The last time I had been submerged in water, I had been back at the forge. My smiths had been cooling me, tempering me.
It had been a shock of cold to my molten steel, but it had also been a moment of comfort and clarity.
Sinking into Lake Huldrai was similar.
The selkie seals sang a song of welcoming, a song of calling, and the moment I hit the water, I could feel them. I was touching the water, and the water was touching every selkie seal in the lake.
It was as if I had two dozen hands reach out and touch me, all at once.
Their names flooded me. Some were Datrean-sounding names, while others were older.
I felt them. I felt them as clearly as if they held my hilt. I could see through their eyes, all their eyes. The lake was not dark to them. In fact, it was vibrant, an underwater forest of green algae and selkie seals. There were dozens and dozens of them. I could see their blubbery bodies circling the ship cheerfully. Some were brown. Some were gray. Some were even spotted.
All, I knew instantly, had once been human.
I slipped into their minds, heard their song as they heard it, and at once, their compulsive power upon me broke.
I heard with sudden clarity how their watersong conjured the fog and commanded the currents. There was a reason we had been sailing in this lake for so long. The fog’s thick cover had concealed that our ship was going in circles. For hours.
We had not made any progress since we entered the lake. The Wily Seal itself was ensnared by their song.
I marvelled at their power; I marvelled at their precision.
I could now understand that they were manipulating the very fluids in Yethyr’s brain to create a false feeling of peace in him and in me.
Oh no.
With new clarity, I recalled what I had done under their influence.
This was bad. This was so bad that it was hard to list everything wrong all at once. I had let Yethyr into my thoughts, and it was hard to say how much he was currently picking up from me. Was he hearing these thoughts as I thought them?
It was not impossible, and I decided not to dwell on it so that I could focus on more immediate problems.
Yethyr was still soothed by the song and made no attempt to swim. As soon as I tried to help him, I realized that I didn't know how. I had memories of Tuzad wrestling with his brother in the shallow parts of the river, but apparently his experiences with actual swimming were not violent memories because I could not find them among all the memories I had devoured.
Yethyr sank, dark water rushing into his lungs, and I could not help him. Someone else would have to, and—
Jaetheiri.
I felt her name as if she had touched me. She must have entered the water.
Great, now they could drown together.
I had convinced her prince to jump in the lake away from the boat.
At nighttime.
In heavy fog.
Even if the selkie seals allowed us to rejoin the ship, it would be a miracle if those unskilled sailors found us.
Then there were the selkie seals themselves. They wanted…what did they want?
My query rippled through the lake, and I heard them all gasp.
I gasped too. They could all hear me.
Right. Through the conduit of water they were all touching me which meant I could speak to them all the way I could speak to anyone wielding me. I felt guilty. That probably meant they were all poisoned by my father’s curse now.
Then again, they were the ones who lured me into the water to begin with, so it was their own damn fault.
Yethyr was losing consciousness. Was this what drowning was? Whatever was happening, he was probably not paying attention.
Just in case, I pretended to be Yethyr’s stray thoughts.
“You lured us here,” I said in Datrean, an imitation of Yethyr’s voice echoing in all their minds. “Why?”
The lake exploded in a new song, and as always, I understood intrinsically.
The song was their history, as much of a story as the tale that Yethyr recounted back on deck.
It began with seal skins bestowed by Tegumae, an angel who once made her home in this lake. Ancient watersingers climbed into those sacred husks, and it transformed them. They escaped from the world of air and earth to become something new, something different. Their children and their children's children followed the same path, but the first selkie did not hoard this heavenly gift. They offered this blessing to Flazea, or at least, the people who would one day build Flazea.
Some followed and slipped into seal skins of their own. Others chose wooden skins to travel the rivers, and though those ancient Flazean watersingers took the path of shipwrights, they still saw them as family.
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Then Datrea, dreaded Datrea, came. I shuddered at the hatred that rang with their ripples. If they only knew I was a Datrean sword…
Datrea came and slaughtered their brothers and sisters, and ever since, they swore to never let it happen again.
Never again!
They would keep the Flazean watersingers safe from Datrea by any means necessary, even if they had to whisk them away from Flazea itself.
Jaetheiri grabbed Yethyr. Through her eyes, I could see that she was tying a rope around his waist. It was a long rope, connected to her and then trailing behind her, all the way to the ship.
That was a relief. She had secured our way back to The Wily Seal’s deck after all.
A gray selkie seal bumped into Yethyr’s body.
Lona.
I knew her name. I knew she had once been a Flazean child playing along the shore, until the song called to her, long ago.
Through Lona’s eyes, I saw Jaetheiri. Underwater, her brown curls had straightened, drifting about her head in slow arcs
Through Jaetheiri, I saw Lona and her curious round black eyes. They stared at one another. I could feel their shared apprehension.
Carefully, warily, Lona nosed Yethyr and tried to guide him onto her back. He didn’t notice; he was unconscious, and also possibly dying, but Jaetheiri noticed. She brought her hand to her warfang, but did not draw.
