“Yeah, that wasn’t good, that’s gonna hurt,” replied another.
“No, no that is very good,” Nereus replied.
“She’s very close. Spread out and see if you can find her.”
“I’m not facing that alone,” another replied.
“It wasn’t a request.” Nereus’s anger was tinged with fear.
Their immediate movement dissolved my plan of attack. I couldn’t incapacitate them if they weren’t all in one place. I reabsorbed the energy ball I’d been about to release on them with a shudder as it skittered up my arm coldly, and focused all of my attention on disguise again.
They swam around me for ages, one of them dipping into the hollow where I was pressed into the sand, his beautiful face completely inhuman in the water. On land Oceanids looked human. In the water, their skin held an alien undertone of rainbow hues, some, like the Miengu, an emerald green, others varying shades of yellow, red and blue. Their pupils dilated to almost completely cover their blue irises as they searched the water for me.
“She’s over there,” one of them whispered urgently, “I just picked up her scent.”
The Oceanid floating above me swam quickly away.
“You go and see if you can find her, I’ll wait here,” replied Nereus.
I waited, holding my body completely still.
I jumped when my name curled around me in the current, his voice sickening as he described in infinite detail what he planned to do to me when he caught me.
I focused on containing and burying the revulsion and fear his words sparked in me, realising that he must be watching for the colour these emotions would release into the water.
Sabrina had commented once – what felt like a lifetime ago – as she watched me contain my frustration, on how she’d thought that would be useful someday. I hadn’t understood what she meant, but the longer I spent in this foreign liquid world the more I understood how easy communication was, even when that communication could be lethal.
“Let’s go,” Nereus ordered eventually. “Neith thinks she might be using a different tactic. Maybe she didn’t follow the scent from the rag.”
Their voices were fading again as they moved and I slipped after them, relieved to finally put my plan into action.
“I’m not sure that wasn’t her we felt earlier – all that rage is difficult to disguise.”
“Then why did she disappear?”
“She is weak,” Nereus said dismissively. “She places individuals’ lives over the good of the group. I probably would have followed her, if not for that pathetic quality.”
“I thought you hated her?”
“Yes, but she is the most powerful Oceanid ever born and I want to be on the winning team, because only the victors get the spoils.”
They laughed, picking up their pace so that I had to swim with every forwards push of the current to keep up.
“I’m glad we’re protected by rock though,” another one muttered. “I wouldn’t want to be in the open ocean when she unleashes that fury.”
“Yeah, at least at Ferengren there are multiple layers of protection, out here we’d be fish food.”
I allowed them to swim ahead of me, wanting a little distance between us and using the scent from the rag they carried as a guide to their hideaway.
Within a short while they’d left the reef. I dithered on the edge of the life-encrusted rocks and colour-infused coral, staring out at the expanse of white sand and shimmering water. The reef was the only real landmark I knew in the confusing sameness of the open ocean. Once I left it there was no guarantee I’d find it, or anything else I recognised again.
Once I left it I was committed to going after Merrick alone.
His scent was fading in the ever-flowing current being swept gently away and distorting the direction they were going. I couldn’t leave him to whatever cruelty had produced that much blood. I couldn’t abandon him. And so I swam into the never-ending blue, determination and fear warring in equal parts as I followed the trail of blood of the only man I’d ever loved.
The ocean floor was disturbingly void of any appearance of life, the white sand a gently undulating desert that spread out on all sides around me. It was at least relatively easy to disguise myself and swim at the same time.
I’d been gauging the depth of the water for some time, wondering if perhaps Ferengren was on land and not underwater as I’d assumed it was, when the scent I’d been following all but disappeared. I stopped, turning slowly in the water and trying to control the fear that blossomed in my chest at the thought of losing that scent. I could search for weeks and never find them, the ocean here was a vast white and blue canvas with nothing to indicate direction.
A whirling of water leapt out in front of me, a froth of bubbles and a cacophony of clicking that seemed to come at me from all sides, adding to the confusion of the sudden and obviously inanimate object moving straight at me.
I pushed ineffectively at the water with my hands, all pretence at disguise quickly forgotten in the face of being run over and only just managed to push myself flat on my back into the sandy floor before it whirred over me.
It looked like the ribcage of a large animal, maybe a whale, had been used to create a type of vehicle. Within it several Oceanids chatted amicably, some of them involved in moving the contraption quickly through the water, and others allowing the current of the movement to pull them along, long sharp-looking lances casually strapped to their sides.
I threw up the disguise just as they were passing over me, my heart hammering too loudly in my chest and fear I struggled to contain blossoming around me as the belly of the contraption skimmed across my skin.
Within moments they were gone, not a trace of sound or sight of them anywhere. Once I’d calmed down I allowed myself to float off the sea floor and looked more intently at the blue they’d burst from.
The water held just the slightest deepening of colour and it wavered like the heat off a hot road.
As I neared it the sandy floor rose towards the surface, imperceptibly at first but quickly forcing me closer to the sunlight than I’d been since I entered the ocean. Sabrina’s warning about the surface made me more cautious than I would normally have been as I scanned the sun-rippled skin of the sea.
Dark large shadows peppered the surface of the water in every direction. I couldn’t quite make out what they were at first as I swam cautiously towards them, my initial impression being a tangle of sea weed, but the casual brush of fingertips and the muffled murmur of voices from the one closest to me froze my curiosity.
As I turned away from it I happened to glance at the sand below me and dived, squirming my way quickly into the sand. I could imitate the sea floor and possibly even
