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Ellery felt physically ill as his hand held tight around Nara’s wrist. He did not want her to give up on him, despite being ready to give up on himself. He certainly did not want to kill her. No matter what they tried, he understood they would not end together beneath the fire tree—he was certain of that. The red thread was still tied tight around her wrist, and that filled him with a fear he could not face. What would happen if they cut the thread? Would they lose the bond they shared?
Tears spilled over at the idea of losing her. As much as he could not lose her again, he could not leave her behind either.
“Haven?” she asked softly, her other hand reaching for his face and wiping away his tears with her thumb.
“I am sorry,” he said, finding it harder to breathe than he had thought possible.
“I was the one who reached across a sword. And I do not think it is that deep.”
Ellery was not letting go to check the depth of the wound; he had seen the blood. The sword hung above the ground, still in his hand, but it was taking all he had to keep it there. Then her hand was resting on his, and he lowered the point to the ground. The blade shone blue, and for the second time that evening, he felt her magic flow through him, warming and calming and healing.
And yet there was a power he had not expected, as strong as the lightning he had seen flow from the sword. He released his hold on it, and the feeling of her magic died instantly as the sword fell into the grass. Her hand closed around his.
“I felt it,” he whispered.
“Did you feel it when the sword was pressed against your side?”
He shook his head and then nodded. He had, but not with the same sense as in that moment with her hand on the sword. He slowly released his hold on her wrist, the cut already healed over, a fine white line marking where she had cut it.
“I did not do that,” Ellery said.
“The sword, I think,” she said, pulling back from him and standing up.
He leapt forward and wrapped his arms around her waist. He held her too tight, and he knew it. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered.
“I would never...” She sucked in a breath and, with her hands on his shoulders, pushed him back. He sat back on his haunches, unsure what he should say. She looked at him as though he had broken her heart.
“I would never hurt you,” he whispered.
“I know that,” she said, as though it was a stupid thought to have. “You just appeared...”
“Broken,” he said.
“Scared of me,” she replied, and he looked up at her. “Of the sword.” She indicated it in the grass, but neither of them had made a move to pick it up.
“I have never felt your magic,” he repeated. He had said that to her. He had no memory of ever having felt it before. He had seen it, the wonder of it. The skill she had not had until the second life. Although he could not remember where the sword had come from. Perhaps it was not hers. Whatever magic she appeared to wield was all in the sword.
Ellery touched the back of his hand. He had felt the magic move through him from her to the sword. Not the other way, he was sure of that. He was more certain than anything he had seen or felt in the last few days.
“It isn’t mine,” she said, looking down, and for the first time in far too long, he saw the scared girl he had met in her father’s library, in her drab dress and an expression that indicated she would never be happy.
“It was given to you,” he said, standing slowly, although he was sure he would not be able to stay standing. He felt so drained. He staggered a little, and she reached for him. Closing her arms around him, she held him tight. “I don’t remember how it happened.”
“Neither do I. It is as though I have always had it, always carried it.”
“Do we have time to sleep?” he asked. It seemed odd, given their conversation, but he needed rest. He needed some strength to be able to take on whatever the creatures in this village were. Although he was not sure sleep would be enough.
“I could eat,” she said.
Ellery had visited a market, or at least a stall, for food, but he did not want to interact with the townsfolk any further. And they likely would not help him now. They had only kept him fed to be able to feed the Mer, not understanding that he could not be fed to them.
Nara held his hand as she stooped down and picked up the sword. She sheathed it, then wrapped her arm around his waist and helped him towards the cottage. Part of him knew it was a bad idea to rest now, but he had no other option.
It was darker inside than he was expecting it to be as the sun was rising. The small space looked dingy. Ellery felt suddenly as though he were not providing well enough for Nara. For he had only ever really wanted to keep her safe. And he regularly failed to do that.
“I don’t need anything more than what we have,” she said, and he looked down over the top of her head as she looked around the room.
“Is that magic?” he asked, wondering how she had been inside his head.
“It is knowing you for the lifetimes that I have. You are more than enough. This is enough,” she said, giving him a little squeeze before she lowered him to the mattress, and then he was falling. And given that she was not as strong or as large as him, she fell with him.
She ran her hands over his chest as she pushed him back on the bed, and he was distracted momentarily, forgetting that his body was so much older than hers. He sucked in a breath and tried not to cry out when she ran her fingers over the burn at his side. It certainly hurt a lot less than it had before, but it still stung.
