For the first time in long centuries, Derya found herself amused.
Derya watched Zaya, her gaze soft but sharp, assessing. The girl had no idea, did she? Valentin is dead. A simple truth that, for a moment, seemed absurd in its starkness. How could she not see it? The man had no pulse, no warmth beneath his skin. But Derya didn’t feel the need to explain it. What good would it do? He was a relic, a thing caught between worlds, neither truly alive nor truly gone, a myth wrapped in flesh. And yet Zaya stood there, speaking of him as though he were still just a man, an idea still held in the heart.
Soft and stunning, Zaya had said. It was charming, in a way, how so much of her attention was fixed on this fleeting, earthly idea of beauty. It made Derya smile faintly. Her thoughts twisted around Valentin and his endless, unmoving nature. He would forever be caught in the same moments, frozen in time like a statue, beautiful but unchanging. What had made Zaya so certain he was anything more than that?
But then again, Derya thought, perhaps it was the girl’s youth, her ability to look at the world through a lens of endless possibility, that made her see Valentin as a living thing. Perhaps it was the same innocence that made her so willing to offer goddess as an epithet. Youth, Derya mused to herself. She has no sense of the weight of time.
Time was a slow erosion, a current that stripped away clarity, leaving only fog and half-formed recollections. What a gift it would be to have it all so easily, untouched by years, unmarked by decay. A fleeting thought, but a tantalizing one. It had been so long since Derya had felt the joy of simplicity.
“I was. A very long time ago. When men still prayed at the banks of the sea.”
She didn’t speak of the stones that bore her name, now shattered and forgotten. She didn’t mention the pearls once offered like apologies. There was no need. She did not care to impress the girl. Not when Zaya had offered her hand so openly. So honestly.
And now, the question had been asked.
Derya felt the edges of the memory swirling, threatening to rise and overwhelm her. The ancient ones, the buried things... things she'd buried herself. She could almost feel them like sharp claws beneath her skin, ready to scratch their way to the surface if she let them. Don’t touch them, don’t let her touch them, she warned herself silently. Her ancient mind had lived long enough to know the cost of indulging the past. It would devour them both, if Zaya’s touch were too curious.
But there was something about Zaya's reckless optimism, her bravery, her hands covered in soil and herbs, with no care for the boundaries between the known and the unknown. Derya had not been touched by a seer in a long time. Too long. Was this what she had been waiting for? A connection? A moment to unearth the truth she had buried when she’d turned her back on the water and left the depths behind?
The hesitation lingered in the air. Derya's fingers trembled slightly, though she would never let Zaya see it. Time, again. It feels like centuries since I’ve made any real choice. Not one bound by fate or hunger.
And yet, the offer hung there between them like an open door. Zaya had spoken without fear, her voice light and airy, like the words had no weight at all. But Derya knew better. She had seen the consequences of such careless curiosity before. The memory of her first steps away from the ocean echoed in the back of her mind, a hunger that had nearly killed her. She had learned since then. Had learned how to bury what needed to be buried, how to keep the currents of her past from rising.
Derya pulled her hand back a fraction, eyes narrowing slightly. This could hurt her. The words repeated in her mind. It could burn her alive. But Zaya was still standing there, wide-eyed, hands hovering as if she knew. It was in her blood. In her gaze.
“You could help me,” she said simply. “But it might harm you.”
Her hand hovered just above the counter, the soft glow of the magic still rippling through her webbed fingers. Zaya could choose. It would be her decision, her consequence.
Derya wouldn't stop her. She had made that mistake too many times in her long life to pull back now.
