Hidden Realms

by Unknown

  Chapter Ten

  Zeke

  I watched her walk away and tried not to swear.

  That’d gone well.

  I scowled. I’d never even considered she didn’t know what she was. I mean, how could anyone have missed that their entire life? And yet, from everything I’d seen of her reactions, it seemed like that was exactly what’d happened. She’d never heard of dehaians. She had no idea how she’d stayed on land this long.

  She had no clue that she’d basically electrocuted the ocean a few days ago.

  And now she didn’t want me anywhere near her.

  Which was just great.

  I turned back to the water, shaking my head at myself. I was being fatalistic, and impatient too. If she’d actually never heard of us, finding out like this would probably be a shock. So maybe she just needed a bit to let it sink in. Maybe she’d come around and we could talk about whatever it was she’d done to the water, and about how she’d managed to remain on land all these years in a place none of us could even reach.

  And about how there was no way her parents were dehaians.

  Seawater swallowed me as I dove back into the waves. I hadn’t known how to say it. How did you tell that to someone, especially someone you’d met only a few minutes before? Your parents can’t be your parents. Getting sick around water wasn’t remotely something that happened to us.

  Of course, neither was staying on land for your whole life. Or living in Kansas.

  An annoyed sound escape me. Endless layers of questions, and I was no closer to finding an answer to any of them than I’d been before. Instead, I’d just managed yet again to frighten the pretty girl who electrocuted the ocean.

  Chloe.

  My lip twitched. That was a bright side. At least now I knew her name.

  I dove lower as the seafloor dropped, my innate magic compensating for the increase in pressure. I’d give her a day or so. See if she came around. It was all I could do anyway.

  A shadow shot through the water in front of me.

  I pulled up, my vision sharpening further and my eyes tracking the path the dark shape had followed. My senses stretched, trying to pick out any change in the water nearby.

  I felt a ripple in the water below me. I darted to the side.

  It was too late.

  Something slammed into my tail, and suddenly, tentacle-ropes were crawling all over me, sprouting like weeds one from the other and wrapping around my body at high speed. I twisted, trying to break free, when another blast struck my side, adding more sucker-laden tentacles to the mess.

  Places on the seafloor flickered, the sense of emptiness there suddenly giving away to dehaians who’d been hiding behind camouflaging veils. The dehaians rushed upward and surrounded me, while another came to a stop directly in front of me.

  He held a rock in his hand.

  I thrashed at the restraints.

  He swung.

