A Wilderness of Glass - Grace Draven Page 0,30

a long time.” Forever, she thought but didn’t say it aloud.

He frowned a little. “Why can’t we?”

Struck by his question and his reaction, she shrugged. “Because dawn isn’t far off. I need to be home before I’m missed, and no doubt your people wonder where you go to each night.” In all honesty, Brida was surprised she hadn’t seen even a hint of the merfolk so far besides Ahtin. Maybe they weren’t as nosy and far less enamored with gossip than humans were.

His frown deepened, darkened. He abruptly rolled them, slipping out of Brida so suddenly, she gasped. She still floated in his arms, though now she faced him once more, treading water. “Do you have another mate?”

Her eyes rounded. Was that jealousy she heard? The idea stunned her. Was she wrong in her earlier translations when he described the habits of the mer? They found mates, but the unions were temporary, the only permanent, long-lasting relationship that of the merfolk to their familial groups led by their aps.

Brida stroked his arm in a soothing gesture. “I did, once. He died.”

Compassion softened the pinched lines of his face. He grasped her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing her fingers. His eyes darkened with a remembered sorrow. “I had a mate too, and a child. They died as well.”

She pressed her palm to his cheek. It seemed Death was no more merciful to the merfolk than it was to humanity. “Losing one is terrible enough. Losing both, an unbearable grief.”

He gathered her close, and they held each other until his magic faded, and the pool grew colder with every passing moment. When even Ahtin’s body heat couldn’t keep the shivers at bay, he swam with her to the rocky edge and helped her out of the water. She dressed quickly, shaking hands struggling with laces and clasps until she was finally wrapped in her shawl and her damp hair bundled in a kerchief she’d tied around her head to keep her ears warm. She wouldn’t be totally dry until she got home, changed, and buried under her blankets, but it would do for now.

Once more standing on the other side of the bluff, with retreating tide stroking her feet, and the red edge of dawn just cresting the horizon, Brida blew a kiss to Ahtin. He returned the gesture.

“Come tomorrow, Brida.” His farewell carried a tone she hadn’t heard before, an unspoken promise, an assurance of deepening emotion. It made her soul dance and her heart clench.

“I will,” she said. For as long as he and his kinsmen lingered in these waters, she’d return.

She watched him turn and dive into the waves, a flicker of pearl and smoke that quickly disappeared into the Gray.

The beach was littered with shells and empty of people as Brida made her way home. She’d gone a little past the tidal pools where Ahtin had stranded himself when a familiar, four-note tune drifted toward her from the sea. She spun around, lifting her skirts to jog in the direction of the sound, drawn by a powerful need to answer its call.

A merwoman swam toward her, and Brida recognized her as the obvious leader of the group who’d come to rescue Ahtin. If her guess was right, this was the ap of his family.

The two women, human and mer, met in the shallows. Brida regretted not bringing her flute with her. It made it much easier to communicate with the mer.

She needn’t have worried. Her mouth fell open, and she gaped at the merwoman when the other told her in perfect, articulate words that any might hear in an Ancilar meeting hall “You are Brida. Ahtin told me about you.”

If Brida didn’t already possess proof of the fantastical, she’d swear she dreamed this scenario. “Are you his ap?” She did her best to repeat the front-forward sound Ahtin had made when he described the mer matriarchs.

The merwoman nodded. “And the grandmother of his grandmother. I’m called Edonin in human tongue.”

Brida marveled at Edonin’s mastery of human speech, wondering who had taught her. Another human? Or another mer taught by a human? Or had she listened to the conversation of sailors and fishermen who sailed the Gray? “I wish I knew the language of the mer as well as you know ours.”

Edonin’s grave expression didn’t change with Brida’s compliment. Her features, lovely in the way of the mer, grew even more stern the longer she stared at Brida. “You put Ahtin in danger every time you