“That’s absurd,” he growled darkly. “How is it that I run and hide like a coward and you blame yourself?”
She turned to see the ever-present light in his eyes suddenly burn brighter. He deftly got to his feet and climbed the short distance to her dangling legs. His arms came down on either side of her. His expression was completely intent. “It won’t happen again,” he said softly, his eyes once again calm. “I’m so sorry.”
She searched his face. His glowing eyes. She searched the shadows—the always present shadows—and the depths. The silence lengthened between them. She held herself very still, searching . . . waiting . . . searching some more. He waited. She didn’t think he took a breath in any of the long minutes that she spent looking into his soul. Finally, she nodded. A heavy, dark weight lifted from her heart.
“Friends?” he asked softly.
“Friends,” she replied. And before his famous half-smile took her heart again to places that she didn’t want it to go, she pushed him.
Wolf howled.
It sounded suspiciously like canine laughter.
“Are you coming or not?”
Wolf whined and she could swear he was scowling at her. She almost laughed at his expression. It was so human sometimes.
Drashmere touched his wet snout to her cheek. Perhaps it is best that he stays this time. I have a surprise for thee that I am sure he will not appreciate. He said it with laughter in his voice.
Auri turned to him with a smile. “Will he stay? He hasn’t seemed to want me out of his sight since he first found me.”
A wise precaution, Drashmere said, suddenly sober.
Auri sighed. “Wolf,” she called up to the bristling white animal. “Drashmere says that it would be best for you to stay this time.”
Wolf growled menacingly.
“I don’t think he likes the idea,” Auri said with bemused affection.
I’ll speak to him, Drashmere promised.
She watched as Drashmere communicated with Wolf silently. Eventually, Wolf stopped bristling, laid down on the planking, put his face onto his paws, and watched them with too-attentive eyes.
Drashmere’s sigh echoed into her mind. He has condescended to trust me. He was silent for a moment, and then, Oh, interesting!
“What?” Auri asked, craning her head around to see what he was looking at.
Nachal. Standing at the prow of the ship.
Nachal would like to know if he can join us.
She almost spluttered. “He wants to what?”
Join. Us. Drashmere said the words slowly, as if she were having a hard time understanding his language. She glared at him, and a huge draconic smile spread across his face. How did he know that she was glaring at him?
Shall I tell him nay?
“No.” She turned her head back around with a sigh. “Let him come.” Laughter bubbled up from the large cavity of Drashmere’s chest, making her whole body vibrate as she sat on top of him. She smiled and shook her head. Making the Sea Dragon laugh felt right. Even if it was at her expense.
She jumped at the sudden splash of Nachal diving effortlessly into the water. She twisted around to watch as he swam toward them, his strokes sure and steady. When he reached them, he held up a thick rope that he had been towing with his teeth. “What is that for?” she asked in surprise.
“To help you keep your seat.”
She frowned. She didn’t think she would need a rope.
Drashmere echoed her thoughts. She will not need it. She has my neck to hold on to. But I believe that thou wilt need it. Swim beneath my belly and wrap it around.
“Shouldn’t it go around your chest?” Nachal asked in confusion.
Drashmere smiled. Trust me, young one.
Nachal dove, muttering something underneath his breath. “What was he muttering?” Auri whispered.
He complains that ‘young one’ is all that he is ever called, Drashmere explained with laughter in his voice again. He says that he is starting to think it is his given name.
Auri laughed. A moment later, Nachal materialized on Drashmere’s left flank. He had looped the rope underneath and was in the process of climbing up. It looked as though it was something in which he had a good deal of practice. When he climbed onto Drashmere’s back, and settled in behind her, she turned to him with a smile. “And what else did you expect to be called when you live among dragons? You are young.”
Nachal frowned at her. “So are you.”
Drashmere interrupted with a laugh. Hast thou not learned by now, Prince Nachal? Dragons are never young. Hold on tight, he cautioned them. And with that, he was off, racing through the water as though it were only sky, and making her catch her breath. They were going so fast it felt like they were flying!
