Forsaken

by Kristen Day

  As she stepped closer and closer, I concentrated on the sand around me. I planted both of my feet firmly and drew a circle with my eyes. My imaginary circle in the sand began to tremble and I waited for Kira to step inside. She was still staring at me blankly, blade drawn and pointed directly at me. The moment her back foot breached the circle, I raised my bound hands and a wall of sand shot up around us, blocking out the rest of the world as well as Isadora’s poisonous song. Kira was instantly released from her trance and looked around confused. She gawked at the knife she was holding, then at me, and threw it down in disgust. She ran to me in a panic.

  “Stasia! Oh my god! What was I about to do!?” The waterworks had started up again.

  “It was Isadora, not you. Listen to me, Kira,” she tried her best to hold in her sobs and took a deep shaky breath, “I need you to untie my bindings.” She nodded and frantically unfastened the bindings around my legs and hands. I could tell that this had been an incredibly traumatic experience for her already, and I wished there was a way I could protect her from the reality of our situation. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible.

  I let the sand cocoon collapse, and it came crashing back to the ground with the force of an avalanche. I immediately accessed our situation. Both Isadora and Priscilla appeared to be in shock, still trying to figure out what had just happened. The instant they realized I was free from the bindings and Kira was out of her trance, they both began singing. Unable to block them out, Kira once again fell under the guise of their songs. Even for me, it took a great deal of effort to block them out. It felt like several hundred pounds of pressure weighing down on my entire body, threatening to crush me. In my fight to withstand the onslaught, I didn’t see Kira retrieve the dagger from the sand.

  With Kira bearing down on me again, I decided to try out my other supposed abilities; I began channeling every morsel of red hot rage that had been culminating inside of me. I took a deep breath and as I projected outward, a gust of wind exploded outward from around my body, pinning Isadora against a tall palm tree. The force of her body hitting the dense bark of the tree broke her song and I quickly dodged Kira’s strike, easily knocking the knife out of her hand and into the sand. Priscilla appeared in front of me, wrapped her hand around my neck and swiftly lifted me off the ground. She tossed me like a rag doll against a jagged rock, slicing my arm open and knocking the wind out of me. I watched helplessly as she charged Kira and threw her to the ground in a heap. Then, she lunged for the knife lying in the sand and advanced on me. I tried to move, but the pain in my abdomen wouldn’t allow it. She picked me up by my hair and flung me down in the sand. While I struggled between the need to fight and the excruciating pain, she jumped on top of me, held me down by my throat and lifted the knife in the air with a sickening smile. Squelching the pain, I channeled it into my arms instead and pushed her body off of me. She flew off of me, crumpling on the sand beside me. I scrambled back to my feet, ready to defend myself, but she was unconscious.

  Free of her wind prison and eyes burning with hatred, Isadora now began attacking me and wrestling me to the ground. She pulled a second knife from her clothing and swung it down towards my chest. In an instant, she was ripped off of me and thrown against a tree by an unseen force. I rolled over and got to my feet sweeping the beach with my eyes. Priscilla was nowhere to be seen and Kira was lying motionless in the sand. Someone stepped out from the forest and I snatched the other knife from the sand, ready to attack. Her black straight hair and piercing blue eyes caught me off guard. She held up her hands, letting me know she wasn’t going to hurt me.

  “Natasha?” I squinted at her, trying to figure out if it was really her. Her eyes widened.

  “Stasia, move!” she yelled. I rolled to the right, just in time to see Isadora bring a dagger down in the sand where I had just been. In the same instant, an axe came out of nowhere, hitting her directly in the chest. She collapsed in the sand beside me and I watched in horror as the life drained from her flawless face. I tore my eyes away and ran to Kira, desperate to make sure she was still alive. Her leg was drooped over at an odd angle and her face was pale, but she was still breathing.

