Page 7 of Elemental Hall: Nautica (Elemental Hall #1)

Pretending to be Orion’s girlfriend isn’t quite as simple as I thought it might be. For one thing, I have to remember to actually play my part, smiling up at him when we’re close, making time to see him, and to be seen with him.

It means that I can’t hide away in the library all the time, trying to cram in a lifetime’s worth of knowledge about the elements in just weeks and months.

It means that I can’t spend my time away from the others in solitary practice.

It means that, when I’m a part of the circle that Orion invited me into, I have to play a part, sitting near him, making sure to talk to him, to touch his arm casually, to lean close to him from time to time.

Okay, so it isn’t exactly a chore, or it wouldn’t be if I meant any of it.

Doing it simply while playing a part is harder, though.

It means I have to think, every moment that I’m with Orion, What would Orion’s girlfriend do?

rather than simply being myself. Thankfully, no one seems to pick up on that weird disconnect, or, if they do, they probably put it down simply to the kind of change that comes from being idiotically in love.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel like that.

Certainly not here. The world contains many strange and magical things, but love?

Oh, there are plenty of people who sneak into one another’s rooms at the dormitory, plenty of people who seem to wander around hand in hand between classes and training sessions, but I’m not sure if any of it is the kind of all-consuming love people talk about.

Even with my parents, I get the feeling that they were simply there, in the right place at the right time, for one another.

Maybe that’s all love is, all it needs to be.

At least pretending to be in love with Orion makes me feel as though I’m starting to fit in here. Some of the others look at me now as if I must be special, just because they’ve seen me with him. More of them talk to me, too.

In other ways, things are exactly the same.

“Still too slow,” Aria says, getting past my guard with her sword for the half-dozenth time in our impromptu training session. I try to riposte, but she’s already moving.

It’s just a few of us today. A few of the people I am starting to think I can call friends, or at least all the ones in the group around Orion. He is there, of course, and he walks up to us.

“Maybe it’s time to swap partners?” he suggests. Aria gives way gracefully, tossing him the wooden sword. “You’re not bad at this, Sera,” he continues. “You’re just caught up doing one thing at a time, thinking about that, rather than just flowing to the next movement.”

So he’s playing boyfriend and sword tutor?

“Show me, then,” I say, raising my sword in challenge.

In some ways, it’s easier than fighting Aria. It’s obvious Orion is holding back, and he isn’t as fast as her, not by a long shot. I can see the eyes of the others on us as I circle him.

I try to take his advice, forgetting about the mechanics of each movement, just focusing on moving from one thing to the next. I throw an attack, then another. Orion parries them far too easily. Worse, he doesn’t strike back. Is this his idea of helping me, just standing there to be a target?

I rush in, annoyed now, throwing more attacks until he can’t help but throw one in return. It’s hard enough to get through my parry, even though I make it there in time, slamming into my abdomen. I double over with it, falling to my knees.

“Sera, I’m sorry, are you all right?” He bends over me, full of concern.

I take the opportunity to slam my wooden sword into the back of his legs, tripping him. I kneel over him holding him down, the point to his throat.

“Looks like I have you right where I want you.”

“Maybe,” he says, and then bucks, flipping us over. Now he’s the one on top of me, close enough that it would be easy, so easy, for him to kiss me.

He seems to realize that at the same time I do, and backs up, maybe a little too quickly, worry in his eyes. He puts the sword to one side and offers me his hand to help me up. I take it, but I’m careful not to get too close, not now.

Aria saves me from having to think of anything to say. “Nice trick, Sera. I think we can call that one win for the day.”

“Hardly,” Sybil says. She’s lounging on a patch of open ground, basking like a cat in the sun, probably hoping that everyone will look her way. Orion, at least. “That first blow would have killed you. You only took Orion down because he was being gentle with you.”

My instinct is to challenge her, there and then. It isn’t as if she’s exactly the best with a sword either. Orion steps between us.

“I think that’s enough combat training for one day, don’t you? We still all need to head to the library if we’re going to read up on using the elements with ships. I hear Elemental Mistress Halan has a boat race planned in a couple of days.”

“It would be more like her to insist on a full naval battle, complete with sharks waiting for anyone who falls in,” Aria points out.

“All the more reason to do the reading,” Orion insists.

I shake my head. “You all go ahead. I need to go spend some time with the seraphin.”

“I’m sure you need all the time you can get with the bonding,” Sybil says. She seems pleased that I’m going, maybe reasoning that it will give her some more time with Orion.

I almost stay just to spite her, but remind myself that going to see the seraphin isn’t the point of this. It’s an excuse to put some space between Orion and me after we came a little too close to kissing.

I hurry away, heading for the pool where the seraphin comes to meet me.

I spend most of the journey over there emphatically not thinking about what it would have been like if Orion had kissed me, and definitely not thinking about what it would be like to go further than that.

I remind myself that we’re not really anything to one another, that it’s all an act, that I don’t want it to be more than that.

I’m not entirely sure that all of me believes it, but I’m not about to let this get complicated. I need to focus on my studies, on my connection to the seraphin, on becoming the best elementalist I can be. I’m not some noble who can go back to an easy life if I fail here. I have to succeed.

I go to the pool, and the seraphin is there, floating on the surface, as if it knows that I’m coming. I head down, wading into the water, trying to calm my thoughts as I reach out for it.

The moment I touch it, I know something is wrong.

There’s something disturbed there, something wrong with the connection.

The seraphin feels agitated, and it takes me a second to realize that it’s my emotions running through the connection between us.

Everything seems amplified, though: my confusion over Orion, my conflict with Sybil, everything.

The seraphin reacts to that, and the water of the bay… that reacts to the seraphin.

Almost instantly, the water rises up, lashing at me like a weapon, a sudden riptide tearing my legs from under me. I go beneath the water, and I swallow a mouthful of it. I can’t even think enough to use the elements to let me breathe.

The water continues to batter me. The seraphin thrashes to be free of me.

I see a funnel starting in the water, and I don’t have the skill or the power to undo it, not in the face of the natural control of the seraphin.

It’s all I can do to scramble back from it, grabbing onto the seabed, pulling myself back toward the shore.

I manage to get my arms onto dry land, pulling myself onto the shore, gasping for air as I drag myself out of reach of the water.

The water of the bay is like a living thing, frantic and storm-tossed, despite there being no storm. The seraphin is swimming at the heart of it, scales flickering with purples and reds, tail snapping back and forth.

Slowly, the violence of the water starts to abate. The bay calms and the seraphin turns in a lazy circle, flicking its tail once more, then diving, disappearing beneath the waves.

I lie there, trying to make sense of what just happened. I know from the stories about them that seraphin are sensitive to emotions, that they are fickle and potentially dangerous. Clearly, my confused emotions have disturbed it to the point where it is prepared to lash out.

Maybe there’s a lesson in that. Some of the strongest things I’ve done with water have been when my emotions have been heightened. Maybe mastering them is the route to fully mastering what I can do.

I laugh at the thought of it. That’s one thing that is going to be anything but easy.

For now, pretending to be Orion’s girlfriend has just seen me tossed about like a cork on the sea. I only hope that it hasn’t cost me the seraphin for good.