The wave shudders, its perfect wall fracturing as Nimue’s will touches it. She pulls and the water bends backward. Thisis taking everything from her and more. The wave is massive, carrying miles of ocean behind it and she’s fighting impossible forces alone.
Her arms shake and her breathing turns ragged.
The wave slows further. For one beautiful moment, I think she might actually stop it.
But then Nimue looks around at the shattered lighthouse platform and at the crowds visible on the distant cliffs and harbor. Thousands of eyes turn toward us and she flinches.
Her form wavers, becoming more mist than substance.
“They’re watching,” she whispers, shrinking into herself. “I can’t, Rhianelle. You know I can’t—“
“Please,” I beg, grabbing her hands. They’re cold as mountain streams. “I know they terrify you. I know being seen hurts. But my people are dying. This wave will kill everyone left.”
She nods and tries.
I can see her trying, gathering her power even as her form flickers with anxiety. The water responds to her call. Tayum’s Wrath wavers at the edges where her influence touches it.
For a heartbeat, I think she might actually do it.
But everyone on the cliffs is watching the water wraith who might save them. They’re all shouting prayers and desperate pleas. Under that weight of observation, Nimue begins to fragment.
“I’m sorry,” she gasps, her form scattering. “I’m so sorry. I can feel them looking. I can feel their hope and their fear pressing on me like hands—“
She’s paralyzed by the terror of being perceived by so many at once. Her power, immense as the ocean itself, scatters like droplets in wind.
Tayum’s Wrath recovers its form and surges forward. We’re lost. I failed them again.
I see Nimue’s terrified expression. She’s shivering with fear. I pull her into an embrace.
“It’s all right, Nimue.” I reach for her dissolving hands with my own shaking ones. “I understand.”
Shadows suddenly explode across the lighthouse platform.
Svenn moves closer to me. Coinneach rises from his darkness.
The shadow familiar takes shape slowly. All the menace from the fight against the seadragon is gone. His wings fold close to his body as he turns to the panicking water spirit. Nimue flinches back from him, her already fragile form scattering further.
But Coinneach approaches with courtly grace. He bows, eyes cast down.
As he does, darkness unfurls from his wings.
It’s not his usual threatening nightmare of shadow that crushes. This is the gentle dark of closed eyelids, of caves that shelter, of night that soothes the frightened.
A veil of shadow rises around Nimue, blocking her from the crowd’s view. From inside, she can see everything, the wave, the city, the task ahead. From outside, no one can see her at all.
Your audience is gone,Coinneach tells her gently.
The change is instantaneous.
Nimue straightens. Her form solidifies and she seems more present than I’ve ever seen her. She breathes and I hear the ocean breathe with her.
“Oh,” she whispers, wonder replacing fear in her voice. “Oh, that’s... That’s wonderful.”
There is only the sea, and you, and what needs to be done,the shadow familiar whispers.
“Thank you,” Nimue says and her voice no longer trembles. It resonates with power held back for too long, finally released.
She turns to face Tayum’s Wrath, and everything changes.
