“I love another.”
She blinked, and then the cheer dipped into something a touch more tender.
“I love another, but duty says I have to marry a stranger.”
“Then,” Rosa murmured, reaching up to caress him through his breeches. “Perhaps duty is wrong this time, yes? Karl does duty at sea all day and all night—I smell the salt on him. Perhaps on land, Karl has no duty but to himself, yes?”
Oh, how he wished it.
“Yes,” he lied anyway and stooped to kiss her one last time.
HE ALMOST MADE it back to Doktor’s rooms.
Almost.
He was on the top step when the great doors closed, and his name was called by a voice he fervently did not wish to hear. But he’d made the mistake of pausing, and so was lost.
Alarik would know he’d heard.
“Your Majesty?” he called, not turning.
“Janez, please.”
“It is late,” Janez insisted, still refusing to move. “I must retire.”
“We must speak first.”
Janez clenched his fingers on the banister and finally turned. Alarik hadn’t risen to meet him. Brothers stared at one another across the entirety of the staircase, suddenly strangers.
“Why the change of heart, brother?”
“What difference would my answer make?” Janez asked.
“I wish to understand—”
“And I gave an explanation that you could. A true one. If you didn’t understand in that meeting, then repeating myself now won’t help.”
“Janez, please, don’t be angry with—”
“With the king who orders me to needless misery, or the brother who would see me unloved!”
“That is not true!” Alarik exploded.
“Then tell me where I am wrong!” Janez spat and turned his back anew. The guards shifted uneasily as he burst through the doors, ignoring the command from Alarik to return. They’d come to blows, Janez knew.
Perhaps Alarik knew, too, for he didn’t pursue.
Just as Janez thought he could breathe again, not a corridor away, a lantern flared in the gloom, and a soft voice called to him from the darkness. No guard. They stood stern and still, as they did at all hours, but the voice was a woman’s. Sofia’s. And Janez knew entirely what to expect.
Yet he stopped all the same.
“Where have you been?” Sofia asked, gliding from one of the many drawing rooms to join him in the corridor. The moonlight streaming through the window illuminated her hair, which hung in loose curls about her face. “And where are you going now, so late?”
“To bed,” he replied shortly.
“Your rooms are not this way.”
“My rooms are unforgivably close to the king’s.”
She flinched at the title, and her hand clasped lightly at his sleeve.
“Janez—”
“If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness, it’s been a long day.”
Her grip tightened.
“No. Janez, please, come to your family.”
His jaw clenched. “My family are at the Winter Palace.”
She let go then, sharp, and with a small gasp.
“We are your family!”
“The king has made it abundantly clear that you are not.”
“He was very upset. He spoke out of turn—”
“He said I have no right to love, Sophie!”
The pet name burst out without thought, and he cursed himself for the slip. Her expression was torn in two, both worried and infuriated, and he turned from her.
“Give Ingrid my morning kiss tomorrow.”
“You will deliver it yourself,” she said and seized his elbow. “Do not turn from me, Janez!”
He shook her off. The guard at the next set of doors frowned.
“My king follows the thoughts of our father. I am not permitted love. I fall in love, and the object of my affections must be immediately removed from me. Tell me, Your Highness, how is that family?”
Her jaw hung loose, and he pressed viciously on.
“I am not so pathetic as to seek home from those who’d wish to see me miserable for all my days. I will do my damned duty, Your Highness, and you can assure him of it, but as long as I am but a tool for the king’s—any king’s—use, then this is not my home and the people within its walls are not my family,” he spat.
“You are not a tool, Janez, you are—”
“A piece to be bartered,” he returned. “I didn’t learn my lesson from Father. Perhaps I never thought His Majesty to be so cruel as his predecessor, but clearly I was wrong. So I’ll go to the Winter Palace, I’ll go to my family and the poor days I can eke with Mother alone, to remind myself that I haven’t been entirely loveless, and then I’ll do my damned duty and marry. And the moment the unlucky bride is with child, my duty is done. And then the sea can have me, as she should have done at that battle.”
“Janez! Do not encourage death, do not—”
“I encourage nothing,” Janez returned and threw off her grasping hand. “I only ask for release. And if my only freedom is in the face of enemy cannon fire, then so be it.”
He stormed through the doors, slamming them in the queen’s wide-eyed face, and leaned against them for a long moment, simply to breathe.
Tomorrow was Sunday. Church. None would acquiesce to begin travel upon a Sunday.
But the day after—
He would go.
Chapter Twenty-Three
THE NEST ROSE out of the darkness like a beacon, welcoming Held home.
A familiar sight, as were the soft sounds of the clan settling to sleep. They ought to have warmed him, ought to have filled him with contentment, with safety, with the sensation of all being right with the world.
They did not.
They hadn’t seen the things he’d done. They’d never seen clouds and the skymen swarming over them. They’d never touched that violently hot skin, or touched that fine, warm hair. They knew nothing.
And they knew nothing because of Father.
It couldn’t be true—yet Held had to ask why not.
