The morning brought clear skies and a warm sun that penetrated even the Cursed One’s lair, making the gloomy cavern dance with the light reflecting off the waves.
Ieuan stretched out on the rocks at the edge of the pool to soak up the sun. “Look how improved you are! Yesterday you could not sit up, and now you do not even need my arm to lean on.”
Zane managed a wan smile. He’d eaten some of the raw fish the Cursed One had brought them for breakfast, but underneath his hale exterior, he had a pale look, and he cradled his injured arm stiffly against his chest. “You’re an excellent nurse.”
An excellent nurse. Ieuan sat, gathering his hair back out of his face. And to think I might never have known this fact if not for the Cursed One’s freakish whims! “You are an adequate patient, Zane.”
Zane leaned back against the stone that was his support. “Tell me again about the ship that stranded you here.”
Ieuan brightened. “We were a whaling vessel—”
“Last time it was seals.”
Ieuan shrugged. He threw the bulk of his hair over his shoulder and drew a section forwards to comb with his fingers. “Sometimes we hunted seals, sometimes whales.”
“And the name of your ship?”
Ieuan scoffed. “I don’t pay attention to little things like names.”
“With one like yours, I can believe it.”
Ieuan gave Zane a look that would have quelled waves. “I was more interested in the crew.”
“That’s right. How many of them were in unrequited love with you again?”
Ieuan waved an airy hand. “I don’t remember. I pretended not to notice. Since it was not requited, it seemed kindest.”
“Right.” Zane shifted, resettling himself against his rock.
“After all,” Ieuan said, continuing to comb out his hair as he warmed to his story, “I only had eyes for one.” He sighed. “Tegwaret was easily the fairest of the crew and born only a few years ahead of me. No other children had been born to our people for many years, so we were naturally close. It was our parents’ wish—and mine too—that we would be life companions…” Ieuan frowned, his fingers coming to a halt. “I loved Tegwaret truly, and he did me! It seems cruel beyond all else that it is not to be.”
“Ah,” Zane intoned. “The jealous captain.”
Ieuan resumed his untangling. “Jealousy is a sad fault indeed, creating misery where there need only be joy, never satisfied… Our captain is a worthy leader in many respects, but he is sadly jealous. Having lost his life’s companion, he was not content that others might know such joy, and so he contrived to win first Tegwaret’s attention, and then beguile his mind and finally win his heart away from me.”
“You’re sure it’s the captain who is jealous?”
Ieuan drew himself up. “Am I stranded or not?” As Zane made no answer, Ieuan continued his story. “Cruellest of all was the part Tegwaret played in this! He said he would gladly be stranded rather than part, but I fear he played me false, for I am here alone—”
“Alone?”
“You must forgive me. Your arrival is so short I have not grown used to company.”
Zane shook his head, hesitating. “Sometimes I think I hear voices.”
Definitely storm-addled. Ieuan shook his head. “The waves. I often imagine I hear voices in them. My Tegwaret calling me, or perhaps—”
“I hear your voice.” Zane raised his chin to look Ieuan dead in the eyes. “Under the water. It sounds like you’re talking to someone.”
His eyes were usually a soft hazel, but now they had something hard in them. Ieuan combed his hair over his face. “I talk to myself.”
“Underwater?”
Ieuan risked a peek out from his curtain of hair. “I don’t want to disturb you, after all.” He stretched out to rest his hand on Zane’s leg. “You need your rest.”
Zane snorted. He very carefully levered himself down into a reclining position. “You’re very kind.”
Ieuan smiled. “It is good of you to notice! Not many do. It’s always, ‘Ieuan, do this,’ ‘don’t do that,’ ‘you are too reckless, you need to think first’—They never give me the chance to show them what I can do!”
“I can’t imagine why.” Zane winced as he shifted his arm. “Remind me. How many years of practice did it take you to learn how to breathe underwater?”
“Oh, about fifty.” His hair combed out, Ieuan started to braid it, his fingers so nimble that he could talk without needing to concentrate on the task. “It’s very difficult, you know. But when you’re stranded on an island as long as I have been—”
“We’re on an island?”
Zane sat up so quickly that he overbalanced, throwing out his arm to correct himself. He swore, his body jerking in pain. “Shit!”
“Do not move! Here, I will help you!” Scooting to Zane’s side, Ieuan resettled him against the stone. “Are you all right?”
Zane’s breathing was harsh. His skin was cold to Ieuan's touch, with a clamminess that alarmed him.
