Page 11

11

ROWAN

I sat up in bed, an odd sensation waking me. It was as if I could feel others’ emotions, a tangled web of them, even though I was alone. How could I be sensing emotion when there was no one around? My bedchamber was still dark, but I made a quick sweep of the room, confirming that I was alone. Standing back in front of the window, as the sky began to slowly lighten, a figure seemed to take shape. Impossibly, it was well out into the sea, as if standing on the water.

The figure was female. As she waved her arms, water rose and fell in a delicate dance that felt important, somehow. The figure spun toward me.

Nerys.

Blinking, I looked again, but she was gone.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I willed whatever madness had taken hold of me away. Instead, a humming filled my ears. What was that sound? Opening my eyes, I strained my memory, attempting to place it, but I couldn’t.

No. It could not be.

Watching as the rising sun began to lighten the world outside my window, I grasped my mind for Grandfather’s words.

It felt… as if my very soul were shifting, aligning with something I didn’t understand. When my time is ended, the new Keeper won’t need to search for a new chosen one. They will know and spread the word.

I stumbled back, the humming resonating in my chest, as if every heartbeat carried the weight of something far older than myself.

“Grandfather,” I whispered, my voice breaking.

He was gone.

The knowledge hit me like a physical blow, my knees buckling as the truth settled in. He’d died, and with his death, The Keeper’s burden had been passed to me.

The hum grew louder, filling every corner of my mind. It wasn’t just a sound; it was a presence. A legacy. A duty.

I was no longer a Keeper. I was now The Keeper.

I stayed there on the floor until the humming passed. It was replaced with trepidation, but not my own. Trepidation and something else… excitement. Hope. Desire.

I stood, remembering more of my grandfather’s words.

Your own abilities will heighten, and you will need to re-learn how to hone them. Along with them, the visionary abilities of our forefounder, the first to pass through the Gate, will begin to manifest. I cannot explain how since some, like myself, already had the Sight. For me, it was a strengthening. For others, this new skill will be another burden to carry.

My vision of Nerys on the water. It was a glimpse of the future I didn’t yet understand or know how to control so I couldn’t be certain of what it meant.

A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts.

I went to it, asking, “Nerys?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“I will be just a moment.”

Dressing as quickly as possible, I joined her outside my door.

“Apologies,” I said, realizing the emotions I’d felt were hers. It seemed I no longer needed to be close to someone to read them. Thankfully, it seemed my ability to block them out remained intact.

She was dressed casually, her tunic-style top a gentle seafoam green and cinched at the waist with a braided kelp cord. Deep-navy, form-fitting breeches and her hair tied loosely back completed a look that spoke of quiet elegance.

In short, she was strikingly beautiful, as always.

“I thought perhaps we might get away from the palace today.”

“Have you been given leave to do so?”

Nerys’s good humor seemed to be restored. “I haven’t yet spoken with the queen, but she did send me a message saying I was to continue as your escort. I’d expected more of a reprimand, which may be coming still.”

“When you are not escorting me, or another guest of the palace, what are your duties here?” I asked as we walked.

“Like my parents, my role is mainly as a diplomat, although they traveled more often beyond our borders. Endless council meetings, disagreements about trade agreements… that sort of thing. That said, the queen has increasingly, over the years, reduced our trade with other clans. I help train new recruits to the palace and am sometimes used when the palace healer becomes overwhelmed.”

He is gone.

As soon as the thought popped into my head, I forced it out. I could not grieve or dwell on the responsibilities that had been placed on me as the new Keeper. Questions as to why I was chosen or how my new abilities would manifest would have to wait.

Even if I trusted her. Even if I wished to tell her, the code of the Keepers strictly forbade it. Especially now.

“Do your duties align with how you wish to spend your time?”

We made our way out of the palace and toward the same entrance where I first met Nerys. She greeted people as we walked by, though none appeared familiar to me.

“What do you mean?”

“Your ideal life,” I asked, the same question my grandfather had when my father began to train me. There were two types of Keepers: shadow and lore. Lore Keepers were also noblemen and women, laypeople, blacksmiths… members of the Estmere kingdom but also descendants of the Harrow family who kept its secrets. Shadow Keepers were the trained warriors, the most skilled also serving as spies, who not only kept the family’s secrets but actively pursued a better life for all Harrows, and humans, in whatever capacity was necessary. My father assumed I would be the latter, but it was my grandfather who asked what I wished for my life.

I was uncertain at the time and told him as much.

“My grandfather asked me once,” I told her as we moved through the palace gates, “when I closed my eyes and watched myself living my ideal life, what it looked like. I told him and began my training that day as a knight.”

It was not a lie. I’d been knighted by an earl who had no knowledge of my family’s history. But attaining knighthood was not truly the goal of my training. Gaining information, aiding whatever human’s cause was most needed—in my lifetime reopening the Gate—was my true life’s purpose.

