Sacred Breath Series (Books 1-4)

by Nadia Scrieva

  “The sunlit layer, the twilight layer, midnight, and lower midnight!” said Kaito eagerly.

  “Very good, Kai,” said Elandria with a smile. She moved to the blackboard and sketched out what the boy had described. “For the older kids, what are the scientific names of the layers of the pelagic zone and a brief description of their ecology?”

  “The photic zone is the one with the sunlight,” Kolora said. “That’s the shallow layer where plants can grow and where we live, along with most other sea creatures and even birds.”

  Varia felt a slight pang of jealousy as she listened to her cousin talk about the bright waters so confidently. She had lived most of her life without any sunlight at all, and she did not feel nearly as knowledgeable about the subject as the bubbly brunette evidently was.

  “Excellent, Kolo,” Elandria said, “and below that?”

  Kolora did not skip a beat before answering. “The bathyal zone—where there is no sunlight and no plants can grow. That’s where you’ll find some creepy fish without eyes, because they don’t need to see.”

  “Wonderful. Now can you tell me about the deepest layer of the ocean?” Elandria prodded.

  The classroom was silent as everyone seemed to be trying to remember.

  “The abyssal zone,” Glais answered finally. “Where only the toughest creatures can survive because of the intense pressure. That’s where you’ll find the deepest, mysterious ocean trenches—they haven’t been explored much by scientists because it’s challenging to get down there.”

  I was born in the Abyssal Zone, Varia realized, feeling a warm sense of familiarity at this description. Does that make me a creature of the lower midnight? Can I withstand all kinds of tough pressure? She gazed at Glais thoughtfully as he turned to smile at her, pleased with knowing the answer.

  “That’s an excellent description, Glais,” Elandria said as she finished writing these notes on the chalkboard. Turning around, she curiously noted the unspoken communication between Bain’s son and the new, quiet pupil. “Is there anything you would like to add, Varia?”

  The other children turned to look at her, and Varia felt the weight of their judging eyes. She knew that Kaito and Kolora had not yet formed any real opinion of her, and any words she chose to speak or sign would be their first impression of her. She knew that she should have much in common with these children; Kolora was related by blood and close to her age, and Kaito was a prince. But she felt distant and disconnected. She thought of Lake Vostok; she thought of home.

  “The darkness of the Abyssal Zone is peaceful,” she signed slowly. “It’s lonely there; but sometimes it’s easier to be lonely.” She lowered her eyes, anticipating strange looks from the other children. She did not care; she missed her mother. Varia did not feel right living in Upper Adlivun and experiencing all the luxuries of the palace when her mother was surely struggling to make things better far below in Lower Adlivun. But was that not the reason that Aazuria had chosen to conceal herself? When remaining in the shallow waters, comfortable near the warm surface, life was loud and chaotic. The sunlight shone through the waves, illuminating everything until it was blinding. Its ubiquitous rays did not just penetrate the surface of the water, but it crept under Varia’s skin and into her head, affecting her very physiology and knocking her off balance. She always felt like her perception was distorted by the intrusive sunbeams, and wondered if she would ever grow accustomed to their power.

  Elandria’s basic lesson on the layers of the ocean had given Varia sudden insight into her mother’s political strategy. Deep in the deathly coldness of the Abyssal Zone, one could move freely without being exposed and scrutinized. If one was tough enough to tolerate the conditions, which were obviously more challenging to survive than the sunlit layers, one could learn more and manage to accomplish greater feats than they could manage on the easy, raucous surface. One could affect a deeper change, from the heart of the matter. She was contemplating this when Visola smashed her way into the classroom, knocking over a desk as she entered.

  “Has anyone seen Vachlan?” the general demanded.

  “N—no,” Elandria said, stuttering lightly.

