Marko, his eyes blazing with hurt and now rage, grabbed fistfuls of Robbie’s shirt and in a matter of seconds slammed him against the opposite wall. Robbie winced as Marko gripped his chin and pressed the side of his face against the stone.
“No. I won’t leave, Rob. Not until you tell me why you are behaving like this.”
“Get off me.” Robbie twisted beneath Marko’s hold and eventually managed to throw him off. “I’m bigger and stronger than you.” His chest rose and fell spectacularly. “I’m warning you. I will hurt you if you don’t leave.”
“Try it,” Marko muttered, before slamming Robbie against the wall again. “I’m the one who trained you how to fight, or have you forgotten that?”
Muscles and veins bulged as both boys fell to the ground and wrestled each other. Thank God they hadn’t drawn daggers.
“Stop it,” I shouted. But it was as though I wasn’t even in the room.
Lily stood there, tears in her eyes, as she glared hard at Sylvia who watched on with an emotionless, almost bored face.
“Do something,” I shouted at Sylvia. “You’re the one who’s started this. Make it stop.”
Robbie had Marko back on his feet and up against the wall. Just as he was about to slam his fist into Marko’s face, he stopped, saw what he was about to do and looked at Sylvia, his eyes wide in horror.
Sylvia shrugged and folded her arms across her chest, as though waiting to see what Robbie would do of his own accord.
“Robbie is free to do as he wishes,” she said, glaring at me. “I’m not forcing him to do anything. He wants to be with me.”
“That can’t be true, Robbie,” I said. “You love, Lily.”
“She’s forcing him, Miranda, that’s why he can’t say anything. He’s been blackmailed,” said Marko.
Robbie pushed Marko against the wall one last time before speaking in his face. “I don’t answer to anyone. I make my own decisions. And when I say to you all that I am now living with Sylvia and that I don’t love...” his voice faltered, “that I don’t want to be with Lily anymore then you should all respect my decision.”
Sylvia reached out to him, but he slapped her hand away. “Leave me alone. Isn’t this enough for you?” He stormed past us, stomping down the corridor.
I had to stand in front of Marko, who was snorting like an angry bull, chomping at the bit to follow.
Turning back around, I took Marko’s hot, red face in my hands. “Let him cool off, please. We both know he’s been forced into this,” I said, glaring at Sylvia.
Lily swore and ran down the corridor, in the opposite direction to Robbie.
“Good. We have some time alone,” said Sylvia as though nothing had happened. “We need to discuss tomorrow. I’ll be summoning all the guards and the people of Marin to the square at twelve noon.”
“What for?” snapped Marko, between breaths.
“I’m handing the crown over to you, Marko. I don’t wish to be queen and Damir certainly isn’t in the right frame of mind to be king and I don’t believe he has any desire to, unless he can be the king of his own mermaid harem.” She shivered with disgust.
Marko took several more deep breaths before speaking again. “But why want me back as king after all this time and after all that has happened?”
She sighed and put on a face that looked almost human. “Since having the baby—”
“You mean, since Lauren gave birth to her baby?” I spat.
Sylvia looked as though she had just swallowed scalding hot oil.
“Since the baby arrived, I have seen the world, our world, through new eyes. I don’t want her to grow up in a world filled with lies and treachery and deceit.” She reached up and cupped Marko’s face, but he jerked away. “You’ve always been so good and kind, Marko. You’ll make Marin a good place, a safe place for my daughter to grow.”
“You mean, for my niece.”
“Oh will you shut up, Miranda,” she said, before her eyes darted back to Marko.
Marko stepped closer to Sylvia. “So you want me to be king? Your king?
Sylvia took a careful step back and nodded.
“Then apologise to Miranda. Now.”
Sylvia sighed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, raising her head and sniffing at me. “Too many sleepless nights being a mummy, I suppose.”
I swallowed down my urge to slap her smug face off.
