When the flotilla set off in late afternoon, there were only a few hours of travel remaining in the day. The mother sun had already set and the daughter sun was heading to her rest.
Though we eventually needed to travel west, we instead sailed to the northeastern corner of Emberglade in order to dock for the evening. The locations for each day of the Holy Convergence were very specific. Each eclipse was only visible in certain places, and so we followed a path set out by the heavens instead of the most efficient route.
The Day Two ceremony would require a new robe for the High Priestess, and I busied myself packing her overnight bag as the ships prepared to set anchor for the evening. Once her tent had been raised on the sandy shoreline, I began preparing her quarters, laying out her night things, and inspecting every item she would need for the next day’s ritual.
Though these were my duties, my intense focus on them was not simply due to a desire to make sure everything was perfect. I was doing everything I could to drown out the sense of the creature’s presence.
The High Priestess’s tent was in the center of camp, while the beast was being kept at the edge, barely within reach of the magelight globes that cast an aquamarine glow over everything. With my every move, I was aware of its presence, even though it was not within my field of vision.
I decided to sleep under the moons and enjoy the clear, warm night. As the First Tidemaiden, I was essentially a glorified lady’s maid. However, the ceremonial responsibilities put me closer to an acolyte than a servant. The reality of being too much of one but not enough of the other meant I did not really belong with either group.
My best friend Safina, a warden, had offered to save a bunk in her quarters, but aside from her and Amal, I didn’tmuch like spending time around the wardens. There was a pallet I could use in Valya’s tent, but I knew how much she valued her privacy and how little alone time she got. There was a space for me in the cooking staff’s lodgings… but the outdoors called to me.
Morros would not be visible for several days yet, but even still, I hoped the fresh air would do me good. My bones were weary when I finally lay down to sleep, praying that my dreams would be restful.
Sweat beaded on my skin,providing the tiniest bit of relief from the unrelenting heat. I opened my eyes to find the sky above me was red and featureless, unbroken by any celestial objects—not even so much as a cloud.
I sat up to find myself wearing a scrap of umber brown fabric that barely covered me and lying upon a desolate field of black. My palm skimmed the strange surface that looked rough and felt smooth—it was not unpleasant to the touch.
The warmth in the air moved from oppressive to gentle and calming as my skin absorbed it. I was like a sponge for heat, craving more and more.
Though I was decidedly alone and the only thing alive as far as the eye could see, a voice rumbled in my ear, deep and rich. It caused a shiver to ripple across my skin, speaking words in an unknown language. Though the words were foreign, the tone was oddly... enticing.
The voice sparked a deeper heat within me, causing meto squirm where I sat. A compulsion, impossible to ignore, had me skating my fingers across my chest, just under my collarbone, and then lower. Brushing over the tips of my nipples, which hardened at the contact. Down between the valley of my breasts to my belly and lower. To the space between my thighs that had begun pulsating with need.
I whimpered, squeezing my legs together, seeking some kind of friction to relieve the ache. All the while, the voice brushed over me in waves, a soft scrape against my sensitive skin.
From the collection of strange sounds, words I understood began to coalesce.
“Does that feel good?” The silken, thunderous sound caressed my ear. There was no one nearby, no one for this voice to belong to. Still, part of me wanted to live inside of it.
The vibrations rippled across me, through me, penetrating my skin until I could feel them inside of me, all the way to my tender core. Moments later, my fingers followed, brushing against the tight curls on my mound and finally plunging inside my center, stroking wetly as the voice urged me on.
“Like that, touch yourself just like that. Stroke yourself with those clever fingers. Make yourself feel good.”
Pleasure within me burned, consuming all other sensations. I chased the building inferno that was unleashing itself within me.
The voice’s encouragement pushed me, made me want to please it, knowing that my ecstasy would also satisfy it. I strummed my fingers inside me, against my delicate bud, until I burst.
Endless lightning bolts of pure bliss sizzled through mybody, seizing my limbs and making me cry out. I sobbed until the delicious tendrils of the peak faded, leaving me once more on the ground.
The voice quieted, and I was left panting with heat searing me from the inside out.
5
niara
I heldmy breath throughout the entire Day Two ritual as the priests and priestesses created elaborate water sculptures under the eclipses of the moons Sylvos and Ryxis. Each man and woman puppeted their creation with masterful control, portraying the story of Morros bringing life to our ancestors—magical beings who shifted into creatures of the sea. Though after many generations of intermarrying with humans, Water Mages no longer boasted these transformational abilities and required seaglass gems in order to channel magic, we still honored those distant forebears several times a solar.
While I’d always loved watching aquasculpture displays—probably since it was the one I’d most wanted to master, and failed the worst at, of the five specializations—the restless sleep of the night before had taken its toll. I struggled to hold back yawns throughout the entire ceremony.
The dreams I’d had were so vivid. And unusual. My cheeks simmered recalling them, and though I knew it was unlikely that anyone was paying me any mind, even thinking about last night around others was making me self-conscious.
Could it have been Amal’s flirtatious glances that had sparked such charged fantasies? Or had the loneliness just seeped too far into my soul? I couldn’t remember ever having dreams like that before and wasn’t sure if I wanted more or not.
Sweat broke out along my hairline, and I recognized the lie in my thoughts. Ididwant more, and not just in dreams but in real life. As a girl, I would stay up late into the night, long after lights out at the care home, reading stories of the Fae and their twining. I would yearn for someone who would want to be close to me like that... someone I would never be separated from.
My best friend Safina would scoff at the notion of such forced closeness. “Don’t they tire of being around each other all the time?” she’d ask. But I never thought so. It seemed so romantic to me.
