Drowned by Water (The Cloud Warrior Saga)

by D. K. Holmberg

  6

  Cold water washed over her, throwing her down, swirling angrily all around. She kicked, plunging toward the surface, but she no longer knew which way was up. Darkness came from all directions. Her chest burned as she struggled not to breathe, but as a child of Doma, she knew the risk of taking in a lungful of water.

  Instead, she tried to get her bearings and twisted, kicking in the direction she thought was up. Waves would force her to battle for air, but at least she’d have a chance.

  Her feet struck sand and she knew she’d miscalculated.

  The water was calmer here. There was still current and turbulence, but nothing like higher up. If not for the way her chest burned, it would be almost peaceful.

  Her vision began to blur and she thought she saw swirls of color, greens and yellows that should not be there. The academic part of her mind took over. She was drowning, and now her mind gave her visions as her body was deprived of air. Either that, or the water elemental had finally come to her aid.

  A face appeared out of the water, green and strangely translucent. When it smiled and darted away, Elle kicked after it.

  Wait!

  The swirl of green stopped and turned slowly. Then smiled. You are a child of water?

  Child of water? Had she actually heard the voice or was this another death vision?

  I am Elle Vaywand of Doma.

  But was she of Doma? Elle no longer really knew if that was true. She’d been gone in the kingdoms so long—nearly the last two years, long enough that she considered it home. Kodan and Vina no longer even considered her of Doma. Could she blame them? Had she done anything that gave them reason to think she still served them?

  Nothing but want to return to the kingdoms. Even her fear for the lisincend stemmed more from what she feared would happen to the kingdoms and her friends than it was about Doma.

  The elementals swirled around her, as if watching, waiting for Elle to answer or decide what she intended. Would it matter to the elementals if she chose to serve the kingdoms or if she chose Doma?

  And why did it have to be one or the other? Why couldn’t she serve both?

  The elemental looked at her as if expecting an answer. What are you? Elle asked.

  Not the udilm. There was a sense of angry power when speaking to the udilm. The great elemental had helped the village, but it had nearly destroyed it as it did, too powerful to recognize that it should not wash over with such force. The udilm served Doma. Maybe the fact that it wasn’t the udilm provided her answer.

  The face reappeared before her. I am water.

  Elle breathed out and almost laughed. Bubbles blew from her mouth before she realized what she’d done. She caught herself, but it would be too late. Except… she felt no urge to take a breath.

  This is you? You saved me?

  The face smiled.

  What of the other?

  Ley might be able to shape water, but would it be enough to save him?

  The other is gone, the face said.

  Gone. Because of she’d been so foolish to think to steal a boat and row across the bay. Now Ley was gone and Toshun’s boat was destroyed. The village would be lucky that she’d become a sea bride.

  Not sea bride. Child of Water.

  The face said it like a title. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have come.

  You came to water. This is where you should be.

  If only she’d never left Ethea. She might have learned something of shaping, might have learned to control the water. There were Masters of water at the university. Not as many as there once had been, but she could learn. In time, she could shape water. Now she had no control over her shaping, and none over the elementals, nothing that would have helped her to save Ley.

  Had she remained in Ethea, she might have learned enough to be useful. Now she might as well float out to sea. Worse, had Tan not brought her to the udilm for healing, none of this would have happened. Her healing had cost others.

  He Who is Tan.

  Elle moved her arms through the water, creating small swirls in the current. You know Tan?

  The nymid know He Who is Tan.

  Nymid. They were elementals, but long believed to be lesser elementals. Tan claimed otherwise, claimed to have witnessed the strength of the nymid firsthand, but how was it they were here? Wasn’t the sea the domain of udilm?

  The nymid are water, they said.

  The udilm are water too, Elle said.

  The nymid started to swirl away, leaving Elle alone in the murky water. She kicked after them, chasing the udilm, her feet skimming the bottom of the sea. Sand kicked up and went floating away. She should be dead, but the nymid somehow kept her alive, allowing her to breathe underwater though some use of their elemental power.

  Was this what Tan had experienced? His tale of meeting the nymid had seemed too impossible to believe, but now Elle didn’t know how she couldn’t believe it.

  Help me reach the other shore, she called after the nymid.

  A swirl of green raced around her and a face materialized. If only she had the opportunity to study these elementals. How much could she learn? Maybe she could learn enough to shape, to finally master the water, but instead she still struggled with using water sensing.

  Child of Water can be as foolish as her friend.

  Tan?

  The nymid flittered away. As they did, a current pulled Elle along, dragging her through the depths of the sea. Nothing else moved around her. Elle expected fish and other sea life, but maybe the nymid scared other sea creatures away. Or maybe the storm raging overhead sent everything else searching for safety.

  Elle swam, following the current. The loose dress she wore got caught in the water and dragged toward her head. She flattened it and a surge of water she couldn’t see sent her tumbling forward, rolling head over feet, as she struck the sand. She thrust her arms out to stabilize as she rolled, but it made no difference. Her hands caught on the sand and then rock as the ocean floor changed.

