The Vast and Brutal Sea: A Vicious Deep novel (The Vicious Deep) (11 page)

The seas are breaking.

Before I shifted into my tail, before all of this, I still felt the longing to be in the sea. My dad used to joke that I took longer showers than my mom. And even though I was doing a little more than showering, I needed to spend as much time as possible in water. The beach. The pool. Running in the park during a downpour. I could feel the torrent of the waves, the angry tug of the tide on long summer nights.

Now, under the oracle’s spell, I can feel the sea ripping apart.

It is the eye of a hurricane over a long spread of ocean. The air is thick with salt. I am Kleos, eldest king of the seas, and in my hand is the Scepter of the Earth.

Beneath me, the sky falls away. I’m on the back of the biggest sea horse I’ve ever seen. It’s as big as a ship, and so am I, holding on to its mane as it dives into the waves, its webbed claws parting expertly, its fins pushing us to the surface.

Then I realize the sea is not breaking. The kings are riding the giants of the sea. I can feel the thrill of being on the back of the creature, and a name comes to mind—Doris.

Doris, like the mother of the sea nymphs. I can feel her in my thoughts telling me that the other kings are nearby. Somewhere in my mind I remember Gwen teaching me the names of the kings.

Further out to sea, King Ellanos breaks the surface on the arm of a kraken. His jet-black hair is tied away from his face, while mine blows free in the wind. Ellanos looks so much like Adaro, his descendant. He holds on to the tentacle like a mast. The other tentacles lash out, with skin like rippled armor. I light my scepter and blast them. Doris neighs and a booming laugh comes from me.

Then the third king—Trianos—emerges from the water. I can see my grandfather in his fierce eyes, his golden skin. Trianos holds a harness in his hand around the mandible of a turtle, the other hand wielding the Trident of the Skies. The turtle has spikes all over its shell, and a curved horn jutting out between its eyes. It breaks waves that push us away.

The storm answers the call of the weapons, on and on. Mile-high waves crash over us, and we remain rooted on our giants.

Then I see my chance. I whisper something to Doris. I never was much for languages.

We dive, the sea horse’s webbed forelegs and long, scaled tail ripping through the sea, and we break the surface where King Trianos rides the horned turtle. The creature is slow but strong. I jump off and onto the back of the spiked shell. I’m fast and I know it, knocking the king with the Scepter of the Earth so hard that he falls backward, sliding off the shell.

I grab his forearm. The king screams wildly. The turtle heaves. And we both fall back.

My insides ache as tentacles ram into us, knocking me into the waves. A warning screams in my head.
Watch
out!
But I don’t see until it’s too late. A tentacle wraps around me and squeezes. King Ellanos, his golden eyes glittering because he thinks he’s got me. I blast energy through my scepter, but the energy goes straight into the sky as the tentacle lifts me higher and higher.

Then a shock runs through me, my heart stopping then racing as the tentacle lets me go. I fall into the sea, but Doris cuts through the water and I grab on to her mane. We break the surface once again.

Lightning streaks the sky. Eight tentacles writhe in pain, and slowly they sink. King Ellanos floats on the surface, barely conscious, the Staff of Eternity gone from his grip. I watch as King Trianos slides the head of the trident into the staff. His hair is white as surf, his violet eyes bright in the darkening storm.

I hold on to the pain in my chest as my blood darkens the seas around me and Doris whinnies from the gash in her flesh.

“Surrender, my friend!” King Trianos shouts from atop his giant turtle. “Live for your people. Our people.”

I can feel Doris’s consciousness slipping.
Stay
with
me.

But she can’t. She’s too weak. If we keep fighting, she’ll die. The power has shifted and I know this.

“Catch, old friend.” I throw the scepter like a lance, the quartz a brilliant crystal that pulls on the lightning around it.

Trianos catches it and completes the trident.
The
trident.

When they connect, I’m pulled out of the vision, like getting sucked out and lifted into a vacuum in outer space. I can see the king—my ancestor—as he buries the giants in the sea, deep inside separate caves. The powerful creatures I’ve been searching for.

