Gazing out of the cracked rock that encased me, I watched, disinterested, as the snow fell in soft silence, covering everything it touched in icy whiteness.
I turned from the brightness of the morning back to the gloom, wincing as a dormant memory sparkled to life as the smell of the fresh clean winter air drifted into my cave.
She had spun around in circles, laughing and dancing, arms raised at her first experience of falling snow. I still remembered how my heart had raced at her beauty –her dark hair swirling around her, flecked with a confetti of snow, her eyes sparkling and her body weaving an unpretentiously sensual dance as she called me to join her.
As much as I fought it, that one innocent memory unleashed an avalanche of others, all of them peppered with the intensity of the emotions that had surrounded her.
The memories stuttered to a close with two final images – the beginning and the end.
The first was the moment I’d first seen her: huddled with the other bedraggled travellers, her eyes betraying the exhaustion her body refused to give in to as she’d scanned the blackness of the cave for the lurking evil she’d felt so close at hand.
In all of my long, long years, I’d never experienced anything as intense as the stab of longing and protectiveness I’d felt for her in that moment. I’d determined she’d be mine in the few seconds it had taken before she’d returned to fretting over the dying child in her friend’s arms.
I shook my head a little in the unnatural and perpetual dusk of the cave, shying away from the second memory. Try as I might, though, it always caught up with me, because as much as I’d determined to have her, it was me, in the end, who’d been trapped. Happily at first, because my love for her was an all-consuming emotion, one I’d rather die than be without. But now, I was paying for it…
My final memory of her spooled in aching slow motion, as I watched from behind closed lids, while the light faded softly from her eyes and her chest collapsed at the end of her last breath.
I drew in a ragged breath, curling in on myself as each agonising squeeze of my heart reminded me of the cruelty of my life. I now lived in the shadow of the happiness and love that had once been mine, the afterglow of the most spectacular time of my life.
I would have ended it all years and years ago had I not promised her that I would remain, that I would fight.
The pain subsided ever so slightly as my foot brushed the still, inky, icy surface of the pool that dominated the cave I was hiding in.
All of the whispers of the water were instantly within my grasp with that light brush. I didn’t like what I heard.
I don’t know why I assumed breathing in salt water would be easier than breathing in fresh water, but it wasn’t, and my lungs were screaming angry things at me as I pushed my way through the thicker liquid. The surf above me continued to surge in a creamy froth as I fought my instincts, trying to let go of the need to breathe.
Very slowly my lungs eased, each wavelike kick seeming to force a little more oxygen into my system. I focused my panicking mind on what I was here to do.
I had to find him.
I pushed into the seemingly elastic water, forcing my oxygenstarved muscles to move even faster, running through the plan we’d agreed on as I went.
I was due to meet Qinn at the reef. He was an Oceanid I barely knew, but one who had pledged his allegiance to me as we raced to find Merrick and stop the impending war on humanity.
It still felt odd to think of myself as one of them. I’d only found out a few days ago I was the legendary Oceanid Gurrer – an incredible warrior who would lead her people to victory. I guess it was natural to still think of myself as human, having lived as one for seventeen years.
Even having experienced the incredible power I was capable of, my new role was uncomfortable. I knew though that I was out of time for self-doubt. Merrick had told me once, in the few beautiful days when I was falling in love with him, that all the potential of his entire species could be kept locked away within me by my refusal to believe in myself.
He had been captured by our enemies – Oceanids that believed I was too weak to influence humans to stop destroying the sea, too weak to clean up the mess of oil and pollution that poisoned their home, too weak to lead the Oceanids in peace. I would need every ounce of power to rescue Merrick from them and avoid being caught myself.
They were formidable in number and talents, and they knew I would come for him.
It was a well-known Oceanid trait that once two Oceanids fell in love they couldn’t tolerate any physical separation. I’d never had a choice really; in this rescue mission I hoped would be successful.
The pain had settled to the very corners of my lungs, and the cramps I’d felt beginning to edge my calf and thigh muscles faded a little as I pushed through the blue.
I was a little disappointed with the ocean so far. All I could see was very fine white sand beneath me, and shimmering pale blue all around. It occurred to me as I swam that it would be infinitely easy to get lost in a great expanse like this. There were no defining features on the sea bed, no sense of direction either.
Of the myriad hurried instructions I’d been given by Sabrina as she’d packed my bag, before we’d left the now ruined cave that had been the Oceanids’ home for decades, a major one had been to always swim in the middle of the blue. Swimming at the surface would leave me vulnerable to human sightings from the top and shark attacks from below. Swimming at the bottom left me accessible to predators that lurked beneath the sand and in the nooks and crannies of the sea floor. Her instructions, although helpful, had left me with no illusions as to where I was now placed in the food-chain.
Oceanids, while similar to humans in appearance and, with training, even in mannerisms, did not rule the sea as humans did the land. They were vulnerable to the larger oceanic predators, now more than ever as the very substance I was swimming through had turned on them, spreading human pollution and poison everywhere and weakening them to the point of extinction.
While I hated Neith and his followers for taking Merrick and hurting him, desperation tainted many of their actions. I had the power to unite their talents into an unstoppable force, one that would annihilate the unsuspecting humans. Many of the Oceanids had been convinced by Neith, the leader of the aggression, that with me the Oceanids would win the war against humanity within weeks.
The problem was that I didn’t believe Neith just wanted to win. He wanted power and he was willing to spill innocent blood to get it. It didn’t matter to him whether that blood poured from human or Oceanid wounds, if it gave him control of the land and the sea and all life in between, he’d kill anything to get it.
A shudder of dread quivered through me.
We had been so trusting, Merrick and I…dutifully and excitedly reporting each new ability I’d discovered. Demonstrating my incredible power to share and unify and even enhance the Oceanids’ talents to the whole pod. It was only much later that we’d discovered the depth of the resentment they held for humans…and for me.
I’d been seen as an outsider, the half of me that was human far outweighing, in their minds, the half of me that was Oceanid. I suppose I couldn’t blame them really. I’d been so weak, so reluctant to believe the incredible heritage that was mine and unwilling to take on the leadership that heritage demanded.
I blew a stream of bubbles impatiently out of my mouth as I pushed my body to swim even faster, regret clouding the hope I felt at eventually being able to find Merrick.
If only I’d been more responsive, if only I’d learnt faster …
Regret was a waste of energy and so