Tossing her hair back in an ebony current, Amphrite swam from the hall with her usual regal elegance.
The men exchanged somber nods, acknowledging the secret each would take to their grave, before swimming off without looking back.
Expelling a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, I spun to find myself face-to-face with Amphrite.
“Oh my riptide!” I gushed in a hushed whisper. “That was insane! Are you okay? I mean, of course you’re okay, you’re amazing! But—”
Amphrite stabbed one finger in my direction to halt my ramblings, white lines appearing around her tightly pinched lips. “No small talk. I’m no longer interested in anything you have to say. Now or ever. I am only speaking with you to let you know I am well aware of the spell you’re working on, Vanessa.”
“W-wha— How?” I eloquently stammered.
One eyebrow arched in an elegant dismissal. “I have eyes all over this kingdom, girl. You would do well to remember that.” Violet wisps snaked around her, brushing over her form that began to fade before me. “As to the spell—get it done. Save us all. Or these men will tear this city down stone by stone.”
Then, she was gone.
Chapter Eighteen
T here are people in life we look to for social clues as to how to behave—those seemingly unflappable few that seemed to possess a boundless grace in the face of the most dire of circumstances. The sight of one of these pillar individuals in a ruffled state sets our world askew with a rush of overwhelming alarm. That is exactly the effect Amphrite’s foreboding message had on me.
“Princess, was your outing successful?” Jetteson asked the moment I burst into my Alchemist chambers.
“Can’t talk! Panicking!” Kicking to my storage cubby for all I was worth, I shoved the kelp curtain and exhaled a ragged breath. There sat the pearl. Exactly where I sent it.
“You did it!” Floteson murmured in awe.
Jetteson draped over my shoulder, breathing against my ear, “You’ll be unstoppable.”
I couldn’t form the words to respond. Crouching beside the pearl, the desire to drag my fingertips over its alluring iridescent surface coursed through me. My gills quivered, a throaty sigh escaping my parted lips.
Giving in to that urge, my palms cradled the silky smooth curve of the artifact. The very moment of contact, jolts of electricity crackled through me in euphoric waves. Every cell of my body sang out in a blissfully symphony. Head falling back, my body rode the current of pleasure. So lost was I in my private indulgence that I failed to see a downside … until I tumbled straight back. My skull cracked against a rock on the sea floor, and I sank into the darkness.
“Princess?” the concerned voice called to me from down a long tunnel, beckoning me back to a harsh world. “Vanessa? Can you hear me?”
My heavy lids fluttered open, Loriana’s compassionate frown blurring into focus.
“What happened?” I asked, my throat arid and raw.
Over Loriana’s shoulders Floteson and Jetteson’s heads appeared, their eyes brightening at the sound of my voice.
“Of that, I’m not sure,” with one hand on my shoulder and the other grasping my arm, Loriana eased me to sitting, “but I do know I have been looking everywhere for you! Are you well? Can you swim?”
My boys circled around my midsection—my own writhing, scaly belt.
“Looking for me?” Clamping my eyes shut, I swallowed hard and prayed to Mother Ocean that the sea would stop spinning around me. “I just came back from the Hall of Records. There was a spell …”
Hooking one arm around my back, Loriana’s soft scent of sandalwood soothed me. “Yes, I remember you telling me you were headed there. That was two days ago. Are you telling me you have been here this entire time?”
Brow furrowing, I scanned my parlor for clues of what had happened. Bumping into a wall with the wash of each current was a crystal clear sphere … exactly the same size of the pearl I pilfered. I remembered touching it, and then …
Could it be?
Had all its energy been siphoned into me?
It seemed I would have some sort of solid evidence of that.
Raising one hand in front of me, I turned it over, searching for some sign of a change.
Nothing.
How could that be?
I wasted so much time, risked so much, and had nothing to show for it.
Another thought instantly snapped me from my disappointed musings. “Alastor! He’s leaving for basic training! I need to say good-bye!”
