Elandria was standing there, wrapped in her white fur. Her hair was still dark from the recent exposure to sunlight. She looked at him fearfully as she bluntly asked what had been on both of their minds. “Is my sister really dead?”
“Come in,” Trevain said, opening his door. Elandria entered quickly, and he mused at how all her tact had fallen away. Once again, she was a nervous wreck, a wounded young woman instead of an ice princess. Before she had entered his room he had also been out of sorts, but he quickly gathered his composure. He closed the door behind her so they could speak privately.
“You told me to be strong for her, and I have been trying my best. But if she’s gone, what is all of this for?” Elandria gestured at the palace around her, almost at the point of hysterics. “All my trying is for nothing.”
“Listen to me, Elandria,” Trevain said quietly. “I don’t know anything about our enemy. All I know is what I saw: Atargatis wiped out my whole crew. Seven of the people I knew and worked with every single day—some of them had been my friends for years. I witnessed her trying to kill Aazuria, and she put an arrow in your chest. Then came Zalcan, who killed Corallyn…”
Elandria frowned, wrapping her arms around herself although she was plenty warm in her thick white fur. Trevain felt guilty for saying the young girl’s name. He doubted that the small woman standing before him would ever be able to hear Corallyn mentioned without reliving the horror.
“I don’t know anything about our enemy,” he repeated, “but I know that as fast as we can cut off one head, they seem to grow another. They have multiple leaders, and that’s part of their strength. We need to be the same way. If Zuri and Viso are temporarily out of commission, you and I need to make the decisions. And I might know jack all about anything, but I know that if I were the enemy, I wouldn’t consider it useful to kill Aazuria. She’s too valuable. She’s too insightful and sharp. She’s too lovely. So yes, I truly believe she’s alive. I’m not going to let anyone tell me otherwise. With or without the help of facial recognition software and security camera footage or whatever the hell else the investigators intend to use, I will keep searching for her. Someday your sister will be standing right here, in this very spot, chatting with us. You might have to rebuild the ice palace if it melts in the summer, but once it’s rebuilt, I mean it—this very spot. I promise you that, Elandria.”
Elandria was expressionless for a moment before a small but genuine smile came to her face. “Tell me, was all of that really convincing, or am I just seeking to be convinced?”
“A bit of both,” Trevain responded solemnly.
“Aazuria is all those things you said and more. She is insightful and sharp beyond telling—I don’t understand how she did it, but she took one look at you and she saw everything. She saw it from the beginning. You will be the hero who saves Adlivun.”
Trevain could not restrain a chuckle at her earnest declaration. “How do you figure that, Elan?”
“Things have been different since you arrived here,” she responded. “For one thing, you have already saved me from myself.”
A darkness settled on Trevain’s features. “I am really sorry about Cassandra…”
“Cassandra was the prophetess of Troy,” Elandria said softly. She moved over to the chaise in Trevain’s room, and carefully lowered herself to a seated position. “It was also my mother’s name.”
Trevain did not know how to respond. He had murdered the pet that Elandria loved so much she had named it after her mother. He could not think of what to say; he knew he would never forgive himself.
“You have such a look on your face,” Elandria said with a smile that was far bolder than any he had ever witnessed on her features. “Do not feel so guilty, brother. You could not have prevented this. It is a cursed name, perhaps the most accursed of names. Would you like to hear a story?”
Seeing that he still could not respond, she patted the sofa beside her. She waited until he was seated before she continued. “My mother was Cassandra Galene, a noblewoman from Ker-ys. That is from whence your grandfather hails, and it was hardly a pleasant place. My mother migrated to the Norwegian waters where King Kyrosed fell in love with her once he heard her sing. He was already married, but he took my mother as a second wife. Shortly thereafter, I was born. As you know, my father was extremely protective of Aazuria, but I was an afterthought. I was not the heiress; I was insignificant debris. I was not very advanced in years before the king began… availing himself of my body. This was not a great tragedy, and it occurs in many families. When you are young, you easily cope with such things.”
Trevain was shaking his head and about to respond in anger, but Elandria held up a finger to keep him quiet as she continued. “Before long my mother was with child again, and she prayed it would not be a girl so that the babe would be safe from Kyrosed Vellamo. Alas, it is the tendency in mermaid families for females to be birthed more often than sons. My sister was born and my mother killed herself in a bout of what you would now call postpartum depression. I named my sister Cassandra after her, and of course, that was a classic mistake.” Her lips began curling, and this startled her. “Hmm, I feel like laughing for some reason. Would it be disturbing and grossly inappropriate if I did?”
“Yes,” Trevain answered. “My mother just died too—I’m not ready to laugh about these things.”
Elandria contented herself with the small smile instead as she continued to relate her story to her brother-in-law. “In short, my sister Cassandra grew to about Corallyn’s age before she, too, took her own life. It seems to be a vulnerability of the women in my direct line. Not Aazuria, never Aazuria. She is thoroughly a warrior in spirit and that is why I believe when you say that she lives. I am not like her. My strategy was to hide. I went deep inside myself, searching out the darkest secret places. They were quite lovely, you know. I erected all sorts of effective barriers through the simple act of not speaking. I stopped speaking to everyone, and I don’t believe I ever intended to begin again. Even after Kyrosed had been killed… I was comfortable. I would have been comfortable to fall by the wayside and die, for the restful allure of the wayside has often called to me.”
