were here. Lots of them. And they had Merrick with them.
I sank to the rocky sea floor and tried to work out how I could get to Merrick. I had settled on an “all guns blazing” strategy, planning to hurl every talent at them in a flurry of distraction while I tried to find Merrick.
“To the left,” a voice whispered in the water. The current of their movement swirled around me as they swam past my hiding place, paying no attention to me as I lay pressed against the rocks.
“Are you sure it’s her?” one of a group of three asked.
“I’d recognise her scent anywhere.” It was Nereus who answered. He was a powerful Traduzir, an Oceanid with the same talents as Merrick but with few ethics to temper his power. He had attacked me on the one occasion Merrick had left me alone, wanting to take me as the prize his twisted mind felt he deserved. Bile rose in my throat at the implications of being caught by him.
I risked a peek above the tumble of rocks, watching as the third shook his swirling hair as they swam away from me.
“You would have thought that the fortieth generation Gurrer would be a lot smarter wouldn’t you?”
Their voices were fading quickly and with it Merrick’s scent. I hadn’t seen him with them but it was obvious he was close.
I slipped from my hiding place and followed them, using the contours of the animal-encrusted rocks and drift of the current to carry me inconspicuously forward as I tensed every muscle in preparation for the attack.
They were laughing when I caught up to them, holding a blood-soaked rag in the current.
“This should lure her a little closer.” Nereus laughed, wringing the rag between powerful hands as the blood curled from between his fingers into a sickening stain through the turquoise water.
The force of the fragrance was unbearable, and I stifled the scream that was building in my throat by clamping my hands over my mouth. It was Merrick’s blood – so much of it – swirling around me in the current.
I allowed myself to sink onto a small patch of white sand, as I half listened to them discussing how they had soaked the rag.
“How long do we wait before we go and get some more?” one of them asked.
“Oh there’s another rag already being prepared,” Nereus replied as the others laughed cruelly.
Fury burnt hot at my centre as I pulled all of my focus into creating the most powerful ball of energy I could make, feeling it form on the palms of my hands and blowing out a stream of bubbles as I prepared to launch it at them.
Nereus stopped mid-sentence.
“Did you feel that?” he whispered.
“Yeah, that wasn’t good, that’s gonna hurt,” replied another.
“No, no that is very good,” Nereus replied.
“She’s very close. Spread out and see if you can find her.”
“I’m not facing that alone,” another replied.
“It wasn’t a request.” Nereus’s anger was tinged with fear.
Their immediate movement dissolved my plan of attack. I couldn’t incapacitate them if they weren’t all in one place. I reabsorbed the energy ball I’d been about to release on them with a shudder as it skittered up my arm coldly, and focused all of my attention on disguise again.
They swam around me for ages, one of them dipping into the hollow where I was pressed into the sand, his beautiful face completely inhuman in the water. On land Oceanids looked human. In the water, their skin held an alien undertone of rainbow hues, some, like the Miengu, an emerald green, others varying shades of yellow, red and blue. Their pupils dilated to almost completely cover their blue irises as they searched the water for me.
“She’s over there,” one of them whispered urgently, “I just picked up her scent.”
The Oceanid floating above me swam quickly away.
“You go and see if you can find her, I’ll wait here,” replied Nereus.
I waited, holding my body completely still.
I jumped when my name curled around me in the current, his voice sickening as he described in infinite detail what he planned to do to me when he caught me.
I focused on containing and burying the revulsion and fear his words sparked in me, realising that he must be watching for the colour these emotions would release into the water.
Sabrina had commented once – what felt like a lifetime ago – as she watched me contain my frustration, on how she’d thought that would be useful someday. I hadn’t understood what she meant, but the longer I spent in this foreign liquid world the more I understood how easy communication was, even when that communication could be lethal.
“Let’s go,” Nereus ordered eventually. “Neith thinks she might be using a different tactic. Maybe she didn’t follow the scent from the rag.”
Their voices were fading again as they moved and I slipped after them, relieved to finally put my plan into action.
“I’m not sure that wasn’t her we felt earlier – all that rage is difficult to disguise.”
“Then why did she disappear?”
“She is weak,” Nereus said dismissively. “She places individuals’ lives over the good of the group. I probably would have followed her, if not for that pathetic quality.”
“I thought you hated her?”
“Yes, but she is the most powerful Oceanid ever born and I want to be on the winning team, because only the victors get the spoils.”
They laughed, picking up their pace so that I had to swim with every forwards push of the current to keep up.
“I’m glad we’re protected by rock though,” another one muttered. “I wouldn’t want to be in the open ocean when she unleashes that fury.”
“Yeah, at least at Ferengren there are multiple layers of protection, out here we’d be fish food.”
I allowed them to swim ahead of me, wanting a little distance between us and using the scent from the rag they carried as a guide to their hideaway.
Within a short while they’d left the reef. I dithered on the edge of the life-encrusted rocks and colour-infused coral, staring out at the expanse of white sand and shimmering water. The reef was the only real landmark I knew in the confusing sameness of the open ocean. Once I left it there was no guarantee I’d find it, or anything else I recognised again.
Once I left it I was committed to going after Merrick alone.
His scent was fading in the ever-flowing current being swept gently away and distorting the direction they were going. I couldn’t leave him to whatever cruelty had produced that much blood. I couldn’t abandon him. And so I swam into the never-ending blue, determination and fear warring in equal parts as I followed the trail of blood of the only man I’d ever loved.
The ocean floor was disturbingly void of any appearance of life, the white sand a gently undulating desert that spread out on all sides around me. It was at least relatively easy to disguise myself and swim at the same time.
I’d been gauging the depth of the water for some time, wondering if perhaps Ferengren was on land and not underwater as I’d assumed it was, when the scent I’d been following all but disappeared. I stopped, turning slowly in the water and trying to control the fear that blossomed in my chest at the thought of losing that scent. I could search for weeks and never find them, the ocean here was a vast white and blue canvas with nothing to indicate direction.
A