“I’m not lying! There’s no suitor!” If only because he would drown if he attempted it, but he had kissed her, and her skin did still tingle from his alien touch. “They’re up there, Father. I saw—I saw clouds spitting fire, and the skymen trying to—”
Balta started to giggle, and a raw heat brewed in Calla’s face.
“It’s true!” she shouted, but dully, as she realised how ridiculous it all sounded. How could she possibly convince them of it—convince any of them of it—unless they saw it for themselves? “Come with me. I’ll show you. I’ll—”
“Don’t be ridiculous; swimming to the surface is forbidden—and impossible. You’d have died,” Meri said at Father’s side.
“I did it, though.”
“You can’t have done. You’re lying.”
The heat was getting worse. Calla balled her hands into fists.
“I did. Father,” she implored, turning her gaze to him. “I did. They’re real. You believe me, don’t you?”
He frowned. His arms remained across his chest, folded and firm.
“No, Calla, I don’t. I know they’re not real. Now tell the truth. Where have you been.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a command. And usually, the very idea of disobeying one of Father’s commands was unthinkable.
But the heat in her face made something shift. Coiled up on her head, the phantom weight of her hair gave her strength. The tingle of her entire arm, numb and wounded from the skyman’s touch, was a reminder. She hadn’t imagined it. She hadn’t made it up. It had been real, every moment of it, and she would have to prove it. Could she find the creature that had tried to eat the man? Was there someone else who—
Who knew.
Of course.
“I’ll prove it,” she whispered. And before Balta could grasp her arm—before Father or the guards could start forward—she turned tail and fled.
“Calla! After her! Calla!”
She swam with all her might, until her tail ached, until her hips burned, until her back cried for mercy. She swam until the seabed blurred below her, and fish darted around her with snarls and whistles of anger and aggression.
She swam until the water cooled, home fell away, and she crossed the patrolled border to the north.
Because north lay Ahtola. North lay ice and orcas, where the clan had once lived until the threat from the Witch had grown too great, and Father had moved the nest south.
Because the Witch—half truth and half legend—knew everything. She could tame orcas and talk to dolphins. She could turn fish into foam, and foam into fish, and the legends said she had once been married.
They also said that long before Calla had even been born, the Witch’s husband had gone above the sky. And never returned.
So the Witch of the Whalelands would know all about skymen.
Chapter Eight
HE DREAMED OF wide eyes and webbed hands, and—even as he became aware of the warmth of the coverlet over his chest, and the soft purrs that said one of the kitchen cats had managed to sneak her way into the room without anyone’s noticing—Janez fought to hold on to the dream. He fought to hold on to the feeling of soft fingers sliding away from his own, and the puzzled frown that had met his command.
“Geh nicht,” he murmured again to the dream, and then the strange man was gone, and in his place came the deep, mumbled voice of a sentry outside the door.
And, above it, a shrill cry of argument.
Janez shook himself from the dream and pushed himself up on his elbows. “Let them come!” he bellowed, and the voices fell silent. A moment later, the door was cracked open, and a blur of yellow and blue flew across the carpet.
“Uncle Janez, Uncle Janez!”
He caught his little niece up in his arms, crowing a war cry in her ear to make her laugh. The cat shot off the bed, affronted, and he laughed in childish delight at the warm awakening.
“I am quite decent, my lady, you may look,” he called to Ingrid’s governess. A proper young woman by the name of Ekaterina, she’d come from the east a year ago to begin schooling Ingrid in the art of being a lady and in her general education. She spoke six languages, played a handful of instruments with virtuosic grace, and—although not at all beautiful—had a way of carrying herself in supreme confidence that appealed. She was the kind of woman Janez would have rather liked to catch him in a state of complete undress, but alas, Ekaterina appeared to have little interest in men. She offered a smile, and a little joke about his decency and his appearance being separate things, but seated herself in a chair by the windows, and remained at a distance.
