Please log in to recommend or discuss...
Meera opened her eyes to an onslaught of light and feeling. She thrashed and flailed. Cold water surrounded her, dragging at her limbs and sucking her under. She took one shuddering breath of air before her mouth was submerged. She fought toward the surface, but her body felt strange—her senses confused. Every detail of the blue-green water around her drew her gaze. Every minute particle jostled by her movements caught her eyes. Every shade of color in the bubbles erupting from her nose and mouth invaded her mind. It was all too much!
Then she had a thought, and she clung to it like a buoy: she was in the ocean—the Cerun Sea. A wave had knocked her over, and her father would soon pull her to safety. He would lift her from the water with his big, comforting hands—he always did. Strong hands did grab Meera and thrust her toward the surface. She coughed and spluttered and choked in much-needed air, but her feet didn’t touch the sandy ocean’s floor. She didn’t remember going out so far … Had a wave dragged her out?
She squinted in the dim—yet harsh—light of morning, disoriented by the steam rising around her in layers of billowing, swirling opacity. It was too much. Shutting her eyes, she tried to tread water, but without her sight, she was all feeling—a jumble of disjointed sensation. The pores of her arms and legs prickled. Her body buzzed with pulsing muscle. She kicked and paddled, but her movements felt wrong—jerky and ineffectual. Her head went under again, and she panicked, opening her eyes to another invasion of light and color and movement. What was happening? Where was the beach?
An arm wrapped around her middle, pulled her above the surface, and towed her through the water. She gasped in air and shut her eyes in relief: her father. Her father always pulled her from the tumbling waves of the ocean. Meera lay back and let herself be dragged to shore. She clutched at the arm around her middle, glad that she was not alone in her confusion. Then her nails scraped against the bare skin of her stomach, and her mind reeled: where were her clothes? Did she lose them in the current?
Groping frantically for her missing clothes, she found—breasts? Her full, naked breasts breached the surface of the water. She wasn’t a child at the beach with her father, she realized, opening her eyes in alarm. Where was she? Meera was once more bombarded with an explosion of indistinct light and color that her brain couldn’t form into a single image. She struggled—striking out with her limbs—and the arm around her middle released her.
This time her kicking legs found the sandy bottom as did her hands, and she grounded herself on all fours in the shallows, breathing hard. The strong hands returned, grabbing her under her armpits and hauling her to her feet. She swayed, but the hands held her steady. She brought her palms to her face to block out some of the sight overwhelming her.
“Meera?” said a voice so loud and jarring that she flinched violently and slammed her hands over her ears. Her head rang from the impact, and her eyes were once more flooded with light and images. But this time they managed to focus on something—someone: Shael stood
before her, dripping and looking into her face with concern. Meera’s gaze was caught by his grey-green eyes; she stared at their outer, darker rim, then was sucked into their lighter depths. Her whole being zeroed in on a tiny gold fleck in his left eye that she had never noticed before.
Shael reached out, took her arm, and pulled her the last, stumbling few steps out of the water. Her visual concentration suddenly broke—the dry sand under her feet was like thousands of pecking birds supporting her weight, the air scraped its invisible teeth along her wet skin, and every hair on her body lifted and prickled in reaction. She stared uncomprehendingly down at her splayed toes and bare legs. What was this? She stared and stared and tried to process the torrent of information her body was sending her. Was she … cold?
Once Meera made the connection between the sensations all over her flesh and the word for the feeling, she relaxed somewhat. She began to feel more normal—aware of the chill on her skin without needing to concentrate on every tingling pore of her body. She expelled a shuddering sigh in relief, but the sound of her exhale made her cringe and press her hands to her temples. Her focus shifted—honed in on the repetitive rushing of her lungs sucking air in and forcing it out. In and out, in and out, in and out. The sounds of her own body rattled her ears, and she tried to breathe slower—quieter—but it was no use—all she could hear, all she could think about was her breath. What was happening? Why wouldn’t it stop?
As her panic rose once more, her heart thundered with it, and she was assailed by every squelchy, resounding thump of the muscle in her chest. She clawed at herself, willing her body to be quiet—to be still. Her head pounded with her heart’s reverberations. Her ears ached. She just wanted quiet! Bending over, she braced her hands on her knees and stared and stared in bewilderment at her feet in the sand until her vision blurred from her shallow breathing.
“Meera? Are you okay?” Shael’s insistent voice pierced through the noise of her body and snapped her out of her fixation.
She straightened up, glanced at him, and looked around, blinking and gasping. Her mind churned, slowly processing what she was seeing. She knew this place: she was at the Riders’ Peninsula. She was standing next to the lake—had been pulled out of the lake. She wasn’t at the beach by the Cerun Sea … She wasn’t a child. She was with Shael in Levisade, she remembered. Had she gone for a swim
and nearly drowned?
