Marko’s eyes lit up.
“Yes. This is our answer to Marin’s fertility problems. We used the wrong moon. The moon from the ballroom was simply a decoration, an imitation of the real thing. The moon at the bottom of the Colosseum is the one we need.”
We all started speaking at once, our voices rising in excitement as we discussed the possibilities of retrieving the moon from the bottom of the shark tank.
Lily shook her head and covered a wide smile with her hands.
“Imagine.” She shook her head again. “Imagine the children.” Her joy was infectious, and for a short, blissful moment I found myself forgetting about the death of my sister.
Moving closer, until my knees rested against the bed, I studied people in the etchings. Everyone’s face glowed. The ancient citizens of Marin were literally beaming with happiness, radiating with possibilities.
But something had me spin around, away from the drawings, to face the open doorway.
A sound. A sound that made my heart stutter.
A baby’s cry.
In a trance, I left Kraja’s room and padded down the secret hallway to its very cobwebby end where it led to another passageway near the main corridor.
The baby’s cries grew louder.
Whoever held the baby was walking the length of the passageway on the other side of the wall.
By the sound of the clicking heels, it was Sylvia. Those were her very controlled and sure steps.
I placed my hand palm up against the door, as though I could touch my niece, and listened to her tiny wails until the sound died away.
My heart pounded with excitement.
I had to get to her. I needed Lauren’s baby to be safe and as far away from that monster as possible.
“Guys,” I whispered, and turned to find Lily, Robbie and Marko standing behind me, looks of awe and wonder on their faces. “Did you hear that?”
“We heard,” said Marko, his eyes deep with sympathy and his voice gravelly with emotion. “It’s time you met your niece.”
18
Robbie
Miranda raced back into Marko’s room, the rest of us following closely behind her. We decided on using conventional methods to reach the baby as opposed to a whole bunch of us emerging from the other side of the secret corridor. One person was risky enough but all four of us, including Marko and Miranda no less, was just screaming for unwanted attention.
In rapid strides we took the main corridor, following the sound of the baby’s cries. It felt good to have Marko back in Marin, though I was more than annoyed that he wouldn’t allow me to lead the way. Not because he thought my sight was a handicap—he knew I could walk these halls blindfolded—but because he believed he should be the one to put himself in harm’s way first.
“I owe you, Rob. So let me watch out for you for once.” He walked fast, so that he was always one step ahead of me, and so that he could get ahead of Miranda, who must have been running.
I managed to keep up, despite the darkness of the castle interior, thanks to the mental layout engraved inside my head since I first came here.
“I’m your head guard. What kind of a head guard let’s his king walk ahead and take the hit?”
“I’m taking the hit if and when it comes because I’m the king and I get to decide.”
I bit back any words of protest and kept my dagger handy. As if I was truly going to let Marko take a hit. Some things were too ingrained to un-train. If somebody attacked Marko, he was going to take the hit over my dead body.
“I’ve got both your backs,” Lily said.
“Gee, thanks.” I frowned. “Nice to know that nobody thinks I’m capable around here.”
Lily nudged me with her elbow before teasing me with an ‘aww’ noise. Under normal circumstances I’d tickle her until she was rendered helpless for that kind of cheek, but fun and games would have to wait until later. I silently prayed that we’d get through this, and defeat whatever obstacles lay ahead, so that there actually was a later.
We followed the baby’s cries to Sylvia’s rooms, my eyes thankfully sharpening with each step.
“She has a nursery set up in the room adjoining her bedroom.”
“Her dining room?” asked Marko and I nodded.
“The baby is fed and changed by Sylvia. She has a maid on hand to help and sometimes allows her to do it, but very rarely.”
“What about Damir?” Miranda asked, visibly shuddering. “Doesn’t he have any interest in Lauren’s child?” She made a face as though she’d rather swallow poison than let Damir anywhere near her niece. “Not that I want him to even touch her.”
