Sisters Three (Completed)

49. Morna (2/2)

Afton placed a hand on her elbow. "I've been thinking about your sickness, and maybe I might know where it came from..."

She drew in a sharp breath. "What do you mean?"

"Do you remember the story I was going to tell you? The one about Pol."

"I remember." The one Esmond couldn't finish when she'd asked about it in the asylum. It eluded her always.

Afton bit his lip and glanced in the ocean's direction. "I've been thinking about that myth and how you wanted to hear it. It's... well, it's-" He struggled for the right words for a moment more, but then shook his head. "I can't explain it. Will you let me tell you the rest?"

She pursed her lips but didn't stop him as he started that story once more. As the wind picked up, and the smells of damp and salt galloped through the grass to slam into her nose, Afton spoke words laced with much more than before.

"Pol's daughter, a beautiful creature born of both land and sea, caught the eye of the god of war, Nur. As he was ever the conqueror, he wanted Pol's daughter for himself. So, one night he lured her to the land, knowing her one wish was to eat the fruit of an olive tree.

But once she was close, Nur threw a net over her head and tangled her fins so that she couldn't swim away. Hauling her in, hand over hand, he brought her to the land and plucked her from the bay. However, Nur didn't ever consider that the princess was of the water, and could not survive away from the waves and tides. In his stone castle so far from the bay, she died gasping.

Nur, with no use for her body, took her back to the bay and dumped her there. Pol, still searching for his missing daughter, found her in the foam on the beaches. With a screaming heart he took her home and lay her down in a bed of shells and pearls, preserved in the main hall."

Morna blinked in the silence, dashing back tears that leaked from her eyes though she tried to hold them back. Afton leaned in close, the sound of his body moving through the air as loud as the sea god's mourning. His voice rode the wind. "It is said the waterfolk still stand around her and weep, day in and day out. And that, Morna, is why the White Bay is filled with salt."

Her heart skittered as the story twined in her mind, curling up and rooting down. She couldn't shake the image of a girl sinking into the waves, going back home to the water that she couldn't leave. Had the princess felt the tug of the water as Nur pulled her onto land? Had the call burned into her lungs? Morna bit her lip hard enough to draw blood as visions of dark water whispered to her.

"It's horrible," she whispered.

"It's you." Afton searched her eyes with his, gripping her hands tightly.

"I know," Morna breathed, and when he looked surprised she continued. "I know this story, but it's not me. My mother used to tell us of her ancestor, a girl who lived on the coast. She was kidnapped and taken away. She swore she'd never stop trying to return to ocean. Her home."

"You think that ancestor's oath has carried down?"

Morna licked her lips and rubbed at the tears burning down her cheeks. "Magic has been dead for hundreds of years. She was just a girl who was homesick, nothing more."

"But what if magic isn't dead?"

Morna opened her mouth to contradict him, but he held up his hands to keep her quiet a moment longer.

"Just listen. It's not entirely dead. Your call to the water—perhaps it's a last vestige of that girl's sorrow. The dying gasp of magic, thrust on another girl who was destined for a life with no home."

"It sounds ridiculous."

"It isn't."

She breathed in and out, trying to calm her racing heart. "What can I do about it? I'm cursed forever, all because of an oath from centuries ago?"

"We can face the water."

Morna placed a hand to her forehead, feeling her rapid pulse in her temple. She'd been feeling the tug even before Afton had started his story, and now it dragged on her ribs like ragged fingernails. She didn't have much choice at all.

Afton came to her side to let her lean on him, and as she felt his muscles shifting like tides beneath his shirt, she closed her eyes and let the water securely capture her. She couldn't run if she wanted to, but at least now her constant headache and nausea from being water deficient for so long had disappeared.

"You'll be all right, Morna," Afton said after a few seconds. "I'll come and get you if anything goes wrong."

She still hadn't opened her eyes, and she didn't know how much longer they had until she came face to face with the most vengeful of all the water. The air felt charged with its power, and she shivered despite her travel-warm body.