"Nis. His name had been Nis.
Those three little letters are still carved on Taer’s heart, etched deep so the tide and time won’t wash them away. Nis, the other half of his soul. Then the storms came, and Nis was gone.
So why can Taer hear his laughter on the wind?"
Sea Change By J.M. Snyder The storm blew up suddenly, as those in late summer tend to do. Taer knew it was coming, could feel the surge of the tide in the flow of his veins, and spent the day gathering in the nets strung out along the beach, where he had left them to dry. By dusk the sky was bruised and swollen with angry clouds muttering above the water, and the sea threw white, foam-capped waves at the shore. It was going to be a bad storm, by the looks of it. Even the gulls that usually cried along the tide line were hiding among the rocky cliffs that edged the beach like a cupped hand. The nets were woven of coarse and heavy rope, knotted and reknotted until they looked like gnarled hands, arthritic with use. As he rolled them up, careful not to tangle their lengths, Taer noticed a