Читать книгу Fire: The Mermaid Legacy Book Two - Natasha Hardy - Страница 11

I don’t know why I assumed breathing in salt water would be easier than breathing in fresh water, but it wasn’t, and my lungs were screaming angry things at me as I pushed my way through the thicker liquid. The surf above me continued to surge in a creamy froth as I fought my instincts, trying to let go of the need to breathe.

Very slowly my lungs eased, each wavelike kick seeming to force a little more oxygen into my system. I focused my panicking mind on what I was here to do.

I had to find him.

I pushed into the seemingly elastic water, forcing my oxygenstarved muscles to move even faster, running through the plan we’d agreed on as I went.

I was due to meet Qinn at the reef. He was an Oceanid I barely knew, but one who had pledged his allegiance to me as we raced to find Merrick and stop the impending war on humanity.

It still felt odd to think of myself as one of them. I’d only found out a few days ago I was the legendary Oceanid Gurrer – an incredible warrior who would lead her people to victory. I guess it was natural to still think of myself as human, having lived as one for seventeen years.

Even having experienced the incredible power I was capable of, my new role was uncomfortable. I knew though that I was out of time for self-doubt. Merrick had told me once, in the few beautiful days when I was falling in love with him, that all the potential of his entire species could be kept locked away within me by my refusal to believe in myself.

He had been captured by our enemies – Oceanids that believed I was too weak to influence humans to stop destroying the sea, too weak to clean up the mess of oil and pollution that poisoned their home, too weak to lead the Oceanids in peace. I would need every ounce of power to rescue Merrick from them and avoid being caught myself.

They were formidable in number and talents, and they knew I would come for him.

It was a well-known Oceanid trait that once two Oceanids fell in love they couldn’t tolerate any physical separation. I’d never had a choice really; in this rescue mission I hoped would be successful.

The pain had settled to the very corners of my lungs, and the cramps I’d felt beginning to edge my calf and thigh muscles faded a little as I pushed through the blue.

I was a little disappointed with the ocean so far. All I could see was very fine white sand beneath me, and shimmering pale blue all around. It occurred to me as I swam that it would be infinitely easy to get lost in a great expanse like this. There were no defining features on the sea bed, no sense of direction either.

Of the myriad hurried instructions I’d been given by Sabrina as she’d packed my bag, before we’d left the now ruined cave that had been the Oceanids’ home for decades, a major one had been to always swim in the middle of the blue. Swimming at the surface would leave me vulnerable to human sightings from the top and shark attacks from below. Swimming at the bottom left me accessible to predators that lurked beneath the sand and in the nooks and crannies of the sea floor. Her instructions, although helpful, had left me with no illusions as to where I was now placed in the food-chain.

Oceanids, while similar to humans in appearance and, with training, even in mannerisms, did not rule the sea as humans did the land. They were vulnerable to the larger oceanic predators, now more than ever as the very substance I was swimming through had turned on them, spreading human pollution and poison everywhere and weakening them to the point of extinction.

While I hated Neith and his followers for taking Merrick and hurting him, desperation tainted many of their actions. I had the power to unite their talents into an unstoppable force, one that would annihilate the unsuspecting humans. Many of the Oceanids had been convinced by Neith, the leader of the aggression, that with me the Oceanids would win the war against humanity within weeks.

The problem was that I didn’t believe Neith just wanted to win. He wanted power and he was willing to spill innocent blood to get it. It didn’t matter to him whether that blood poured from human or Oceanid wounds, if it gave him control of the land and the sea and all life in between, he’d kill anything to get it.

A shudder of dread quivered through me.

We had been so trusting, Merrick and I…dutifully and excitedly reporting each new ability I’d discovered. Demonstrating my incredible power to share and unify and even enhance the Oceanids’ talents to the whole pod. It was only much later that we’d discovered the depth of the resentment they held for humans…and for me.

I’d been seen as an outsider, the half of me that was human far outweighing, in their minds, the half of me that was Oceanid. I suppose I couldn’t blame them really. I’d been so weak, so reluctant to believe the incredible heritage that was mine and unwilling to take on the leadership that heritage demanded.

I blew a stream of bubbles impatiently out of my mouth as I pushed my body to swim even faster, regret clouding the hope I felt at eventually being able to find Merrick.

If only I’d been more responsive, if only I’d learnt faster …

Regret was a waste of energy and so I focused on the group of Oceanids who had decided to follow me, my heart squeezing in gratitude for their loyalty. They had withstood the overwhelming bloodlust that had swept through the pod as I took final instructions from Talita, their former queen, in a secluded valley outside of the cave. Neith had not been kind to them. The violence with which he’d disposed of the Oceanids’ refuge was, I feared, a mere foretaste of what was to come.

Horrific images from three days earlier played before my mind’s eye as I raced to my meeting place with Qinn. Shards of the beautiful white crystal that had encased the cave smashed like the broken bodies of those Neith had so carelessly disposed of; the once green-skinned fever tree that had been the epicentre of Oceanid life, a smoking stump strewn with the weary survivors of Neith’s attack.

