“Hi, I’m looking for Ezra. Do you know where he is?” I ask.
The one I’m addressing doesn’t answer. Instead, another lumbers over, moving a bit awkwardly through the waters. She has a bit of white mixed in with the teal color of her scales, and that coloring combined with the wrinkles around her eyes tell me she’s aged.
“He is not here.”
“Oh.” I try to hide my disappointment and also my shock. I normally only ever talk to Ezra in his human form. Leviathans communicate telepathically. “Did he stay at the academy? Do you know?”
“No, he has gone with Lin to explore. They should return in a few hours.”
Lin? Who is Lin? My heart sinks.
“Thank you for letting me know,” I say, my words bitter despite trying to hide my feelings.
“If you wish to stay until he returns, you can feel free.”
“Oh, thanks, but no.”
The leviathan blinks her massive eyes. “You are welcome to return.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that. Maybe I will. If not, I’ll just see him at the academy. I… Yeah.”
Feeling out of sorts, I sort of drift away from the leviathan. I glance around as I slowly make my way out of their kingdom. I swam farther inside than I realized. For the most part, their kingdom resembles that of the small one for the sea dragons with caves as their places of rest. The rocks have claws marks etched into them, and I realize the more I look around that those etches are drawings or symbols. Some are quite detailed, and I pause in front of one that depicts a leviathan capsizing a ship but also seems to be saving a young girl and placing her on the beach. It’s lovely in a haunting way.
Once again, there’s no sign of the seal skin anywhere. As I leave behind Delphran, my thoughts churn, as does my stomach. Try as I might, there’s only one kingdom I haven’t searched even a little for the sealskin. I don’t want to. I don’t think it’s possible that the seal skin will be there, but I meant what I said to the selkies. I will look in Hydria as much as it kills me.
As soon as I’m far away from the sea dragons’ smaller kingdom, I change from my sea dragon back to myself. Hmm. That’s not quite true, is it? I’m still me when I’m in my sea dragon form. I’ve just shifted from one version of myself to another.
The guards side-eye me as I return to Hydria. Sheepishly, I wave to them and hurry away before they can yell at me.
Talise swims up to me. “Rillia, there you are.”
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Wishing I swam to the Grand Divide.” She purses her lips. “I’m really getting worried.”
“Worried about what? The war?” I so desperately want to tell her about the sealskin, but I’m not sure I should. It’s not as if the selkies said I couldn’t tell anyone, but then I would have to explain that I got caught up in the waves with them, and that won’t be well received, not even among my friends.
“My mom said there’s been talk that we won’t be allowed to return to the academy once our break is over.”
I gape at her. “What? Why not? Not allowed? Do you mean the king and queen will forbid it?”
Talise nods glumly. “They want every fin on deck in case it does come to war.”
I narrow my eyes. “No. They can’t!”
“They can, and they just might,” she says softly. “I knew you wouldn’t like that any more than I do, but we have to do what we’re told.”
I shake my head. “That’s not acceptable.”
“Rillia, you can’t fight them on this.”
“They want us to train at the academy so that we can then fight for them. They’re using us.”
“Some would say that HEX United is the one using the graduates of the academy,” she points out.
Hunters, Slayers, Executioners Unite is the company that hires almost all of the graduates as, you guessed it, paranormal hunters, slayers, or executioners. I would love to work for them one day, but that’s not going to happen, is it?
I scowl. “If I’m going to be a puppet, I would rather control who is holding my strings,” I say.
“You aren’t a puppet,” Talise protests.
“And I’m not about to become one either. Why do we hate the sea dragons? Is that really necessary?”
“We’re starting to hate the selkies,” she points out.
“Why? Why shouldn’t they be upset? Someone stole one of their skins.”
Talise gasps. “Is that what—Hey, how do you know that?”
“Talise, please. Go home.”
“What are you going to do?” she asks, a hint of panic bleeding into her words.
“Go home.”
I start to swim away, but she follows me, and I stop.
“Talise, you don’t want to be around for this.”
“What kind of a friend would I be if—”
“You would be the kind of friend who trusts each other. Please.”
She shakes her head, bites her lip, and then swims off.
I wait until she disappears from view before hightailing it toward the castle. It doesn’t matter that I have no right to talk to the king or queen. I am going to request an audience with them, and I am going to ask some difficult questions, questions that just might land me in prison all over again.
But I’m going to ask. I’ll do whatever it takes to try to prevent a paranormal maritime war.
Chapter 13
The sight of our castle normally fills me with so much pride that I think my heart will burst. Right now, it feels me with dread.
Pushing aside my worries and fear, I bypass the guards and swim to the throne room. King Tullius is there, sitting on his throne, a trident in his hand. A guard hovers before him, treading in the water. The two fall silent as I approach.
“My King.” I dip my head to show a little bit of respect, considering my barging in. “I would like to ask for an audience with you.”
The king tilts his head. His hair is long and white, and I’ve often wondered if he’s part elf. His ears are rounded, though, and not pointed, but he does have a quiet grace to him. Right now, that grace is nowhere to be seen as he grips his trident and actually points it at me.
