“How did you know?” he asked, and that single question held a dozen more. How did she know what he did for Avette, how he’d tried to fix it, about the sliver of truth in that old Merrow folktale, aboutanyof it?
It was not possible to sigh at these depths, with no air to do so, but Eda’s shoulders heaved all the same. “As I’ve told you once and again, I know a great many things.”
Kai curled his fist beneath her palm, molars gritting painfully. Nonsense. More of this ceaseless prophetic and poeticnonsense.
“No, Eda,” he ground out, the water hissing so tight through his teeth that little bubbles erupted in their wake. “No cryptic Elder’s Council wisdom, no damned prophecies.How did you know?”
“You don’t get to be angry with her, Kai,” Os snapped. “Perhaps she guessed, as I did, because you are notand have never beensubtle in your affections.”
Kai felt the room tilt as he reeled back, physically struck. That age-old argument loomed between them like a hissing beast, and now, it had grown claws.You lead with your heart, Kai. You walk chest-first through life without a scrap of armour.
The salt on his tongue soured, but Eda went on before he could muster a response.
“The point is, I knew,” she said, voice rising through the water. “I knew enough to warn the Council that something was coming. That just a drop of the Mother’s deepest waters could have the power to shape the world.”
“But unfortunately,” Daithí cut in. “The deepest heart of the Laune was not attainable.”
They all glanced up at their host, and Kai knew from the swirl of silence that he was not the only one who had half-forgotten where they were. Daithí clearly read the waters the very same way.
“I apologise,” said Daithí. He raised his brow, a distinctly human gesture so at odds with his strange features. “I thought you might like to know how I became a sea beast, but if you would prefer to bicker amongst yourselves—”
Kai bowed his head, and in his periphery, noted that the others followed suit, Eda reaching out a hand to gesture for Daithí to continue.
“We apologise,” she said, and Kai was glad to let her speak for them all; his throat had once and truly sealed, aching with regret. “These old wounds can be prodded another time. We would be grateful to hear your story.”
Daithí nodded, apparently placated.
“The deepest heart of the Laune, the Mother’s Cavern, was unattainable. The Frost had slowed, but it had not stopped, and time was scarce. Weeks of tunnelling through the ice had weakened those who sought the depths. They had not the strength to bear the unnatural chill in their lungs, let alone the unyielding pressure of the depths. One returned to us having lost her ability to hear. Another lost his life; his heart simply stopped. They laid him to rest at the mouth of the Cavern, as close to the Mother as they could bear to swim. It was treacherous, and stories of their ordeal have become legend within our clan. Their suffering was, after all, our new beginning. They returned with little more than a hundred seaglass vials of the Mother’s waters. Not enough for each of us, and certainly not the most potent, but enough to be worth it, we thought. We created pendants and pins to be worn when we needed to call upon the waters. Mostof these, we distributed amongst the families. Some, divided among the Elder Council. And the rest remained with those who retrieved them; a small token, we thought at first, a fair prize for all that they had gone through for us.”
Daithí fell silent a moment.
“We were too busy, at first, building Nua Laune. We did not notice the subtle changes in ourselves or our community. But over time, we realised our mistake. This was not a prize, but a curse. It is—it is aperversionof the Mother’s gift. Mere mortals are not made to withstand such proximity to Her power, even in this diluted form. There was violence. Disorder—but only from those who wore the Mother’s waters. They had become unstable and quite unlike themselves. The pendants made us stronger, but hostile. They warped us.”
At a small hum of understanding, Daithí paused, black eyes swivelling to where Alun sat with his cheeks darkening beneath the blue glow of the overhead rock.
“I–Sorry. I just—that’s how you became …?”
Al trailed into abashed silence at the twist of Daithí’s lips; or perhaps it was the slight gleam of his fangs where they parted.
“Do you find me hostile, young one?”
Alun spluttered, small bubbles bursting from his babbling lips. He shot a hurried glance around, face falling when he found only Oswalt’s palm over his face, and Kai’s own unhelpful grimace. Privately, Kai had assumed the very same thing. But Daithí swept Al’s stutters aside, the waters stirring around his hand as he waved it.
“I did not change because I wore an Adhlian pendant. In a way, the opposite is true. We agreed, most of us, to wear thependants only when entirely necessary. The Elders would Wield the waters occasionally, for the good of Nua Laune. The heads of each family would Wield at their own discretion. But the select few who had claimed a prize for their ordeal beneath the Laune—they chose not to part from their pendants. Ever. Their decision, their experiences, had shaped them as the waters would eventually shape the rest of us. They became theSealgair; our hunters. They live among us still, unchanged from the very day they returned from that hell that was once our home. The pendants preserved them. And that, you see, is the secret to my own longevity. At eighty years of age, I was inducted into the Council of Elders.”
He laughed, an oddly dry sound for all the water surrounding them.
“It seems so young, now. For when I became an elder, I was obliged, on occasion, to don a cursed pendant. Little though it was, the time I spent wearing the Mother’s own waters prolonged my life, and the lives of my peers, but it did not preserve our bodies as it did the Sealgair. The changes came slowly. When babes were born with their gills wider and more pronounced, we came to realise our own gills had changed, too. When the next generation came with their little webbed hands, we noticed the stretch of the skin between our own fingers. Little by little, we adapted to the waters around us. This, perhaps, is our punishment for Wielding a power we have no claim to. But there are far worse fates.”
“The Sealgair?” Alun offered hesitantly.
Daithí nodded, to Alun’s gill-shaking gulp.
“I gather you were rather as shocked as your peers to be greeted by an unfamiliar creature such as myself. The sentry you met with before was Sealgair, as I’m sure you have already deduced.However, I thought it best, on this occasion, that I come myself, even if it might frighten you.”
“We are not frightened of you,” Eda said firmly, almost scolding. The silence of the men around her was rather telling, and for a moment, it was quite uncomfortable. It was at this point, however, that Kai thought he could withhold Eleni’s message no longer.
“Therearesome fears,” he began, straining to sound more even than he felt. “From the Dhaliaan population, particularly their sailors. Fears around what they callIssa Koemi, a graveyard, in your waters.”
