Did I not hear the windows open?
Vartan dropped to his knees, his sword clanging as it fell before him. He heard Helenia’s voice singing as the wind blew over his ears, and his face fell into his hands. Tears dropped through the gaps in his fingers and he wept as if the pain had been eating away his insides, and this was his cure. For the first time since the day his brother was killed in the woods, he truly suffered.
Images of Helenia flashed in his mind, and he thought back to when they first met, then pictured her when she came to him at their wedding in Veldrenn. He let the tears flow freely.
“Oh Vartan, it is our burden to show a face of courage when our hearts yearn to be heard. We cannot show weakness in public, so we endure our heartache in private, and bottle it up until we burst.”
Vartan looked up and wiped his watery eyes, staring at a shadowy Queen Andrielle standing in the opened doorway, looking down at him through a tear-streaked face of her own. She was in her bedclothes. As she stepped into the light, he saw a familiar glimpse of Helenia’s face in her mother’s. Pain surged through his chest. His words came out in pieces, through quivering lips. “I… miss… her so much.”
Andrielle walked to him and grunted as she picked him up, leading him to the bed and sitting him down on its edge. She pulled his head to her chest, so he could hear her heartbeat, and he felt her tears fall on his scalp as she cried. “Oh my child, I miss her too. So much that my heart breaks whenever I think of her.”
Adela stared wide-eyed at the sight before her. She gulped as the rat squirmed in Kassina’s hands, and winced as the vampire queen sank her fangs into the small animal’s neck.
Her stomach churned as Kassina swallowed the creature’s blood.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Adela said.
Adela held her mouth as she turned her paled face away from the campfire. After a short pause, she peeked back at the feasting vampire queen. Her illness turned to curiosity. She had never seen a vampire before, and felt oddly excited by what she was witnessing.
Kassina coughed as she released the twitching animal, and wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. She grabbed a sharp twig and impaled the rat before placing it over the fire.
“You need a stronger stomach, girl. Such innocence is a weakness in this world. Believe me, this is not my first choice of dinner either. I don’t eat the meat, so this is for you.”
Something wasn’t right about all this.
Cooking dinner with the queen of the underworld. Who would have thought?
Her instincts made her wary, but she then reminded herself that Kassina couldn’t kill her.
Adela narrowed her eyes at her. “You’re only being nice to me because you have to, aren’t you?”
Kassina laughed as she turned the crackling carcass over the flames. “Maybe. But then, so are you, right?”
“Well there is the first thing we have agreed on all day. So, Niesha just flies off and leaves us here. We’ve spent all this time squabbling over what to do next. I am stuck with you. Just what are we meant to do exactly?” Adela said, throwing a stone at Castle Praethorne’s decaying walls.
Kassina threw the stick to Adela. “You insolent little whining brat! I am not your servant. In fact, I don’t need this, and I don’t need you.”
Adela watched the vampire queen storm off toward the castle entrance. “I’m sorry!”
Kassina stopped in her tracks and spun on her heels. “You forgot my queen.”
Adela chuckled to herself. “I mean no offence, Kassina, but I will not be addressing you as my queen. I am not your servant either. And you know what? You do need me. What are you going to do? Desert me out here and let me be killed? We all know what happens then.”
She knew she had bested the underworld queen, but wondered if it would come with consequences.
Kassina bared her fangs and pursed her lips as she launched at an unnaturally fast speed, to pick up Adela by the scruff. She yelled in her face. “Maybe I want to die. Did you think of that, little girl? Why don’t we just both end it all now?”
Adela’s heart pounded, and she knew that Kassina would know it. She was no stranger to bullying. Growing up on an island of pirates taught her a thing or two. Courage was the key to handling bullies, and this was no exception.
Adela looked into Kassina’s piercing eyes without flinching, then brought the cooked rat to her face and tore out a chunk, chewing between words. “First, I am no little girl. Second, you don’t scare me. So why don’t you just calm down and let me go already.”
Kassina sighed and dropped the girl, staring at the Blood Red Moon. “Is this all some big joke and I am the butt of it?”
Adela spoke between mouthfuls, “Well if it’s any consolation, you have quite a nice butt, so that would make sense.”
She always had quite the sense of humour, and wasn’t quite sure if the gamble would pay off. It was worth a shot.
The queen turned to her with a raised eyebrow, and the fury left the vampire’s eyes as she laughed heartily. “You sure are a feisty little surprise.”
Adela found herself enjoying the conversation, and hadn’t expected to remain in one piece. She wondered if bravery was what would win respect with Kassina. It tended to be the case with the real tough ones. “Listen, before we end up killing each other, why don’t we just sail this companionship and see where we land? After all, what else do we have to lose?”
Kassina slumped down beside the campfire and the corner of her mouth rose. “I suppose you are right, I have nothing else to lose anymore. Who am I kidding? I am absolutely starving here. I may be mortal, but I still crave blood all the same.”
Adela stared at her rat and wondered what it must be like to be a vampire. The rat would be far from an ample meal.
“Kassina, do what you have to do. So long as you don’t sink those fangs into me, then I don’t mind you feeding. Can you do it without having to kill someone though? I would hate to be responsible for a pile of corpses.”
