Breakwater (9 page)

His turquoise eyes met mine. “I know. That was the plan. Be wary, Ender Larkspur. You and your charge are most certainly not welcome here, no matter what you were told.”

I snorted softly as he left, and pulled the note out of my vest. Requiem wanted us here. Whoever he was. I crumpled it in my hand. Games of life and death, moves and countermoves, and goddess-be-damned politics. This was not my world, and I hated trying to navigate it. As I stood there, a sudden gratitude flowed through me for my upbringing. If I’d grown up in the Spiral with my siblings, I wouldn’t have been trained for this; perhaps it was a blessing wrapped in hardship I hadn’t seen. Sort of exactly what the mother goddess said not long ago.

Belladonna moaned on the table as the healers worked on her leg. They pieced it together quickly, and it hit me that the speed at which they worked spoke of dealing with shark bites on a regular basis.

One of the healers, a woman with the same green-tinged hair and webbed hands as Dolph, came to me. She was a little shorter than my six feet, but not by much. “Your ambassador will be fine, and now we must insist you go. She will be safe here.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.” I stared her down and waited while she struggled to pull herself together. My eyes, one gold, one green, disturbed people. They marked me as “other,” and “other” was not respected in our world.

“Ayu.”

“Well, Ayu, until my ambassador releases me to leave, I’m not moving from this spot.” I smiled at her, but I knew I was swimming in dangerous waters. Ayu’s eyes narrowed and two spots of bright purple bloomed high on her cheeks.

“I am the First Healer. Do you dare doubt my word?”

I continued to smile, though my words were anything but pleasant. “We were just attacked by someone’s familiars after being welcomed to the Deep. Forgive me if I don’t trust you.”

Her body jerked as if I’d slapped her. “Someone welcomed you?”

I shoved the crumpled note at her. She took it, smoothed it out, and I watched her carefully. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped as she read. Good sign? I didn’t think so.

“Where is he? I’d like to speak with him about his
welcome
.”

“He . . .” Her eyes lifted and then looked past me, widening farther. I spun, spear swirling in front of me, stopping at the throat of a beefy looking Undine. Unlike the whip-thin Dolph, the man behind me rippled with muscles and had a mouth full of teeth that grinned at me. His eyes, though, were jet black, not unlike those of the sharks we’d faced a short time past. He slid into the room, avoiding my blade.

“Ah, cousin, please. You can put your weapon away.”

I didn’t lower the spear, despite his invocation of the familiar ‘cousin.’ All elementals thought of each other as distant branches of the same family. And just like most families, we didn’t always get along. I stepped sideways, blocking him from getting to Bella. “I think I’ll keep it out until you tell me who you are and why you set your familiars on us.”

The room went quiet except for the soft moan of my sister on the table.

He spread his hands. “My familiars have minds of their own, as they all do. You would know that if you had one yourself.”

I glared at him. The insult was subtle. I wasn’t strong enough to have been given a familiar. The more familiars an elemental had, the stronger they were. We’d had three sharks trying to take us down.

Which meant this one was going to be a problem.

“I don’t care if you have a dozen sharks, you should be able to control your familiars.”

His grin widened and the resemblance between him and his familiars deepened. Yeah, this guy was not cool. “My name is Requiem. And I am about to be crowned the King of the Deep. A bastard, I’ll admit, but that doesn’t make me any less of an heir to the throne, does it . . . Larkspur?”

While I didn’t lower the tip of my spear, my mind reeled from the information, and the fact he knew me and my status. “You welcome us here, then try to kill us?”

“Your ambassador put on quite a power show causing the tsunami. How do I know she isn’t here to wipe us all out? I have to protect my people. The best way to do that is for you to put yourself into danger. Which you did quite nicely, by the way.”

He thought Belladonna had caused the earthquake. That was probably for the best; if they thought she was powerful, they would be more careful with her. We slowly shifted around the room, mirroring each other’s steps as he tried to get an open shot past me. “You aren’t getting any closer to her and you didn’t answer my question. Why welcome then try to kill us?”

“A woman with that kind of power should not be allowed to roam without someone holding her reins.” He slid his hand down and grabbed his crotch.

“Sea slime,” Ayu whispered behind me.

I had to agree.

Requiem paced closer to me, and I could feel the rest of the room shift back. They were afraid of him, the tension rising with each step he took. He reached out and touched the healer closest to him, running his hand down her neck to cup her breast, squeezing the nipple. “These are my people. I will do what I wish here.”

I didn’t back down, just shifted my stance and thrust my spear around to point not at his belly, or even his neck. I tucked it up between his legs with a swift flick of my wrist, pressing it through the material of his pants. He dropped his hand from the healer and she scuttled away, well out of his reach. His eyes dropped to the spear tip and then rose to my face. “You are a brassy one, aren’t you?”

“You have no idea, but I do believe you and I aren’t done,” I said. “Get out of here. You’re bothering the healers.”