Loriana’s head listed to the side, the corners of her mouth sinking into a sympathetic frown. “My sweet girl, he already left. He hated leaving without saying goodbye. However, when he couldn’t find you, there was no other choice. We will send word to him that you are here and safe.”
“No! We’re at war! He could be called into action at any moment! I have to see him!”
Grasping my upper arms, my loving hand maiden pivoted me to face her. “You can and you will, I promise you that. Right now, though, I need you to focus and be here with me. The Caribbean mer have surrounded your brother in the throne room. He’s barricaded in so tightly that even the Royal Guard can’t reach him. The Pacific mer are storming in for a counterattack and they won’t care who gets in their way. I know what you can do, Vanessa. The whole kingdom does. We have no choice but to call on you to save King Triton … to save Atlantica.”
Chapter Nineteen
G rowing up inquisitive in the castle, there wasn’t one corner or nook I didn’t know like the fan of my fin. Thanks to lively, day-long games of hide-and-seek with Triton and Alastor, I knew that directly behind the throne there was a crack I could peek through which would keep me hidden from sight. That was where I solidified, doing my best to keep the tendrils of my smoky magic contained.
Squinting, I peered into the center of the throne room, biting the inside of my cheek in disdain at the inquisition unfolding. Triton floated in the center of the room, the base of his trident stabbed between the mosaic shell tilework. Around him hovered a wall of Caribbean mer in an impassable fortress. Every door was blocked, every window obstructed. Chest puffed, Triton looked every bit the noble king. Only my familiarity with his quirks and foibles revealed his true anxiety to me in the reflexive twitch at his jawline.
Dragging a stone-carved stool across the floor with a deafening screech, Calypso positioned her seat directly in front of Triton and flopped it down with the casual air of defiance.
“The humans, who killed your father, go unchecked. Yet you steal from your own merfolk to prove a point.” Her sandstone gaze dragged down the length of him, outwardly finding him wanting. “That seems the desperate act of a juvenile king, if you ask me.”
Tipping his head back, Triton glared down the bridge of his nose at her. “Fortunately, with you acting against Council rules, no one had to.”
One of the soldiers behind him growled, baring yellowed teeth with blackened gums.
“Shh, shh, shh,” Calypso soothed, as naturally as a mother pacifying her fussy infant. “By failing to act, he will prove himself as unfit to rule as we know him to be.”
“What makes you think I will fail to take action?” Triton glowered. “I have a few decrees I’d like to put into place right now.”
Tossing her head back in an easy laugh, Calypso’s rope braids tickled the rise of her tail. “Because,” she merrily stated, “rumor has it the humans are soon to launch another attack. We’re going to keep you here, silent and inept, while your kingdom crumbles. Then, when all of Atlantica feels you have failed them, my soldiers and I will bring the thunders of Olympus crashing down on the humans once and for all. Who, then, do you think they will regard as their true leader and salvation, Your Majesty?”
Arcing back, Triton spit on her tailfin. “You treacherous wretch! Mer will die! Their blood will be on your hands!”
Calypso didn’t even bother to look annoyed as she flicked the spittle from her scales. Why would she when so mu
ch was stacked in her favor? “And from their sacrifice, a new age will be born throughout the Seven Seas. One free from the oppression of a patriarch. I, for one, will appreciate their martyrdom.”
The other soldiers displayed their lively support in the form of huffs of laughter and a series of masculine shoves to their cohorts.
Waiting for their show of camaraderie to still, Calypso batted her eyes coquettishly at my stewing brother. “Have a seat on your throne while we wait, my King,” she spurted his title as if doing so was an insult on her ancestry, “for it shall be your very last ride.”
A motion of Calypso’s hand and two soldier’s seized Triton’s arms with more force than necessary to deposit him ceremonially onto his regal cathedra. The throne back separating us seemed to radiate the heat of Triton’s seething fury. So many guards trained to protect him, and all had found themselves shut out of this demonstration. I had rage all my own on that matter.
