by Starla Night
Aya kicked free. Her scarlet fins unfurled. “I’ll swim as fast as I can.”
“Wait.” He couldn’t risk her encountering the army alone. In the past, he’d never imagined warriors daring to injure a bride, but now he feared the worst. Soren shouted for Gailen. “Where are Aya’s guards?”
“Ciran went to the ruin. Faier led a patrol.” Gailen grimaced at the army. “They thought since you were with Queen Aya she would remain safe.”
“Recall them.”
Gailen nodded and cried for other warriors standing in a defensive formation over the Life Tree sanctuary. Queen Lucy, Torun, and Queen Elyssa clustered together. Soren aimed for them.
Kadir reached them first. “Elyssa.”
“I’m not going.” Queen Elyssa read his mind, guessed the content, and kissed him firmly. Her soul light was bright and fierce. Nothing like the awkward female at the bride pageant months ago, and everything like a powerful queen. “Don’t ask me. I’m waiting for Aya’s brilliant plan. Go ahead, Aya.”
Everyone stared at his bride.
She studied the army. Her soul light dipped. “I’m working on it.”
Queen Elyssa remained bright and unafraid. “I’ll be ready.”
“Elyssa.” Kadir stroked her cheek. Tenderness folded his silver brow. “Consider our young fry.”
“I am.” She twined her arms around his neck. “It’s too late now anyway. An army surrounded us, you know.”
“Okay.” Aya squeezed her eyes closed, thinking hard. “I’m getting an idea. There’s a huge army out there, and only a tiny number of us in here. If we can convince the megalodons that the city is empty already— if we can lure the megalodons past the Life Tree—then maybe we’ll solve two problems at once.”
Queen Elyssa scrunched her nose. “You mean the megalodons will take out the army.”
“It’s a danger when you unleash a prehistoric shark on a battlefield.”
“Okay.” Queen Elyssa nodded. “I’m willing to try evacuating.”
Kadir’s shoulder’s dropped with relief. “Leave now.”
“But then how can I be the lure?”
“You will not.”
“But—”
Queen Lucy suddenly gasped and grabbed her belly. Her eyes flew wide.
Everyone froze.
She grimaced and then panted. “That was not a Braxton-Hicks.”
“And there’s no way I’m leaving now!” Queen Elyssa released her husband. She and Torun ushered back inside to the Life Tree.
Kadir clenched his trident. His silver-tattooed brow firmed with command. “Soren. Gather the warriors. I will see if I can get Elan to reveal the plans of the army. Perhaps Queen Aya’s strategy can work if we move smartly.”
He was making a last stand.
Soren nodded. Kadir turned and flew to his castle. Soren kicked for the Life Tree sanctuary to deposit Aya.
Light erupted from the broken top of the sanctuary. The Life Tree responded to Queen Lucy’s new life by crackling with cheerful, defiant energy.
Like the flash of the Life Tree fragment that had attracted the megalodon in the trench.
Soren switched course. “Wait for your guards in your castle.”
“Stop, Soren.” Aya clasped his cheeks. Fear and desperation shone in her eyes. “We have to get married.”
He slowed. “Now?”
“It’s the only way.” She looked over his shoulder at the hissing darkness emerging from the trench, bearing down on their city. “I still can’t wield my power. But if we’re married, maybe that will give me the push I need.”
She wanted to marry him to gain her power.
As she told him this desperate plan, her soul light fluctuated wildly. She was not the confident female he had seen at the bride pageant so long ago. She was broken, terrified, and no longer able to summon even a little bit of her former faith.
Being around him had crippled her. Every time he sought to increase her light by seducing her he only made her more dependent on him. Instead of empowering her, he enslaved her. And now she was so bound up she thought she needed him to find her center of power.
“Aya.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. Cupping her hands, he tried to convince her of the truth. “The power is in you.”
“But what if it isn’t?”
He drew her to his chest and stroked her hair. “Believe.”
“I believe I need your help. Lucy and Elyssa are married. That’s the secret! You have to marry me right now.”
He shook his head and drew back. “I cannot give you the power you already possess.”
“You could try.”
Her desperation broke his heart.
“Anyway, we’d be married. Isn’t that what you want?” She begged him. “Us, to be married? Me? As your wife?”
All he wanted to do was protect her. Save her. Believe in her. And his protection had hobbled her. This dishonor was far worse than anything he had committed against Elan’s bride.
Aya waited his response with terror.
He wanted her more than life itself. But he could not hurt her any more.
Soren hardened his heart. “No. I do not.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Soren didn’t want her.
Aya’s gut clenched.
He stared at her hard. Rejecting her with his full body. He released her at the tunnel entrance to her castle. “Await your guard.”
Then he turned and kicked back to King Kadir’s castle.
Her whole body felt numb.
She swam down the tunnel. It took forever to cross the short distance on her fins. She entered the barren, empty castle.
A flash of purple darted at her face.
She shrieked and threw up her hands. White light flashed. A bubble pulsed outward, slammed into her tiny purple octopus like a car windshield hitting a bug.
Oh!
She dropped her hands. The light faded. Her little octopus floated, dazed.
