AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ve splashed in streams but nothing like this,” he said.
“Use your tail,” I told him. “See how it feels.”
I shifted out my dragon tail and pushed away to glide through the water with a slow swish of my tail, arms tucked tight at my side. Istil followed, copying my movements perfectly. I led him across the lagoon and into the tangle of mangrove roots, smoothly weaving through and around them, moving further into the dense forest. Soon we passed below a shelf of volcanic rock and reached a pocket beneath the surface where only a few small chutes above us gave any light from the sky. I reached out into the water with my elemental touch and woke the luminescent garden beneath the surface. Blue, green, and violet corals bloomed with light that set the water aglow and cast waves of shimmering color across the undulating surface of the obsidian ceiling.
Istil spun playfully in the water, laughing to himself as he figured out what he was able to do. His tail didn’t have the same paddle shape that made it easy for sea dragons to swim, but that wasn’t holding him back at all. It was as though he’d freed a hidden memory of a life lived in the sea.
To my alarm, he suddenly disappeared under the surface. I followed and found him diving to the coral bed with a flutter of bubbles trailing behind him as he whipped his tail from side to side. He swam around the coral pillars, eyes wide with wonder at the glowing underwater forest around him. I came to his side and pointed straight ahead. He nodded, and I led him on a tour through this hidden world, passing schools of silver moonfish floating above, and the shadows of massive arc manta passing below.
Istil touched his chest and pointed to the surface. Air. As comfortable as he seemed in the water, he couldn’t breathe like a sea dragon. I shook my head and beckoned him closer with a finger. I held his chin with my fingers, then tapped a finger to my mouth and touched it to his.
May I?I asked with a tilt of my head.
He shrugged like he wasn’t entirely sure what I was trying to do.Sure.
I pushed my lips to his and with my elemental powers, breathed pure air into his lungs. His eyes opened wide, and he nodded. I nodded back to him and again pointed ahead of us. He gestured for me to lead the way.
The coral’s glow followed, activated by my powers, and slowly faded as we swam on, like a bubble of light around us. Istil stopped to examine the waving anemone that sucked in their petal-like tendrils when he got too close, and I paused to collect the occasional piece of material from the reef I could use for certain medicines. We were now north of the mangroves, past the volcanic overhang, and in open water. The last bit of daylight clung to the sky and sparkled off the underside of the surface. Istil took another breath from me, and we continued further away from the shoreline. Clusters of curious nurse sharks came by to investigate, and for a while swam lazily around us, including us in their school. I grabbed a dorsal fin, Istil did the same, and we let them take us on a little ride through the coral forest.
I directed Istil’s attention to what at first could easily be mistaken for a towering volcanic rock formation overtaken by the reef, especially in the waning light that cast everything in a gray-blue hue. A gentle elemental nudge lit up the coral and revealed what was a massive monolithic figure of a sea dragon, with claws as big as my forearm peeking out from beneath the sea growth. Istil stared in awe and swam around the ancient sacred statue as the coral’s glow rippled in repeating waves from the base to the top, slowly illuminating each portion. We followed the light up to the dragon’s head, where a rainbow anemone had set up shop right on the cracked and worn eyeball.
The sun had set, and the sea was dark. I took Istil by the hand and pointed towards shore. He nodded, and we returned to the beach.
Chapter15
Istil
Ari’s groans pulled me out of one of the most pleasant nights of sleep of my life. I sat up and peered into the darkness, but his bed was hidden by leaves and the nest of vines slung through the center of the room.
He grunted and grumbled, and I heard the rustling of sheets.
“Ari?” I whispered.
“No,” he mumbled. “I won’t do it.”
I waved my hand, and the vines pulled back enough that I could see him tossing and turning in his bed. He always looked so stern and serious, but his face now was knotted and upset. I stared, waiting for his dream to pass, but it seemed to be growing worse. He turned onto his side and balled himself up like he was trying to hide.
“No,” he moaned.
I thought about going to him, but I was scared. If I tried to comfort him and was pushed away, it would hurt me far more than I wanted to admit. So I stayed in my bed and stared as he tossed and turned until finally, I took control of a vine and gently prodded his cheek with it. He grunted and swatted it away, then turned over and was quiet.
I exhaled with relief.
It seemed to have done the trick.
I shouldn’t have been so afraid, but things had become different so slowly that I’d hardly noticed. I’d become vulnerable to Ari’s flashes of indifference, which had me setting up defenses I’d never needed before. I cared about what he felt for me and what I meant to him, and yet I still pulled back. I pulled backbecauseI cared so much. How did that make any sense?
“I don’t know what to do,” I told Visir the following day. We were sitting together on the beach, watching Makoa and Kai carving up the waves on their wakka. “I have no control over the way my body feels from one moment to the next. It’s like the birds that leave the forest for the winter. I’m completely at the whim of an external force.”
Visir dug his hands into the sand and let the grains fall between his spread fingers. He was always so calm. “Well, you are nesting,” he said. “That’s normal, right?”
“Yes, but… sometimes I feel like I might be falling for him. Then I wonder if it’s just another effect of the pregnancy.”
“Maybe it’s not an effect of the pregnancy at all. Maybe that’s love.”
I scoffed. “Oh, don’t say that. I’m not in love.”
“What I’ve observed is that love likes to strike in completely unexpected ways, especially when we aren’t looking. It may feel strange, wrong, or false, but it never lies. Look at Thran and Baleon. Or me and Kai.”
