Storm of Ash. Michelle Kenney

      I nodded, the old rock in my throat preventing any words from escaping. I didn’t deserve any sort of comfort, not even the shoulder of a best friend.

      I forced my feet into a run, and was among the topmost branches before I could think. Not pausing to look down. Not allowing Unus’s kindness to turn into self-pity. And hoping so hard he understood. The forest stroked my cheeks with early summer, and showed me the swiftest path. I still hadn’t grown used to running without a shadow, but when I finally glimpsed my destination my thoughts were calmer than they had been in a long while.

      I dropped as the trees thinned, calmed by the way the silver fingers of the bathing pool beckoned through the shadowy branches. The lake had always held a special significance. Ever since the day Max had frozen behind the cascading waterfall, paralysed with fear. It was the only time I’d known him to need help, and Eli and my acrobatic rescue had prompted our lifelong mantra.

      Even now, as I watched the white water being swallowed mercilessly by the wide black lake, I could hear his grudging admiration.

       ‘What took you so long? Why run when you can fly, hey … crazy apricot-queen!’

      My smile tightened as I stepped through the cool night grass towards the water’s edge, remembering how Max and Eli would race to be first in the water, naked and sun-kissed. I’d felt no shame watching their fresh-toned, youthful bodies glimmer in the dappled forest light, until our expeditions to the lake became known to Mum.

       ‘I don’t mind the swimming, but wear your slip and change separately.’

      She never explained why, but it was the first time I realized things were changing.

      Tonight though, I just wanted to be a child again.

      I cast a look around the shadowy trees, which were rustling as though they too were reminiscing. The water was opaque and strangely inviting. It would help me forget – at least for a while.

      Swiftly, I stripped off until the only thing warming my skin was my memories. I wasn’t cold but the anticipation of the swim was real now, and something else besides. There was a ritualistic feeling to what I was about to do.

      I stepped across to the edge of the dark rippling lake, and looked at the waterfall spilling silver life into the void. Our distant voices reached across the water as clearly as though they were here now.

       ‘I can’t move! It’s not funny … One of you needs to climb up.’

      It was one of the rare occasions I’d heard real fear in Max’s voice – that and the time we ran into the Minotaurus in Ludi Pantheonares. I closed my eyes briefly. The desperation in his forest-green eyes had pierced deeper than the Minotaur’s horns ever could.

       ‘Now, Tal?’

      But I hadn’t let him speak, and that was how he’d met Cassius’s arrow, thinking I didn’t care when nothing could be farther from the truth.

      I gritted my teeth, forcing myself past the raw memory, and back to the peace of this childhood place.

       ‘We could always leave him there … do him good to need us for a change.’

      I recalled Eli’s nudge and wink as we realized Max was stuck. He always considered Max had it too easy. Life had tipped the scales in his favour, whereas Eli, silent from birth, had to rely on his twin sister for everything.

      And I’d never underestimated my animal-whispering brother – yet he’d surprised me more than anyone. He’d sensed the griffin’s weakness in the Flavium, and brought the ravenous vultures when we most needed them in the cathedral.

      All while possessing the gentlest soul I’d ever known.

      I gazed at the spray bubbling up around the edge of shadowy water. I could see him signing now, teasing Max and winking at me.

      ‘C’mon … I was only kidding … We’ll be able to reach him more easily from the top.’

      And I was there too, eyebrows raised and with a wide grin. Always so much older than my thirteen years, and usually the peacemaker. Back then I hadn’t realized the conflict between Max and Eli was so complex.

      I dipped my toes and created a ripple of my own. It was curved and symmetrical. Like a story. And as mysterious as the night around me.

      Carefully, I waded out into the black. Its still cool penetrating my skin, and soothing the rise of emotions there. I breathed out slowly. This felt good. I could imagine Max and Eli diving beneath the cool night water, almost feel their warm smooth bodies gliding past mine. I thrust my arms forward and let myself slide into the water, kicking my legs the way my father had taught me. The water lilies felt like tiny arms, reaching out to caress my limbs. I sank my face further into their soft tendrils, which hooked around my ears and toes, securing me in their dark world. And although I knew I was too deep to touch the bottom, and there was a strong undercurrent near the cascading falls, I didn’t feel threatened. Not by the black, not by the depth, and not by the tiny hands all over my body. Touching me, healing me.

      I had no idea I’d floated out to the centre of the pool until the noise of the falls forced me to open my eyes. And for a moment I was unsure whether I’d slipped into a dream world entirely. I kicked out with my arms and legs but they felt oddly heavy. The moonlight was playing with me, darting with the tiny silver fish just beneath the surface of the lake. Only it couldn’t be moonlight, I fathomed, because the moon had gone behind a cloud and the light was beneath me. Shining up. Not down.

      Which was when I saw I was surrounded.

      Not by the lilies or any kind of plant life, but by eyes. Huge black ovoid eyes, and strong iridescent tails that had stolen the moonlight and painted it into their scales. There were too many to count, touching me, immobilizing me. But for some reason I wasn’t scared. Because I knew them. And last time they’d taken away all the pain.

      ‘Oceanids,’ I whispered into the night air, closing my eyes and submitting to the fate of the hands completely. Perhaps this was the end, perhaps it wasn’t. What did it matter?

      Then a moment of clarity.

      ‘Oceanids?’ I repeated with more conviction, striking out in vain.

      ‘Where are you?’ I struggled, as the hands suddenly became stronger, pulling me. Downwards.

      Reality flooded my frozen body, filling me with fresh, choking fear.

      ‘Where are you? Eli! Aelia!’ I yelled between mouthfuls of icy water.

      ‘The Oceanids are loyal only to themselves … They’re the only chance we have left,’ August whispered as we watched Eli and Aelia slip beneath the glass water.

      But how could the Oceanids be here in the middle of Arafel’s forest? And why would they come now?

      I was losing. The water that had seemed so calm and inviting was blurring my sight and stealing my breath. I tried to kick but the ovoid eyes were taking me down, despite my fight. Was this what it had all come to? Some kind of ceremonial drowning because I’d failed on the prophetic journey they’d envisaged?

      Then just when the outside world began drifting away, I rose from the surface as though snatched from the waves in a storm. My chest tightened as I bent over to retch and rid my lungs of the black water, and only then did I snatch a glimpse of my rescuer. It was dark, but I knew him. Somehow.

      I reached up to touch his jaw, before jerking my fingers away again. He was icy, angular – and one of them. He lowered his gilled head to focus his ovoid eyes directly on mine, his white chest rippling like sand dunes in the emerging moon. His nape-length hair hung like tendrils of bladderwrack, while the ivory-white shell strung around his neck proclaimed his regal status as loudly as a bugle.

      ‘Talia.’

      His whisper filled the air, though his lips were sealed. Then snatches of eerie forgotten