Beneath Cruel Fathoms (The Bitter Sea Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  She didn’t fall asleep. The night had returned before the sturdy skiff finally gave in, and so too had her fear. Breath reduced to shallow gasps, she shook with terror and cold, eyes fixed on the devouring shadows. Black sky. Black sea. Her mother hadn’t come.

  She didn’t want to die. Please, she wanted to live.

  “Isaura, aren’t you tired of pretending?”

  The boat sank under her. She took her last gasp of air and the water closed over her head. Down she drifted, the constant chop of the sea vanishing. Soundless. Lightless. Darker than any night she’d ever seen. Her salt-stiff hair billowed around her head now, a slow-motion veil tickling her cheeks and ears. The icy sea crept into her bones, drugging her limbs while a growing fire burned in her lungs. The Embrace, the sailors called drowning, and it was true. The Failock wrapped itself around her, a smothering softness she couldn’t escape. Saltwater stung Isaura’s eyes but she didn’t close them, her chin tilted up toward the surface she couldn’t see. She reached for it. She kicked. Her body responded dully. The living world floated farther and farther away.

  Her lungs contracted behind her ribs, desperate for air. Panic gripped her. Isaura couldn’t restrain her body any longer. The last of her breath burst out in a tide of bubbles and she sucked in the cold, hard sea. It filled her chest like raw flames. She coughed and gasped the thick brine, her diaphragm inhaling and expelling in wrenching spasms. The agony was beyond anything she could have imagined. Until, just as suddenly, the pain eased. Her body quieted. Her mind grew vague. It was almost over.

  Something solid and heavy gripped her around the waist and she catapulted upward. Was this what it felt like when the soul left the body? Pressure against bones. A cage of tidal forces. It didn’t matter. Everything faded from her senses. Darkness—complete, possessive—became all the world.

  Except for that pain against her back. Its bruising insistence claimed her attention just as she’d sunk beneath the thick soup of nothingness. It hurt. It wouldn’t stop. It squeezed her ribs until she felt sure they’d shatter. Raw agony climbed up her throat. Spilled from her mouth.

  Now, the icy air awoke on her skin. The cold draft, the sea enveloping the lower half of her body. The sea inside her chest. Another impact between her shoulder blades arched her forward. More seawater gushed between her lips.

  The compression she felt around her ribs increased. A tightening vice. No, an arm. It braced her against something. Someone. The pounding against her back started up again, purging the water from her body in ragged bursts. Tears tracked her cheeks. Groans she couldn’t voice welling up, but it didn’t stop until she was empty. Hollowed out. Isaura had the distant sense of turning over, of knuckles digging into her sternum.

  Breathing. She wasn’t doing it. The realization was like flint against a stone. Her lungs stirred to life and then she was wheezing, choking in strangled breaths that hurt in the most wonderful way. The air curled into her, an old friend gentling the chilly ache. Warm arms buoyed her in the frigid sea, which seemed strange—both their presence and their warmth—but she clung to them instinctively.

  Isaura had no idea how much time passed before her body finally calmed and her gasping quieted. She shook with exhaustion and cold. She wanted to sleep and was afraid to all at once. Shock. She recognized it. She’d seen it in patients, though to see it and to know it had no comparison. Had the water gotten warmer? The feeling in her fingers and toes seemed to be returning. But that was impossible in the icy waters of the Failock. It was barely spring.

  She became aware of a sound, a soft whistle by her ear, followed by a series of chirps. She didn’t know what to make of them. The night sky wheeled above when she struggled open her eyes, a crowded pantheon of hard, clear light.

  She let out a startled gurgle when a man’s face leaned over hers and blocked her view. Pinpricks of glowing indigo illuminated features framed by short, dark hair. A mural of bright tattoos sketched a dotted pattern over his temples, across his brow, and down the slim bridge of his nose. Dark, expectant eyes gazed down on her, their irises slashed with glowing shards of blue.

