Page 2 of I Summon the Sea

CHAPTER ONE

Dead trees dot the water, merging with their reflections. Weeping willows trail their branches, looking like ghosts in the mist. Soft splashes echo. Jumping fish? Birds? Or lesser fairies?

The convoy is moving over the flat surface of the lagoon—a string of large barges with tall fae guards in shiny helmets and armor poised on their decks. The guards have their spears raised, ready to kill anything that might jump out of the mud and murk.

A convoy, flowing toward the Central Sea and the Pillar at the center of the world, moving through the swamps and wetlands like a river, like a snake. Slow. Narrow. Dark.

Secretive.

I’m standing inside a ruined narrowboat that’s slowly sinking. My bare feet are immersed in the cloudy water, silver fish darting over my toes. The hem of my long, white dress trails in the shivery surface, breaking it into shards. My sodden white hair clings to my neck, escaping from the knot at my nape, feeling like a noose.

It might as well be a noose, with so much hinging on this moment. I clutch my hidden treasures through my wet dress—a sheathed dagger and a pouch filled with pearls, attached to mythin leather belt and hidden in the folds of my skirt; the means necessary for entering what the fae call theanaktor, the sacred palace.

We call it the Sea Palace, for it stands on an island in the sea. Not imaginative, but descriptive enough, I suppose, in contrast to the Land Palace, the Royal Seat of the fae king on land, set among hills on the great plains.

I have seen neither palace so far, but I’m about to do my utmost best to visit the one in the sea in the coming days.

“Ho, there!” one of the guards calls out, lifting his spear high. Daylight glints on the polished spearhead, the crested helmet covering his head, and the copper hair spilling over his metal epaulets. “Who goes there?”

Patting again my hidden pouch and dagger for reassurance, I lift one of my hands in greeting.

They stare at me, and I make myself small and humble. Non-threatening.

Take me with you, I implore them with my mind.Have pity and let me on the barge. I’m but a poor maiden in need of rescue.

But they don’t hear my thoughts, of course, and I’m not permitted to use my voice. Not anymore. I hope my expression is glum enough to convey my woeful petition.

“Are you human?” he inquires, unmoved. “Or fae? Reveal yourself.”

Yeah, I knew that both my circumstances and my white hair might raise suspicion.

Lowering my hand, I turn my head and lift my wet hair, showing them my rounded ear. Then I turn and do the same for the other side.

There, see? Nothing remarkable here. An unremarkable body. Freckles. Birthmarks. Scars, inside and out.

I let my hair hide my ears again, awaiting the fae guard’s judgment.

“She’s human.” He turns to another guard who approaches him with light steps. “Do you think?—?”

“She may still have magic.” The other guard has pale blond hair spilling under his silver helmet, over the leather and metal encasing his broad shoulders. “We have to check.”

Humans rarely have magic. There are, of course, exceptions. Certain witches and wizards are known for certain powers, and objects infused with magic can sometimes be used by those born with an innate affinity with the elements. Objects like my dagger.

So the blond guard is right. You never know. And that’s without accounting for children of mixed heritage.

You see, the moment the fae landed in this world, they pillaged, raped, and produced offspring they didn’t care about, offspring they invariably killed, forcing their human mothers to take their children far away from the fae cities to hide them.

Then, some fae also had children with the finnfolk, whose magic is mostly uncharted, though just as potent. And since finnfolk can shapeshift on occasion… I could be an eldritch creature in disguise.

The only sound is the crying of seabirds over the lagoon and the splashing of the poles in the water, moving the barge forward. Soon enough, the barge will reach me and then sail by, leaving me behind.

I lift my hand again and reach toward them.Take me with you.

After long moments, the red-haired guard lifts a winged amulet, a piece of dragonbone relic lodged inside. He wants to check that I’m not finnfolk, risen from the water to infect or attack them.

It took them long enough to reach for it. Which makes sense, because I’m obviously not what they were told to fear on their way to the Sea Palace.

Fanged, clawed horrors lurking underwater? Sure.

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