“Uncle!” Ingrid cried, offended by his distraction and far too young to understand it. “Papi said you fell from the ship! Why did you do that, Uncle?”
“Why, my foot became caught in a gun rope and I was dragged. I didn’t jump overboard on purpose, my little bee.”
He had long called her a bee, as her first entire sentence had been nothing royal, but rather a demand for one of the servants to kill a poor and unfortunate bumblebee that had found its way into her nursery.
And as always, she turned up her nose and called him her silly uncle.
“Well, silly uncles tickle,” he said and attacked her until she shrieked, kicked her way free, and jumped down from the bed to seek protection from Ekaterina.
“Silly uncle!” she shouted again from there, and Janez laughed as he turned back the coverlet and eased himself from the bed.
“Is that wise, Your Highness? Surely, the doctor would prefer you to remain in bed a while longer,” Ekaterina murmured.
“Since when have I obeyed Doktor?”
“You ought. He only mixes the viler venoms for you as punishment for your disobedience, you know.”
“Uncle is never disobedient!” Ingrid insisted with childish loyalty, and Janez laughed once more as he belted a heavy robe around himself to ward off the chill.
“Now, that is simply not true, little bee, and you know it. Come,” he added, crouching and holding out his arms. “We will breakfast together, you and I, and hide in the nursery from Papi and the mean old doctor, yes?”
“Is Papi being mean?”
“Papi laughed when the doctor sewed me up, so Papi is very mean,” Janez confirmed, and Ingrid leapt at him for the offered hug and lift with immediate faith. Ah, to be the favourite. As the baby was now the crown prince, no longer Janez, he would be sheltered from any and all undue influences that might overshadow the gravity and importance of his stature. But for Janez, now, and Ingrid always, there was a little time to be silly and accuse their king of meanness.
“How did you get out of the water, Uncle?” Ingrid asked as he carried her back to the nursery. Janez felt tired, and his legs in particular ached, but his steps were steady and his mood pleasant. He didn’t even begrudge the guard that followed them, knowing he likely had orders to ensure the wayward prince didn’t escape via another window.
“Somebody rescued me,” he replied.
“Papi?”
“No, Papi was here at home. One of the sailors. I don’t know his name. He had webbed fingers, though—do you think I ought to call him Frog?”
He was berated by a four-year-old for his stupidity and crassness, commanded to apologise to the stranger—however that was supposed to come about—and then, on entering the nursery, promptly abandoned in favour of breakfast, which was being laid out by the maids. There was no indication of either king or queen intending to join them, so Janez joked with Ekaterina as though friends, rather than royalty and servant, and encouraged Ingrid’s little games.
They were not disturbed until after their meal. When Doktor Hauser arrived, seeking his escaped patient, it was to find the prince teaching a future queen—albeit of some foreign land, one day far from now—a lively jig found more commonly on privateers than in palaces.
“I take it that your leg is feeling better, Your Highness?”
Ingrid shrieked and hid behind Ekaterina’s skirts, terrified of
the doctor, with his cold, reptilian gaze and endless supply of leeches.
“Oh, much,” Janez said, not nearly so perturbed. “It was hardly a scratch, Doktor.”
“It was a scratch that required five stitches, and you to hold your brother’s hand.”
“You held Papi’s hand?” Ingrid chirped and then shrank back again with a squeal when the doctor fixed a beady eye on her.
“I did indeed, little bee, and Papi was very mean to me about it, too,” Janez said, feigning a wounded look. “Doktor, where is the king? I would have expected him to be flitting about my rooms like a worried mother.”
“He has called the war council,” Hauser said and took Janez’s arm. “Come. I must have that dressing off and a look at the wound for pus. And bees are not well-suited to such sights.”
“I am!” Ingrid hollered after them in indignation and then gave chase to catch at Janez’s knees at the door. “Kiss!”
Janez stooped to offer a kiss on a sticky cheek and had his neck choked for his efforts. And then, to his surprise, he received his own mashed kiss in return.
