I coughed. I gasped. I did everything to get my lungs working again. Taking a breath of air was like being resurrected. I heard Rio laugh. Obviously he did not suffer such trauma when he was underwater.
Only after enough oxygen returned to my brain did I notice that we seemed to be underground. The sound of my ragged breathing echoed around us. I could only assume that we had entered some sort of tunnel in the cliff, and were now at the bottom of a deep fissure. Sunlight filtered down through an abundance of leafy green plant life, but I could not actually see the top.
It was a moment later that Levent’s head broke the surface nearby, and he gasped as audibly as I had. Though he had left before us, it seemed Rio was a much faster swimmer.
I turned to look at the half-blood with confusion in my eyes, but he just gave me a wink.
“Webbed toes,” he whispered knowingly while the kin sounded like he was hacking up a lungful of water.
“Ah,” I said, raising an eyebrow.
So there was even more to being half merman than ice walls and pointed ears. I paled. Having been so preoccupied about swimming, I had not even noticed that the redhead was barefoot.
“M’lady,” Rio mumbled, “I’ll need you to keep your eyes open for the next leg of our journey.”
My stomach sunk and I felt mildly ill.
“Why?”
If there was anything worse than being underwater, it was seeing that I was.
“We’ll need your expertise in plants.”
Again I was reminded that this person knew way too much about being a faun. It made me feel like I had no secrets at all anymore.
“Why? What kind of plants?”
It was confusing to me how he knew what was ahead, but then I remembered how his hair had been wet when he argued with Levent. Had he tried to come this way earlier and failed?
“Seaweed, and quite a lot of it. I’d prefer not to get stuck, so if you could do something about it…?” He smiled hopefully.