Rule 9 Academy Series Boxset: Books 3-5 Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy (Rule 9 Academy Box Sets (3 Book Series) 2)

by Elizabeth Rain

  We secured them for transport, twining legs and attaching the roped ends to their tied wrists, so that when their legs became fins, they would still be held tight for transport. The tail of a full grown Mer-man or woman packed a heavy wallop if it landed upside your head.

  Pinna, who had actually taken down a couple of rebels herself, stood at our side, her hand cupping a long thin scratch that ran the length of her side. She grimaced, her eyes filled with unfamiliar pain. “I’m probably dying, you know.”

  I rolled my eyes as I secured the hands and feet of a young Seascrill woman. Pinna had tagged along at my side, making no move to help me. She probably figured it was menial work and beneath her.

  Dael and Mirra joined us. “We’re about finished here. We should get them back and join the Council. I don’t feel safe out here. We’re just as vulnerable to attack as they were.”

  Mirra nodded. “Agreed. And I’m starving.”

  “You always are,” I added with a small smile.

  She grinned. “See, that’s how I know we’re sisters.”

  Pinna spoke up, her face flushing with unexpected anger. “I’m your sister, too.”

  Mirra glared at her. “Is that what we are, or did you just mean Sirris?”

  Her sudden burst of temper disappeared, and embarrassment took its place. “You both are,” she admitted grudgingly.

  With a sharp nod, Mirra suddenly grinned. “Well now, was that so very difficult to admit?”

  Pinna snorted, flipping her head and looking over our shoulders. “You have no idea…”

  I tried to catch her eye as hers focused in confusion and then sudden disbelief. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream as she turned in my direction and moved faster than I’d ever seen her go. She was on me then, shoving me with outstretched arms as we both tumbled to the ground. She gave a pain filled cry as we grappled, tumbling over the rough stony surface. When we came to a stop, I was braced above her. I refused to turn towards the source of several shouts and the sounds of darts hitting the water in rapid succession. I was too busy staring into my sister’s confused brown eyes—my younger sister, who had taken the shot meant for me. She shuddered, her breath coming in gasps. My fingers covered the terrible wound, the sharp tip of a quarrel emerging from deep in her back, the stickiness of her blood running over my hand.

  “Pinna,” I cried, my throat closing up in disbelief.

  Her lips parted, and a great shudder wracked her slim form. She reached up with trembling fingers and grabbed at my own.

  I clutched them tight, opened my mouth, and screamed, “Help, I need help here. Pinna’s been shot!”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I stood high on the parapet overlooking Tarus. I watched the bustling mass of Tarians milling about below me in the market. It was business as usual, life moving on—all when mine seemed to be falling apart. My fingernails dug into the rough stone edge of the wall as I watched them all, wondering how they couldn’t feel the depth of my pain. It was so absolute.

  Pinna was gone, and it was my fault. I should have been stronger when she begged to go, spouting some silly nonsense about us being sisters and it was time we had some bonding time. I’d allowed her to talk me into it because I had wanted that, too: a chance to get to know my younger sister—the sibling I hadn’t known I had until I came to Tarus. Now it was too late. I blinked rapidly. It wasn’t the tears clogging my eyes and dampening my cheeks. That had been hours ago. As she lay dying, my fingers clutched desperately in hers as she whispered the words to bring her lasting peace and destroy my world. She’d begged me to agree. And I’d been unable to refuse her dying request. She’d given her life for mine. A life for a life seemed fitting somehow, didn’t it?

  Now all I could see was the sea of red, glittering like raindrops on the cavern floor, somehow more brilliant than any of the crystalline formations that made up the walls and ceiling, her life spreading before me as she cajoled mine away from me.

  “Promise me, Sirris. Promise you will lead them. They need your strength. You were always the one. It can’t be Mirra…” She’d looked apologetically then to Mirra’s gleaming face, awash with wet and her lower lip wobbling. “She’s what they need, but the people of Tarus aren’t ready for that,” she’d whispered. I wasn’t sure if she was telling me or apologizing to Mirra.