  Visola’s eyes narrowed. She pounced on Elandria, grabbing her by the neck, and causing the children to gasp. “I’m going to ask you again, Elan, and this time…”

  An unexpected hero interrupted Visola’s threats: Kaito ran up to the giant redhead with his eyes tightly closed and started pounding on her thigh frantically while screaming at the top of his little lungs. Visola’s surprise caused her to release Elandria quite suddenly. She stared down at the fiery little boy in disbelief as he defended his teacher.

  “Ow,” Visola said unconvincingly, a bit miffed that the five-year-old would not allow her to finish her bullying. She also understood that he was genuinely afraid of what she intended to do, and admired his bravery. “Ow, that really hurts. You win, Kaito. I’m not going to hurt Queen Elandria.”

  The little boy abruptly stopped beating on her thigh and began to cry. “You’re so mean, Miss Visola.”

  “Jeez Louise,” Visola said with a sigh. “Can’t even terrorize someone properly around here without getting interrupted these days. Anyway, Elandria, I know that you know something! Where’s my damned husband?”

  “He left on business,” Elandria said softly.

  “Why does everyone keep saying that!” Visola shouted, leaning her head back until it collided with her spine. She rolled her shoulders forward, trying to release the tension and anxiety in them. “Everyone seems informed except for me. I take one long nap and suddenly I’m out of the loop? Okay, Elan. You’d better tell me what you know or I’m going to say a whole bunch of really graphic, inappropriate things in front of these kids. Many of the words will begin with the letter ‘F’ if you know what I mean.”

  Elandria grabbed Visola’s arm beseechingly. “Please, General. Have mercy. I don’t know nearly as much as you think I do.”

  “I wanna hear the bad words, Granny V!” Kolora said, almost bouncing with excitement.

  Visola winked at Kolora before turning back to Elandria and putting her hands on her hips. “Answer this, lady. Did he leave on fun business? Is he preparing some kind of surprise for me—it’s not my birthday anytime soon, but he is an impulsive man. Was he called away to help out with the filming of one of his movies? Was it that kind of business?”

  Elandria cleared her throat fearfully. “No, Viso.”

  “Dangerous business, then?” Visola demanded. When the queen nodded, she sighed and leaned her hip against a student’s desk. “Fine. Vachlan thinks he can disappear without telling me? We’ll just see about that.” The woman blustered out of the room as stormily as she had arrived.

  Chewing her lip, Elandria looked after the redhead. She grimaced as she turned back to the kids. “I think I will need to attend to some matters of state,” she told them softly. “I would like to end class early today—but remember that next week will be our field trip to Diomede City for the grand opening of our national museum.”

  “Oh, goody!” said Kaito. “I wanna see dinosaurs.”

  “I am sure there will be some of those,” Elandria said with a bittersweet smile. “It is the first museum with a focus on sea-dweller heritage which will be located on land for land-dwellers to visit. We will be calling it the Corallyn Centennial Museum in honor of my little sister—she would have been a hundred years old tomorrow if she had not been killed by the Clan of Zalcan.”

  “I heard she was chopped up into little bits,” Kolora said.

  “Yes. That’s correct.” Elandria paused, letting her eyes drift down to the desk before her. “Class is dismissed,” she said suddenly, her voice a bit broken. “You should all go play.”

  Kaito and Kolora needed no further encouragement to shoot out of the classroom like sparks of lightning. Glais moved after them, but he turned back to look at Varia with a frown.

  “Aren’t you coming?” Glais signed from the doorway.

&nb
sp; “In a few minutes,” Varia replied, turning to observe Elandria. The queen had moved to stand by the window and was gazing outside forlornly. Hesitating, Varia moved to stand before her aunt. They remained in silence for a while, but Varia could feel the woman beside her inwardly struggling with her emotions. She reached out and placed a hand on Elandria’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she said gently.

  Elandria’s eyes flew to observe the girl, startled by the sound of her voice. She smiled at her niece through her brimming tears, remembering how it used to feel when she spoke only rarely. She had felt so much more protected, and so much less had been expected of her. This was the type of moment during which she might have made an exception and spoken; to console someone she cared about.