After a few minutes of breath-catching speed, Drashmere asked them, How long canst thee and Nachal hold thy breath?
“I don’t know,” Auri shouted over the sound of the wind. “I’ve never tested it.” Nachal tightened his arm around her waist but remained silent.
Well thou art about to. Breathe, now!
She dragged in a deep, aching breath, and felt Nachal do the same behind her, and then . . . they were underwater, and in a completely different world. At first, all she could do was clutch Drashmere’s neck like a lifeline and look at everything around her with her eyes nearly popping out of her head. But then, after they resurfaced a few times, and she learned the rhythm of things, she began to relax and just enjoy the experience.
She could feel the water’s cold temperature, but it didn’t bother her. It fizzed past her as they whirled and swam through it. Drashmere swam fast at first, diving and twisting, spinning, and then he slowed to about one quarter of that speed and swam leisurely, showing them the wonders of the world beneath the surface of the waves.
She kept one hand firmly wrapped around Drashmere’s neck, and with the other she reached out to wonderingly touch the smooth skin of a porpoise. Nearly a dozen of them swam on either side of her, easily keeping pace with them. Fish darted around them, sometimes obscuring her vision with their sheer numbers. She could see great valleys and tall mountains, beds of rock and plankton, jungles of sea plants waving in the water’s currents. Everywhere around her was life. Life that she would never have imagined possible. If she hadn’t already been holding her breath, it would have been taken away.
Nachal’s arm suddenly tightened again around her middle in alarm. She twisted around to see where he was looking. Her eyes bulged. A shark was keeping pace with them, about twenty meters away. Its skin was light grey, and it had an elongated head and jaw line with massive amounts of sharp, pointy teeth.
Drashmere soothed them with silent laughter in his voice. Dost thou believe that dragons have predators in the deep? He will not bother us. Sharks too are curious sometimes. He has just come to watch.
They resurfaced shortly after that for the last time. Auri lay flat against Drashmere’s back, with her cheek pressed against his neck, and took deep, gasping breaths. “I had no—” gasp “—idea—” gasp “—that the ocean could be like that! That was amazing!”
Nachal was gasping for air behind her too. She could hear him coughing, struggling to bring air into his lungs quickly. They must have held their breath for a couple of minutes that last time. When finally he could breathe again, he started to laugh. “Good thing the queen changed me,” he said still laughing. “Or I would have missed out.”
Auri’s lips quirked as she turned to see him, laughing, shaking the water out of his dark hair with his hands, and sluicing it off of his face. She had a sudden thought and started to laugh. Drashmere, reading her mind, started to laugh too.
“You want to clue me in?” Nachal said with a wry smile, looking at them warmly.
Auri choked it out between laughs. “Wolf,” she laughed. “He would have hated it!”
Nachal looked surprised for a moment and then he shook his head and started chuckling along with them.
Chapter Twenty-
One- Lifeline
After that, a pack of wild wolves couldn’t have kept her Auri of the water. Sometimes Drashmere went with her, sometimes one of the crew, sometimes Liran or Nachal, and sometimes even Wolf. He hated the water, and only seemed to tolerate it because of her. It was strange. She had always thought that wolves loved the water. Not Wolf apparently. Maybe Liran was right; maybe he was an anomaly. She hoped so. The thought made her smile.
“This is really very selfish of you,” Liran said offhandedly, wiping a dripping hand over his face.
She looked at him in surprise. “What is?”
He reached over and plucked the conch shell out of her hand then added it to the pull-net that the crew had rigged for her underwater treasures. When he was finished closing the net so that the contents were secure, he pulled down on the second taut rope and lifted it up to the deck. Someone above emptied the net and then lowered it down to them again. He finally turned and looked at her with one brow raised. “Making the crew take a midday meal break nearly every day. Very selfish.”