“My ideal life,” Nerys murmured.

“Or lives. You live many, which I suppose changes the equation.”

“In that respect, you’re right,” she said as we apparently reached our destination.

A stream that ran through the palace walls had opened up, wide enough for narrow boats the Thalassarians called scapha. We walked down a set of stairs toward a holding area where many of them were stored.

“Yet my mother often told me to live as if I might die. I’d always thought it was a morbid sentiment, but I understand now she meant it to be the opposite.”

We walked onto a wooden dock, Nerys untying and preparing a bright-coral scapha as if she’d done so thousands of times.

“Come,” she said, “we will take this into Serenium Square. The markets are today.”

I stepped into the boat and sat behind her. With a flick of her wrist, our scapha began to move forward just as another passed on our right to dock where we’d pushed off.

“I’ve seen the scapha before and wondered how they move simultaneously in different directions.”

“We guide the currents, not unlike a rider directing their horse. The water beneath us is alive, responsive to intention and touch. But it does take some skill, which is why young ones do not travel by scapha.”

As the palace walls shrunk behind us, Nerys and I glided away from the elegance of Maristhera through intricate canals toward the center of the city.

“My ideal life,” Nerys said. “I’ve thought only of goals I wished to achieve. Making my parents proud, and later, honoring their memory. Showing Aneri she was not foolish to take me under her wing, that I could become something, as my parents had before me. Performing the Stormcaller’s Rite.”

“All very worthy goals.”

“But my ideal life?” she continued. Nerys somehow turned halfway toward me but managed to steer our boat with nothing more than a few flicks of her wrist. “I suppose it would be with a partner, someone to wake up to each day and love. Together, we would see Thalassarians thrive in a united Elydor, where our own happiness was not wrought at the expense of those less fortunate.”

What surprised me most about her response was how similar it was to my own, even at a young age. I saw my own happiness as very much tied to the world in which I lived.

“Have you been partnered before?” I asked, using her word for our human concept of marriage.

“I have not. There have been lovers, but none with whom I wished to spend an eternity.”

Of course she had taken lovers. Immortals saw their relationships much differently than us humans. They partnered less readily, with good reason. As in Estmere, separating from a marriage was not taken lightly, but their “forever” lasted much, much longer than ours.

She turned more fully toward me.

“Do you have a partner, Rowan?”

Her words were nearly drowned out by the waterfall we passed. Nerys’s hands were so quick, I’d have missed the movement if I had not caught the unnatural redirection of the water away from our boat. She did it so that we did not get wet. Or more accurately, so I did not get wet. Everything a Thalassarian wore, from their tunic to their boots, resisted water.

“Or a wife, as you call it?” she clarified.

“I do not.”

Nerys turned back around just as the city came into view.

It wasn’t until she navigated us toward one of many docks in Serenium and we were back on land that Nerys and I finished our conversation as we walked toward Serenium Square.

“Did you ever come close?” she asked, watching me. “To marrying?”

I couldn’t explain that marrying was more difficult for me, especially now. The secrets The Keeper held were a weight that some might call a burden. It would be a rare woman that would be able to share it with me. So nay, I was not likely to marry.

“I…”

And that’s when it happened.

A flood of emotion, not only Nerys’s but all of those who walked near us. It was like being brought back to my childhood when my abilities first began to manifest. For a moment, I thought Nerys was reaching for my hand until I realized it wasn’t actually her but a vision of her. Hazy, like the one of her on the water. She was smiling, about to say something.

As quickly as it came, the vision dissipated and was replaced by a very real, very concerned-looking Nerys.

“Rowan?”

I took a deep breath, held it, and released… clearing my mind. Eventually, the flood of emotions went away.

“I’m fine,” I said, trying to convince myself as much as Nerys.

She, of course, was not convinced at all. Refusing to move, she crossed her arms and looked at me as if I were a young child. I’d have laughed at her expression if we weren’t interrupted.

Out of nowhere, a man picked up Nerys and spun her around. If not for the vision, I’d have seen him coming.

“How could you possibly be more beautiful than the last time I saw you?”

Laughing, Nerys slapped him on the shoulder. They obviously knew each other well. Was he one of the lovers she’d mentioned?

A corsair by the look of him. Everything about this man said “Thalassarian sailor”. From his tanned skin and sun-bleached hair to his loose, linen shirt and leather belt with daggers hanging from it, this was a defender of Thalassarian waters if I ever saw one.

“It’s been much too long,” she said as he finally put her down. “I’m glad you’re back.”

He noticed me.

Nerys looked between us, swatted him again on the shoulder and said, “Behave.” Which told me, he typically did not.

“Rowan, meet Marek. My…”

I steeled myself for it.

“Best friend.”