  “Kira!” I called out to her, “Kira!” Her eyelids fluttered, and then slowly opened. They widened in panic and she pulled me down on top of her in a tight hug. I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “Stasia, we need to go, Priscilla is still nearby,” Natasha urged me. I inspected Kira’s leg.

  “What about Kira? There’s no way she can walk,” I told her frantically.

  “Of course I ca-“ She let out an ear splitting scream as she tried to move her leg. I reached out to comfort her when a familiar voice caressed my ears.

  “I’ll carry her, but we need to move, Stasia.” He lifted her in his arms with lightning speed and his deep blue eyes took me in. A blanket of security instantly wrapped around me.

  “Finn,” I whispered. I was so happy to see him I wanted to cry. I stood and smiled at him.

  “Cease this disturbance!” The accompanying shockwave was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. A whole fleet of trucks couldn’t hold a candle to the force that shook my body in that moment. I felt myself fly backwards, hit the ground and heard the sickening sound of breaking bones. Dazed, I painstakingly turned my head looking around for the others. Finn stood in the same spot untouched, but Kira had been ripped from his arms. She was lying a few feet away from me, unconscious. Natasha was stirring to my left, slowly trying to lift herself up off the ground. I tried to sit up too, but my body wasn’t responding. A sharp pain coursed through my left side, leaving me breathless. A pool of thick, wet liquid was already collecting beneath me and a sudden onslaught of dizziness had me closing my eyes. I tried straightening my legs, but they refused to work as well. I leaned my head to the right as someone walked out of the shroud of the dark beach.

  She was terrifyingly beautiful; the most incredible contradiction I’d ever laid eyes on. She had a commanding presence that claimed the attention of every living being. The plants seemed to falter amidst her power and the sand glistened beneath her feet. Glittering silver and green scales covered both sides of her body extending from her face down her neck, arms and legs. What could only be described as a dress of dark green kelp was draped halfhazardly around her voluptuous figure, trailing behind her. Long black and dark green hair fell around her shoulders, accentuating her catlike bright green eyes. Keto. She glided to a stop in front of Finn and he bowed his head ever so slightly to her.

  “We meet again, Scion.” An amused grin twitched on her lips and I could actually see Finn’s entire body tense in preparation for a fight. Her voice hardened, “What is the meaning of this dissension?”

  “Your daughters have conspired to take matters into their own hands.” I could hear the hatred seething from his voice. At this, Priscilla emerged from the forest, her blue eyes wide with panic. She dropped to her knees. Keto looked down at her lovingly.

  “Stand before me, daughter” she commanded her. Priscilla stood, raising her chin with pride. Keto’s eyes lasered across to Kira, Natasha and finally settled on me. My skin prickled. “The child has returned,” she declared with annoyance.

  “You knew about her?!” Priscilla gawked at Keto in surprise.

  “Of course. Thetis was my sister. I knew this day would come.”

  “And you let her come back? Why haven’t you done something about it?” Priscilla was near madness.

  “Do not question my actions, daughter.” Her tone was so steely, the hair on my unmoving arms rose. She shifted her attention to Finn, “She is not yet immortal. Has she not taken the journey to the river?” I spent the next couple of minutes wondering if I had heard her right. As the blood continued pooling around me, my senses became increasingly muted and I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

  “She will!” He boomed with fervor, “and she will prevail. She is the rightful leader, not you.” Keto just smiled at him, but the malice behind it was obvious.

>   “I will not challenge a lesser being. Once she has made the journey, the time will come.” She looked back at Priscilla, “Return to Lorelei. It is not your place to interfere with the destiny of the Nerieds.” Priscilla shrank beneath the weight of her reprimand. Keto looked directly into my now hazy eyes and my thoughts halted under her glare.

  “We will meet again, Anastasia,” she threatened straight to my mind. A trickle of fear ran through me, followed swiftly by another bout of rage. Her dress of kelp swirled around her in a dramatic fashion as she turned to leave and she disappeared back into the darkness of the beach. Finn immediately turned and unexpectedly stopped beside Natasha first to make sure she was okay. I found that odd, since she was sitting up while Kira and I were both immobile, but I didn’t question it at the time. She was pretty dazed and badly bruised, but appeared to be fine. He crouched down beside me next.

