Page 41 of Whispers of the Water

My smile faltered as I processed her words. I was conceived for the purpose of creating someone powerful. Was that it? I was a byproduct of a power-hungry arranged marriage? The notion briefly took me back to Myra’s office and all the talk of breeding powerful Land Fae. The mere thought that my parents shared even an ounce of Myra’s mentality made me want to collapse like a house of cards in a passing breeze.

Dallas turned toward the stream. She raised her arm out in front of her, and the water rose up with the motion. It raced forward and circled up and around her body as though trying to wrap her in its hold before coming to rest in the palm of her hand.

Wanting to busy myself with something while talking about all of this, I decided to give what she’d just done a shot. We were supposed to be practicing, after all. I focused on the water in the stream until warmth spread through my limbs. I lifted my hand and silently urged the water to follow. Without hesitation, it barreled toward me, but instead of stopping at my outstretched hand, it smacked into my chest, throwing me onto my back.

“Holy shit!” Dallas yelled, rushing to my side.

Groaning from the impact, I sat up. The water was gone, either having returned to the stream or soaked into the ground beneath me. At least, I wasn’t drenched. Somehow.

Turning to Dallas, I said, “I don’t think I did that right.”

She threw her head back as she burst into a fit of laughter. “Not quite. The water was clearly too excited to have you calling on it.”

“Excited? You make it sound like it’s a person.”

Her laughter died down until she smiled warmly at me. She held her hand back out to the stream, and the water danced through the air toward us. It twirled and bounced until it floated above her hands in an orb no bigger than a basketball.

Meeting my eyes again, she explained, “Water isn’t a person, but it has real emotions. It feels like we do. It has a voice. It’s alive in a way.”

Watching the water push and pull in a gentle sway within the ball, I thought about what she’d said. The water was indeed talkative, whispering things to me whenever I was near. It also responded to me like it wanted to protect me and be by my side. Then there were the times we’d connected, and somewhere within the current, I’d felt a faint heartbeat like my own.

I started to understand what Dallas was saying, and with that in mind, I held my hands out for the water. It darted across the space toward me, but this time, I was ready. I caught it in my arms, and the orb melted across my skin until I was encased in water from head to toe. My eyes slipped closed, and I focused on the cool touch. In the back of my mind, I figured this was almost like the water’s way of hugging me.

After a few moments, the water pooled back down my head and arms, up from my legs and torso, until it gathered back into an orb above my hands. It hovered there, now waiting for my command.

“What should I do now?” I asked Dallas.

“Let’s try something easy. Try to make the water into different shapes. A square. A star. A unicorn. You know, small shapes or figures. Picture it in your mind, and guide the water as necessary. It will understand what you want and need.”

I did just that. I focused on the water and started out small, morphing the sphere into a square, then the square into a star, and so on. Once my mind was busy, and I felt I had a hang of it, I glanced at Dallas and finally voiced the question that had been strangling me since she’d said the word bred. “Did they love each other?”

Dallas frowned. “Your mom and dad?”

I nodded, suddenly afraid of the answer. I wanted the truth, but I was no longer sure if I was ready to know it yet. The reality of who I was may be ugly, and the fantasies I’d dreamt up of my faceless parents could be much darker than what I’d always envisioned.

Dallas sighed. “To be completely honest with you, no. They didn’t love each other.”

My stomach plummeted, and I was forced to look away.

“At least, they didn’t at first.”

Hope blossomed in my chest, and I found her gaze again with eager eyes.

“At first,” Dallas began, “your mother loathed your father. According to the rumors, she wanted no part in being Queen, and she found him insufferable. He wanted to impress her, which often came off cocky and conceited. It supposedly took a long time for them to finally open up to one another, hence the reason it took centuries for you to be born. They loved each other in the end from what I’ve heard.”

I took comfort in knowing that my parents came to love each other. I hoped they shared that love for me, too, not just for being a potentially powerful offspring, but because they wanted me. My chest squeezed with the ache that came from missing someone with your whole being. Did it make sense for me to miss them? I mean, I didn’t know them, but God, how I longed to.

Another question teased my tongue. It was something that had been plaguing me since I first learned about who and what we were.

Sensing my burning question, Dallas snickered. “Spit it out. What are you dying to ask?”

“How old are you? You’re clearly not nineteen like I thought since you speak as though you were alive to witness all this.”

“I’m 219.”

Eyes wide, I nearly fell over. The news was like a punch to the gut. I knew there was plenty Dallas had kept secret over the years for my safety, but every time I learned something new, it was like a fresh cut on my heart. A nagging voice in my head kept asking if I really knew her, if she really thought of me as a friend, or if our whole friendship had been a lie, too.

“Wow,” I said, forcing the negative thoughts from my head. She’d reassured me that our friendship was very real when I’d first discovered who she was, and I believed her. “You’re old.”

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