“No.” Flashes of the bloodied, mutilated body of Avalon, in Frano Tollin’s lab, and the deranged look in Damir’s emerald eyes, eyes so much like Sylvia’s, assaulted my brain. “I don’t think anybody here would let him near her anyway. He’s slipped too far down the evil slippery slope to be trusted near the city’s only baby. Remember, Miranda, Angelina is Marin’s only symbol of hope. The people here guard her with their lives.”
Miranda nodded.
“I don’t think Damir’s evil slippery slope has an end. He just gets worse and worse.” Lily shook in a full body shiver while she walked. I knew why she was shivering like that. While we were flying from London to Perth, she confided in me that Damir used to watch her when she was younger, and that she always knew when he was doing it because her skin would crawl. She’d spin around and sure enough, those green eyes would be on her. Her story made me hate Damir all the more.
Marko swallowed down the disgusted grimace on his face and lost his features behind an emotionless mask before stopping at Sylvia’s bedroom door and banging his fist against it loud enough to disturb the entire castle. Not exactly the best move for a fugitive to make.
The baby’s cries had been soothed, or maybe she’d fallen asleep.
The door swung open and a tired-but-surprised looking Sylvia stood there, her eyes darting from Marko, to Miranda, then briefly to me and Lily before gluing themselves to Marko.
She sighed deeply. For the first time—maybe because my eyes were working in her presence for once—I noticed the faint lines around her eyes and between her brows. But despite the lines, her face glowed with the health of a... of a new mother, besotted with the care of her child. Motherhood had given her a softer edge.
“I suppose I can’t blame you for returning,” she said, her green eyes darkening with either sympathy or her own disappointment. But then she smiled softly and raked her nails, normally long and polished but now chipped and short, down the grey stone wall beside the door frame. “None of us can ever truly leave Marin, can we? We are as much a part of it as these castle walls.”
She folded her arms and turned her attentions to Miranda, her eyes hardening into green marbles.
“And let me guess, you’re in love with my brother and will follow him wherever he goes.” For a second her hard glare faltered. As though she had just remembered that Miranda had lost a sister. But then she straightened her spine.
“Have you been informed of your sister’s—” Sylvia paused and swallowed thickly, her features softening into pity. Perhaps she did have a soul after all. “Have you been informed of Lauren’s passing?”
Miranda nodded. I could tell by the tiny white blotches on the edges of her mouth and on her dimpled chin that she was trying to keep it together. “I want to see the baby. I want to see—” Miranda stopped, her chin wobbling uncontrollably. “I want to see my niece.”
My chest constricted and I had to look away. Lily’s face trembled too, as though she was about to burst into tears. It was unlike her to cry so easily and yet I’d seen her do it so many times in the past few days. I slipped my hand around hers and squeezed her fingers. She did the same back. We all missed Lauren, but for Miranda, this had to feel like someone was cutting her heart out with a blunt knife.
Sylvia hesitated for a moment, but something inside of her, perhaps guilt, caused her to relent and step asi
de, unblocking the door in invitation. “She’s just gone down for a nap, so don’t wake her.” She put a hand to her lips and yawned. “I’ve had about two hours sleep in the past week. You can look only.”
Miranda floated through the door like she weighed nothing at all. We all followed. Marko kept a close distance right behind Miranda. I could tell by the look on his face that he was worried what she might do when she saw the baby. Seeing the baby might make Lauren’s death more of a reality to Miranda. She’d have to grieve her sister all over again every time she saw the infant.
Beside the crib, Miranda hesitated for just a moment, then sucked in a deep breath before she took that last step that brought her face to face with Lauren’s baby. For a long moment she stood there, frozen, staring at the baby’s sleeping form, and then her shoulders began to shake, softly, as she silently sobbed.
We came to stand on the other side of the crib, and I almost wished that I couldn’t see her round face streaked with tears, and the tenderness and love and wonder in her eyes as she stared down at her baby niece. It was painful to watch.