“Well then let me look after her for one night. Marko and I would love to have her, wouldn’t we?”
Marko’s face softened and he nodded.
“Yes. In fact, if I am to be king, then I want you to swear that you will allow us to take part in the bringing up of the baby. She will need true blood family in her life. Her great-grand-parents will need regular time with her too.”
Sylvia looked like she had swallowed even more of that burning hot oil. “I cannot have her sleep anywhere else but in my rooms. Perhaps we’ll start with day visits.”
She really was acting like the baby’s mother. I was partly glad she was so protective but hated it also because it should have been Lauren behaving like a lioness.
“So if Marko is king, then he has the right to lock Damir up to stop him from killing more women?” I asked.
Sylvia thought about it and nodded. “I’d rather he keep busy, but...” She shrugged, as though killing women was just a hobby—the same as Damir knitting jumpers. “But if you wish to put Damir away, then so be it.” She waved her hands in the air. How dispensable her twin brother was, now that she had gotten what she had wanted all along. Motherhood.
“See brother? I want to restore peace as much as you do. Just let Robbie and I be. He has chosen this. You should see him with the baby. He’s a natural father. It was his decision and his idea in fact.”
Marko swallowed thickly. “If I find out that it wasn’t his decision, which I’m one hundred percent sure of, then the person responsible will pay.”
Sylvia swallowed thickly.
“You will soon see that it was his decision. The poor boy has had a fascination with me since he was a child. He said it was seeing me as a mother that made him realise that we were meant to be, that two parents were better than one for the baby—”
“Save it,” Marko said, his nostrils flaring again.
He took my hand and we left Sylvia standing alone in the hallway. “You go check on Lily, I’ll go look for Robbie.”
“No fighting. Promise me, Marko.” I squeezed his hand between my own. “I hate watching you two go at each other.”
He pecked me on the forehead, his face grave.
“I’ll try. But I swear he needs some good sense knocked into him. He should know by now that Sylvia has never been one to keep her promises.”
I headed for Lily’s room, turning left, then right, in unfamiliar territory. I’d never been down this wing before and my shoulders prickled with apprehension as I waited for her to answer her door. Hopefully Redkin was long gone by now.
Somewhere further down the corridor, a door slammed, followed by the scuffle of feet and then nothing. More goose-bumps prickled my skin. I called out to Lily, but was greeted with silence.
I twisted the door knob and after a quick glance behind me, stepped into her bedroom. It was dimly lit by two twin light crystal lamps on either bedside table, but she wasn’t there. The bed was empty and completely stripped of its bedding. She must have done that after getting rid of the guard. I shuddered and checked the bathroom, where I imagined she would be crying her eyes out, but it was empty.
Perhaps she’d already left the castle and had gone to live back home with her parents as Robbie had suggested.
Clothes were strewn about, as though she’d been searching for something or perhaps packing for a hasty getaway. I quickly checked her wardrobe and saw that most of her clothes, which consisted of mainly black guard-gear and a few rows of dresses, were left hanging.
But even if she had packed something, I wondered how she would have done it so quic
kly, and without crossing my or Marko’s path. She would have avoided Sylvia’s room, and she would have equally avoided going anywhere near Robbie, which is why she’d most likely taken the corridor which passes the library and Frano Tollin’s room.
I took a right turn which eventually opened up to the wide corridor which led to both rooms.
Could Lily have gone to face Damir herself? Surely not.
My skin crawled as I stood there, between the library door and the door to Frano’s rooms, wondering if Damir was indeed inside his grandfather’s laboratory.
Putting my ear to the door, I tried to listen for signs of life, or for the sound of Lily’s voice.
But the door burst open and I jumped.
“Miranda?” said Damir, his face splattered with both fresh and crusted blood. “Today must be my lucky day.” He wrapped his bloodstained fingers firmly around my wrist, his green eyes wide and bulging as he looked me up and down. “Perfect. Despite the hair, you’re the closest woman to Lauren around here.”
