The Little Selkie (retail) (26 page)

The tidal wave didn’t move forward, but the water in it swirled in an angry storm. Its deafening roar continued.

Swords clanged and clashed behind her, but Dylan licked her lips and sang again.

A price too high, blood poured thick,

Beware lies spoken in darkness.

Spare this land, and hear my call—

Sleep once more, ocean floor.

“No!” the sea witch screamed. She stood out on the water, safe behind the tidal wave. “FORWARD,
I command you
!
Crush this place
!” the witch shouted, pushing with all the power of her magic and the dark sacrifices she had made.

Dylan’s singing smoothed over the witch’s raging screams, filling the air like a ringing bell. Now she didn’t sing words but voiced the twisting notes and croons of her people as she tried to soothe the water, bringing it under her control. Behind her, swords clanged as Callan fended off attackers—Dooley and Viggo joining him.

“Stop you wretch!” Jarlath screamed. “I have your pelt—I will destroy it!”

Dylan raised her arms as she sang, and two huge sea serpents made of water slithered forward from the tidal wave. They were at least three times their usual size—a reflection of the massive amount of power Dylan was attempting to channel.

A brigand jumped at Dylan, his cutlass raised, but Callan lunged to block it with his sword. He charged forward with his scabbard, hitting the bandit in the knee and driving him backwards.

Dylan hit a series of high notes—her voice vaulting up to the skies—and the serpents turned and barred their fangs at the tidal wave. Slowly at first, inch by inch, the tidal wave retreated. Soon, it sped up so it was moving out like a tide.

“I will not be outdone by a lone selkie! I cannot be outdone!” the sea witch screamed.

Perhaps if you hadn’t shed blood for your purposes, but you did. And the ocean always takes vengeance for its own
, Dylan thought. She walked across the shore so she stood in the shallow water that remained as the tidal wave crept back.

The witch screamed curses and magical orders, but her spells slid off the ocean like sea water trickling from a whale’s back.

Dylan kept walking until she was knee deep, her voice still soaring high and keening low in an unearthly song that wriggled into the hearts of all who heard it and plucked at the walls placed there.

The sea witch turned, moving to retreat. Dylan couldn’t keep pushing the wave back out and capture her, and she knew it.

That was when the first selkie arrived.

Carlow—one of Dylan’s cousins—burst out of the sea, his pelt wrapped around his waist, and broke into a song that supported Dylan’s. His soothing tenor complemented her clear-bell singing.

Two more selkies popped above the ocean surface, scrambling to land with their pelts wrapped around their bodies so they could sing without struggling to float.

Selkies up and down the sandy short broke through the water surface and spilled onto land, forming a beautiful and eerie chorus with their heart-breaking, crooning voices. The selkies sang to accompany and highlight Dylan, and the tidal wave fell, swelling into the ocean with a massive roar.

While the tenors and altos backed Dylan—easing the ocean so its fall was not as violent as Dylan feared—the sopranos and basses keened in the background, casting waves and currents like nets around the sea witch.

The magic of some of the other strong singers eased onto the scene—Dylan saw her father’s magic-shaped-Kraken and Maureen’s humpback whale swim beneath the sea witch. But they moved the witch towards the land—pushing her, though she fought every step of the way. When the deep baritone of King Murron—Dylan’s father—picked up volume, Dylan lowered the volume of her own song and joined the chorus of her kin.

Her father’s water-made Kraken grabbed the sea witch with one long tentacle and flung her onto land when King Murron’s voice boomed over the shore.

Four strong selkie warriors grabbed her by the arms and dragged her up into the forest where she wouldn’t be able to use her magic as Dylan and the rest of the selkies quieted to a hum. Their song was complete.

Dylan let the last notes of the song fade, and her sea serpents collapsed into the sea, casting spray high into the air.

Then she turned around.

“You ruined it all! You useless wench!” Jarlath screamed, his face red with rage as Dooley held the shorter, stocky man with ease. Spittle flew from Jarlath’s mouth as he shouted obscenities and kicked a tattered piece of hide at her.

“That is no way to speak to a lady,” Dooley said. He cracked the short lord in the head. Jarlath fell like a sack of rocks.

Dylan bent over and picked up the tattered material. Her ears roared as the ocean had minutes ago when she recognized the burnished bronze color.

It was part of her sea lion pelt.

As if she were in a dream, Dylan floated forward, stopping at the mounded pile of her shredded pelt. There wasn’t a piece that was bigger than her hand. In the first moments of the fight, Jarlath had torn her sea lion pelt until it resembled a ragged, tattered puzzle.

She knelt by the pile and found it hard to breathe. Her ears rang, but she could hear people shouting. Callan’s and Dooley’s voices stuck out above the rest, but a few of her selkie cousins faded in and out of her hearing.

Her heart was in turmoil. The sea witch was defeated! Jarlath was prisoner! Both of them would pay for their actions, and no one else had been hurt. Furthermore, Dylan had her voice back. She could sing and talk and
shout
if she wanted to.

But the price.

Dylan would never again play beneath the ocean waves in her quick, flexible sea lion body.

She did not regret her actions. But it was a steep and costly price to pay.

Warmth bloomed around Dylan, and she realized Callan was kneeling beside her, his arms thrown around her. She sank into his embrace, her eyes burning as her heart ached.

“I’m sorry,” Callan whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Although Dylan had spent the past weeks envisioning the day she reclaimed her voice, her mouth could form no words. Instead, she clung to Callan, who anchored her, and let herself be soothed.

Her undoing came in a deep, rumbling voice. “Daughter.”