“You can’t protect them all, and certainly not them and your ambassador. Who will you choose? I’m so very glad you are here, Larkspur. I’ve been bored, and I do believe I’m looking forward to playing with you and your ambassador.” He stepped back, his hands spread wide. “Welcome, little Terraling, welcome to the Deep.”

fter the show Requiem and I put on, the healers seemed more than happy to have me stay. Ayu brought me a steaming hot drink that was salty and sweet, and I gulped it down, pausing only for a moment to nod and say, “Thank you.”

“The least we can do. No one stands up to him, Ender. That you did, that is worthy of respect and a hot drink.” She gave me a wink, but the lines etched around her eyes showed how much strain she was under.

I looked over my shoulder, for a minute forgetting that “Ender” was my title now. “He is the bastard son of the king who died?”

“Yes, though there are rumors about how the king died—”

“Ayu, hush, you’ll get us killed, or worse, banished!” Another of the healers spoke in undertones as she tended Belladonna. We were the only ones in the infirmary, but still they all acted like other elementals listened in. Maybe they were. Ayu shook her head, her hair bound up with sea kelp and dotted with tiny starfish that danced lightly as she moved.

“It is common knowledge. The king was healthy, robust, and well loved. He went to bed one night and didn’t wake the next morning. His body was shriveled as though he were a thousand years dead, not a few hours.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Requiem took over immediately, citing the Deep could not wait for the heir to come of age.”

I downed the last of my drink and let out a slow breath. “And there is no one who could stand against him? The proper heir is too weak?”

Ayu shook her head. “I have said enough. Drink and flee. You do not want to be on the receiving end of Requiem’s games.”

With Belladonna out cold, I needed to move fast and Ayu’s advice was good. The quicker we got the information we needed and left, the better. “We were sent to observe, to find out who our king should back if it came to a full out war.”

Ayu shook her head slowly. “There is no real choice, and there will be no war. Requiem has only to wait until his sister dies and then he will have the throne.”

I frowned into my empty cup. “His sister is sick? Why is she not here with you then?”

All three healers turned away. I grabbed Ayu before she could move from me. “Tell me.”

She jerked out of my hand. “No. It is forbidden. Requiem will soon be the king and we must learn to live with his rules no matter how we may hate it.”

Worm shit and green sticks, this was turning out to be more of a mess than even Ash and my father thought. “And the other ambassadors? They were killed by Requiem?”

The other two healers left the room tripping over themselves and each other to get away. Leaving just me, Ayu, and Belladonna. Ayu wiped a hand over her face. “Get away, Ender. Take your ambassador and get out of here as quickly as you can. Do you understand me?”

I nodded; she was right. The visit had been anything but sweet, but I was going to keep it short. “Is she well enough to travel?”

“No, but she won’t die. The wound is stitched together and will take time to heal. Take her, go. And . . . thank you for trying to protect us. Even our own Enders won’t face him now.”

Chills swept through me as Ayu left through a door in the back of the room, the soft click of the latch closing the only sound. I strode to my sister. “Bella, wake up, it’s time to go.”

“Lark, I just want to sleep. Leave me alone.” She flung an arm over her eyes. I grabbed a sheet and wrapped it around her.

“Be quiet. We’re leaving, right now.” I leaned in and scooped her up into my arms, doing my best not to jostle her leg. Still, she moaned and bit her lip, tears tracing down her cheeks. Eyes fluttering open, the gray of the iris dark with pain, she stared up at me. “You didn’t let me die.”

“Why would I do that?” I didn’t look at her as I peered out the doorway. I’d not paid attention to the direction we’d come. I’d been too damned concerned with Bella.

“Because I’m an awful person. Because I
am
my mother’s daughter.”

I did glance down at her then. “No, you’re not. You’re my sister and no matter what, I will always look out for you. And I choose to believe you would do the same for me.”

She sobbed against my chest. “Lark, I’m so sorry.” The adrenaline rush that came with being injured was leaving her, which only gave way to more tears and blubbering words.

“Shut it. Right now, we have to find our way out.” I stumbled through the hallways until I made it to an open courtyard. A waterway ran on my left, boats bobbing in the dark of the night.

I looked down a cobbled road, eyeing up the route. The sound of waves against rocks drew me to the left. I would follow the waterway back to the docks; that would be the best way. Belladonna wasn’t heavy, but she was a solid girl, and as we walked the fatigue of the day caught up to me. The explosion of my power into the earth, the rowing, the fight with the sharks, and now this—I had taken three wrong turns and had to backtrack, only increasing how long it was taking. My arms shook as I struggled to keep her from tumbling to the pebbled road. I leaned against a wall, breathing hard. “Bella, listen to me. I’m going to put you down. Then I’m going to run and see which direction we need to take. I’ll come back for you, just don’t move. Okay?” I helped her sit between two buildings. Her gray eyes filled with pain and yet I could see the trust in them.