“What?” I hiss.
Her shoulders shake as she silences her laugh. “Are you the only one allowed to laugh in the face of doom?”
“I think you mean danger.” I adjust my body so she can cut me loose.
“I like ‘doom’ better,” she whispers.
I can feel my restraints snap, but I keep my hands behind my back.
Karel kicks Brendan in the gut and my cousin doubles over. But he lifts his head, his red hair sweaty and matted over his smiling face, all, is that all you’ve got? I’m starting to think he likes getting beat up.
Karel doesn’t see me until Brendan’s eyes flick toward me. The river warrior spins around in time for my fist to meet his face. Blam! He’s out cold.
“We have to find the way out of here,” Dylan says, rubbing his wrists.
But we’re not alone anymore. The warriors return and so does Isi. Even if we make it to the outer ring and somehow find a way out, I’m not leaving the Naga. I can’t just hand her over to the people that wanted me to kill her. There has to be a reason I hesitated, something I’m missing.
So in the only way I can think to save my ass, my friends, and a strange beast girl, I say, “I wish to speak to the oracle.”
Brendan and Dylan hold on to Karel.
“You don’t have the nerve to hurt him,” Isi says to me.
“He’s hurt me a lot more than the Naga has,” I remind her. I look at Yara, stepping beside her mother. “Tell her, Yara. Isn’t that consistent with my human code?”
Yara nods once.
Isi looks like she’s going to strangle me. I’ve ruined her veiled paradise.
The oracle has come forth on her own. She is small and wide, and the veil over her face is drawn back around her shoulders. She is fluid, moving effortlessly from her tent to the platform. The bark lines of her face betray no emotion, but the air around her shifts like the moments before a thunderstorm.
The villagers start talking among themselves.
We can’t let this be.
He’s cursed us again.
“Come with me.” The oracle places a hand on my arm. Instant warmth spreads through me. I remember laughing with my parents, swimming with my friends, lying on the beach with Layla.
The oracle sees me not following and says, “I will bring you to the girl.”
I start walking.
“Stay,” she says to everyone who tries to follow. Even Yara. My friends. Even Isi.
The river people part for us. I follow the oracle into the tent where I was first welcomed. A white flame burns in the center. I sweat the second I walk in.
The Naga is on the leather-clad floor, dressed in white. Her eyes are closed. Her jet black hair is fanned around her. Her nails elongate into claws as she shivers in her sleep. Then they retract into fingers.
“Did you heal her?” I sit beside the Naga girl.
The oracle nods. “When you cut her with Triton’s dagger, it allowed her to change into her human form.”
“But she’s fine, right?”
“This is the first time she’s been in her human form in centuries. The weapon hasn’t broken the curse. Only a true death will do this.”
That’s reassuring, I think. “What’s her name?”
“Amada.”
I nearly jump out of my skin when the Naga girl sits up. She brings her knees up to her chest and holds them with her arms. She looks from me to the oracle then back at me.
“You’re awake!” I sit yogi-style in front of her.
She jerks back. Well, I tried to shish-kebab her, so that’s a natural reaction.
“You’re Tristan Hart,” she says.
“How did you know?”
“I’ve dreamed of you.” Amada takes a wooden bowl from the oracle and smells it for a long time before drinking from it. “For so long, my dreams were black. Of screams and blood, and then I saw you, and I knew you would be the one I was waiting for. Thank you for not killing me.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I ask her. “You left me the berries. You caught the fish for me. You sent me the lizard-bird.”
“Sun bird,” she says.
“Come here, Land Prince.” The oracle sits beside us with fistfuls of a green paste that looks an awful lot like my neighbor’s dog shit. She slabs the goopy stuff on my face. “You’re more bruised than goddess fruit left out in the sun.”
“Oh, is that what happens?” I wince when she presses her thumb on my cheekbone.
Then her fingers touch the scab on my chest in the shape of the Naga’s claws.
