“What if I fail?” I whisper to him.
You won’t.
“How do you know for sure?”
Because my blood runs in your veins.
My tears are hot, dissolving into the cooler water around me. “She’s stronger than I am. And experienced.”
But you are young, fast and smart. She won’t see you coming. He smiles then, his silver-colored eyes like shards of mirrored glass. And you are fighting for something bigger than she is. You fight for your people and for love. She fights for power. Never underestimate the fire inside of you, my Nerissa. It was always there. You just had to see it.
I rest my head against the darkening headstone as the vision blurs and dissipates, my father’s essence fading like an echo. Movement behind me makes me turn. It’s Echlios and Soren—loyal to the very end, no matter the outcome.
“They’re ready for you,” Echlios says.
I nod, holding my father’s words close. I glance at the two of them, swallowing hard. “Thank you. For training me, for taking care of me and for bringing me back here. Everything I’ve become is because of you.”
“It is our honor,” Soren says in a voice that makes me choke up even more.
“Is Jenna safe?”
“Yes,” Echlios says.
“And Speio?” I ask.
“He’s here. Now, come. It’s time.”
We make our way out of the royal burial chamber into the throne room and out of the main halls of the underground fortress. A dozen or more of Echlios’s men join us—my royal guard. Subconsciously, I know where we are going but I trail behind Echlios and Soren on automatic pilot, my mind curiously calm. I’m thinking about my friends—the human ones like Jenna, who had given her friendship in spite of the risks. I think of Speio, who’d fallen prey to the gilded promises of my mother a couple months ago. I think about Lo and how he’d tried to stand up to Ehmora, for me. I think about what Jenna had told me about Cara and forgiveness, and only now I truly understand what she’d been trying to tell me that day of the pep rally.
Forgiveness releases the forgiver.
“Where’s Speio?” I blurt out, halting the small procession.
“I’m right here,” a small voice says, swimming out of the shadows near the tail end of the guards.
The rush of emotions at the wretched look in his eyes nearly kills me. “What you did was messed up, but I get it. I messed up, too. And I’m sorry you felt like I gave you no option but to put your faith in someone else. I’m sorry I made it worse with Cara—and made it impossible for you to be with her. I’m sorry for not being a better...friend. Someone worthy.”
“You are more than worthy, Riss,” he whispers.
At his words, like magic, a weight lifts off my shoulders. Looking at the proud faces of my family, I’ve never felt so strong as we swim into Waterfell’s arena—a desolate wasteland of sand, spines and bones. It’s bigger than I remember. Speio and I had once joked that if you combined the arena from Gladiator and the quidditch fields from Harry Potter, you’d have the Aquarathi challenge arena. All the Lower Court witnesses are already there as well as the bulk of our people. Although there’ve been many feuds resolved here on the sands, there hasn’t been a royal challenge in centuries, not since the first years when our people fled here from Sana. No one wants to miss this.
I take my place in the middle of the arena, all eyes converging on me, some with interest, some with contempt, others with pity. I swallow hard, refusing to let fear swell within me. I’ve never given them a reason to trust me with their lives, so their response is only what I deserve. With a shaky breath, I address them in our native tongue, my words strong and unwavering.
“Many of you don’t know me, but you knew and trusted my father for many years. The Lady Ehmora wishes to rule Waterfell, but she will go against everything my father has built. She wants to change the core of who we are.” I leave off the part about the hybrids, considering I’m now bonded to one, and focus instead on the inherent values of what our people know. “We are an ocean species and this is our home. If you let me, I will continue to build upon the legacy of my father. We will guide the humans and help them to protect this planet, as has been the Aquarathi way for thousands of years. This I promise you.”
“Spoken with such naïveté.”
Slow, mocking laughter ensues as Ehmora enters the arena, her eyes like red death. Graveyard silence follows in her wake. Not even the ripple of a fin of the spectators in the stands disturbs the water around us. My eyes fall on the pale gold swirls shimmering along her neck and I almost snarl. I think of the corresponding red bonding marks on my mother’s body—everyone had assumed they’d been my father’s, but we’d all been duped. They’d been Ehmora’s.
