Release (The Submerged Sun, #3)

by Garden,Vanessa

  There was only one thing I was sure of. If I had to kill him, then I would do it without a second thought.

  I opened the thigh split of my floor-length emerald dress and checked that the dagger I’d tied there—the one Marko had given me when we’d first arrived—was secure before I exited the room.

  A cool draft snaked up my dress and I shivered.

  Thankfully, because of the coronation, the hallways were mostly empty. Though I passed two guards, they did nothing more than offer smiles of approval at my dress, which fitted my every curve like I’d been dipped in liquid green satin. They didn’t even recognise me.

  As I turned down the corridor leading to Damir, I had to take a moment to lean against the wall to psych myself up. Adrenaline whooshed through my veins and my pulse thudded loudly in my ears. I was going to kill a man. Or, I at least planned to. A man who was skilled with a knife, a man who had killed his own father, a man who cut women with a knife on a daily basis...

  A man who loved your sister.

  That last thought sent fiery courage charging through my veins. If Damir was capable of love then he wasn’t unstoppable. He had soft spots to penetrate.

  Breathing in deep through my nose, I pushed myself away from the wall and walked the length of the corridor and straight to Frano Tollin’s laboratory door.

  I didn’t need to knock, because Damir swung to door open just as I was about to.

  “Heard your foot—” he stopped and stared at my hair. “You’ve coloured it.” He reached out and touched a lock of it. “It’s the perfect shade.”

  Okay, so the hair trick had worked. I thought that perhaps if he saw me blonde that it would throw his plans out of whack, and take his attentions away from Lily.

  “You have different eyes and different bodies.” His gazed skimmed the length of my body.

  A cold chill slid down my spine. I was about to wrap my arms around my body, to protect it from his hungry stare when he slipped a dagger out of his boot and sliced the dress down the front at the tops of my thighs.

  “But my sister’s dress will have to go,” he said. “It ruins the effect.”

  I screamed.

  Damir shut the door behind me and locked it before ripping the bottom half of my dress off, enough to reveal the dagger I’d so carefully concealed.

  Deep, gravelly laughter rumbled from the base of his throat.

  “Knew it,” he said, before his eyes darkened and seemed to fill with rage. “This will have to go too,” he said, tearing the ribbon and the dagger from my body.

  He snatched the pain relief medicine from my hands—I’d purchased it along with the hair dye last night in the city—and shook the jar against his palm.

  “I don’t think I’ll let you have any of this while I cut you.” Damir threw the jar against the wall, where it smashed to pieces, sending tiny pills pinging all over the room.

  My entire body trembled. I glanced at Lily and was relieved to find her in one piece, her legs untouched, her eyes intact. But she was still out cold and that worried me.

  Damir followed my stare. “She’s fine,” he said. “Yes, Miranda, I kept my end of the bargain, but you didn’t keep yours. You came with a knife. You were going to kill me.”

  He took a step towards me and I took several steps back, my back colliding with a tray full of metal instruments that fell to the floor with a crash. Over Damir’s shoulder, I thought I saw Lily’s body flinch. But I looked away quickly, so he wouldn’t notice.

  “You know what comes now, Miranda?” he asked, his eyes boring into mine.

  I shook my head.

  “Two of my mermaids, the first two, are pregnant. Yes.” He laughed at my stunned reaction. “Unbelievable isn’t it? I had made love to them a month before Lauren was due to give birth, because I didn’t want to harm her or the baby at the end of her pregnancy.” He made it sound as though he had been the perfect gentleman to Lauren. My stomach churned.

  “I used to meet these women at the Colosseum and we’d go swimming in the tank.”

  Suddenly I was all ears. So the moon in the Colosseum was the fertility moon. This was proof enough. But now Damir had discovered it before us.

  “Then I convinced them to offer their bodies to me in the name of science and I sewed them up and dropped them into the tank and ta-da! So now I know how to make babies and mermaids.”

  He clamped both hands around my waist and pulled me hard against him. The salty stench of blood and sweat and death hit my nostrils.

