by Anne Stryker
Asaria closed her eyes and clenched her teeth, stopping herself before she went any deeper. If she started trying to understand, she would sway in her resolve. Light as she was, the only way for her not to be at the mercy of the tide was to stay out of the water—even if that was the only place she didn’t feel quite so lost.
Yuval stopped before her, cupping a gleaming flower with long white petals. It rocked on the current, settling against his palm. Without warning, he crushed it, snapping it from its stem, then continued walking. “We’re here,” he said.
Darkening, the narrow passage opened into a wide, empty room lined with plants. Blues and greens pulsed over the floor and walls, all in pace with the mother’s song. A lullaby.
Asaria hesitated in the entryway, scanning the interior. Reverence seemed necessary in the place, but she wasn’t sure how to respect a planet.
Yuval turned, looking at her, but her eyes fell to the mark on his chest. His gaze followed when hers remained unwavering for several moments. “I deserve it,” he said. “No matter the outcome, it will be mercy.”
Her gaze shot up to his face, terror twisting hers. The barest smile softened his expression then disappeared. Holding up his hand, he dropped the crushed flower in front of him, and exhaled, holding his arms out. Before the flower had a chance to float to the cavern floor, light stretched from the veins along the walls, meeting the blue ribbons that stemmed from his fingers. Light, ribbons, magic, it all danced around the crumpled petals, diving into them, breaking them down and building them up.
The room glowed, the song heightening and changing into something mythical and serene. Tails of magic twisted around Asaria, pushing her from the doorway and lifting her hair. Warmth bloomed in her chest when Beyond caressed her skin, and a laugh spilled from her lips.
All too soon, everything settled. Yuval’s hair drifted back over his finned ears. The melody returned to normal. The light dimmed back to its pulsing glow.
He spun, approached her, and lifted her shell necklace. Fingers skimming her skin, he placed a single white pearl within the scallop and flicked his hand. The shell curled around its treasure, holding it safe against her chest. “As promised.” He lingered, his eyes meeting hers with a plea in their ocean blue depths.
Averting her gaze, she ignored the plea and swam back, out of his reach.
“Asaria . . .”
The world pulsed, a soft beat to keep her from more tears. “I’m tired,” she whispered. “Is it wrong to sleep here?”
Hopelessly, he shook his head. “No.”
Swimming past him, she settled herself at the edge of the domed chamber in a bed of waving seaweed and faced the wall. “Goodnight, Yuval.” She clamped her hand around her necklace and squeezed.
“Goodnight, Asaria,” he replied, but all she heard was the building torment in his voice.
↜❀↝
Beyond’s heartbeat surged into Asaria’s dream, waking her from her rest. Sitting up, she glanced down when plants slid over her skin. A seaweed blanket. Just like that night in the coral forest. Emotion swelled in her chest, constricting her throat as she slipped her hands across the thatched green.
But she had to steel herself to his kindness.
Her gaze shifted toward the chamber entrance. Seated, one leg pulled up and the other stretched across the archway, Yuval nodded in slumber. Arms folded. Deep blue hair floating in gentle wisps across his cheeks and finned ears.
Every piece of her wanted to give in. Had she overreacted? Was her resolve really this pathetic? He had intended to rip her from her world without her consent when the risks were so high.
People wore guises with skill, and she easily fell for lies—especially the ones she wanted to believe. He had been so gentle and welcoming with her, and she had been so near to the edge. Her heart couldn’t stop wondering what the rush would feel like if she let herself fall.
Eyes dropping from his face to his chest, she tensed and pushed the blanket aside. Her decision in a moment of pain and anger had left him with a mark that could kill. A curse for a curse. How petty and cruel.
She pushed through the water, swimming over him and into the narrow passage. His eyes opened, glancing between her and the crumpled blanket she’d left behind. Words faltered on his lips, and he pushed himself off the ground. “Is there anything I can do?”
Tell me why. “No,” she said. “Just take me home. Please.”