She did not want to fight underwater.
So when Lona took Yethyr, Jaetheiri allowed herself to be dragged by rope along with them.
Lona’s gray head broke the surface of the water, and soon Yethyr’s head was doing the same.
He should have gotten a much needed breath of air then, but his lungs were too full of water.
He needed to cough it all up. He needed to do it right then or he was going to die.
Desperately l reached for him. I focused on him as I had when I tried to possess him at night. Before, I had not even managed to move a pinky toe, but I was separate from him then. Now, we were connected and the water was an incredible conduit for my will. If I just focused on his throat, focused on those muscles I had felt him use for eating…
Yethyr began to cough.
“My prince?” Jaetheiri cried loudly, her chin just jutting over the water. “Are you well?”
She was assuming that Yethyr was awake. From her eyes, it looked like it. His lashes even fluttered as I forced him to take breath after breath while he slept.
It was just me in his body now.
Experimentally, I tried to speak with his mouth, but all I managed was more coughing.
Perhaps, that was the limit of my control for now.
Lona was taking us all somewhere specific. Through both her and Jaetheiri's eyes, I saw a jagged rock jutting out from the lake. Lounging there, waiting for us, was a naked woman. Her long, dark hair came down her bare shoulders in wet, long tendrils.
Shiress. I knew her name, too. Her legs were listlessly dangling in the water, and that meant she was technically touching me.
Further up on the rock behind her was her seal skin. She must have crawled out of it to talk to me, with clear words and not the impressionistic music of the lake.
“Your voice ripples through the lake and yet, there is no watersong in your words,” she said in Datrean. “Are you a herald of Tegumae?”
Shiress looked down at sleeping Yethyr. She thought she was communicating with him and not the sword at his belt.
So, I spoke as Yethyr. “No. Those on our ship are committed to the angel Maethe.”
My voice rippled through the water. Jaetheiri likely could hear me, but she couldn’t understand Datrean. She had no way of knowing it was me anyway and sure enough, she ignored my words to clamor onto Shiress’ rock. The moment she left the water, my sight through her eyes went dark. Our bond stretched again, as it always did when I left her grasp.
I saw through both Lona’s and Shiress’ eyes that Jaetheiri stumbled, feeling the loss, but unaware of what the loss even was.
“I see,” Shiress said, serenely ignoring Jaetheiri's attempts to drag Yethyr’s unconscious body up on the rock with her. He was sopping wet; his long red hair clinging to his face and his body snagging on every groove in the rock.
Jaetheiri only managed to get him halfway up the rock and for that, I was grateful.
It meant half of him was still in the lake, which meant I was in the water and so long as that was so, I could speak to the selkie.
“What are your intentions?” I asked them.
“We call all watersingers. To bring them here. To offer them a seal skin. To make them family.”
I imagined them trying to stuff me in a seal skin and buried my panicked laughter.
“That is very generous of you,” I said as politely as I could, “but you brought us here by mistake. We are not watersingers.”
“But you hear us.”
I didn’t want to explain why. I didn’t want to explain that the only reason any of this happened was because their song could reach the little part of Yethyr’s brain that now belonged to me.
“That poor brother still on the ship can hear us too. He calls; he longs; he hungers.”
She must have been talking about Kvelir.
“He is not Flazean.”
“He’s not?”
“Our ship is full of the Brinn.”
“Who are the Brinn?” She asked innocuously, and oh, how I envied such innocence.
I had a choice. Tell the selkie that the Brinn were animals that sacked their beloved Flazea multiple times.
Or…
“They are the people who conquered Datrea. They sail to hunt down the last of their Council of Songs.”
Shiress nodded. “Enemies of enemies are friends. We will not hinder such justice.”
Excellent. They would let us pass peacefully. Now to figure out how to get back on the boat…
“Are there any Datreans aboard?” she asked and screw passing peacefully; I sensed an opportunity.
“Actually,” I said, “there is a Datrean aboard the ship.”
“Who? Tell us.”
“The walking skeleton. He is the last Datrean blacksmith.”
I felt the selkie seals' delight at that news. The reviled steelsingers of Datrea had been culled to one final man, and they couldn’t have been happier. My sympathy for the selkie seals evaporated. The annihilation of my family was nothing to rejoice over. Even Wes. I was trying to kill him because he was trying to destroy me, but I certainly took no pleasure in it.
“This is perfect!” Shiress said. “We can end their dreaded art, just as they ended ours. Thank you for your assistance. We will find this skeleton of yours and send it back to Hell.”
Perfect indeed. It was exactly what I needed.
“Are there any others?” she asked.
I was about to say no, but then I considered. Who could I name that would cause maximum distress to Yethyr? Truly, there was only one answer.
“The huntress with me,” I remembered Yethyr’s brother saying something about Jaetheiri’s grandfather being from Datrea.
Close enough.
“She’s Datrean.”
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Would you accept the seal skin blessing?