“I will fetch some water—”
“Stay where you are.” Zane shut his eyes, but his body trembled with the effort of speaking those words. “Your touch—the cold helps.”
Ieuan pressed his fingers back to Zane’s forehead. It seemed a pitiful gesture in comparison to such great pain, but as he stroked the human’s skin, he saw some colour return to him.
A moment later, Zane opened his eyes. “Thank you.” He looked directly at Ieuan. “We’re on an island?”
Had Zane’s eyes always had flecks of green mixed in with the brown? Ieuan hummed distractedly. “Mmm.”
“How big?”
Ieuan shrugged, sitting back. “That depends on how you define big. To a humpback whale, I suppose it would not even be worth noticing, but to a crab, it would be huge indeed.”
“And to people?”
Ieuan shrugged. “If it was anything to people, we wouldn’t be the only two people stranded here.”
“Is there anything on it? A lighthouse, a beacon, a hut…?”
Ieuan pulled his hair over his shoulder to renew his braiding. “I’ve never looked.”
“Fifty years and you’ve never looked?”
Ieuan gave Zane an injured look. “I was busy teaching myself to breathe underwater.”
Zane stared at him a moment and then convulsed, his shoulders shaking. The cavern echoed with his laughter.
“You will do yourself an injury!” Ieuan warned darkly. “And it is not nice to laugh at one who has gone to a lot of trouble to help you!”
“I’m sorry.” Zane wiped away tears. “Tell me about the island.”
Ieuan frowned in thought. Unable to set foot on land, all he knew of the island was its coastline. “Well… It takes me a full day to swim the length of it. I don’t think you could do it in that time. There are many bays and colonies of seals. The cliffs are the roost of the albatross and the shearwaters. At the tip, there is another island, smaller.”
“It could be the Antipodes Islands. There was a hut there for castaways. It’s abandoned now, but there was a conservation programme a few years ago. It’s possible they left something that could help us.”
Ieuan started. Listening to Zane, he’d barely noticed the currents stirring in the water beneath his feet. The tug at his foot was a surprise. “Excuse me a moment. I think I hear a fish.”
The water was cold in comparison to the sun-drenched rocks. Ieuan let himself sink, the water seeming murkier than ever to eyes adjusted to the sun.
Cedifor waited in the darkest shadow, the light just touching on his distorted arm. “I have brought fish for both of you.” He thrust out the warehou, a fine specimen with silvery scales that would feed all three of them. “There are no signs of boats that I’ve seen.”
Ieuan hastily averted his eyes from Cedifor’s claw-like hands. “Forget boats. Did you hear what we just said?”
Cedifor pushed the fish into Ieuan's hands. “You talk such a lot of nonsense that I stopped listening.”
Ieuan spluttered, looking up from the warehou. “How rude! Still, Zane appreciates me even if you do not.”
The water rippled as Cedifor turned towards the tunnels, his hair spreading out behind him like a squid’s ink. “Does he suspect anything?”
“Not at all.”
“That is good.” Cedifor hesitated. “He is healing fast. It is likely that he will try to explore. He may injure himself attempting to climb through the roof or drown in the tunnels.”
“If you were not so rude, I would have told you! Zane spoke of there being a hut on this island, a hut for castaways such as himself.” Ieuan followed Cedifor unthinkingly.
“That could be very good! When he has recovered his strength, we must help him find it. Until then, we must keep his suspicions dulled.”
Cradling the fish in one arm, Ieuan tucked his hair out of his face. “Would it not be better to keep him? Zane is so pleasant, and I am growing fond of his company—”
Cedifor’s laugh was humourless. “It would be his death, Ieuan.”
“But—”
“He is a human. He can survive in summer temperatures, but winter? All it takes is the wind to change, bringing the cold from the south, and he is lost. Nor can he survive long on such food as I can find, and his arm… I have misgivings about his arm.”
There was a rattle above them, a shower of pebbles cascading past them. Ieuan and Cedifor glanced up as one, but the rocky overhang shaded the surface of the water and prevented them from seeing up.
“You are sure he suspects nothing?” Cedifor asked.
“Positive.”
“I’ll use what daylight remains to see if I can spot this hut from the shore. Do not leave him, Ieuan.”
Again with the orders! Ieuan rolled his eyes, pulling himself towards the surface.
Zane was just settling back against his rock as Ieuan lifted his head above the water. “I have a surprise for you!”
“Is it a fish?”
Ieuan pouted. “It is not such a surprise as I thought…but wait till you see him! He is a handsome fellow.” He placed the fish on a smooth, flat rock, ideally suited to be a table, before drawing himself out of the water.