“I should have waited. If I’d known I was going to lose you by trying to find you . . .” He clenched his fists at his sides and searched the ground.
Asaria turned before his words could affect her. She plucked a fruit they’d had yesterday for dinner and turned it over in her hands, running her thumbs along the smooth skin. A moment later, the snap of another fruit being plucked sounded behind her, so she continued forward, knowing he followed.
Their return went faster than their descent, and the sun still gleamed through the water by the time they’d reached the chamber at the peak. Yuval had directed her from behind, providing soft corrections at every forking path, so when she reached the chamber, she was the first at the exit, peering out over the volcanic land and brushing her fingers through the heat on the other side of the barrier.
“It’s easier going back down, but we can stay here tonight if you’re tired,” he said, hope nearly dead in his level tone.
An island cast a shadow over the exit before long fingers and roots trickled into view. Asaria swallowed, watching the guardian pass. “Let’s cover as much ground as we can.”
Lifting herself on the rocky edge, she pushed into the hot water only to be yanked back. Eyes wide, she looked at Yuval’s fingers around her wrist before she found his face.
“Please talk to me.” His fingers clamped hard, and panic spiked in her chest.
Shoving it down, she replied, “I can’t.”
“Why? Let me explain. Let me do something. I can’t— I can’t just watch you walk away without doing everything I can to make things right.” His words spilled from tight lips, and he covered his mouth with his free hand, not letting go. “When everything went wrong that day, I thought that was it. Then I actually met you, and—”
“And that was your second chance. A second chance you used to lie to me, to keep me in the dark about a future you acted like I had no say in.” Asaria’s voice broke. “All my life I’ve followed the master plan others have laid out for me. I’ve tolerated bullying at home and in school. I’ve believed the lies my world told me about myself. That I’m insignificant. Unwanted. Unneeded unless convenient, and even then easily replaced. That my opinions are less important or dumb. That my passions aren’t worth my effort or I’m not good enough to make anything out of them. And I’ve never been strong enough to speak up or make anyone listen to my voice.” Her breaths accelerated, and she pushed against his fingers, prying them off her wrist. “I thought you were different. But you were just shiny and new and magical and so easy to want to believe in. I trusted you, and you turned out like all the rest. So I’m just poor stupid Asaria again. But I’m tired of being her.”
She dared to search his eyes, the broken depths likely reflecting her own pain more than she wanted to admit. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled and counted.
“I’m tired of being her, so thank you for this adventure. Because of it, I’ll be stronger. And hopefully when it’s all over, I’ll be strong enough.” If he’d given her nothing else, it was the secret of Ocea. And she’d hold it in her chest, near her heart, until it faded into a fairy tale that reminded her how children first began to believe in themselves—by believing in everything.
“I know it was wrong to force fate. I know my mistake could still be evading Seora and my guards. I know I let my own desires blind me from everything, but you can’t understand what it feels like to be completely alone, so completely that even when others come into your life, you have to watch them die, one by one, after centuries.” Yuval’s lips parted to release a trembling exhale. “I was
desperate. I still am. My chosen is the only one who won’t leave me. The only one Beyond will bless to guard Ocea by my side.”
Asaria focused her gaze on the back wall of the cavern to avoid looking at him. If she continued listening and looking, she would forgive him all too easily. “When I was ten, I learned how cruel children could be. In school, kids would pretend the people they didn’t like didn’t exist. Acacia caught on to the game and brought it home to my parents one day.” She choked out the memory, grasping for a sense of foundation. Her pain was also real, and she had to remember that, no matter how it compared to his. “My family ignored me completely for nearly a month, leaving me to rely on the hired help for meals and clothes when I was still too young to understand why. We’ve both tasted loneliness, betrayal, grief, but desperation is not an excuse to hurt or manipulate people.”
