Wading Through the Waters of the Past
“Well, that’s an incredibly sobering notion,” Finn said after a beat of stunned silence, his hand still resting on my shoulder.
“You’ve had half a mug of mead, you lightweight pipsqueak,” Winona scoffed, rolling her eyes. She gently laid Emilee’s head on the floor as a barkeep rushed over, draping a white linen over her lifeless body. “Your wee friend had more mead than you, and she handled it way better.” She jerked her chin at me.
What a rotmongerer!
Heat surged up my spine, my fingers twitching at my sides. We’d just watched someone she loved die in her arms, and she was taking cheap shots at me?
“No one but my family is allowed to call me wee,” I muttered, my voice like flint striking stone. My hand curled into a fist before I even realized it.
Why was I so angry with her?
There’d been height jokes from tall-folk I met all my life. They usually rolled off of me like rain on a cloak. But right now, my ribs felt tight, my breath sharp. Was it because we’d done nothing but try to help her, and she was still acting like a straight-up moss-eater? Or was it something worse?
A lump formed in my throat. Because all I could think about was how I’d done nothing but watch Emilee die. Just like how I’d hidden and run away the night of the raid instead of helping my village.
The weight on my chest pressed harder as Winona sat there — indignant, closed off. What was wrong with her? How could she be so cold?
A hand slid over mine, halting the tension winding through my muscles. Toni. His grip was steady, grounding. I’d been ready to swing on her. He knew. He saw what I was about to do and stopped me.
“I know you’re in pain right now,” he murmured to her, his fingers squeezing mine in a slow, steady rhythm. “But you probably shouldn’t take it out on the people who want to help you. I might not have known her like you did, but treating my friends poorly doesn’t really reflect well on Emilee’s final moments.”
His words landed like a gut punch, cracking through the haze of my anger. My pulse still thudded in my ears, but the fire in my chest dulled, flickering with the uncertainty.
Winona’s green-gray face darkened, her lips pressing into a hard line as she lowered her eyes.
I sucked in a slow breath, held it until my ribs ached, then let it seep out between my teeth.
In… hold… out. Again.
A trick Ma had taught me when I was younger — to steady my hands when they shook, to stop my thoughts from spiraling. The red mist in my vision faded. My fingers uncurled.
“Will you even let us help you?” I asked, my voice quieter now, rough around the edges.
Winona didn’t look up, but her cider-colored eyes blinked back tears too quickly, too forcefully.
Oh.
Something cracked in my chest. The grief she carried wasn’t just for Emilee. It ran deeper, burrowing into her bones like an old wound that had never healed right. How many times had she lost someone like this? Like me?
The sharp edges of her earlier words dulled. She wasn’t a prideful warrior sneering at our help. She was someone who was unraveling, fraying at the seams, fighting to keep her walls high and impenetrable.
Was she truly all on her own now?
“I already said yes,” Winona snorted and huffed like we weren’t listening to her. “How much blood sample do you need to find an antidote?”
Well, she was back in tough mode, shutting us out. I couldn’t blame her, really. If I looked half as strong as she did, I wouldn’t want anyone to see weakness in me either. But I was — as she put it — wee. And I was weak. So, no, I didn’t understand her need to lock it all away, but I could see it.
I forced my thoughts toward the task ahead of us. Fighting some sort of clan with poisoned daggers. That was bad enough. But if they’d killed Emilee — who seemed to be trained to fight them — what chance did we have?
Oh no. A slow, creeping horror settled over me. What had I agreed to?
Had I just signed over our deaths as willy-nilly as someone handing over a silver coin for another round of mead?
I wasn’t ready to face off against murderers. I wasn’t ready.
So why had I so quickly volunteered Finn, Toni, and myself? I was smart enough to step back and ask questions. Why hadn’t I done that this time?
Because you were trying to prove something.
The realization twisted inside me like a dagger.
I gulped, the mead sitting heavy at the bottom of my stomach — a pit of dread. If I died, who would protect the village from the raiders?
Toni leaned over the shroud, carefully, respectfully, moving Emilee’s body to take a vial of her blood. Winona gaze never left his hands, watching every move he made with discerning focus. He corked the vial and stood up from the ground.
He corked the vial, wrapped it in cloth, and placed it inside his backpack. “I’ll get to work studying the poison at the apothecary further in town. I should have an antidote by the morning.”
Winona stood and then stooped down, arms slipping beneath Emilee’s body and shroud. The fabric barely shifted as she lifted her friend, the movement precise, practiced.
“Then, I will meet you back here in the morning,” she said, stalking toward the door. The crowd parted for her without a word.
