by Skye Malone
“Do they… do they know who did it?” I asked, pushing the words past my nausea as I looked back up at the old man.
His brow drawing down, he regarded me for a moment, as if reading something in my expression. “Not yet. Rumor in the city is the guards are looking for the one who poisoned him, but so far, they haven’t found anyone.” He paused. “Some of the mercenary factions used to use this trick, though. Smuggling people around in boxes, though it’s pretty hard on the ones inside. And when I saw that group leaving the capital with a container of medical supplies, I thought perhaps they were trying to sneak the killer out.”
He looked me over again. “I didn’t expect to find you.”
Panic hit me, making me want to bolt. He couldn’t think I’d done this. He couldn’t…
“Chloe, it’s alright,” he told me. “Assassins aren’t typically given shackles and blindfolds and beaten to within an inch of being ground meat. Especially not successful ones.”
I shivered. I didn’t want to think about what I looked like. The fact that it hurt when I breathed and the left side of my face had swelled so much it was becoming hard to see was horrible enough.
Jirral moved away from the box, not taking his eyes from me. “How about we get those things off of you?”
I tensed, but didn’t retreat as he came close and then set the torch aside. Still watching me, he reached into the small satchel on his belt and drew out a metal clip that shimmered with blue light. Taking my hands, he turned them so the underside of the shackles came into view.
“This is something I picked up in the Prijoran Zone,” he explained as he stuck the clip into the lock. Studying his own work intently, he pulled the small bit of metal around, twisting it first one way then the other and watching while it shifted from pale to darker blue. “Folks there don’t take too kindly to chains. They like to have ways of getting their friends out, if the need arises.”
The clip became deep blue and something clicked. The shackles popped open.
“There we go,” he said, tossing the restraints away and then retrieving his torch.
I rubbed my forearms. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “Come on.” He motioned to the slope. “The cold’s going to start getting to you if you stay down here too long.”
I pushed up from the ground and then gasped as pain lanced through my side. He reached out to take my arm as I sank again. I flinched back.
“Hey,” he urged, holding his hands up. “I promise, I won’t hurt you. But you need help.”
Trembling, I watched him, and then gave a small nod.
“Just keep breathing and take it slow,” he said. Gently, he pulled me away from the rocky seafloor, pausing every time I tensed.
At a pace that would have been dwarfed by a sloth, we swam up the slope.
“Where are the others?” I asked.
“The ones who had you in there?”
I nodded.
“Two of them swam off. The ones holding onto the box…” He paused. “They’re down below us. They won’t be coming back.”
A breath escaped me as my eyes flicked to the weapon on his belt.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked.
“I think they were Sylphaen,” I told him, my voice small.
“Seems a safe guess, given what Zeke said.”
I managed another nod. “They came to my cell–”
“Cell?” he repeated, slowing to a stop. “Why were you in a cell?”
Fear rose. He was going to think I’d done something to deserve this. He was going to–
“Chloe?”
“It wasn’t my fault,” I pled, tears rising at the thought that, like his son and grandson, he’d decide I was in Nyciena to hurt people. “I’m not a spy. I swear I’m not. Ren locked me up. His soldiers did. They thought I was, but I’m not. I just came here to get the neiphian… the neiphi…”
My head spun and I drifted sideways, sinking to the ground.
“Hey!” He grabbed me. “Breathe, Chloe. Please. It’s okay. Breathe.”
I tried to do as he said.
“So neiphiandine,” he prompted. “That’s what you were trying to say?”
“I’m not a spy,” I whispered.
“Okay,” he agreed.
I nodded, clinging to the word. “The Sylphaen gave it to me. They made me change, but I got away from them. Zeke brought me here. He said the doctors could fix it. But Ren…”
“He locked you up?”
“I think so. I don’t know. When their dad… I thought he was just sick. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t think… and then guards came to my room and told me Zeke wanted to talk, but…”
Jirral’s mouth tightened.
“They put me in a cell. And later, those other people came.”
“And they did this to you?”
“I tried to fight them.”
He let out a breath. A moment passed, and then he drew me away from the seafloor again. “Come on.”
The darkness lessened as we continued upward, and when we crested the top of the slope, I could feel a jumble of rocks in the distance, the shape roughly like a line. Stone spires twisted up from the seafloor beyond the array, and through the twilit water, I could just sense the ghostly form of a mountain.
But they were all lifeless. Motionless amid the ocean’s current.
“Is that Nyciena?”
He gave me a curious look.
“I didn’t see it,” I tried to explain. “Ren had me blindfolded.”
Jirral paused. “Yes, that’s Nyciena. From the other side of the veil, anyway.”
He looked to the ocean behind us, his face tightening as though he was wrestling with a decision. “This way,” he said finally.
Drawing me with him, he swam out across the valley and away from the invisible veil.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To my camp. They’ll learn you’re gone eventually, and given how things have been so far, it’d be better if you weren’t in the city when that happens.”
I hesitated. “You have a camp out here? What about your house?”