  “It’s okay, Pasha. I’m going to take care of you,” he tried to comfort me. All I could do was look up at him. I could feel the energy literally draining from my body, and I was getting weaker by the minute. He glanced up at Natasha with something I’d never seen on his dark, handsome face. Fear.

  “Mom, we need to hurry. She’s… It’s not good.” Mom…Mom... My mind whirled at the word. My mom had a name now. I knew who she was. I smiled inwardly at the thought and closed my eyes. But what about my dad…Dad…Mom…

  “Take her to the estuary. I’ll take care of Kira.” Natasha instructed Finn. Everything started getting fuzzy and all I could think about was going to sleep. Even breathing had become an incredibly difficult task. I had the vague sense of being carried and I heard a low voice in the distance, but the all consuming blackness was so comforting that I blocked everything else out. A numbness settled over my mind and I let it overcome me, becoming lost in its endless depths.

  Chapter 35

  The next thing I remembered was breathing water. It was so cold and it hurt as it expanded in my lungs. However, with each labored breath, the darkness receded.

  “Come on, Stasia, breathe. Come on.” Finn. His voice was far away, but so comforting and strong. The tenor vibrated in my conscious like an echo, making me dizzy. As the water began to circulate within my body, I was able to breathe easier and the pain in my side started to fade. It dawned on me that I was now lying down and something was rubbing my hair. I tentatively opened my eyes. Finn’s face swam in my vision momentarily before clearing.

  “Hey there,” he smiled down at me, and my heart melted for the zillionth time. I wondered if I would ever get used to his presence. I hoped not.

  “Hey,” I croaked. My body was growing stronger, but I could tell it would be very sore. How was I healing so fast? I looked around, feeling completely out of sorts. I was in an underwater cave. The water felt…soft. Almost like a bubble bath without the bubbles. All around me a beautiful forest of sea grass, vines, and kelp reached up from the bottom, while flowering plants blanketed the stone walls, creating a colorful, serene oasis. Rays of light filtered through the water from all directions, giving the whole cave an ethereal ambiance. I was lying on a suspended hammock filled with pillows. It hung from the ceiling high above. Also above me, I saw a small circle of light. I could tell that it led out to the outside world. The pool! Finn had brought me back to Thetis’s house. We were in the underwater cavern I had seen earlier.

  “What kind of water is this?” I asked him.

  “This connects to the lagoon, but its water has many purposes, healing being one of them.”

  “That’s convenient,” I smiled and he chuckled at me. I cast an accusing glare in his direction as I remembered something he had said earlier.

  “Oh, and thanks for telling me I’d be buying my dress from your mother.” I raised my eyebrows at him expecting an explanation, but couldn’t stop the grin fighting its way onto my lips.

  “Must have slipped my mind.” He shrugged his shoulders innocently. He ran his fingers through my hair as his face softened. “We used to live here. On the island.”

  “You did?” I finally had enough strength to sit up.

  “We did…” he clarified, “Not being able to talk to you about any of this…it’s been so hard. We would have grown up together, Stasia.” He shook his head and crushing sadness hit me with force. My eyes burned with tears, even as the water washed them away.

  “Why, Finn?” I began to sob in earnest, “Why did they give me away?”

  “To protect you,” he said softly, and wrapped his arms around me. I put my head on his shoulder and let myself cry. I cried for the life I never had. I cried for the parents I would never know. I cried for myself; for the life of pain I had endured for so many years. “They would have killed you, just like they killed them. No one knew you had been born except for a select few, and Thetis wanted to keep it that way. But she loved you so much and she talked about you all the time. It tore her apart, she cried every day.”

  “But, she didn’t protect me, Finn. She gave me away to people almost as evil as Keto. Why didn’t she save me? Why didn’t she do something?”

