Page 12 of Fate of Echoes and Embers (Heirs of Elydor #3)

I wasn’t cold but didn’t mention that fact.

As Marek stepped back, he said, “Keep it steady there.”

I was doing it. The ship responded, our course now reset. Every bit of me felt alive, the vastness of the sea before us without compare.

I would not mourn the loss of him pressed against my back, or the feel of his fingers next to mine.

Reminding myself of the days after he left when I hadn’t wanted to rise from bed in the morn, when near constant thoughts of him intruded, uninvited, I steeled my mind against a different kind of intruding thought.

“This is incredible,” I said, breathing in the salt air. “It is… indescribable really.”

Crossing his arms, Marek followed my gaze to the horizon.

“It’s freedom and fury, grace and chaos all at once, but never the same.

One moment, the sea is a mirror reflecting the sky, so calm you might believe you could walk across it.

The next, it rises up, wild and untamed, reminding you that none truly command it.

” Marek exhaled slowly. “There’s nothing like it.

No walls, no borders, just sky above and water below.

You can lose yourself, or find yourself, here, if the sea wills it. ”

“You belong here,” I said, his words making me almost forget the pain. “Your passion for the sea is…”

His left brow quirked upward. Everything about Marek was lighthearted and teasing, until it wasn’t, and he allowed you to peek into a part of him he kept hidden.

“I’m waiting.”

I had no proper word. “I would say ‘inspiring’ but worry you might?—”

Without warning, Marek sprang into action.

He scaled down the wooden stairs to the main deck so quickly I would have thought he flew had I not seen his feet touch the steps.

Just as Kael and Mev appeared, Marek sped past them to the starboard railing.

The reason had become apparent. As we were speaking, a rogue wave came crashing toward Tidechaser ’s side.

It rose unnaturally fast, curling higher than it should have, as if the sea itself had decided to test us.

Marek didn’t hesitate. With a flick of his wrist, the water around the ship stilled as he thrust his hands outward.

The wave halted mid-rise, its crest suspended in the air, trembling as if caught between forces unseen.

Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, Marek twisted his fingers, and the wave unraveled, cascading harmlessly into the sea.

A hush fell over the deck. Even Kael and Mev, who I assumed had seen Marek’s abilities before, watched in awe.

Noticing he had an audience, Marek winked at me before capturing the droplets and, instead of allowing them to follow the rogue wave into the sea, he raised both arms upward.

The droplets paused in mid-air as the sun caught them, turning each into a thousand glistening gems before they, too, vanished into the sea.

Arms now down at his sides, he said something to Mev and Kael, who laughed, and then bounded back up to me as effortlessly as he’d turned away that wave. “You were saying?” he asked, his signature grin firmly in place.

“How… did you do that?”

“You’ve been to Thalassaria. Surely you’ve seen water-wielding on a grander scale than that.”

I thought back to the tricks he’d shown me at Hawthorne Manor. To the Thalassarians I’d seen in Serenium Square by the fountain and another display on the coast not long after I’d stormed out of The Moonlit Current.

“Not quite like that,” I admitted. “What should I be doing here?” I asked, eager not to show Marek I was more impressed with him than I had already.

“Keeping her steady.”

“I’ve seen you up here, not even touching the wheel when the sea is calm. Is this necessary?”

“I can create a channel through the waves that will make it less so. If you’d like.”

“No,” I said, too quickly. “I would like to learn more.”

“Of sailing?”

Of you. Of why you left. But since I was the one to forbid the topic, for good reason, I could not say as much. Besides, he’d answered the question once, and it was unlikely I’d get a different response, even if the first one was less than satisfactory.

“Aye.”

He was looking at me oddly. More serious than usual, as if studying me.

Then, without warning, he turned away, toward the sea.

Reaching out his hands, he turned them slowly, palms facing upward.

Ever so slightly, Marek twitched the very tips of his fingers forward while lifting his arms higher.

At first, nothing happened. Eventually, as his arms rose, a mist formed across the water.

Soon, the entire ship was enveloped in fog.

I couldn’t even see Mev and Kael, the entire deck below us now covered in a fine mist.

Marek had disappeared too, but a hand on my lower back told me he’d moved next to me.

“Watch,” he whispered, lowering his hand. I clung to the wheel, the sensation of his breath in my ear reminding me of our kiss. “Are you watching, Issa?”

Somehow, he knew I had not been.

I looked up, back toward the water.

The mist began to coalesce into a form. It was as if a figure rose from the sea, sculpted of water and light. It was a woman made of thick mist, her eyes sparkling like the water droplet gems, her hair flowing as if she were alive.

“What… who is she?”

“Meet the Spirit of the Tides.”

I wanted to reach out and touch her. “I’ve never heard of her.”

The water woman actually looked at me. And then smiled. She actually, truly, smiled.

And then, was gone, as quickly as she’d formed.

The mist cleared, and as usual, Marek was grinning.

“The Spirit of the Tides is an ancient Thalassarian legend… part myth, part warning, part blessing. Some say she is the soul of the sea itself, watching over those who respect its power and punishing those who do not. Others claim she was once a Thalassarian woman, a navigator who defied the gods and was bound to the ocean for eternity.”

“And you… summoned her?”

The thing I liked most about Marek’s smile? How it always reached his eyes, crinkling at the sides just enough to distinguish him from a human of my age.

“Not truly. That was an echo, a fragment of her presence that only those with an affinity for the sea can call upon.”

“So all Thalassarians can do that?”

“No.” His chuckle, from Marek’s chest, would have made me feel foolish for asking if it were anyone but him.

“All Thalassarians have an affinity for the sea, it is true. I should have been more precise. A reverence, more like. And you do not have to be Thalassarian to be deserving of her presence. As for the summoning… it is a rare and, some say, dangerous skill among Thalassarians. Some revere it. Others fear it.”

“Why would one fear such a thing of beauty?”

He looked at me for so long, and with such intensity, that it would have become uncomfortable. Except, somehow, it was not.

“That you would ask such a question,” he said finally, “is the reason I brought her forth.”