Open sea.
She blinked as if to make something appear. Nothing. Just water beating against water. The veil of fog wasn’t helping. She still had some time. Was she supposed to get out of this net? Was this a part of her paces, or were those Rakor?
It had to be her ilorays. The one with the brown curls—she wasn’t sure about him, but the white-and-black-haired one had to be Meelo.
This had to be its own kind of test.
Hiding from landkeepers? The rock provided her a good amount of cover.
Lasting without water? Maybe. Maybe they would come back eventually and free her from the net—just before the thin, empty air dried her out to death. This was a strong possibility.
Or was she expected to escape from the net?
Gryshen ran her fingers along the wet, coarse knots. It was rough but well-constructed and tightly bound. She ran her eyes over it, pushing it back away from her face. Gryshen moved against the rock, turning her head from side to side. It all looked like an open stretch of sea.
Gulls swooped overhead. She spotted three porpoise fins across the water, breaking the current. The air felt dry and hollow.
She picked at one of the binding knots, wondering if she could force it apart. It wasn’t moving. She twisted her body, forcing her way to the other side of the tiny cove and squinted her eyes, straining to see through the fog across the water.
There was the pressure of her throat. Thirst was setting in, and there was no easy access to water without throwing herself over the high rocks and into the ocean. Still trapped in the net, this could lead to her death. She was more sure that she needed to get out of this. Gryshen began sucking the remaining sea water from her hair as she checked individual knots, searching for the weakest. There it was. An unusually large knot—looking as if one of the net weavers had gotten the tiniest bit sloppy. Fit fingertips in, draw it parallel to line of vision.
Maybe they weren’t so sloppy after all. The knot was large, but it was very tight. This had to be her best shot, though, so she committed to it. Careful, careful . . . Tugging too hard, too fast could risk tightening it further. Precise picking was the key.
Gryshen was not accustomed to being exposed to open air, without a water break, for so long. When she poked above surface she was just bobbing, so water was available in immediate gulps. Even on her rock, watching the humans, she just slipped right down every few minutes for a drink.
Her skin began to prickle now. She could suddenly feel her eyeballs pressing into their sockets. The roots of her hair began to tug.
Stay calm, she cautioned herself. Panicking will only distract you. She drove herself back into that knot, trying to ever so gently pull at each side, looking for someplace where it would give way. It wouldn’t. Her already sore lungs weren’t offering much support. The burning along the gills in her neck seemed to be returning. Her nostrils felt arid. Gryshen blinked, trying to moisten her eyes, but it wasn’t helping. She paused from her puzzle to grab every last lock of hair and suck the sea from it.
It wasn’t enough. Her lips were so hot, her face parched . . . and the air now seemed to weigh heavily upon her whole body.
Frantically, she began to look for an opening she could stretch out in the thread web. She couldn’t even fit a hand through. Was the fog getting thicker, or was her vision blurring? She swept her eyes along the net again, hoping she had missed something obvious. Her eyelids began to droop, and she thought she heard the calm of the ocean being broken by a Thud! Sweep. Thud! Sweep.She half wondered what it was, half tried to get hold of the big knot again, but her fingers fell as her lids closed. The air pulled the last drops of moisture from her.
“Shh . . . shh . . . shh . . .” A sound like waves crashing in the distance washed into her ears. Water lapped upon Gryshen’s tail. Something soft and damp pressed against her forehead, her cheeks. She jerked her eyes open as soon as she felt water being poured in a strange trickle down her throat. Was this a dream? A teacup was pressed against her lips. It had to be one of those dreams. She must have passed out. Had she died? Had she? She fluttered her eyes, straining to see past the cup and the blur. Foggy sky . . . and a face.
A human face.
She swiftly drew her whole body back, trying to pull herself up on her elbows and failing.
“Shh . . . shh . . . shh . . . ” The face placed a finger to its lips. The human was making the sounds of waves. Gryshen blinked again to put all the shapes into focus. She knew the face.
It belonged to the woman of the island, the woman of the tea-drinking dreams. The woman looked anxious. She said something Gryshen did not understand.
The woman handed something to her; more she set it against her fingers, closing them gently around it. Gryshen laid against stone, dumbfounded.
In her hand was a teacup, with no chips and a gleaming white finish. The sunlight came out from the clouds to reflect on the elixir, its dark amber surface reminding her of a valley of seaweed jewels. Gryshen wasn’t shaking; she held the cup steady, looking at the woman, then past her. They were tucked deep in a cove, larger and with taller rocks than the one she had been trapped in.
Trapped.
She spied the net torn open with a long blade beside it. She wasn’t about to fight this. Not this woman. Who could fight someone who had clearly just saved their life? From her post, Gryshen craned her neck to see their position: to her south, the wall of rock; a bit southeast were a grouping of stones that must have worked as steps for the landkeeper to walk down to this point. The woman sat against a smaller boulder backing up to the cliff. Just ahead, on the west side, a small boat was resting ashore, a pair of oars haphazardly strewn beside it. Past the boat, open sea. Farther still, more sea. She turned around to glance behind her, and in the distance, she recognized her own looking rock, where she had watched this landkeeper, now a face just before her.
The other side of this cliff must be her island, yes, she thought, recognizing the wall now as a place she had swam past.
The woman kept her eyes focused on her. Her hair was in a loose black braid trailing down one shoulder, her eyes a clear gray, her chin falling to a definite point. She wore a long pale-blue dress tied with a fringe tassel around her waist. She didn’t speak again for some time, only sat against the stone looking back at Gryshen.
The woman began to lean forward, but even in her slowed movements, she startled Gryshen, whose hands now shook and spilled the warm contents of the cup. It felt like sun-soaked ocean on her skin, only a little hotter. The woman reached out her two hands in a cradle, and Gryshen considered giving her the teacup. She went fishing for those old words in her mind, but only the silly ones were floating through her head now. She took a sip of the tea and pulled back the veil in her mind to reveal the words she was taught to use in a crisis:
Danger
Help
Hungry
Thirsty
Get away
I will kill you if you hurt me.