out. Not without being caught. But where had Nasataa gone?
I searched the larger cave for him.
Was one of those loose rocks in a different place? Brow furrowed, I swam toward the spot. Yes. It had tumbled down a little, revealing a dark gap in the rock about the right size for a baby Blue Dragon.
That must be where Nasataa had gone! Worried, I pulled at the loose rock, tumbling it further aside and widening the gap. The stones here were loose and easy to move. Could I move enough of them to make a gap big enough for me to swim to?
After a few minutes of work, I had cleared the entrance to another tunnel, but this tunnel was black as ink. Did I dare risk going in there with no light and no idea what came next?
I was going to have to. There was a baby dragon depending on me and I was the only one who knew he was there. I couldn’t abandon him. Ramariri would never have abandoned me.
Besides, the song of the sea was louder here, as if it wanted me to follow.
With an indrawn breath to steady myself, I plunged into the dark cavern.
Chapter Ten
When I woke up yesterday morning, I hadn’t expected to find myself feeling my way blindly through a black, rocky cavern in the middle of the night under so much water that no other human could find me.
But hey, life is like that. Unpredictable. And I did promise myself that I was going to have some adventures. I tried to remind myself of that as a gnawing worry lodged in my spine and bit into my sense of confidence.
Adventure.
I was an adventurer. Adventurers didn’t stop just because things were a bit scary, right? That was what made it an adventure!
I was feeling along the rock tunnel – feeling to find my way and feeling to see if Nasataa was huddled against the wall somewhere. Maybe he was cold like me. Maybe that was why he’d gone into this tunnel. It did feel warmer in here. I shivered slightly as a current of warm water hit me. Weren’t you supposed to shiver when it was cold? But I’d been cold for so long that the warmth reminded me of it, drawing me forward toward its source.
A very faint glow ahead outlined the edges of the rocks. What could be making that light? It wasn’t the yellow glow of the lantern that the men had used to search for me. And it wasn’t the blue-white glow of the moon through the water. It was more of an aqua color, like the sea on a sunny day. How strange.
As I swam, the glow grew brighter, until I could see as well as if it were day. I sped up, able to see far enough not to crack my head on the rock and invigorated by the warmth of the water here.
There was an opening up ahead, a pool of light. I kicked toward it and emerged into a wide cave with a flat bottom and a bright light in what almost looked like a well at the center. Strange markings were carved into the stone around it and into the walls and ceiling arching over the room. The tunnel I was climbing in from was the only way in.
What was a place like this doing here?
A blue blur launched itself at me, and I caught it, knocked back against the cave wall while the exuberant little dragon crawled all over me and finally settled in a ring around my neck.
“I missed you, too,” I tried to say under the water.
He sent me a mental image of waking up alone and coming here to fi
nd me. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I did my best to send him a mental image of my joy at finding him safe. He tightened his grip on my neck. That had to be affection, right? Which meant that my mental picture had worked! No more trying to talk to him under water. We had our own way to communicate. Success!
I stroked his little neck, relieved that he was okay, and circled the glowing well at the center of the room. Lucky for us that Nasataa was such a curious little thing, or we never would have found this interesting well of glowing light.
I tried to peer inside it, but beyond the light, I couldn’t see anything else. The glow was so intense that it was hurting my eyes and if the markings carved around the room meant anything, then I couldn’t read them.
But I knew that I was meant to find this well. Or someone was. I knew it because it sang to me – that wordless song of the sea I didn’t understand but always heard. It sang to me louder and stronger and deeper than anything else I’d ever heard. I was drawn to it. I felt, somehow, that I needed to climb into that well and follow the light, that it meant to lead me somewhere.
But did I dare risk Nasataa? What if the light led somewhere dangerous? I glanced over my shoulder at the dark tunnel we’d followed to get here. It was just as dangerous, wasn’t it? No matter where this well of light led us, if it didn’t drop us right in front of an enemy, that was good enough, right?
Well, I liked to look on the bright side and this magical well had turned up right when I needed it. I was going to call that a ‘very good thing’ and accept this gift.
I smiled, glad I’d made up my mind and sent a mental image to Nasataa of dropping into that well. He sent me one back of staying on my shoulders and falling asleep.
Poor little guy had to be tired after that big adventure. I stroked the top of his head and took a step forward.
Here we go, now or never!
My bare toes hung over the edge of the well. I wasn’t sure how to do this, but I took a deep breath and hopped into the well.
Light flared across my vision, blinding me, and then a powerful sensation like an undertow seized me and sucked me into the well and out to sea. A tingling feeling flashed across my skin and it was strangely familiar. With it came the smell of cinnamon and the memory of sweetly mumbled words. Had I been here before? I had no memory of a place like this, and yet it felt as familiar as my own name.
Maybe, there was more to being able to breathe under water than just a really strange skill. Maybe, I’d been in this place before. Maybe it had to do with my past life and with the family I had before I’d been adopted by my new family.
I swallowed, a little nervous at the thought.
Chapter Eleven
The powerful current released me, and I fell forward, swimming a little to get my feet under me in the water. My vision cleared as I looked around me. I was standing beside the well – no, not the well but rather a well. Because this well here looked just like the other well back there, but it wasn’t in a cave. It rested on the seafloor, a skiff of sand piling up on one side of it and the ancient wreck of a ship on the other side.
