Waterfell

by Amalie Howard

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I say hastily. “I meant the normal power of suggestion, not mind control. First of all, no species has the ability to control another. That’s science fiction. We’re not in your head, okay?”

  “Says she who can do exactly that,” Speio mutters.

  “Speio, not helping,” I hiss to him before turning to Jenna, my tone careful. I choose my words with wisdom. “As his queen, I can command him, true. But that is within our species, and it’s not something I do in general, especially to humans. You do not have anything to fear from us.” I lean forward slightly to meet and hold her gaze. “I need to know that you at least understand that. I would never hurt you. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she says after a few seconds. Her voice is unsteady but her eyes are unwavering. It’s enough for me. A sharp tinny bicycle-bell sound chimes through the air, making us all jump, but it’s only Jenna’s cell phone. “It’s my mom.” She answers. “Hey, Mom....Yes....No, I’ll be home soon....Yes, she’s much better,” she says into the phone with a glance at me. “She’s going to be fine....Okay, I’ll tell her. Love you.” After she hangs up, she slides the phone into her back pocket. “Sorry about that. She says to say she’s happy you’re feeling better. She wanted to know if I was staying over but I think it’s best if I head home tonight.”

  Jenna stares at the watch on her wrist and then back at me, the silent question in her eyes. As much as I want to keep her next to me for the foreseeable future, I made the decision to trust her and now I have to live with that. I’d hoped to ask her to spend the night once more, but it’s obvious she needs space to decompress and process everything that I’ve told her. And she can’t do that here with me breathing down her neck like some kind of alien sea monster. Cue self-deprecating laughter here.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “You should go.”

  Her face is torn. “I want to stay, really, I do, but Dad’s away at a sales conference, and you know how Mom gets...” She trails off, unable to meet my eyes, but I still give her a reassuring smile. “And I still have homework to finish for school tomorrow. You’re going to be at school, right?”

  “Yep. Business as usual.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll see you.” We embrace each other tightly in silence. She says goodbye to Speio and stands. “And, Riss, thanks for telling me. I know that you didn’t have to but I’m glad you did. And you can trust me, too. I hope you know that.”

  “I know,” I say softly.

  But I don’t really know. Instead, I hope. I watch as she says goodbye to Soren and Echlios with the same warmth as she would have in the past. It’s a good sign. She’s come to love them, too. She won’t betray us.

  She can’t.

  Or she’ll have to die.

  10

  HUMAN NATURE

  Hot white light creeps into the corners of my eyelids, and the feeling of warmth spreads like butter across my human skin. I wake to a balmy morning, a flutter of a breeze winking across the surface of the pool.

  After Jenna left last night, I stared up into the night sky for hours, my eyes burning and throat parched. As much as I’d felt the human inclination to cry, my body wouldn’t spare the water. I’d understood that I’d not been quite recovered from the earlier ordeal with Sanctum, and opening up to Jenna had pushed me over the edge. I fell asleep under the stars on a chaise longue outside, which isn’t uncommon for me, especially when I’m feeling out of sorts.

  I still am.

  I stretch my body and slip into the water, letting it soothe away the aches and pains of the confinement of my human body. Everything aches in an odd way—my mind as much as my body. Trusting someone with everything you are—especially when you’re an entirely different species—is incredibly traumatic. On top of that, revisiting my history had made me miss my father something fierce. I wish he could see me as I am now, and not the selfish girl he’d sent away to find herself. I want more than anything to be worthy of his legacy, worthy of him.

  I sigh and float, sensing Speio walking toward me. He crouches at the edge of the pool. “Did you sleep out here?”

  “Yes.” I stare into the pale blue haze of the morning sky that’s still tinged pink with the first blush rays of the sun. “You ever think about it, Speio?”

  “Think about what?”