“Who are you to come in here and—”
“I am Rillia,” I start.
“Ah, one of Adra’s friends, one of the lot who stole away to the selkies. You’ve done nothing more than rile them up and all but assured that war is unavoidable.”
“No, My King. That does not have to be the case.” I struggle to not swim any closer. Earnestly, I say, “The selkies don’t want to fight us. Honestly, they don’t.”
The king throws back his head and roars with laughter. The silver clasp of his cloak glistens, refracting light and casting tiny rainbows everywhere. “You are even more naïve than Adra. You do not understand what is at stake here. I suggest you leave now before you embarrass yourself further.”
A guard lurking in the shadows swims forward, but I evade him and do cut through the water closer to the king.
“All we have to do is find the missing seal skin!” I cry. “If we help them, they will leave us be!”
The king smirks. “As I said, naïve. Rillia, there is no missing seal skin. The selkies are lying.”
“No, they aren’t.” I narrow my eyes and jab a finger at him. “Did you steal it? Did you order someone to steal it? Are you the reason why my father was hurt, why so many were killed? On both sides?”
“How dare you!” The king jerks out of his seat. “I shall have your tail for this! The selkies have poisoned your mind—”
“They aren’t lying!”
“You believe them over me, over your king! You are a traitor—”
“It is you who is the traitor,” a chilling, unfamiliar voice says.
From above, in the shadows, a mass of seaweed descends. Several more follow, and I back away, shocked. The bundles of seaweed shake, the seaweed falling away to reveal selkies.
They followed me. For how long? Do they know my secret? And they freake
d about my spying on them with coral to disguise myself. They took a spine from my sea urchin!
I swim off to the side so I can watch the exchange. The king’s face, normally pale, is almost purple now.
The selkie who spoke scowls at King Tullius. “You are a traitor to the sea itself, to the water we all live in. You seek destruction. You are the one to want a war between our kinds!”
“I never took a seal skin. Why would I?” The contempt in the king’s voice chills me to the core. “If I wanted war, we would have descended upon your kingdom and not at night, not in disguise, not hiding away as cowards but as warriors with heads held high and tridents in hand. It would hardly be considered a war because how can the likes of you dare to stand up against the might of the merfolk?”
“Then why was this recovered from where the skin had been?”
With a fin, the selkie tosses a piece of gold. The king makes no move to catch it. A guard intercepts before the piece can land on the floor. Wordlessly, he hands it to the king.
“Don’t you normally wear a gold clasp, King Tullius?” the selkie demands. “That gold clasp?”
The king’s nostrils flare. “Someone stole this. I never would—”
“You would, and you did, and you dare to call us liars!” the selkie roars.
The guard removes a trident from his back and goes to stab the selkie. He moves out of the way, and chaos descends. More selkies appear, as do more guards, and I flitter around the tiny battles toward the king.
“You should leave,” I inform him. “Here. Give me your trident and I—”
“You will do nothing,” he barks. “No. Leave. You never should have come here.”
He spins the trident and seems to lunge forward without moving, the trio of prongs on his trident burying deep into the nearest selkie.
The king whips the trident free and scowls at me, his eyes cold. “You brought them here!”
“No! I didn’t!” I don’t want to be a coward and back away, but I have no weapon to defend myself, and the king—my king—is advancing on me.
A selkie plows into the king’s side. “She is the only decent one of your kind! She tried to find the seal skin! She tried to help bring peace, but you won’t allow that. You would turn against your own! What kind of a king are you!”
The king goes to ram into my king, and I don’t know what to do. I’m helpless, and this entire scene is one of disorder and disarray. Is there no hope left at all beneath the sea?
The king and the selkie are fighting, and the water is tinging red. A guard is the first to die, his body turning so he is on his back. As if in slow motion, he starts to sink, his trident slipping through his fingers.
In a blind rage, I let out a shriek and zoom forward. My fingers curl around the shaft of the trident, and my first move is to block the blow of a guard that would have killed a selkie.
“Stop fighting,” I shout, moving on without looking at the guard to see his reaction. I use the trident to bar a selkie from harming a guard who has his back to the creature. “Stop it!”
But they don’t listen. None of them do. A selkie gives a faint cry as he’s impaled, and tears burn my eyes.
“There doesn’t have to be any more deaths!” I scream.
My words go unheard or, worse, ignored. Despite my attempts, I cannot stop the battles for more than a few seconds.
“What in the sea…”
I turn around to see Queen Kaia. Behind her swims Adra.
Quickly, I speed over to them. “The selkies are seeking a seal skin. They found the king’s gold clasp where the skin had been. That’s why they attacked. Do you know where the skin is? If we return it—”
“You think my husband would do such a thing,” the queen says coolly. “Think, child. The clasp was found where the skin had been because it had been planted there.”
My jaw drops. Is she right? Is the king speaking truly? Have I been duped by the selkies all along?