“I’d be more surprised if he was cooked.” Zane looked at the fish, his expression wan. “No chance of some soy sauce? Maybe a slice of lemon or some salt and pepper—even better, a bit of batter and some chips?”
“What nonsense is this?” Ieuan began to wring his hair out anew.
“Private joke.” Zane poked at the fish’s flipper. “Your friend’s not going to be joining us?”
Ieuan made a face. “He’s not my—” Too late he realised his mistake.
Zane smirked at him. “But you admit you’re not alone.”
Ieuan licked his lips. “There is you, of course—”
“I’ve had a feeling there was someone else here for a while now.” Zane’s smile softened. “What’s the deal? Is the guy shy?” His brown eyes were warm with interest.
It hurts no one, does it? Ieuan bit his tongue. After all the Cursed One has done to save him, it is only fair Zane should know of him. He felt a twinge deep within. The Cursed One who didn’t even want to be thanked had thought of Zane’s safety while Ieuan had thought first of the pleasure of Zane’s company. “Cedifor is so antisocial I hardly ever see him. He lives here alone—”
“This cave is his home?”
Ieuan nodded. “He brought you here himself after the storm.”
“I thought so.” Zane frowned. “My body ached. My arm was numb from holding on to the wood, and this one…” He motioned to his injured arm. Cedifor had done his best to bind it with kelp, but the way Zane held it indicated clearly how much it hurt. “Every time the waves caught it, the pain—I thought I was going to black out. I knew the next wave would break my hold on the wood and that it would all be over, but I had to hang on. Then arms wrapped around me from behind, and I was pulled through the waves.” Zane frowned. “I must have passed out. I don’t remember anything else. But wasn’t that dangerous?”
“I suppose…” Ieuan looked around the cave for a distraction. “Look how prettily the sun shines on the water! Perhaps you would like to sit with your feet in it.”
Zane waved his suggestion aside. “He saved my life.” Zane invested the words with weight. “Ieuan, tell him I want to thank him.”
Ieuan frowned. “I do not know why. After all, the—Cedifor helped you once. I have been by you constantly, nursing you so well.”
“And you’ve done an amazing job. But I need to thank Cedifor myself.” Zane looked Ieuan straight in the eyes. “Please?”
Ieuan sighed, slipping into the water with barely a ripple. “Do not expect him to say yes. He—does not like to be looked at.”
“I’ll remember.” Zane smiled at him. “Thank you, Ieuan.”
Zane’s words kept Ieuan warm even when he’d slipped beneath the sun-drenched shallows to the deeper currents. He sighed as he stilled himself, turning his thoughts to the Cursed One’s traces. This is a strange melancholy the human has created in me… But why? There was no reason for it, none at all. Ieuan felt a ripple in the water and dived towards the currents that churned past the island. Humans and the Cursed One… Perhaps they are mysteries better left to each other.
The Cursed One’s tunnels were as tangled as his matted hair. Ieuan was soon hopelessly lost. Just as he decided that Zane would have to bear his disappointment, a slight variation in temperature alerted Ieuan to a previously unnoticed tunnel. Minutes later he was free, racing with the icy current towards the ocean sea.
Ieuan found the Cursed One at the base of a natural harbour, looking up at the cliffs. He was not impressed by Ieuan's appearance, treading water as he glared at him. “What did I tell you about leaving your charge, Ieuan?”
Above the waves, the wind blew Ieuan's hair in contrary directions. Ieuan angrily pulled it back off his face. “He is fine! I found you at his wish.”
The Cursed One fixed his exposed eye on Ieuan. In the unobstructed daylight, it was even more alarming. “His wish? That is more of a reason not to leave him!”
Ieuan flinched back. “He desires to speak to you.”
“Impossible. You know that as well as I.” The Cursed One turned his gaze back to the land.
Ieuan thought of the weight Zane had put in his request. “It is important to him that he thank the one who saved his life. He remembers the risk you took to reach him in the waves—”
Cedifor pressed his lips together thinly. The half of his mouth that no longer had lips grimaced. “Does he also remember how he screamed in terror at the very sight of me? He would like to be driven mad! No, I will not speak to him, and you must tell him so.” Sunlight caught on his hair, making it shine, a dull memory of what had once been beautiful.
Ieuan looked at the sea rather than at his companion. Far out in the bay, the waves were not choppy, though the occasional swell raised him high enough to see more of the shore. “What are you looking at here?”