  “So do you think the water is magical somehow? That the tank is the answer to Marin’s fertility problems?” I asked, trying my best to distract him while I eyed the instruments I’d knocked to the floor. All I had to do was think of an excuse to bend down.

  Lily’s head jerked from side to side, making me jump.

  “What is it, love? Do I scare you?” He sighed and lowered his voice. “No need to be scared of me, Miranda. I loved your sister. I won’t ever hurt you, as long as you do as I say.”

  I nodded, wishing he would look away for a second so that I could mouth to Lily “don’t move.” But he kept his emerald eyes locked with mine.

  “You can either fight me, or you can go along with it. It’ll be easier for you if you don’t fight.”

  I nodded.

  Out the corner of my eye I spied Lily rolling off the bed.

  No. Not yet, Lily. I’m not ready.

  She crawled across the floor and paused to grasp a long, narrow instrument in her hand before she edged closer to Damir.

  A loud clatter rang out and Damir spun around just in time to see Lily crouched on the floor, holding her head in her hands, her makeshift weapon on the floor. She was obviously still suffering from the knock to the head he’d given her. She’d moved too soon.

  “She woke up and fell off the bed,” I said quickly, but Damir had already shoved me away and was descending on Lily.

  He picked her up as though she was made of nothing and dangled her by her neck. She struggled and kicked and scratched at him but he held his dagger dangerously close to her beautiful, crystal blue eyes. He stared back at me.

  “Enough with the lies. Now either you fully commit to this Miranda, or she loses an eye, got it?”

  “Yes!” I said, moving to Lily’s side, my hands hovering over her face, trying to protect her from his dagger. “I’m committed. Don’t hurt her.”

  Lily shook her head at me, her eyes wide and bulging. “He’ll kill me anyway,” she said, her voice strangled. “Just run, Miranda.”

  I gripped Damir’s arm. Hard.

  “I’m committed, Damir. I really am. Let her go.”

  He stared down at me, with a coldness that made me shiver.

  “One more trick and she’ll lose an eye, and... I won’t be gentle with you. Got that?” He looked at Lily and said, “You too. You reach for my knife, you get it in the eye and Miranda here gets it even worse.” Lily nodded vigorously, her face red and coated with sweat.

  “Good. Now slide down to your knees and put your arms behind your back.”

  Lily did as she was asked, gasping for air when he released her neck.

  Damir put his hand on top of my head and forced me down until my knees connected with cold stone.

  I shifted slightly, feeling the sting of something sharp. I couldn’t believe my luck. I was kneeling on an instrument of some sort, a sharp one by the feel of it, and Damir hadn’t noticed.

  He had a roll of tape in his hand and while he unrolled a strip, I grabbed hold of the thing beneath my knee and drove it into his thigh.

  Damir cried out.

  I stared down at the place where I’d stabbed him. A circle of damp blood grew around the handle of the deeply buried scalpel.

  Lily got up and raised her leg, sending a boot into Damir’s stomach, knocking him clean onto his back.

  “Run!” she screamed, taking my hand in hers.

  We scrambled out of the room.

  Around half a minute later I could
hear him behind us, panting and running, as we ran as fast as we could down the corridor.

  Lily slowed and became breathless just as we neared the front entrance of the castle and had to lean on me for support.

  We only had twenty metres or so before we reached the doorway to the very top of the castle steps, where the entire city would be gathered for the coronation, but Lily’s body was only getting heavier in my arms.

  “You won’t make it,” Damir shouted. “I’m going to get you both and kill you before you reach those doors.”

  So much for his promise never to hurt me.

  I pushed forward, forcing my legs to pump harder, to get us to safety, but Lily’s almost limp body weighed a tonne.

  Damir was getting closer, so close I could hear his every breath.

  Lily slipped from my sweaty grasp and slumped to the floor.

  “Just go,” she whispered. “Leave me.”

  “No.”

  There was no way I was going to be able to lift her, so instead I hooked my hands beneath her armpits and pulled, dragging her body, inch by inch, towards the castle entrance.