“Are you okay?” Shael asked again, voice cracking. He reached out slowly and touched her cheek, drawing her attention.
Meera gaped at him. She wasn’t sure if she was okay. She watched shiny droplets of water drip down the side of his angular face. His dark hair was slicked down from being wet, and his soaked clothes clung to the contours of his body. Then she looked down at herself and registered her nudity once more as well as her goosebumps. Wrapping her arms across her chest, she shivered, and Shael quickly removed his sopping shirt and draped it across her shoulders. The wet, heavy fabric clung to her skin, and she gripped it in front of her to hold it closed. The dark blue shirt covered her to her mid-thigh, and its empty sleeves hung uselessly on either side of her body like tired wings.
Meera looked again into Shael’s eyes, but before she could say anything—before she could think of an answer to his question—more people appeared, running down the grassy slope to the beach, shouting her name and asking more questions. Isbaen and Hadjal arrived first. They stopped on the beach a little away from her, looking apprehensive. Their mouths moved, but Meera couldn’t process what they were saying. She looked to Shael in confusion. What was happening? He was staring at her with a fixation so intense, she had to glance away. Then her father was there.
Orson Hailship reached the beach, hobbling and panting, and flung himself into Meera, nearly knocking her over. He held her to his chest, breaking away after several seconds to clutch her face in his hands and kiss her cheeks repeatedly. “Meera, are you okay? Are you alright?” he asked, just like Shael.
Meera’s head spun, and she took a step back from her father. Her father! He was here! She had forgotten … As she stared at him, her mind started to piece together flashes of memory. She remembered going on a journey to find her father. She hadn’t found him … but she had met a wild raek! With a rush of understanding, she whirled toward the lake to look at the cliff overhanging the far rock wall. However, the cloud-colored raek was no longer there; the cliff stood vacant and forlorn in the morning light.
Meera turned back to her father. “I’m alright. I must have hit my head on the water,” she rasped, fingering her throbbing temples. She remembered climbing up to the raek. She must have fallen and smacked against the surface of the water. That explained why she felt so disoriented. Her shoulders loosened in relief, but when she looked
at the faces around her, tension crept back into her muscles: Isbaen was frowning, her father seemed confused and unsure of what to say, and Hadjal was standing awfully far back from her, looking wary.
“What’s going on?” she asked. She glanced at Shael and noticed the purple circles under his eyes and how thin he was with his shirt off. Before he could answer, there was a thump, and Cerun descended the slope, inserting his head between Shael and Isbaen. Meera looked into the bright blue, intelligent eyes of her raek friend.
“Do you not remember, Human Meera?” Cerun asked in her head, and strangely, Meera didn’t feel the usual accompanying pressure.
She shook her head side to side in answer, clutching Shael’s shirt tighter around her as she shivered once more. She saw Shael, Isbaen, and Hadjal exchange looks. “What’s going on?” she asked them more forcefully, cringing at how loud her voice sounded.
Cerun stepped toward her and extended his shining, scaly snout until it bumped against her forehead. She froze expectantly, and images poured from him into her mind: she saw herself climb the far rock wall. She saw herself touch forehead to snout with the wild raek once, then again. She saw her body burst into pale flames, and she gasped and watched open-mouthed as, in her mind’s eye, she fell to the lake’s surface and lay still in a fiery cocoon.
For a moment, her mind was blank with awe and confusion, then she remembered. She remembered the wild raek showing her Aegwren, the first rider—a human rider. She remembered the raek offering her a bargain, and she remembered taking it. Meera broke away from Cerun and looked around her, absorbing how many details and colors she could see that she had never seen before. She clenched her hands under Shael’s shirt and felt every muscle in them flex, responding with speed and ability. Her eyes widened as she came to understand that the wild raek had already changed her.
“I was on fire …” she said disbelievingly.
“For three weeks,” Shael replied, voice trembling. Meera stared at him once more. His high cheekbones protruded sharply from his face, and his ribs were visible above his abdominal muscles.
“Three weeks?” she repeated stupidly, glancing around to confirm. She couldn’t believe
she had missed so much time.
Cerun leaned forward and bumped his snout to her head again. Meera saw in flashes as on each new day, the sun rose and set over her burning, unmoving figure on the lake. She also saw Shael sitting on the rock protruding from the lake’s surface, watching her and waiting for her … day after day. Through her temporary mental connection to Cerun, she felt a sense of Shael’s emotions lacing the memories, and she broke away, overcome.
She stared at her feet against the speckled, sandy ground, processing. Then her eyes filled until she couldn’t make out her toes through the glistening barrier of her unshed tears. Shael had sat on that rock and waited for her for weeks. He had been there every day until she had needed him to help her from the water. Meera had been confused about his feelings toward her for so long … But in that moment, her confusion melted away. She knew how he felt: he loved her.