Ehmora circles me, crimson lights glowing along her scales and her fins like lines of blood. In response, gold-and-green lights come to life along my body. She eyes me, her expression full of loathing. “If Neriah dies, you will pay, that I promise you,” she pulses at me more quietly.
“She’s my mother. If she dies, it will be for her crimes against my father and all of her people,” I say.
“You are a silly child.”
“If I’m such a silly child, why force your only son to bond himself to me? You could have just left it at the challenge and been done with it. So why did you? Because Neriah told you to? I’ll destroy your perfect weapon the first chance I get.”
Her face ripples with rage. “The time for talk is over.”
And then she’s plunging toward me so fast that I barely see her coming. I dart out of the way just in time but not before her barbed tail catches me on the side of the face. Thick iridescent liquid spills out like colored ink into the water as pain flowers along my jaw. I hear a cry behind me that I recognize as Soren’s but I block it from my mind. I need to focus on the enemy right in front of me. Locked in a battle that is as much mental as it is physical, I know that one moment of hesitation can cost me my life.
Swimming upward and putting distance between us, I take a breath and remember my father’s words. I’m better than she is. Be unpredictable. Be swift. Be aggressive. My time in the human world has given me something that she has long forgotten—the sheer ingenuity of youth. This is nothing more than a hockey game and she’s my opponent. Only there are two players instead of eleven, and she’s trying to kill me instead of getting past me to score. Life-and-death hockey, then.
Game on.
I smile and crook the finned end of my tail, whipping it back and forth in a taunting gesture. Ehmora snarls, baring rows of sharp curved teeth. She lunges again, but this time I’m ready. Instead of dodging her attack to the side, I dive and twist upward to snap my jaws on her tail, my teeth tearing off the deadly barbs at the end. Her claws smash into my side, trying to push me off her, but I hang on until I feel my teeth rip through flesh. She crashes into me head-on and we death-spin to the sand until we collide with the ocean’s floor. All the breath is knocked out of me upon impact, the force of it wrenching us apart. But Ehmora is already on her hind legs and charging toward me, pummeling me with her tail. Pain rockets through me as scales rip away like paper.
She’s nearly on top of me, her face triumphant. “Ready to die, little princess?”
Catapulting myself out of her reach, I face her, both of us swimming in a slow circle. Ehmora charges again. This time, I avoid her attack with defensive movement, ducking down and darting to the right as if I’m charging up the field with my stick and ball. Turns out you don’t need a stick to show off your stick skills. My heart is pounding as she chases me, hot on my tail, but I double-back in a reverse cutback, whipping my legs out so they catch her in the side on the rebound movement. She goes flying into the side of the rocks, right at the base of the Ruby Court.
“Yes!” someone yells, registering through the haze of adrenaline. It’s Spe
io. For the first time, I sense the Aquarathi in the stands, some foe and some friends, I expect, but I can’t make out anyone enough to recognize them. Two queens battling it out for succession would be the event of the century. I search for Echlios, and even though I don’t see him, I know he’s there...watching and waiting.
Be unpredictable.
“Looks like they’re happy I’m winning,” I tell a seething Ehmora. Brackish fluid from the wounds in her side spirals upward. We circle each other again but I try a different tactic as the noise around us reaches thunderous heights. “Beating me won’t gain you a crown, you know. They loved my father. They love him still.” I need to rattle her, get under her skin. She’s too clever, too seasoned in battle, for me to beat with strength alone. “And what do you think your son will do once he knows what you’ve done?”
“Lotharius will do as he’s told. It is what he was bred for.”
“Bred for?” I say, disbelieving. She speaks about him like he’s nothing more than a means to an end, a thing that was created for her benefit—a pawn.