  Then the water eased. No longer did it push at her. The current still moved, but with less urgency and force. Overhead light drifted down and she kicked, pushing toward what she now knew was the surface. The water grew warmer as she went and her chest began to burn again.

  When she poked through the water, she took a gasping breath, unable to hold it in any longer. She searched around her, swimming easily in place on slow swells of waves. And eastern wind blew against her, the cool breeze of the sea. In front of her was a rocky shore and beyond that rose the dark outline of Falsheim. None of the bright orange flames she’d seen earlier burned through the city.

  Had she been mistaken?

  Elle swam toward the rocks and pulled herself ashore. Once there, she turned and looked back to the sea. Swirls of green were there, streaming in a steady current through the edge of the bay. It looked like nothing more than algae bloom, the kind that occasionally happened along the Doma shores, especially when the warm air struck the cooler runoff from the land.

  She crawled higher onto the rocks. Falsheim was closer, but still quite a ways away. It would take days to reach it. And now that she stood on this side of the bay, she wondered why she’d pushed so hard to reach it. If Incendin had attacked, there wasn’t much she could do. If it were the draasin, then they were all in trouble.

  Elle studied the water again. The udilm resisted her efforts at reaching them, but would the nymid know if it had been the draasin attacking? They seemed more interested in helping. They had to be the reason she reached the shore. They certainly were the reason she still breathed.

  Elle climbed back down the rock. Her dress caught on rough outcroppings and ripped. She didn’t care, jerking it to free herself. The cold water beckoned her back in. Would the nymid welcome her the way udilm had not?

  She let out a breath and plunged herself into the sea. Cold water threatened to take the last of her breath away. She dipped her head under the surface and searched for signs of the nymid. Would they answer her from here?<
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  Nymid!

  She listened but nothing came. There was a limit to how long she could hold her breath and she had to pop her head back above the water to gulp at the air. Why was it that nymid and udilm only spoke to her when she was nearly drowning? Was that the secret to reaching them? Tan managed to do it without nearly dying each time, but maybe that was partly because of his connection to the draasin.

  Elle let her breath out again, this time deliberately. Then she plunged her head under water and kicked until the blackness of the sea surrounded her. Pain burned through her chest. If this didn’t work, she’d end up drowning so close to shore, but if it did work, she would finally understand what it took for her to reach the water elementals.

  Nymid. She called out to them, but her mind began to fade. Colors prickled at the edges of her vision. In a panic, she kicked toward the surface but she knew she wouldn’t be strong or fast enough to reach it.

  A spray of green circled around her and her breathing eased. Panic receded to nothing more than the pounding of blood through her head.

  Child of Water. The voice sounded different this time. You return so soon.

  Was it the draasin?

  The face appeared again, this time the same as the last. Could there be individual nymid, as there were with the draasin? All the time she’d spent studying in the archives hadn’t given her enough understanding of the elemental, at least not in the books that she’d found.

  True Fire has returned. Do not fear Fire.

  Elle shook her head before realizing the nymid wouldn’t be able to see it or care. I do not fear fire. The draasin brought me here, saved me.

  Not Fire. He Who is Tan saved you.

  I don’t understand.

  You don’t have to understand. You are a Child of Water. Understanding will come.

  Then it was the lisincend.

  We do not know this word. Twisted Fire attacked, as Twisted Fire attacks many places.

  Twisted Fire. Wasn’t that what Tan called the lisincend? Elle couldn’t remember. Too much from that time was muddled in her mind, the residual effect of whatever the archivists had done to her, leaving her damaged and nearly dead. Had Tan not brought her to find the udilm, Elle wondered if she would even have survived.

  Twisted Fire attacked? They can fly?

  The image of the creature soaring through the air as it made its way toward Falsheim was difficult to shake. If Incendin learned to create creatures of fire like that, what would stop them? Could Doma’s few remaining shapers even do anything?

  They have learned a new way to twist the Mother’s gifts.

  Can anything stop them?

  Elle had a sense of unease from the nymid.

  Nymid? Can they be stopped?

  We don’t know.

  Elle floated for a little while longer. The nymid left her alone, saying nothing. For all Elle knew, they might have left her. She touched the bottom of the sea again, aware that life began swimming around her. Tiny, colorful fish swam past, unmindful of her. Larger fish were shadows and stayed away.

  Staying in the water would not help. But would the nymid help?

  Can you help me? she asked.

  The nymid swirled around her, sending water splashing toward her face. It floated around her skin, lingering on her arms, and then disappeared.

  This is too dangerous for the nymid.

  Then it left, leaving Elle floating alone in the darkness of the sea.

  7

  Elle swam for a moment before kicking her way back toward the shore. If nothing else, she would find Ley’s body and give him a proper burial. While some in Doma considered a sea burial the proper way to rejoin the Great Mother, the little village of Ophan did not. She would honor Ley that much, at least.

  Pressure built in her chest and head as she swam. It was not the need to breathe. The nymid had given the gift of time so that she didn’t have to surge too quickly to the surface. This was a different sense, one she had grown accustomed to while in Ethea but rarely sensed in Doma: someone shaped near her.