“I’m sorry,” Amada says.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know you. They didn’t tell me. They lied to me about everything.”
The crackle of the fire is strong. When I breathe deeply, the heat burns my insides, but it feels so good.
Amada looks down at her human fingers. “It’s not all lies. I’ve taken lives. Sometimes the beast would take over and I wouldn’t have a human thought for so long. Sometimes I’d stay in my caves so I wouldn’t hurt them when they tried to hunt for me.”
I kick the wooden bowl in front of me. I was played like a cheap toy. I yell at the oracle before I can think better of it. “Why did you keep this from me?”
“Isi didn’t think you would do it if you knew the truth,” the old woman says.
“Am I so predictable?”
She shakes her head. “Your heart is still open to the world around you.”
“That’s me,” I say, but it hurts more than I’d like to admit. “The open-hearted guy. Kurt isn’t worried about doing the right thing, is he? And Nieve didn’t create an army of merrows to save the world.”
“That is why you will always be greater than them.” She steps over me with another wooden cup full of stinky liquid. “My daughter was weak. She could not bear seeing Amada as she was. It is a great strain, losing your children. Watching them suffer.”
Amada keeps her eyes trained on the tent flaps, her shoulders hunched as if she’s ready to attack anyone who might intrude. Or maybe she wants to run back to the outer ring.
“The Chief is your kid?” I didn’t know oracles could have kids.
“We can,” she says, reading my thoughts. “Not all of us. Not Chrysilla in her shell. Not Alethea, as you saw her die in Eternity. The oracles and the kings of the sea have always had a close relationship. The first oracles created the trident with their blood.
“We consult with kings during times of war. We shift, as we must. But I will always remain here because, unlike my sisters, I would not advise the kings. I tire of their tempers, their eagerness for destruction. My people still believe the Vale of Tears is a curse. But I believe it is a blessing. Drink.”
“What is it?”
She doesn’t answer, but I chug it. The bitterroot liquid dries my mouth, like chewing on cotton balls.
“Amada too.”
I pass it to Amada who makes a face but drinks it anyway.
The oracle brings out a glass arrowhead and slices the palm of her hand. Her blood pools at the center. She brings it down to my chest.
She nicks Amada’s hand. Amada gasps, and for a moment her claws come out. She cradles the hand to her chest.
“What are you doing?” I shout.
But the oracle pushes me back on the floor. She holds her hand out to Amada and waits for her to comply. Amada looks at me for encouragement, so I just smile. The oracle guides Amada’s bleeding finger in a circle around the oracle’s print on my chest.
“To raise the Sleeping Giants,” the oracle says, “you must see what they are capable of. For that, you need strength. She is your connection to this plane.”
“Is that why I feel like I’ve known her before?” The room gets hotter, like I’ll melt right out of my skin.
“I believe you
were brought together for this purpose.”
In my drowsiness, I laugh. “I’m fuzzy on my feelings about fate.”
The oracle holds my stare. “I fear fate is often mistaken for lack of choice. Our world, the human world, the worlds we can’t see are made up of threads, like the web of a spider. Everyone you meet is a thread in your web of life, and you are a thread in the web of the world. Your cousin Brendan led you here. Your friends protect you with their lives. You sought the Naga but chose not to slay her, despite the stories Isi told you. I have dozens of prophecies in my head, but I chose to believe in you.”
I lick the dryness from my lips. “He’s connected to me too, isn’t he? Kurt. And Nieve. Can they see me, the way I see them? In dreams?”
The Tree Mother touches my forehead with the back of her hand. Fever sweat rolls down my face. “Not here. But when you go back, I believe they will. First, you must be here and now. You must see the creatures you are going to raise.”
The oracle places Amada’s hand in mine. And as we lie side by side in the sweltering tent, I close my eyes.
“What happens after I see?”
I hold Amada’s hand like an anchor to this place. She squeezes back.
“Then you must find the seal and destroy it.”
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.�
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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.
Vast and Brutal Sea Page 10