  “Last night, I fell asleep watching the stars,” I murmur. “They were so bright—all shiny white dots on this unending blue-black background. It was so beautiful.” I pause, a wry smile twisting my mouth. “It’s not even our solar system, but I felt a pang of nostalgia so strong that it felt like someone had punched me. I don’t know where it came from but it was so unexpected....” My voice trails off.

  “I don’t get it,” he says. “You were feeling nostalgic about the stars?”

  “No, not the stars. Sana. I had this weird feeling. Must have been from talking about everything. I missed our planet, as strange as it sounds.”

  “That is weird, considering you’ve never been there,” he says. Speio’s voice has a slight edge and I can tell that he hasn’t forgiven what he probably considers to be unforgivable trespasses—in other words, trusting a human. But it was my call, and it’s done now so there’s nothing to be said for it. “Plus, it’s not exactly our home. This is.”

  “Maybe it’s a memory, from one of my father’s stories or something. You know, Speio, sometimes I wish we were there instead of here,” I confess. “Where we didn’t have to stay hidden all the time.”

  “They had different troubles, Riss. The grass isn’t always greener.”

  “I know.”

  “You think Jenna’ll say anything?” he asks, dipping his feet into the water. “Now that it’s morning and she can see everything in the clear light of day?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” he repeats. His voice is a sneer and I feel myself bristle in response to his tone.

  “No, I don’t know. And if she does, then you can kill her,” I snarl back, drawing myself out of the water with one hand and walking past him. “Is that what you want to hear me say, Speio?”

  Speio’s eyes are cool against my back. “No, Riss. If she does, that girl’s death sentence is all on you. I want to hear you say that you’ll take care of it.”

  I don’t answer him as I shut the glass door to my room and draw the curtains across it. After a while, I sense him walk back inside and I slump to the floor. Speio’s right. Everything is all squarely on me now. I’d made the decision to tell Jenna, to show her what we were, to break one of the laws that had kept us safe for millennia.

  I’d given up the keys to my kingdom to a teenage girl. A clever and mature teenage girl, but a girl nonetheless. I had to hope my faith in Jenna is as strong as her faith in me. Otherwise, this will be an experiment gone horribly wrong, and I’ll have to take care of any fallout, which is something I don’t even want to think about.

  With a shiver, I dress quickly, throwing on jeans and a sweatshirt before dragging a comb through my salt-crusted hair and giving up halfway to tie the snarls into a loose knot. My backpack is untouched from the week before and I cringe at the thought of having to catch up on a week’s homework. Despite my considerable otherworldly abilities, I still have to put my nose to the schoolwork grindstone and study as hard as anyone else. Too bad my alien powers don’t include a photographic memory.

  In the dining room, I can hear my family moving around, but they’re not alone. Soren is concentrating on a newspaper, and Speio is now glowering at me like I’m some kind of slimy traitor. I ignore him, my attention now focused on the tall, thin man speaking to Echlios just out of sight in the hallway. Sensing my presence, he turns toward me. Not a man, after all. On cue, the wet cloak sensation envelopes my skin as his essence bows toward mine, all of the water in his body making his identity known to me i
nstantly.

  Aquarathi. Eron. Ruby Court Royal Guard.

  His face shimmers fleetingly, telltale reddish lights flickering along his near-translucent neck as he extends it toward me in a gesture of allegiance. For a second, I wonder why Echlios would be speaking to a member of Ehmora’s old court, but I acknowledge him in silence, and the connection between us dissipates. The blood recedes from the surface of my skin, once more at rest, as the man takes his leave.

  I pour myself a cup of hot tea, ignoring Speio’s glower from across the table. Besides Jenna, I have other things to worry about. Like the usurper Aquarathi queen who wants to kill me.

  “A Ruby Court spy?” I ask Echlios as he walks into the room, and he nods. If Echlios trusts him, then I have no reason not to. “Did he bring any more news on the situation with Ehmora? Have we figured out what her plan is?”

  “Eron has confirmed that she has left Waterfell, but from what he’s telling me, it seems like she’s waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “For you to come of age, I expect. She’s nothing if not calculating. And clever. As long as I have known her, she has always had some ulterior motive.”

