Page 114 of 'Til All the Seas Run Dry

She sighed, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning closer. He turned his head to kiss her gently, his hands sliding carefully into the seaweed slick strands of her hair.

But then the air changed, becoming charged. He could almost feel the sparks dancing over his wet skin. The waves went still. The night noises went silent. And before Callum could look around Jory’s body, it felt as if the world itself had stopped turning.

A voice, almost painful to hear for all that it was soft and low, broke the silence, slicing through the electrified stillness. “I certainly hope you are satisfied.”

41

Jory spun away from Callum with a gasp, hurling herself towards a… man. And yet Callum knew he was not a man. This was an old god. The kind that Callum had heard discussed around shadowy pub tables and next to hearths on cold nights. The old gods the people had forgotten.

But memory is not required for existence. “Some things live on whether ye consider them or nay,” Callum’s father had once said into the suds on the deck of a ship. Callum had been on his knobby hands and knees next to him, listening as his father told tales to pass the time while they worked.

The old god was the color of deeply patinated bronze, greens and blues and golds, mottled together with a deep, midnight black. Callum was reminded of how the hull of a ship looked from underwater, the shadows broken by the movement and ungovernable lightness of water. The colors almost seemed to move across his skin in the moonlight, as if he was not just alive butmadeof life. His hair was long and dark, slick strands weaving and roping around one another. Just like Jory’s.

She ran and threw her arms around his neck.

“Adda,” Callum heard her say.

And this god, he held Jory tightly, one arm banding behind her back and the other cradling the back of her head with reverent care. His eyes were closed tightly, and Callum noticed that the dappled throat convulsed and a bright, glimmering tear slipped through the tight slit of his eyelids. This could only be her father. The wondering, almost worshipful way he held Jory in his arms, the way she clung to him like a child, was proof.

Callum had never been held like that. As he watched the old god’s tears fall, he’d felt a sudden, sharp pang of grief for that fact. He’d never known his mother. His father had taught him to sail and use a sword, had kept him safe and fed and clothed. He’d taught him to survive. But from his moment of earliest consciousness until his father was given back to the sea wrapped in sailcloth, Callum had never once been hugged by the man.

Callum took a step back. And then another, meaning to give them space. Just then the old god opened his eyes, and Callum found himself looking into vibrant, glowing green.

Eyes he knew so well.

In perfect Gaelic, the old god asked, “How shall I speak to you? Gaelic? English? I know them all.”

It almost hurt Callum’s ears to listen to him. Not because his voice was loud or sharp. It was neither. But rather because it felt like it was coming from beyond some rip in the veil, with all the force of the universe rushing toward him alongside the sound of his voice.

“English,” Jory answered for him, stepping back before turning a shy smile to Callum. “My Gaelic is rusty.”

“Impossible,” the god said.

Jory smiled again and rolled her eyes, earning an indulgent look from her father. She came to stand next to Callum, threading her fingers through his. Her skin was damp and cool, and a memory flashed through his mind, of an icy night in their cottage. They’d laid in their bed under furs and blankets, and she had wedged her toes and fingers underneath the bulk of his body. It had tickled, and he had squirmed. “I need ye, mo ghraidh,” she had insisted. “I need your warmth!”

Another pang of grief. He’d never warm her again. He?—

“Adda,” Jory said, squeezing his hand and sidling closer. “This is Callum.”

“I know who he is,” the liquid voice answered.

Callum waited, feeling nearly frozen in the glinting green stare, like prey.

“Adda, please,” Jory whispered. “Can he have a skin too? Can you make him like me?”

Without hesitation, the god shook his head. “I cannot.”

“But Adda?—”

“My treasure,” he said softly, “I did not say Iwouldnot, or that I do not wish to, but Icannot.”

“But… why?” she whispered. “You’re a god, Adda. And you did it for Ama.”

“Dear heart,” he said gently, “I took a mortal woman, and I made her immortal. I cannot take an immortal and make him different.”

“But—”

“He is… fixed as what he is.”