Verse XVII

  Across several seas, behind the palace cliffs, and in the hidden spaces of Bryndoon, Ministra Marhyd was settled in with a stack of shells to peruse. The etched set of scallops was just arrived that morning from her estate in the Mere Tessra?, where the family library was kept safe for future reference. Now she proved her own memory of past readings. Certain research had been done, by generations long lost to history, preserved by a past Ministra din Linnea and put away for a time of need.

  Her eyes went up to the pearly light of the curved shell on its pedestal. The near-to-triangular shape glimmered of its own shine. It brought to mind memories she had not considered in a great long while, indeed. Thus had she the need to refresh them. If she could decipher the etchings of a stylus that had gone bent and broken out of shape over two centuries ago.

  She was not in her usual office. That space was too busy with the matters of arms and armament. Fun as that was, Marhyd had taken to a new haven for when she desired some peace and quiet.

  Let Her Holiness assume the old Luherite temple was destroyed. Marhyd had certainly caused enough noise when she sealed off the old tunnels and opened new ones into her personal maze of chambers. The cavern was calming in its stillness, and as far as the company, well, the vision of Luher's Herald springing forth from the stone floor was a sight for weary eyes. She understood her daughter's fascination with it quite well, and possibly better than the girl did herself.

  Upon the pedestal, the pearly glimmer grew bright, until the far topmost walls of the cavern were briefly visible. To her keen and esoteric senses, the call of power to power was unmistakable.

  "Well, well," she said to herself. "What are we up to now, I wonder."

  After a full verse of beats, the shine dimmed to its regular level, and Marhyd turned her attention back to the stack of shells. With a sac of her favorite kyun pods at hand, the ministra dove back into the hard work of remembering. There were answers to be found and mysteries to be explored.

  Whatever was going on in the Mere Almezzeb, she was certain her daughters would let her know about it soon enough.

  *

  What was the hour? Martella din Linnea could not rightly say. Morning, noon, night, all was the same beneath the blasted tent of Mezzegheb, the false firmament of fabric with its dim and evenly spaced glow-lamps. Even her inner sense of time failed her as it second-guessed itself with the feeling of beats, verses, even hours lost to the fugue of action and purpose. That happened now and again, usually after Mother gave a command, but rarely for so long or with no outer frame of reference to bring her back to center.

  Instead of the light of the firmament above, there was ugly fabric and sickly lamps. Instead of the bustle of Bryndoon below, there was...

  There was wrack and ruin, an entire district flattened. Coral spars were shattered, and long strips of fabric shredded. Her eyes caught the shapes of mers in the midst of the mess, and from the haze of memory came a list of names and faces, portraits on shells provided by the viceroy as suspected members of the Free Flow. It had been her task to find them, to force them out.

  The rune-bound gauntlet upon her arm was still warm. There had been other tasks to accomplish. Mother's special gift stirred, its blades coming apart to pose like the stinging arms of the anemone with her hand in the middle. Faint points of light tipped each one as they yearned for new targets.

  A stirring at the edge of the destruction. Mers skirting the wreckage, their heads turned away from the worst. Turned away from her.

  It was too easy, raising her arm. Too easy by far to let the lit tips crackle and flare with the building forces of destruction. Her eyes saw the targets, calculated the distances and the directions before unleashing the full wrath of the indigo hell, but through the fugue of action her mind was not truly looking at them. Eight mers. A flick of the wrist, a twist of the arm, and eight pulses of kinetic flow would cut through the waters beneath the tent, each to find a singular target and reduce them to a foamy mess. So easy, without need for a thought. Like that, eight mers dead.

  A ninth mer met her eyes. A ninth mer, held over her mother's shoulder so that their shared hair color blended into one froth of pink. Curious eyes stared without comprehension at the disaster the adult mers avoided at every stroke.

  Stared at her.

  She could see the little one's smile.

  Her mouth copied the expression, and her composure broke before her face did. Muscles relaxed along her arm, and Mother's gift settled back to quiescence, tips curling back around her wrist and locking in place.

