AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Heath shrugged his little shoulders. “Dunno. He felt different, that’s all.”
“You felt something, did you?” The duke still sounded pleased. “That’s good, Heath.” A pointedly cleared throat from behind him made his expression turn more serious. “But your mother is right, you know, little one. You mustn’t be rude. We get to enjoy lots of good things because of our position, but it also means we need to take more care to be kind and polite to people. Understand?”
“Yes, Father,” Heath said obediently, although he was still confused as to what exactly he’d done wrong.
“Good,” said his father with his gentle smile. His eyes turned eager again. “But about this feeling you had. Can you feel it now? When you look at me?”
Heath shook his head.
“Have you felt it before?”
He shook his head again.
“Hm.” The duke rocked back on his heels, exchanging a look with his wife. “I thought he might have been sensing magic—it’s often the first sign of ability, you know—but it doesn’t seem like it.”
“I don’t think so,” the duchess said. “I’ve never seen the man before. I don’t think he was part of the extended family, and he didn’t look Kyonan. So he couldn’t be a power-wielder.”
“What did he look like?”
She shrugged. “Just normal. Nothing remarkable.”
“No, Mama,” Heath corrected, frustrated. “He was different.”
“I know, little one,” his father said absently, tousling his hair. He shrugged his shoulders, speaking again to his wife. “No matter, there’s plenty of time for his magic to show itself.”
Heath woke with a start, lying still in his bed as his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the early dawn. Why had he been dreaming about that old incident?
He sat up, rubbing his face blearily. It had felt much more real than a dream should, much more accurate in every detail. It was like his dreaming mind had fully relived a memory that had long been buried. He’d all but forgotten about that encounter in the marketplace. Now that he thought about it, that was the first time he’d begun to understand that he and his family had to be careful of how people saw them. It had become something he lived by, like the rest of the power-wielding nobles, and it was the reason for his current frustration.
But he didn’t think that was why his mind had chosen to pull that memory up from the depths of his awareness. There was something else, something pulling at his mind, some threads trying to connect. He groaned. It was going to niggle at him until he figured it out, just like the many mysteries of Vazula were niggling at him while he was being prevented from continuing his exploration of the island.
Drawn like water down a whirlpool, his thoughts flowed without resistance back to the island. For a moment he was distracted from his dream, reliving the encounter by the lagoon.
He gasped. The lagoon!
That was the connection he was missing. He had told Reka he couldn’t sense any magic lingering there after his encounter with the girl, but when he’d tried again, he had felt something. It was different from the magic he felt from his family, but it had seemed familiar somehow. He remembered being unable to put his finger on it at the time.
He realized now that the memory it had triggered was that of the incident in the marketplace when he was a young child. His unconscious mind had connected for him the threads that his waking thoughts couldn’t quite bring together.
He frowned, his thoughts swirling wildly at the introduction of yet another mystery.
What did it mean? How was he ever going to find answers to any of the questions that kept appearing with every layer he peeled back?
He had to get back to that island.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Merletta raced through the kelp forest with less than her usual caution, her thoughts still in a whirl. She had barely stopped for breath since leaving the lagoon, and her heart was beating wildly.
What had she just seen? Who was he? What was he?
She swam into the heart of Tilssted without thinking, forgetting in her distraction that she lived in the Center now. By the time she came to herself, she realized she had made her way to a corner of the city where she often used to hide when she wanted to escape the home for a while, but didn’t think she’d be able to get past the barrier.
She settled against the wall of the natural cavern, closing her eyes and letting her breathing slow. She needed to think through what had just happened, without any prying eyes watching her.
What she’d seen was impossible. She shook her head, trying to clear it. As impossible as finding land so close to the triple kingdoms.
What kind of creature had she just discovered? Two things were certain: he wasn’t a dragon, and he wasn’t a simple beast, like a fish or a squid. He had spoken to her! And even if he hadn’t…She remembered his eyes, the very depth of them, the way they’d locked on hers, speaking as intelligently as his words…
