The dark waters| ✓

19.WAVES AND STORMS

"Llyn...." Llyr says.

Llyr takes my hand and looks at the blue bracelet. "Indeed you are. Look a lot like her. Your eyes, just like hers."

I stand there too shook to speak or even react.

"How do you know her ?" Lee says  voicing one of the million questions in my head.

"Her blue bracelet. I had two of them. I had given one to Isla. The other one-."

He stopped abruptly and looked at Dylan's wrist. A blue bracelet similar to mine shined in the scarce sunlight.

"You arre Mira's son aren't you?" Llyr says.

"Yes I am." Dylan says.
Mira..... Dylan never told me anything about his mom.

"I've known her since I was a child. I miss her. A lot." Llyr says. " anyways, who are you?"

"King Llyr, we call ourselves the fidelists. We are loyal towards you, the true king. We were sent here on a special purpose. We-." Nerida says in an excited way.

"It would be better to take this inside. A storm is coming this way. And this place gets ugly when a storm comes." He says beckoning us towards the wooden  hut. We look at each other.

King Llyr is alive. He is inviting us inside his hut. This has to be a dream. I hear Nerida say as I read her mind.

I reach into Lee's mind.

Honestly, this guy is creepy. I don't know what Isla saw in him except for his looks.

I almost laugh out hearing this. I control myself. They can't know I was reading their thoughts. It's my own little secret. Lastly I reach into Dylan's mind. I try hard but I don't sense anything. He's just dumbfound.

"Okay let's go in." I say.
Clearly I'm the only one in my sane mind today. We walk into the hut. It is cool and dark inside the hut. The hut smells of sea water and mildew. It is a lot more spacious than it looks from outside.  There is a rug folded and kept in the corner on which Llyr probably sleeps.

"The place wasn't exactly made for 5 people but we could always make provisions for your lot." Llyr said in his deep voice that bounces through the room.

"That's fine we will find something to sleep on. Really we are so grateful for being invited in." Nerida says leaving the hut. Dylan follows her out of the hut after giving Llyr a wide smile.

"What's the matter with these two?" Llyr asks me once they leave.

"They are mers from some place called Mario anus." Lee says. " ummm I think I said it wrong."

It takes tremendous effort for me to control my laughter. I'm just about to give up when, to my surprise, Llyr starts laughing. I burst out laughing as well.

"This ones got a sense of humour. I like him. You are?" Llyr says, still laughing a little.

"Liam Anderson. Technically I'm half mer. But I just got to know like 2-3 days ago. I was  kinda born because of you. So thankyou for fleeing to Lucerne." Lee says.

"Your welcome Liam. I had my own reasons. I assume they sent someone to look for me and that merman fell in love with a human and had you?"Llyr asks.

"Yeah probably." Lee says.

"What did Isla name you?" He asks me. "How is Isla?" He asks.

He doesn't know....

"We did it." Nerida says looking flushed. There's a spark of excitement in her eyes, the kind which kids have when they do something right or achieve something. " we found 4 banana leaves once we went further into the forest."

"Good job uh......" Llyr says.

"Nerida." She says smiling even more.

"Thankyou Nerida. I appreciate it. Where's the other guy?" Llyr asks.

"Oh Evian, but we call him Dylan now days. He didn't do anything except for telling the sailor to come tomorrow. I did most of the work." Nerida says smiling.

"Good. I assume you had something to say to me before we came in?" He say

"Yeah let me just call Dylan in. We will tell you about it together." She says as she walks out.
A few minutes later, she walks in followed by Dylan. They stand straight in front of king Llyr.

"We are from a group called the fidelists. Once you left, out basic aim was to save marinus from Kai. All of us had assumed you were dead, no offence. We had almost given up hope when a Sybil told us that there was a weapon as powerful as the trident and the only person who knew about it is you. So we figured out where you had fled. You were in Lucerne, weren't you?  We went there. Looking for any type of hint that would tell about the weapon. We found Leah then. And we discovered she was a psychic. She got us here. But we won't need the weapon now. You are the only one who could go against Kai.  And you are alive." Nerida says.

" Yes I am pretty much alive. But what if the people vote against me again. They have done it before." Llyr says and there is an unknowing sadness in his voice.

"They won't. They have realised who Kai is. They will love to welcome you back. Marinus's true king." Nerida says.

"Glad to hear that. You have no idea how much I have missed marinus. I thought they didn't want me back all this time."Llyr says sadly." it will be wise to leave at once. We can go drop her to the port tomorrow morning , you can bid your farewells and we can dive immediately."

"Perfect." Nerida says. " Lee... ummm would you like to come? You haven't seen Marinus. It's beautiful. I can show it to you." Nerida asks. I'm surprised to hear her sound shy.

"Not going anywhere without Leah." Lee says smiling a little.

I feel tremendous amount of affection towards him in that moment. I make a promise to never leave him, ever. But I have a feeling he does want to go, being the adventurous person he is. I don't want him to miss out because of my breathing problems.

"That's fine lee. You can go. I'll be fine." I say trying to sound cheerful, even when the thought of staying without him for a day scares me.

"Shut up Leah. I am not going. Period. End of discussion." Lee says.

It takes a lot of effort to not cry.

"Okay, tomorrow first thing in the morning we leave. Now we should probably sleep." Nerida says dryly. She pulls Dylan to a corner and starts whispering something.

"I'll just get the palm leaves." Lee says walking out.

I walk over to Llyr and I decide to tell him about Isla. He will be devastated, but he needs to know.

"Llyr, about Isla...." I whisper.

I look around to make sure Dylan and Nerida were not listening. I wanted to make this conversation private.
"Yeah what about her? Is she okay? Has she ever mentioned me before?" He asks.

"She died." I say carefully. "In a car crash."
It was really hard to say out loud and a pang of sadness went through me. But it intensified when I looked at Llyr.
His face went ashen. It drained of all it's colour. He didn't say anything. I don't think he could. He just walks out of the hut. I follow him out. I see him walk into the forest and disappear.

I look up at the sky which is a scary dark blue. The dark storm clouds look dangerous but oddly add to the beauty of the sky. I go towards the sea shore and stand there.

I stand there alone, on the black sand, a tiny spectator of the vast ocean. The gentle breeze tickling my ears throws my hair across my face and I feel the tiny,gritty particles of sand stuck in it as I get my hand up to remove them from my eyes. I tuck my hair behind my ears and look at the sea again.

Shit it's happening again.

I think before being plunged into a trance.