“I didn’t realize…” he began.
“Shhh,” she said, abruptly raising a finger to silence him. “Here is my point at last: if it were not for your wake-up call, I would have surely killed myself before long. The thought was often visiting my mind, like a welcome old friend for whom I felt much nostalgia. So, there you have it, Trevain Murphy. That is how you unknowingly saved my life. You killed the third Cassandra whom I loved, and perhaps the third time was the charm. You see, my family has a plague upon it which is far more powerful than the Ramaris family curse. I, too, love something and it dies.”
When he did not respond, she thought to add, “Instantaneously and most gruesomely. Sometimes severed into several bits. Anyway, in the morning I will ratify the contracts. With or without Visola’s approval, we will move forward with this bargain.”
“Elandria…” he said softly.
“Storytime is over,” she told him firmly. “We shan’t speak of it anymore. Aren’t you excited about getting your islands?”
He paused, and stared through the tiny porthole-like window. For the life of him, he still could not remember a damned star in that damned cluster. He was quiet for several minutes before he turned to his sister-in-law and nodded. When he spoke, the potential for whimsy was overshadowed with his compassionate sorrow. “Every little boy dreams of owning his own island when he grows up.”
“Well, now you will have two.”
“Elandria…”
“Will you come with me to ratify those contracts in the morning?” she asked. When he nodded, she smiled. “Thank you. Once the protection is commenced, maybe we could travel to the Diomedes and start planning what to do with them.”
“They’re just a consolation prize until we get your sister back,” Trevain said.
“I guess I will have to find a way to l
ive until then,” Elandria said. “Trevain, could you please help me to stay strong now that you know about my… family history?”
“Elan—I’m not exactly winning the family history competition. Or family present, rather. Did you see my grandmother?”
Elandria laughed softly. “I still think it was mostly the alcohol. Except that Visola has the highest tolerance for alcohol in all of Adlivun, and frequently hosts the competitions to prove it. Well, nevertheless: Visola is a mountain, and a lightning storm on a mountain might crack a few trees, but that’s just surface damage—the mountain still stands.”
Trevain shook his head. “Sionna getting kidnapped was a lightning storm. Aazuria getting abducted was a monsoon. But her daughter’s death was a rampant volcano ripping out the heart of the mountain and exploding it to little bits.”
“Sure,” Elandria said lightly, “but the lava hardens into rock once again. And while everything living for miles around was wiped out by the eruption, it will soon regrow even richer than before in the fertile ash. The mountain still stands.”
“And you think that you’re anything less?” Trevain asked. He was reassured to hear Elandria’s vote of confidence in his grandmother since the princess had known the general for far longer than he had.
Elandria released a small laugh. “It is no secret than I am far less than Visola Ramaris.”
“Don’t say that.” He reached out and took her hand, squeezing it with firm pressure. “You’re the one holding down the fort and keeping it all together. You even built a new fort! So don’t sell yourself short.”
“I am just being honest,” Elandria said diffidently. “Visola is always the brave knight who slays the dragons, and now that you are our king, you will soon be the savior of Adlivun. Even though I try my best to help, what am I but a paltry damsel in distress?”
“You may think that you’re just helping me, Elandria, but I feel differently. Since that day with Cassandra… you’ve been different. You’ve taken charge, and risen to seize your authority with such natural grace. Heck, if it weren’t for your hard bargaining in that conference, they wouldn’t have offered us the islands at all!”
“That was not bargaining,” she whispered. “That was refusal.”
“I know. But we couldn’t afford to refuse…”
“Some authority I have when my outright adamant refusal sounds like bargaining!”
“Elandria, I could not have survived that meeting without you. You know that, right? I wasn’t educated for that type of thing—I don’t know how to tell everyone exactly what they want to hear and spew a million flowery phrases without actually saying what I mean to say. But you handled it perfectly. You were the driver and I was in the passenger seat back there—couldn’t you see that?”
“No,” she said, surprised. A small light of pride came into her eyes. “I didn’t realize.”
And Trevain did not realize that his thumb was caressing the top of her hand. “I thought that there might be a precious pearl hidden beneath your shell of silence. I thought that it was made from pure wisdom and virtue, but I was wrong.”
She sent him a mystified look, and he smiled at her as he began to explain. “A pearl is created as the result of a defense mechanism. The mollusk mostly repels everything that seeks to cause it harm, but if anything gets inside, the creature locks it up inside the pearl sac, transforming all that trauma and bitterness into beauty. It stands to reason that the most prized pearls are the ones that have faced the most adversity and suffering.”
Trevain’s earnest green eyes were filled with admiration as he spoke. “It’s your painful past which makes you special, Elan, but you’re far more than just a pearl. I am blown away by how brilliant your spark really is. You don’t just reflect the glow from everything around on your flawless surface—but you actually emit a warm light from within. I am honored I finally got to see the fervent embers that could shine when your walls came down. And I’m sorry for the way I ripped them down, but I’d do it again for this moment.”