Marko stood by her side, his face as solid as ice, but I knew by the way his hands shook—his one giveaway I’d learned after years of being glued to his side—that it hurt him to see Miranda this way.
“She’s beautiful,” he said, his voice low and gravelly.
Miranda nodded through her tears. She reached out as though to stroke the baby’s soft golden hair, but then drew her hand back, perhaps remembering Sylvia’s warning about waking her.
“No, please, you can touch her,” Sylvia said, changing her tune entirely. “She won’t wake now that she’s been asleep for five minutes already. It’s at night that she sleeps restlessly. By day is when she sleeps the most soundly.”
A gentle smile stirred Miranda’s lips as she reached out and brushed her fingers, feather-light, over the baby’s hair. The baby stirred a little and made a tiny whimper, then moved her head to the side and opened her eyes, as though she knew her aunt had arrived. After a few seconds, she released a soft sigh, then drifted off into a contented sleep.
Miranda and Marko laughed softy.
“She’s amazing,” Miranda whispered, wiping her tear-stained cheeks with her palms. “I wish Lauren...” Her words died and she looked up at Sylvia. “Did Lauren at least get to hold her? Did she see how beautiful her baby is?”
Sylvia shook her head, her eyes on the baby’s contented face. “No. Unfortunately she died before she could meet her.”
“Where is my sister, now?” Miranda asked suddenly, her voice no longer a whisper, but strong and loud and with an edge to it. My eyes had lost focus so I could no longer see the expression on her face.
“What do you mean? She died giving birth, you know that.”
“No, I mean where is she buried? Do my grandparents even know?” she released a sigh. “Oh God, I need to visit my grandparents right now. And we need to hold a family service at Lauren’s grave.”
Sylvia bent towards the baby, perhaps fussing with its blankets.
“Unfortunately there was confusion between the guards, and your sister’s body, instead of being buried in the family plot...” She paused to suck in a deep breath. “Her body was unfortunately sent out to sea instead.”
Miranda made a sound. Like someone had squeezed the breath out of her.
“You mean dumped? You dumped my sister’s body out to sea like...” Miranda paused and tried to catch her breath. “Like she was nothing? Like she was a piece of rubbish?”
Something must have happened, because there was a scuffle of feet and Sylvia cried out.
“How dare-”
Marko must have been restraining Miranda.
“Let me go!” she shouted. “You killed her. I know you did. You killed her and stole her baby.” Miranda started to sob, and there was another scuffle, until the sobs died altogether.
“What happened to her?” Sylvia asked, her voice thin and hysterical.
I reached out and felt for Miranda and Marko. He was holding her in his arms.
‘Miranda collapsed,’ said Lily, moving my hand until it rested over Miranda’s wrist.
I checked her pulse.
“She fainted. This is too much for her, Marko, you need to let her rest it off, rest the journey off.”
We left a speechless and shaken Sylvia, and took Miranda to Marko’s room where Marko insisted that he’d take care of her.
“Get some sleep, yourselves,” he ordered, “you can sleep next door in your old room.”
“Yes, well, we can hardly sleep in Lily’s room,” I said, nudging Lily with my arm. “She has a bad habit of tying short, stumpy men to her bed.”
Lily groaned at my failed attempt at humour, then bent to kiss a sleeping Miranda, before dragging me out of the room.
While we showered and got ready for bed, we made jokes about what we were going to do to Redkin if he was still tied to Lily’s bed, but I was only laughing on the outside. Inside I was still replaying Miranda’s words, when she had accused Sylvia of killing Lauren.
If only I had been able to see Sylvia’s reaction to those words. I certainly heard it in her silence. That silence had spoken a thousand words.
She was hiding something. And I was going to make sure, for Lauren’s sake, for her memory, that I was going to find out just what happened the day she gave birth to the first baby born to Marin in twenty years.
The first woman to have brought a baby to Marin in two decades deserved that much at least.