  He looked like one of the merfolk, or at least, like the paintings that hung from the walls of every harbormaster’s office and perhaps in the quarters of ship captains too. There’d been one in Captain Wendelsson’s cabins at least and she’d spent plenty of time studying it during the voyage. The old sailors said the merfolk used to swim alongside the ships of men when storms came, guiding them away from the rocks or back onto course for home. They were considered lucky once. But they were extinct, vanished from the Failock Sea some thirty years ago.

  He tilted his head slightly, mouth compressing as he began to hum. Different from the whistles and chirps, his tone modulated in a smooth glide along a low register, a song of all flat notes. When she only stared in return, he exhaled sharply, then began a fast tempo of clicks.

  Languages. He was trying to speak to her.

  In the dialects of the sea.

  The idea struck her as so preposterous, she wondered if she might actually be dead. Could he be one of their spirits then? A guide to rescue her from the halls of the drowned? She’d never believed in that sort of thing, but it seemed more plausible than to have been saved by a creature who shouldn’t exist after a shipwreck no one else survived. It hurt to consider the possibility. She’d wanted so much more for herself than the sum of her life up till now.

  Her head throbbed and her thoughts grew hazy even as the man’s strange speech turned urgent. The silvered drape of the sky blurred with the luminescent points on his face until she could barely distinguish where one ended and the other began.

  “There are stars on your skin,” she murmured and drifted into a darkness that covered them both.

  Chapter Four

  When the landweller’s eyes fluttered shut, Leonel bit back a curse. Of course, she wouldn’t speak any language of the Fathoms. Idiotic of him to have tried. He’d only caught a few of her words. It was close to Norn, the tongue of Aesir, but differently accented and oddly sequenced. Something about stars.

  Delirium, most likely. That head wound was troubling. It purpled her face from temple to hairline with a seeping gash at the apex of a sore-looking lump. Other abrasions on her hands and feet oozed blood into the water. She might have others he couldn’t see.

  Not an ideal situation. Predators would scent injured prey from a great distance and it was best not to draw witnesses while in the midst of committing a crime. Especially this one. For all his self-convincing logic, he knew Ægir’s punishment would be severe if this was discovered and the gods were already irritated with him.

  Well, it was done now. He could only hope the risk would be worth it. To that end, he had to ensure the landweller actually lived through the ordeal and their kind didn’t excel at survival in his world. He’d barely gotten to her in time as it was and since he couldn’t use magic, her wounds were beyond his ability to heal. The closest land was Black Pebble Coast which would take several cycles of the sun to reach, even for him. Too long.

  A ship, then, one of their floating isles to take her the rest of the way. But to find one, he’d need help, though he’d called Ava twice now, she still hadn’t appeared.

  Leonel glanced at the skies with a sigh. The moon hung high above. It was always tricky to call Ava at night, even if her dolphins got the message to her. The fair-weather undine sought her own amusements when the sun went down and might not answer a summons, even one from her little brother. He tried again, sending another pulse through the waters only she would hear.

  “For your sake, let’s hope she doesn’t ignore me,” he muttered to the landweller in his arms. She gave no answer, silent and slack in his grip. At least her breath didn’t sound so strained anymore. That was a good sign, right? He hoped so, for all he could do in the meantime was enchant the surrounding waters to keep her warm and the sea calm.

  He shifted to his back, rolling her onto his chest to rest his arms and to see her better. She lay there limp, her legs falling to either side of his tailfin, her cheek pressed over his heart. She seemed too pale and too deeply asleep. Such terrible sounds she’d made, choking on seawater, her features rigid with panic. If he’d have made his decision sooner, he could have spared her that.

  Sympathy has no place among the gods.