How so many selkies entered the heart of Hydria to invade our castle, I don’t know, but even more merfolk have taken up the call. I swim around, watching the individual fights, and leave the castle only to see more chaos and battles outside. Everywhere I turn, the merfolk and the selkies are locked in battles, and nothing I can say or do will stop them.
I’ve caused this. All of the bloodshed, every death, it’s on me.
Although unintentional, I brought the selkies here. I believed them. In my quest to make things right, I’ve failed so utterly that I want to give up. I want to give into my despair and collapse into a ball and weep.
But I also want to turn into my sea dragon. I could stop this, stop all of the fighting. I could crush both sides and be done with it.
What, though, would that accomplish other than my death? I would be killed, sentenced to death by my own king.
There is no peace to be had.
It’s not just I who has failed. So have the merfolk and the selkies.
Chapter 14
The trident feels almost too heavy for me to hold a second longer, and I don’t even react as it slips through my fingers and falls to the ground. All I wanted was to prevent another battle, not start an even bigger one!
Tears blur my vision, and I blink them away. Furious at myself, I dive down and reclaim the trident. When I raise my head, I spy someone else swimming toward us. She appears to be human, and two nixes are with her. Naya and a male who kisses the human.
I rush over to them. “Who are you? What’s going on? Naya, did you find the skin?”
The human holds it up. “Take me to your king.”
I hesitate for only a second and have to fight off both selkies and a guard before I can bring the trio safely inside the castle. The king is still squaring off against the same selkie, but they both halt as we approach.
She glares at them both, and the male nix fidgets. The human shakes her head. “Stop the fighting.”
“Who is this?” King Tullius demands, looking at me.
The selkie flares his nostrils. “Siera, where did you find your skin?”
Ah, I should’ve realized she is the selkie!
She puts on her skin and instantly transforms into her seal self. Siera nods to the nixes. “You can return to your home now. Thank you both so very much.”
The nixes giggle. Naya winks at me, and they swim off.
It takes the king and the selkie he had been fighting some time to get the others to stop, but now, there’s a full audience for the proceedings. I don’t know if I deserve to be here in center stage, but I have invested far too many hours in this. I’m not even sure what day it is. I’m ready to collapse, but I need to know what’s going on.
An arm wraps around my waist. Adra. She smiles at me, and I lay my head on her shoulder. I so need her support right now.
Siera twists about, looking at everyone before facing the king and the selkie once more.
“Jordan, where is your coward of a sister?” she snaps. “I’m surprised she isn’t here beside the lot of you, fighting. She’s the one who wanted the war after all.”
There’s grumbling among the selkies.
Siera just smirks. “You all don’t realize it yet, do you? Queen Jamala was the one to take my skin. She hid it as an excuse for war.”
“How dare you say such a thing!” Jordan roars. “You will be—”
“Killed? Turn me into a martyr. Go ahead. I will not be silenced,” Siera says.
“Do you have proof of what you claim?” one of the other selkies asks.
“The nixes who brought me here, they had been looking for my skin. A mermaid asked them to.” Siera’s gaze flickers to me.
I nod and lower my head.
“You know nixes and their games. They can also swim far faster than any other magical marine creature. They searched a great deal of the ocean before deciding to go to Aquilina, thinking they might overhear where the seal skin had been taken to search there.”
“We found the skin, all right,” Naya says, coming
back.
I grin. I’m not surprised that she couldn’t stay away. In fact, I’m surprised she left in the first place.
The male nix remains by Naya’s side and says, “We found the skin beneath the selkie queen’s seaweed bed.”
“She took my skin and hit it away. She blamed the merfolk for—”
“Explain the merfolk king’s clasp!” Jordan demands.
One of the selkies swims forward. “I found it. There had been a lot of underwater sea squalls lately. It must’ve blown it out of your kingdom. I… I brought it to Queen Jamala. This was nearly a month ago, though! She told me she would have it returned to you.”
“It has been at least a month since it went missing, yes,” King Tullius says slowly. “The sea squalls might have taken the clasp, hidden it, and then unearthed it.”
“Do you honestly think we can believe that?” another selkie asks. “We all know that you fancy our queen, Trenton.”
The selkie who found the clasp glowers at this one. “I speak the truth.” He turns to Jordan. “You were there when I gave it to her. Didn’t your sister say she would have it returned?”
“Yes.”
“It has been gone for a month,” King Tullius says.
“By the tides, it’s been nearly six weeks,” Queen Kaia says, speaking up for the first time.
“Your queen kept the clasp,” I say slowly. “She stole the skin. She sent you all to fight while deceiving you. If she wished for war, why did she go to such lengths?”
Jordan glances at his fellow selkies. “You believe all of this?”
“You tell us,” Trenton says. “It seems very much as if this is the case. Our king dies suddenly. Your sister had been engaged to marry him. What if she had a fin in his death?”
My eyes widen. “Oh,” I gasp.
“That is a serious allegation,” Jordan says, his tone dark and deep. “Do you mean to say such a thing when you clearly have no proof about it.”
Siera moves in front of Trenton. “I wish to lodge a formal complaint against your sister as well as demand for there to be an official inquiry into the death of the previous king.”
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