  Thinking back to what I know of her, I realize that Echlios is right. I met Ehmora once, when she visited my father to discuss the chaos between the lower courts. She was queen of the Ruby Court, and one of the most powerful rulers with the most influence. The kings of the Emerald and Sapphire Courts followed her lead more often than not.

  My father respected her but had never trusted her.

  She had been beautiful and icy. It’d been whispered that Ehmora and my father had been more than acquaintances at one point, but I’d never believed it. My father could never love a creature so cold and untouchable, and in the end, he’d chosen my mother, Neriah from the Gold Court, and that had been that. Among the Aquarathi, Ehmora was known for her biting intelligence and her unforgiving temperament.

  During the visit, I was awed and a little cowed in her presence, hiding behind my father. In Aquarathi form, she was formidable—all burning ebony scales with bloodred fins. Her gaze was one of deep red fire that pinned me against the cave wall as if she could see right past everything inside of me. I’d never been so terrified in all my life.

  I shake off the dark memory and focus on Echlios. “And our people? My father’s advisers? What did Eron say of them?”

  His face darkens. “Some are still alive. Captive.”

  I frown, a tremor of unease sliding through me. “Wouldn’t she want to get rid of any of our people who were loyal to my father? I mean, it’s a classic coup maneuver.”

  “I don’t think that that is Ehmora’s end game.”

  “What do you mean?” I say casually, eating a piece of sashimi and trying not to be disturbed by the weird twist of Echlios’s mouth, as if he’s working out how to say something awful to me. Mentally, I prepare myself. “She has the High Court now. What else does she want?”

  “You’re still the true heir. Even if she has temporary control of the High Court, Ehmora can never be accepted as its queen. Our rules of succession are clear. If there are no direct descendants who are of age, only then can a new regent be chosen via challenge. But you’re still alive, yet she hasn’t officially challenged you. I think she has other plans,” he says after a minute.

  “You mean to kill me, too?”

  “That’s just it,” Echlios says with a glance at Speio. “She can’t—she’d be executed. Your father’s death was accepted as an accident, but yours would not be. It’s too risky. Eron thinks she wants you to come back, but to rule under her thumb.”

  “I’d never be her puppet.”

  Soren shoots Echlios an insistent look. “Tell her,” she says to him. “She needs to know now instead of later. She can’t have her head in the sand, pretending that she and Ehmora aren’t going to come face-to-face at some point. It’s leverage, and Nerissa needs to know.”

  “What’s leverage?” I say. Echlios’s face becomes even more pained, his internal struggle clear. I eye him, letting the waters in my body surge to the surface of my skin and bend his to my will. “Tell me.”

  He sighs. “Your mother is alive. Ehmora has her. Captive.” I almost throw up the piece of food in my mouth as all the air is thrust out of my lungs in one heaving breath at his words.

  “What do you mean my mother is alive?” I sputter, everything inside of me wild and uncontrolled. “My mother is dead. She died a long time ago. My father—”

  “Wanted to protect you,” Soren says gently. “Lady Neriah isn’t dead, love.”

  “Then where is she?” I whisper on a half-broken sob as Soren channels her thoughts directly to me. My mother is alive...captive all these years somewhere in Waterfell by Ehmora.

  “How could you keep this from me?” I choke out.

  “We were bound not to tell you, my lady. By your father.”

  My heart feels like it’s separating into a million icy droplets, each sinking into my body like glass shards. “Why?”

  “Perhaps he did not want to cause you pain.”

  But the pain is already making itself felt in violent, heaving waves. Why would my father have lied to me? Why would he have told me she was dead when she’s alive? Launching to my feet, I’m prepared to run out of the house and swim straight to Waterfell.

  Echlios stands to grab my arm with gentle but firm restraint. “You can’t just run out of here, Nerissa. That’s what Ehmora wants—you for her. That’s her bargaining chip. Her leverage.”