  He could almost hear the king’s reprimand, the words both insult, and expectation. Though Leonel was not a god himself, fallible and prone to sentiment, he ought to strive towards his stronger nature. He ought to comport himself with the perfect objectivity required of the Fathoms’ guardian. Those lectures always left Leonel’s mood sour and frustrated, especially since he often deserved them. He glanced down at the landweller and closed his heart to any sympathy. Her pain and suffering did not matter. Her life was only his responsibility insofar as she helped him spare the sea from further harm. If she survived, that was.

  Leonel cast a glance around him, glowering at the empty sea. Still no Ava.

  “Why are immortals the slowest creatures in the sea?” he muttered.

  “Grouchy as usual?”

  Beside him, the watery outline of a head and shoulders emerged from the surface before quickly shedding away, details sharpening into Ava’s smirking face. Her long hair spread on the water’s surface in a spill of gold and silver.

  “What took you so long?” he demanded.

  “I respond with urgency when it’s called for. It’s you mortals who behave as if everything is urgent.”

  He couldn’t help the smile that came to his face. Keeper of the sea’s relationship with the sun, Himinglava—or Ava, as he’d called her since he was a minnow—was as inconstant as sunlight on a cloudy day, and just as fickle. Except with him. It was always good to see her, even under
these circumstances.

  “We mortals don’t have the luxury of centuries to waste,” he countered.

  She gave a flip of her dolphin tail, splashing him in the face. “Neither do I. My renewal is coming soon, after all. Twenty-five human years pass so quickly.”

  His smile guttered at the reminder. Not long from now, she wouldn’t know him anymore.

  “Take off that serious face, Leonel. It’s really not as attractive as you think it—What’s this?” Her face brightened with interest as she noticed the woman draped over him. “Have you finally decided to heed my advice and enjoy a human? They’re much more fun than those dim-witted selkies you hang around.”

  “Ava, she’s unconscious. I’m not trying to enjoy her.”

  “This one does look a bit soggy. Couldn’t you find a livelier specimen?”

  “She was injured when her ship went down. I called you because I need your help.”

  “You saved her from a shipwreck?” Her playfulness vanished and she lowered her voice to an irritated whisper. “Are you out of your mind? You’re supposed to enforce the Blue Laws, not break them.”

  “That storm shouldn’t have happened. It was just like the others, coming up out of nowhere and ripping through an area that should’ve been calm.”

  She ran a webbed hand over her face. “Please tell me this isn’t about those conspiracy theories you spouted in court.”

  He stiffened. “Do you think me so incompetent that I can’t tell the difference between a natural storm and a conjured one?”

  “Oh, calm down. I know you can. And so does my father.”

  “If that were true, he would have intervened when I appealed to him at court.”

  “Well, he might have, Leonel, if you hadn’t implied his impotency to defend his kingdom in front of everyone.”

  “I did not do that.”

  She leveled a frank look on him.

  “If I implied anything, it was that he’s blinded by arrogance.”

  “A public reprimand coming from the queen’s bastard son, yes, I’m certain the court noted the subtle difference.”

  The words shouldn’t have stung. They were true after all, but the truth always filled him with shame. Ægir never spurned Ran for bedding and siring a child with a merman. That scorn he had wielded upon the merfolk with thorough brutality. When Leonel was born, the king claimed him under the protection of the royal family, but he never treated him as part of it. With the exception of Ava, neither did any of Ægir’s nine daughters, and the billow maidens had made extensive sport of Leonel’s childhood.

  He was the appointed guardian of the Fathoms, victor of the great tournament and wielder of the trident, and yet no one ever saw him as anything more than an outcast.

  “I have no head for subtle words,” he told Ava quietly, “and I can’t change my bloodlines, but the sea is in my care. If I misbehaved in court it’s because the king ignored all the warnings I gave him in private.”

  Ava sighed. “That does sound like my father. But breaking the Blue Laws like this, you must see the madness in it.”

  “I had to,” he insisted. “I need a witness. The damage, Ava, it’s the worst I’ve ever seen it. There were so many casualties.”

  “That will matter less than your disobedience,” she said, compassion in her amber eyes. “My father will have your skin for defying him. He’ll make an example of you and our sisters will enjoy watching him do it.”