How had none thought to try to touch the sky before, when it was so possible? How, if the skymen could command the clouds so, had none fallen before? How had Father been so stern and certain, and told him to stop asking questions so soon?
But then—
It couldn’t be possible. People would not just forget. Not if—not if—
Mother.
Oh, but it was, wasn’t it? Who would tell the tiny merling children of a widowed and grieving king why their mother had died?
Held didn’t remember losing Mother. He remembered her song, a soft and gentle thing that had murmured to them in the night and caressed them to sleep with its soothing tones. He remembered the way she’d beaded her hair in tiny shells and stones, and the brilliant colour of it, just like Meri’s.
And then he’d been a merm—older, and Mother was gone. He didn’t quite remember when she’d died, simply that…she had. He’d been too small, barely three hands long. He’d always assumed she’d gotten sick and died, just as so many had done in a crowded nest like theirs.
The Witch could be lying.
She could be. She hated Father for banishing her husband, but her husband had brewed potions to walk upon the shore. He’d obviously been a powerful sorcerer. What if he had killed Mother? What if—
But why would the Witch hate Father so, and then help Held?
“Calla!”
The shriek went up, jarring Held from his thoughts. For a wild moment, the name seemed to belong to someone else as well, and then a guard had him by the arm, and he was being swept upwards. A crowd. Chattering and repeating his—her—name, over and over again, and it sounded alien. Foreign. So unlike the rasping deepness of a dry voice; so unlike the harsh stop-start rumble of the skymen’s tongue.
And then Meri screamed and was wrapped around Held’s chest in a tight embrace.
“Where did you go?” she
demanded, her voice shrill and loud and painful in Held’s ear. “Where have you been. We were so worried!”
Held pushed her off with numb hands, already looking about. Half the nest were gathering. They had paused at the mouth of the palace courtyard.
“I need—I need to speak to Father. Privately. It’s urgent.”
Meri’s face twisted into a puzzled frown. “Privately? Why? Where did you go?”
“It’s a boy, isn’t it?” Balta chirped, eyes wide. “You found a boy! Is it the same boy as before?”
“I—well—yes, but—”
Balta squealed. Meri, by contrast, paled to a sickly mottled green.
“You ran away for a merman? We thought orcas might have seized you! Why would you run away, is he—” She lowered her voice, though the point when they were so surrounded was lost on Held. “—from some other clan?”
“I—well—sort of—”
“Calla!”
The name skittered on his ears. It jarred, like Doktor in a temper. He flinched, almost without noticing.
“Father won’t be pleased. He’ll—”
“Calla.”
The deep boom and rumble of Father’s voice sank into Held’s very bones and shook them, but it was that rare sound from Father: pleased. The guards scattered before him, and then his arms were about Held like he was a mere merling again, and Father hadn’t yet transcended into this cold, angry king.
Like when Mother was still alive.
Held stiffened in the grasp. Did he know? Had he always known about the world above the sky?
“Leave us!”
The nest retreated, with many a backward glance. Father towed Held into the great courtyard by the wrist, before whirling on him in the relative privacy of his sisters and the royal guard alone, and asking—rather than demanding, for once—where he had gone.
“There was a boy!” Balta volunteered, and Held threw her a venomous look.
“Some merman? Is that what’s happened to your hair? Well—who was it?”
“I—I can’t say…”
Father frowned. “Calla. You are a young mermaid approaching her prime. I have been…expecting this sort of thing to happen. Now, tell me who he was, and we can deal with the matter sensibly. You cannot go wandering off to—”
“It wasn’t a merman.”
There was a pregnant pause. Held could see Father’s mind working, and he cringed back. How to say it? How to—
“A…mermaid, then?”
Balta squeaked. Meri’s face pinched tight.
“No, Father.”
A breath of relaxation. Then Held opened his mouth, and—
You will be homeless, the Witch whispered in his memory.
—said it.
“A skyman.”
Meri closed her eyes.
“A—what?” Father said dumbly.
“There—there was a—I met a skyman. And he’s everything, Father. He’s so—”
“A what?”
Held swallowed. The quiet tone was rising. Brewing. A storm was coming, but—how could he not say it? How could he condemn himself, through lies or silence, to never knowing the truth?
To never seeing Janez again?
The very thought sent a shard of sharp pain through his grotesque and misshapen chest, unstopping the words.
“I went to the sky,” Held said carefully, “and I—”
“This again.” Father’s voice dropped.
“It’s true.”
“It is ridiculous. You can tell me where you’ve been, or you can keep silent, but I will not tolerate lying.”
Held ground his jaw.
“I’m not lying.”
“There’s no such thing as—”
“I walked amongst them, Father!”
It burst from Held’s mouth, and Father reeled back. His chest puffed out, so like Doktor in his tempers, and Held wanted to cry all over again. If Father would only listen, only see, then he would understand how very alike they were, how very much he resembled Janez’s men. With cleaved fingers and legs, yes, but skymen were simply—simply dry mermen, weren’t they?
And Held had been one of them. A skyman. A man.
“They’re beautiful and clever and brave—they fight these great clouds that spit fire—they have a language—listen, listen, I learned—”
A hand thumped into a column, and the water shuddered.
