I start the engine and guideDeepwatchout of her slip, through the channel that leads from my private dock to the open sound. The water is calm this morning, deceptively so, waves rolling in long swells that rock the boat with gentle rhythm. It feels like the sea is holding its breath, waiting for something.
Isla settles near the bow as we clear the channel, watching the water with that hungry expression that makes something restless stir in my chest. She's looking for answers. The problem is, she might find them.
"How long have you lived here?" she asks without turning around.
"My whole life. My family has held the tower for centuries."
"The Warden's Tower." She says it like she's tasting the words. "The locals mentioned it. They said your family guards something, though none of them could explain what."
"People like their stories."
"Stories usually have origins." She does turn then, fixing me with those changeable eyes. "What did your ancestors guard against? Invaders? Smugglers?"
"Whatever came from the sea that shouldn't."
The answer is more honest than I intended, and I watch her reaction carefully. Most people would laugh or dismiss the words as colorful local legend. But Isla doesn't laugh. Her expression goes thoughtful, considering, like she's filing the information away to examine later.
"You believe in things coming from the sea," she says. Not a question.
"I've seen things in these waters that don't fit in any scientific classification. You have too, if your data is accurate."
She's quiet for a long moment, staring out at the horizon where the sun is climbing higher. "I've spent five years trying to explain what the whales are doing here. Every theory I've proposed has been shot down by colleagues who refuse to look at the evidence objectively. They call it statistical anomaly, measurement error, confirmation bias. They say I'm seeing patterns that aren't there."
"And what do you say?"
"I say the patterns are there whether anyone believes me or not." Her jaw sets in that stubborn way I'm beginning to recognize. "I say something is happening in these waters that science hasn't documented yet, and I'm going to be the one who finally understands it."
The determination in her voice resonates with something in me. I understand the drive to protect, to preserve, to stand guardover things the world doesn't want to acknowledge. Her motives are different from mine, but the intensity is the same.
We travel in silence after that,Deepwatchcutting through swells as we move toward the deeper water beyond the sound. Isla monitors her instruments, making notes on her laptop, adjusting sensor arrays with practiced efficiency. I keep my attention on the navigation, guiding us through channels I know by instinct, toward the boundary where the sacred waters begin.
And that's when the whales appear.
They surface without warning, massive gray shapes rising from the depths like islands emerging from the sea. A pod of humpbacks, swimming in formation that has nothing to do with normal whale behavior. They move in perfect synchronization, circling a perimeter I can't see but know intimately, the boundary of the protected trenches where the old blood gathers under full moons.
Isla's breath catches. She sets down her laptop and moves to the railing, leaning over with an expression of pure wonder on her face. In this moment, with the sunrise painting her in gold and the whales breaching around us, she looks like something out of legend. A sea goddess returned to her element. A selkie seeing the water for the first time after years on land.
The thought makes my bear growl low in my chest.
"Look at them," she whispers. "Look at how they're moving."
I am looking. I'm looking at the way they swim the boundary, their massive bodies creating a living wall between us and the deeper water. I'm listening to their songs carry across the waves, harmonies that my bear recognizes as warning. I'm looking at the way they watch us, eyes that hold ancient intelligence tracking our approach with something between curiosity and concern.
"They're patrolling," Isla says. "Like guards walking a perimeter. They're protecting something."
She's not wrong. The whales have been guardians of these waters almost as long as my family has. They know what lies beneath, what power sleeps in the deep places, what would happen if that power were disturbed. They've been sentinels since before humans came to these shores, and they'll still be here long after we're gone.
"Or warning us away from it," I say.
She turns to look at me, and for a moment her eyes hold something ancient, something that has nothing to do with science or research. My bear surges against my skin, recognizing something in her that she doesn't recognize in herself.
"Warning us?" she asks. "Warning us about what?"
A hundred answers rise in my throat, and I swallow them all. About the corporate surveyors who want to dredge channels through sacred waters. About the brotherhood of shifters who have protected this island for centuries. About herself, about the blood that seems to run in her veins and the heritage she doesn't know she carries. About what she's becoming, slowly, inevitably, whether either of us wants it or not.
"Whatever's coming," I finally say. "The whales don't lie. If they're guarding those waters, there's a reason."
She stares at me for a long moment, and I can see her mind working, fitting pieces together in ways that make me uneasy. Then she turns back to the whales, watching them continue their synchronized patrol.
