by Lizzy Ford
Tieran’s eyes went to her lips. Heat flared in his eyes, and she held her breath in anticipation of experiencing his kiss again.
He abruptly released her and stepped away. “Now,” he said and turned his back to her.
Startled by his rejection, Sela stood in place, grappling with the heat in her blood. What had happened? He had seemed interested and then changed his mind.
Did he regret the kiss they shared? Had it somehow offended him?
Tieran never backed down from anything, and she had the sense he was … retreating, if not running from her.
Sucking in a deep breath to settle her rattled thoughts, Sela walked towards the cave. He had started a fire inside at some point while she danced with the waves. His sword and the coins were piled on one side of the fire. She paused near the blaze.
Tieran stretched out next to the fire, facing it, with no space between his body and the fire for her to lie.
Sela frowned, unable to explain his sudden shift or the flutter of new emotion inside her. She lay down beside him and glanced at the back of his head. How did she ask the question she was embarrassed to know the answer to?
Why had he not kissed her a second time?
The memory of their first kiss was enough to make her body flush from the top of her head to her toes. She rolled onto her side and pressed her back to him, frustrated she could not read her protector’s mind, and wishing he could not read hers.
Tieran kept his distance the following morning as well. He led her away from the cliff and the sea, towards one of the coastal villages perched on a bluff. They did not enter the town but waited in a grove outside it.
Sela sat quietly, eyes as much on Tieran as they were on the village he observed. He had spoken only a handful of words since they woke that morning. He had not looked at her, either.
Disturbed by her guardian’s indifference, she began to suspect he had not wanted the kiss to happen and did not know how to handle her, now that he felt her reaction to him. If he regretted it this much, why not tell her, so they could return to the relationship they had before?
Is that possible? She had never been attracted to the cousin her king wished her to wed. She had never experienced any sort of fever when she crossed the paths of attractive men in her father’s palace or elsewhere. And she had definitely never felt her cool magic respond to the touch of anyone.
Was it better to pretend nothing ever happened? Could she be near him without thinking about it? Without her blood heating when he touched her?
Already, she missed the sea’s calming influence. Sela leaned her head back against the tree whose trunk was at her back. The sea’s call remained strong. It was close and yet, too far to soothe her restless blood. Unable to fully understand her reaction to Tieran, or his sudden distance, Sela could not help feeling a tremor of despair whenever she considered she would never visit the sea again.
Sensing the shift in her mood, Tieran glanced towards her. He did not speak but returned his attention to the village.
“Wait here,” he said and rose. He strode away from their concealed location.
Sela leaned forward, eyes never leaving him. Her guardian trotted toward the dirt road winding away from the city between lush, green hills. An older man on a wagon pulled by two horses was headed away from the village.
Tieran approached the driver and waved a hand at him. The driver slowed. The two exchanged words before Tieran handed him some of the coins the ocean had brought them. When the driver nodded, Tieran turned to face her direction.
He waved for her to join him.
Sela went, in no hurry to leave her sea behind.
Tieran went to the back of the wagon and opened the door leading into the dark interior packed with food, supplies, and clothing. He climbed in. She followed. The enclosed space smelled musty and was too filled with boxes and bags for both of them to sit comfortably. Tieran pushed to the side farthest from the door then sat.
Sela joined him, uncertain where she was supposed to sit. He reached up to take her arm and pulled her down. The touch rattled her, sent fire dancing within her. She gritted her teeth and willed herself not to react to him. She settled between his legs.
The older man stacked boxes in front of them before closing and locking the door. Breaths later, the wagon jolted forward.
Tieran’s arms went around her, and she relaxed against him. Her shoulders fit between his. She put her arms down, jerked back when they encountered his hands, shifted to find a place to put them and then gave up. Their quarters were too tight, and holding her arms up above her head would be too awkward to maintain. She rested her arms down and tried not to think about the man at her back.
“Do you trust this man?” she asked doubtfully.
“He is an Inlander. Inlanders can be bought. He will take us where we wish to go.”
She had not been able to tell the driver was an Inlander. His plain appearance told her only that he was likely a peasant. But Tieran would know his own kind, she assumed.
Sela leaned her head against his shoulder. The fever inside her subsided without completely disappearing. She was comfortable enough in his arms to want to sleep.
“Are we going to find allies?” she asked in an attempt to stay awake.
“I haven’t decided.”
His answer was more clipped than usual. How was it possible for her to miss their contentious exchanges? Was it better to be civil and know he was upset, or to have another heated argument because he was concerned about her?
The farther the wagon ventured from the sound, the less magic she felt. Sela’s distress grew the longer they rode.
“We will return on the full moon,” Tieran said softly.
“We will?”
“Every full moon.”
Her brow furrowed. Happiness bubbled within her, but she sensed an effusive response was not appropriate for Tieran’s mood. “Thank you,” she said instead.
He was silent.
She stared into the darkness. “Are we going to your uncle’s?”