  But my sister gave a shivery sob and nodded. “No, you’re right. They won’t take me seriously. We need someone both sides can get behind. Your Onlander connection will do that. They need the blood tie of Royal Tarian blood, and the Onlander connection to align us all and give them what they need. And you won’t let the Council rule things. You will stand up to them and they need that.”

  “I’m sorry we didn’t have more time, Sirris…and Mirra. I was a fool,” she’d whispered.

  “Save your strength, Pinna. Stop talking,” I’d begged.

  “We both know that won’t do any good, sister. At least it doesn’t hurt anymore. How weird is that?”

  And she’d smiled at us both. We watched the life leave her eyes, the vacant stare telling us Pinna was gone.

  Now in the chambers below she was being prepared for burial, wrapped in her layered shroud with the hundreds of pockets to fill and weigh her down for her journey into the abyss.

  I reached into my pocket and fingered the glittering shard of sharp quartz I’d pocketed absently from the floor of Addius Cave. I’d admired the glimmering amber and gold facets, almost as if I’d known I would need it.

  I turned away from the view of the market square and headed for the stairs. It was time, and I’d hidden myself away long enough. As the queen-elect, I would lead the procession for my sister’s funeral.

  In the great hall below, Mirra and Dael both turned at my approach. Her eyes were pink with shed grief, blinking up at me. Dael stood at her side, his eyes and his heart on her. I wondered why no one could see how they looked at each other, or how they felt. I could. How was I to marry a man whose heart wasn’t his to give? But then again, mine had been given away to a shaggy-haired wolf pup when we were twelve and he asked if I would be his friend when no one else would. How was I going to tell him I couldn’t stay? How would I explain it to my father? Council law would allow me to make my goodbyes, but I wouldn’t be returning once I had. That was forbidden.

  I thought of my father. Who would make sure that he ate and showered on a regular basis? And the dishes. He was horrible at doing them.

  My heart rose in my throat and I struggled to swallow the knot of pain. How could I do this?

  How could I not?

  And then it was time, and the procession began—through the front doors of the castle, along the cobbled streets of Tarus, and out through the watery gate into Deep Lake—a long, thin line of mourners, on their way to the Abyss to bury one of their Royal own.

  I stood alongside Dael and Mirra as Royal members of the family, cousins and aunts and uncles I barely knew, and lesser citizens of Tarus, too, added weight and words to Pinna’s shrouded remains. Mirra, Dael, and I would go last. Our words would be the eulogy to send her on her journey.

  When it was my turn to place my stone, I was at a loss for clever words to express my love in a memorable way. Instead, I was simply a grieving sister, wishing we’d had more time.

  “Fare thee well, Pinna. I’ll try to make you proud. Rest easy, sister.” And I stepped back, clutching at Mirra’s arm. Together, we lifted the dais and watched as she slid free, hovering magically for just a second before the weight pulled her down. For one macabre moment, I wondered how many? What number of corpses rested on the bottom of Deep Lake, in that endless black hole. But fish were always hungry, and nothing went to waste.

  We turned away and made our way back the way we’d come. There would be food and conversation as we all pretended to celebrate Pinna’s life, when in reality, I simply mourned the fact it had been so brief. She hadn’t started living yet. There was so much she’d never have a chance to do.

  As we entered the mai
n square of Tarus, Leta moved up alongside me, her words soft and for my ears alone. “We need to talk with you. There are decisions to be made and plans to make. I know it’s soon, but can you join us this evening around dusk in the library?”

  And suddenly, I was feeling when I’d been numb for hours. But it wasn’t a good thing as my lips firmed and my eyes flashed with temper. “What? Now you want to ask me? I thought you were much better at controlling my movements. Don’t pretty it up, Leta. I’ll be there. Time to get this fiasco over with,” I snarled, turning away from the shock in her eyes.

  I refused to acknowledge that she was hurting, too. Pinna had been her great niece, after all. She gave a nod and left me to hold my grief close, to relish the pain I couldn’t let go.

