The Sirens Gift

Chapter 14

My consciousness came back slowly, my brain becoming aware of each of my hearts beating, my breath steadily rising and falling. I slowly began to feel the ache in my arms, starting from my shoulders to my elbows, then into my forearms before feeling came back to my fingers. Then from my upper thighs down into my knees, my calf muscles flexed as my nerves began to fire up, coursing and warmth tingling down to my feet and into my toes. The static in the tips of my fingers caused me to grip my hands into fists multiple times as they intensified and then dulled.

I could feel a soft material beneath me, my fingers dug into a silk-like sheet each time I balled them up. My right arm still ached, I could feel the length of the gash pulsating. My face flinched as the ache became more apparent. It wasn’t as excruciating as it had been when Otis had inflicted it, but it sure wasn’t pleasant in the least.

I went to move my hand to my face to wipe the itching feeling from my eyes. There was a light pressure on my arm as I moved. The pressure was hardly noticeable but simultaneously familiar in a strange way, as if I’d been used to the feeling of my limbs moving in this same way.

It took me a few moments to think of the feeling, trying to remember why it felt so comfortable to me despite being foreign to my normal life.

Water… I thought after a while.

I was in water… the familiar pressure was the light resistance of water on my body as it moved.

When I took a breath it was cool and smooth. It felt like taking a long swig of fresh water after being in the sun for hours, the cooling rush of water settling in your stomach as you drink. My throat caught on the water however, and sputtered as I sat up, coughing painfully. I gripped my hand to my chest and folded over my stomach. My abdomen contracted with each cough.

I heard a bubbling woosh around me.

“Addy!” A deep voice faltered with my name. It was smooth and unfamiliar. A hand wrapped carefully around my shoulder, patting my back gently.

I looked up as my cough subsided to see glistening eyes of viridian, beneath a swirling head of auburn curls. His neck was clad in a familiar choker-style necklace.

He smiled as our eyes met and wrapped his thick arms around my shoulder, warmth enveloping me as he squeezed, his cheek pressed into mine. I felt one of his hands grip the nape of my neck and he held me there tightly, it was as if he was afraid to let me go.

“C-cas…”

“Are you okay?” He asked, looking over my face, as his hands landed on my shoulders.

“Caspian…” I was awestruck by the bright colour of his eyes, so much so I failed to even take in my surroundings as we stared at one another “You… you can talk…” I squeaked.

“Is that really what your biggest concern is currently?” He asked as he shook his head.

“Y-you…” I paused and shook my head with him. I felt my hair swirl around my shoulders, a ringing noise radiating into my ears. I flinched and put my left hand to my ear, trying to block the sound out, but the pressure behind my eardrum only amplified the ache. “Ah, f**k…”

“That should go away as your ears acclimate…” his voice softened at the notion.

“Acclimate?” I asked.

“To the pressure.”

“f**k that hurts…” I growled.

“Yeah… I’ve heard it can be uncomfortable for a bit…” He responded.

“Where… am I?” I asked as I opened my eyes, still holding one hand to my ear. I looked around to a room of stone walls. I was on some sort of bed. I could tell it wasn’t exactly a mattress but a bed made up of some soft material covered in a silky sheet that rippled gently when we moved. The walls had sconces of glowing amber orbs that flickered like fire.

“My home…”

“Your home?” I asked, pausing to look at him, then back to the room. “Inside… the reef?” I scanned over the room. The shelving was made from different types of stones and coral; small, rusted trinkets sat on the shelves. The floor was fine sand and different rocks and corals made up decorations on the edges of the walls. Schools of tiny yellow and blue fish swam through the coral chunks and streaks of light filtered in through holes in the walls no bigger than the porthole of a ship.

He nodded. “Inside the reef.” he repeated.

“How…” I asked.

“I got reports of a suspicious boat in the vicinity…” he began, “I was sent with one of the other guards to scout it out and make sure it wasn’t of risk… Lyr and I found you…”

“Guard?”

He nodded, “I’m part of the guard for our people…”

“The… merpeople?” I asked. He smiled and nodded. “Who is Lyr?”

“Lyr is my partner, one of my closest friends, we typically patrol together…” he added. “Anyway… When we got to the area I recognized the boat, it was definitely Otis. I told Lyr we needed to leave and keep the area off limits until he left… but… then I heard you…”

“You heard me?”

