Instead of responding to what Syleen had said, I followed the path my brain laid out in front of me. Or maybe my brain wasn’t the part of my body dictating my train of thoughts.“May I ask you a question about Wrell?”
Confusion passed over her face at the abrupt switch.“You may. However, I believe questions are best poised to the subject of the inquiry.”
I nearly reminded her of her recent admission of all the conversations she’d had with Therin about me, but I knew better.Look at me! Finally acting my age.“It may seem like a strange question, but I’ve been wondering. I went and saw Wrell a couple days ago, before we left, and found him buried in the sand. Then I noticed him sleeping in the sand again last night. Is it part of him healing? Is there something magical about being in the sand or earth for a mer?”
“An interesting notion.”With a flick of her tail, she jetted forward again. I quickly followed suit.“I suppose it makes sense, given your time spent with witches, that you would attempt to attribute magical qualities to things.”She made a sweeping gesture to the mers in front of us.“We are not a magical species. In truth, we are not a part of the supernatural species. We are merely another race of sea mammals. That is all.”
“So, if there’s nothing helpful about it, why is he burying himself in the sand? If anything, I would think that would hurt his wounds, putting more germs and infections in them.”
“That is how members of his tribe sleep.”
I gawked stupidly at her.“Of his tribe?”
She nodded.
“He’s from a different tribe?”
“Did you think we were the only mers in existence?”
“No, not necessarily. I think I remember Lelas or Therin mentioning something about other tribes, but…”My thoughts trailed off. I wasn’t really sure what I’d thought. It hadn’t really added up to anything. I was overwhelmed enough with what was in front of me, let alone considering things outside of our tribe. I didn’t even know what to ask next.
“Did it not strike you as strange that Wrell has a different anatomy than the rest of the tribe?”
“Different anatomy?”My brain caught up before she could respond. Miracle of miracles.“Oh, his lionfish quills and such?”
“To what did you attribute his differences?”
I shrugged.“I dunno, a lot of you have different colored scales.”
There may have been pity in her glance. As much as I didn’t like it, I couldn’t quite blame her. I was feeling a little mentally impacted myself.“There is much difference between the two.”
Thinking about him, it was easy to see the differences. Glaringly so. Even his darker skin, compared to all the milky whiteness of the rest of the tribe. I’d like to chalk it up to being racially color-blind, but I knew that wasn’t the likely reason.“Yes, I guess there is.”
My eyes sought him out. He was never hard to find, he was so different from everyone else. Looking at him, I felt the fool for not even considering that he wasn’t originally a part of this tribe. His heavily muscled body should have been the giveaway, let alone his coloring, the exotic quills coving his brown-tan-and-white striated tail. Even his chosen physical features—the shorn head, the swirling violet tattoo. No other mer had a tattoo. A shaft of sunlight flickered over the back of his shoulder, illuminating the angry, mottled flesh that I had bestowed on him. He stood out even more now, thanks to me. While the wound, in and of itself, was truly gross-looking and mottled and red, it somehow made him even more alluring. Not in a chicks-love-scars kinda of way. Well, yes, actually. Exactly in that kind of way. Even more so now, he looked every inch a warrior—fierce, rugged, dangerous. Sexy.
“Will we see other tribes of mers when we get to the new location?”It was an exciting thought. A whole tribe of Wrell lookalikes. How many other tribes were there? Did they all have such different physical features?
“No. We will not be with any other tribe.”A look of disgust crossed her face, just slight enough it would be easy to miss. I was so used to seeing it when she looked at me; it was rather nice to have it directed at someone else.
“Is there a chance we will run into another tribe? It would be amazing to see other mers.”
That look crossed her face once more.“No, and if we do, we go the other direction.”
The force behind her answer surprised me.“Why?”
“It is one thing to hunt the White Spirit. It is another to hunt other races of your own species.”
I gaped at her.“You hunt other mers?”
Confusion flickered across her face for a moment.“That is not the proper word for it. I have heard the term used by Zef and Therin both. The human term.”She looked at me.“What do you call it when your kind fight and kill either other?”
“Murder?”
She turned the word over in her mind.“Possibly. That does not ring familiar.”She made a sweeping gesture to the open sea.“There are times when we have to avoid metal ships that speed through our waters. They expel weapons through the ocean at other ships. There are occasions other weapons fall from the sky and explode in the water. It seems to go in waves. There will be times when it appears that such things will never happen again, but then it begins and will happen repeatedly for many cycles, sometimes years. Many a mer has been lost during these times. We have learned to go to deeper water in those periods, far beyond the light of the sun. It was not so when I was younger. Only in relatively recent history have we had to face such dangers from humankind.”
“You’re talking about submarines and bombs and such. War.”
“War. Yes, this is the term I have heard before, I believe.”
