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Waiting for another tense heartbeat, I slowly turned to face the water. My spine stayed stiff and my pulse quick, but I did my best to shed worry that I’d been followed. The clan would understand that I needed time. They’d been nothing but kind and welcoming. There was no reason they would withdraw that kindness, especially now when Solin had decided to uncover my name to make me a permanent member of their family.
If I prove to be fireborn, of course.
With my breathing shallow, I stepped into the river.
It gushed over my toes; I flinched at the coolness.
It was colder than I anticipated, biting into my skin and settling into my bones.
It was refreshing as well as painful.
Gritting my teeth, I waded deeper into its depth, not stopping as the icy water crept up my knees, thighs, hips, and chest. It wasn’t deep enough for me to be completely submerged, and my toes remained on the algae-squishy bottom, gripping onto rocks of all sizes as I sucked in a breath and dropped under.
The sudden hushness of the world soothed me. The gentle tug of the current in my hair drifted me back to the days when I’d trudged so far without anyone. The rivers I’d found in my travels had seemed like friends, their waters hugging me, their droplets giving me life to continue.
Breaking the surface, I ran hands over my sodden hair, shedding the weight of water. My nipples pebbled with chill, and my breath came a little faster.
I already felt better. No more tears. No more fears. I found calmness in the moment of aloneness.
Sighing, I dropped my hands back to the water, skimming my fingers over the surface, drawing in its wetness. The gentle splashes and erasing marks consumed me.
The river grew louder, rushing in my ears. The silver-blackness of its depth suddenly shimmered with a faint blue.
Far below, glowing around my toes, the gleam brightened enough to see two fish dart past, vanishing into the black. The river pulsed with its blue glimmer, urging me, beckoning me...
My knees buckled; I folded into the water. It crashed over my head again, icy and suffocating.
The heaviness of distorted sound changed.
The purest note of music hung in its current.
It seeped into my heart, and the notes changed to become the faintest, softest whisper. A whisper of longing and—
I panicked.
My feet slammed against the bottom; I exploded upward. Droplets gushed over my face as I gasped.
No.
It couldn’t be.
I’d heard it.
I’d heard a watery whisper just like Solin said he heard whispers in the fire.
No, no, no...
I broke into a wading run, fighting for the shore.
The faint melody turned sad and heartbreaking the moment my feet were back on bare land.
As droplets sluiced down my nakedness and soaked into the ground, the song stopped, poised on a haunting note, cut short with grief.
I couldn’t move as the night noises of insects, birds, and bats returned. Their songs erased the watery one, fading it from my mind as the gentle rustle of leaves filled my ears.
Doubt filled me as quickly as fear had.
I’d raced out of the water, and for what?
Because I heard something?
Water always sang. It was always dancing and frolicking and moving from place to place.
That’s all I heard...
Isn’t it?
Solin had explained how the fire whispered to him.
He heard the flames clearly. He deciphered their messages to share with us. Surely, that meant the whispers were given in a language he could understand. A language he could speak. Not like the soft melody and blue glimmer I’d just heard.
Sitting heavily on the leaf-blanketed earth, I wrapped my arms around my cold, wet knees.
Tears bit again as I pressed my forehead to my legs.
I’d been so happy, so grateful, so sure that the Nhil people were the only ones in this world. I’d been so incredibly lucky to be found by them. I’d believed in simplicity of life—where each mortal was as finite as every animal I’d seen on my journey. Nothing lived forever, and nothing had the power to conjure fire apart from the sun and lightning.
I hadn’t known about different kingdoms or elements.
Up until tonight, I’d felt no separation or ever known the meaning of forbidden connections between a Quelis-chosen and the three other borderlands.
But now...now I felt so naïve.
Now, I didn’t know if I was fire or water. Earth or air. I didn’t know who I belonged to or who I was deep inside.
The peace and contentment I’d found with the Nhil could all be taken away. Tomorrow night, I might be cast out and be forced to return to my endless, agonising searching.
Fresh tears welled over my eyelashes, tracking down my cheeks.
“Don’t cry. It makes me feel helpless when you cry.”
I jumped so high, I shot to my feet, spinning in place.
My tears dried up.
I swiped at my face, sucking in a tattered breath, searching for the voice, searching— “You.”