  That much was true.

  “I did this to protect the Fathoms,” he tried to explain. “Some power is casting these storms on our waters. The tidal currents are shifting, surely even you immortals have noticed that. And there’s more,” he added gravely. “I found a link between the land and the power causing the storms.” He explained the dead calf and the strange magic mixed with the unmistakable sense of the shore. “This isn’t someone poking at landweller ships for amusement. There’s a purpose behind it.”

  A worried look pinched her brows. “Magic wielded by the land. Is that even possible?”

  “It was done before.”

  “But that was a thousand years ago against the Eldingar,” she argued. “And there were consequences to granting humans the ability to sail the seas. With the old gods banished to the Orom Abyss, what need is there to do it again?”

  “Maybe someone has another war on their mind.”

  “War,” she startled at the word. “Surely not. No one could challenge Ægir’s power.”

  “Not without allies, you’re right. If I can determine the nature of this connection to the land, I can find the one betraying the sea. I can find the proof the king demands to stop these storms.”

  “And for that, you need a witness.” She exhaled quietly and held his gaze. “Very well, I’ll be your accomplice, but if Ægir finds out, I was never here. I vex my father enough without adding an infraction of this magnitude to the list.”

  Leonel suppressed a smile. He’d witnessed Ægir’s fury over Ava’s frequent visits to the human world often enough. No matter how many times he warned her to stay away, she never listened.

  “I’ll keep your name out of it. Thank you, sister.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. Your human looks decidedly stale. Have you given her any water?”

  He frowned. “Why would I do that when there’s water all around?”

  “She can’t ingest seawater, crustacean-head. Don’t you know anything about landwellers?”

  He didn’t, in fact, but he had heard the merfolk shared an ancient ancestry with humans. Perhaps their bodies lost the ability to filter the salt from the water over time. That was only a guess, of course. He knew precious little of the merfolk as well. The inheritance of being the last of his kind.

  Ava tipped her head toward the sky and inhaled deeply. “Dawn is still a ways off. When it comes, I’ll keep the skies bright for you. For now, I’ll call down the rain and you can get her to drink.”

  He nodded. “I’ll need your help to find a ship. Her best hope for recovery is dry land.”

  She tapped the tattoo of the trident on his hand, the weapon stored alongside his spirit when not in use. “Can’t the trident tell you where the humans sail?”

  “Its magic can’t be used to break the Blue Laws.”

  Her pale eyebrows rose. “Really?”

  “Ægir wanted a guardian for his realm, not a usurper. I suppose it’s his way of ensuring loyalty.” An understandable precaution, though it irked his pride. The limitation had never been set on the billow maidens over the many years they had taken turns as guardian.

  Ava gave an elegant shrug. “Fine. I’ll send my dolphins to find one of their ships. Watch for them. They’ll guide you toward it.”

  Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too far. The woman’s face seemed to grow paler every time he looked at her, the dark bruise on her head a garish contrast.

  Ava pinched his cheek. “Don’t worry, little brother. Most likely she’ll make it.”

  “Such confidence you inspire.”

  She laughed, the sound like sunlight sparkling over the waves. “You did well to keep the waters warm. The cold is hard on them. Try to rouse her in the morning. Their healers seem to keep charges with head injuries awake. It might be important.”

  “That’ll be difficult since she doesn’t speak any language I know.”

  His sister sent him a mocking look. “She probably speaks Nornish, a variant of Norn. You were taught the language, just as I was.”

  “Is it the same one I hear the sailors speak?”

  “The ones of these northern isles, yes. They don’t all speak the same tongue. You really don’t know anything about them, do you?”

  “I don’t walk human shores,” he said, flipping his fin at her for emphasis.

  “You’re amphibian, Leonel. You’d have at least a couple of days until you withered away. Plenty of time to enjoy yourself, as I’ve long encouraged you.”