Finn hesitated, then took a step after her. “What are we supposed to do in the meantime? Should we come with you, Winona?”
“Guild members only where I’m going,” Winona said over her shoulder.
I didn’t see her leave. My eyes had locked onto the blood soaking into the floorboards.
The adults of the shire had kept all the children inside for two days after the raid — so they could clean up. Obviously, they couldn’t rebuild homes in two days, but when Ma and Da had sent Liora, Pippa, Myra, Tamsin, and me off to the park on the third day after the raid, the places where I’d seen the bodies were spick and span.
Like nothing had happened. Even though something awful had happened.
I never told anyone about Maester Bobbins and the other dying small-folk I fled from. Not Finn. Not Ma and Da. No one.
Sometimes, I even forgot what I saw — until a nightmare came along, dragging me back to the blood and screams.
Would Emilee’s death haunt me, too?
I hadn’t run this time, but what had I really done? Just… sat there. Watched her die.
I was too weak to protect anyone. Too useless to stop death. Again.
Toni packed up the leftover bottles and herbs he’d pulled from his bag while preparing a potion for Emilee. Then he closed over the cloth top, and secured it by the leather ties.
“Can we go with you, Toni?” I asked, finally pulling focus from the floor. “I can go find ingredients you might need or help keep watch of something.”
“The apothecary probably wouldn’t like having three strangers showing up to use their lab,” Toni said, placing a hand on top of my head. “They’re usually a bit reclusive. I’m betting on my connection to the Convent of Celestial Repair as a way to gain a few hours of study time. I promise I will be careful.”
“What are we supposed to do, then?” Finn asked. I needed something to do, or I’d ruminate. Emilee’s death had broken some kind of dam inside of me, and I was barely holding it together.
“Eat something and get a good night’s rest,” Toni said, patting me several more times. “We paid for a room, so someone needs to use it.”
We nodded, accepting the fact that we weren’t going with him. Toni lifted his bag onto his shoulder and slipped through the parted crowd that Winona had left in her wake.
Finn and I exchanged glances, neither of us speaking. I wasn’t in the mood for eating. Especially not here.
The tavern’s energy had shifted back into an easy hum of conversation and clinking mugs, as if nothing had happened. No one came over. No one asked questions. Did people move past death this easily in Shallow Tides Bay?
Or was it that someone dying of a poisoned stab wound was just… normal here?
The air felt stale in my lungs.
“You know, Toni didn’t say we couldn’t leave,” Finn said after a couple of quiet moments passed between us.
“I wouldn’t mind leaving for a little bit and getting our mind off of what we just saw,” I replied.
Finn let out a forced, single laugh. “Everyone just went back to what they were doing. Emilee was a stranger to me too, but I can’t shake the sight of her from my mind.”
I stared into the fireplace. The flames crackled, flickering shadows against the walls.
And for a moment, I saw them — the small-folk I left behind.
Dying.
Bleeding.
Calling out for help.
I’d lived a majority of my days not thinking about them, mostly happy with the life that Hill Hollow Shire provided for me. Should I have stayed? Should I tell Finn to forget all of this and go back where it was safe?
Except… it wouldn’t be safe forever. I had to keep reminding myself of that fact.
Hellbringer was planning to return to Hill Hollow. But not if I stopped him.
That was why we were here. That was why I left.
I took a final slow breath, banishing the shadows from my mind, and hooked my arm through Finn’s, pulling him toward the door.
“It will fade with some time,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if I believed it. “Let’s walk around a bit. We passed a maritime museum on our way here. Maybe we can play historian for a bit — I’m sure Miss Tutenhald would be thrilled if we brought back knowledge to share.”
“If we’re not fired, that is,” Finn said, skirting us around the trail of blood leading to the door and walking confidently through a more boisterous crowd than our companions just walked through.
***
At the Shallow Tides Maritime Museum and Historical Site — named so because the museum used to be the ferry building before the ocean levels were magically lowered in the bay — Finn managed to smooth-talk our way into staying after closing.
It wasn’t a Hill Hollow charm that convinced them, to my dismay. It was the librarian’s assistant kind of charm. But either way, we got a sort of private tour of the museum.
An old elven man introduced himself as Guilstad the Wise, and toddled slowly in front of us, pointing to paintings and ship parts of legendary vessels that were cast in golden light from sconces on the walls. Guildtad’s crackly voice, like brittle parchment rustling in the wind, narrated each relic’s story with an unshaken patience that reminded me of the rocking of the Onyx Glory.
Where was Toni’s Miracle Potion when you needed it?
I couldn’t have cared less about the shipwrecks of the Ghost Galleon or The Leviathan that he lectured on.