  "Do you need to rest?" came the voice of her sister behind her.

  Her grunt was not an answer, but it carried the meaning.

  "It was good work." Marilis was leaning over her left shoulder. "Careful, methodical. Mother would approve?"

  "She would?" The smile cracked at the corners. "That is good. If you say so, sister. But will it bring us the princess?"

  "Our host seems to think so." With a finger, her sister directed her attention to where Lanita din Casima was surveying the damage. The coral-haired mer did not seem too upset over the destruction wrought upon her own city. Or at least this portion of it. The viceroy's grand whorl tent and its surroundings were left untouched, as were the trade depots and stock tents which brought Mezzegheb its wealth. Only the entertainment district was to be hit, according to this plan, and with it the Free Flow rebels whom the viceroy had identified as using the ugly collection of smaller tents to further their seditious activities.

  At the moment, the Lady din Casima was speaking to the mer with the daughter. "It is a terrible time to be about," the viceroy noted.

  "Terrible time to be here," the mother replied. "Got to take this one out to the Drift sooner or later, and right now sooner's looking good. Or not take her at all?"

  For some reason, din Casima found this worth a chuckle. "Fine, Klara. Take the little one to where she'll be safe. And the rest of you all? Lyneve?"

  The mer floating next to the young mother had her arms crossed and her face serious. "Safety in numbers, Your Elegance. Waters aren't safe out there for a mer alone." The slant of her mouth put silent judgment on the safety of the waters within as well. "Won't be long."

  "It had better not take too long." The lady waved to the guards at the edge of the district to let the mers pass. "But we're busy here, so I won't keep you waiting. Go, go, and make your way home soon. As soon as we've set the circles and tents back, you'll be needed for work. Understood?"

  "As always, Your Elegance." The small school of mers bowed with practiced timing, then finned off quickly.

  Marilis had kept her voice in, but as soon as it was polite the mer was over by the viceroy's side. "Is it smart to let them off? Won't they tell someone?"

  "I thought that was what we wanted?" din Casima countered. "To let Sera the Red know that we are after her?" Another dismissive wave. "Worry not. Those mers have no place to go but here, and so to here they shall return. That is the way of Mezzegheb. So it flows."

  Martella could not care about the politics. She could barely bring herself to acknowledge it. When action came, the seas seemed so calm. Clear. Pristine. There was herself and there was the target. And then the target was not. Simplicity itself. Why one should muddy all that with reason and excuses, she could not see.

  She could see the face of the little daughter, still with her head up and gazing curiously in her direction. A shudder took her, from the spikes of her hair to the tip of her flukes, and her stomach heaved. Swift fluttering of the gills helped to settle her, but brought a different assault upon her senses. The destruction had ripped the currents beneath the tent until nothing led anywhere, and the scent of the city rose up to mix around her. Hanging over the stench of long habitation was the taste of blood in the water, of mud and murk freshly disturbed, of... Her mind still refused to put a name to the sour-sweet taste that pervaded so much of the city, even though shivered as it tickled across her tongue.

  "Careful, sister," said Marilis. "Remember the calm which Mother taught us. Save your strength and resolve for those wicked mers who took Her Highness."

  Yes... yes. The spines of her hair shook with her nod of understanding. She flushed water through her gills and out her mouth to remove the offensive taste. Stay calm. Stay strong. The mission had hardly begun. Now came the waiting.

  If only she could clear the memory so easily, wash out the vision of that little face, mother and daughter with hair so alike.

  Verse XVIII

  Never would Sera the Red ever so deeply hate a color as she did right then. That was the main thought to swim through her mind as the others helped her navigate her way out of the Floating Gardens. She hated the particular shade of green, that vague color where the lighter kelp blended with the darker sargo. It was almost the same as the unkempt mess atop Ardenne's head, and how Sera hated the hunter for a beat, for dragging her into this insanity.