The wreck was so far gone that all I could make out was a few ship ribs sticking up from a mass of barnacles and the homes of underwater creatures, but I recognized it from the stories the old men told sometimes around the fire. Stories of a time when the Havenwind Isles weren’t forbidden to ships. Stories from a time when our fishermen went out in boats rather than netting fish from land. Stories from a time before the Blue Dragons rose up and tore down any man-made ship that bobbed on the water. Stories of storms and shipwrecks and diving for treasures.
Strange, how all the stories were becoming real. Because there were stories, too, of magical women who could live underwater, though in the stories they had swishy tails and seashells for clothes – which sounded even more uncomfortable than my spiky-heeled boots.
I looked around the magical well, but there was nothing here to keep me in this place. No writing that I could understand – though the well was ringed with more of those strange markings – no explanation at all for what had happened.
And Nasataa had fallen asleep on my shoulders.
Well, I had warmed up and I was safe again, and judging by the faint light above, the sun was coming up. I could swim up to the surface but I was too tired, so instead, I just swam along the bottom, taking my time as I meandered around coral and waving sea plants. I thought the land was sloping upward – hoped it was true – and that I was headed toward our island home.
After a night without much sleep, I almost didn’t care. I was so tired that it was hard to think about anything at all.
Eventually, the land took a steep slope upward and I let myself bob to the surface and look around. I was a long way from Abergande. The Abergande beaches were dominated with views of the town and cleared trees. Old piers and docks coated in mold and barnacles were easy to pick out there, but as I scanned the island ahead of me, the treeline and the way the beach sloped was immediately familiar.
I was home again.
Worries that I’d been holding down bubbled up to the surface of my mind. Was my father okay? What had happened after I left and swam out to sea? What would he and my mother think when I strolled into the village. Would they think something was wrong with me because I could breathe under water? Would everyone see that and remember that I was from somewhere else? Would they think that I didn’t have a place here anymore? I had no other home but this village with these people.
My mouth felt suddenly dry as I thought about their reactions. And my lungs burned as I coughed up water, adjusting to breathing air again. How strange that they could do both. Was I part fish? Or was it simply magic? Either way, it wasn’t something I had ever expected.
I’d been raised a princess in the tiny kingdom of Timbrel and then I’d watched my family slaughtered before my eyes and fled with my dying bodyguard and a borrowed dragon. They’d saved my life.
But the few memories I had of my childhood before the tragedy were tinged with love, affection, happy laughter, and big trees. There weren’t any memories of surf or sand. All my memories of the sea came after – from being raised on this island by my adoptive parents. None of that explained an affinity for the water – certainly not a magical one that let me breathe water and live.
It was a puzzle. And not one that I was going to solve by worrying.
I swam until I could touch the sand with my feet and then began to walk up out of the surf. I was at the beach where I’d found little Nasataa. Almost at the very spot where I’d looked out longingly on my birthday and wondered what adventures I might have. Was that really only the day before yesterday?
Someone moved on the beach. Just a shadow in the trees.
And then the shadow was running toward me and I froze. Was this one of the sailors? Had they been waiting here for me, too? I should have thought of that. I should have realized they might come here for me.
I crouched down defensively, trying to decide what I should do.
The shadow ran into a bright patch of sunlight, raising his arms and waving to me in the rising light of dawn.
Oh.
It wasn’t a sailor and it wasn’t an enemy at all. It was Heron!
I straightened from my crouch. My cheeks felt hot as I realized I was climbing out of the water in just my shirt, corset, and underthings. I needed dry clothes right away.
I shook myself off as the last touch of the water left me and I was standing on the warm, flat sand of the beach.
Heron was pulling his shirt off and laughing as he reached me.
I blinked, surprised by his response, but my surprise didn’t last long. As soon as he reached me, he wrapped the shirt around my waist for me like a makeshift skirt.
“Thanks,” I gasped. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” he looked like he didn’t know if he should be surprised or if he should laugh again. “What are you doing here? We’ve been worried sick about you! I barely managed to dr
ag your father back here!”
“But your apprenticeship!” I argued. “You’re supposed to be with the blacksmith!”
Heron’s face took on a hard expression.
“When the sailors turned their cannons on Abergande and threatened to flatten the town, the place shut down. Everyone fled to the surrounding villages. We came back here to protect our village. Our family. Our friends.”
“But it’s just one ship ...” I said, but I knew he was right. What could we do against cannons? Even I had heard of those.
“The power of cannons is intense,” Heron said. “They could flatten our village from the sea, if they knew where it was. But the party looking for you seemed distracted. They kept diving into the sea.”
He bit his lip like he was uncomfortable.
“Don’t tell me you were worried about me?” I said coyly, giving him my best teasing look.
“Seleska,” he said, his face lined with worry.
“As if I can’t outswim a bunch of heavy-armed sailors!” I laughed, but inside I was more than a little nervous. I almost hadn’t escaped them.
Heron grabbed my upper arms as if he planned to lift me up by them. Maybe he did. His grip was incredibly gentle, but the intensity in his eyes gave away his violent emotions.
“Seleska, you don’t understand. They want you. They want to take you back with them to the people who hired them.”
“Hired them?” my voice shook a little. Partly from surprise at his actions and partly from surprise at his words.
“I heard one of them let that slip. They’re a hired ship. Hired just to get you.”
“That whole ship?” I couldn’t imagine what that must have cost. “All to get me?”
He nodded grimly.
“But why?” I asked. “I’m not that important.”
He laughed and then looked surprised at his own laughter.
“Seleska, you dove into the water and didn’t come up again. They held you under water and you didn’t drown. How long were you under for?”
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