Waveborn

44

                  

The rock where they stood stretched long and low above the water; this near high tide, only a few feet remained dry. Wet painted the rest black, a black distinguishable from the surrounding waves only by its lack of movement.

At the far end, behind Cass, the rock seemed to grow and rise, blotting out the moon-silvered waves beyond. She blinked, not understanding; then the shape resolved into a body, a tall, slender silhouette with a rope of white falling over one shoulder. It shifted and Cass saw the face of her grandmother. The Matriarch, Selena had called her.

She stepped backward and, doing so, caught her foot and wobbled on the edge of falling.

The Matriarch stepped past as if Cass didn't exist. Her black-swathed arm slid against Cass's, wet and slick and smelling of seaweed, as she grasped Selena by the shoulder. "Why did you turn back? What is wrong?"

"Nothing," Selena stammered. She pulled against the woman's grip.

"The clans are coming. Take him down or I'll do it herself."

Selena twisted uselessly in the woman's grip. "He was dying, Aama. He couldn't make the change."

"So let him die," the Matriarch hissed. "He's human."

"He may be human," Selena said, "but he's not a fish. Aama, I've watched him. He's a person. Like us."

Abruptly, the Matriarch dropped her arm. "He's human. That is enough to condemn him. Will you take him or not?"

"I can't."

"Then I'll do it myself." The woman started past Selena, to where Jason sprawled half-conscious on the ground.

Selena darted in front of her. "I won't let you."

Cass had watched their exchange frozen, teetering on the edge of panic, but Selena's words grounded her. She ducked under the older woman's arm to stand alongside Selena—alongside her sister. "I won't let you, either," she said.

When the Matriarch fixed her gaze on Cass, it was all she could do not to turn and run. She braced herself for a blow.

Instead, the woman laughed. "You."

Cass had one heartbeat when she knew what was coming, knew what the Matriarch would do. She lifted her hands, thinking cover to her ears and block the words, even though she knew it couldn't help.

"Leave," the Matriarch said. Her voice—Voice—rolled over Cass with the ocean's wild power, flattening everything that was her. It wiped her mind clear like a tidal wave wiping clear a beach. "Leave. Now."

Her words pushed her irresistibly backward, step by step by step. It resonated at a level deeper than bones or blood or breath, melting all thought and emotion.

NO!

Cass didn't know if she screamed the word aloud or only in her head, but the force of it cleared her mind just enough that she could feel herself grabbing hold of everything she knew and was before the Matriarch could drag it away.

Voice.

Memory shoved through the thrumming aftercurrents left by the woman's words. Something about her voice did this....

Leave. Now.

Cass's feet skidded backward across the stone, crushing layered barnacles and shells to dust. Water spilled through her sandal straps and pooled in the curved soles.

Two Cass's struggled for control of her body: one Cass single-mindedly obeying the Matriarch's command, the other writhing underneath. The silent Cass saw the Matriarch move again toward Jason's prone form, saw Selena intercept her, saw their arms tangle.

The silent Cass tried to lunge toward them, to help, and failed.

Another backward step. Rock dropped away beneath her foot.

Selena and the Matriarch wrestled. Metal flashed in the woman's hand.

Cass screamed warning.

No sound emerged.

She was falling, falling backward, back into the sea.

In that moment, when water closed over her head, the Matriarch's voice folded over her resistance. Cass felt herself fading. No, no, no, no, no, no—

Sinking.

Leave.

Force her eyes to open.

Now.

Why? Why could she do this?

Voice, she remembered, but the memory was mist.

What was Voice?

Leave.

Voice was Serran.

Her legs kicked, independent of her control, moving her away from Remembrance Rock.

Now.

She blinked.

Leave.

Fireflies.

Now.

Fireflies of luminescent blue bloomed across her skin.

They pricked through her consciousness.

Voice was Serran, she thought, and it was her own thought, no one else's.

Leave.

She was Serran.

Cass opened her mouth, let water pour in.

Move past the panic, Selena had said.

I am Serran.

She twined heart and soul and sound and scream—

She screamed until her own voice, her own VOICE

Covered all.

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Xoxo

And she awoke.