Penthos: The Guardian Sea

Chapter Eighteen: Dreamers

     She was stunning against the grey, the teal part of her eyes shining against the water, the grey blending in. She floated on her back as he came up next to her. “The water here is magic. It shows you your dreams, the truth about yourself you may have never known. The future, if it is feeling generous.”

     “I know the legends, princess,” he said. He bit his tongue as she looked at him sharply. More memories of that black-haired bastard. He hated that Germaine’s memory was hurting her. It was one thing he couldn’t protect her against.

     Arielle laid back again. “What do you wish to see, my friend?” she said, closing her eyes.

     He thought about it, floating next to her as the waves carried them about. “The truth,” he said finally. All his life, Jarissein Banviete had been a mystery to himself, a child raised by his uncles to be a warrior, nothing more or less. “I want to know who I am.”

     Arielle smiled a little, and dove backward, disappearing below the water with little splash. Jarissein followed suit, but a little less graceful. He had never understood how Arielle could be so accustomed to trees and sky and sea, all separate and very different, but acting as if she had lived in them all her life.

     He held his breath as he caught up to Arielle. She was floating about ten yards below the surface, eyes closed, hair floating around her like a protective aura. She opened her eyes as Jarissein came up next to her. “The water is fine,” she promised, somehow talking below the waves. Seeing his confusion, she said, “I can breathe here. I don’t know how. Maybe the water welcomes home its own blood. You try.”

     Jarissein was afraid, but opened his mouth. Water flooded in, and he expected to feel the sear of pain as he drowned, but it felt like liquid air to him. He breathed in the Penthos as though it were oxygen. “How is this possible?” he whispered.

     She shrugged. “The Sea is a part of us. All of us. We all were born of it. Maybe it thinks you and I have some sort of connection to it. I do not know. But I know it welcomes me with open arms.”

     He looked at her, really looked at her, and realized how old she appeared. Young of face and body, but her soul and mind were aged beyond her years. He wondered how it could be so. Had she so much knowledge of the world?

     “Jarissein,” she said. “We must find the water spirits that live here. Within the Sea of Dreams. They call themselves Sirens, a bastardization of the last half of my name, seren, which means ‘keeper.’” She turned without another word and swam further out to sea.

Arielle had visited the Sirens many times before. Now that she had someone with her, she doubted they’d show themselves. But still, she owed the boy of the Guard something. He had kept her company in these darkening days, and he had been kind to her.

     She pushed further out, glancing back now and then to see Banviete following her. She smiled a little to herself.

     The Sirens themselves were creatures of the moon and sea. They sang songs to noble sailors or fishermen and kept lonely islanders company out of sheer goodness. The Sirens were by no means evil, but they were indeed mysterious.

     Legend had it that the Sirens were the true keepers of the Sea. But Arielle knew different. When the Realm was young, Qhetelkelen fell in love with a Siren by the name of Lalona. It was against the laws of the Siren. So, after Lalona gave birth to the first Penthoseren, whose name has been lost to time, she was executed.

     Qhetelkelen, in his sorrow, asked the Sirens to keep the Dream Shores. With their magic, they held the future and past and present. They agreed to his terms, and stayed forevermore in the grey waters of Penthafjeim.