World of Aluvia 2 (16 page)

“Shh. Just wait.” He gripped her hand and pulled her into a thick tangle of seaweed.

He reached an empty hole in the weeds and spun to face her, hands wide, imploring. “I know you saw it. But I don’t know what to do! They’re just making excuses. They’d rather not risk anything or change our ways, even if it means our death!”

He cursed again in the trilling language of the merfolk. “Let me think. If I can find the lair where this thing lives, maybe I can be a witness. They can’t use the temple’s magic on Liam because he’s too young, but I’m no longer a seawee. I’m of age, just as you are. They can test me using the magic they used on you. It should work, and they would have no more excuses. In the natural order of things, I would be traveling to the temple very soon to commit myself to serving the sea as an adult merfolk anyway.”

“Would they really believe you?”

“I don’t see how they could deny my testimony if I were questioned within the blue light. You are human. I am merfolk.”

The stark summary pinched her heart for a minute, but she shook off the reminder of their basic incompatibility. “Okay. So you need to see this wraith with your own eyes so you can testify. But, Tristan, the ocean is huge!”

He nodded, leaning forward, his eyes shining with hope. “True. But my mother told us Baleros lived in the abyss of the midnight realm, which begins on the other side of the ancient city. I imagine this wraith could be somewhere around there, maybe near the old city itself. Maybe it would be drawn to the old power there, especially after the display of magic from the ritual today.”

“That sounds risky. How will you know if the wraith is really there?”

“I have no idea.” He rubbed his brow.

Phoebe chewed her lip for a moment, studying him. The elders’ insistence that she drew merfolk to her was plainly ludicrous and yet… she’d feel better if she heard him deny it himself. It felt like poor timing to ask now, but there was no easy time to ask it and at least they were alone. “Tristan… can you sense this magical draw the elders spoke of? Does something about me, um, compel you to be my friend?”

She didn’t really believe the ugly accusation of Elder Seamus, but she had to check.

Tristan sighed. His mouth twisted before he admitted, “It’s true that I have always felt drawn to you, Phoebe, but not in any dangerous way. They’re old fools, so afraid of the future that they refuse to see what’s staring them in the face.”

Phoebe raised her hand. “Wait. You said… you
do
feel something from me? And always have?”

She shook her head, closing her eyes against the sharp pain that struck. No.
No.
She struggled to understand… Was Tristan only her friend because she had somehow
forced
him to be? The thought left ashes in her mouth. All those times of laughter and fun shared with her mer-friends flashed through her mind, reforming themselves into something entirely different. Something unnatural. Something terrible.

He grabbed her hands. “Phoebe, listen to me. The day your sister rescued you, do you remember? You called to me, to help you. I didn’t know it was you, but I knew I had to get back to where I left the fairy keeper. It was you, though. I’ve thought about it many times but knew you had no inkling of the situation. It doesn’t matter. It’s not why I… it’s not why we’re friends.”

When she said nothing, he rushed on, “Please understand. After our first meeting, I had to meet with you to see if you were okay. I couldn’t get you out of mind, the way you looked… so wounded, standing in the surf, watching me with eyes as deep as the sea itself. And after that, well, I simply enjoyed your company. It was nothing shameful or bad. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Has it been just you that feels this thing? Does Mina? The elders complained about it, but I don’t feel like I’m doing anything, and you never said anything about it!”

He had the grace to look ashamed. “I didn’t know others would feel it. I assumed it was my own―” he flushed, an amazing shade of rose flooding his pale skin―“Mina and I never even discussed it. Phoebe, I have cared for you for many moons now. Surely you know this?”

Her heart was breaking. The elders were right. Tristan was finally trying to tell her what she’d dreamed about hearing all year, but it turned out she had tricked him somehow. He was saying she hadn’t, but how could they know for sure? Irony. She had magic but couldn’t use it to get what she wanted. What she
had
wanted was for him to desire to be with her. But now, she wanted him to feel that way without magic forcing him. And maybe that was impossible.

She turned away. It wasn’t like they had a future anyway. He would always live in the sea, and she was nothing but a temporary visitor here, forbidden to return.

She trembled. “It’s probably better that I have to go, then. I wouldn’t want to spellbind anyone into being my friend.”

He protested, “Nonsense, I’m stronger than that. What do you take me for, some impressionable guppy? And your magic hasn’t always been this noticeable―not since yesterday. Not even you could make me fall… make me care for you if you weren’t so…”

He tripped over his own words, bringing a sad smile to her face. So maybe he did care as she did. But things had changed. “Tristan, can you honestly say it doesn’t bother you, not even the tiniest bit? That what you feel might be manipulated by my magic? Even a little? That our friendship might be based on a compulsion? Be truthful.”

His eyes flashed. “I’m always truthful.”

“Not always,” she reminded him.

“Withholding information is not the same as lying.” He jutted his chin forward, reminding her of when they first met and argued over which was the most magical creature in Aluvia. She said fairies; he said merfolk. It hadn’t taken Phoebe long to be convinced. He only locked his jaw like that when he was being particularly stubborn.