Yuval reached for her again, but she flinched back, shoulder blades touching the heated water beyond the exit. He retreated. “I never meant to use or hurt anyone.” He swallowed, gills opening and closing along his neck. Slowly, a hand lifted, cupping her cheek. Eyes boring into her and begging she meet them, his thumb traced her cheekbone in a gentle, tedious arc.
Her eyes closed against the sensation, and she wished she could push the pull he had over her from her mind and body. “I’m your chosen, Yuval?” she whispered.
“Yes.” Hope that nearly broke her heart saturated the simple word. He moved closer, his other hand finding her waist. “Beyond chose you for me before either of us could know.”
She took his hand from her waist, eyes fluttering open. “We both know now though, so it’s my turn to choose.” Letting his hand slip from hers, she splayed her fingers over the hourglass on his chest. “Prove to me you deserve a third chance, that you won’t use me because I’m convenient, that you won’t hurt me again like everyone else.” Her eyes flicked between his, waiting. When he nodded, she pushed against his chest and fell into the warm water, letting it encompass her in a neutral embrace as she dove.
In the back of her mind, a single, dark voice taunted, reminding her all she ever would be. “Weak.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Weak
Asaria reluctantly settled against the jagged mountain. The orange light of sunset ran over the red scene before her, but Yuval had insisted they were done for the day, and she didn’t want to press the issue. She had already taxed herself enough with their previous conversation.
Closing her eyes, she took deep breaths of tepid water, wishing for the cool brush of an ice fish, but they were weeks from the forest. Weeks from home.
Guilt gnawed at her stomach, and she curled up to avoid rocking. Yuval stood with his back toward her, surveying the scene, but even if she couldn’t see it at the moment, she knew the hourglass rested over his heart, counting down the moments. Did he have weeks?
Nothing would come from the ultimatum if he didn’t have a chance. But watching the way his shoulders slouched and his sad eyes ran over her before looking away, she wondered if he wanted the chance at all.
She couldn’t imagine watching everyone she loved, everyone she’d known for so long, pass on, leaving her again and again with nothing to hold onto, no constant to fall back on. She didn’t want to imagine it. It didn’t make it right to make someone else into a magic potion that would fix everything.
But . . . isn’t that exactly what she’d made him and Ocea? A secret potion that would give her strength and an escape when she needed it most?
Burying her face against her tail, she swallowed her thoughts, trying to push them from her mind. They refused to leave. If she had been in his position, fighting loneliness, the absoluteness of death, a world of pain on repeat, wouldn’t she have reached through the darkness toward her hope too?
Neither of them had any right.
But they might just be made for each other.
Two broken souls doing all the wrong things for the wrong reasons might just have all the pieces they needed to be whole together.
“Weak.” The word echoed in her mind again, and she startled, shivering when she looked up.
No one spoke to her. Yuval had settled a fair distance away, his dark back facing her. The separation tugged on her heart, and the disembodied voice in her head was right. In her own desperation to rely on someone, she’d already lost her resolve.
And she couldn’t. She couldn’t accept eternity with him. Some days she could barely make it to lunch. Forever in Ocea could be beautiful, purposeful, warm, and safe, or it could be another curse. She wasn’t strong enough to find out which.
Positioning her back to Yuval as well, she clutched her hands at her chest and prayed that he would find his happiness, that Beyond would choose another who had strength enough to stand at his side. With those wishes still on her lips, a gentle heartbeat vibrated from the ground and coaxed her to sleep.
When sunlight streamed against her eyes, Asaria blinked awake and squinted at the red rock before her. Rolling, the long journey ahead already dampening her mood, she paused mid-stretch, and her eyes locked on a large shell resting beside her.
Asaria glanced at Yuval’s sleeping form, then back at the shell. Not a scratch out of place, light gleamed off its colors, beckoning her hand closer. Her fingers closed around it, and a sigh left her lips. “I’d missed you, old friend.”
Feeling eyes on her, Asaria looked up again and met Yuval’s gaze. It averted, more guilt settling in her stomach once his arms tightened against his chest. “Did you find it?” she asked.