“No.”
She waited.
“I’ll fetch my gold first. If we need allies, we will buy them.”
Sela said nothing more. How long they traveled, she did not know. The driver stopped twice – once late afternoon and a second time past dusk – to let them stretch their legs and eat. The scenery changed with each rest, with the second stop resembling the Inlands. Sela sensed no water magic at all.
She climbed back in the wagon and settled into place in Tieran’s arms. They tightened around her, and she rested against him, despondent after the brief joy of frolicking with her sea.
She dozed off and on, dreaming of water, swimming with the sea creatures, and the fear she experienced when confronted by the open ocean.
The wagon jolted to a halt, waking her. Groggy from the little sleep, Sela sat up straight. The driver unlocked the door and opened it, displaying a brilliant Inland morning. She shaded her eyes and blinked before creeping forward. She exited the wagon and stood, observing the savannah stretching in every direction. The breeze rippled through the grasses, resembling waves, in a way that made her homesick for the sea.
She sensed a lake nearby without seeing it, perhaps behind a hill. And … something else was here. A flickering of sea magic.
She looked around, uncertain how she could feel the ocean when it was a day’s travel away. The magic came from no direction she could identify. Unlike the lake, whose call she could pinpoint, this new magic permeated her surroundings.
She heard Tieran and the driver speak without paying attention to either. She shielded her eyes with a hand, peering towards the hill hiding the lake and then around her again.
Not a well, not an underground water source, not a stream or second lake.
What was calling to her? Why was it familiar? Was the source of the elusive voice of the sea that she had noticed sporadically since entering the Inlands near here?
The wagon rolled away, down a road o
vergrown with grass.
Tieran strode towards one of the few clusters of trees in the Inlands. Several of them were blackened by fire, and the grass beyond them was littered with the charcoal remains of a small village. No other people, horses, or villages were within sight.
Sela followed him curiously, unable to shake the sense magic was present.
Tieran paused in the shade of a large tree, observing the area where the small village had once stood. Sela stopped beside him. His gaze was fiery, lethal, his features drawn and his body rigid enough to snap. Any question she had about where they were died before it reached her lips.
“This was my home,” he answered through clenched teeth.
Her heart went out to him. Sela looked out over the ruins of his village. She did not want to know what went through his mind as he returned to the site of where his sisters were murdered. Nothing she could say would help him.
He walked toward the charred remnants of his home.
She remained in place, doubting even she could calm him.
She gave him his privacy and sat at the base of the tree. Tieran walked through the village deliberately, pausing at several points along his path.
Was he imagining what had happened there? Or did he recall a happier time, before his enemy swept through and destroyed everything?
She wanted to think she would remember only the good but could not help remembering the last time she saw Karav disappearing over the top of a hill, walking confidently towards his death.
A tug of cool magic came from behind her. Sela peered around the tree, uncertain what to expect from the mysterious magic. She glanced towards Tieran. He crouched at the edge of the village, his attention completely absorbed by his memories.
Sela rose and left him in peace.
The flicker of magic retreated, but not before she sensed its source behind a small hill. Sela walked towards it, through the pale, waist high grasses of the Inland savannah, beneath the mid-morning sun whose heat made her long for the sea once more.
When she reached the hill, she was breathing hard. She turned to face the village.
Tieran had not moved. His head was bent.
She studied his hunched form, hating that anyone could hurt as he did. She wanted to run to him and throw her arms around him and use her cool magic to bring him peace.
Was peace even possible after what he had lost?
Tieran was not a man who would want to be considered vulnerable. If he chose to share his pain, she would listen. As much as she did not wish to, she had to grant him his space.
Helplessness crept into her again, along with a sense of loneliness. Were these her emotions or his? She could not tell.
Hugging herself, Sela circled the hill. No water sources appeared in the savannah on the other side.
The whisper of magic came again, this time from behind her.
She faced the hill. How was the lump of earth in front of her radiating water magic?
Frowning, she was about to return to the village when her eyes fell to an anomaly in the side of the hill. The grasses grew in a different angle along a square patch.
Sela approached. She made out the outline of a door that had been covered by grass. Pushing the grass aside, she ran one hand over the door to find a knob or other means of opening it. Her fingers bumped into metal, and she pulled the grass out from around it. The rusted ring was heavy. The door held no lock.
She pulled at it.
It did not budge.
Bracing her leg against the side, she used both hands and hefted it with all her strength.
The door gave a little then sprang free suddenly enough to disrupt her balance. She landed on her backside. The space behind the door was dark, the smell emanating from it musty. Her nose wrinkled. She stood.
Familiar, cool magic trickled into her more strongly.
Finally! She had found the source of the magic teasing her since she entered the Inlands!