Her chest squeezed and fluttered, and she swayed unsteadily on her changed feet. Then she looked at Shael who watched her along with everyone else. She was too moved to speak. Lifting one foot then the other, she slowly shuffled up to him and let her head fall forward onto his chest just under his collarbone, resting that way. Her tears spilled over her cheeks onto his cool skin.
Meera stayed like that for a long moment, listening to Shael’s body react to her in a way that she never could before. She became absorbed in the ragged sounds of his breathing and his thumping heart as it beat faster and faster next to her face. She felt his muscles tense and awaken at her nearness and saw the skin of his chest pebble where her breath brushed it. She couldn’t resist poking one of her hands out from under her makeshift shawl and running her fingertips lightly over his stomach. The waves of muscles under her touch tightened before she felt a shudder through his entire body.
“Thank you,” she whispered. It was all she could think to say.
Shael wrapped his arms around her back and crushed her to him, quaking with suppressed emotion. Meera’s arms were pinned between them under the barrier of his soaked shirt, and she pushed gently at him until he loosened his grip. Circling her hands around his back, she let the shirt across her shoulders hang open, so when she hugged him back, her bare chest squished between them. She was too overwhelmed to feel embarrassed. Her mind turned again and again, and she began to shake with the knowledge that she was
a rider, that her body was changed, and that Shael loved her. He hugged her tighter, and another tear trickled from her skin to his.
Then a new voice snapped them back to the present: “Meera! Is she okay? Is she hurt?”
Shael broke away from her, and Meera quickly pulled the dripping shirt back over her exposed front. Soleille was running down the slope, shouting, followed by Katrea, Sodhu, and Florean. Meera smiled at the sight of everyone. Her brain seemed to be acclimating to her new, heightened senses. She was briefly distracted by the thrumming wings of a dragonfly and flinched when it veered toward her before realizing it was at least fifteen feet away. Then she blinked and refocused on the people gathered around her. They were all studying her like a peculiar new animal.
Soleille took a tentative step forward. “I am going to scan your body,” she said.
Scan her? “No!” Meera shouted suddenly, stumbling backward. She hadn’t meant to shout and felt blood rush to her cheeks as everyone surveyed her. “I’m fine,” she said in a quieter voice. She wasn’t sure why, but she wasn’t ready for them to know. She wasn’t ready to tell them everything yet—she was still trying to process it all for herself.
Soleille frowned at her, but Meera shook her head insistently.
“Meera, please,” Shael implored, touching her arm through his shirt.
She gazed at him, again registering how exhausted and thin he looked. Knowing he had sat on that rock waiting for her day after day made her heart crack wide open. She didn’t want him to worry about her any more than he already had, and yet … She didn’t want to tell him everything—not yet. Part of her glowed with the hope that having a knell lifespan would mean she and Shael could be together—that only their different races had stood in the way of their love—but she didn’t actually know what had stood in the way of Shael’s love for her.
She now felt certain that he did love her, but he had been resisting it; he had been letting something keep them apart when she had not. She had been willing to be with him despite their differences, and he hadn’t. Meera still wanted Shael to choose her for her—regardless of how long she would live or how fast she could run—and he could only do that if he didn’t know. “I’m fine, really,” she said, looking
into his eyes. Seeing him so thin and ragged brought her back to when he was her prisoner, and she knew, suddenly, that she had failed him; he had sat on a rock and waited for her every day when she was unconscious, and she had left him in that dungeon cell by himself—freezing, hurt, and alone. Shame roiled in her gut.
“Meera, you should really let Soleille scan you,” Hadjal said, but Meera wasn’t listening.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Shael, trembling with cold and remembrance. “I didn’t even bring you socks. I should have stayed down there with you. I shouldn’t have left you.” She stared up at him, willing him to know how sorry she was. She should have done more—she should have been there for him like he had been for her.
“Meera, what are you talking about?” her father asked. “I don’t think she’s well,” he said in a stage whisper to the others.
Meera could see that Shael knew what she was talking about, and he shook his head infinitesimally at her.
“Meera, we need you to tell us what the wild raek did to you,” Isbaen said, trying to catch her eye.
She glanced at him, briefly, before returning her focus to Shael. “Shael looks like he hasn’t eaten in three weeks,” she replied. “Let’s eat. Then I’ll explain everything.”
Shael nodded at her ever so slightly.
“Thank you,” she said, holding his gaze. She wanted to go to him—to hug him once more—but she held back.
Shael nodded again and swallowed visibly.