“We have great hearing actually.” He let out a small chuckle, “I couldn’t leave knowing you were in that boat… so Lyr kept watch while I stayed close to make sure you were okay… then I heard you scream…”

My eyes widened as I looked down at my right arm, remembering how Otis slashed his knife into my forearm. The cut was neatly stitched with thin wire. “Fishing wire…?” I asked.

“Only the best.” He laughed. I couldn’t help but grin. Then his smile dissipated as his eyes fell on the gash across my arm. His body twisted and he sat beside me on the bed. His pelvic fins flowed with his body and slowly laid down over his lap. He kicked his tail out over the floor, releasing a plume of crystal like white sand around his fin as it nestled into the ground. “Lyr tried to get me to leave, we’d been in the area way longer than we should have with a boat around… but then he tossed you in… I couldn’t leave you knowing you’d drown…”

“What… about the sharks…? I asked, “There were atleast 5 prowling around when he dropped me in…”

“They don’t bother us.” He responded with a shrug, “We live in a very peaceful harmony with them. In fact… they hadn’t even tried to come at you… they were still pretty focused on the chum when I got to you…”

I took a moment, stewing on his words as I stared at the cleanly sutured cut across my arm, marveling at its neat appearance. It still ached, pain radiating into my arm with every movement.

“It’ll heal pretty quickly…” he said softly through the silence as I stared.

“You think?”

“We have good medicine down here… it should heal just fine.”

“I can’t stay…” I said softly, my voice cracking slightly, a sob nearly escaping my throat.

“But… If you go back… he’ll come for you again…”

“I have to… I don’t even know how long I’ve been gone…”

“About a day and a half… you’ve been sleeping Since we got you back to the reef…”

“My family is probably worried about me, Caspian…” I sighed. Then I looked up into his eyes. The deep green sparkled under the lights overhead.

His hand slipped beneath my chin, his fingers moving into my hair as he leaned into me. His lips pressed against mine, a familiar feeling taking over me as our lips locked together. As if we had kissed before… as he separated from me, he gave me an understanding nod before pushing himself from the bed.

“Okay… let’s…”

“Wait…” I ordered, he stopped, floating still in the water before me. “Did you… have we… kissed before…?”

I watched the silver collar around his neck shift as he swallowed. Then he slowly fell back to sit on the bed beside me. His tail fins ruffled back into the sand as they fell.

“The… only way to share a mermaid's gift… is to form a bond between the two beings…”

“A bond?”

He nodded, “Something that bridges a human to a mermaid… it can be as simple as a kiss… or…” his voice slowed.

“Or?”

“W-well… our ancestors used to use blood pacts with human allies…”

A shiver ran through my body at the mention. “Ew…” I grimaced.

“Yeah… pretty rough stuff…” he sighed.

We sat quietly for a few moments, then I looked back up at him.

“Hey Caspian… Weren't your eyes black before?”

“Oh… yes.”

“They are green now…”

He nodded. “Our eyes are sensitive to the UV rays of the sun… when we come to the surface our irises turn black to protect them. Once we get below the water they turn their normal colours…”

“That happen to everyone?” I ask. He shrugs.

“As far as I know. Yeah.” He glanced over and I caught his grin from the corner of my eye.

“What?” I asked.

“You just always have questions.” He laughed as he nudged my shoulder with his own.

“Guess I’m just curious.” We shared a laugh together.

“I can take you back to the surface when you’re ready…”

“Yeah… I should stop procrastinating…”

He stood and stretched his arms above his head as his tail curled back and over itself. I tried to do the same, but as I rose my body seemed to float forward. I couldn’t catch myself and flipped myself over where I caught my hands and knees in the soft sand of the floor.

I heard Caspian chuckle gently before his hand came into view in front of me.

“Woah…” I started.

“You won’t be able to walk…” he said softly as I placed my hand in his. He gently pulled and my body effortlessly followed. Instinctively trying to raise my body like I would have if I had fallen on land, I pushed off with one foot as I stabilized it beneath me, floating slightly over him. “Gravity doesn’t really work the same down here.”

“It feels so strange.” I mentioned as he helped right me by grabbing my other hand in his and holding them in front of him. He gently guided me down to be face to face with him. My feet floated off the floor by only a few inches, but I watched his tail fins ripple with the water.

“I’ll get you back to land…” he said almost sadly.

“Thank you Caspian…”