What the Tide Brings

Chapter 36 - Kaelin - Against the Tide

Kaelin stared down the tidal wave bearing down on the island. It was close enough, now, that she could pick out each of the golden-tailed individuals riding the wave when a bolt of lightning lit the sky beyond. There were at least twenty of them.

She searched the group for her siblings, but none of the company had silver tails. She hoped that nothing had happened to them, especially Amaya, who seemed to be little more than a pawn to be used against Kaelin.

As the wave came upon the shore with a roar, accompanied by flashes of lightning and loud claps of thunder, the water around Kaelin receded, flowing backwards, into the towering wave.

Without hesitation, Kaelin raised her hands to halt the wave's progress. It loomed over her, a hundred feet out, standing at nearly five stories tall. She could now see the face of each individual merman and mermaid, as well as the golden armor that covered their arms and chests. At the center, as expected, was Arlen, holding tight to the hilt of his sharkbone blade.

Kaelin struggled to hold off the behemoth, pushing her magic far beyond any lengths that she ever had before, and it was not enough. All she'd done was slow it to a crawl.

Her head began to ache and her human joints buckled under the pressure. It felt as if she were pushing on a thousand pound boulder up a steep incline. At any moment, the boulder was going to be too much for her and it was going to roll over her.

The ache in Kaelin's head turned into a full blown migraine; her head felt like it was on the verge of exploding. She could practically feel her brain throbbing in her skull, swelling to the point that it would no longer be contained. She felt several pinpricks in her eyeball. She blinked back tears, forcing herself to take a step forward, thrusting out with a burst of magic that sent the wave back several feet, but not enough to help.

Kaelin tried to keep in mind her reasons for not giving up. She closed her eyes, which stung awfully, and pictured the people that would get hurt if she didn't stop this: Liam, whom she loved like no other; Cynthia, the kind, gentle woman, who'd acted like as much of a mother to Kaelin as she did toward her own sons; Molly and Gretchen, her sweet new friends; she didn't know Grandfather or Andy very well, but Liam's love for them was enough of a reason that she needed to protect them.

While that helped give her a boost of much needed strength, it was not enough. Kaelin collapsed to her knees when the power of the tsunami was too much for her.

Suddenly, the water regained the momentum that she'd slowed, all at once. Kaelin was swept out to sea by the wave as it crashed down on the beach, destroying the wooden platforms and decimating the tiny fence surrounding the sand dunes.

Oddly, when the wave crashed down, it spread out along the shore, rather than continuing on to destroy the island.

But, of course, the island had never been their true target. This was about Kaelin and Arlen's vendetta.

Kaelin should have changed back into her true form, in case she passed out, she knew that, but it would take more than she had to complete the transformation. She barely had enough energy left to allow her to breathe water like air. To change back, she would have to redirect that power, and she didn't want to chance that she couldn't complete the change before she ran out of breath.

The merpeople were barely more than golden streaks as they swam circles around Kaelin, all of them brandishing weapons. The formation reminded her of a shark hunting party.

One after another, the golden warriors swarmed Kaelin, slicing at her with their daggers, creating tiny marks that leaked blue blood into the water, making it that much harder to see her surroundings.

A large woman, with thick braids, woven with so many trinkets from past battles, flung a spear, tipped with some kind of translucent stone head.

The spear shot through the water, straight toward Kaelin's heart, moving so fast that Kaelin's gangly human legs would never be able to get her out of the way in time. Still, she kicked as hard as she could, up toward the surface, hoping that the weapon would only pierce her leg, or at worst her stomach, both of which she could heal from.

Suddenly, a wall of ice formed between the weapon and Kaelin. The spear shattered the ice, but it got stuck in a large hunk and rose up to float on the ocean's surface, saving her from being skewered.

Kaelin looked around to find out who had saved her, but all she saw was Southern Clan members. She didn't have much time to search for her rescuer, though, because the warrior woman was advancing again with a small knife—made of that same translucent stone—that she pulled from the chain belt around her waist.

Kaelin was trying to swim backwards, away from the woman, afraid to turn her back, when she felt a slight shift in the current. The angry woman was hurtled out into the open water, far away from Kaelin. Here and there, Kaelin spotted the golden-tailed merpeople being set upon by riptides and flurries of ice. One merman was caught up in a patch of boiling water that turned his skin a shade of red that would make a boiled lobster look pale.

A bolt of lightning lit everything in the water and caused a flickering off something silver that caught Kaelin's eye. During another quick flash, Kaelin saw that it was Amaya, throwing her hands around to cast magic at the Southern mers, many of whom had turned their attacks on her, forgetting Kaelin for the moment.

But Arlen was not deterred by Amaya's distraction. He cut a line through the water, zooming toward Kaelin with his bone dagger held straight out to impale her. Maliciousness rolled off of him in the form of awful thoughts that invaded Kaelin's mind, sending her stomach churning at the images of gruesome scenes of his blade slicing flesh, and not just fish, but mermen and mermaids as well. She saw a dozen lives ended by his dagger. He stabbed them through the heart or slit their throats and watched their blue blood seep out to cloud the water. Anyone that got in the way of the plan was exterminated. Kaelin was just another loose end to him, and he wanted to snuff her out as he had so many others.

Kaelin tried to muster enough energy to slow him down with a whirlpool, but she barely managed to get the water to form a complete loop before returning to normal.

A streak of silver light shot past her so fast that she barely registered it before it collided with Arlen and knocked him off course.

Kaelin sucked in a breath, shocked to see her older brother tussling with Arlen. Calder created a shield of ice to block a blow by Arlen's blade. He then struck out with his tail to knock Arlen back, throwing the hunk of ice at Arlen's head, but Arlen raised his arms in front of his face. The armor on his forearms easily shattered the ice to harmless bits.

Calder twisted his arms in a circular motion, causing the water around Arlen to swirl in circles, creating the whirlpool that Kaelin had failed to manifest.

While Arlen was busy trying to get free of the whirlpool, Calder swam over to Kaelin and wrapped an arm around her. He carried her in the direction that she thought would take them back to the shore. She was proven correct a moment later, when the water grew shallow enough that she could almost breach the surface and touch the bottom at the same time.

Calder touched Kaelin's face to send his feelings of remorse. His thoughts said, "I should not have believed Arlen over you."

"No, you should not have." Kaelin sent back, squeezing his arm, only slightly bitter. "But this is not the time for that."

Arlen, having escaped the whirlpool, was charging at them again.