“Of course. But you would never keep up with me in a hunt, and I can’t leave you behind.”
Adela said, “So I matter to you, to some degree.”
She watched Kassina’s eyes narrow. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I care about staying alive. We will see how much I end up liking you.”
“I guess we will see then, won’t we.”
Kassina stared at Adela with a straight face, and the girl’s eyes widened again.
“Sorry. I should be giving you more respect. The night is young, so how about we find somewhere you can feed? It’s only fair I return the favour. After all, I can’t leave you behind either. Just remember, no dead people.”
Kassina’s grin was only darkened by her pearly fangs as she said, “Maybe we can make this work after all.”
The queen rose to her feet and snapped her hand out at the fire, but only a tiny spark lit up her fingertips. “I’m wondering when I will get my powers back, and how long dragon’s breath can last for.”
“I don’t know. She didn’t say anything else before she left. Where’d she go anyway?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, thank the gods that you are stuck with me then,” Adela said. Her beaming smile made her cheeks ache.
Kassina rolled her eyes. “You will start to get annoying, you know. I am not used to being surrounded with people who are so, like you. Now, let’s get some fresh blood.”
Adela looked forward to what this new future with Kassina would bring.
Lucia crossed her arms and stared at Tusdar, and the gathering around him. “Are you going to make a decision sometime soon? Before I turn into plank wood?”
Tusdar turned to the Bloodship, rolling his shoulders and frowning. Lucia was an intimidating sight, but the reflection of her on the water was picturesque. He wasn’t sure what to do next. Everything hadn’t gone as expected.
“We’re getting there. Where did the other ships go?” Tusdar said.
Lucia looked ar
ound before answering. “Your guess is as good as mine. These ships are as alive as you and I. They fulfilled their duty by bringing you here, and decided to leave on their own.”
Tusdar tried to imagine what a living ship would choose to do. He came up with nothing.
Mestal said, “Then why are you still here?”
Lucia pointed ahead at the smallest mountains surrounding Mount Wayrin, and Kassina’s tower in the distance. “Your army has scattered and deserted you. You are unsure of where to go, and this war we are caught in has resulted in the deaths of most people I knew, and you are worried about why I am still here? Call it curiosity then.”
Mestal raised an eyebrow at Lucia, then turned back toward the mountains. “They lost faith. Not everyone has left us.”
Aidan and Faowind stood silent at a short distance ahead of them, watching the view before them.
Rise... Will fall...
Tusdar recognised the voice in his head, and cringed at what it could mean. Heat emanated from the tattoo on his chest. Darkness dripped into his heart.
He turned to Mestal. “Do you hear him? Do you feel him?”
Mestal nodded. “Shindar is coming, and for the first time, I don’t know what to expect. Everything feels wrong. Something tells me that this will not be good for any of us.”
Chapter 16 : A Sunken City
“There is a singular truth. Those who ride the tides of change must remember that to truly succeed, nothing can be won easily.
Dark forces are not weaker by default, or incapable of emerging victorious. In turn, the ones who lead us in the war against evil are not going to simply prevail because it has been written.”
(Kai’En - Marithian Seer)
There was life in the ocean unlike anything he could have imagined. Far beneath the rolling waves, Raehar had travelled a great distance on Jasmine’s back. They had mostly stayed close to the ocean floor, where fish illuminated the area around them. He had seen plenty of fish in his travels, but never this deep in the ocean. At first, he thought he had only seen them by coincidence, but he realised that they acted as beacons. The deep sea fish were larger than what he was used to, and their flesh was translucent. He saw their brilliant-white bones as they swam. The entire ocean appeared to be reacting to their presence. Every now and again, he would see giant serpents under the ocean. To his knowledge, nobody who lived above the ocean knew of their existence. There appeared to be an unspoken respect, unity, and hierarchy in the seas. Nobody spoke to the serpents, and as far as he knew, they were not communicating with them either. They were almost similar in appearance to dragons, but with no wings, and swam through the water like snakes, using large fins to guide them. They had long whiskers that dragged through the water.
The giant scaled beasts swam beside them at times. Immense sharks gave Raehar a moment of panic, but fled as they approached. His heart had raced at the sight of their razor sharp teeth, but instead of making a quick meal out of him, they kept their distance.
Jasmine had sped up when they had sank so deep, that he could barely see the ocean’s surface. Breathing water was still a foreign experience for him, but it was coming naturally to his subconscious as he forgot about it. Led by Nathalia, their leader, they swam what must have been along the land formations around Marithia, and had been travelling through an immense cave for a long time. At extended intervals, he noticed stationed mermaids that revealed themselves as they stared at him with widened eyes. They had been camouflaged along the rocky walls and blended in with their surroundings.
Would I have ever imagined my life leading to this? Not in any of my dreams.
The mermaids didn’t seem happy at all to see him, and how could he blame them? He was an outsider, and may have been the first human they laid eyes on. They appeared to be disappointed, with their grim faces turning away from him. He wondered how far they were from this place they called, Alyanti, what Jasmine had described as a sunken city. All he had seen were natural formations and if it weren’t for Jasmine, then he would have been lost in this alien landscape. Nothing was recognisable for a mental map.