“The images are fading,” she said, tracing over them with her fingers. And as much as he wanted to push her away, he wanted to pull her closer.
“What images?”
“From the sword. I’m afraid I left an imprint on you.”
He heaved himself up to look down over this side. The pattern of her sword, the symbols that ran down the middle and the fine edging between the silver metal and gold were indeed burned into his skin.
But the burning pain from the deep gouges the Mer had made in his side was gone, and although the sword mark would only have covered one of them, it seemed the others had disappeared with the cauterising from the sword.
“I should have had you do that before,” he said in awe, running his hand over where the other marks would have been.
“It might not have worked for other wounds. It might not work with this one.”
“It has,” he said, poking at where the other marks on either side of the sword mark would have been. They were gone—no pain, no hint that he had suffered as he had.
“I was worried it was poison. The pain lingered and...”
He pressed his lips to hers again, holding the back of her head to prevent her pulling away. She returned it eagerly, her hands moving over his torso. He cried out and pulled back as her hand brushed over the sword mark.
“I may not have fixed it.”
“Lightning burns,” he murmured, leaning back towards her, but she stopped him by putting both of her hands to his face.
“We need rest, food, and an idea of what we face here.”
“That woman was surprised we did not understand what was behind it all.”
“Behind why we relive our lives or are born again? It is a different time, isn’t it?”
Ellery nodded slowly. It was a very different time.
“I heard her in the courtyard talking about someone coming. Someone important.”
“Who was she talking to?”
“I heard a hissing voice, but I couldn’t see anyone.”
“Another spectre?”
“I do not think so, but I don’t know. There was a child. She let me out of the room, showed me how to leave the building, and yet she was not really there. Can a spectre open doors? Or is there a child caught up in this?”
“I also saw a child,” he said. “I don’t know what she was.”
“We don’t know anything,” Nara said. “We used to just follow the pull and kill these creatures. Now there are too many. What if we cannot defeat them? What if there are more next time?”
“How many have we seen?”
“Marina,” Nara said, holding out her hand and pointing to her thumb. “Connected to the Mer, but unsure if she is one.” Ellery nodded. “A girl, maybe a spectre.”
“I saw four Mer, one of which was a child, and I possibly killed two of them, one for sure. Two or three spectres. I thought them women lost or used as bait for the men, perhaps those women who had lived in the house. But were they part of the deception? Were they part of the plan?”
Nara held up eight fingers. “Guessing,” she murmured, looking at her hands rather than at him. “They are very good at hiding.”
“Or they are good at looking as though they are more than they are. Can they move between the buildings? Do they have full run of the village? Do they move through the rain?”
“Did they come with the rain, or did they make the rain to be able to do as they choose?”
“I don’t know anymore.” Ellery ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know if I ever understood what was happening here. We cannot just go in slashing. They are too strong, too manipulative, and they can overwhelm us with numbers.”
“We’ve fought more at a time before,” Nara said.
“Have we? A couple, sure, but not this many. When the four of them attacked me at once, I was sure that I had no hope of surviving.”
“And yet you did,” Nara said, sliding closer to him, her hand on his face. “Promise me you will try to survive a little longer.”
He reached for the pouch at her belt. She allowed him to pull it free and tip the contents into his hand. Cool stones clinked together and lay comfortably in his palm, looking smaller than when Nara held them. He could see nothing, no difference in how they lay or the pattern they made to indicate what might come next. Nothing whispered in the back of his mind, other than he should take Nara and run.
“Run,” he whispered.
Nara scooped the stones from his hand and squeezed them tight in hers.
He wanted to ask if she had gotten the same message or if it was just his mind telling him the only way they could survive this—but for how long, he had no idea.
“You don’t believe me,” he said softly.
“I do not believe that you would run from this. I do not believe that you would leave this unfinished.”
He gave a little laugh then. It was like a madness bubbling up inside him, and he could do nothing to stop it. “It will never be finished.”
“Of course, it will,” Nara said, her bright smile breaking through the dark clouds that were surrounding him. “There is a reason for all of this.”
“Is there?” he asked more gruffly than he intended. “Do we want there to be one? A tangible reason as to why we have been dragged apart again and again.”
“We are still together,” she said softly, her eyes never leaving his face, although he could see the sadness there, a look of hopelessness that he had not seen in a long time. There were moments when he lost faith, when he knew it would not end well, and it rarely did, but she had always maintained her hope.