  Mirra came to stand at my side. She knew better than to reach out to me. Neither of us wanted the comfort of another’s touch just then.

  “Don’t look so guilty. They deserve a little comeuppance, you know, for working so hard to manage all our lives as if we were all dutiful little soldiers on a playing field and all they have to do is move us where they choose and watch us play out our lives according to their rules.”

  Bitterness rolled off her tongue, and I looked at her sharply. “I thought this is what you wanted, for me to assume the throne. You know I don’t want it, right?”

  She gave a harsh laugh. “What either of us wants doesn’t matter at all. Our lives were laid out long before any of this happened. You were just the last one to get the memo.”

  I caught her dark eyes as they were snagged by a pair of bright green ones. Dael stared at her from across the room, his grief not only for our sister.

  And I couldn’t keep silent about what I knew anymore, “I know the truth, Mirra.”

  Mirra looked back at me in confusion. “You know what?” she asked me absently.

  “I know where your heart lies. Dael doesn’t love me, and he’s all you can think about. I don’t think I can do this, Mirra.”

  She turned then, seizing my arm in a grip that was just short of brutal, her eyes hot with rage. “Well, you’d better wrap that head of yours around it soon. Tarus needs stability if we are to survive the coming war. It needs a queen and a king to unite them and give them the confidence to fight. You will work together for the people and help bring a welcome breath of change that is long overdue. You have a job and a duty to uphold, both of you.”

  I covered her fingers, wincing as they dug deep into my skin in desperation. I peeled them away, my grip white on hers. “I think you are a perfect little coward, sister. What about what you want, Mirra? How can you stand by and watch, knowing that each night…” She wrenched her hand free then, as if her fingers had touched a hot burner.

  “It’s my duty, and it’s yours. Tarus is my home. The people depend on us.”

  But it’s not mine.

  While we’d been talking, I hadn’t realized Dael had joined us. He’d overheard Mirra’s last words. His eyes were hard on her bent head as she refused to look up at him.

  “And what about me, Mirra? What if I don’t want to do my duty to Tarus? What if I want something for myself? Does that make me selfish, then?”

  I wanted to be anywhere right then other than where I was, listening to everything that neither of them was saying. But I knew about conversations of the heart.

  “We lost our ability to make our own choices a long time ago, Dael. We have to think about what’s best for Tarus, not what we want.”

  He shook his head, his lips in a bitter line. “You little fool. Do you really think two people forced to live together in misery, whose hearts belong to someone else, are going to be in the best interest of Tarus, or anyone?”

  She jerked her eyes up to his, the pain in them so deep I couldn’t breathe. “I’ll leave then, make it easier for all of us. As has been pointed out on multiple occasions, I’m Seascrill as much as Sylvan. Misen Caverns will make a place for me. You know, out of sight, out of mind…” she ended on a choked whisper.

  Dael gave a heavy sigh, his eyes closing. He looked like he was praying for strength. “It doesn’t work that way, Mirra. But none of that matters. You’ve already decided. You’re just as pigheaded as the Council is.”

  Her chin notched up an inch, the faintest wobble giving her real feelings away. “That’s right, I have decided. Now if we are done here, I have something I have to do.”

  We both watched as she bolted through the crowd towards the steps to the upper apartments and away from us.

  Neither of us spoke. There was no point. Everything important had already been said.

  “We need to move on this as soon as possible. The people need to see you together, and they need a new queen. I’m thinking a week should be enough time to post the banns,” droned the Council.

  Out loud I said nothing, standing still and silent like a naughty child being chastised for putting her fingers in the cookie jar before supper.

  But my mind…it was screaming.

  Too soon! I don’t want this…

  “We have talked. You will have one day above to plan and inform Jerry and whoever else you need to let know of your decision to assume the throne and to live below, where you belong,” she added magnanimously.

  I’m an Onlander, I don’t belong here.

  “While the banns are posted and arrangements are made, we will work with Shade and Liia to discuss plans for moving on the Rebellion and taming it into nonexistence. It’s time to wrest control back. They’ve caused too much trouble.”

