Page 79 of The Dark Sea Calls

I simply was.

I didn’t know how long I floated, as time meant nothing to the water.

One moment, I was everywhere, stretched across miles and miles, and the next, I felt tiny. A speck in front of a much larger being.

the voice said, and I remembered it, though I couldn’t know from where.

I don’t know how to do that.

I looked down to hands that hadn’t existed a moment before, and the Selkie skin clasped in my fists.

The one thing I refused to let go of.

Epilogue

Rainn POV

_____

Rainn waited on his knees at the edge of the city.

He waited as the last of the Merfolk cleared out, and Cormac gave him one last look, loaded with emotion that Rainn couldn’t be bothered to decipher.

Rainn waited with Tor by his side, the only person who could understand his feelings even for a moment.

He must have been going mad, he decided. He couldfeelher all around him. Waiting, but he didn’t know for what or why.

The Kelpie took a deep breath. “Rainn—”

Rainn did not take his eyes from the Undine city as he interrupted his friend. “You were the one to wake her after we found her on the beach,” he said numbly.

Tor’s brow arched. “Yes. I was.”

“I was too scared.” Rainn let out a self-deprecating chuckle. “I swear on Belisama’s domain; she was so weak. So, unworthy. Dying. I knew she was out there this whole time. I knew my Shíorghrá was in Cruinn. My mother repeatedly told me that if the Undine princess discovered she was mated to a Selkie, she would make me do terrible things. She’d make me kill my kin and prostrate myself over and over.”

Tor let out an uncharacteristic chuckle. “I can’t imagine Maeve demanding anything of anyone,” he said.

Rainn’s lip ticked up with a bitter smile. “She’s so self-sacrificing that I want to shake her sometimes. To get her to eat, to sleep. When Cormac said he wanted to wed her,” Rainn shook his head, his nose wrinkled like a foul smell was near. “Can you imagine? Maeve is not weak-willed, but sheneeds—"

“Care,” Tor finished his sentence.

Rainn gestured to the open water.” She’s out there, in the water.”

“I know,” Tor whispered.

“What if she—”

“She’ll come back. This, I swear.” The Kelpie nodded.

“When did you know she was yours?” Rainn turned back to the city, waiting.

Tor scratched the back of his neck as he thought back. A moment passed, and then another before the Kelpie lowered himself to sit on the lakebed at Rainn’s side.

“All Shíorghrá have markings,” Tor said.

“Markings mean shark shit; when did you know she wasyours,” Rainn’s voice was sharp, coarse with a tidal wave of pain he held back.

“The Whispering Pass,” Tor said resolutely. “She should have hated us. She should have wanted us to walk into a trap. Instead, she warned us. She didn’t have to, but she did. Even when Maeve should have stabbed us in our sleep, she couldn’t let us die. Whether it was because of the value she placed on life or because of some long game, it didn’t matter. Maeve was more to me at that moment. And every moment since.”

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