The worst had been their crushed spirits. They had given up. They had been making plans to hide away in the bowls of the earth, to live a mere shadow of the life they could live. They’d been prepared to abandon Merrick, to abandon the Oceanid children who, due to their physical immaturity, would never be able to leave the ocean before it killed them. They had been prepared to settle for the ruins that Neith had left them…

A fury so intense that I battled to contain it surged through me as I remembered their hopelessness. Once Merrick was safe, Neith would pay!

A flurry of movement and an almost bossy chattering stopped me short in astonishment, as a school of brilliant orange fish appeared suddenly out of the blue and engulfed me. They darted around in a swarm of elegant flicks – some of them busily sifting the fine white sand for food and others chasing each other, seemingly just for the joy of it, and all the time “talking” to each other in know-it-all chirps and trills.

The pain of my burning lungs and the worry that drove me on so fiercely was momentarily forgotten as my eyes drifted in awe over the wonderland that stretched before me.

I hadn’t known that so many colours could exist. The reef blossomed out of the barren white sand in a plethora of colours and shapes and sounds. It shimmered with life, as comically coloured fish darted amidst bizarre, alien-shaped structures.

I drifted for a few moments over them on the gentle current, struggling to take in the detail and delicacy of the reef. A few curious fish swam up to me, their unlidded eyes examining me as they “discussed” me among themselves in their oddly musical language. They were incredible, their colours flowing from a deep poppy red at their heads through brilliant pink, purple, orange and ending in sunshine yellow.

They darted away from me to hide in a pale green conelike coral structure, over which an electric blue starfish slowly meandered.

I watched in fascination as brilliantly coloured clown fish ducked beneath the waving tentacles of their aggressive stinging little homes. Brilliant flashes of white, yellow and electric blue fish to my left led me into the heart of the garden and the meeting place Qinn had described.

Great saucer-shaped corals, some of them measuring over a metre across, formed a landscape of exquisitely coloured platforms in intense shades of green, yellow, purple and pink.

There was something strange about the reef I couldn’t quite put my finger on at first. Then I got it, and my skin prickled in nervous anticipation: for all the incredible colours, the reef was completely lifeless. Not a single fish or crustation could be seen anywhere. Instead a pall of fear hung in the water and only if I listened very carefully could I make out the tiny scratching of life holding minutely still as it waited out whatever had frightened it into the cracks and crevices of the coral.

A terrified, painful sound shivered through the water accompanied by the disturbing waft of something familiar I couldn’t quite put my finger on and a shudder of fear swept through me.

I searched the reef for the source of the sound, growing more worried as the strange flavour that filled my mouth suddenly made sense as a dark stain of blood wound its way sinuously into the water amidst a froth of bubbles.

I swam towards the commotion which was emanating from the hollow between two uneven stacks of plate-like coral.

The sight that greeted me made my skin crawl. There was a flurry of thrashing which was quickly engulfed in a black cloud of menace and hunger, streaked through with ribbons of blood.

I watched in shock for a few precious moments, my horrified eyes struggling to make sense of the chaos in front of me.

A large shark was whipping something backward and forwards, its body glinting in the shafts of faded sunlight that filtered through the water. It took me those few moments to realise that the object between those powerful jaws was Qinn.

Time seemed to slow as I assessed the situation, several scenarios playing out in my mind. I was terrified by what I was watching, but in those slow-motion seconds the fear merely formed a backdrop to the action I was going to take, and swimming away wasn’t an option.

If I threw an energy ball at it, the chances were good that I’d hurt Qinn even more, although I wasn’t sure I could hurt him any more than he already was.

I ran quickly through my repertoire of talents, selecting speed and strength as the two options least likely to hurt Qinn, then I rushed at the shark, my palms colliding with its rough hide and sending it corkscrewing away from me.

The spiritus that surrounded it immediately turned from aggression to fear as it righted itself and swam quickly away.

“Qinn?” My voice was startlingly clear in the muffling water and was answered by a panicked yelp as I moved into the cloud of blood that surrounded him.

He was entangled in a large piece of netting that had caught on the coral. In his panic he had wound himself tighter and tighter as he’d desperately tried to fight his way free. The net had cut a deep gash in his side and the blood had swirled around him as he fought, mingling with the water around him which was already clouded a sickening greeny yellow in claustrophobic fear.

The shark had shaken him so violently it had broken bones and these created unnatural angles beneath his skin. Yet despite how seriously wounded he was, his face was serene, a faint light still drifting in his eyes.

“Qinn,” I whispered again, my voice cracking. “I’m going to get you out of this net and then I can heal you.”

The corners of his lips twitched.

“Get away from here, Alexandra,” he rasped, pushing uselessly against the net.

“I won’t leave you here,” I told him firmly as I swam over him, searching for the edges of the net.

“This is a trap,” he hissed at me, his face twisted into an inhumanly furious mask as he wriggled uselessly, the long flared trousers that normally enabled him to swim winding into a knotted stringy mess and entangling him further.