“See how gently the beach slopes?” Cedifor jerked his head towards the shore. “And the hill beyond… It would not be too difficult for a human to climb. It seems the best place for a hut to be.”
Ieuan shaded his eyes as he studied the island. Tendrils of kelp curled thickly at the base of the rounded rocks. In comparison to the harsh grey cliffs that surrounded them, the slope was gentle indeed, its rocks stained white by the daily passage of the penguin colony that lived at its top. As Ieuan watched, several birds leapt from the water onto the rocks. “If such a small bird can do it, surely a man might.”
“We must do all we can to check that the hut is there before we send Zane on such an errand,” Cedifor said. “Ieuan, brace yourself. I will climb your shoulders.”
Ieuan started. “What?”
Cedifor shared his awful sideways smile. “You cannot expect to stand on mine.”
Ieuan looked and wished he hadn’t. The flesh was horrible in daylight, all its rips and scars laid bare. It was mottled in places with algae and lichen and something that glinted white in the sunlight. The silver of fish scales or bare bone?
Ieuan realised belatedly he was staring. He flushed, bowing his head. “Stand.”
Cedifor’s bones rasped against Ieuan’s skin as he heaved himself out of the water.
Ieuan shuddered, feeling Cedifor’s curtain of hair drag across his skin. “Can you see anything?”
“Patience.” Cedifor’s hand rested for a moment on Ieuan's head.
Ieuan almost sank beneath the waves in alarm. He braced himself, feeling Cedifor adjust his weight and stand.
“There is something,” Cedifor said. “Though whether or not it is the hut will be for Zane to discover.” He dived into the water.
Ieuan gave him time to reach the deep water before following. “You will not speak with him?”
“Ieuan, think!” Cedifor’s reply floated up to him from below. “Face-to-face with a monster, what is a man’s natural response?”
All Ieuan could see of him was a shadow darker than its surroundings. “To kill it or flee from it.”
“And in attempting either of those things, Zane will hurt himself. You must discourage him from the idea.”
“How?”
“Use your excessive imagination, Ieuan. I am going to hunt.”
Ieuan frowned as Cedifor’s dark shadow faded from sight. Easy for you to say. You’ve had centuries to scheme! He worried at his lip. Zane will be disappointed—
The water rippled around him, exploding with silver and light. Ieuan stared and then laughed. Like a sun shower, a cloud of silvery mackerel flashed through the water in one gigantic school. As if the same single impulse leapt through their minds, the fish all wheeled around, twisting through the water in a brilliant circle.
Ieuan stretched out his hands carelessly. The fish avoided him, Ieuan’s fingers closing on the ripples of their passage. Beautiful! The sunlight made the fish shine like stars. Ieuan let their beauty fill him with delight. I have been with the Cursed One too long. His doom and darkness have mired me, made me forget that there are such things as beauty and pleasure and light in this world—
A forceful shove knocked Ieuan out of his thoughts. He dived, the cloud of fish scattering in panic all around him. Seal after seal charged through the water. A flick of their determined tails brought them into the heart of the confused fish.
Ieuan stared up at the dark shapes of the seals moving through the water above him. He felt cold throughout, although he was a long way from the cold current that dominated the Cursed One’s territory. His heart shook his entire frame, beating hard and fast.
“There should be a pox on seals who don’t watch where they are going!” But even as Ieuan’s anger rebounded off the rocks, he knew it was false. I’m afraid. Caught up in the beauty of the moment, he’d forgotten his surroundings.
Ieuan drew his hair out of his face. That first awful moment when the seal rasped against his side, he’d felt its warmth and thought its flipper was a morgen hand reaching for him. I should have left these waters days ago. I should leave now!
The thought of leaving drew an immediate response. Zane… I cannot leave him to Cedifor. Ieuan drew a deep breath. No one will look for me here. They could never guess that the Cursed One would shelter me. I am safe so long as I stick to his tunnels. Bracing himself for the cold that awaited him, Ieuan dived.
Stupid seals! Ieuan reached the kelp that hugged the cliffs with relief. His feeling of near-escape had haunted him all the way back to Cedifor’s tunnels, but now safety—and Zane—were only a few minutes away. Ieuan rolled his eyes as he threaded his way through the long tendrils of kelp. I shall tell Zane of my complaint, and he will agree that seals are the most unnecessary of mammals.
But how to tell Zane that he’d mistaken the seals for morgen without revealing that he was not human? Ieuan slowed his approach to the tunnels.