“Enough!”
Held fell mutinously silent. Balta, wide-eyed at Father’s side, looked afraid. Meri wore an expression of tired disappointment, and Held bit his tongue furiously. What did pious Meri know? Held had sought out the truth. Held had seen the Witch. Held had walked, even danced, learned a smattering of words of the skymen’s tongue, had a whole new name and body for three wonderful, joyous days…
“No more lies.”
“They’re not lies!” he burst out.
“They are lies, Calla!” Father bellowed. “There is nothing up there. We. Are. Alone.”
“Then where did the cloud come from? Who made it sink?” And the bitter look of sorrow on a terribly beautiful face flashed bright in his memory. A half story. “What killed Mother? Where did the Witch’s husband go?”
Father’s eyes bulged. His mouth gaped soundlessly. The silence that shivered around the throne room was tenuous and trembling.
Too far.
Oh, he’d gone too far.
The entire courtyard held its breath. The royal guard stared openly, their deference abandoned. Balta had fled to a high, safe perch, and peered down with terrified eyes. Meri was white as the men above, her coral-bright hair—Mother’s hair, just like Mother’s hair—a violent hue in contrast.
Silence.
“A cloud killed Mother, didn’t it?” Held whispered.
The question shivered through the water and disappeared. The guards, as one, cringed. Father’s eyes widened.
“A cloud killed Mother.”
Oh, but it was true. It was so very true.
And Father had—had—
“And you…you moved us away. And you banished the Witch’s husband for—for helping skymen. And—”
“Silence.”
Father’s voice was barely a breath.
“You have been to the Witch.”
“Y-yes.”
“You have been to Ahtola. To the Whalelands.”
“Y-yes, Father. But—”
“Travel north of our borders is treason.” His words were ice-cold, and fear curled in Held’s stomach, sickly and thick. “Fraternisation with the Witch is treason. She is a dangerous beast, and you have—what? What have you done, Calla?”
What had he done?
He had—
Found the truth. Found another world. Found love.
Found Held.
Found himself.
“Everything,” Held breathed.
“What have you done?”
Father bellowed the final word. The very seaweed in the gardens rumbled. The entire ocean seemed to be watching. Waiting.
“She helped me.”
“She helps none.”
“She helped me. I—I fell in love with a skyman, and she gave me a potion to become one, so I could—”
Father’s face twisted in horror. “You love one of those disgusting creatures?”
Held seized on it. “Then you admit they’re real!”
“They are murderous vermin!” Father exploded. His hand swept out; the clenched fist struck the column again, and great chips of stone were torn free in a mess of blood. Another blow cracked the great support, and then he bore down upon Held, thirty hands of terrible rage. “They have speared and slaughtered thousands of our kind! They turn the sea red and feast upon the bones of whales! They killed your mother!”
They had killed her. Oh, seas, the Witch had spoken true. They had killed Mother.
But—
But that was not right. If the cloud had come down and crushed her, as the Witch had said, then the skymen hadn’t done that. They
’d—they’d killed it, felled it, but—they didn’t follow their quarry.
They just threw it down.
It had been an accident, then.
All this, for an accident?
“I would see you drowned before I’d let my daughter pledge allegiance to any crab-legged shark! I would see this entire nest bled upon the banks before I’d let those vile beasts have an inch of this kingdom!”
Held reeled.
Drowned?
“You would—you would rather I were dead than love him?”
You will be homeless, the Witch cackled in his mind. Homeless, homeless, homeless. You cannot have both, my dear little mermaid. You can never have both.
“Guards!”
“Father!”
His arms were seized, but he didn’t struggle, staring in horror at his father. At his beloved father, who had played with them as merlings, who had let them sit in his throne and at his fins during important business, who made time each morning and night to breakfast with them, and wish them good dreams to sleep.
At the raging king before him, gills gaping wide in raging breaths, who would rather his d—son lay dead than loved.
Who had lied to him about the existence of skymen. Who had—and oh, the story was true, wasn’t it?—banished the Witch’s husband to die alone upon the shore, after a great cloud had fallen from the sky and killed Mother.
“You let her husband die!” Held blurted out and began to writhe against the guards. “You would let me die! You—”
“Shut her in the caves until she comes to her senses.”
“No! Father, no!”
Held screamed, then. Just screamed. And the guards dragged him mercilessly to the cell-caves at the base of the palace, teetering on the very edge of the clan nest. Balta could only stare back, eyes wide and frightened. Meri looked away entirely, shielding her face with her hair. And Father—
Father looked back with such hatred, such violent hatred—
The guards thrust Held into the cave, a narrow hole barely large enough for even this small, feminine frame, and one held him down while the others moved the great rock above it.
“No!”
Held fought when he was released. The slap was hard. He tasted blood in his mouth, reeled back—and that was all it took.
The rock scraped into place over the mouth of the hole, blotting out all but a tiny ring of light around its surface, so thin not even his fingers would slide through the gap. And when he beat his hands numb against its pitted surface, it refused to move an inch.
Walking on Water Page 14