The beasts protest, ripping through the earth until they fall asleep. Hearts still beating beneath layers of rock and sea. Sleeping Giants.

Then I’m pulled further out still.

I’m me again, standing in front of Chrysilla—the nautilus maid. I feel like I’m holding my breath. I need air. I try to open my gills but they’re clamped shut.

Chrysilla is under water, the pink fleshy tentacles of her hair floating around her like a halo. Her eyes are dazed and wide open. They are mirrors, and in them, I saw the three kings fighting for the trident.

Chrysilla is alone, her hands pressed to the sides of her nautilus shell.

Glass shatters around her and settles on the floating dead bodies of her handmaidens. Someone has slit their throats. But Chrysilla doesn’t move. She comes into focus. I can feel the cold water on my skin.

“Don’t forget me, Tristan Hart,” she says, putting her hand around my neck and bringing me right to her face. “Please, don’t forget me.”

Her hand doesn’t loosen up and I gasp awake. Here. Now.

There is a real hand around my neck.

I’m in the Vale of Tears. In the oracle’s tent. I know where the seal is. I know what I have to do to break it. The same promise I made to the nautilus maid days ago. “Don’t forget me,” she said. But it isn’t her hand around my throat. It’s Karel’s.

“Die, Land Prince,” he says. “Die.”

By now I should be used to people trying to kill me.

But somehow, it always comes as a bit of a shock.

I mean, I’m a pretty cool guy. A likable guy. Ask all of my buddies back at Thorne Hill High School. Not my ex-girlfriends so much, but I’m working on that, I promise. Once we’re friends, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.

The minute you try to kill me, it’s over.

I grab Karel’s throat and land a punch right across his face with the new calluses I have him to thank for.

“You are still weak.” He knocks me in the eye, and I know it’s going to bruise. “That is why you have failed.”

I push him with all my force until he rolls over, spitting blood onto the leather floor and unable to get up.

“I’m stronger than you, Ugly.”

The oracle rushes in with Brendan and Yara.

“How dare you enter here!” the oracle says, her voice a deep boom that would send me hiding under my bed.

Yara grabs Karel. “Come with me. Now.”

“Amada?” I ask. “Where is she?”

“When she felt you waking, she went to get me.”

Now that Grumble is gone, my body trembles with adrenaline. The white fire is gone, and the blood on my chest has dried to a nasty, muddy red. I take a rag the oracle gives me and clean it off.

“You saw,” she says.

“I saw.” I flex my fingers, working out the pain. “And I know where to go. We have to leave right now.”

The oracle nods and nods. “Take what you need.”

“I just need my friends,” I say.

The oracle puts her veil back on and we go outside. The circle is quiet. A few villagers gather and watch Grumble get taken away somewhere by Yara.

Isi stands on the dais, waiting for me.

I march right to her. “Are you happy now?”

She looks at me defiantly. “I did what I thought was best.”

A big part of me knows not to talk to an elder this way. Not just an elder, but the leader of these people. Still, the small part of me that’s been tricked and beaten the crap out of is ticked off.

“I can get over the part where you made me believe the Naga was a big threat to you, because at the end of the day, she was the big, bad wolf in your woods. What I can’t get over is that you would have me kill your own daughter, and then you stand at the edge of the forest crying every night. Don’t look so surprised. I’ve seen you.”

Isi touches her temples, pushing back whatever thoughts make her weak. “I have lost many daughters to the throne. That has not changed. I could not bear to see Amada suffer so. It’s been so long that I didn’t recognize her face.”

“I recognized yours,” Amada says. She walks between the villagers who take numerous steps back. Some don’t even bother to stay. She takes in their emotions, one by one, but doesn’t flinch. The white dress is all kinds of wrong on her. It’s like putting a tutu on a wildcat.

“I want to feel for you, Isi, I do,” I say. “You all have been teaching me to be strong and push away the things that make me human. And you know what I’ve decided?”

She lifts her chin, waiting for my answer.