“It isn’t enough,” he said, and she appeared as though he had slapped her. “I don’t mean that you are not enough,” he said quickly, reaching for her, but she slipped out of his reach and stood before the low-burning fire. “Sunshine?”
“We need to focus on this threat,” she said, not turning back to him. “We need to work out how there are Mer in the middle of this dry village, with no water or ocean in sight, and how to end it.” She put her hand to the side of her head, the stones still clutched in her fist.
“What is it?” he asked, climbing to his feet and finding it easier than he expected. He was exhausted, but he was not in as much pain as he had been in before. “Nara?” he prompted when she said nothing.
He pulled her hand away and slipped the stones into the pouch he still held in his hand, then tied it carefully at her belt. He pulled her to his chest, although she was stiff and resistant instead of melting into him as she so often did. He held her tight all the same.
“I can still hear the ocean on the shore,” she whispered after too long. “I can hear the waves.”
“How long since we have been on the ocean?” he asked.
Nara shook her head then, and he understood that it did not matter. Even if she had not been in this life, the Mer and Marina, whom he doubted was Mer but rather some intermediary, had a power over her. They had put the sound inside her head, and now she could not shake it free.
He put his hands over her ears. She raised her golden eyes to him and then shook her head.
“Did she sing?” he asked.
Nara nodded, and he pulled her close. More dangerous than their poison was their song, but he had not heard anything. It was a sound he would never forget—calling, demanding help, and yet to follow meant death. Ellery had felt that in the song so many lifetimes ago, when he had been lured in and poisoned.
“I didn’t hear her,” he said.
“Neither did I,” Nara whispered, and yet he knew something had put the Mer song in her head.
Ellery held her closer, his arms too tight around her, and he started to hum. It was something he had not done for many lifetimes, if in fact at all since his first one, and that had only been occasionally to make his mother happy. She had always loved it when he sang, and yet he was sure he was not very good.
He hummed a tune he was not sure existed, the sounds coming on their own from some distant place. He could feel it vibrate through him, and Nara pressed her ear to his chest as though listening to it build.
Words formed to the tune, filling the small cottage, deep and overwhelming. Ellery stopped just as suddenly as he had started, wondering if it was a good idea to fill her head with even more sound, particularly a sound as bad as this.
She sighed against him and slipped down. If he’d not had hold of her, she would have slipped to the ground. He scooped her up and laid her carefully on the bed, climbing in beside her and pulling the blanket up around her. The light from the morning sun brightened the sky and shone across the bed, but it was not warm. Despite knowing she was asleep, he saw a single tear run away down her cheek towards her ear.
He snuggled against her. Held her tight and watched her sleep, too afraid to sleep himself lest she never wake up—lest he wake to find nothing but embers where she had been.
Ellery must have drifted to sleep himself, for when he looked around the room, it was darker than before, although he could see light in the sky beyond the little window. His stomach growled, and Nara murmured something against his side that he could not understand.
They still did not have a plan or a clear understanding of what these women were and what threat they posed, only that there were too many. The memory of his song returned, and Ellery cleared his throat.
“No,” Nara murmured, holding tighter to him and then pushing him away and as he climbed to his elbow. Her eyes fluttered open, and he saw real fear in her golden eyes. “Don’t follow me into the water,” she said, her voice low, and yet it was a command, an instruction that he was sure he could not betray. Yet he knew in his bones that if it came time and she disappeared into water, of course he would follow.
“You think they want to take you?”
“Kill us,” she said, reaching for his face, her fingers gently running over the deep mark that he knew had scarred him. Not that he looked at his face, but he could tell by the way she looked at him, by the way her gaze rested sadly on that place.
“You do not think they are different to others we have encountered? She captured you for someone else.”
“But it is to kill us. Keep us separated.”
“Even if they could manage to kill me and keep you for another reason, do you think I would not come back for you? I always come back for you.” Ellery ran his hand over the side of her face.
“This feels different,” she murmured, looking down, “and yet just the same.” She looked up at the ceiling then, as though listening for something. “They are coming for us. That is what is different. They are not hiding from us; we are not tracking them down. They come for us.”
“Do they?”
Nara nodded and then blinked as though still waking from her dream. “I did not realise you had magic,” she whispered.
“I...”
“I no longer hear the ocean,” she continued. The relief was overwhelming, and he pulled her tight against him.