  “She didn’t know. She only knew what I told her from your brief appearances to me. It broke her heart that you weren’t able to appear to her. Only after she died was she able to see you.”

  One of my previous reveries came back to the forefront of my mind. The woman on the water. I looked wide-eyed at Finn.

  “It was her. She was there in my first vision. Right before I saw you and Nicolet, I was on the beach and she was in the water. I could hear her, too” I couldn’t hide my excitement about this newest revelation, “She called my name. She’s the reason I chose Anastasia when I came to Lorelei!”

  “She was ecstatic about that,” he smiled down at me.

  “How did she know if she was gone? Wait. How could you know she was happy about it?” His face froze as he realized he had said something he shouldn’t have.

  “You’ll know everything in time. But first, I have something to give to you.” He cupped my cheek, “It’s from your mother.” He took my hand and we swam up toward the fountain. My body was now completely healed…even the soreness had disappeared. It was miraculous.

  He helped me out of the fountain and gave me a fluffy robe to put over my wet clothes. His shorts and t-shirt were soaked as well, but he didn’t seem to mind. The house was just as immaculate as the first time I had seen it, except for one thing. Now I knew this really was my home. Or would have been. As we walked up the grand staircase, I glanced over my shoulder at Thetis’s portrait hanging above the fireplace. Just as I suspected, she was not only wearing the same necklace in the portrait, but also the same ring.

  “Finn?” I stopped at the landing. He turned to face me, concern in his eyes. “What does this mean?” I held up my hand showing him the ring and expanded trace. He simply smiled and took my hand again.

  “It means you’re one step closer,” he said simply. I furrowed my brow at him, not happy with his vague answer. I followed him up the stairs and into one of the many doors in the main hall. My hand went to my mouth as I gasped. Finn put his hands on my waist to steady me. It was a good thing too, because my legs were about to give out. Stark white carpet supported my bare feet, and the walls around us were painted a bright silver. A white wicker crib stood in the middle of the room, shielded by a white lace curtain hanging from a hook in the ceiling. The lace wrapped around the crib to thwart any light from reaching a sleeping baby’s eyes. I walked closer and ran my hands along the sides. In one corner of the room sat a single rocking chair. I recognized it from one of my dreams. A large antique wardrobe stood against one wall with a smaller chest of drawers beside it. The opposite wall had been painted to resemble the ocean; white, blue, and silver paint swirled to create crashing waves. I was completely speechless. Above the window, lined up on a shelf perched rustic letters that spelled out one word. Anastasia.

  “This was my room,” I whispered the words aloud, testing them on my lips.

  “She would sit in
here for hours at a time.” A faraway look changed his features and tears formed in his eyes. I realized all this time I was only thinking about myself. I turned to face him.

  “You miss her,” I said softly. His tears spilled over and he nodded.

  “Yes. Very much. I didn’t know your father very well, but Thetis…she was an amazing goddess. She taught me so much. You’re like her in so many ways. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost you. You stopped breathing. I thought…” His sadness meshed with my own and I felt my heavy heart lighten. I stood on my tip toes and kissed each tear as they slid down his cheeks. He hugged me close. We stood that way for several minutes, sharing in each other’s grief. Comforting one another. I’d never felt so loved. He leaned back to look in my eyes, and the storm of emotion I saw on his face caught me by surprise. He gently wiped a tear that had escaped down my own cheek and met my eyes again. In his deep blue ones were whispers of tenderness floating within, layered with desperation. And something else…something much more powerful…

  “I love you, Anastasia,” he whispered it so softly, I almost didn’t hear him. Once it registered, I got chills and my soul danced. I knew then I loved him, too; I’d never been so sure of something in my entire life. He’d been with me through everything and had never once doubted my strength and courage. He had become the sturdy bridge between the old me and this brand new world of the unexpected. He knew me better than I knew myself and he was willing to give me something I’d never had before: unconditional love. There was no one else I would entrust my heart to.