“Yes,” she says through her teeth. “He will obey me.”
I cock my head to the side, feeling my body come alive as tingles rush along my skin in a wild rush. I almost gasp at the strength of the bond—Lo is here. I lift my chin. “You sure about that? He defied you earlier by coming to tell me the truth, didn’t he? Didn’t seem like he was obeying too well.” Her lips gnash together, her eyes narrowing. My strategy is working. “Maybe he has a mind of his own, after all.”
“Perhaps. But my son’s puny acts of defiance are of little consequence to me. Lotharius knows the cost. By defying me, he has lost the one thing that matters most to him.”
“What have you done?” I gasp, seeing the truth in her eyes.
A cold smile breaks across her face. “Such is the price of disobedience.”
I don’t have any time to respond before a dark gold blur rushes past me to smash into Ehmora with furious force. The blur kicks and swipes and punches, but still, he is no match for the cold efficiency of his mother. And he is angry, which makes him a predictable target. Ehmora captures him easily, holding him down on the sand with her talons raking across his soft underbelly.
“Back!” she commands the guards, including Echlios, who’d followed Lo onto the sand. Ehmora presses down into Lo’s body with her claws and I gasp, raising a shaky arm.
“Do as she says,” I say to the guards. They stop advancing but don’t leave the arena. I’m grateful for that, because I have no idea how I’m going to save Lo and defend myself at the same time.
“How could you kill him? You promised that if I did as you said, you’d let him live,” Lo is screaming. “My father was innocent. They all were, but they had done their jobs, right?” Ehmora’s burning red eyes are unfeeling. “Nerissa was right about you,” Lo says, jerking his head toward me. “You feel nothing.”
“You see?” she says, addressing the now-silent crowd peering down from the stands. They can sense that Lo is one of theirs but they know he’s different, too. “This is what the humans do. They make us weak. They make us bend to silly emotions, turning us into insipid colorless versions of themselves.” Her voice hardens. “They will be the death of us.”
“You’re wrong,” I tell her.
“Am I?” she says, and presses down with her nails. I’m not prepared for the agony that follows as her sharp claws pierce the skin of his stomach. She eyes me viciously, doubled over and clutching my belly, even as her son does the same in writhing agony.
“Feel that?” she says. “That’s because you’re bonded. You will feel everything he does. Pain, like love,” she spits out, “is something to be shared.” Turning her forearm, she presses the spikes into his face, and then Lo is screaming and I’m screaming. My eye feels like it’s being gouged out with a hot stake.
“Stop!” I cry. “You’re killing him.”
“I’m killing you.” Her voice is so matter-of-fact that, for a minute, what she’s said doesn’t register. And then it hits me with the force of a sledgehammer even as her hind legs slam into the side of her son’s chest. I gasp for breath, the pain excruciating, and I understand that Lo, like his foster father, is merely a means to an end. A means to me, and the one thing she’s always wanted. The throne.
I stare at Lo and the blood pooling out of him, and make my decision. “Stop, and I will abdicate my rule to you in front of everyone here.” It’s enough to make her freeze, eyeing me carefully and the Aquarathi surrounding us.
“And why should I believe you would do that for me?”
“Not for you. For him,” I say.
And then she laughs, the sound of it like clanging chains echoing in the water. “Thanks but no thanks. I’d rather do this my way. Him first, and then you. Two loose ends, removed.”
“You’ll kill your own son?” I whisper.
She shrugs. “When you threatened to kill him before, I had an epiphany. He is not irreplaceable. Surely you know by now that nothing thwarts me,” she says mildly. “Lotharius is no exception, especially now that his fealty is to you, as he so emphatically displayed. I guess I should have trained him to fight instead of flirt, but at least I know he was good for one thing.”
“What thing?” I say before I can help myself.
“Getting you to fall for him, hook, line and sinker. Just like a silly little girl.” She laughs then. “Still think love doesn’t make you weak? Look at you. Ready to give up everything to save him, even after everything he has done. It’s pathetic.”