Because I’d never seen an old elf before. They lived lifetimes longer than other races, but every elven person I’d met had kept their youth about them. But Guilstad? His pale skin was thin as rice paper, stretched taut over high cheekbones. His silver hair, unbound and wild, glowed like sea foam under lantern light.
Guilstad had to be very old. Like, older than the building we were in, old.
He stopped before an elegant, pale longboat suspended underwater inside a glass case.
“This is a mer-folk-built longboat,” Guilstad rasped, resting a gnarled hand on the glass. “Designed so land dwellers could travel freely through their underwater cities.”
I stepped closer, peering into the case. The water inside was unnaturally still, reflecting my curious gaze. “I thought mer-folk liked to eat land dwellers.”
Guilstad cackled. “Not every sea-dweller is a siren, Kithri. Think about it. All of us here on land are unique and different, so why wouldn’t those living in the sea be similar?” He shook his head, as if I’d suggested something utterly ridiculous.
I rolled my eyes. Thank goodness he couldn’t see now that I was right on top of the longboat casing. Detailed, delicate carvings decorated the opalescent wood of the boat. It looked like writing in a language I didn’t know, but I couldn’t be sure.
According to the plaque on the wall, the language had been lost to time but was what enchanted the boat to move through the water. Did it still work or was the casing just for show?
Down the hall, Guilstad began speaking again. I shuffled to join where he and Finn stood. They’d stopped in front of a huge diorama filled with coral reefs and sunken ships. The Coral Graveyard. A site in the Celestial Sea, which was to the north of Dellegan and the Golden Sea, where wreckage settled. Guilstad said more about it, but my focus was already down the hall where a sign read “Siren Song Booth.”
When he finished, I pulled Finn to the room. Guilstad said something at our backs and it sounded a little like a warning but I didn’t bother to care. I clicked the door shut and pressed one of the buttons in the room. Music floated around the room, soaking into the padded walls. Finnan leaned close to the speaker, in a trance-like state. No wonder there was padding…
I clicked the music off, but Finn stood motionless, staring where the music had previously been playing from. “Oi, no mermaids here to lure you to your death,” I said, shaking my friend’s shoulders.
He blinked, light coming back to his eyes. “Well, that’s dangerous.”
“Maybe we can prank Toni with it in the coming days,” I suggested.
Finn shrugged his shoulders. “I have a feeling a sailor would know better than to enter a room by the name of siren,” he said.
A knock at the door sounded and I opened it. Guilstad jumped back, plugging his ears with his fingers, but when he saw Finn up and responsive, he lowered his hands from his head.
“I’ve got some closing duties to attend to, but I trust that you can responsibly enjoy the artifact room as I finish with my work for the day,” Guilstad said pointing to a heavy wooden door behind him and giving Finn a look that connoted some sort of secret pact between librarians and historians. “Say toodle-oo before you go so I know to lock up.”
I waited until the old elf had rounded a corner to somewhere off-limits for museum guests before whispering, “What a strange man.”
Finn snorted. “I don’t know. I kinda liked him. He reminded me of my grandpops, a little… but that could just be the toddle in his walk making me think that.”
I never had the chance to meet Finn’s grandpops. They’d moved to Hill Hollow Shire after he died. From what I knew about him, he’d been Finn’s favorite person.
Finn’s mood began shifting back toward sad. We’d come here to distract ourselves. Instead of pressing, I nudged him toward the door, “Why don’t we go responsibly enjoy the artifacts’ room, huh?”
Finn grinned and pushed the creaking door open to the next room.
Inside, a high-vaulted chamber stretched before us, the ceiling lost in flickering shadows. Towering marble pillars held up the roof, and suspended between them, a skeleton of a giant sea serpent snaked through the room like a monstrous guardian.
I inhaled sharply. Its massive skull loomed overhead, fang jaws set like it was ready to swallow unwelcome guests whole. The long, coiled bones wrapped around the pillars, a silent testament to the monster’s size.
“I’m sure glad we didn’t run into one of those,” I said, gulping down the bile that rose from my empty stomach.
Finn walked over to a golden plaque hanging on the wall beneath one of its colossal ribs. He read it silently and clenched his jaw. “Uh really lucky, actually,” he replied. Then he read from the plaque. “Donated by the Onyx Glory, under Captain Malcolm Serpentis, in memory of Lieutenant Raul of Yaunger.”
I stared at the hundred-foot-long skeleton wrapping around the room and my stomach dropped through the marble-tiled floor.
How was I supposed to defeat a man who had slain a beast like this?
