Page 100 of Curse the Fae

Will my bones become part of this earth? Will the only proof I’ve been here be my pendant necklace?

The necklace! Fables forgive me, I forgot to remove it before the race!

My desperate fingers cling to my throat, but when the digits skate across my clavicles, all I feel is skin and bone. It was there. I know the necklace was there because I never unclasped and handed it to Coral for safekeeping. Somewhere between the ships and the stingrays, the necklace had snapped from my throat.

Grief stunts my pace. Yet loss tightens into determination because my sisters are alive, and they know I can weather this.

So does the water lord. The memory of Elixir’s baritone sweeps through, low and private and mine.

For as long as you can. Whatever you do. Heed this warning.

I soldier forth, pumping, kicking. The stingrays disband, splitting and forming a trench that I slip through. They fork around me, then dissipate.

At the same time, a familiar serpentine outline materializes and slithers past my vision. A reptilian mer tail flexes in and out of my periphery. His fingers race across my limbs, my shoulders, and my cheeks.

Then I swerve, and he’s there. Elixir snatches my face, his worried eyes punching through the vibrant depth. His tail strokes the place where the stingray got me, telling me it’s okay, I’ll be all right.

And the way he’s grabbing me, the way he’s searching for an impossible glimpse of my face, the way his eyes scour for something, anything to hold on to, and the way he falters when he can’t find it, when he can’t see me…

That same look, and that same hold, and that same falter blitzes through me from nine years ago. It’s familiar but different. The way he’s swimming off kilter reminds me of how he’d swam that night in the stream, when I tried to catch him.

There’s something about this visual I hadn’t recognized back then. I don’t know what it is.

A sturgeon sails past us, dissolving the moment. My lack of oxygen catches up with me. Elixir must sense that, because he presses his forehead to mine and nods in encouragement.

Just a little more. Almost there.

We twist and zoom forth. The fortification overhead vanishes, giving way to a rippling surface. I lunge upward and crash through, a great wheeze escaping my parted mouth, blessed air siphoning down my throat.

Elixir catapults from the surface, registers I’m all right, and gives me an ardent look that communicates everything I need to know. I return the look, and we vault beside one another.

He swims like he’s mated with the water, seamlessly and beautifully and violently. His body dives in and soars out of the gulf, again, and again, and again. I put my heart into it, pour my soul into it.

All the while, I pay closer attention to how he swims, his sculpted muscles rotating, his speed and agility rivaling any sea serpent in this world. I memorize his pace and rhythm. I surge his way while learning every contraction, sequence, and stroke of his body.

Yet I can’t erase that one submerged instant when he’d wavered and tried to catch sight of me, as if he could.

Leagues ahead, a rocky impasse marks The Creep of Tortoises. Rocks form different levels and outcroppings, where babbling streams tumble down the brackets. Emerald tortoises hold court atop the foundations, one of them as large as a dolphin, with reeds germinating like a garden from atop the amphibian’s shell. Although they’re land creatures, the dwellers seem to make their home in this place. They clutter the niches and crevices, and paddle through basins.

I do a mad sprint, reaching Elixir and aligning myself with him. I don’t know if that moment between us has depleted the Fae, or if it has spurred me into action. Either way, we’re neck and neck.

The water level rises, shallow enough for us to run. Elixir’s tail shudders into limbs. Our heads whip in the other’s direction because when all is said and done, we want to prevail without the other losing, and at some point since I arrived in this realm, we’ve become one force.

Also, who’s to know? His kin can follow the signals of our limbs in the water, but can they sense what our upper halves are doing when not submerged?

Our hands shoot out and clasp together, and we charge toward the first slippery outcropping. Then our free fingers land on the same boulder, at the same time.

Gasping, we peer at each other. Elixir’s chest pounds, corded muscles bunching down his wet arms. His eyes flare with wonder and wrath, those pupils straining for my countenance. I can’t tell if he wants to shake me for endangering myself or strip the white garment from my body.

“We win,” I choke out. “It’s over.”

My hunch about what the Faeries can and can’t follow must be accurate, because Elixir whisks his arm around my waist and hoists me against him, our drenched and exhausted bodies colliding.

“No,” he growls hotly against my mouth. “It has only begun.”

His mouth crashes onto mine, and my arms fling around his neck, but instead of robbing us of oxygen once more, this kiss does the opposite. Finally, we can breathe again.

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