  But no, that was the pain talking. A single tentacle had nearly done her in because she'd been stupid and reckless in the face of something she had no idea how to deal with. The dozens of tiny bites scoring her body were a witness to how well that had turned out. Their venom forced her skin to blush with a shade of red to match her hair, and the swelling bloated her arms and torso to the point where it couldn't feel like her own body at all. At some point she realized they had quit the gardens, but her limbs bobbed in the stray currents and would not stop until they were on Morag Head.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  When she came to, it was to see Rhiela performing another healing prayer over her injuries. There was another thing to hate: that she could not find it in herself to hate the stuck-up royal as much as before. So it flowed.

  "H-hey," she gasped out. "How long's it been?"

  "Half the mid-day hour," Rhiela told her. "We're most of the way back to Mezzeret, I think. Rest up. You'll need your strength soon enough."

  "Thanks, Rhia," she murmured. "Ah, is that...?"

  Safely secured across from her in Morag Head's little kelpen grotto, just below where a pocket of air silvered the foliage with its bubble edge, the pink delphin opened an eye to focus on her. A greeting squeaked across the water. The little cetacean's skin looked as red and pained as Sera's felt, with at least as many track marks left from the abomination's embrace.

  "We haven't decided on what to call her," said Rhia. "But she's definitely on our side. Whatever side that is. This is all so confusing." Brown-gold curls shook in the stillness of the grotto.

  "That's life." Sera flushed her gills as she thought it over. "Still, good work. During the fight. Really mean it."

  "Thanks." The princess turned back to the little delphin, stroking the pink skin and whispering more healing words.

  Sera was not about to say she was just as confused as the other mer. That was life, after all.

  After some time spent swimming the muddy currents of her own mind, she awoke to the feeling of Morag Head coming to a slow and steady halt. There was a certain change to the stillness of the kelpen grotto that was unmistakable. A careful twitch of the flukes, then a second, proved the efficiency of the princess's healing technique. Another thing she could not find fault in—it was an ever-shortening list of things to be angry about.

  "And how be you?" The familiar voice of Nantsi, one-third of Morag Head's leadership, drifted in ahead of its mistress. The capeta slipped through woven drapes with the surprising grace of the equmara, giving a curious side-glance to the delphin as she sculled over to Sera's side. "Not dead yet, eh?"

  "The indigo hell wouldn't take me." Sera twisted her way out of her loose bindings, though not without care. "But thanks for being there for us."

  "Don't thank us yet. Something's up in town."

  "Damnit, what now?" Scowling ached less than anything else she could do in the moment. "Abominations on the water?"

  "The keepers have the flags raised. You all are to meet with them immediately." Nantsi looked her over. "Not one to be saying, cuz of how I weren't there, but you're looking like something the octopod dragged over. Are you sure you're well enough to swim?"

  "Gotta be." She hid her wince as she kicked off into the open water. "But, ah, if'n you've got someone to help with Li'l Pinky? Don't think I can get her a-movin' with just me and Rhia here."

  "That can be arranged." Large and wide-set as they were, there was no missing an equmara's eye-roll. Within a short measure, three of Morag Head's singers were called in, two of them for the delphin and the third to politely lend a hand to their dear friend Sera the Red, should she need it. With such an offer tendered, it would have been rude to turn it down, and so she spent much of the swim down from the verdant float snuggled against the singer's chest.

  She thought the princess might have said something about that, but Rhiela held her silence all the way to town, and again after Sera was transferred to the waiting arms of Rohaise. The welcoming kiss was kept short, both for Rhiela's sensibilities and for the fact that they couldn't have the keepers wait too long.

  As it was, they were the last to arrive. Ardenne, Rook, and the twins were already situated before the three keepers, and from the look on their faces, the news was not good.

  It was the keeper Fenella who began. "Starting not long after you set forth, we received word from our friends in Mezzegheb, via the whistle shells."

  "All of them," said Islee. "Each blowing the same codes."