“I’ve decided that I like those parts of myself. All of them.” I look up at the sky. Raise my arms to the violet moon, the murmuring winds around the weeping trees. “The fortnight is ending. I see Nieve and Kurt moving their armies when I dream. You can stay here lamenting the great big detention sentence the old kings gave you, or you can make yourself a new world.”

Kai and Dylan come forward. Kai has traded her bow for a staff with an onyx spearhead. Dylan has my backpack over one shoulder, stuffed with God knows what. Brendan takes nothing but the sword he came with. My A team is ready.

“I’m coming with you,” Amada says.

We look at each other for a long time. She has these eyes that even her beast form can’t hide. Her hair is down to her hips. She has the frozen, careful movements of her days as the Naga. What must it be like to go back to your people after so long and not belong?

“No,” Isi says. “You cannot go.”

Amada steps forward slowly. “The stories said that a son of Triton would rid the land of the beast. Of me.”

“Don’t go saying I’m not a merman of my word,” I say.

Yara comes running from wherever they put Grumble. I hope they tied him by his ankles from the cliff he pushed me off. “I want to go with you too.”

“No,” Isi says.
No, no, no.
It echoes deep into the woods where tiny birds take flight.

“But—” The maiden warrior of the River Clan gets cut off. “He’s a son of Triton. He can—”

“The seal of the king may be weak, but it isn’t gone yet. You are needed here with your people.”

I look into the eyes of a woman who’s lost so much. Then at Yara’s stubborn face, hungry for a fight that she might have a chance of winning. I reach out to her and we embrace forearms.

“Despite everything,” she says, “you do have allies here.”

“Despite everything,” I say, “you still have choices out there.”

The river people go back to their fluid forms. I can feel their eyes watching us move across the square and toward the forest. After a few steps, the sun bird lets his presence be known, flying overhead.

As we walk, I tap Amada’s hand. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

She rubs her arms, like they are foreign to her. “More than anything.”

“Guys,” I say, coming to a stop. “Do we know the way out?”

Brendan puts hands on his hips. “I thought you knew where we were going.”

I sigh. “I just avoided getting killed by mini-Vin-Diesel. I wasn’t about to ask for directions.”

“Sometimes I don’t understand the things you say.” Kai shakes her head. Her hair is braided down her back like the other clan girls.

Dylan raises his hand. “I haven’t had any success getting out, clearly.”

He looks back at the village. It’s not that far. I can make out a thin line of smoke from the communal fire pit. I elbow him lightly.

“You don’t have to come,” I tell him. I want to make sure that whoever is with me has a choice in the matter. Even though I know that I need Dylan on my side.

I’m glad when he doesn’t hesitate. “I do. I owe it to you. To my father.”

Amada is the one who holds a hand up next. The movement is so sudden that Dylan jumps back. “I believe I know the way out.”

Amada takes us through the barren meadows to the same cave entrance where we fought.

Brendan arches his eyebrow at me, and I give him my best reassuring nod.

“This way,” she says. She enunciates her words carefully, pleased at the sound of her own voice. I wonder what it’s like to not hear yourself speak for years and years. Some people would call that a blessing if it happened to me.

Once we walk past the dome-like cave, we reach a dead end where a waterfall has formed from a source on the surface. The runoff water carves a path that leads to a depression in the stone, like a basin or a wishing well.

As we stand in front of the waterfall, I wish for the sound of one voice in particular, like it’s as easy as fishing a penny from my pocket and throwing it in the fountain. I have no pennies. Or pockets, for that matter. Well, I do, but you wouldn’t find any pennies in there.

“The island is designed to keep people out. If you make it inside, you stay. Only the king and his children and their children can come and go.”

“Then it’s a good thing we brought Tristan after all,” Brendan jokes.

“No, you’re of the family blood,” Kai reminds him.

Brendan turns to me. “Where are we going exactly, dear cousin?”

And I don’t even hesitate. “The Glass Castle.”

“What did you see?” Kai says.

“The old kings. The first battle. It was amazing. I’ve never seen so much raw power. It’s like they each were one being with their creatures, communicating in their minds. Like I was limitless—until I wasn’t.”