“That was just a place I rented. I’m not too popular with the family, as I’m sure you noticed, and sometimes courtiers or guards think they’ll take advantage of that. Gain favor with Torvias by confiscating my things and throwing me out of town. I’ve found it’s useful to have somewhere to go if that happens.” He paused, regret furrowing his brow. “Or at least they used to. Maybe with Ren, things will be different.”
“Ren’s alive?”
He nodded. “Sick but alive, yes.”
I didn’t say anything, relieved that Zeke maybe hadn’t been the one to order me into a cell after all. We continued on until the hills I’d felt when I’d first approached Nyciena came into view.
“Up here,” he said, leading me around the hill and up toward a cave I could sense high on the side.
The pale blue light of the torch caught on the outline of the cave opening when we came close, and inside, nothing was waiting but a small bag of supplies and a pile of dark green seaweed I could only assume was a bed. Jagged bits of quartz formed much of the ceiling and reflected the torchlight, brightening the space.
As we came through the opening, Jirral set the torch aside and then helped me toward the bed. The seaweed gave beneath me like a soft mattress, and I could feel exhaustion drag me deeper into it as I sat down. Leaving me for a moment, he swam back to the bag by the opposite wall.
“I’m going to give you some sieranchine,” he told me. “It should help heal what they did to you.”
My brow twitched down at the word. It sounded familiar, like the same thing Zeke had used on me a million years and one week ago when I’d been in the hospital.
I shivered, not wanting to remember the other times the Sylphaen had attacked me.
Jirral took out a container and then returned to the bedside, removing
the top as he went. With a bit of the seaweed torn from the leaves below me, he scooped out a handful of shimmering clear gel.
“This won’t hurt,” he assured me.
He reached out, gently putting the gel to the side of my face. I gasped as tingles spread through my skin.
But then they faded. And so did the pain.
I looked up at him as the vision in my left eye began to clear.
“Here,” he said, extending the seaweed and medicine to me. “Put this where it hurts on the rest of you, okay?”
Nodding, I took the container and then carefully scooped out some of the medicine. The gel glittered like particles of light were trapped within it. Gingerly, I pressed it to my side. More tingles rushed through my chest, bringing a surge of energy with them and driving my exhaustion back. The gel seemed to absorb almost instantly into my scales, as if soaked up by a sponge, and as it did, the pain that had stabbed me with every deep breath just melted into a faint throb.
Another application did the same to my aching midsection, where the dehaians had punched me over and over again.
“Not too much,” he cautioned as I went to remove another dose from the jar.
I hesitated, and then handed the container to him. He returned the lid to its top, and then swam back to his bag.
“What was that? The see…” I faltered, unsure how to pronounce the word, and then regrouped, “the stuff you just gave me.”
His brow furrowed as he looked at me again. “Sieranchine? It’s medical gel infused with magic by physician’s alchemy.”
I tensed at the curiosity in his tone. Like any dehaian would have known that, and he couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t. “Oh.”
Jirral paused, his questioning expression deepening. “Chloe, why are the Sylphaen after you?”
I dropped my gaze from his. I didn’t know what to say to him. How much to trust him. Zeke hadn’t told him hardly anything when last they’d met, and there had to be a reason.
But he’d also saved me. Maybe not intentionally, but he could have just left me out there once he’d discovered I was the one in that box. And instead, he’d helped me and treated what those people had done.
That had to be worth something.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
Annoyance tinged his face.
“I’m not,” I insisted. “At least, not about all of their reasons. But I think I know why they hate me.”
His brow drew down.
“I’m… I’m not fully dehaian. I’m half landwalker.”
His curiosity turned to surprise as his brow climbed. “Half landwalker.”
I nodded. “My mom. She died when I was born.”
Jirral’s gaze moved over me like he couldn’t believe what he saw. “I didn’t think landwalkers existed anymore. If they ever had at all.”
I didn’t know how to respond.
“And the legends of their children with dehaians… How did your father help you survive?”
“My father didn’t raise me. I’ve never met him. I grew up in Kansas. It’s one of the–”
“One of the middle states. I know.”
He sounded shocked. Distracted. Like he was still working to process what he was hearing.
I took a breath. “I’d never come near the ocean in my life. My parents – I mean, they’re not really. I-I found out I was adopted just… just yesterday.” I struggled to regroup, trying not to think about the whirlwind my life had become. “But they’re landwalkers. Both of them. They kept me away from everything to do with the ocean.”
“And the Sylphaen?”
I gave an awkward shrug. “Found me when I came to Santa Lucina. I’d snuck out with a friend, and Mom and Dad–” I grimaced, hating how I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to call them, “they didn’t know till after I left. But the Sylphaen started trying to catch me by the second day I was there.” My skin crawled. “Zeke said they even drowned a few girls just to find out which one was me.”
Jirral looked away.
I watched him, trying to read his silence. “Do you know why they want to hurt me, Jirral?”
For a moment, he didn’t respond. “Well, they’re obsessed with their idea of purity.”