Finally, Meera forced her eyes from him, glanced at the others around her, and said, “I’m going to get some clothes,” before stepping forward awkwardly and starting to climb the slope up toward Hadjal’s house and the cabin where she and her father had been staying. At first, her muscles jolted clumsily, unaccustomed to their new strength. But with each step, she acclimated to the feel of her new body—with every stride, she became more sure of her movements. She wanted to run—to test herself—but she held back.
Shael watched Meera go and had to stop himself from running after her. She really did seem fine—seem herself. He was so relieved, yet he stood rigid, repressing the emotion that wanted to gush out of him—tempering the sobs that threatened to wrack his body. Meera was awake. Meera was alive. Meera had touched and hugged him in ways that had brought unbidden thoughts to his mind, and he all but shook with the effort of quashing his feelings. They could only be friends, he reminded himself.
“She appeared normal,” Sodhu said in a quiet, hopeful voice.
“Then why would she not let me scan her?” Soleille asked, looking put-out. She shot Meera a suspicious look up the slope.
“I agree,” said Isbaen. “That raek fire must have done something to her. Otherwise, why would the wild raek have used so much energy to sustain it?” Shael had the same suspicion as his mentor, but he was still so relieved that Meera was awake and herself that he could not find it in himself to be overly concerned.
“What was she babbling about, Shael?” Katrea asked, and everyone looked at him. “She sounded like her brain may have fried in that fire.”
Shael shook his head. “She was of sound mind,” he responded vaguely. Meera had been thinking of him in the dungeon of the Altus Palace. He hated to be thought of that way—weak and frail—but looking down at his torso, he saw how emaciated he had become; it was no wonder she had connected his appearance now with their time in Terratelle together. As far as Shael could tell, Meera had been confused at first but had remembered everything after a minute or two. He knew Cerun had shown her the three weeks that had passed and felt embarrassed that she had seen his obsessive waiting and watching on his boulder.
“Meera said she would explain, so we will just have to wait and let her tell us when she is ready,” Hadjal said with an even voice that was at odds with the worry flickering in her gold-hued eyes. Sodhu placed a comforting hand on her partner’s back, and Shael noted the gesture with envy; all he wanted was that easy comfort with someone, but it would never be easy for him.
“Who will help me prepare a large lunch?” Sodhu asked, and the other riders began to turn and migrate back up the slope toward Hadjal’s.
Shael did not move with them. He felt stuck—rooted in place—still resisting the urge to run after Meera. He knew he should give her space and wait for her to explain with the others. But he was so used to centering himself around her—to watching her form all day—that he felt untethered. He was adrift and unsure of how to focus his energy now that his concentration need not burn with the pale raek fire that had encased Meera for so long. Then a breeze chilled his damp skin, and he thought he ought to start by finding dry clothes.
He was about to follow the others up the slope, but he turned toward the lake one last time and found Meera’s father standing by the water, observing him. Shael started; he had not realized Orson was still there. Meera’s father was wearing a simple knell-style outfit in a beige somewhat lighter than the man’s golden-brown skin. He wore his
wire-framed glasses over his eyes—eyes that were almond-shaped like his daughter’s—and Shael could still see the glistening trails left from Orson’s tears at finding Meera awake and well.
Orson smiled at him—a smile that crinkled the edges of his eyes and spread his nose wide on his face. Shael attempted to smile in return and managed to lift one side of his mouth fleetingly. He should be able to smile, he thought; he should be able to grin and laugh and dance now that Meera was awake. But he still felt so uncertain and unsettled. “She seems okay,” he said, unsure of what else to say to the man he had rescued not long ago but had hardly spoken to since.
Orson nodded his head. Then he removed his glasses, wiped the lingering tears from his eyes, and proceeded to rub his glasses clean on the bottom of his shirt. “You know, I don’t see very well,” he said to Shael, who furrowed his brows, unsure of how to reply to the older man. Meera had always said that her father was intelligent and witty, but he had returned from the war altered—a shell of his former self. Shael was not sure the man was all the way present in his mind.
After an overlong pause, Orson continued, “I don’t see very well, but I’m not blind.” He replaced his glasses on his nose and looked at Shael with enough intensity to make him shift on his feet. “I’m glad my daughter has you looking out for her. It eases my mind that she will be in good hands when I’m gone.” It was not the first time Shael had heard Orson speak like he was about to die. Although, he supposed that compared to knell, humans were always about to die. He thought of Meera, and his stomach turned.
“I will always take care of her,” he told Orson, hoping to comfort the man. It was true, too. Shael might not be able to be with Meera, but he could not imagine living without her; he was doomed to watch her grow old and do everything he could to help preserve and protect her short, human life.
“Good,” Orson replied with another smile. Reaching into the neck of his shirt, he added, “I have something for you.” He pulled a chain over his head, on which were two rings: a simple, silver ring and a gold ring with small white pearls surrounding a blue center stone. The decorative ring matched the earrings that had belonged to Meera’s mother. ...