That’s when he felt the ripple. It came from above, in the direction of the open sea. Ieuan paused, looking up. His hair floated in front of his face, but instinct warned him against drawing it back. It’s nothing. Another seal—seals? There was more than one, and they moved as a cohesive group. Dolphins?
Ieuan felt behind him for the kelp. Moving as little as possible, he pulled himself back into the tangled seaweed. Morgen moved through the water in a distinctive way, and a hasty movement might signal Ieuan’s location as clearly as a shout. He had a very bad feeling about this.
The water churning against the cliffs above was a steady rumble. Ieuan hoped it hid the sound of his heart, pounding in his chest. There are creatures of the deep here that do not swim in the shallows. The memory of the great squid that Tegwaret and Ieuan had discovered beached on the rocks of the morgen’s island did not comfort. The squid was twice as long as Ieuan, and all but one of its tentacles were missing from the fight with whatever creature had claimed its life, but that sole remaining one had made Ieuan very glad when Llygad pronounced it dead. I should prefer a squid—or shark!
“Halt.”
Ieuan shrank back into the weed. It was as he feared. Morgen!
“Do you sense something, Howel?” Gwilim speaking close by!
“I felt something. Be still.”
Around Ieuan, the kelp continued to furl and unfurl with the tide. Ieuan clasped the rocks of the cliffs with both hands, praying that the kelp hid the ripples created by his presence. His hands shook. Please, let the kelp hide me!
“Whatever it is, it is quiet and still.” That low, serious voice was Lowarch, who seldom left the safety of the island. For him to be present was a surprise Ieuan did not like.
“Then we can be sure that it is not Ieuan!” Mabilia’s laugh was quickly echoed by her companions.
Ieuan’s heart sank. Howel, Gwilim, Lowarch, Mabilia... And there were more ripples from above. Have they all come? The morgen group never hunted en masse like this.
“Curb your laughter.” Howel’s order was immediately obeyed. “We are in Cedifor’s territory. His anger is nothing to joke about.”
“Indeed.” The voice that followed Howel’s was sweet. “We would do well to avoid the Cursed One’s notice altogether.”
Ieuan squeezed his eyes shut. Tegwaret! Hearing his voice was pain.
“Perhaps,” Tegwaret continued, “it would be better to avoid the Cursed One’s waters? We might as easily scout the edges—”
“Absolutely not,” Enith said. “Remember, the Cursed One sang the night after the storm as he has not sung in hundreds of years. The two events cannot be unconnected.”
Nest’s quiet murmur echoed her mate’s words. “If Ieuan is trapped here, or injured… We must find him!”
Ieuan felt a ripple of guilt. Hearing that note of concern in Nest’s voice struck him to the bone, to say nothing of the insistence in Enith’s voice. His mothers feared for him, cared for him, even if no one else did. He let go of the weed, intending to float up to reassure them.
A minute ripple gave him a moment’s warning before Cedifor’s hand clasped around his foot. He squeezed in warning.
“Ieuan’s got too much dumb luck to get himself into serious trouble,” Gwilim continued. “He called up a storm, probably incurred the Cursed One’s wrath. And if the Cursed One has punished our miscreant, so much the better! Saves us a job.”
“Says you. I’ve been itching to have a go at that impudent pup for moons—”
“Silence!” Howel ordered. “We are not in home waters! Feel that? The water is changing as we speak.”
Ieuan opened his mouth soundlessly. He’d thought the chill was fear, but now he felt it in the water, the current that flowed through the darkest part of the ocean winding its way up, threading around them like fronds of a net.
“This goes against nature! The natural flow—I do not like this one bit!” Tegwaret’s voice was higher than usual, afraid.
The ripples above pulsed, the morgen drawing closer together. No movement came from below, where Cedifor hung motionless in the water, gathering the coldness around him like a cloak. The kelp lifted around Ieuan, tugged by the current. His hair didn’t stir.
Ieuan swallowed. What sorcery is this that I stay still while everything around me moves?
A movement pulled Ieuan’s attention downwards. Cedifor, only his outline visible in the shadow, waved one hand before him in a circular motion while the other drew water up from below. In response, water surged past Ieuan, winding around the morgen group.
The Cursed One’s magic! Strange to think that Ieuan had forgotten Cedifor was the most dangerous of their kind, versed in secrets never meant to be his. This discovery was the most chilling yet.
“The water turns against us! We must flee or be swept against the rocks!” Mabilia’s voice struggled against the growing current. “Let us leave while we can!”
“Halt! All of you!” Howel’s voice was a roar. “This is Cedifor’s dark work. Cedifor, show yourself!” His voice was firm, unshaken by the tumult.