  “It has been quite some time since I lost both of my sisters,” Elandria told Varia with an unsteady voice. “I should be able to think about them without crying by now. I should be a strong adult and move on, like everyone else seems to have done, but I cannot.”

  Varia instinctively reached out to hug her aunt. When Elandria returned the hug, she felt so much pity and love for the woman that she knew she would never be able to despise her for marrying her father. She understood all of her mother’s actions more clearly. She was almost disappointed by this realization, because she somehow felt the need to hate and blame someone; her mind quickly traveled to her cousin Kolora. She barely knew the pretty young girl, but she already disliked Kolora with a passion for mentioning Corallyn’s gruesome death so casually.

  “I don’t know why I should remember everything so clearly when everyone else has forgotten,” Elandria said softly. “I wish I could forget too, but it would be unfair to my sisters. I just wish remembering wasn’t so painful.”

  “It may be painful,” Varia responded, “but at least you have something to remember. The people you love can be taken from you, but not your love for them.”

  Elandria pulled away slightly to look down at the small girl. She put a hand in Varia’s white hair. “Isn’t it funny? They brought you to me thinking that I could help you to open up, because we might have something in common. The same condition, or whatever they consider it to be. But instead, here I am opening up to you.”

  Varia smiled at her aunt. She had a feeling that she would soon grow to consider Adlivun home.

  Visola continued to make her way through the castle, harassing everyone she stumbled upon for information on her husband’s whereabouts. She seemed fairly certain that Sionna was the person to ask, but her sister had gone to the Diomede Islands for a date just as Visola had returned from the theatre. Letting loose a violent string of the most explicit and offensive profanities she had collected in the past several centuries of her existence, Visola marched angrily through each corridor, cursing Vachlan to every creative form of punishment and realm of hell she could imagine.

  Unfortunately, trying to remember all of these highly appropriate curse words was causing her aching head to throb more painfully. She had to pause to lean against a wall and close her eyes. At that moment, she heard the shuffling of footsteps nearby, but was too tired to open her eyes and see who it was.

  “Vachlan?” she asked in a weak but hopeful tone.

  “No,” said Naclana’s voice, causing a flood of disappointment within her. “Are you okay, General Ramaris?”

  “Yeah,” she said softly. “Fudge. I just need to lie down for a second.”

  “In the middle of the hallway? That’s called fainting, General.”

  “No! I’m not fainting,” Visola said as she slowly lowered her body to the ground to avoid collapsing abruptly. “I’m just falling asleep at an unusually rapid rate—and in an unusually public location.”

  “Sure,” Naclana said skeptically. “I am witnessing this a little differently from my angle.”

  “Hey, pal,” Visola said with closed eyes, “if I ever catch you telling anyone that I fainted, you’re going to be the one fainting. From blunt object trauma, if you catch my drift.” As she said this, she waggled her finger once, unpersuasively, before drifting off to sleep.

  Chapter 20: Cutting the Ribbon

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Visola whispered to her sister. “How could you just slip me drugs without asking my permission?”

  “I wanted to surprise you,” Sionna replied softly. They were standing guard for the royal family at the grand opening of the museum. Many of Adlivun’s aristocratic families were present, along with many important foreigners. “You were the one who kept whining about how badly you wanted a baby every single day,” Sionna reminded her sister in a hushed voice.

  “But then I adopted Glais!” Visola hissed. “I gave up on things happening naturally and decided to use another strategy. You should have informed me that you were doing something unnatural!”

  “Viso,” Sionna murmured. “I thought you’d be happy.”

  Visola allowed her head to droop forward until it fell against Sionna’s shoulder. “I love you, Sio. I would be happy if he was here. But it feels like the worst déjà vu since the universe was created.”

  Sionna lifted a hand to rub her sister’s neck soothingly. “I’m sorry, sis. I know I screwed up here—I shouldn’t have acted without your consent. But maybe this will help: Vachlan knew you were pregnant. He was pleased.”

  “What!” Visola shouted. “You told him? He knew! Is that why he left?”