19
Miranda
I woke to the sensation of fingers stroking my cheek. I was on my back, in Marko’s bed, satin sheets against my skin, stone ceiling above me. Marko was beside me, resting on his side. Though only his hand touched my face, the heat of his nearby body warmed me from head to toe.
“Welcome back,” he said.
I yawned and rolled onto my side to face him before closing my eyes again, enjoying his touch.
It was good to be back here in this room, just the two of us alone again. But the warm fuzzy feeling was short-lived as I recalled my attack on Sylvia and the look on her face when I’d accused her of murdering my sister.
“Your sister definitely did something to Lauren,” I said, snapping my eyes open. “She probably poisoned her at the end of her labours.” I tried to sit up as that same panicky feeling from last night returned, making my heart race.
“Hey... shhhh... lie back down.”
Marko gently pressed my shoulders so that I sank against the pillows propped behind my head. I took several deep breaths to calm myself down and when my chest rose and fell at a much slower pace, Marko breathed a sigh of relief.
“Good. You need to stay calm if we’re going to be able to think and act rationally. You frightened me last night when you fainted.” He took my hand in his. “And don’t worry. I have the same suspicions as you. Sylvia didn’t behave as though you’d accused her of something outrageous. She’d behaved as though she’d been caught.”
We lay in silence, mulling this over.
“I want my baby niece, here, in this room with us. I can’t stand to think that she’s sharing a room with a murderer—the woman who murdered her own mother, for crying out loud.”
Marko rolled onto his back and sighed. “I feel the same. The one consolation is that we know Sylvia would rather die than let anyone harm that baby, so in truth, your niece is safe for the moment.”
“I suppose, but I just don’t feel right about it. It’s like this panic seizes me every time I think of her helpless and at the hands of your sister.” I sucked in a deep breath and willed my erratic heartbeat to settle. “Like, I can’t relax until that baby is with me and Nana and Pop. That’s how it should be. We are the baby’s only true family. We’re blood.”
Marko turned to face me, raising himself on his elbow. “I want the baby in here with you as much as you do but we must act with caution. There’s no sense in getting us all locked up. If we proceed with care w
e’ll have the freedom to investigate the situation more carefully. If my sister did indeed murder Lauren, then I want her held accountable. And we need proof for that.”
“Okay.” He had a point. “So what do you think we should do?”
“Robbie and I will seek out Damir in the morning. It’s a little after midnight right now. Lily will stay here with you. I’m going to see Sylvia and order her to bring the baby here for the morning. I’m going to have all her things, including a spare crib moved into this room so that you have everything you need while you take care of her.
My galloping heart calmed immediately. I’d have Lauren’s baby in my arms by morning. I sank back against the pillows.
“I want to see Nana and Pop too, first thing. And what about the moon in the Colosseum? We’ll have to work out a way to get it from the bottom of the tank.” I wrinkled my nose. “Didn’t Robbie say that Damir is using the tank for his mermaids?” Visions of women with their legs crudely sewn together swam inside my mind. There was something both sick and fascinating about the idea.
Marko fell back against the pillows and threw his arms behind his head. He stared up at the ceiling, as though watching imaginary mermaids circling inside his mind.
“I’ll believe it when I see it. Hopefully it’s all talk. Damir has always been a good liar. But you’re right. I’ll have to arrange for the retrieval of the moon right away. The quicker we restore hope to Marin the better.” He drew me into his arms and I rested my cheek against his chest. “It’ll be a different city, like the one in Kraja’s pictures.”
Kraja’s drawings of the fertility dance around the moon materialised inside my head. Children of various ages were a part of that crowd. That was what had been so noticeably different between the Marin of Kraja’s reign to the Marin of present times—children.
“I’ll be so great around here with children running about. Imagine the castle filled with kids getting up to mischief,” I said, grinning. “And my niece will be one of them.”
Release (The Submerged Sun, #3) Page 14