  Everything went black.

  ~~~~~

  “…promised him that the boy would not be harmed, understand?”

  The words drifted through the throbbing blur of the world.

  “Yes, Wisdom.”

  My brow furrowed and then I opened my eyes.

  I was upright. I was still underwater. And my forearms were encased in thick shackles bound to chains driven deep into the wall.

  Gritting my teeth against the pounding of my head, I looked up.

  Two dozen dehaians were watching me, each of them easily several years or more my age.

  And they didn’t exactly look friendly.

  A large cave surrounded them, three hundred feet across with a ceiling at least a hundred feet high. The middle of the floor vanished into a deep pit over which the dehaians hovered, while farther behind them the cave became a tunnel leading into darkness. Water-torches glowed atop metal poles driven into the rock, their flames shimmering with blue and white light, while on the far left side of the space, more torches flanked a stone slab that almost looked like an altar.

  My gaze caught on the restraints bolted to the rock, and then rose to the mosaic on the wall behind it. In intricate detail, gemstones picked out a twisted symbol, the shape like a cage of barbed wire encircling an opalescent star.

  Disbelief moved through me, followed swiftly by fear.

  It wasn’t possible. It shouldn’t have been possible. They’d died. A century ago, their cult had been wiped out in one of the only acts that had united every nation in the dehaian world.

  Because they’d been completely insane.

  From the center of their group, one of the dehaians came closer, and by the way the others pulled back to give him room, it didn’t take a genius to figure out he was in charge. His hair was silver and his scales were too. He looked old enough to be my grandfather, and his dark eyes sent shivers down my spine.

  They seemed to cut right through me, and leave cloying fingerprints over all they saw.

  “Hello,” the man said in Yvarian, his voice calm as the ocean on a windless day.

  I pulled at the shackles, but the damn things wouldn’t budge.

  “I am Wisdom Kirzan,” he continued in the same tone. “High Priest of the Sylphaen. Welcome to the fourth sanctum of our faith. I apologize that we have to meet this way, and that we have been forced to place you in such accommodations. I do hope, however, that you will believe me when I say the restraints are for your protection. We do not understand one another yet. This may lead you to act rashly and cause the acolytes to undertake protective measures in response. I would hate for that to happen, as I have great faith you will see the light.”

  My skin crawled as his lips curved into a smile like he knew something about me that I didn’t.

  Like he could already see me on his side.

  “I know you have been taught to fear us. To believe the Sylphaen are the monsters of old tales. Yet your homeland of Yvaria prides itself on hearing both sides of a case, correct? On giving fair weight to all arguments before making a decision? So what of us? Are you not brave enough to hear ours?”

  At my silence, Kirzan sighed.

  “Have you not wondered why our people live as they do? Hidden beneath the waves, shrouding themselves with magic for fear of notice by the human world? Has it never bothered you that we, with such power, should cower in fear of creatures so much weaker than ourselves?”

  I didn’t answer. It was a stupid question anyway. Everyone hated that – the worry of being found in the ocean by humans, the reality of what could happen if we were locked up on land and kept from the water for too long.

  My family knew that all too well.

  He nodded as though he’d read my mind. “It hurts, this cost. The penalty we bear for straying from the known path of hiding, of so-called safety. It holds us hostage, not only to our fears for ourselves, but our fears for our loved ones. We live all the time with the dread that a human will discover a way through the magic that protects our cities, or that we will be trapped on land and prevented from returning to the water. We live in fear of our lives, and we are taught that this fear is simply ‘the way things must be’.

  Kirzan’s brow rose encouragingly. “Yet, what if I told you it wasn’t always like this? And what if I told you that things could change?”

  He waited. I said nothing.

  “Our people – your people – are lost. It pains me to say this, and yet… do you not see it too? What species other than prey hides for its life from all others around? What other creature in the ocean – in the world – has our power, yet shrinks from creatures weaker than itself? Humans do not. Humans never would. And yet we are the ones who have settled into a life of hiding, while they sink deeper and deeper hooks into everything on this Earth. With all our knowledge of the natural order, tell me… how is it possible that this is the way things are meant to be?”

  Behind him, several of the other dehaians nodded angrily.

  “We’ve lost sight of the truth,” Kirzan continued, “Above the water, we blend to surv
ive the current state of affairs, but beneath the waves we do nothing to change this situation. We accept this reality. We mimic the humans with our games, with our tools, with our very language and behavior, while never acknowledging the truth that is right in front of our eyes.

  “We were never meant to be like them. We were meant to rule them.”

  His folded hands opened in front of him. “Look at the evidence. Our strength. Our speed. Our abilities that far surpass any of their own. If they were meant to have been in charge of this world, they would have the same. They would be designed for it. But they are not.

  “And yet we are the ones who hide.

  “Some would say we have no choice, that our inability to stray too far from our watery home gives evidence that the land is for them and the ocean for us. And yet, that proves my point precisely. Our people have forgotten their past. They have forgotten what we were once capable of, and the powers we once controlled.”

  He paused. “But we can change that. Our destiny is our own – more now than it has been for centuries – and through one act, our power can be restored. It seems too simple a solution, yet are not all profound things truly simple at their heart? Our people can be freed. Our children can be made safe. Our homes can be protected. All it takes is one choice.

  Kirzan studied me. “Wouldn’t you want that?”

  My brow twitched down at his words.

  “I know who you are, young man. All in this room recognize you. Zekerian Ociras, called Zeke by those closest to him. And we know the stories of your sister, too. The little one, Miri. The one who was lost.”

  Already pounding, my heart found a way to pick up speed.

  He smiled. “We are not monsters, Zeke. We want what is best for our people, just as I know you do. We would do anything for our loved ones, just as I know you would. And when offered the chance to transform the world into a place of safety for everyone we love… any of us would take it.”

  Kirzan paused. “Will you?”

  My jaw clenched as he waited. “What do you want?”

  “One gift,” he answered. “One creature that has been destined for this purpose since the corrupted act of her creation. And then we can make the world safe for dehaians once more. I confess, we’ve struggled to find her, since we only spotted her at a distance before the humans rushed her away. For days, we’ve been hunting any who appeared to be her – bringing them beneath the waves, granting them our special blend of neiphiandine to speed the transformation necessary for the ritual and stifle their ability to cause trouble at the same time – but they have all been human, and so we have been forced to keep searching.”

