Free Beneath the Thirteen Moons by Kathryne Kennedy Page B

Seeing. Help me! And she felt another black wall slam across her mind, this time blocking allthoughts from her Power. She hadn’t even been aware of the tiny mind flicks of the plankton, the crazed hunger of a night stalker, the slow preponderance of a seastar, the contented thoughts of roosting nightwings. Until they stopped. Mahri breathed a sigh of relief.
    “Feel better now?” Korl asked, as if his healing were responsible for the sudden lack of tension in her shoulders.
    Mahri nodded, locked gazes with her monk-fish. She’d always thought of him as her pet, albeit a particularly sensitive one, the way he seemed to respond to her needs and desires. Yet the black wall—she knew Jaja had done it, had not just sensed her thoughts but read them as clearly as if she’d spoken aloud. And had the Power to block them for her.
    Too many questions festered in her mind. Monk-fish chose their masters, not the other way around and although not particularly rare, their companionship was much sought after. Why had he chosen her? He’d called her a spirit-friend, what did that mean? She couldn’t deny that she’d read his thoughts until he’d created that wall, couldn’t deny that he read hers, even now. It frightened her, somehow, like he’d been spying on her. But to what purpose?
    “It wasn’t a dream,” she murmured.
    Jaja patted her face, nodded with slow deliberation and then climbed onto the triangle of wood on the bow, occasionally glancing back at her with forlorn looks of apology.
    “What’s that?” asked Korl, pointing at the plankton that had risen to the surface thick as soup, their colorful radiance lighting the channel far through the trees.
    Mahri rose to her feet. “Tiny, glowing sea creatures. A ribbon of light.”
    “I don’t suppose there’s another monster lurking around to feed off it, right?”
    She stared at him, afraid he knew about the narwhal, but his lips were curled into a smile and so she just laughed. “I hope not.” Their shoulders touched and he jerked away as if stung.
    “It’s a little late,” said Mahri, “to be insulted by the touch of a water-rat.”
    Korl shook his head. “It’s not that, it’s just… well, I think it’d be better if we just didn’t touch each other, that’s all.”
    Mahri grinned.
    He continued to stare in wonder at the glowing water. “The swamps aren’t what I’d imagined. They’re dangerous, yes. Certainly uncivilized. But beautiful, too.”
    She felt an unreasonable surge of pride. He’d grown up in a palace, surrounded by the finest beauty that Power could fashion. She’d grown up on a boat; ignorant, poor, and for most of her life, powerless. Yet at this moment she felt their place in the world to be equal, that her advantages could somehow match his.
    Mahri couldn’t help it. The Power thrummed inside of her, hammering to be free, only a trickle needed to keep her craft moving forward, the barest thread used to Seek familiar waters. She raised her hands, Saw into the glowing water, and Pushed.
    Pillars of rainbow-hued water grew to staggering heights beside them and flanked their progression down the passage. Erupting fountains of light threw showers of glittering droplets, balls of color burst from the waterand exploded high above them, thin streams of mist curled in fanciful shapes through and between the sparks of lavender, ruby and emerald.
    Korl crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow at her. “Not bad.”
    Jaja hopped up and down, clapped his hands in delight. An occasional fish or crab would be thrown from the swirling water onto the deck and he’d investigate, munching with relish or throwing the catch overboard with disdain.
    Mahri stalked the man, grabbed his hand when he tried to pull away, and flung it into the air with her own. A narwhal grew from the glowing mist of water, its mouth opened and the boat traveled into it, surrounded by colorful ribs. A sea flower waved its graceful, deadly, stingers at