  “Shhhh!” Elandria hissed, turning around. “Keep it down, ladies. Trevain is trying to make a speech!”

  Visola completely ignored her queen, grabbing her sister by the shoulders in a panic. “Sio! Why did he leave? Please tell me he’s coming back. Please.”

  “He intends to return,” Sionna said softly. “Shh, Viso, relax!”

  “Where did he go!” Visola yelled, hyperventilating. “I can’t take not knowing anymore. I’m going to burn this whole fucking museum down unless you tell me where my husband is!”

  “He went into enemy territory,” Sionna whispered, trying to caress Visola’s hair to calm her down. “Please relax, darling. He didn’t tell you because he was afraid you would follow him and put yourself and your baby in danger.”

  “What kind of stinking whaleshit is that, Sio? I am not the kind of woman anyone tries to protect from danger; I am the danger.”

  “Not when you’re going around fainting!” Sionna hissed.

  “I did not faint!”

  “Hush,” Elandria said, swiveling to face the women angrily. “For Sedna’s sake! This is an important event in Adlivun’s history. Try to demonstrate a modicum of respect for our nation.”

  “Do you mind, Elandria?” Visola shot back. “I’m having a personal crisis here. I couldn’t care less about the cutting of the shizznit.”

  Elandria rolled her eyes and moved away from the women to stand closer to her husband. Trevain was formally introducing the queen of Adlivun to perform the ceremonial opening of the magnificent new building.

  “Try to see this from Vachlan’s perspective,” Sionna told her sister gently. “He was just trying to protect his baby from your crazy ass, Viso.”

  “Excuse me? How dare you!” Visola tightened her grip on both of her sister’s arms. She did not know if she was trying to rough Sionna up or just trying to hold herself upright. “I would never place my child in danger! He was the one who left me to raise Alcie alone. Two hundred years, Sio. I can’t… I can’t go through this again. I can’t last another two hundred years without him…”

  Sionna had to reach out and grasp her sister around the waist, pulling her close to her body to keep her from falling. “Hang in there,” she said softly. “If you keep this up, I’m going to have to douse you with drugs to lower your blood pressure.”

  “Great, because that’s just what I need right now,” Visola muttered, embarrassed by her own weakness. “More drugs, to solve a problem that you created with drugs in the first place.”

  “All of your problems began with your voluntary drug use,” Sionna reminded her.<
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  “You are a drug,” Visola said, in what was possibly the lamest insult she had ever uttered. Recognizing this, she immediately frowned in disappointment at herself. “I’m sorry, Sio. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

  Meanwhile, Elandria was finally moving forward with a pair of giant scissors. She smiled at Trevain in appreciation of the speech he had given. She glanced at the kids who were observing the event with curiosity and excitement before she pulled the blades of the scissors apart and dramatically slipped the red ribbon between the blades. Firmly closing the handles, the blade sliced the red ribbon apart, and as it floated to the ground, the crowed began to clap politely.

  It was in the middle of this noise that Elandria noticed the angry looks of a few people who were not clapping. She was seized by the frightening conviction that something terrible was about to happen. She turned to Trevain who was engaged in conversation with the museum’s curator, an old Adluvian man who had been the head librarian for several centuries. He did not seem to notice her alarm. Elandria’s head began to spin and she took a step back, feeling ominous eyes on her, and a strange tension in the air.

  “Viso?” she whispered in distress, but she quickly remembered the state that her prime defender was in. She was completely on her own.

  Unpleasant whispers and malicious hand gestures in dark alleys had given Aazuria the firm impression that she needed to be at this event. Arriving early, she had observed that the security was rather heavy, which would make it challenging to sneak into the crowd dressed as a Sister of Sedna. Determining the dress and class of everyone present, Aazuria took note of the fancy fur coats and colorful shawls that all the aristocrats seemed to be wearing. She had known many of them personally and interacted with them plentifully in her previous capacity as the princess. She felt uneasy sneaking around so many people who could easily recognize and identify her.