  Is that what my sister’s death is? A spot of trouble?

  “Following the coronation, and a bit backwards, if you ask me, we will plan your wedding to Dael. The people will be ready for a celebration by then. Wars are bloody business after all, and by then that end of it should be wrapped up. Everyone likes a good party. And then things can get back to normal, finally.”

  Your normal, not mine, never mine!

  I nodded in all the right places, letting them arrange my life as they had so many others before me. When did it stop? When did the people have a voice? That was one thing I was going to do when I became queen, I determined. I was going to see the fall of the Council’s absolute power. I wondered if they would like me as much then—when Dael and I worked together to change their laws and give the people what they deserved: the freedom to choose—the right that had been taken away from me and Dael.

  I thought of what I’d seen in Mirra’s eyes, the despair and the knowing. It had nearly undone me. How could I take the man she loved as a husband? How could either of us allow it? I cared for Dael, and I knew he felt the same, but we were more like a sister and brother. My heart didn’t belong here in Deep Lake, and his always would.

  When they finished, I left them. I wound my way through the castle grounds and down the narrow streets of Tarus. Merchants peddled their wares, several of them calling out greetings to me as I passed. Suddenly, I was more famous than before. The banns hadn’t been officially posted yet, but we were a small community, and nothing was a secret for long. I entered the cool dampness of the building that housed the underwater passage into Deep Lake. I nodded to the guards on duty, standing stoically as I stripped down to my gypsum suit and stored the rest of my clothing. I turned and dove deep in one motion, welcoming the ripple of fusing muscle. My fingers ached where the skin spread between them and turned into a fine webbing to propel me through the water at dizzying speeds. And that was what I needed. I hit the open waters of Deep Lake, angling away from Tarus and towards Addius Caverns. There should be no one there at this time of day. We’d taken care of that. I cringed at the thought of going back to where my sister had died just days before, but more than the unwelcome memory of her death was my need to be alone, away from everyone else.

  I stretched out, my whipping tail propelling me forward. Bubbles rose in a froth around me and raced for the surface at my passing. Deep Lake was not small, and the terrain was varied and lovely to behold. But a mermaid is fast, and I covered the
distance in a matter of minutes, pulling up short, just shy of the small entrance. I hesitated then, wondering if I was ready to revisit my sister’s memory. I entered the brief passage, my fingers running over the crystalline walls, noting once more the glittering facets of green and white, the pinks and yellows that blended into a kaleidoscope of color. As the passage narrowed and opened ahead, the light grew until the reflection of the giant room was nearly blinding. I emerged into the opening and surfaced, barely stifling a gasp.

  I wasn’t alone after all.

  In the last century, tectonic movements had shifted the enormous cavern, causing slivers of the wall to break away in thin slices, forming flattened rocky surfaces. Most rested on the cavern floor at an angle. Lovely but useless. But a few of them had formed rough tabletops. Sitting atop one of them, their legs and arms entwined in a heated embrace, were Dael and Mirra.

  Even as my mind tried to figure out how they’d arrived here ahead of me, Mirra thrust him away with a rough groan.

  “We can’t. This is wrong,” she cried.

  Dael’s face was a thundercloud of anger. “Is it? It felt exactly right to me,” he insisted.

  This was when they both realized they weren’t alone and spied me treading water in the cave pool, wishing I’d taken a left out of Tarus instead of a right.

  Mirra clapped both hands over her flaming face and moaned. “Oh no. No, no!”

  “Um. I think I should just go,” I said.

  “I think you should stay,” Dael ground out. He didn’t seem nearly as surprised to see me as Mirra did, and I wondered if I’d been the audience to his show.

  “I’m sorry. I never meant for you to see that. He started it,” Mirra slanted Dael a dark look.

  If she expected to embarrass him, she missed the mark. “And you finished it. That was your tongue I…”

  The slap echoed through the cave. Mirra stared at him, aghast, the red print of her hand livid against his cheek. “I’m sorry…” she whimpered immediately, her eyes filling with tears.