  He wasn’t going to have her. I just couldn’t let that happen.

  Light speared through the bottom of the double doors. There’d be guards right there on the other side. All I had to do was alert them and they’d open the doors. Then everyone, Marko and Robbie, the entire city, would come running.

  Several more steps and I collapsed at the base of the doors.

  Just as I screamed, Damir’s sweaty, bloody hand clamped over my mouth.

  27

  Robbie

  The gathering crowd stretched out like an endless, churning sea from the base of the castle steps.

  Marko paced back and forth beside me, rocking a crying, baby Angelina in his arms. The fact that Miranda was missing had brought me to my friend’s side again, despite Sylvia’s warnings.

  Miranda was now twenty minutes late. Something was seriously wrong and Marko needed me more than Sylvia did. To hell with her threats.

  “Let me go check on her, Marko. You need to be here. You’re about to be crowned.” I scanned the sea of heads once more, not that I could see anything.

  “Lily’s missing too.” This I knew because Sylvia had informed me, while I was getting dressed, that I didn’t have to worry about running into Lily because she’d declined an invitation to the coronation.

  But I knew Lily. Lily would put baby Angelina, and Marko and Miranda’s safety before a broken heart. She was selfless like that.

  Marko shook his head. “No. I’m going to see for myself. Something doesn’t feel right.” He stared down at the baby and back at me. “You alright to take her?”

  I shook my head. My eyes had been especially useless today. I hated that my bad sight prevented me from being able to protect baby Angelina. “I can’t trust my stupid eyes,” I said bitterly. “Not around these steps.”

  “I’ll take her,” said Sylvia, scooping Angelina into her arms.

  “Perhaps Miranda’s gone to get Lily,” said Nana, who had been standing nearby.

  “Hope so,” Pop said.

  Marko lightly clapped a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll find them both.” He turned to Sylvia. “Hold the Coronation until then. We won’t start without them.”

  Just then a scream tore down the castle steps from behind us.

  “What is it, Marko?” I said, grabbing a hold of his arm. I couldn’t see a thing.

  “It’s Miranda... and Lily!” He shook me off and raced up the steps.

  “Wait!” Sylvia shouted. “Marko is to be the new king even if coronation hasn’t yet begun.” She grabbed my arm. “You’re still agreeing to being with me, aren’t you, Rob? You still agree to parent Angelina with me don’t you?”

  “Is that all you care about?” I pushed her away and darted up the steps, tripping and stumbling as I went until I lost my footing altogether and fell on my face.

  People, heavily booted guards, stepped over me in a rush to get to Miranda and Lily, and all I could do was crouch there, clutching at my head, at the place my forehead had hit the sharp edge of the step.

  Curling my hands into fists, I swung them up at my eyes.

  Work, damn you.

  Pain shot through me, and I cried out, but when I opened my eyes the blurriness sharpened some and I could just make out the scene around me. Self-flagellation had strangely worked.

  At the very top of the steps, Marko wrestled with Damir while a guard tended to Miranda and to Lily, who, judging from all the blood, was bleeding from the side of her head.

  “You did this!” I shouted at Sylvia, before racing up the steps and pushing my way through the throng of guards and hysterical people.

  Once at Lily’s side, I cradled her head in my arms and kissed her cheek until her eyes fluttered open.

  “I’m so sorry, Lily. I’m so sorry. I love you, you have to know that.”

  She smiled softly then winced, her fingers tentatively exploring the source of her pain.

  “I’m okay, Robbie, I know you love me. I’m not badly hurt, just weak and tired. Just get Damir before he gets Miranda.”

  Someone clapped a hand on my shoulder and when I looked up I saw a head of fiery red hair.

  “Robbie, can I help?”

  “Jonathan. Yes. Take Lily to my room, my old room beside Marko’s, where Miranda’s grandparents are staying. Send someone you can trust to fetch water, antiseptic and pain relief and guard her until I come. I’ll be there soon.”

  Jonathan nodded and eased Lily out of my arms.