I pulled at the netting with all of my strength, focusing my fear and anger into the action and expecting the usual surge of power that this effort normally brought. Nothing happened. I tried again, concentrating on where my fingers were laced through the web of netting, willing the steely fibres to part beneath my fingers.

Qinn twisted in the net again, and my hand, which was now entangled in the net, rasped across the barnacled rocks on which he was so tightly ensnared, scraping a layer of skin off. A wisp of my blood twisted into the cloud that surrounded him.

“Oh that’s not good,” he whispered as we both watched my blood mix with his.

“It’s not as bad as your cuts, I’ll be fine,” I told him, finding his statement strange.

“They’re on your trail, Alex, your blood will only lure them closer.”

His statement made my blood run cold.

“Who? Neith?”

Qinn nodded, his face twisting in pain as he pulled jerkily at the net, his movements unnatural as if his muscles were moving without his full control.

And then he went completely still and panic blossomed in my chest as he stared past me.

“Qinn!”

His gaze jerked back to me for a moment before returning to what he’d been staring at. My heart thumping hard in my chest,I turned slowly to see what he was so fixated on.

A whisper in the water had Qinn straining to touch my skin, desperation and fear distorting his normally handsome features.

“Give me your hand.” His voice was strained.

“What are you doing?” I whispered, as I pulled again at the net.

“Just do it!” The panic in his eyes stopped all questions as I wriggled my hand through a tiny tear in the net to touch him.

“Can you heal my wound?”

I focused on the gashes that covered his body, the tattered skin and pink flesh waving ghoulishly in the ever-moving current. I knew how to use this talent well having worked with Maya, an incredibly gifted healer, to help many of the Oceanids who had been in the cave when I’d first met them, but try as I might and as hard as I willed it I couldn’t close Qinn’s wound.

I shook my head, “It’s not working.”

He muttered something in the liquid language of the Oceanids as he wriggled in the net, staring at my hand as I watched, in fascinated revulsion, as a rapid dark and light brown mottling raced up my arm. Quickly it spread over his too and then we both disappeared, camouflaged perfectly with the colours of the reef. The whispers were closer and they were discussing how to find me, their voices growing more distinct as I closed my eyes and strained to listen.“We picked up her scent at the surface just over the plate reef,” one of the voices was reporting.

“And then?” There was irritation in the question.

“Well, it got sort of garbled after that,” the voice replied. “I thought you told me you were the best tracker this side of the equator!” Definitely irate!

“I am.” The tracker was getting irritated. “She must have had some sort of help, or she knew we were onto her or something…” he finished lamely.

A sigh of frustration. “So where is she now?”

In sheepish tones: “I don’t know, it’s almost as if she got out of the water…”The voices grew fainter as our pursuers swam off into the distance. I sagged with relief for a moment, but then a

flurry of bubbles and a muttered curse from Qinn had my eyes flying to his face in panic. The mottling on his skin had grown faint enough for me to make out the fear in his eyes.

“Alex, I’m dying, I’m not going to be able to disguise you here much longer.”

I shook my head, tears welling in my eyes and joining the salt of the sea instantly.

“Qinn, you’re going to beOK,” I whispered, hoping he’d prove me right.

“No,” he mouthed.

I shook my head, reaching through the netting to touch his skin.

“Keep the reef behind you and swim hard until you reach the kelp forest,” he whispered. “You’ll be safe…”

“No Qinn, you’re going to come with me, we’re going to go together.”

I wriggled my hand out of the net and ducked beneath him, trying to find the anchor of the net. It was wedged so deeply into the bed of the rock on which it was caught that it could only have been set up like that by a sentient creature. Qinn had been right; he was caught in a very clever trap.

“Alexandra.” His voice was edged in pain.

I moved back to where his head now lolled at an unnatural angle, as if his neck was too weak to hold it up any more. I supported its weight and cradled him as he spoke.

“You must go now,” he told my, fire sparking in his eyes. “If they catch you all will be lost, please…”

“I’m not going without you,” I replied firmly, twisting away from him a little as I searched the reef for something sharp to cut the net with.

“Listen to me please.” His voice was tinged in desperation.

“Qinn, if I can get you out of the net I can heal you. I…I don’t know why I can’t heal you when you’re in the net but I’m sure if I can get you out it will work again.”

He groaned a little as he shifted one of his arms from where it had been wrapped around his midriff. Dark blood blossomed around us and bile forced its way up my throat. The net had only protected him from being carried away by the shark, but the ribbons of flesh that had clearly been ripped by sharp teeth had sealed Qinn’s fate.

I forced my horrified gaze back to his face.

“You are the leader we need, Alexandra, don’t let anything or anyone tell you differently…your journey is a hard one, but you must win in the end...for all of us.”

“Qinn, you’ll be there with me...” I told him past the lump in my throat as he shook his head slightly.

“I don’t have time...” he whispered, the spark fading from his eyes as each word came out in choppy breathlessness.

“…and…neither…do…you.” He mouthed the last words he’d ever speak as his eyes fixed on something just past me.