Elandria had tightened her grip on his hand, and tears were welling up in her eyes. When the look between them became too intense, Trevain had to look away. He glanced through the small circular window again. “You’re a bright, constant star,” he said solemnly, “and it just beats the hell out of me to imagine how you kept all of that bottled up.”
Removing her hand from his, she lifted her fingers to brush the moisture from her lower lashes. “No one has ever said such things about me,” she whispered. She stared at the sharp, angular line of his jaw as it was turned away from her. She found that she had been holding her breath as he had been speaking. Now, as she inhaled deeply, she found that her heart was beating noticeably faster than before. It scared her that her body would have such a profound physical reaction to a few words of kindness.
“You are the same,” she told him, feeling like words would never be enough to express her gratitude. “I never imagined a noble man like you existed beneath the sea or above it; there is certainly no other whom I have met. I don’t know how Aazuria saw it so quickly and so vividly. She truly had a gift.”
“I was just an ordinary old fellow,” he answered. “I didn’t think I had a special bone in my body until she looked at me, and I saw it reflected in her eyes. I almost wonder if she dreamed it into existence, and I really was nothing before she believed that I could be something.”
“Oh, Trevain,” Elandria said gently as she rose to her feet. She leaned forward and placed a timid kiss on his cheek. “If you dump a prince in a desert and let him be raised by wolves, he will surely find the concept of being a prince outlandish. Nonetheless, need he ever rise to that post, a prince he will be again.”
“I’m not sure if you’re telling my story or yours at the moment,” Trevain said with a chuckle.
“Perhaps there are some similarities between us,” she observed.
“Elan,” he said, reaching up to touch her face. He smiled at her tenderly. “I don’t know anything about our enemy,” he said for the third time that hour, “but I just realized that we’re going to win. There’s no possible way that you and I can’t beat this thing. We will endure. We will persevere.”
His words bathed her until her skin tingled with hope and gladness. Elandria felt herself staring at him and smiling as the joy navigated itself to her core. There, it caused her heart to brim and finally overflow with bliss.
She suddenly stiffened.
“It is too clear,” she whispered as ghosts of the old terror returned to her eyes. She lifted both of her hands to her chest and pressed them firmly against the organ to try and regain its discipline. She slowly backed away from him in fear and amazement. “I see it clearly now, just as she did. I need to go.” Elandria moved quickly across the room, and had disappeared before Trevain’s brain could even fire the synapses required to begin interpreting her meaning.
Trevain stared after. Although his mind was slow on the uptake, he could tangibly feel exactly what she meant. The force of the sensation surprised him, and he wondered how long it had been there before this acknowledgment. It had started as a mild warmth, and now there was a gnawing pain. The ache had settled deep in his head, in his chest, and in his gut. He knew the only way that he could soothe and sate the feeling, but it was impossible. He stared hard through the spherical window, entreating the Pleiades for strength until they blurred together in his vision. He could not discern which star was his mother’s.
“Aazuria,” he said softly, just to hear the sound of her name out loud. He felt the syllables on his tongue, and he tasted their weight. He summoned her image to the forefront of his mind, knowing that all would be well when she returned. “Aazuria,” he said again. His voice lacked conviction.
Chapter 15: The Mountain Stands
Vachlan was discomforted by how comfortable he felt keeping his wife shackled to a wall in a dungeon. Seeing Visola’s small wrists in chains gave him an all-too-familiar sensation of simultaneous guilt and enjoyment
. He chose to distract himself from the situation by reading a newspaper.
The newspapers were particularly interesting and relevant to Adlivun’s plight—Vachlan found the comments and interpretations of various reporters fascinating. While the world was abuzz with excitement over the forthcoming bridge, certain human rights groups were vainly protesting the ethics of the contract. It seemed that Visola’s little stunt at the press conference had inspired quite a following of fans—mermaid-equality enthusiasts were popping up all over the media, and many land-dwellers were seeking Adluvian citizenship. It was surprising that so many people wanted to find a way to live underwater, even if they did not have the biological requirements.
There had been a palpable rise in the sales of scuba-diving suits.
Once, Vachlan would have been wholly immersed in the political dance and completely focused on securing himself the best position for self-preservation. Then, when that had been achieved, he would be using his influence and wiles to manipulate the situation to his advantage. From every tragedy there was a wealth of spoils to be gained by the men who were cunning enough to know how to extract it. For an opportunistic leech, this was a terrific moment. Vachlan had spent his life profiting from the pitfalls of others, and he was sure that if he could sit down with himself for a few quiet minutes to contemplate the perfect strategy, he could spin this misery into gold.
“Vachlan,” came a hoarse voice.
He leapt from his chair and closed his newspaper in an instant, rushing to Visola’s side. All thoughts of conquest slithered from his mind, instantly replaced by concern for the woman in chains. He had wasted enough years being an absentee husband and father. He had proven that he could conquer anything and destroy anything, but he had never proven that he could stay in one place and love someone. And even if proving this to himself had not been a significant factor, it was still all he really wanted in the world. He needed to take care of Visola.
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