  Could she sense the lisincend? She’d never encountered one of Incendin’s twisted shapers, not closely enough to know whether she’d sense them shaping. And they had started as shapers no different than any other, only later twisting their shaping to serve fire more closely. Why shouldn’t she sense them shaping around her?

  If it was the lisincend, she should remain beneath the water. At least the water would provide some protection from an attack. Without the elementals to protect her, any shaper would put her in danger.

  What if it was Ley who she sensed? Shouldn’t she search for him? Maybe he had survived and it was him shaping, doing anything he could to try and find her. Considering all the time that she’d spent under the water with the nymid, Ley might think she’d drowned.

  Elle reached the rocky bottom of the sea as it began to slope upward. Her feet caught at the rock and she pushed herself carefully along. The sense of shaping nearby continued, but with less strength than before. Did that mean that Ley failed, or was there another shaper, one who had been close but was not making their way farther from them?

  She didn’t want to risk leaving Ley stranded any longer. As she neared the shore, she popped her head into the air, just enough to take a breath of salty air. Were there one of those winged lisincend nearby, she would only put herself in danger by poking her head too far above the water.

  Smoke mixed into the salty spray kicking off the rocks. Heavy waves pushed against her, trying to slam her into the rocks, pushing her back toward the shore. Each one came with more force, building as they tried to tear her out of the water.

  Elle kicked with annoyance at the water, wishing it would just give her the chance to pull herself free. It might only have been her imagination, but it seemed the water eased, relaxing into lesser swells.

  When it became clear that no one noticed her, she poked the rest of her head above the water and looked at the shoreline. As she stared, she realized that Falsheim did burn, but far enough away that she should be safe. The massive turrets that looked over the sea, built to withstand the force of the udilm, burned with a bright orange glow. It must be what the Fire Fortress at the heart of Incendin looked like, she decided.

  The sense of nearby shaping continued. Elle pulled herself out of the water and crawled carefully along the rocks lining the embankment. The sea dripped from her, leaving her with a greenish tint that reminded her of what she’d seen from the nymid. If she ever reached the university again, she’d have to ask Tan more about the nymid. Then again, there were many things she realized she needed to ask Tan about. The nymid was only one.

  Long, stiff reeds poked out between the rocks along the beach, giving her some camouflage as she made her way toward the shore. Elle pressed them apart to peer through. Had Ley been here, wouldn’t she have seen him? At the least, she should have heard him. The fact that she’d heard nothing—had sensed nothing—made her the most nervous. The storm that took the boat under had probably claimed him, too. And if that was the case, what was she walking into?

  Casting another sideways glance over at Falsheim, she pressed out through the reeds and reached dry land. Not far from the water was a copse of trees; otherwise, long grasses swished around her, much like they did near the village. Another familiar pressure built, this one again like a shaping, and she hurried toward the trees, realizing how foolish she had been. If someone was shaping there, it was more likely to be a Doman shaper trained at the university. Incendin shapers would leave the land scorched like the fires she saw in the distance. And if it was a Doma shaper, she needed to find them and ask for help searching for Ley.

  As she plunged into the shadows around the trees, she had the sense of a water shaping. This was more distinct than the other shapings. When anyone shaped, there was a faint sense that built in her ears, similar to the pressure that would build if she dived too deep. It had been many years since she’d attempted a dive like that. While in Ethea, she’d gro
wn used to sensing shapings around her all the time. Most of the time, she had no idea what element was shaped. The only time she did was when water was shaped, and that had to come from a powerful shaper.

  This was strong enough for her to know with certainty that water was shaped.

  She had started around the nearest tree when something struck her chest. The air was knocked out of her and she struggled to take even a ragged breath.

  When a painful lungful managed to get through, her vision started to clear, enough for her to see the man leaning toward her as if to study her. His dark gray eyes were narrowed to slits and an oiled beard covered his face. His black hair had been pulled tight into a knot atop his head. He wore leathers nearly as dark as his hair. Nothing about him was of Doma.

  He shaped, and a sense of water washed over her. Elle gasped as it did. There was no sense of healing, nothing soothing as she’d experienced with other water shapings. This was more like a painful probing, simply searching for injuries, before recognizing that Elle would live.

  “You nearly killed her,” the man said.

  A woman dressed in matching leathers of a deep maroon stepped alongside him. She had bright red hair braided down her back. Her eyes were harder than the other man’s. “Had I intended to kill her, she would already be dead. Be glad she still breathes. Otherwise, you’d have to revive her, though seeing how young she looks, maybe you wouldn’t have minded.”

  They were shapers, but not of Doma. Could they be Doman shapers stolen by Incendin? The rumors said that those shapers were turned, forced to fight for Incendin, almost as if compelled by spirit. But if they were, why would they attack her? The woman, at least, looked nothing like any Doman she’d ever seen. She had the red hair of someone from Nara.

  “You know why he sent us. Don’t make the same mistake that Rashon made.”

  “Rashon was a fool. He thought to take the bond upon himself.”

  “You don’t think you’d like the bond?” the man asked. He ignored Elle but formed a shaping around her, wrapping her arms in something like thickened water. She had never seen a shaper with such skill. “If we trap one in these lands, I believe it is promised to you.”