I didn’t even have time to scream before he yanked me into the room and slammed the door shut behind me.
22
Robbie
The sound of Marko’s footsteps cut through the soothing hush of spraying water.
Great. I’d come to Kraja’s fountain for some time and space to think, but I could already see my best friend’s familiar black shape stepping through the fountain’s water spray from out the corner of my eye.
“I knew you’d be here.”
I sighed and kept my head down. “You know me too well.”
Marko shook his head dry, sending droplets of water raining across my forearm. He sat about a metre away from me and stared ahead, most likely at the fountain’s umbrella of water that surrounded us, watching for eavesdroppers.
“So has Kraja bestowed any advice yet?”
He was referring to the many times we’d come to sit beneath this fountain as boys, to make fanciful wishes or to seek some kind of mystical wisdom from the ancient leader of Marin.
I shook my head and toyed with the dagger in my hand. Though I couldn’t see it clearly, I could still toss it between hands or spin it without cutting myself.
“No. She can’t help me. I just came to be alone.” I hoped it was enough to give Marko the hint to get lost. Just being here with him was dangerous.
If one of Sylvia’s guards was to find out and inform her, it could mean potential harm to Lily or Miranda’s grandparents, or Miranda and Marko. The only way to keep everyone that I loved safe was to make them hate me and stay away.
For now at least—there was a limit to how long I could suffer Sylvia’s company.
“Look, Marko, why can’t you just be happy for me? I’m happy for you. I’ve never stood in the way of your decisions.”
Marko was silent for a long while.
“That’s not entirely true,” he finally said. “You almost stood in the way of me and Miranda getting together when she first came to Marin.”
He was trying to bait me. He knew I hadn’t committed treason back then, and that Sylvia had lied, but here he was, pretending that I’d wronged him. I nearly jumped to my feet I was so on edge, but instead I gripped the stone bench beneath me with my free hand and concentrated on flipping my dagger with the other. I forced a bitter laugh and did my best to appear relaxed.
“But that was because I cared for Miranda and only wanted what was best for her at the time, which was to send her home. And kidnapping her wasn’t your decision anyway, it was Sylvia’s. You were forced to go along with it. We both were.”
“So you agree that Sylvia is capable of forcing others to do things against their will?”
I sighed and shoved my dagger back in its hilt. This was tiring. Living with Sylvia was tiring. Lying to my friends was tiring.
“Can’t you just leave me alone, Marko? I don’t want any trouble. I just want the right to make my own decisions, whatever the reasons behind them. I’ve chosen to be with Sylvia and I want to help her raise the baby. This isn’t a decision I’ve taken lightly, okay? I just want to be left alone.”
When he didn’t get up and leave, I realised I’d have to tackle this the hard way. I’d have to hurt him until he hated me. I threw a glance at the black blur that was Marko. “You tried to kill me once, remember? Don’t betray me again like that.”
The black blur remained motionless. I was aiming an invisible dagger right at his heart. I knew how guilty he felt about throwing me into the Colosseum with the sharks, and it was cruel of me to use it against him because I knew that the only reason he’d sent me to the sharks was because Sylvia had filled his head with lies of treason. But if it got him away from me and out of danger...
When he continued to remain silent I kept talking, softening my approach a bit because now I felt like an arse for hurting my best friend.
“Don’t betray me a second time by going against me on this, Marko. If you are a brother to me, like you’ve always said you are, then let this be and leave me alone.”
Marko stood up and by the looks of it, raked his hands through his hair in frustration. He was clearly torn between getting the truth and wanting to be a true friend.
“So you’re asking me to believe that you now love Sylvia and not Lily? You’re expecting me to believe that? I’ve known you for too long to know that you’re lying.” He sighed. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t come to me with this. You call me your king and yet you agree to arrangements with my sister behind my back, without consulting me, without asking me to assist you, as your king or as your brother?”
