Murmurs of amused agreement floated in.
Naheso’s hand pressed into my shoulder, warm and weighted, but I lurched out of its grasp. “Maren,” he said again, his voice soft, almost pleading. I ignored him. Eyes tracked me as I waded through the crowd, passing my father and Akamai, winding the trail back to my own house.
No one followed.
I stood alone on my veranda facing the water, watching the aftermath of the altercation, unable to quench the smoldering fire within me.
To my father’s credit, he watched me in the minutes that followed, his fists on his hips as he spoke with Naheso, myuncle’s hands weaving through the air as he recounted what had happened. Kye wandered back to the beach, a small group of islanders trailing him. They surrounded the dead shark on the water’s edge, and soft whooping cut through the trees as they congratulated Kye, though he stood with his fists on his hips, cutting glances between my ruinedva’aand the bucket.
“I warned you you’d rile the sea.”
My aunt stood at the bottom of my stairs, a knowing look in her eye.
I turned my attention to her without speaking a word. My inner fire had died away, but the coals still lay within me, hot to the touch. I'd spent my burning ire already, and I wasn't ready to lash out again. I'd wait for solid proof.
She watched me with sharp calculation, waiting for my response. I raised my chin, winding my gaze away. My aunt turned and left, and I let my eyes flicker back to her.
If only anger was a thing that could be bottled. Corked in glass and stored on a shelf. I’d sell all of mine at the markets. I’d make a small fortune out of wrath and scorn and bitter vindication.
But anger cannot be bottled. Not unless you count the glass jar where my heart should've been. That had only ever been filled with loathing. It had been stoppered so long I didn’t know how to uncork it without it rising up my throat, choking me with the sweet taste of my own poison.
Word spread that Kye had come face-to-face with a shark and killed it. The islanders of Leihani celebrated by branding him with a tattoo, angular lines and sharp triangles like sharks’ teeth that wrapped over one shoulder and stretched down to his elbow.
He’d taken to walking through the fields without his white shirt, chest bare like an island man.
The islanders had grown fond of him, though they cautioned him when he tried to speak with me, which he often did in the morning as he joined my father on the fishing boats. I avoided him. For some reason, the only shame I felt at my outburst towards Kimo was that Kye had watched it. I didn’t want to share any conversation with him about a shark or a bucket. Or what I’d seen that had set me off.
A week faded in and out without the Naiads present on Neris Island. I’d never gone so long without seeing them. The island was quiet without them there.
Peaceful—but the kind of peaceful that lingers after an islander dies and the village bids them farewell from their departing pyre. The ashes remain, but the soul is gone, sent to walk the shores of Perpetuum.
Peaceful. But eerily so.
And then, at the week’s end, the Naiads were there.
They’d beached themselves when I wasn’t looking. Kneeling in the sand, gathering my buckets to head home, I stood and started at the sudden sight of them. A cascade of cool prickles fell down my neck.
“And where have you been?” I demanded, though a stroke of relief unfurled within me at the sight of them.
“It is time, creature,” Olinne said, her lavish silver tail curling under the waves. “To claim that which you seek.”
A springy weed hanging from my fingers, I glanced at Nori, waiting for her to rescind the words. But the red-haired Naiad sat up higher, eager for my reaction.
Nori tilted her head. “Do you not remember?To create life, and to preserve it.You’ve worked every day to take a place among the Stewards. Planting seeds, filling roots, feeding birds and bats.”
I looked between them again. They’d coached and trained me for years, but I’d long since abandoned the idea that Nori and Olinne were Stewards of any sort, or that I could be as well. “Why now? How does it work?”
“You must meet her.”
“Meet your queen?” I’d always known there was a colony of Naiads nearby, along with some kind of queenly figure, but I'd only ever seen the two of them.
A smile shadowed Nori’s lips, though it quickly melted away. “Are you ready?”
“Where? Here? On Neris Island?”
“In our home,” Olinne said, gesturing to the sea.
I followed the curve of her arm to the dark-blue water. “In the water?”