She laughed. “Selfish? One of them had tears of gratitude in his eyes. I think he takes a nap every afternoon now.”
He smirked. “They were tears of frustration.”
She sobered. “To tell you the truth, I decided this morning that this has to be my last dive. I have been selfish. I’m risking the ship and everyone on board every time we stop.”
“We’re targets anyway,” Liran said quietly. “Whether or not we’re actually moving makes little difference.”
She scowled at him. “I knew there was a reason I asked you to come with me today. I needed cheering up.”
His eyes sparked for a moment, glowing golden, before he dove back underwater.
Liran was fast in the water, much faster than she was. Before she even had her head submerged, he had disappeared. She discovered that she could hold her breath for several minutes, about five, before she had to resurface for air. The more she practiced the better her time got. But whenever she went diving with Liran she was forced to realize that her five minutes or so weren’t very good. He could hold it for much longer. In fact, they had never resurfaced for him, always for her.
He caught up with her again when it was time for her to resurface. When her face broke the surface she scowled at him.
“What?”
Her scowl deepened.
He looked confused as he searched her thoughts. She knew the instant he understood because his lips twitched in a smile he probably felt it prudent not to show just then. “It’s not true, you know.”
She glared.
“It’s not!” he said in protest with a half-laugh.
“Oh,” she said archly. “Tell me one thing that you’re absolutely terrible at.”
His bleak look brought her up short then she tried to mentally scramble for something to say that would erase it. She hated that look on his face. “Many things,” he said quietly. Then a sudden light turned his eyes almost completely gold. “Besides, hasn’t it occurred to you? You’re a dragon! You can fly and breathe fire! Two things I know I’m incapable of doing.”
Her frown softened as she looked at him. The excitement in his eyes on her behalf was genuine. He seemed to have no problems with her mixed heritage.
A lump suddenly formed in her throat, and she blinked back the stinging sensation in her eyes. “I thought. . .” She looked away, trying to compose herself, taking a deep breath before she faced him again. It was unnecessary. Liran, impatient again, had already stolen it from her thoughts. He growled something in the elven tongue that didn’t sound very pleasant, and she turned in surprise to look at him. “What did you just say?”
He ignored that. “How could you believe for even a single moment that that was the reason? Do I seem like that kind of person to you?”
She had never seen Liran livid. Well, he was now. His eyes flashed, and his mouth and the muscles of his face were so tight they looked as though they were carved from stone. When she didn’t respond, absolutely couldn’t respond, he slumped suddenly against the hull of the ship and closed his eyes tightly. “It wasn’t a question about me, was it?” he whispered in sudden understanding. “It was about you.”
She grabbed the pull-net so that she wouldn’t have to kick to stay afloat, and watched Liran as he struggled to contain something. His muscles tightened, betraying him. Without opening his eyes, he brought his hand up to the net too, though he didn’t seem to need its stabilizing power. Muscles worked along his throat. Silence pulsed between them. She purposely kept her thoughts on her observances of him and not herself, shutting him out.
“The more I think I know you,” he whispered, “the more I realize that I don’t.” He opened his eyes. It was painful to see that expression in them. Auri silently wished that he had kept them closed. “Will you do something for me?”
“What?” she asked in a strangled voice.
“Think of your childhood, remember it, make it vivid in your thoughts, and let me see.”
She looked at him helplessly, wanting more than anything to refuse. But that look in his eyes, she had seen it before. At Ardalan. He was begging for her trust. Liran—strong, confident Liran—was begging for her memories. It was more than she could take. She closed her eyes . . . and let him in.
Images flashed. Her mother cradling her close. Her mother’s body laid out for burial, cold and pale. Valdys, taking her hand and leading her from the room, explaining that he would care for her now.
