Page 23 of Whispers of the Starlit Sea (Avalore Chronicles #1)

Chapter thirteen

T he gentle flickering of the fire mesmerized Sorcha. Despite seeing flames almost daily since becoming human, they never ceased to amaze her, this wavering source of light and heat that ate whatever was fed to it.

She’d tried touching it once, her finger bearing a red mark for a few days after.

The sting was similar to that of a jellyfish, and she’d quickly learned not to put her hand too close.

The humans seemed to have many uses for the fire, warmth being a common one.

Elsbeth used it to change the consistency of foods, which was a whole source of fascination on its own.

Humans also carried it around in little boxes or on short sticks to bring light with them. Apparently no bioluminescent plants lived above the surface to chase away the darkness.

The thought of home curled around her heart and squeezed.

Oh, how she missed her family — even Rona with her constant pushing for Sorcha to do more, be more.

Aunt Maeve said that in order to return home, Arick must perform an equally selfless task.

But she hadn’t explained what would happen to him when he did so. Would he become a merman?

If he did, she could show him her undersea world — the grotto, the coral throne, her cave of treasures.

Her hand drifted to her neck, where the necklace should have been.

Maybe he wouldn’t be impressed with her discoveries; he’d probably seen far better on land.

But they could swim with the dolphins and explore the shipwrecks together.

She imagined his smile, his hazel eyes filled with wonder…

The door opened, and a blush spread across her face as the object of her musings stepped into the room. The frown on his face reminded her of what he had done. How he had allowed her people to be imprisoned and chained up below the castle. A shudder ran through her.

No, Arick would have no interest in exploring Muirin. If he knew about the grotto, he would want to destroy it.

He held out his hand to help her up. “— home?” he asked.

Yes, she was ready to go home, just not the one he meant. But the inn was better than this tucked-away corner of the castle. She ignored his help and stood on her own, determined not to show him any further weakness.

He hovered by her side as they walked through the castle. She stepped deliberately, clenching her jaw to hide the pain. The little cart was drawn up to the door, and as much as she wanted to pet the pony as usual, she couldn’t bear the thought of the extra steps.

Arick drew closer as she reached the side of the cart, but she refused to glance his way as she pulled herself up, keeping her face turned to hide her sigh of relief as she sat on the bench.

“Sorcha?” he asked, and she shoved aside the thrill that ran through her at the way he said her name. He stepped to the corner of the cart, where she could see him. He said something else, then lifted his fist to his chest and rubbed it in a circle. “I’m sorry.”

Fire rippled through her. How dare he be sorry yet continue to keep the merfolk imprisoned? She lifted her chin and stared straight ahead.

After a moment, he walked around the cart and climbed up beside her. As they drove through the cobblestone streets in silence, he tried to speak to her more than once, but each time, she turned away, refusing to look at him.

As soon as he pulled up by the inn’s door, she stood to get down on her own, but she couldn’t figure out how to do it. It was too far to step, and when she tried to lower herself, her foot tangled in her skirt.

Then Arick was there, his warm hands wrapping around her waist as always. From her first morning on land, he had been there to help her, to show her kindness, to guide her. An ache filled her. Would he be the same if he knew what she was? She turned away as tears filled her eyes.

His hands on her shoulders stopped her. “Sorcha, please.”

She waited, not daring to meet his eyes. He held out his hands, wrists pressed together. Then he crossed his forearms, pulling them apart as he firmly said, “No.” More words followed that she didn’t understand, but the earnest look on his face gave her hope, until she heard the word “storms.”

She turned away from him and limped into the inn. Ignoring Elsbeth, she made her way to the little room and curled up on the bed. Guilt flooded her as she thought about the merfolk held captive, some unable to breathe as the chains kept them out of the water.

How could the humans be so cruel?

What had Arick been trying to say? What did the merfolk have to do with the storms?

She sat up abruptly. Surely they didn’t think the merfolk were the cause of the storms, did they?

She had seen no evidence of magic among the humans.

Did they believe merfolk were powerful enough to control the weather?

She snorted. Her mother was the most powerful of the merfolk, and even she couldn’t do something like that.

Her hand brushed her throat again, searching for her necklace. Despite it being a human trinket, it reminded her of home. Of showing her discoveries to her aunt, something she’d done since she was a child.

A frown crossed her face. What had Aunt Maeve told her? That humans long ago had hidden magic in the precious stones because they couldn’t contain it themselves?

Had Aunt Maeve found such an object? What would human magic combined with a merfolk’s power be like? Would it be enough to control a storm?

Sorcha tried to push the thought aside, but more crowded in. Her aunt being on the surface during the most recent storm. Maeve being late to the infirmary. Not joining the others in the cavern while waiting for the Watchers.

No. Her aunt wouldn’t do such a thing, she was sure of it. No mer would.

But that didn’t change the fact that humans held merfolk captive, and that they would die if not able to breathe underwater.

And as the only merfolk on land, it was her responsibility to save them. Which meant facing Arick once more.