“Give that to the mermaid that saved you,” Ingrid ordered, before rushing back to Ekaterina.
“Mermaid?” Doktor Hauser echoed in bemusement as Janez closed the door behind them. “How fanciful of her.”
Janez laughed—although a part of him, the child that had been fed the same fairy tales as Ingrid heard now, wondered if that didn’t explain webbed fingers and a soundless swimmer—and then pushed the fanciful notion aside.
“The men would never sail again if they thought mermaids were in these waters.”
“Superstitious nonsense.”
“Sailors are superstitious, Doktor. It is a wonder to me that they don’t still worship sea gods and make blood sacrifices to fish,” Janez commented as they paced to the sickroom in easy steps. The leg twinged, and little more. It’d been damned unfortunate luck to be struck, but a lifetime of good luck that the sailor had seen him go overboard. He’d have to ask the captain if he wouldn’t allow Janez sight of the Ente’s log. He’d have remembered those great eyes from the Vogel. And at the very least, a foreign lad at the ropes would likely have little income or patronage. He ought to be promoted for his courage or at least given a substantial sum. He likely had a sweetheart on some foreign shore, maybe a gaggle of hungry mouths to feed.
The doctor’s examination was cursory and painless. The wound was clean and crusted neatly, the torment minimal, and there was no trace of swelling or feverish heat. Although he insisted on listening to Janez’s lungs with that infernal cold device, it was over shortly, and once left, Janez dressed for company. In times of war, sickness and injury within the royal family were seen as weakness. And Janez would not be—would never be—the crack in his brother’s armour.
Once dressed—hair tied back, shirt sleeves shaken out, shoes buckled—he strode out powerfully, ignoring the twinge. What was a ducking in the sea, after all? Hadn’t they all played in the water as boys, with Ingrid’s stories of mermaids coming to drown them in the weeds? He greeted the guards warmly, and in the great hall, ran into one of the foreign ambassadors, who he hailed with a few clumsy words in the man’s own tongue.
“A pleasure to see you well, Your ‘Ighness,” came the warm reply. And as the ships and churches alike beyond the palace walls began to chime the hour and a great rumble in the war room beyond spoke of the end of the council, Janez strode for the doors and threw them open.
“Brother,” he said, leaning against the wood and beaming at Alarik’s grouchy expression. “I trust you have everything well in hand?”
“As well as can be, after surprise attacks and thirty-eight dead men.”
“Better than thirty-nine,” Janez quipped. The admiral smirked before slipping past him and away from any potential royal wrath, and Janez stepped further into the gloomy room. “And a captured frigate is no small benefit.”
Alarik looked very tired and far older than his years. He didn’t rise to the optimism, instead standing from the table and stretching.
“I have to find a solution,” he said, “and none offers itself. Our allies are wary of engaging an enemy on our behalf. I do not have enough to offer them.”
“No trade or treaty?”
“We’ve exhausted our trades and treaties. King Harald will have nothing short of a union of our kingdoms—and as he has no daughters, that would mean my daughter to his son, and his line carrying supremacy.”
“You have a son. He will inherit the throne, not Ingrid.”
“I have an infant son and a brother in a war,” Alarik said, and they knew the truth of it. Infants died often. Soldiers and sailors more often. Ingrid still had great potential to become the heir to her father’s crown, and if she should, any marriage to a prince of his own kingdom would render their lineage—their people, their lands—the subordinate. And what did they fight for, if not their freedom and independence?
“What of Sigurd and Olaf? Or the Prince Regent, Magnus?”
“Magnus’s father has fits of sanity. I will not risk an alliance there. One moment of sanity and he could undo everything. And Olaf has never been friend to us.”
“So Sigurd remains,” Janez said and licked his lips. Mother had spoken of it. Oh, she’d meant a southern match, to extend the kingdom south and away from the ice and cold, and the terrible sea that beat upon their shores. “He has daughters, does he not?”