  As soon as Jonathan and Lily were out of sight and safely behind the castle doors, I found Damir and Marko. Though many were trying, nobody could seem to pry them apart, but I threw myself between them and raised my fist.

  “Get out of the way, Rob,” Marko shouted, but I ignored him as my knuckles pounded into Damir’s face again and again, until several guards hauled me off him and held me back.

  Damir’s face was now a mass of blood. I’d managed to split his cheek open.

  A baby cried out and I realised that Sylvia was standing beside me.

  “Why haven’t you taken her out of harm’s way? You should have taken her inside by now,” I shouted.

  “We’ll take her,” said a croaky old voice and I turned to see Miranda’s grandparents standing beside me.

  Sylvia clutched the baby tighter to her chest.

  “Give them the baby. They are her great-grandparents there is no place safer for that child right now than in their arms. We have business here to deal with.”

  Sylvia started to complain but I gave her a glare that made her sigh in defeat. “Okay.” She summoned a guard. “Take them to my room and guard my doors with your lives.”

  I took the baby out of Sylvia’s arms, kissed her little warm head and handed her to Nana, who grinned, her face crinkling up with joy.

  “Come on, little one,” said Pop.

  The guards and the gathered crowd made a narrow pathway leading up to the castle to allow them through. It was a relief to know that Angelina was in safe hands, and that I could now deal with the evil twins.

  “What happened?” I asked Miranda, who was very ... blonde.

  “Damir had Lily... and he threatened to cut her eyes out if I didn’t bring any hair dye to match Lily’s to Lauren’s. He wanted to recreate my sister.” She caught her breath and looked up at Marko. “So I dyed my hair, and took one of your daggers. I planned to kill him but then he cut my dress open and saw the knife and then...” she shook her head. “Then Lily woke up and together we fought our way out of there. I stabbed him in the thigh.”

  She grabbed ahold of Marko’s collar and stared into his eyes as though she had just remembered something. “Damir said that Sylvia had arranged to give him Lily. She was trying to distract him away from his mermaids.”

  “She’s telling the truth,” said Damir, who finally relaxed in the hold of the guards who had him. “I’ve been making mermaids.” H
e stared out at the crowd and raised his voice. “And they are pregnant, two of them. Two new babies for Marin.”

  The crowd gasped and started speaking in loud murmurs.

  “Quiet,” Sylvia shouted, but the crowd refused to quieten.

  “How?” said Marko, disgust on his face but curiosity in his eyes. “How did you manage to... impregnate them?”

  Damir straightened his back and addressed the crowd. “I will show you how. If you follow me to the Colosseum I will show you just what is making them pregnant. Who’s with me?”

  The guards holding Damir turned to Marko, who turned to Miranda.

  “I’m okay,” she said, “I’ll come with you. You can tell everyone that it’s the moon making those mermaid-women pregnant and that if we restore the moon to Kraja’s statue that every woman in Marin can fall pregnant, not just the ones in the tank. You’ll be giving them what they want.”

  Marko nodded at the guards. “Keep hold of him. Let’s see these so called pregnant mermaids. Let’s show the people of Marin what Damir has done to their daughters.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said. “I have to tend to Lily first.”

  Marko faced me and gripped my shoulders.

  “Stay with her. I have a feeling all is going to be well very soon. Once people see Sylvia and Damir for who they really are there will be no chance the city of Marin will listen to either of them ever again.”

  28

  Miranda

  After pulling on the jeans and jumper Marko had ordered a guard to bring me, I felt much better, and less naked than I’d felt in the torn dress. My skin still crawled after what had happened with Damir in Frano Tollin’s laboratory, and I wanted to scrub myself until I couldn’t smell his disgusting stench anymore.

  But I shared Marko’s hope that everything was going to somehow turn out for the better after today. If we just managed to get through the next twenty-four hours, then everything would be okay—as okay as it could be without Lauren.

  But nothing prepared me for what I was going to see as I, along with the entire city, pressed my face against the glass of the Colosseum tank.