“E lsbeth, what do you know of magic?” Arick asked as he plunged his hands into the dishwater.

“Magic?” She gave him an odd look as she set a stack of dirty plates on the cupboard beside him. “Magic hasn’t been around for a hundred years, lad.”

“I know, and I’ve only heard the legends. I was just wondering if you remembered something more.”

“I’m not as old as all that, young man.”

“You’re not a day over thirty, and you look even younger,” he declared gallantly. “And I’ve no doubt you’ll live long past the time I’ve taken my final voyage. But…”

“But you still want to know about magic,” she finished for him, a fond smile on her face. “Very well; your flattery has won you points with this old lady.” She dug a clean cloth out of a drawer and began to dry the dishes he’d already washed.

“These days, magic is spoken of with wonder, like it’s beautiful and good. But when I was a child, there were many who refused to hear even the word itself. The stories were told in fear. Those who controlled the magic in the end used it for evil and not good.”

“Do you think all magic is bad, then?”

She nodded at the knife in his hand. “Does the knife control whether you use it to chop a carrot or to harm someone?”

“No?”

“Exactly. And magic is the same. It’s a tool.”

“You speak of it as if it’s real — as if it's still here.”

“You wouldn’t be asking me about magic if you didn’t think you had seen it.”

He hesitated, risking a glance toward Sorcha’s room. But he wasn’t ready for that conversation. Not yet.

“The storms. They’re not natural. I think something is causing them, but I don’t know where to look.

“Hmm…I might have something that could help.” Elsbeth set aside her drying cloth and disappeared down the hall.

He couldn’t stop his thoughts from drifting to Sorcha once more. Knowing she was a mermaid answered so many questions he’d had: where she had come from, how she had ended up on the beach — without any clothing no less, why she didn’t understand his language.

Her confused face at their meeting flooded his mind. The way she had struggled to walk.

“I found it,” Elsbeth said, returning with a heavy book in her hands. She set it on the table and opened the stained leather cover.

He dried his hands and joined her, peering over her thin shoulder at the yellowing pages. The first page she opened to had a charcoal drawing of a great winged creature, which resembled a horned lizard. Opposite, another serpent-like creature was labeled “beithir.”

“I thought this was a book of magic, not mythical beings?” he asked, flipping forward a few pages before stopping at a sketch of a horse leaping from a pond. An anchor, fashioned from a piece of copper wire, hammered and twisted with care, marked the page.

“And you think these beings couldn’t exist without magic?”

“Fair,” he said, shuddering at the kelpie. Like most children, he’d been warned to return home before dusk lest the horse-like wraith emerge from the swamps and devour him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the possibility of such creatures being real.

The bell from the front room rang, signaling the arrival of a guest. Elsbeth left him with the book as she hurried through the swinging door to greet the newcomer.

Arick flipped a few more pages, skimming the information jotted down beside the sketches.

The artist had a hauntingly surreal style, exaggerating the features of many of his subjects.

The rendering of the caoineag, a banshee who reportedly lived in the high country, was particularly grotesque with an elongated nose and dark shadows curling from her cape.

The next spread of pages had two vastly different images with the same label: Bean Nighe.

The first was an old hag, with scraggly long hair and webbed feet, her hand raised as a wave crashed behind her.

The second depicted a beautiful young woman with the ocean lapping at her ankles.

An unsettled feeling came over him as he read that “the sea hag may signal death by singing a lament.” Echoes of a half-remembered lullaby swirled through his head.

He turned the page again, and sucked in air as his eyes fell on the new sets of sketches. Human shapes, yet their lower halves were fused together in a long tail resembling a mackerel. Tiny notes in a fluid hand surrounded the merfolk. He skimmed them.

Human voices are as the call of the siren to the mer. Upon hearing a human speak, a mer would be compelled to follow until that human did cease to speak or the mer was stranded on land, where they would perish as like any fish.

A shudder ran through him. No wonder the imprisoned merfolk shouted any time a human spoke near them.

How had all this information been lost in only a hundred years? Surely the castle library had similar notes that the man in charge of the merfolk would have had access to?

His eyes drifted farther down the page, past another line of spidery scrawl.

Curse of the Bond.

What was that? He leaned down to decipher the text.

A slender hand appeared, and a rose-tipped finger tapped the scaled beings.

He looked up to see Sorcha. She gave him a trepidatious smile, her eyes wide. She tapped her finger against her sternum, then pointed to the drawing again.

“Sorcha…under water...people.” She moved her hands as she spoke the unfamiliar words.

He’d been right. She was a mermaid. He smiled at her, reaching across the table to take her hand in his. She hesitated, searching his face before accepting.

“I want to know everything about you,” he told her, hoping she could hear the sincerity in his voice. With her hand still in his, he looked down at the page again, reading the few lines under the header he’d seen before Sorcha arrived.

The last line had him squeezing her hand tighter as he forgot how to breathe.

If the curse be not broke by the rising of the next moon at her height, then the mer shall return to the sea as foam.