I sighed. All this back and forth was pointless.
“I will come tomorrow and I’ll congratulate you on your coronation and I’ll be very happy that Marin and the people are back in your safe hands. I’ll help with the fertility moon, I’ll pretty much do as you ask, but I want only one thing in return and that is that you let this issue rest. I’ve made a decision and I need you to respect it.”
Marko took a step back. “I understand. I think.”
He half disappeared beneath the fountain spray, but hesitated, then stepped back in.
“Just know that no matter what, I’ll always think of you as my brother, Rob, no matter what I’ll respect your decision, but it doesn’t mean that I have to believe it.”
23
The girl with no name
I try to explain, over and over, that the girl in the picture, the dead girl in the newspaper, is wearing my bracelet. But they don’t understand.
Ivan didn’t end up taking me to his friend’s birthday that night. He’d chosen my health and welfare over his best friend.
The bracelet had jolted so many memories back into my mind. It was both a blessing and a curse. Because it made my brain hurt whenever I tried to get past the bracelet and remember more.
“Another walk?” Ivan asks in his heavily accented English that I’ve grown to love. Whenever he is home I make him read passages from novels in his native tongue. “I go soon, again. I don’t wish to leave you. Let’s walk and spend our precious time together.”
I take hold of his hand and smile into his blue eyes. “I don’t want you to go. Can’t you take a longer break?” He frowns and I explain further. “Longer holidays? More days?”
He nods and smiles, making his blue eyes sparkle. “My grandmother, she needs money so I must go. Otherwise we are poor.” He gently pokes my stomach and grins. “You eat plenty food. I need money to buy more. But I try to come early. Just for you.”
“Let’s go for that walk on the beach, then,” I say, smiling, happy to be spending any time with him at all. I don’t want him to go. I am starting to enjoy the old lady’s company even though she can be so depressing sometimes. Every time she looks at my belly, tears pool in her eyes.
Once I found her in the bedroom, looking at an old black and white photo of a young woman, whispering the name “Nada” over and over again, but when she saw me she tucked it beneath her pillow and wi
ped her face before announcing she was going to make Palacinka, my favourite thin pancakes that she spreads with fig jam and rolls into long cigars. Another time I saw her turning a round, glittering green stone, maybe an emerald, over and over in her hand. She was crying then as well.
So I smile most of the time and try to keep her as happy as I can. I’m forever trying to appease her so that her sadness doesn’t return. But I can’t fake being happy and content all the time, not when I don’t know who I am.
However I do take some comfort in the things I do know.
I am young, maybe only nineteen or twenty, judging by the appearances and ages of the local girls.
I am beautiful. The mirrors tell me so. Men and boys are always taking a second look when I walk along the pebbled shores of the bay.
I speak English. Ivan says I am Australian because of my accent, but I’m not so sure. I keep seeing a dark place that sparkles like diamonds, which is strange. This place has crystals that are studded into walls, like tiny lights.
Australia, Ivan tells me, is sunny and bright and wide. But the place I remember most is not. Perhaps I am from the underwater city that keeps flooding my dreams. But even I know, in my mixed up state, that an underwater city is crazy and impossible.
Ivan says that I mumble in my sleep about “Marinda” which he says is an orange-flavoured soft drink, but I’ve explained to him that I’ve never liked orange-flavoured drink. He even brought me a can of it home one evening and encouraged me to drink it, but it made me gag.
But something about the name, Marinda, though it doesn’t sound quite right, has done something to me. It’s brought on a memory, a memory that involves the same young girl who keeps frequenting my mind, the pretty girl with long brown hair.
In the memory someone has died. That girl and I are dressed in black and we are both crying. But we aren’t hugging. Though we stand side by side next to the grave, staring down at the dark earth, we don’t speak to each other.
Two coffins are lowered to the ground, into the same hole in the earth.
Release (The Submerged Sun, #3) Page 17