13. Touch

13

Touch

Celyn

M y world changed when Safira touched me of her own desire. It had changed when she first spoke to me, but it felt now as if the world had slanted, leaving me to rush down the slope in a helpless flood, unknowing of what awaited me below. She asked me for water, and I gave it, her touch leaving me aching for more, but when her fingers ran through my waves while she sat in the curve of wood upon me I felt like a fish caught frozen in the ice.

I knew she did it to speak to me, using her fingers as she'd so often used a stone. Yet I couldn't answer, my focus utterly consumed by the touch of her warm hand on my waters. Safira skimmed my surface, playing with my waves, an idle, trusting touch the like of nothing I'd experienced before. I couldn't bring myself to move, because if I moved, she might stop, and then I would no longer get to experience the raw pleasure of having her fingertips paint traceries of ripples on my surface. It held me captive more thoroughly than any bridle, and I had no desire to escape.

Her fingers lifted from my waters and I followed them to the surface in my man's form, chasing that feeling without truly intending to. She touched me again, the gesture casual and playful, as if I was not a creature of implacable power. As if she didn't care that, if I chose, I could drag her beneath my waves and keep her there with the same greed as a pike patrolling his territory. That trust sang into me, a wondrous thing. Safira had become like the sun to me, warming my waves and calling life to the surface, and it terrified as much as it exhilarated.

I took her to my favorite cove on the island, a south-facing curve against the bluffs where I often came up to graze. It had fallen in some centuries before, the soil of the bluff leaving a beach more gentle than many of my shores, and Safira called me beautiful when she saw it. Those words made my chest tremble, as if a thousand fluttering moths had been caged beneath my ribs, a sensation so strange that it discombobulated .

But she'd asked for a guardian, so I didn't flee, though I could do nothing to protect her from the great ley powers in their tower. I sat down by her head when she lay down on my shores, wanting so much more, but not knowing what those things were. But I knew one of them, and though I disliked coming as a petitioner, Safira had already asked much of me today. So I requested that I might touch her hair, and she gave me permission with a smile.

Her hair was soft. The strands tickled my skin as I ran my fingers down along them, my chest tightening and pulse rushing through my veins. I touched her hair as gently as I could, not wanting to wake her, watching over her through the night. It never grew old as the moon traveled above us and the stars slowly wheeled through their nocturnal patterns. I sat there, watching Safira breathe as I stroked the loose dark curls of her hair, and wanted to remain forever.

Slowly, the sun colored the sky. I lay down next to her, my fingers in her hair, watching her breathe. I'd never been captivated by something before. Every moment spent with Safira, whether she was awake or sleeping, whether I was in the form of a man or a horse or a lake, sparkled like sunlight off the snow. Every moment alone dragged at me with troubled thoughts, fearful that she might never return. Safira was a woman, and I, a lake. She could go far, far away, and though I, too, could travel far from my waters, I thought I would never be able to find her.

It made me want to grasp what I had and keep it, hoarding her gifts and my memories. Yet each time I opened my hands for her she returned with greater trust, and the lure of her vivid smile eased the loss each time she left me. I knew she would leave again soon. It would be well, I told myself. She had come to me. She had touched my waters. She would come again, and step a little deeper into my waters.

But when she woke, she didn't leave. She turned, looking for me, then smiled at me when she found me lying alongside her. The sunlight of that expression slid through me, illuminating my heart.

"You are beautiful, too, Safira," I said, hoping the words would give her the same shivering thrill they'd given me.

Her smile spread, dawn breaking all around us. "I'm glad," she said, then slipped her fingers through mine.