How Kellen Met His Selkie: A Death Dreamer Origins Novella (Death Dreamer Legacy) by R.K. Hart

Author:R.K. Hart [Hart, R.K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pindika Press
Published: 2020-11-21T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter four

When Kellen did not see his selkie, he dreamed of her instead.

Kellen walked by the ocean’s edge every day. He wasn’t sure what he wanted; all he knew was that he did not get it. When he spoke to the water - his voice halting, his words stilted - the only thing he heard in response were the sounds of the sea.

Chapter five

When Kellen kissed his selkie, a chill laced through the air.

‘Kellen!’

‘What the fuck now?’ Kellen muttered. He was up to his elbows in almost-scalding water, washing sheets. He insisted that the infirmary bedding was washed three times after use: firstly in a very gentle acid, then boiled, and last rinsed in water laced with lavender and rosemary to help the patients sleep. He never minded doing the last part: the pervading scent left on his skin helped him to sleep, too, and when he slept, he dreamed of the sea.

‘The younglings are past the breakers again!’

Kellen sighed, and dropped the sheet back in the herb-infused water, standing to wipe his arms on his shirt.

There weren’t many younglings, and Kellen knew exactly which ones would have ignored their elders’ directive to stay close to shore in the autumn and winter when the water turned capricious and deadly. A group of reckless boys on the cusp of manhood, their need to prove themselves grown up stronger than their collective sense. He’d dealt with them before, and he knew that he would deal with them again.

‘Get their mothers, will you, Riley?’ he called into the infirmary kitchen as he passed, snatching his thick woollen scarf from a hallway hook. ‘Idiots.’

He wasn’t far enough away to miss Riley’s snort, nor her comment in one of the old-world languages Curan had taught her. Unfortunately for Kellen, it was a language Cam had insisted he also learn. They are not alone. Kellen blew out a breath as he stepped into the cold autumn air.

The ocean was rough in the autumn, the waves swollen and unpredictable, the water dangerously cold. Kellen had braved it himself on occasion, but always for food. It frightened him, sitting in a tiny wooden boat that barely warranted the name, his frozen fingers clutching a fishing spear in one hand and the sea-slick tiller in the other. He’d only gone when to do otherwise would mean starvation, and when his feet touched the sand again he felt like the luckiest man alive.

He jogged to the beach, the movement and his frustration keeping him warm amidst the cutting wind. He could see the younglings, even from a distance: one fair head and one dark one bobbing up and down in the choppy black water, far further out than they should have been.

‘By the fucking stars,’ Kellen muttered. His tiny sailboat - unnamed, just like the island - waited for him, breached on the rocky sand. He wrapped his scarf around his neck, settling his chin into the wool, glad for the warmth. The cut in the wind had the scent of snow.

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