She grew up, and years went by in only seconds. She was building the lake in her garden, polished blue stone by polished blue stone. She was walking through the deepest, darkest passageways of the castle. She was at a long table-full of people, sitting rigidly in her chair, looking at the dirt underneath her fingernails and trying to pretend that she couldn’t hear the whispers around her. She could feel Valdys looking at her in impotent frustration.
She was older again, standing at the very edge of a crowded ballroom. Valdys came to stand next to her. He folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the wainscoting. “Anything new?” she asked in her little girl voice. A voice that sounded so old to her now.
He smiled down at her. “Of course. Join me in my study tonight, and we’ll discuss it.”
She nodded her head; her long hair swished against her arms and back. “I always do.”
The king nodded in agreement then his face changed. “Auri?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “For what?”
But he just smiled down at her, and cupped her cheek before kissing the top of her hair. She watched his back as he walked away, a puzzled frown on her small face.
She was older again, nearly ten and seven. She was planting some more citrus trees in the garden. A shadow loomed over her, blocking out the sun. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with a dirty hand and looked up.
Roderan looked down at her in blatant disgust. “Are all elves so common?” he asked with a slight sneer.
“I wouldn’t know. Are all Valkeries so worthless?”
Roderan seized her arm, yanking her up. “You would dare insult my family’s honor?” he spat into her face.
She jerked her arm free. “Leave. Now.”
He glared at her with malice and hatred in his eyes. Then a cold smile touched his lips and he backed away a pace with a half-mocking bow. “I wonder what it must be like to be so thoroughly disgusting to others.”
She turned her back on him. Squatting down, she began packing the soil firmly around the roots, biding her time as she waited for him to grow bored and leave. But it seemed to infuriate him even more. He moved in front of her so that it was impossible not to see him. “There are rumors about your continued presence here. The rest of the royals are mystified. Why, they ask, does the king keep it?”
It? She kept her head down, holding the dirt between her clenched fists, trying to shut out his words.
“But I kno
w now what it is. You aren’t just his pet are you?” He jerked her chin up with a long, pale finger. There was triumph in his eyes. “He’s either your father or your lover. Which is it?”
It was the first time that she could remember wanting to hurt someone. Wanting them to feel pain equal to her own. She pulled her dagger and, with speed she didn’t think she had, held it against his throat. “Leave. Now!”
His eyes became ice-cold pinpricks of blue as he leaned toward her and into the knife. It sliced deeper into his neck, but she didn’t back down. “You are not invulnerable here,” he whispered silkily. “Something that you should perhaps keep in mind.” Then he knocked her hand away, and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. He held it against the blood trickling down his neck, all the while watching her with his cold, malicious eyes. Then he turned and walked away.
When he was finally gone, she collapsed to her knees in the dirt, shaking.
She opened her eyes and was a score and one again. Back in the present. She turned quickly away from Liran as she swam for the ladder on the aft side of the ship, unable to face him or say anything right then. Liran stopped her just as she started to climb. “I wanted to know,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” she asked in a low, anguished voice.
Several things flashed through his eyes. He closed them and swallowed carefully. “Would it help you to know that he was in love with you?”
“No.”
A small smile touched his lips. “I didn’t think it would.”
“Why?” she whispered.
He opened his eyes, and they were on fire. Fury and pain, and . . . something else. Something he didn’t want her to see. “Because I wanted to know you,” he said harshly.
She clung to the ladder, trembling slightly, feeling exposed and angry. But she had made the choice. All he had done was ask. Ask her to trust him. She twisted in the rungs so that she could see him more fully.
There was quiet for a few minutes. Quiet but for the sound of the mild waves slapping around them and the faint sound of the breeze.
She closed her eyes to let the sounds soothe her, and found herself searching instinctively with her other senses for El`dell. For peace. She could feel it. The pulse of it beneath her feet, and the quiet solitude of its place on the ocean. She could feel the water soak the ground beneath the white trees, and hear the waterfalls on the edge of the green city. There was more that she could feel, was about to feel, but she was snatched away by Liran’s touch on her cheek.