  Innis carried the current. "Distress, damage, destruction. Someone is rooting the Free Flow from the tent city, and they are none too careful about who else is cut. The whistle shells repeated this message until they fell silent, one by one."

  Sera swore in the back of her gills. The little shells worked a bit like Rhiela's big talky-conch, only they sent short and long chirps from which the equmara and their allies had devised a code. They had to be blown in person, so if one went quiet in mid-whistle, there wasn't much in the way of misinterpretation there.

  "It was the last of them whose message differed," said Fenella. "At the very end, after a pause of many beats, it said, 'They want the princess.' Sera, dearest among our friends, what have you brought down upon us?"

  Oh, depths. This was so far beyond bad, she would have to invent her own word for just what it was. Later. If she survived this. Sera did not fancy her odds at the moment. "I, well..." she began.

  "She did not do anything." By her side, the princess drew herself up straight. "If anyone's fault this is, it would be mine."

  Sera screwed her eyes shut, dreading the inevitable words to follow. She'd warned the mer, warned them all, and they'd been so good about not blabbing, but now...

  "And how would that be, young mer whom we hardly know?" asked the keeper Islee.

  "It is because you hardly know me, and for that I must apologize, for I fear my original introduction was shorter than it should have been." Golden-brown hair fanned into the current as the mer faced the equmara proudly. "For my name in full is Rhiela min Anyis... din Brynduin, and I fear that this menace seeks me."

  *

  Before she even rose to speak, Rhiela knew what reaction her words would prompt: three beats of silence, five at most, followed by a confused clamoring from every equmara within earshot, which may well have been every mer currently in Mezzeret. The noise would echo into the distance as the news spread, only for the three keepers to command everyone back into silence. Four beats after the words left her mouth, every single part of her prediction had come to pass.

  "Would you all be quiet?" The keeper Fenella did not shout, and yet she was the largest presence in the public forum by some quirk of volume. Her voice simply filled more space, forcing the cries of shock and surprise to the far reaches, where they dissipated. "Ahem. Now then, that is quite a claim, young manoa. On the face of it, one might say it seems impossible."

  "The truth often does, as I have seen," said Rhiela. "For I have been told lies far more convincing than the last two months of my life have actually been, and yet here we are." She took a bow. "Alas, I am not at my best. Without a regular weed-wrap, my hair loses some of its luster."

  "So we see." The keeper swam in close, nostrils flaring as her broad mouth pulled into a frown. "It has been long ere we last saw any mer from the Crown here in Mezzeret, much less the Crown itself. I would wonder at the quality of our hospitality, for I know you were not accepting of it the previous night."

  And there was another thing to come and nip her on the flukes. Sera had even said these mers took their love-sharing seriously, free though it was, but it had not seemed so important when she was a relative nobody.

  Now, she was a somebody, and all knew her to be an inconsiderate guest. Things became more important.

  "I..." She flushed her gills nervously. "I am sorry for my rudeness in that regard. The truth is, I... I already have... I believe the word is leman. She is very important to me, and until I am able to return home to her, I would not do anything to hurt her or the trust she places in me."

  "A fair reason." Fenella snorted, and the tension riding the waters settled with the suddenness of that sound. "And what do the voices of Mezzeret say?"

  The buzz of words arose from all around, and Rhiela saw that the crowd had grown since she'd last dared to look up. Perhaps the entire population of the city really was in attendance. Across the hall of the keepers, mer equmara floated by pillars or by sand, or even high above to cast shadows against the firmament. Broad faces stared from all directions, but she kept her own eyes front and center on the three keepers. Her ears caught more than enough as it was.

  "Send her back!" some shouted. "To the Free Flow!" cried others. "Let the manoa deal with her properly!" Still others spoke in their silence, their eyes drilling her skull like it was a prize oyster. Had so many of the equmara borne knives the day before? She had not noticed then, and could not afford to ignore it now.

  "And what do her companions have to say?" The words flowed from the keeper, but they forced an ebb to all other discussion. "Well, Sera our friend? You of all mers should have some interesting views on this."