“Fine. But don’t hold back now. Doesn’t it make you wonder, even just a tiny bit, if nothing we’ve felt is real, if it’s all from the magic?”

She reached up and held his chin, making him meet her gaze. She knew her Tristan. He wouldn’t lie outright. He started to speak twice but stopped, reconsidering his words. Her hands trembled, so she wrapped her arms around her waist to hide them.

He finally said, “The tiniest bit of me, perhaps, is the slightest bit concerned, maybe, but it is far overshadowed by the rest of me. I trust you, Phoebe. You’d never take my free will.”

Phoebe couldn’t think past the first part of his statement. He
did
care that her magic was forcing him to be near her. She wanted to curl into a ball. The pull between them, powerful from the beginning, now turned out to be a magical welcome mat to any merfolk who came by, though no one had ever made her feel as he did. As much as she wanted to tell him how much she cared for him, dreamed about him, maybe it would be easier for him to think she just wanted to be friends. Far easier to lose a friend than a sweetheart. She’d been banished, after all.

It was too much to consider. They stared at each other without saying a word until her chest burned, reminding her to breathe. The tension rose, creating a magnetic pull between them. She wanted to lean against him―but couldn’t. Not now.

Time to focus on the main problem here. Their tangled relationship would have to wait.

She cleared her throat, and the moment passed.

She said, “I understand it’s complicated, to be sure. But let me help you and your people, no matter what the elders say. Maybe this magic I have that lures merfolk will attract the wraith. Or maybe I can sense where it’s hiding.”

“Phoebe…”

“Please. Tristan. I need to help you.” The last words were barely spoken, but they reverberated. The water between them seemed to thicken like honey, swirling between them and connecting them.

His green eyes darkened, not with magic, but with emotion. “If something happened to you―”

“It won’t. You’ll be with me. I trust you.”

He looked over her head for a long moment. Indecision twisted his face, but then the conflicted expression fell away, as if he’d made some kind of choice.

“We can’t let the elders see you.”

Hope rose in Phoebe. “It’ll be like one of our games. Hide and seek. We hide from the elders and seek the water wraith. Mina would love it.”

“I don’t want her involved. She gets into too much trouble as it is. Getting caught with you again would be a lot worse for her than me. Okay. You can stay with me, but I’ll take you back to land as soon as we find the lair, agreed? You can’t let the merfolk know you stayed at all.”

“Agreed.”

“I hope we don’t regret this.”

Phoebe knew she never would.

here do we start?” Phoebe asked.

“Somewhere with a lot of magic, I imagine. The wraith would need to feed on it, even with the merfolk it’s been stealing energy from.”

“Let me guess,” Phoebe groaned. “The ancient temple of Lyr? Wouldn’t we have seen something while we were there?” She really did not want to return there, to the strange light that took over her body like that.

“Well, actually, the Abyss is the place with the most magic of anywhere in the ocean. Some believe our magic actually flows from there, in the depths of the midnight realm, but it’s forbidden for many reasons, Phoebe. It’s full of hidden dangers, even lethal ones. I think the ancient city will be powerful enough to start with. It could easily feed the wraith. Our civilization crumbled because of such power in the wrong hands.”

“Well, if we don’t do something, it looks like your civilization is going to crumble again, but this time, there’s not much left to collapse.”

Tristan flinched, and Phoebe offered an apologetic shrug. She hadn’t meant to be harsh. For a moment there, she’d sounded almost like Sierra. Maybe Sierra spoke like that because she was stressed and worried, too.

“Let’s go, then,” Phoebe urged. “Your family will be looking for you soon, no matter how many excuses Mina comes up with.”

It didn’t take long to return to Lyr, even being as stealthy as they could be. Phoebe and Tristan swam above the city, scanning it carefully. The darkened stone temple sat hulking across the open patch in the seaweed. A maze of buildings spread out beyond it, until the ground dropped steeply, disappearing into darkness.

Just beyond the drop, a narrow cliff of white rock rose up from the black depths like a fisted claw, with a cave entrance visible on one jagged side. The cliff sat between the edge of the fallen metropolis and the black waters of the midnight realm, a strange tower marking the change in the basin floor. Phoebe hadn’t noticed it during her last, admittedly chaotic and unexpected, visit to this location.

“Do you sense the magic around us?” Tristan asked. “It lies over the city like a blanket.”

Phoebe frowned while concentrating. She felt… something. A stirring, a tingling along her skin. “Maybe. But it’s not very strong.”

“There’s plenty of magic here, trust me. Let’s explore.”

They dove down into the city, past abandoned homes that still held woven baskets and the shells of sponge beds, through open squares that must have once held busy markets. The silence crawled along her nerves and hurried Tristan’s fin.

But they found nothing. No sign of any living creature the size of a wraith, hibernating or otherwise. Tiny sea snails and fish, yes. Evil water wraith, no.