Dylan looked up into her father’s kind, weather-worn face. “Da,” she whispered. Callan helped her stand before she staggered forward and threw herself at her father—who towered over her by at least a foot.

King Murron picked up his youngest daughter, cradling her. His eyes—deep like the oceans—took in the tattered remains of her pelt. “You did well,” he said. “You’re safe now.”

Dylan shook before the anguished cries of heartbreak tore from her chest. All she could do was hug her father and cry with relief and loss as Callan and her sisters looked on.

At dawn the following morning, Callan found Dylan as she perched on the chair-like boulders out by the beach. Bump and Lump—who still followed her even though Jarlath’s bandit ring had already been exposed and marched against late in the night—stood in the shadows of the trees. Bump was tossing a dagger and catching it without looking. His eyes were focused on Dylan. Lump, however, was watching their surroundings, and he hinted at a bow to Callan as the prince made his way across the beach. He looked exhausted.

Dylan offered the prince a tired smile, but loss and heartbreak still shone in her eyes.

“Aren’t you going in?” Callan asked, nodding his head to the sea. “You usually do.”

She shook her head. “No,” she croaked. “I…no.”

Silence hung heavy between them, and after a few minutes Callan said, “I know it was you who saved me.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Two years ago—over two years ago, now that I think about it—when I was shipwrecked. You were the one who pulled me to safety.”

“How could you remember? You were unconscious. At least you better have been unconscious. You weigh as much as a walrus,” Dylan said, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

Callan laughed. “I had fleeting moments of wakefulness. I woke up once while you were pushing me to shore, and then I regained consciousness once or twice while you were singing. I didn’t know you were a selkie, but I knew you saved me.”

“If you didn’t know I was a selkie, how could you have thought I saved you? No human could have done all of that.”

Callan’s expression turned wry. “I thought you were a mermaid.”

“A
mermaid
?” Dylan said, outraged.

“It seemed like the only explanation at the time.”

“But a
mermaid
? You thought I was one of those daft, silly creatures who is always crooning like a second-rate selkie and styling her hair? I’m not sure I want to talk to you anymore.” Dylan swiveled in her rock seat so her back was to Callan.

Callan chuckled. “I apologize. I didn’t know it was such an insult.”

“It
is
,” Dylan stressed. “It is the worst one you could give me. I would have rather been mistaken for a whale! How could you have thought that? Mermaids don’t live in Ringsted—that’s why we selkies settled it!”

“Yes, but I’ve seen several mermaids before in my sea travels. I had never before seen a selkie,” Callan said.

“We
are
good at shielding our presence,” Dylan said, somewhat mollified.

“Yes. But I don’t think you can be hidden anymore,” Callan said, looking back at the palace.

Although most of the selkies had swum home the previous night, about thirty of them—Dylan’s family and a number of warriors—had chosen to spend the night at the palace. The warriors remained to guard the sea witch—although she was being kept unconscious. Dylan’s father and mother—Sea King Murron and Queen Gwenllian—remained to speak to King Rory and Queen Etain about all that had happened.

Last night, Dylan—shocked and exhausted as she had been from channeling so much magic—realized that her father was even considering an alliance with the Ringsted king. Dylan suspected part of this might have been spurred on by the obvious connection between her and Callan.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Dylan asked.

“Pardon?”

“If you knew it was me who saved you, why didn’t you say so instead of hinting so vaguely?” Dylan turned back around to face the prince.

“When I first saw you at the festival, I didn’t think it
could
be you,” Callan said. “I’d spent a year and a half searching near and far for you—it was partially why I thought you were a mermaid even though I recalled that you had legs. Nice ones. I couldn’t find you in any town, village, city, or holding in Ringsted. I had given up hope—which was how Mother managed to push me at Lady Aisling.”

“You were looking for me? Why?” Dylan asked, wanting to hear the right answer.

“Because you captivated me. I wouldn’t say I was in love with you—I was half-drowned after all—but I’ve spent a great portion of my life feeling… uncomfortable with the public. Sitting with you on the beach—soaked, half-dead, and fleeting in and out of consciousness—I felt more at peace than I had ever been with any other girl. I wanted to find you in hopes that we could forge a relationship. Didn’t you feel anything from our encounter?”

Dylan judged that this was
not
the time to tell Callan she didn’t place him as the man she saved until a day after meeting him again. “You kept almost dying whenever I tried to leave you. It was quite frustrating.”

Callan laughed, the sound from deep within his belly. “I probably deserved that for the mermaid comment.” He rubbed his eyes and slid from the boulder, landing on the sand with a thump. He sat in front of Dylan’s rock chair, leaning his head against her legs.

“Didn’t get much sleep?” she asked.

“I didn’t sleep at all. I rode out in command of the soldiers and guards who raided Kingsgrace Castle. I returned an hour ago to tell Father our findings.”

Dylan leaned forward, half-bending over the prince so she could see his face. His eyes had dark circles under them, but he offered her a satisfied and weary smile.

“And? How did Jarlath do it?”

“It seems the mage—Yseult is her name—approached him about three or four years ago, right after his father died and he inherited his title. The agreement was that Yseult would use Kingsgrace Castle as a safe base to hide—its location was perfect as it was off the coast but not too far a ride, and it was positioned close to the Summer Palace as well. In return, Jarlath was given the chance to make a great deal of money. He started recruiting bandits and brigands from other countries before Yseult closed us off with the storms. He set up the banditry ring and—with Yseult’s help to get through the storms—worked out a shipping schedule to get the stolen goods north to be sold in various black markets. The boats sailed far enough out of sight so no one on land would see them, and Yseult parted the storms for him.”