“Show myself? I do not think you wish that, Howel.” Cedifor hadn’t moved, but his voice came from somewhere above them. “Hail, brethren. After so many centuries, do you wish to try my temper? You will find my anger quick and these rocks sharp.”
The shiver in the water above them was palpable. Ieuan pressed himself against the rocks. No boat caught between rocks and a storm could be more vulnerable than I!
“Come now, Cedifor.” Howel’s voice was rich and pleasant as always, his tone that of a lord conferring a bonus on a preferred subservient. Ieuan, always attuned to anything he might dislike in it, thought the note of pleasure was forced. “It was not so long ago that you were pleased to look upon us as friends. Remember?”
“I remember how it was my friends’ will that I be consigned to this dark prison.” Cedifor’s retort was underscored by the Antarctic cold that laced through the current. “I remember how readily I was tossed aside when I was no longer useful to you! I have had centuries to think of nothing else… I assure you, Howel, I remember very well indeed.”
“We did what we had to.” Better chance of apology from a cliff than Howel! His voice was as hard as his heart. “You were too dangerous to have in our midst. Having challenged nature itself, there was nothing sacred to you.”
“Did you think I aimed at your position?” Cedifor’s words were slick as the scum that sometimes settled on top of the waves. “Surely you know better, my love.”
“There is no love between you two.”
The sound of Tegwaret’s voice, harsh with anger, made Ieuan start. What reason has Tegwaret to sound so defensive? Surely—Ieuan tasted bile at the back of his throat—Surely not!
“No love for any of us,” Tegwaret continued. “Ieuan is not here. Let us depart, seek him elsewhere—”
“No love?” For the first time, Ieuan heard Cedifor’s real voice in his reply. “I would not say that.”
There was a ripple of interest from the morgen above—one that had nothing to do with fear.
“You mean to state, Cedifor, that your heart bond is extant?” Lowarch’s clear, precise tone gave a formality to his most banal everyday greeting. In the murky underwater valley, with Cedifor’s words echoing around them, he sounded like a king sat in judgement.
“As if it is possible to love that!” Howel’s forward motion sent a powerful ripple through the kelp.
Ieuan was jerked downwards by Cedifor. He didn’t need the shove towards the tunnels or to see the dark look the sorcerer gave him to know his intent. Ieuan wished nothing more than to be safely hidden in the tunnels. Careful not to give his presence away by any hasty movement, Ieuan drew himself towards the tunnels by using the cliff wall to drag his body through the water.
“Love has many forms, Beloved.” Cedifor’s voice was cold and hard as ice. “Not all of them pleasing to the eye.”
“That is the past!” Howel’s anger almost cost Ieuan his grip on the rock as he flinched. “We have not talked in centuries—”
“By your decision! My calls, my songs, all went unanswered.” Small chunks of rocks raised by the churning water struck Ieuan as he made his way to the tunnels, inch by painful inch. “But a heart does not have a tongue to speak or ears to listen. It does not cease to love because it has been left in silence.”
The morgen were silent. Ieuan feared moving, feared staying still. He reached for the next rock. A single mistake and they must find me!
“Cedifor.” There was a quiet note in Howel’s voice, one Ieuan had not heard in centuries. “I would speak with you alone. Let us go to your tunnels so that we may talk freely.”
Ieuan’s hand slipped. The rock tumbled from his grasp, striking the cliff face as it rattled downwards.
“No!” Tegwaret’s exclaimed. “Howel, the danger! To be alone with the Cursed One—”
Relieved and betrayed in the same instant! Before Ieuan could comprehend his heart, Cedifor shoved him towards the caves. “Friendly words indeed! What wrong have I done you, Tegwaret?”
“Calm yourself, Tegwaret.” Howel didn’t seem to have noticed Ieuan. “Cedifor has no power to harm me.”
“Would that I could say the same!” Cedifor flung out his arms, the water rising with his anger.
The current picked Ieuan up bodily. He panicked, flinging his arms out wide to find something to cling to. Instead, he grazed briefly over rock and then nothing. The tunnel! No longer afraid of being felt, Ieuan propelled himself through the water.
Behind him, he heard the morgen shout as the brunt of Cedifor’s wave hit them. Ieuan paid them no heed. An icy cold current swirled ahead of him, Cedifor’s magic guiding him through the tunnels.
Zane! Fear lent Ieuan extra speed. If his morgen brethren would be displeased to see Ieuan, they would be furious to discover a human in their waters.