Sela climbed up into the doorway and blinked rapidly, trying to make out anything beyond the darkness. The sound of water dripping reached her ears, and sunlight illuminated the uneven stone flooring leading away from the door. She entered, one hand on the wall to her right. The floor sloped downward. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she began to realize it was not completely dark inside. Glowing moss lined both sides of the wide hall through which she walked. The faint scent of the sea was in the air as well.
At first, she thought the gaping patches of darkness lining the corridor were holes. When she saw the skeletal arm stretched outward from one, she realized she had stumbled upon catacombs. She shivered and crossed her arms, uncomfortable in the resting place of the dead.
The crypts on either side of her lined the corridor sloping downward, deep into the earth, in a lazy spiral. The farther she walked, the stronger the magic grew, and the more intrigued she became.
From what she had seen, Inlanders burned their dead. Why did this place exist at all? And how could it smell of the ocean when the sea was so far away?
Glowing moss filled in the spaces between the dead and had grown to cover the ceilings.
She stopped. While the call of the magic came from ahead of her, she had felt a faint spark that faded just as fast.
Sela took a step back.
The spark returned.
She moved forward, and it vanished again.
She peered up and around, unable to identify the source, before her eyes fell to the hollowed out, open crypt in the wall beside her. She moved to stand closer, and the magic returned.
“Who are you?” she whispered to the bones within the grave. Her eyes scanned the skeleton covered in clothing. Its manner of dress reminded her of the paintings of ancestors her father displayed in his great hall. No one had dressed like this in the history of her family’s paintings, though.
The form in this grave was small without being childlike, with plenty of space between its head and feet and the edges of its tomb.
With a grimace, Sela leaned closer to make out the details of the skeleton’s dress. No sigil marked its gown, which appeared to be well tailored and ornately decorated. She held out her hand over the bones. The cool flicker of magic tickled her palm, giving Sela no doubt as to what – or who – she had found.
“You’re a water mage,” she murmured. From what the priests taught her, the lawless Inlands had been independent for a thousand seasons at least. She had memorized the names of every water mage for the past two thousand seasons, and none of them were known to have lived, or died, in the Inlands.
How old was this mage?
“What are you doing here?” she whispered, awed by the idea she had discovered a new line of mages.
The dead had no answer for her.
Unable to find any other details about the body that might help her identify when this mage had died, she leaned away and continued walking.
After another few steps, another flicker of ancient water magic reached her. She studied the second body. It contained no markings or sigils, and its clothing was more plain. Sela continued walking, only for another spark to flare inside her and then another. All came from the right side of the corridor, which she began to believe contained the crypts belonging to women.
Five more sparks caught her attention before she reached the end of the catacombs. She tilted her head, able to hear the faint roaring of the ocean somewhere beyond the stone wall in front of her. Placing her palms against the wall, she felt the vibration of water flowing on the other side.
The sea was present. Though how the ocean came to be trapped beneath this hill, she could not imagine. The longer she spent in the catacombs, the more intrigued she became.
“Sela.” Tieran’s voice was quiet, his approach silent.
She glanced over her shoulder at him without lifting her hands. “What’s behind this wall?”
“Behind it?” he echoed. “Dirt. Grass. I don’t know.”
“How old are these catacombs?”
“This is
a sacred place, Sela.” His tone carried no warning, but she heard the reverent note in it.
She turned, studying him in the dim glow of plants. For a moment, she could not help comparing the lighting here to that of the sea creatures underwater when Tieran had kissed her. She dismissed the memory before it fevered her once more.
“I thought Inlanders burned their dead,” she murmured.
“Tribal leaders from my mother’s line have always been buried here,” he said. “You should not be here.”
She hesitated, hearing his firmness. “I apologize, Tieran. But I feel the ocean. It’s beyond this wall.”
He was quiet for a breath before walking towards her. She stepped aside, hating herself for noticing his scent and the warmth of his body as it brushed against hers. Tieran placed his palm against the wall.
“Do you feel it?” she asked.
“I feel something.” He lowered his arm.
“These are your ancestors?”
“From my mother’s side, yes.”
“Did you know they were water mages?”
“That’s not possible.” His gaze fell to her. Sela tried not to be aware of the distance between them. “There’s no magic in the Inlands. Certainly not water magic.”
“But it is,” she insisted. She stepped away before his nearness disrupted her thoughts. She paused beside the oldest of the mages. “She was a mage. All of them as well.” Sela indicated the next six tombs.
“You know this how?” Tieran sounded uneasy.
“I can feel it.” She held her hand out above one of the skeletons. The spark lit up inside her, tiny but present. “Can you?”
Tieran approached her from behind, stopped beside her and rested a hand on her hip. Sela held her breath.
“Yes,” he answered. “I can when I touch you.”
“I don’t know how, but you have a long line of water mages in your ancestors.” She shook her head. She wanted to comment on the strangeness of water mages in the barbaric, waterless Inlands but chose not to. “That’s why I’ve always felt the magic in you. You’re no normal mage-warrior. You’re a warrior in whose blood flows the power of a mage.”