Ehmora bares her jaws and leans into Lo’s exposed throat. I want to move but I’m immobile with fear as the seconds tick by and her teeth sink closer. And in those seconds, I realize that Ehmora is right. I am ready to give it all up for Lo, and regardless of what he has done, he will always be mine...and I will always be his. I can’t just let her kill him, not even if it costs me my life...or a throne that sits on blood and bones.
And then I feel it—strength from the Aquarathi around me pressing into me, pledging their loyalty, court by court. I haven’t won them by blood. Somehow, I’ve won them over with heart. Emotions may run deep in my people, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have them. I see that so clearly now.
“Stop.” Something in my voice makes Ehmora meet my eyes. “I forgive you for breaking my family apart and for murdering my father in cold blood,” I tell her softly. “Most of all, I forgive you for everything you’ve done to put our people at risk. Everything,” I add with a meaningful glance at Lo. “Including him.”
“You stupid bitch,” she snarls.
“A bitch is a dog, and I’m far from that.”
Suddenly with newfound purpose, I’m darting forward with immense speed to hit her head-on. The brutal strike hurls her body several feet away. One of my spines has broken off into the side of her neck. I bare my teeth and attack again, this time catching her in the mouth with the barbs on my tail before she can get up. I strike again and again, each time my strength growing and growing, and my speed getting faster and faster. I don’t stop until she is lying twitching on the ocean floor, until there is nothing left in me but fire and fury.
I swim over to Lo. He’s still alive, but I can sense his pain through his broken bones and the welts all over his body. I touch him gently with my mouth and we’re connected by a jolt of energy that leaves me breathless. Engaging Sanctum, I offer back the strength that I took from him earlier, and I can feel him healing. Through the connection, I can also feel everything that he feels for me. It’s so raw, so visceral, that I have to pull away.
“Nerissa,” he whispers. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry for everything. But I love you, and that has always been true.”
“I know,” I say. I want to tell him that I love him, too, but the words are buried like rocks inside of me. So instead, I nod. The words will co
me later.
I’m so dazed from his emotions that I only see the black shadow hurtling toward us when it’s too late to do anything but react. I brace, taking the powerful blow on my left side and staggering backward. After giving so much of myself to Lo, I’m not at full strength. But Ehmora is weakened, too, and isn’t quite as quick to come back with a counterstrike. Echlios rushes forward but I shake my head, keeping my eyes on Ehmora the entire time.
“It’s over,” I tell her.
“It’s over when I decide it’s over,” she growls. I respond by throwing out a glimmer that stops her in her tracks. Imprisoned, her eyes are wild and savage. “That’s impossible. You cannot control me.”
“They’ve chosen me, our people. Can’t you feel it?”
Bend, the waters in my body command. Her eyes go wide as her body struggles futilely against my will, a new queen replacing the old. For some inane reason, I think of Cara and our hockey game against Bishop’s, and I hesitate for a second. It’s not an attack of conscience; it’s more a stab of delayed understanding. Giving someone a chance isn’t a show of weakness...it’s one of strength. Knowing when to pass the ball is half the battle on the field.
“What are you doing?” Echlios says.
“Something I may regret.” I step forward, palms spread. “Swear fealty to me and I will let you live out the rest of your days quietly, here in Waterfell. You will not be exiled or executed for your crimes, but you may never return to the human world. That is all I can offer you.”
Her laugh is cold and brittle. “You think you can keep me here?”
“The alternative is exile.”
Fear slinks across her face before it is erased by a stormy, dark rage that she conceals behind a compliant smile. She hoped for execution—a swift death, and exile is far from swift. But it’s only her pride that is hurting, and in time she will realize that. I’m giving her a chance...a chance to live, and maybe to redeem herself. It’s more compassion than she would have shown me, had our positions been reversed. But that makes no difference—I don’t control her actions. I control mine.
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