Needing his attention, without alerting the Caribbean soldiers, I mentally ticked through my options:
Poke him in the side? No, he’s ticklish and would squeal like a girl.
Conjure the figment of manatee pup and lead him to me? No, once he saw it he wouldn’t be able to focus.
Whisper his name? No, he wouldn’t be casual, whipping one way and the other in search of me.
Triton, for the love of Mother Ocean, turn around! I thought in frustration.
Through the crack I watched Triton’s spine straighten. Vanessa?
No soldiers moved. No echo resonated off the soaring architecture. It was almost as if …
Triton, are you in my head?
No! You’re in mine! How are you doing this?! Where are you?
I’m behind you. Seeing his weight shift, I hurried to add. Don’t turn around!
Hesitantly, he settled back into his seat. This is more than alchemy, Nessa. This borders on sea witch territory.
My mouth swung open in offense. Clamping it shut, I stabbed my thoughts at him as hard as I could. That is a filthy, offensive term! I came here to help you, you blow-hole! And … I touched the Olympus Pearl, which I think is to blame for this. But still, insulting implication!
I’m sorry. I love you for being here, really, I do. That said, you have to leave. It’s not safe, he warned.
For anyone in Atlantica, I countered. I’m not leaving you here. Once they no longer have a need for you …
I trailed off, not daring to think the unimaginable.
You have to! Triton demanded. Only you can sneak away undetected! The Caribbeans have done something which will cause the humans to retaliate. I’m sure of it. You must align our soldiers for the attack! Thwart Calypso’s plotting. Orchestrate a military maneuver that will prostrate the humans and Caribbeans before us!
Oh, is that all? I thought with a sardonic tilt of my head. How could I possibly do that?
A heavy silence fell, one in which the only sounds to be heard were the murmured conversation of the Caribbean mer and a muffled thumps and booming reverberations in the distance. It was broken by two words that instantly clamped my gills shut and knotted my stomach.
Your spell.
Swallowing hard, I adamantly shook my head. I-I can’t! I’m sorry, brother, but it’s not ready. I haven’t practiced. There’s too much at stake and too many elements that could go wrong!
Reaching one hand behind him, as if scratching his back, Triton pressed his fingertips to the gouge in the throne—the only show of support he could muster between our two trapped souls.
I would ask something of this magnitude of no one else.
Then do not expect it of me!
I watched as the swirled pads of his fingerprints brushed over the rough edge of the broken stone. You can do this. You’re more powerful than you allow yourself to imagine.
I could manage no response, strangled by my own ineptitude.
Vanessa, his thoughts become firm and unyielding, forcing their way into my tumultuous mind, I hate to do this. Even so, for the good of our people, for the good of Atlantica, I order you to invoke that spell.
And there it was.
A kingly decree I couldn’t contest.
Tears burned behind my eyes that I refused to let fall. Clapping my hands to my sides, I bent in a formal bow in a show of respect he would never see.
As you wish … my King, I stabbed the thought at him, then disappeared in a puff.
“Stand down, or we will put you down!” Doralious bellowed to the troop of Pacific mer charging the castle in a tight formation. At his shout his men released the battering ram they fashioned to pound free the giant boulder that denied them access to their king, and drew their weapons.
Political correctness aside, it was the Pacific delegate himself that ran point on the mission. His tensed jaw stretched his facial tattoos into sharp slashes of war paint. His hand curled around the most vicious weapon I ever laid eyes. At its base was the jagged snout of a sawfish, its ferociousness amplified by a rope of shark’s teeth twined around it. “Your incompetence knows no bounds,” the delegate hissed through teeth sharpened to razor-sharp points. “Move aside. Let true warriors protect and serve the rightful king.”
Lucky me, I solidified right in the middle of that awkward exchange. All swords and brutal armaments whipped my way. Swallowing hard, I forced a croak through my constricted throat. “You’re all busy. I see that. I just thought you might like to know your king is alive and in good health from someone who has spoken to him, and knows of his commands.”
