Page 17 of The Scattered Bones

“But you didn’t need to push me.” I’m all salt, both my emotions and my water-coated skin.

“Your instincts are strong. Fear drove your limbs, and it taught you how to move. I think it was wise to push you.”

“No, you thought it was funny,” I pout.

“It was.” The Stranger huffs good-naturedly. “Want to try again?”

“Keep your gods damned hands off me,” I snarl.

“All right, all right, it’s lost its charm, anyway.”

I wish he was here. I would slap him. “Don’t let me drown?”

“You know I cannot help you.”

“Fine. Have fun watching me swallow water.”

“Oh, so dramatic, my child. You’ll be fine. You’re always fine.”

“Until the day I’m not.” My mind turns to Kaid. He was resilient, always finishing on top… until he didn’t. Until the day his luck and life expired.

“I have faith in you.” From the tenderness in his voice, I believe The Stranger. “Today is not the day I watch you die.”

“Any tips for me?”

“Don’t swallow water.”

I call him an insulting word as I drop back into the gentle waves to try again.

* * *

“What happened here?”I ask as I survey the Vesi, my skin drying against the heated sand. Simultaneously, a lake and a sea, the Vesi is an enormous stretch of water encased by sheer rock cliffs on all sides save for this lone beach, as if the earth had collapsed, giving way to water. This blue expanse is out of place in the wilderness, but it’s the sunken city that’s the most perplexing. Stone homes lay along cobbled streets, colliding with massive temples. An entire life buried beneath the lapping waves.

“How do you mean?” The Stranger’s voice sounds in my head. He’s been teaching me to swim these past few days, if abandoning me to struggle and cough is considered teaching. Szent is landlocked, and until this moment, the largest body of water I’d seen was the pool in the temple gardens. If only I had asked Kaid to teach me in that fountain. He was a far superior tutor to The Stranger. It’s because of his lessons that I still draw breath.

“The city,” I say, soaking in the sun’s warmth. After the constant snow of the North and the scalding heat of the Sivatag, the Vesi’s temperature is glorious. I never felt the burn of toasted sand or the sting of salt water before, and I like them. I wear nothing as I sun myself, completely alone save for the comforting voice in my head, and I picture Kaid’s powerful body dripping wet. I imagine him swimming through the waves, his muscles curling and flexing as he dives deep. I feel his sun-kissed skin against mine, sliding against my sweaty body as our pleasure builds.

A soft cry escapes my throat as I fight back tears. I miss Kaid more than I can bear, and I hate that he’s in pieces locked in a box and not naked on the beach beside me, black hair glinting and smile engulfing. This is the place where I miss him most. This is the place I want him to see, to experience, to enjoy. I wish we could share the sweet fruit that grows wild and free here. I want him to watch me peel off my clothes before I drop into the water and revel in the way his dark eyes flicker gold. He loved every part of me, body and mind. I adored all of him, soul and form, and my heart breaks all over again.

“What happened to the city? Why did it sink?” I ask, forcing the pain down. Missing him does nothing. Finding his scattered bones is my only hope, and I silently beg The Stranger not to comment on the despair coating my voice.

“No evil befell the sunken city,” he answers. “Udens, god of the sea, is neither man nor woman, but a beast of the depths. When the gods descended to our realm, most took up residence in Szent, but some ventured throughout the land. Lovec chose the North, his blood thirst driving him into the wilds, but Udens is bound to the water. Sailors pray to him, fishermen sacrifice to him, but he craved sacred waters, a temple in our realm while still in the sea. He longed to claim a dwelling among the people like his brethren had. His cult built the Vesi. They carved every stone, paved every street, erected each looming tower, and when construction completed, Udens sank it. The solid rock cracked, and the city plummeted as the earth flooded. Both a lake and a sea, and then again neither, the Vesi became his holy grounds.”

“Then why would Valka hide him here?” I ask. “In an uncursed place?”

“Darkness may not have carved these cliffs, but it dwells within these waters,” The Stranger answers, and his tone causes my stomach to clench in trepidation. “To kill and be killed, to eat and be eaten. That is nature’s way. Life demands death, and Udens understands this. He doesn’t wish to alter the cycle of life, but every creature of the sea caught by men to be consumed, every monster slain to ensure a ship’s safety, every plant uprooted for its healing properties, drove him to despair. The beasts of old were savage monstrosities. Tentacles and eyes and scales and fangs, the ocean depths once teamed with unspeakable horrors, but humans eradicated them in their fear. They consume fish by the thousands, disrupt the corals for medicinal use, and Udens mourns each loss. When the Vesi sunk, he declared its waters holy. Mankind may dip beneath his waves, but they are not to touch those who live below the surface. All here are sacred to Udens, and while the creatures feed on both the vegetation and one another as nature requires, he forbids humankind from causing harm.”

“I don’t intend to kill anyone,” I say in confusion. “I only mean to retrieve what was stolen.”

“My sweet child, you do not understand. The monsters your ancestors eradicated still live in the Vesi. Beasts larger than Hreinasta’s temple with a thirst for blood. Fangs that remember what human flesh tasted like. This shore where you bathe and practice is safe. Udens feeds off your pleasure in his waters, but the depths are filled with sights no human has seen in centuries. You’ll descend into a pit of horrors to find his bones. The swim will test your stamina as you’re hunted. Udens allows no violence against his kind. If you kill any of his creatures, even in self-defense, he will punish you. He tolerates such behavior in the oceans since that is its way, but not here. The Vesi is his. You cannot harm anything, not even the seaweed ensnaring your ankles as you drown.”

“I surrender and die, or I fight and die?” I scramble to my feet, white sand clinging to my back as I pull away from the water.

“It is the way of the Vesi,” he answers. “It’s why Valka placed what you seek here. Your only hope of survival is to out-swim Udens’ monsters, out-swim creatures who have lived below the surface for hundreds of cycles, all while never spilling a drop of his sacred children’s blood.”

The Touch

SEASON OF GROWTH, CYCLE 78920

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