Finn had wandered ahead again. “Kit,” he called, excitement lacing his voice. “You have to see this.” He was staring down into a giant case from a small step ladder.
I joined him on the step ladder, and looked down at a giant, painted map of the world. Jealousy rose at the sight of all the blue paint on the page. How much had this cost to create?
A small, hand-drawn ship moved through the blue-inked waters.
Wait. No.
Actually, yes. It only moved a little bit, so I had to blink a couple of times.
“Is this map enchanted? Can magic even do that?” I breathed. I was close enough to the glass that my breath fogged up the glass and I had to wipe it off.
“You can see the Onyx Glory docked in the harbor,” Finn said, pointing at a landmass close to where we were standing.
My eyes scanned the Golden Sea and spotted a small fleet of ships moving slowly in the water toward Stormreach. Death Becoming, Hellbringer’s ship, was among them.
“I wonder what would happen to a ship if we tried scratching them out,” I said, putting my hand to the hilt of my scimitar. I could crack the glass with enough force to break it without making too much noise. Then I rid the world of Hellbringer and his raiders for good.
“I don’t think it works like that,” Finn said, grasping my arm tightly. I met his gaze. Despite his negative response, hope flickered in his eyes.
“But,” he continued, “We could come back here after meeting the Dragon’s Head Warrior. Get an idea of where Hellbringer is and how to get to him.”
I took a slow breath. A hum of magic filled the air, lingering on my skin like static.
“…That’s not too bad of a plan,” I relented. I looked at the wide map of our world.
There was so much more world on this map than Stormsreach. Dellegan, of course. Pytenna. Roahdhan. Yaunger. The Whispering Isles. The Abyssal and Celestial Seas. Places I had only ever heard of in stories. Hill Hollow Shire would always be important to me, but it wasn’t the only place in this world.
“Let’s keep looking,” Finn said, taking my hand and pulling me toward a glowing crown in a tank nearby.
We spent almost an hour inspecting every single item in the artifact room. At the end of the room, a stone amulet carved to look like a scallop shell shone on a pedestal, unprotected by any glass exhibits like the rest of them. Its porous, blue material glowed faintly.
“Why do you think this one’s just sitting out, unlike the rest?” Finn asked.
My fingers were itching to touch it. I could feel the magic from here.
“Every other item in this room has a sealed case over it, but this is just out in the open, right next to the door,” Finn said.
“Maybe it’s too powerful for a case? Or not powerful at all?” I suggested, holding myself back from reaching out and grabbing the carved stone.
It was so interesting. So touchable.
Finn pointed to the sign next to it. “An amulet that can control the tides sounds pretty powerful in a coastal city,” he said.
“Only one way to find out,” I said, reaching over the velvet rope.
Finn yelped. “Kit, don’t—”
Too late. My fingers brushed the stone.
Something shuddered in my chest — like a current pulling beneath my skin — but it wasn’t any magic of the stone that I felt. Finn snatched my hand away from the stone. Left behind was a floating, spectral hand. My spectral hand.
It gently tapped the glowing rock with its pointer finger.
“My magic hand is back,” I said, grinning.
Finn groaned. “It left?”
I shrugged. “More importantly, this thing’s a fake. Just a carved rock with some illusion magic on it.”
“You know that just by touching the thing?” Finn said, his hand reflexively reaching over the velvet before he stopped himself.
“It’s like I can just feel the magic in it and know,” I said, making my magic hand swirl around and do a cool backward walk on its fingers. I’d seen a bard do that in one of my dreams. He was on a stage in a strange, short-brimmed, black hat and float-walked backward. I’d attempted to learn the trick myself, but I just wasn’t as talented as my imagination.
Finn tapped the rock lightly first but then put his whole hand on it. “Maybe your magic is more powerful than you think it is,” he said, repositioning the fake amulet on the pedestal. “I wouldn’t be able to tell if that was the real thing or not.”
I remembered reading a spell in my semi-permanently borrowed book from the library about identifying magical items and magic being used on items and people. I never thought I’d be able to make it work, despite my perfect memorization of the spell.
Maybe it was just that I’d never used it on magic before, and my curiosity triggered the spell. Who knows?
My stomach rumbled loudly, and my glowing hand waved and disappeared from sight like it was telling me its shift was over. “Why don’t we find somewhere to grab some fresh seafood?” I asked. We’d had some on the ship, but the variety of spices and fish was limited to what was on the boat and what we could catch during the day.
Finn nodded, his stomach growling in response to mine, and we exited to the museum’s front room. Guilstad was dusting a tall shelf by the door.
“Did you kids enjoy yourselves?” He asked, smiling pleasantly.