It wasn’t really a question. Sigurd was an old king, nearing seventy, but had married a commoner from some southern kingdom and sired three girls by her, all of them with northern temperaments and southern beauty. They were considered only half-royal, typically poor matches, but Sigurd’s kingdom was also valuable.
And Janez had never been much for pedigree.
“Three. All grown. By the time the boy comes of age, they’ll be beyond alliance.”
“You have two children, brother, but three tools.”
Janez spoke carefully. And Alarik’s gaze came up, equally carefully.
“Sigurd’s succession is undecided,” Janez said. “If the boy were to have a male cousin as heir to Sigurd’s throne, then the alliance would outlast any war.”
“You mean to seal a blood alliance with Sigurd.”
“It would be the wisest option.”
“You’ve always avoided such…options.”
“We’ve never been in such need before.”
Alarik paused, thinning his lips.
“If I wed the eldest daughter, and she birthed my son, there’d be no fear of union, but a long-lasting alliance,” Janez pressed.
“And if you were to do so, you’d be a powdered prince in Sigurd’s kingdom, too valuable for war and too important for—” Alarik glanced at the closed door and lowered his voice “—your entertainments.”
Janez frowned. “My entertainments, brother?”
“You’d be the father of a king, Janez. A certain…decorum is required. One servant girl is all it would take, especially in a foreign land.”
One servant girl was all it had taken, Janez thought bitterly. He’d learned his place from Greta. Learned his destiny. This had always been…inevitable.
“I am perfectly capable of discretion, Alarik.”
“Are you?” came the doubtful reply, and Janez cracked a thin smile, brittle as his brother’s.
“Of course,” he said. “Can you name the last entertainment, or when it was taken?”
Alarik waved a hand. “Some maid at the Winter Palace, no doubt.”
“Doubt, dear brother,” Janez said before turning for the door. “Send a messenger to Sigurd. Perhaps some meeting at the Winter Palace to welcome the snows would be fitting? I’ve heard his daughters are quite fond of the mountains, and I of southern roses.”
Chapter Nine
NIGHT HAD FALLEN before Calla reached the Whalelands.
They were so named as though a nested territory, but no merfolk lived here. It wasn’t the bitter cold that had driven them
away, nor the orca packs that kept them shy. No, it was the Witch.
She was a real being, shrouded in legend. Father had said she was just a mermaid clever with trickery, and hungry for revenge after being abandoned by her husband. Mother had said she was not a mermaid, but an ancient water spirit, last of a race of powerful creatures who could manipulate their surroundings with a dark magic that had all but gone from the world.
And that, once, she’d been a wife.
And that, once, her husband had gone to walk upon the shore and never returned.
Calla didn’t know whether she really believed the story, but her flesh itched with the fading memory of the skyman’s touch, and she had to know. If there was even a chance the Witch could gift her with some way of touching him once more, of kissing his strange hands and wonderful skin, then Calla would take it. Even an hour in his arms would be worth it.
But when the seabed dropped and formed a deep hollow of darkness, through which white stone glowed, Calla found reason to pause.
And that reason was fear.
Had she not grown up hearing the stories of the Witch’s terrible power? She could summon storms and command orcas. She’d driven the whole nest before her, when Father would wage war against any clan who dared to challenge them, and would win without fail. But he hadn’t beaten back the Witch of the Whalelands from their territory.
Father had simply moved the territory itself.
So Calla hesitated at the lip of the great bowl, before slowly—oh so slowly—swimming forward. She held her breath as the vague white glow grew brighter, and as she came closer, the shadows peeled away in soft layers from the ruined palace.
And, oh, it had once been such a grand palace.
It jutted up from the floor of the bowl like a great spear, seven great columns of white in varying heights forming a circle. The tips were sharply pointed, and an old nest—walls, floor, and ceiling—occupied the space inside the circle from a third of the way up to the top of the shortest column. It was not unlike Father’s palace, but for the startling colour and the lack of cell-caves lining its base. Underneath it, a white courtyard glowed through the gloom, surrounded outside the pillars by gardens.
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