He nearly fell off Jasmine as the group suddenly stopped, forming a line inside the cave. Just as he was about to speak and managed to get a better grip to survey his surroundings, they rocketed upward, through a wide crack in the ceiling. Something must have been illuminating the way, as bright blue walls blurred around them.
The water pressure changed as they emerged and he was surprised that his head wasn’t splitting. He had spent a lot of time diving for treasure. Even in shallower waters, the pressure hurt.
As they slowed down, his words were lost to him in the awe of his surroundings. Looking down, he had emerged from a crack in a large marble floor of Alyanti. Much of the city was submerged. They were surrounded by hundreds of mermaids, all busy. Some of them had brought back bags full of what looked like algae, and some had golden and silver treasures. Others brought pieces of wrecked ships.
Jasmine must have seen the confusion on his face and answered his thoughts. “We don’t eat meat. But we do use our teeth in battle.”
The many horror stories he had heard over ale, and the legends of mermaids, was all being challenged.
On the floor’s extremities, there were many buildings that looked as if they had sustained more years. Most of them had been restored over time as he could discern the difference between new and old decaying walls. On one end was a large set of stairs, and as he looked up, he saw that there was a surface. They swam toward the stairs, and Jasmine reached back to grab his hand, leading him through the water. He swam as fast as he could, but still relied on her to pull him through.
Jasmine turned to him and said, “Trust me and follow us.”
The group broke through the surface, and as Jasmine leapt out of the water, Raehar’s vision spun before he got his bearings, landing hard on the dry surface. He bruised his knee and rubbed it as he stood. Mermaids somersaulted in the air, and he marvelled as their tails morphed into legs. They landed clean, bending low with their arms stretched out wide, and rose slowly to their feet. Looking away, he realised that staring at their semi-naked forms was probably not going to earn their trust. He was curious, but steeled his resolve.
He faced Jasmine, her smiling face reassuring him that he was safe. She stood her ground, even supporting him to stand as his gills closed, and he coughed up some water before drawing a breath of air. He had never imagined that breathing air would be strange, but it was as if a void was building inside him, that only water could fill.
“I thought ye couldn’t walk,” Raehar said.
“I had to know that I could trust you. If I would have had the chance to escape, then it serves me to appear a cripple, doesn’t it?” Jasmine said.
Part of him knew he had been fooled but he admired her thinking.
Nathalia nodded to them and they marched away from the steps. She pulled him by the hand and he took in the sight around him.
“Me word, Alyanti is...” Raehar said, trying to take in the immense visuals of the sunken city. There were jewels embedded into the surface of the walls, and gold statues that shone in the ambient light. They were inside a giant cavern, and wondered how they managed to bring light to their city. He also wondered how this city came to be and if it were indeed sunken or built in this place. He noted to himself to ask when the time was right.
“Beautiful? We sure think so,” Nathalia said.
They walk down what must have been Alyanti’s main path. It was as wide as two ships, and from what he could see, was the only area that contained the sparkling golden statues. He saw thick marble pillars with hovering orbs on top that were like staring into the sun when he looked into them. If pirates ever made their way here, then they would likely be unable to take all of the treasure home. He dismissed his thought, reminding himself that his life of piracy was over.
Raehar stared at the nearest statue. It was of a man with a long beard holding a large trident in his right hand. In his
left hand was the neck of a serpent.
“This city belonged to the ancient ones, and they had a close affinity with the gods. Gods of our world, and of others,” Nathalia said.
He looked to the other statues and as they continued down the path, his mind boggled with the possibilities of who they all were. Did she just say other worlds? He wondered if the rumours spoke true about the beam of light into the stars. The thought of other worlds existing sent his mind reeling. Until now, he had only learned to respect the sea. People spoke of gods and deities, but he always laughed those thoughts off as fantasy.
They passed a statue of a relatively thin man floating above water. His arms were raised high, and they connected to water bursting upward, around him.
“Mazu, a god of water,” Jasmine said.
“There’s more than one god of water?” Raehar said.
Jasmine stared at him. “Yes, of course. Do they not teach land walkers about the gods?”
Nathalia turned to Jasmine and strained as if to tell her to be silent. “Land walkers do not have the knowledge we share, Jasmine. Remember, there will be a time and a place to discuss these things.”
He felt his cheeks flush and looked to the ground, noticing his reflection on the stone. He looked to the right and saw Jasmine’s. His eyes widened and he snapped his head up to look at the large stone building they neared. He glanced right to sneak a peek, and noticed that she either paid no mind to his view or didn’t know.
They halted before the wall and Nathalia turned to address him. Her smile was wiped from her hardened face.
“Young man, you are the first of your kind to set foot in Alyanti. Follow our rules and you will never be harmed. It brings me no pleasure to say these things, but once they have been said then we shall not discuss them again. If you break the rules of murder, rape, or theft, then I will be sure that you be punished in a fashion that will make your life a painful existence until you beg for us to end it. Do I make myself clear?”
Legends of Marithia: Book 3 - Talonsphere Page 19