Finn nodded again but with more enthusiasm. “Your collection is exquisite. I can’t wait to return to Hill Hollow and share what I learned with the librarian there.”
Guilstad set down his feather duster on the front counter. “It’s too bad you kids aren’t sticking around for too long, or I’d invite you to come back during open hours to hear the stories my great-great-grandson tells during the day,” he said, and I saw some cogs turning in his brain.
“Yes, that is, really, too bad,” I said, lightly budging my friend toward the door lest we get stuck in the museum for another thirty-minute monologue about venturing on the sea from a man who never left Shallow Tides Bay.
“You know, my family makes these big seafood dinners every week, and tonight just happens to be the night of our get-together,” Guilstad said.
Finn stiffened against my pushing like he wanted to know what was coming next. “I’m sure Ethandriel would love to meet you and give you the spiel, and there’s always more than enough food to go around that two extra guests wouldn’t be a problem.”
“We’d love to come have dinner with your family,” Finn said, a bright smile blooming on his face. He wrapped an arm around me, pulling me to face the old elven man and not the door. I forced a smile. “Kit was just mentioning that she wanted some of Shallow Tides’s seafood, so this is perfect.”
So, we followed Guilstad the Wise to his home, which was up in the higher hills of the city of Shallow Tides Bay.
His home was basically a palace… but when you’re housing five generations of elves — who I learned live over seven hundred and fifty years — even a palace becomes tight quarters. It reminded me of oak home a little, besides the fact that almost everyone, even most of the children, was taller than Finn and me.
Guilstad’s wife, Cordelia, walked us past several long, polished wooden tables, crafted from the wood of ancient ships, to the ‘seats of honor,’ as she called them. I wasn’t sure if they were all that honorable since they subjected me to two more hours of Guilstad’s maritime history lessons. But with Finn’s rapt attention, Guilstad soon forgot to check if I was listening.
The air of their home was filled with laughter and conversation. Goblets filled with crisp white wine and mead infused with sweet honey and sea buckthorn clinked around me as his large family enjoyed time with one another.
I missed home. I missed my family.
Dinner started and different elven generations took turns bringing out dishes to the tables.
Towering heaps of crimson lobster claws cracked open to reveal their tender, succulent meat. Piles of bright pink shrimp glistening with a light drizzle of citrus-infused oil. Plump oysters, their shells arranged in spirals, held circles of delicate flesh topped with a dollop of tangy, spiced seaweed relish. Golden-brown crab legs were brushed with garlic butter, roasted to perfection, and stacked beside bowls of steaming mussels.
Everything could be dipped into a variety of sauces and still taste delicious — creamy lemon garlic sauce, spicy red pepper sauce, and even a rich, dark plum reduction.
For the main course, because the gods apparently wanted to spoil us, fresh fish were laid out on silver trays in front of us, accompanied by wedges of charred lemons, sprigs of fragrant herbs, and a variety of sea vegetables like kelp, samphire, and pickled sea fennel.
Every adult in the room was stuffed and tipsy by the end of the meal. I’d been so distracted that I let Guilstad’s great-great grandson, Ethandriel, tell me about the first voyage from Roahdhan to Dellegan.
For a little while, I forgot about Emilee’s death, Winona’s pain, my own past, and the weight of the journey ahead. I focused on the meal, the warmth of the hearth, and the kindness of these elves who welcomed two strangers into their home like family.
While the goodbye and thank you to Guilstad’s family lasted almost as long as the meal, Finn and I eventually made it out when the moon was peaking, and picked our way through Shallow Tides to our prepaid room at the Ale and Hay.
We snuffed out the candles beside our beds, and I stared at the swirling ceiling for a bit. Fear, dread, and guilt had started to wind back into my mind.
“Kit?” Finn whispered like he wasn’t sure if I was awake or sleeping.
“Yes, Finnan?” I whispered back.
“Despite everything good that happened today — the food, the company, the fun — I can’t get the image of Emilee out of my mind. How are you coping with seeing someone die like that for the first time?”
I turned to face him, pulling the covers of my blankets up around my neck. “It wasn’t the first time I saw someone dying because someone had hurt them,” I whispered the truth into the dark of the room. “Unfortunately, you never forget seeing someone die like that, and I don’t really know how you’re supposed to move forward from it. Sometimes, I still feel like I’m nine, watching Maester Bobbins die during the pirate raid while others died around us. Maybe it’s something that people just live with?”
For the first time, in the dark rental room at the Ale and Hay in the city of Shallow Tides Bay, I told someone the truth of what I saw ten years ago on the night of the pirate raids.
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