Oh no, she hadn’t meant to harm it. She’d just been distracted and startled and—
It jolted and flew away. If it were a dog, it would have been yelping with its tail between its legs.
Her heart squeezed. She rubbed her chest. The feeling only increased.
Look at how useless she was. She could use her super power to fend off a tiny octopus, but she couldn’t use it on command to fend off a megalodon.
Aya fell to the barren floor of the empty castle like a chunk of cast off debris. Resting on her palms on her thighs, she waited.
And waited.
And waited.
There was nowhere for her to go. What could she do in an attack? The army came from one direction. The megalodons came from the other. Atlantis was crushed in the middle.
Helplessness shivered like a cold fire in her veins, trembling her hands on her empty lap.
Soren didn’t want her.
For the first time, she had tried. Really tried. She had bared her soul. She had begged him to marry her. He threw it back in her face.
A sharp pain settled in her chest.
It would have been better to have died in Blake’s submersible claw than to face this.
A hint of purple crept along the ledge and crawled down the wall.
She traced the octopus’s movement with her eyes, not moving a muscle.
The castle shuddered. A cold shaft of fear sliced up her spine. The only mystery was why the All-Council had waited so long to unleash the megalodons.
The purple octopus slunk across the floor.
This must be how it kept appearing nearby, startling her. It must always be doing this. Creeping forward, terrified of being discovered, but somehow also compelled to be close.
Elyssa’s octopus Benji was bright, fierce, and loving. Just like her kind, generous, open heart. Aya’s octopus was like her own heart. Frightened, nameless, skittish, and always prepared for the worst.
Her octopus stopped almost within arm’s reach. But outside it. Just to be safe.
<
br /> Heh.
Well, then, how would she talk to her own heart?
“I’m sorry,” she said. Aloud. Never mind that it was utterly bizarre.
The octopus remained still, as though it believed it were hidden, so she continued.
“I didn’t mean to use my power on you. I don’t have control over it. Soren’s been disgusted about that since he transformed me. I’m supposed to be good at healing and protective barriers, like Elyssa and Lucy. Instead, the only thing I’m any good at is pushing things away.”
Its plus-sign eyes tracked on her.
The octopus was listening. That was kind of nice.
“I’d like to make peace with you, if you don’t mind. I think we got off on the wrong foot. Hiding all the time is unsettling. It makes me question whether I even have a house guardian.”
Her octopus did not move. It was still hiding.
How would she reach out? She was no good at this kind of thing. She tried anyway. “I appreciate your hard work. Watching over the castle all day is a big responsibility and I entrust it to you.”
The color shifted from camouflage green to a ripple of honest purple. It liked her tone, maybe. No way it could understand her words.
“I’m not affectionate like other people are, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like you,” she explained. “Okay? So I’d like to take you with me when I leave here. I think the megalodon will eat this castle and I’d feel terrible if you were inside.”
It shimmered.
She leaned forward until she was flat on the ground next to it. The octopus watched her the whole time, silent and unmoving.
“You know, maybe the problem isn’t that Soren doesn’t like me.” She traced one of his tattoo symbols she’d memorized, a six-pointed swirl over his right pectoral, on the bare ground. “He’s hard headed. Maybe the problem is whether I like him.”
The octopus watched her swirls. Its little tentacles curled curiously. As though all this time, it had only been waiting for Aya to reach out to it. It wanted to reach back. It just needed her to make the first move.
“Desperation isn’t attractive.” She lifted her brows. “Let’s try being exceptional instead.”
She closed her eyes and pressed her hands to the castle floor. Picturing Soren in front of her looking as he had last. Beautiful, dark, and deeply wounded.
Was she using him to unlock her powers? Only because she had been blindly grasping for his hands, believing that if she held onto him tightly the way Elyssa held onto King Kadir and Lucy held onto Torun, she’d mystically get her powers. That was blind faith.
Aya didn’t do blind faith.
She did executables.
Aya pictured Soren being wrong, wrong, wrong and herself right, right, right.
Tentacles curled on her back as though her octopus had taken a chance and gotten on top of her. Hah, was it in for a surprise.
Just like the image of Soren in her fantasies. When it felt satisfying, she imagined shoving Soren away.
Light exploded from her fingers in front of her so bright she saw it through her closed lids. She opened her eyes.
Aya was zooming upward. The floor dropped away like gravity reversed. The octopus startled and grabbed onto her hard. Hooray!
Uh oh, she was flying so hard she was about to slam into the ceiling.
She turned and shifted into human feet, landing hard enough to make her knees crunch and her shins rattle.
Her heart raced so hard it almost leapt out of her throat. “Hah! How’s that for power?”
The octopus trembled.
Maybe the next test could be gentler.
Aya pushed off, shaking out her knees and ankles, and kicked for the tunnel. Her fins unfurled naturally — as they should. She flexed her power to propel her even faster than before, and she flew so fast she skimmed the walls. Aya burst to the outside.
Ciran and Faier were flying toward the castle. They jolted. Tridents out, they raced to her against the hard current.
“Queen Aya! Is everything alright?” Faier shouted over the inhaling noise.
“Is the army here?”