His eyes moved to hers, then away again, and he shrugged. “Yes.”
Flicking her tail, she drifted toward him. His gaze skimmed over her from out of the corner of his eye, head turning only when she sat across from him. She asked, “Why?”
“You carried it all the way from the middle of the caverns, I thought—”
“Why did you try to manipulate me?”
Yuval paused. A long moment passed, her hand tightening on the shell as unease rose. She didn’t know if she wanted to hear the answer, but the initial pain and confusion had mellowed, leaving only guilt, a sense of hypocrisy, and an aching hole.
“I didn’t think of it like that,” he said at last. “I already told you I was desperate. I didn’t think either of us had a choice, so it didn’t matter.”
The jet hourglass on his chest contrasted his porcelain skin so drastically it drew attention, but that wasn’t why her eyes fell and settled there. A single speck trickled down, resting in the bottom. She jolted back. “You’re lying!”
Lunging forward, he snatched her wrist. “I’m not! I swear, I’m not.” The panic in his gaze turned to pain, and he let her slip from his fingers. Defeat made him turn away. “It was an afterthought. Blind selfishness directed my motives, but that’s how I made it right after the fact.”
Her voice shook. “Why do you keep trying to lie to me?”
“You mean everything to me. I’ve dreamed of spending moments with you for centuries, of finding every birthmark, of learning every laugh. I don’t want you to see the person I know I am. I want to be better, stronger. Someone you deserve. Someone you’d choose even if fate didn’t dictate you would.”
She glanced over the quiet hourglass before meeting his gaze. “Someone I’d choose?”
“I don’t think we, guardians, get a choice in any form.”
“Everyone always has a choice.” Sometimes she didn’t believe it, but she had to know it was true.
He shook his head, a self-deprecating smile tipping a corner of his lips. “Wai lily—” he rolled his lips “—Asaria, I know I don’t deserve it, but will you trust me for a moment?”
Eyes flicking to his mark, she asked, “Should I?”
“Probably not, but I will be honest.” Nothing moved.
She released a breath. “Okay.”
Delicately, his fingers lifted her free hand, and her heart pounded. Yuval closed in, lips grazing her forehead. A spark of emotion gushed through her, burning
her from the inside. Her mouth opened in a silent cry. For a single moment, everything was right. The drug settled into her, calming every fear and anxiety. Her future splayed before her, countless roads to take, countless waves to ride. Something right.
No.
Perfect.
But then it was gone, and a chill pimpled her arms, tingling over her scales. He dropped her fingers before she could pull away.
Love shone on his face, and she knew it, because she still felt the wake of its touch. His lips smiled, but his eyes hoped. “That’s what I feel with every look, every touch, every thought that involves you. If I have a choice, at all, I fear it would break my soul to deny the pull of our connection.”
The connection between them wasn’t entirely lost on her. But she felt it like a fridge magnet. The constant pulse in his head had to be nothing short of a neodymium.
“But you’ve only had that since . . . when?” She wasn’t certain how to proceed. Steadily, voices in her head screamed at her. His pain and suffering was so much, and she was the selfish one. She had repaid his hardships with rejection. Horrible. She was horrible.
“The moment I saw you. It strengthened when I met you, but I had a brief time to come to terms with it before then while I was . . . well, attempting to reel in my mistake.”
Her breaths shortened, and she swam back, her tail running over a rough edge and twinging in pain. She flicked away from the rock awkwardly, propelling herself down, and hit the ground with a dull thud. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I just—”
His arms pulled around her, pressing her tight to his chest. “I said I wouldn’t let you go there again.” He spoke firmly, a hand clamped against her head. “You’ve spared me, Asaria. What I did was wrong. I broke rules that Beyond embedded in my head when I was born. My mistake has harmed people already. If I don’t pass the test, you’ve given me nothing but peace. If I do, I hope that makes me worthy of your third chance. Of you.”