  My blood went cold. Human girls. Merciful waves, these psychos had dragged human girls underwater, holding them there with some messed-up version of a dehaian drug in their system until they drowned.

  I wanted to be sick.

  “But you have changed that,” Kirzan continued. “You have confirmed for us which among the humans is actually the girl we seek. And now all that remains is to complete her destiny. To bring her to us. To claim our birthright through her sacrifice, so that none of these lesser beings can threaten us any longer.”

  I stared. Chloe. They were talking about Chloe.

  “You want…” I began.

  His expression became pitying. “I understand your confusion. She seems to be an attractive young woman. What man wouldn’t find her appealing? But you must understand, she is not what you think she is. Her blood is corrupt. She is not dehaian; she is not anything. And yet, as all beings do, she has a purpose. One that we can fulfill for her.”

  Forcibly, I kept my gaze from sliding to the stone table and the chains hanging there.

  “You try to be a true son of the dehaian, Zeke. I can see this in you. I know that your heart lies with protecting your people, in protecting those like your little sister, so that nothing like that will ever happen again. And such a future is possible. You have the power in your grasp, young man.

  “All you must do is bring her here.”

  He watched me, his dark eyes scanning my face while behind him, the other dehaians waited.

  I couldn’t feel my hands anymore. They’d pulled so tight against the shackles that they’d gone numb. And meanwhile, the psychos expected me to agree with Kirzan. To consent to bring Chloe down here so they could do who-knew-what to her, all under some mad belief that this one girl could magically change reality.

  Or that her death – her sacrificial, butchered, twisted death – could change reality.

  I made myself keep breathing. “No.”

  Kirzan’s expression became earnest. “Do not let this creature cloud your judgment, Zeke. Her pretense of ignorance is just that: a pretense. It is only meant to deceive you. She was intended for this purpose, destined to spill her blood since before any of us were born. The signs are clear to prove what she is. She changes the water with her presence. She calls to it with her very being, just as the stories said she would. It is so clear. So obvious. And you are not protecting what is right by sparing her; far from it! You are refusing to accept the gift we have been given and deciding that innocent children should die in her place. You are offering their lives for hers, when hers is the one that could save them. Surely, Zeke. Surely you wouldn’t do this. Offer Miri… for her?”

  I couldn’t keep the rage from my face.

  “I don’t mean to cause you pain,” he implored. “I simply wish you to understand that you have the power to change this for all your people, not just Miri or your siblings who survived. All you have to do is deliver her to us – quickly, while we can still inhibit her ability to fight – and you will save so many from ever suffering as your sister did.”

  Anger quivered in my chest like a trapped fish, and my muscles were so tense, they trembled. My arms ached with the desire to strike out at him for bringing up Miri over and over again. For trying to manipulate me with her memory. So many people had gone through hell over that, and now this bastard, this psychotic cultic bastard, thought he could use that nightmare to make me kill some girl I’d just broken the law to save.

  From them.

  They’d been the ones who attacked Chloe. I was sure of it, if for no other reason than I didn’t believe in that level of coincidence. They’d nearly killed her, and definitely killed who knew how many human girls too, and now they wanted me to finish the job.

  Because of Miri. Because of the thought of what she must have gone through before the end.

  I shivered, pushing the images away.

  “Go to hell,” I told him.

  “Zeke–”

  “I said go to hell!”

  He fell silent, and from his eyes the earnest light faded, leaving something darker and colder. “She’s driven her hooks deep into you, hasn’t she? Convinced you of an innocence she cannot truthfully possess?” He paused. “Who would you sacrifice to spare her life, Zeke? Would you offer up Ina, your own twin? Or perhaps your older brothers, Ren and Niall?”

  I couldn’t breathe. “You stay away from them.”

  Kirzan smiled. “It is only a question.”

  He studied me for a moment, and then looked to the other dehaians. “Watch him,” he ordered. “Give him some time to think. Perhaps the poison of her influence will fade, once he’s reflected for a while.”

  His gaze flicked back to me and his lips curved again into something too cruel to be a smile. “We will focus our efforts on retrieving her, now that we know where she hides.”

  Kirzan left the cave, most of the other dehaians following him.

  My heart was pounding. My arms pulled at the chains holding me.

  It wouldn’t take them long to find her. Depending on wherever the hell I was, they might be able to reach Santa Lucina in no time at all.

  Or my home in Nyciena.

  My muscles quivered. I had to get out of here.

  Making myself keep breathing, I turned my focus to the two men guarding me. Both easily outweighed me, and would stand severa
l inches taller than me as well. In their hands, they held net-launchers, same as the kind they’d used to catch me earlier.

  The closest one smirked when he saw me studying him.

  I looked away, my gaze falling to the shackles of magic-preserved metal encasing the length of my forearms and the chains holding them to the wall. I twitched, pulling at them again.

  They didn’t budge.

  I closed my eyes, rage pounding through me. There had to be a way out of here.

  Somehow, there had to be.

  Chapter Eleven

  Chloe

  The sun had climbed over the horizon a couple hours ago, and a cloudless blue sky waited beyond the window, promising a beautiful summer day. Past the guest room door, I could hear people moving in the hall, heading for the kitchen and the breakfast I could already smell below.

  I’d barely slept. The ocean had been there every time I closed my eyes, sending me gasping back to reality with my hands clutching at my legs in case they’d changed. It hadn’t taken long for me to stop lying down, and to sit instead with my back pressed to the headboard and my legs hugged tightly to my chest, while my hands rubbed them intermittently to make sure my skin stayed the same.

  It’d made for a long night.

  In the other bed, Baylie drew a breath and then rolled over. Her eyes opened and came to rest on me. Her brow furrowed.

  “Morning,” she said. “You okay?”

  I nodded. “Just couldn’t sleep.”

  Pushing the blankets away, I climbed from the bed.

  I could feel her watching me.

  “Bad dreams?” she asked.

  “Something like that.”

  I pulled my clothes from my bag. Blankets rustled behind me as she moved to do the same.

  “Okay,” she allowed. “Well… what do you want to do today?”

  Tugging my shirt down over my head, I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how. Last time I went into town, I’d ended up in the hospital, and the time before that, the boat nearly sank. My track record in Santa Lucina wasn’t exactly great, and at the moment, I kind of just wanted to hop into the nearest car and drive away as fast as possible.