Page 81 of Ballad of Sea and Sky

It was the first time I had received anything close to a verbal response from the spirit, and I nearly lost my grip on the lake in surprise, doubling down on my magic until all I felt was the water and the wrath. My body ceased to be attached to my mind, becoming a mere vessel for the water’s spirit as Morar consumed my every thought and feeling.

“Marina?”the winged male creature asked as I tilted my head at him. This creature’s body would suffice for now, the curse tying me to the lake taken into her being instead.

The kelpie next to me, once my brethren, spoke. “Morar,” he growled, his head tossing with anger. “Leave the female.”

“Rannoch,” I drawled, my voice oddly feminine in its new body. “I thank you, brother, for this fine vessel. She shall allow me to regain my kingdom.”

“Your brother?”the winged male growled, looking between my new form and my brother.“What has he fucking done to her?”

“Your mate is safe, Winged One,” Rannoch rumbled. “Tell him,” he added to me, “that she is alive in you.”

“My brother wishes me to tell you she is alive,” I drawled, examining my fingers and flexing them beneath the skin. The body was strange, so different from my powerful body from so long ago. She was weak and frail. I sneered, realizing I would need another vessel to replace this one soon enough.

“Marina!”the winged male shouted, grabbing the vessel’s shoulders and shaking me. I growled, trying to throw him off, but the vessel was weaker than the male, and he held me fast.“Marina, I know you’re in there. You have to push him out!”

Pain split my head as the female wrestled with me in my mind. “Be still, little female,” I told her, “or I shall have to drown your mate.”

“You will not touch him,”she snapped, trying to push me to the back of her mind.

I dug my heels firmly in, clawing at the walls of her mind to stay in place. “A trivial concern,” I replied. “Cease your struggling, or I will kill him.”

“He is mine!” I cried, wrenching Morar from my mind as I threw myself physically into the black lake.

We struggled, both of us trying to control my body as I tried to push him out of me and into the dark, frigid lake water.

Flashes of memory lit up in my mind, events I had never witnessed. A selkie male beating a female and scaring a small child. The same male drowning another in Morar’s lake. The Kelpie King snatching the male and drowning him as he absorbed the darkened soul into his own essence. The blackness of that soul tainting the waters, killing kelpie young. Rannoch beseeching him to move beyond and release the blighted soul. Rannoch, trying to take his kingdom.

Morar saw my memories as well. The fall from the cliffs. The sickness of my childhood. My betrothal. Caspian kissing me when we awoke on the beach. Caspian kissing me again—

“Not that one,” I growled, wrenching the memory back. “You don’t get to see those. Leave this place. Move on, Morar. Let the lake go.”

You are like him, Morar screamed, thrashing violently in my mind as I willed the sea and the waters of the island to come to my aid and wash him away.You want my power. My kingdom.

“No,” I replied, still pushing within my own mind to force him out of my body and back into the lake, then hopefully beyond. “We want peace.”

The edges of my mind were becoming fuzzy, the cold of the water starting to creep in. How long had I been under the water? Two minutes? Three? I had taken a breath, but my lungs had begun to burn, the pain of holding it itching at me to take a breath.

You will drown, little female, Morar hissed, sensing his own imminent demise.Let me stay and we can live.

“You bound yourself to me,” I said, realization dawning. “If I die, so do you.”

Let me in, Morar hissed, his panic more pronounced.

“No,” I replied, terror swelling in me. The only way to force Morar out was to let him die, and now his essence had somehow attached itself to me. If I left this water, Morar would come with me.

I had only one choice.

I swam down, pushing my lungs well past their usual breaking point as I clung to the weeds at the bottom of the lake.

Ran must have known the cost to rid the lake of Morar. I hoped that he liked me enough that he had a plan, because I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live, to be with Caspian, to explore port towns, to make love under the moonlight. To tell him I loved him.

I wanted a life.

I heard a faint shouting above the water, muffled and dim, and growing more and more quiet as the darkness closed in.

Morar thrashed and beat at my mind, but I held him, willing the power of the sea to wash him away when he finally left me, since I doubted I’d be in a fit state to do it myself. Her power curled around me, an agreement and a promise that I would be safe.

“Protect him,” I though, Caspian’s face the last image I saw before darkness overcame me.