“Like Nieve and Kurt will be, as well,” Kai says. “When the beasts rise and travel to their corresponding warrior, you’ll be giving them powerful weapons. We don’t know where they’re buried or what they’ll bring with them.”

I shake my head. I saw it in the vision. “As long as I have the scepter, I can control the sea horse.”

“Kurtomathetis has an oracle on his side,” Brendan says, “and a small guard. The sea witch is a force of her own. Tristan is doing the right thing.”

Kai nods, but I can feel her mind racing, figuring out what else can go wrong. “Don’t forget the connection you have when you dream. Once we’re back on our own plane, they’ll see you the way you see them. Then they’ll know our plans.”

“Then it’s a good thing I have a head start. How do I get us out, Amada?” The waterfall doesn’t exactly lead anywhere.

She points to my dagger, then to a spot on the wall with a circle carved so lightly that you can only see it when you’re standing inches from it. “Blood.”

Of course, it needs to be blood.

“Both of you,” she says to Brendan.

I smirk at my cousin. “Then it’s a good thing we brought you along.”

He makes a face but holds out his hand. I run my dagger down the center of my palm first, then his. I’ve had a lot of broken bones in my days, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to my own warm blood trickling out of me. We press our hands in the center of the circle.

Nothing happens.

Gwen’s voice, unwanted, pops in my head.
Magic
is
gradual, Tristan.

And my own response,
So then what’s the point?

The point is to will things to work for me.

The ground shakes, stones falling down like hail. The circle line lights up with a white light, the inside pushing itself back and creating a portal of undulating black water.

“Brendan,” I say, “you know the way.”

He nods and dives into the dark sea.

I let the girls go next. Kai and Amada shift into their swimming forms when they hit the current. Then Dylan and I bring up the rear. The water is cold and I wonder what part of the world we’re in, fearing it’s too far from home.

But when we break the dark water and then the mist, we’re back where we started. I look at my watch, which still reads 11:53 a.m. We swim down, down, down, and my chest tightens with the pressure. I recognize Arion’s ship in a broken mess at the bottom of the sea floor.

Brendan leads us south along the rocky valleys of the sea floor. Amada swims close to my side in her Naga form. Slick gills open at her neck. Her hind legs are hunched up as she lets her serpent tail do the work. She brushes my shoulder every time she wants me to see what she sees—brilliant coral reefs, whales breaching the surface, hundreds of glowing jellyfish floating like clouds. We pass dolphins that swim alongside us for a while until we’re too fast and leave them behind. Then the rock formations become tall and broken by a ridge the size of the Grand Canyon.

We swim into it until the light of the surface is long gone.

The break in the ground is narrow. I keep bumping my shoulder on the stone sides. The further we get, the tighter my chest feels, like my lungs are expanding to let in more air. We’re surrounded by luminous plankton and fish with forehead flashlights and gaping mouths that are bigger than the rest of their bodies. When Dylan turns around to make sure I’m behind him, his eyes are tiny dots of blue light, his blue scales like reflective mirrors.

We swim as fast as the narrow tunnels allow, making twists and turns that I know I won’t remember. The pit of my stomach is in a million knots because I’ve never been to the Glass Castle.

“Careful on this left!” Brendan shouts.

We turn into a pitch-black, lifeless tunnel for a couple of miles until it gives way and we’re in open sea again.

Below us is a structure like I’ve never seen before. True to its name, the castle is made of black glass. A massive fortress straight out of myth. This is where my mother grew up when she was a mermaid. I think of her swimming out of her rooms and through the patches of green, getting restless and going straight for the surface. After all the stories, I’m finally here. Balls of light burn in the archways made for swimming in and out of. Great, golden statues of past sea kings line the entrance. The spiral turrets form peaks, as if the structure rose straight out of the ground like twisting vines reaching for the sun.

But it’ll never reach the surface.

At first, the noise sounds like singing, mermaids and mermen having fun because what’s the point of a castle if there aren’t feasts.

Then there’s a crash at the entrance, golden statues tumbling down, bodies swarming against dozens of armed guards.

“What’s—” I start swimming forward, but Brendan grabs my fins and pulls me back.

“Stop! We’re under attack.”