Page 92 of Drown Me Gently

Auren closed his eyes, and his final breath—shallow, dry, too thin for gills—shuddered through him.

And as the blackness crept in, his last thought was not of the pain, nor the rage.

It was of eyes like the deepest trench.

And a kiss soft enough to tame storms.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Auren winced as raindrops pattered on his eyelid.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

No. Not raindrops. These were too precise to be the scattering of rain. A steady stream of droplets fell deliberately over his left eye.

Drip

Drip

Drip

With each drop, awareness returned to him. Bit by bit, until he had the strength to flinch away from the intrusion and turn his head, sputtering. Auren coughed, spitting sand from his mouth. He inhaled—lungs, not gills.

He sat up, half expecting to find legs beneath him. He was disappointed to see a sand-covered green tail, the scales caked with blood, dry and cracked in the scorching sun.

“No, I did not transform you fully. I gave you breath, that is enough.”

The voice came a little ways down the beach, carried by the early evening wind. The sky shifted into a pale peach and blue. The hushed light made the sand appear flushed pink. All except the tendrils of black curled around Auren. It was still there, a shadow left imprinted on the sand. All that remained of a mighty sorcerer who had dedicated centuries to an ungrateful god.

Tears sprang to Auren’s eyes.

“The sea does not need your tears. It has enough salt,” the voice said again, a woman’s.

“And what makes you think I’m offering them to the sea?” Auren snapped, anger and grief mixing in a toxic pool in his stomach. “Poseidon has taken enough; he does not get my tears. They’re for…”

But he couldn’t bring himself to even say the name.

Auren looked at the human woman, his eyes aching as though he’d stared into the sun for too long. Her skin was dark, smooth, and her legs were bare beneath a delicate short burlap dress. The way she tucked her knees to her chest made her appear young, almost childlike with seashells woven into a mane of flowing black hair. But when she turned her silver eyes on him, Auren knew this was no girl. That this was no human.

“Mother.”

“Hmmm.” She hummed, with a pleased little tilt to her head that once again made her glow with youth. “I rather like that. At home, you only ever address me as the queen.”

Auren didn’t know what to say. His relationship with his mother had always been that of queen and prince. But seeing her here, in human form, something about her rigid, steely grip seemed to relax. Her muscles loosened, finally allowing for the kind of relationship mother and son ought to have.

“Why did you save me?” Auren asked, wincing as every inch of his lower body hurt.

“Does a mother need a reason to save her youngest son?”

“No. But I am sure you have one.”