My gaze turned to the opening of the cave. It could just be that, except it seemed like more. From everything Marty and Colin, the EMTs who’d attacked me in the ambulance, had said… it just seemed like more than that.
“And then there’s the odd thing you do to the water.”
I glanced back at him.
“It changes,” he said. “It’s even less now than when I first saw you with Zeke and Ina. Practically nonexistent. Are you controlling it?”
I shook my head nervously. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I don’t feel anything.”
He sighed.
A moment passed. I looked to the cave opening. My face didn’t hurt as much anymore, and neither did my sides. I wasn’t back to a hundred percent – and until the neiphiandine got out of my system, I didn’t think I would be – but I was better.
And now I just wanted to go home, wherever that was.
“Will this medicine help with neiphiandine?” I asked Jirral.
He hesitated, obviously hearing the hope in my voice.
“Probably not,” he admitted. “Neiphiandine was designed to stay in someone’s system even when they’re on other medications.”
A breath escaped me. I looked back to the open water.
“Listen,” Jirral said. “I need to head into Nyciena. See if my grandkids are still alright, and if anything’s changed. I’ll be back soon.”
Alarmed, I turned to him.
“You’ll be fine,” he assured me. “No one comes this way.”
I didn’t respond, hoping he was right.
“Chloe,” he said, swimming closer. “You’ll be fine. But Zeke… that boy really cares about you. He would never have come with you to see me if he didn’t.”
My brow twitched down, but Jirral just continued, “If he finds out that you’re missing, though, I don’t want him to worry or do anything stupid. And I need to know that he and his siblings are safe.” He put a hand to my shoulder. “I’ll leave the torch. This’ll only take me a little bit.”
Worry bubbling up inside, I managed a nod, though the motion wasn’t anywhere near the truth. I didn’t want to be alone out here. Out where the Sylphaen might find me.
He gave me a sympathetic smile, and then handed me the torch. “It’ll just be a little bit,” he repeated.
And then he swam out of the cave.
My fingers wrapped around the torch’s base, the narrow pillar of stone cold in my hands despite the impossible blue fire flickering from its top. I drew my tail up close to my chest, my eyes locked on the cave opening.
I’d wait. Give him a little while like he asked. I needed his help to figure out which direction it was to Santa Lucina anyway.
But I wouldn’t stay here forever. No matter what Jirral and everyone else seemed to think of Zeke’s feelings – of which I’d swear he’d never shown the slightest hint that I could see – I was done with Nyciena and this world. The Sylphaen were here, along with Ren and who knew what other dangers.
Neiphiandine or no neiphiandine, I was going back to Santa Lucina at the first chance I got.
Chapter Eleven
Zeke
I’d swum the length of the room a thousand times before Ina returned.
And the moment she came through the door, I could tell the news wasn’t good.
“What happened?” I asked, my heart climbing my throat.
Ina sealed the fejeria behind her, not meeting my eyes. “Ren had the guards lock her in the pit. But, um…”
“But?” I repeated, swimming closer.
“Physician Liana took her back out. Had her blindfolded and cuffed, and said she had orders to inspect Chloe’s health before a prisoner transfer.” She hesit
ated. “The castle guards haven’t seen her or Chloe since. Ren’s ordered a search of the city to find them.”
A breath escaped me.
“Liana didn’t even try taking care of Niall,” Ina continued desperately. “She just left him lying unconscious in his bed the moment no one was watching. The guys at the pit said she had a few guards with her, but… Zeke, you don’t think Liana’s behind what happened to Dad, do you? I mean, she’s been a palace physician for years. How could she just…?”
My heart pounding, I gave Ina a dark look, knowing I couldn’t allay her fears. “Where did they last see Chloe?”
“At the pit entrance by the castle gate, but–”
I swam for the window.
“Zeke, please! If Liana’s–”
The fejeria scraped my scales as I shoved through before the opening command took full effect. I ignored it. Shooting past the guards, I raced for the veil surrounding the palace.
That bastard had her put into the pit. Down in the dark with the criminals and psychopaths awaiting transport to the prisons along the borders. And now…
Liana. Second only to Kyne. Nearly as trusted by the king as we were.
And, with Chloe as her second target, most likely a Sylphaen.
I could hear people shouting behind me, calling for me to stop.
If I got my hands on that woman…
Up ahead, a few of the guards moved to intercept me as I swam for the veil, but at the sight of the spikes on my arms, they pulled back.
My lip twitched. I sped through the barrier and magic sizzled over me as I passed.
I veered left on the other side of the veil. The castle wall fell behind me, and then half the city did too, and when I finally neared the pit, I could see Tiberion at the entrance gate.
His anger was obvious. So was the fact Chloe hadn’t been found. At his furious gesture, the other guards fanned out, clearly intending to search the city.
I pulled up fast, watching them go. I couldn’t follow them; that would only get me ‘escorted’ back to my apartment in obedience to Ren’s orders. And none of my friends in Nyciena would be any help. Their parents were too politically connected for them to want to risk their families’ positions by offending the new king.