A Wilderness of Glass - Grace Draven Page 0,9
despite the benevolent gestures she’d shown so far. Had she been in his place, she didn’t doubt she would have done the same. The fault was hers for being so careless.
Laylam would soon notice Brida wasn’t helping to fill the family wagon, so she split her time. After each trip to the beach with loaded baskets, she poured more water over the merfolk, and cut kelp, discarded plan after plan for returning the pair back to the Gray, alive and unnoticed.
“I’ll be right back,” she assured the merman. Even knowing he probably didn’t understand a word she said, she hoped the tone of her voice conveyed some of her intention not to abandon them.
This time her sister-in-law, Norinn, had joined the harvesters and met Brida at the back of the dray with a full basket of her own. “You didn’t tell Laylam about that nobleman accosting you last night, did you?” Disapproval dripped from every word. “Haniss told me when the children and I got here.”
Brida scooped out bits of kelp stuck to the bottom of one basket. “I wasn’t accosted. He didn’t even touch me, although I think he was on the verge of accusing me of stealing my flute. His lordship sent him on his way.” She shrugged. “What’s there to tell?”
The memory of Ospodine still made her uneasy. There had been about him an unnatural intensity. She’d been almost surprised not to find burn marks on her back this morning when she dressed, his regard of her had been that scorching. That hostile. Still, she didn’t think it either useful or necessary to worry her brother. His lordship had expertly diffused the situation, and Brida doubted she’d ever cross path with Ospodine again.
“Laylam won’t like that you didn’t say anything, Brida.”
Brida stiffened. She liked Norinn very much, though the woman sometimes had a bad habit of expecting Brida to report everything in her life to Laylam. “He’ll adjust. He’s my brother, not my keeper.”
The other woman sighed, reaching out to pat Brida’s shoulder in a gesture of truce. “You’re his only sibling, Brida. He’s just protective.”
“I know, and I love him for it, even when he’s being his most annoying.” She offered Norinn a quick smile before shouldering her empty baskets. She didn’t have time to chat. “I’ll talk to you later. Over tea. I still have a lot to harvest at my allotment.”
“Do you need help?” Norinn called to her as she left. Brida waved and shook her head, leaving Moot behind this time. She desperately needed help, just not the kind Norinn offered.
The dread building inside her from the moment she left the title pool eased a fraction when she discovered the merman and child still breathed.
Brida had emptied one small tidal pool trying to keep her charges wet and cool and started on the second one. The merman’s closed eyelids fluttered but didn’t lift as she poured water on him. Her mind raced as she did the same to the merchild.
Merfolk obviously communicated with a series of whistles and clicks, a language of the sea both mysterious and yet familiar to her. She’d heard something similar years earlier. Brief, sadly beautiful, and a balm to her soul when she was at her most wretched. She’d never forgotten those four tuneful whistles drifting off the night surf.
The whistles the merman and child made were different, frightened instead of mournful, yet Brida guessed they came from the same origin as the ones she played on her flute. She didn’t have the instrument with her now and could only attempt to reproduce those sounds with her mouth
She set her basket aside to ease a little closer to the merman’s head and stay out of striking range of his powerful tail. Either he heard her approach or sensed her nearness, because his eyes opened, and the muscles in his torso visibly tensed.
Brida held up her hands once again to signal she wasn’t a threat. She pursed her lips and tried to echo the four whistles she’d heard years earlier. The merman’s eyes widened, his narrow nostrils flared hard, and his entire body twitched in reaction.
She had no idea what she just said and prayed it wasn’t some vile insult or promise to visit some violence on the merman or merchild. She eased back a little more, away from the tail and the reach of those muscular arms and webbed hands.
The merman’s chirp carried a wealth of question and surprise. Brida dared not show her relief that he didn’t