Don’t thrash, Ranan had told me. Only prey thrashes.

The watery tunnel itself seems to be narrow. I remember bumping along against the uneven sides of the wall as Ranan pulled me through. Perhaps instead of swimming, I can pull myself through to the other side. It’ll be just like climbing into the hay loft in a barn, I tell myself.

Except narrow and underwater and dark.

Gods.

Vor, help me, I pray silently. Help me find my husband.

I ease into the water, tucking my clothing tight around my body. After a moment’s hesitation, I emerge, grab a jeweled dagger, and then return to the water with my weapon in my belt. It takes some doing before I’m brave enough to submerge myself, and even more before I can convince myself to go underwater for longer than the span of a breath.

“Just do it,” I chant to myself. “Just go. Think about it later.”

I suck in a deep breath, hold my nose, and plunge myself underwater. I tell myself not to panic, to grab the rocky wall just as I’ve been practicing, and guide myself forward. I pull myself along in the tunnel, and when I can’t hold my breath any longer, I open my eyes. The salt water stings them, but I see a circle of light up ahead and push through, inwardly whimpering.

I come out the other side with a sobbed gasp and cough hard, water dripping down my face. It’s a weird sense of triumph to feel after swimming (pulling) myself down a short span, but I’m thrilled at my progress. I did it. I did it by myself, and I didn’t think it was possible.

I pull myself to the rocky shoreline and sit upon it, gasping and streaming water. Immediately, Akara bellows again and then the massive turtle is heading in my direction. She’s enormous, twice the size of any modest farmhouse, and for a moment I’m frozen with fear.

But she stops short of my spot on the shore and slaps her flippers in the water and bellows again.

“I see you,” I tell her. “But I don’t know what’s wrong.”

The turtle bellows again, her sharp, triangular face looming ever closer to mine. I swallow hard and then gently reach up to stroke her nose. She could snap me in half with that terrible beak of hers, but Ranan adores the turtle. He speaks to her somehow, and I wish I could. “I don’t know how to help,” I tell her, running my fingers along the ridges of her nose. “I don’t know how to talk to you.”

To my surprise, my mind floods with images of Ranan. All of them blurry and unfocused, but all of them Ranan. I jerk my hand back in surprise.

Like a puppy, Akara shoves her nose under my hand again.

Once more, a flood of mental images of Ranan pierce my thoughts.

“I’m worried about him, too,” I tell her, hesitantly stroking her nose. Is this how Ranan communicates with her? Through mental images? “But I don’t know where he is.”

Akara’s great head swivels and she tosses it, splashing me with water as she thrashes. She lets out a low bellow and then looks at me expectantly.

“You know where he is?” I guess.

The turtle bellows again, nearly shaking the rocks with the force of her response.

I get to my feet, wobbly. “Can you take me there?”

The noise she makes is affirmation, I hope. Either that or a burp. She pushes back from the shore, as if taking off already.

“Wait,” I call out, chasing after her. “Wait for me! I can’t swim like you!”

I paddle out to the turtle’s head and when she nudges me, I try to get on her sloping back. The top of her shell is flat, but the sides are mossy and slick with slime and water, and I can’t find purchase. I scramble to climb on board and manage to do so after several pathetic attempts. Akara is patient, at least. Panting, I get to my feet atop her and put my hands on my hips. “Let’s go find him, then. I’m with you.”

The turtle lets out another burp of air and sinks into the water, just a little. I spread my feet to steady myself as she shifts, turning about in the shallow cove and then the powerful, sail-like flippers push off.

I float off on a turtle’s back, alone, into the wide open sea.

Chapter

Seventeen

VALI

Time passes slowly. Akara continues to swim, heading constantly in what feels like the same direction. For a long time, there’s nothing on the horizon but more endless blue, and it makes me nervous. Where is she going, exactly?

But then a thin needle appears on the horizon and grows steadily larger. As we approach, I can see it’s a lone tree, out in the middle of what feels like nowhere. A lone tree, and the tiniest slice of rocky, sandy shore.

And upon it? The familiar, greenish skin of one of the seakind.

“Ranan,” I breathe as Akara gets close enough that I can make out his collapsed form. I shield my eyes from the afternoon sunlight. He doesn’t stir as Akara pulls herself against the rocks and bellows again, loud and plaintive.

When she doesn’t move closer, I realize she can’t. Akara is meant for swimming and floating, and if she tries to get over those dagger-like rocks that line the shallows around the land-spit, she’ll end up stranding herself.

It’s up to me, then. I move to the edge of the turtle’s shell and jump into the shallow waters. There are schools of small fish here, and little crabs that scurry away when I splash down. I wade over to the tiny slice of shore, where the sand looks as if it’s mixed with stone, and the lone tree clings to the rocks, its roots like a gnarled hand gripping the land tight. There’s a few dark blobs scattered in the shadow that look like oversized nuts. If I were here alone, I’d be intrigued by this little bit of land in the midst of nowhere. For someone who has lived all her life on the outskirts of the same city, the openness here is unnerving and fascinating at the same time.

But Ranan comes first.

I scramble to his side, ignoring the sharp jabs of the rocks on the undersides of my bare feet. “Ranan!” I touch his throat, feeling for the pulse of his heartbeat, and I’m relieved to feel it thrumming underneath his greenish skin. He’s hot and dry, though, his skin burning under the endless sunlight. He needs water and shade. Did he pass out from exhaustion? Heat? I skim my gaze over him, looking for issues…and stop when I see one leg tucked under another. There’s a tourniquet tied around the calf of one leg, and it’s swaddled in what looks like strands of seaweed from the shallows.

The sand around him is dark with blood. How am I just now seeing this? I thought it was a shadow. My body clenched tight with fear, I reach down and brush some of the seaweed away. It’s even worse than I thought. His leg looks as if it’s been ripped at from the knee down, like a sleeve being torn from a dress. I can see bone. I can see loose flesh. And over all of it is sandy grit.

No wonder he’s fevered.

“We’re going to fix this,” I swear to the unconscious Ranan. I won’t allow myself to panic. He needs help, and I’m the only one that’s around, so it has to be me. I’m not much of a medic, but I’ve sewn up many torn robes. Hopefully I can start from there. Stopping the bleeding is the first issue.

I glance around the tiny land spit, but there’s no shelter except under the fronds of the lone tree. I eye my surroundings and then Akara’s empty back, thinking longingly of the shelter that is normally set up there. Ranan must have removed it when we went to the grotto. I should have considered this when I climbed on Akara’s back earlier, but I was too panicked. All I’ve got is my knife and my tunic.

It’ll have to do.

Eyeing my clothing, I decide Ranan needs it more than I do. I pull off my brand new tunic and slit up the sides of the careful stitches I’d made just days ago. With the fabric, I make a long length and then roll Ranan’s heavy, limp body onto the end of it. I use the fabric as a makeshift travois and drag him to the shade of the tree itself. The leaves protect from the worst of the sun, so I settle Ranan against the trunk of it and then get to work on cleaning his leg.