He pointed. The army was the opposite direction from the megalodon. “Units from all major cities. The biggest force since the Seventy Years War.”
This was the definition of overkill. She shook her head. “The All-Council needs to study efficient use of resources.”
Her two faithful guards eyed each other. They probably thought she’d gone nuts with stress.
Well, let them.
Ciran pointed behind him. “Soren wants you to raise the final tier of the old city.”
She removed her octopus and whispered for it to go to the Life Tree with Elyssa. It flew from her hands, fast as a bullet.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
They turned, fighting the eerie current.
“Not you, Faier.”
He pulled up short. Hurt and concern darkened his brow.
She kicked to remain even with him. “If we get cut off, you could get stuck outside the city.”
“I am not afraid.”
Of course not. “But who will defend the Life Tree within the very belly of the megalodon?”
His brows lifted. Honor fought with respect. He’d wished to stay behind but his duty was to protect her.
“It’s okay. I found my power.” She lifted her fingers. Crackling like trapped lightning emerged with a satisfying arc.
Both warriors regarded her with new hope.
“I will remain and defend the Life Tree.” Faier rested his trident against his side and saluted.
She returned the salute. “Good. Because I’ll be back. And I expect everything in perfect order.”
Aya kicked for the ruin. Ciran flanked her. They were just going to make it past the edges of the gathering army.
She had a plan.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Soren left Aya in her castle, waiting for Ciran and Faier to escort her to the ancient ruin, and returned to Kadir’s castle with a heavy heart.
The one thing he never wanted to do was hurt Aya. But throughout his life, he hurt the ones he most cared about. By being born. By existing.
His mother rejected him without ever looking at his face. His father grew impatient many times with Soren’s childhood fights. The youths called him a black soul and punished him for being so large. He’d only ever wanted to be worthy of respect.
And now, he dimmed Aya’s brilliance.
Soren slammed into the side of the tunnel, skinning his elbow. She would never forgive him for ruining her. Transforming her against her will. Hobbling her to depend on him. And now, breaking her.
He found Kadir floating over Elan. Lotar and the other warriors stood back, watching. The castle water tasted like blood. Elan’s hobbles had come loose, but he didn’t bother to defend himself. He took Kadir’s threats, Kadir gripping his neck and shaking him, with nothing but a sneer.
“You should have known this would happen.” Elan laughed. His lip was split and bruises ringed his eyes. “No one defies the All-Council and survives.”
“So you are happy to curse us? Our young fry?”
Sadness catapulted across Elan’s face, followed by an attack. “I cannot help you. I cannot!”
Looking at him, Soren felt a deep welling of rage. Not at Elan. At himself.
“Cannot?” he roared, startling Kadir into dropping Elan. “Or are you afraid?”
“I fear nothing, demon!” He turned away and rubbed his neck.
“You value young fry. Yet you refuse to help us. But you know who would have helped us? Your bride!”
Elan jolted as though Soren had stabbed him in the spine. He turned slowly. “What did you say?”
“You are weak and easily led. But one who is ten times your worth would listen and fight. That is your bride.”
He flushed hot red. “Do not speak of Zara!”
Soren would. “Do you know what they did to her? Your elders, who you serve so fait
hfully. Did you know they trussed her like a prisoner of war?”
Elan’s chest heaved.
“You serve them,” Soren taunted. “Even now. The ones who tied your wife.”
“Lies!”
“They ordered me to drag her to the surface, still fighting and bleeding. And I obeyed.”
He bared his teeth. “I will make you regret that night.”
“I do regret it,” Soren snapped.
Elan blinked.
“Your bride cursed us to the darkest pit of the Blacknight Sea. I thought she would forget after reaching the comfort of the air world.”
Fear flashed in Elan’s eyes. He thought so also. It was what they’d all been taught. What they all believed, even their own elders.
Aya had proved to Soren the mer didn’t know human women at all.
“But now I realize the truth.” Soren spat at him. “I took the wrong warrior to the surface. The one who forgot his duty to his wife and child is you.”
Elan attacked Soren with a scream.
One hand latched around Soren’s neck. His other clawed at Soren’s eyes. Soren fended him off, growling. They tumbled backward across Kadir’s courtyard.
“How dare you!” Elan screamed. “How dare you?”
“How dare you float here and argue?” Soren flared in his chest, vibrating.
Elan thumped him, trying to break his sternum. “Die!”
Soren shoved Elan back. “Your bride would not have obeyed the All-Council. She would not have mindlessly obeyed the ones who took you.”
Elan stared at him. His chest heaved. “I cannot help you, Soren. No matter how much I should wish to.” He wiped his mouth. A trickle of blood dissipated in the water.
What? Elan wished to help them?
He did not hate Soren?
Kadir and the others watched with amazement. Kadir finally spoke. “You do wish to help us?”
“They took my son.” He glared through the wall of the castle, at the gathered army. “Our elders.”
They fell silent. The eerie hissing grew stronger.
“Because I had listened to your words, Kadir. Because Zara convinced me she wanted to stay. Because we had a dream of raising our family together. When she was taken from me, I fought to go to her—and was captured. My son was taken to ensure I remained.”