  The red mer's reputation preceded her as always. Rhiela was left to wonder what that reputation even was, that it left such weight in the waves, but she held her piece and floated to the side as her companion took the front place before the keepers. The red rash and welts from monstrous pincers had yet to fade, but the swelling had receded enough that the rogue could keep steady as she spoke to the keepers and the crowd.

  "Lots to say, nowhere to start, really," Sera began. "The princess here got mixed up with us in Bryndoon of her own choice, helped us get Ardenne's mom away from where the ministry was holdin' her." That produced a murmur around the hall. "Yeah, them. Pleasant as ever. After that, she showed us a way out the back, through the old temple cave what I told you all 'bout the other day, your ladyships."

  "We recall," said Islee, "that there was a matter of an abomination."

  "Yeah, that too."

  "Similar to what you met in the Floating Gardens just this morning?" There was louder murmuring to shiver the waters now, as this bit of news found new ears to inform.

  "Not so big, just as nasty," the red mer confirmed. Got a guard killed, saving the princess then."

  "Her name," said Rhiela in as loud voice and as even a tone as she could manage, "was Shalar min Shandra, who did her job with honor, even to the death. But I could not be content with that, so I left—"

  "Forced herself on us at knife-point," Sera informed their audience. "To her own throat, even."

  "—I left to learn why," she continued undaunted. "Why the abominations, why the deaths, why the seas are as they are, and... yes, and why no one tries to fix any of it."

  The middle of the keepers, Innis, eyed her carefully. "Be it you may not like the answers to these questions you're having."

  "Nor do I like that I must ask the questions at all," Rhiela said to her. "But I must, and so I do. And now I shall return to Mezzegheb to seek an answer there as well."

  "Lost your senses!?" snapped the red mer. "Handled yourself pretty well against a tentacle or three, sure, but whoever's ripping through the tent city—"

  "Wants me, personally," Rhiela snapped back. "I am perhaps the only one who can face her and not be attacked immediately. Whoever she is, she won't hurt me."

  "That's not the point, you..."

  The cloud of murmurs surrounded them, again reminding that this was not a private argument they were having. Rhiela could feel herself reddening with embarrassment, but did not dare let the emotion color her voice as well. She was the First Daughter under the firmament, regardless of her current placement beneath it, and she would act as such: with decorum as her shield and words as her spear.

  "Well," said Islee.

  "Well, indeed," agreed Innis.

  Decorum kept her from responding out loud, but Sera echoed her feelings of "Well, what!?" with words of her own.

  "It is a day of rarities," said Fenella. "A mer of the Crown who actually cares, that is one thing. But to hear Sera the Red give even a minor compliment to that mer, well..." The keeper chuckled through her nose. "Well, indeed. Thus," the equmara continued, "we cannot agree to your request. Our friends in Mezzegheb have all fallen, so swiftly that we cannot even say by whose hand. Were we to take you as far as an hour's stroke away from the city of tents, our own floats would be put in peril. It is risk enough to send mers around the anchorages and meeting spots, hoping for survivors and not ambushes."

  "Madams, though it is a danger," said Rhiela, "could you have someone stop by the Wayward Drift? They are as family to Sera, and I doubt that is a good thing to be in these waters right now." Her hand found the red mer's own, and received a thankful squeeze. "And after that, if you would have any suggestions for where we should go, or how we should get there, I would be in your debt. These are strange times and stranger waters for us to swim, and even this fool that I am knows she must ask for the wisdom of her elders."

  Floating there, the singular focus for the attention of an entire nation, was more frightening than any abomination, more threatening than any beast of fang or fin. Were she alone, Rhiela was not sure she could survive the force of all those eyes staring, stabbing, judging her every word and gesture. But there was one hand in her own, giving a gentle squeeze. Then the other hand, her left, found Ardenne's within it. The anchor and the lead, keeping her steady and pulling her forward.

  One alone before the nation, that was impossible to withstand. Three of them together could take on the world.

  End Book Two