“Lower your weapons!” Despite his order, Doralious’s own sword held steady. “We have orders from our king!”
The Pacific mer didn’t so much as blink. “That is a princess with a clever tongue and magic. We take orders only from the king himself. For the moment she is as much of an obstacle as the rest of you.”
Edging in closer to Doralious, I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Did Triton tell you of the spell I was working on?”
Pulling back, he shoved me aside with his elbow to line the point of his sword with the delegates throat. “How dare you waste our time on such trivial fantasies. Men, strike down any Pacific mer that moves towards this door!”
The delegate’s head tipped, his pupils dilating with bloodlust. “Are you keeping us out, or the king in? Perhaps you are in on this mutiny.”
Civilians, young and old, were drawn in by the ruckus. The weight of the situation not enough to squelch their curiosity.
“By royal command, return to your homes!” I shouted, my pulse pounding in my ears.
A few turned away, some wavered, yet none made the commitment to actually remove themselves or loved ones from the escalating situation.
“You are the traitors by challenging the Royal Guard,” Doralious sneered, chest puffed in full bravado of his station. “Stand down! I will not ask you again!”
The delegate floated eye level with him, heaving chest bumping heaving chest in challenge. “We bow only to the king. Lower your weapon.”
“Go, now!” I screamed at the onlookers at the same moment the thundercloud of war cracked open to unleash its hellish fury.
Who struck first, I couldn’t say. A cyclone of violence swelled around me, tainting the water with the coppery stench of blood and the claps of connecting swords.
A child shrieked.
Bodies slumped.
Atlantica turned on itself, the water clouded by spilled blood.
Freeing my own weapon, forever strung at my hip, I threw myself in the skirmish. Blocking an incoming strike from above, I spun in a low crouch to scoop up the sawfish blade of a fallen Pacific. I popped up between Doralious and the delegate just as both lunged for a savage collision. Doralious’s sword lodged between spikes of my sawfish rapier. The seething delegate’s downward blow sufficiently blocked by my well-placed foil.
For a beat, I held them there, locking eyes with one before flicking my stern gaze to the other. “Doralious, there was a time I valued you to be more than a narr
ow-minded, algae sucker. For that reason alone, consider this my courtesy visit. At sunset I will invoke my spell. You and your men want to live? Get as close to the shoreline as possible before then. The swim to shore is a killer without a tail.”
Biting the inside of my cheek to fight off tears of frustration, I dove backwards in an elaborate flip, and evaporated into a cloud of magic. All the while praying to Mother Ocean that these head strong men wouldn’t destroy what was left of my home while I was rushing to save it.
Chapter Twenty
T he ribcages of whale sharks, tarped with quilted canvases of sea fronds, made up the training barracks for the Royal Guard. They slept on mats, two to a tent, on a wide sandbar used for combat drills.
“At attention, men! We have a visitor; the Royal Alchemist, Princess Vanessa!” the pudgy faced guard with droopy eyes bellowed loud enough to make a Trumpet Fish envious.
Inwardly, I cringed. These young men were learning to be selfless warriors. What had anyone in my family done except marry well? Forcing a tight-lipped smile in the face of the awkward situation, I laced my fingers in front of me as the men rushed into their line-up. Some were still chewing, others wiping their mouths on the back of their hands. I was the haughty royalty that interrupted their meal time. Fabulous.
“Princess!” The commanding officer, recognizable by the two sand dollar medallions strung to his shark-hide belt, threw his arms out wide and welcomed me with an easy smile. “To what do we owe this honor?”
Word of what was happening at the castle had yet to reach them. Finally, something seemed to work in my favor.
Alastor picked that moment to duck out from the mess hall, knotting his wavy curtain of hair at the nape of his neck. My gaze wandered over him, warmth swelling in my chest.
The scruffy line of his jaw.
The tiny scar above his lip.
Rise of the Sea Witch (Unfortunate Soul Chronicles Book 1) Page 17