Page 30 of The Lost Child

I blinked, stirred from the memory. He wanted me to find the girl.Dead?

Sudden alarm raced through me, my wings twitching with fear.

Master noticed none of it and held out a hat. It must have belonged to Nerissa, though I had never seen her wear it. Her scent was old on it, but Master needn’t have bothered. I would never forget her scent for as long as I lived: ashes and burning with a tinge of iron to it, with a fresh coating of the sun and the ocean. It was the scent of a warrior and a sailor.

“Go.”

Master stepped aside as the door opened, and for a moment I simply stood there. Master hadn’t sent me out by myself for ages. I walked forward, reveling in the feeling of just being able to put one foot in front of the other. I kept going down the dark passageway, having no concept of time or distance until light flooded my vision. I finally paused and glanced up, the sky opening up before me in an endless horizon. The scent of smoke singed my nostrils and I turned my head. Smoke was billowing into the sky from miles to the east. That must be where I had to go.

I didn’t spare the master another glance. I took off into the sky, trained on the smoke stack ahead of me. My back was still stiff, but this fly would make my muscles strong and limber again. My wings weren’t where they should be, but they managed to keep me in the air. If Master let me out more, I knew I could make them stronger.

I had to get to Nerissa. The master thought she could be dead. The image of her sprawled body floating face down in the water or cut in two on a ship’s stern sent me into a near panic. If she was dead, that meant I’d never again smell her scent or the foul paste she insisted on rubbing all over my skin.

My hardness grew between my legs. I’d let her rub anything on me as long as she was touching me. Shame immediately followed such thoughts. Nerissa was a beautiful female. She was kind and giving. What was I?

A monster.

I grit my teeth and flew, staring straight ahead at the smoke and setting a direct path to it. After an hour I came upon the ruins of at least two ships. Bodies littered the water, bobbing up and down a few times in the waves like the debris around them. Fear curled in my belly. Fear? I wasn’t afraid of anything!

But I was.

No one looked alive. Everything was on fire. It was as though a great explosion had occurred. I dove down low, trying to find that one beguiling scent amidst the smoke and fire and death.

There.

I caught only the barest whiff of her before the scent disappeared, likely sinking under the waves. I dove blindly, trusting my nose more than my eyes. The ocean hit my skin like a physical slap, but I ignored it and pushed through. My wings shivered in protest, sensitive to the harsh cold of the water. I tucked them close to my back and dove deep.

I couldn’t smell her underwater, but I could see. Bodies were everywhere, but only one was petite with visible curves that stood out as her waterlogged clothes clung tightly to her, blood leaking into the water all around her. I reached out and snagged her with one arm, already pushing toward the surface with the other.

She looked dead already.

No, she couldn’t die. And whether she did or didn’t, I wouldn’t be returning her to the master. Master didn’t take care of her properly. I could.

I thought of all the times the master had hurt me. Of when he’d hurt her. The master didn’t deserve either of us. My thoughts were panicked, but I concentrated on what I could control right now.

Nerissa.

I clutched her tightly to me, unable to fly with soaked wings and nothing to push off of. The sea stretched for miles and miles around us. Nerissa would die if I didn’t do something!

The water around me rippled, large bubbles floating to the surface. I tried to tread water away, but they were everywhere. One by one, the bodies around me that floated in death were dragged under the waves, as if pulled by something. I didn’t know how to fight in water! I was useless if I couldn’t fly!

I spied a large piece of driftwood and dove toward it, carefully laying Nerissa on her back. I clutched to the edge, knowing I was too heavy to join her. All around us, the bubbles rose, the water seeming to boil around me but without any heat. I started kicking for all I was worth, determined to save her.

Then a head appeared above the water.

A … a female?

Her hair was yellow with streaks of brown. Small coins and shells were woven intricately in patterned braids, her face small but her eyes vibrant and flashing deep blues and greens like the sea itself. Did this female need rescued as well?

Her eyes widened at seeing me. “Draken …” she mumbled, her voice a low, threatening growl. A tail that matched her eyes disturbed the water around us, and she bared her fangs at me. I blinked, knowing she was something special … something that master had talked about. A witch! A sea witch! Master hated the sea witches. He always said they were a scourge upon the seas, and he’d been trying to catch one for decades. I wasn’t sure why.

“Where are you taking them?” I asked, language feeling strange to my tongue. My voice sounded unfamiliar to my own ears; too deep and gravelly to possibly belong to me. Each word took focus and effort as my eyes flicked between her and dead pirates.

She grinned, baring teeth that had been filed into points to match her fangs. “To their watery graves …”

A second head popped up from beneath the waves, her hair a much lighter shade of yellow—almost white. Her eyes carried more blue than green, and she looked less wild than the other one. “Bahari, you’re frightening him. Go see to the others.”

The first sea witch hissed, but obediently disappeared under the waves. The second one tilted her head, studying me.

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