  “Release me,” I say, my jaw clenched. Echlios complies, his hand falling to his side. “We have to go. I don’t have a choice. I’d trade me for her any day. It’s my mother.” I don’t even realize that I’ve fallen back into my natural language, the flow of clicks and pulses so quick it’s falling out of me like brittle staccato notes.

  “There’s more,” Echlios says. “Lady Neriah is not in Waterfell. Eron has new information that she’s being held captive here on land.”

  “Where?” The desperation coating the fleeting edges of my thoughts translates into sound. I can barely get the words out. “Here? In San Diego?”

  “Maybe. Ehmora has many friends and spies across the United States.” He squeezes my shoulder. “But it makes more sense that Ehmora would choose to be close by...closer to you.”

  “We have to find her, Echlios.”

  “We will,” Soren says, wrapping her arms around me. I don’t want to be touched but I accept the comforting gesture nonetheless. Swallowing past the acid in my throat, I squeeze her back. She has been a capable guardian and is the closest thing I’ve had to a mother over much of my life, but she could never replace my mother...whom I’d thought dead for so long.

  My voice is a threadlike whisper. “Do we have anything else from Eron to go on? Anything at all?”

  “I’m working on it, my lady.”

  “Thank you, Echlios,” I say with a deep, drawn-out breath. “What can I do? I can’t just sit here.”

  “For now, that’s the best thing you can do...just continue your day-to-day activities. Ehmora doesn’t know that we know about Lady Neriah, and right now, that’s our only advantage to try to find her. Which means we need to be extra careful at school and anywhere near the ocean where Ehmora can get you alone. It may make sense for you to curtail your duties at the marine center, at least for now.”

  “No, I can’t do that. They need me and I need them,” I say quietly. “I’ll be careful, Echlios, but I don’t think that changing everything I do is the answer here. If she wanted to capture me, she had more than enough opportunity in the past two years after she killed my father. And if she wants to play her new trump card about my mother, then she’ll just have to come find me.”

  “Nerissa,” Soren says softly. “Remember our lessons—stop and think. Reme
mber who you are, and promise me that you won’t do anything rash on your own. We will find your mother, but we have to do it together without compromising your safety.”

  “Of course, Soren. I’m not stupid.” I glance over at Speio, who hasn’t said a word since we’d started speaking. He seems shocked at Eron’s news but it’s not like he’s got my back anymore. He’s probably gloating that he’d been right all along when I was pouring my heart out to Jenna. “Plus, I’ve got Speio to make sure of that, don’t I?” My tone is bitter but I can’t help myself. I raise hard eyes to Echlios, my words clipped. “Contact me the minute you find anything. Understood?” He nods, his lips a thin white line and his eyes shadowed. Echlios is a master of his emotions but he is as affected by this as I am.

  Perhaps even more so because of my father’s demands.

  Leaving the house without waiting for Speio, I jump into the back of my Jeep and floor the accelerator. He can get himself to school just fine without me. Although I’m calm on the outside, on the inside I’m seething. I can’t believe that they kept such a terrible secret from me. A quiet part of me argues that they were doing it at my father’s behest, but I shove it away. They should have told me after he died that I still had a mother. Instead, they’d let me believe that I had no one left...that I was alone.

  I pull into an empty parking space and fall into the sea of students entering the school building, trying to calm my frazzled emotions. The stakes have gotten a lot higher. On top of it all, the knowledge that Ehmora has human allies is terrifying, if only because I can’t sense them as I can other Aquarathi. Anyone could be a threat, even right at this moment.

  Stepping out of the Jeep, suddenly I wish that I had Speio at my side even though I’m still furious with him. Maybe he would have told me, but things have gotten so strained between us, first with the arrival of Lo and then my big reveal to Jenna. The sour thought of what could happen if any of Ehmora’s spies figure out that Jenna knows about us weaves its way through my brain. Now, because of me, Jenna could be in very real danger. No wonder Speio had been so cagey.