by Zoe Chant
The Knight-Commander turned to address the assembled ranks of knights, gorgeous and gleaming in formal armor. “It is my great honor to present to you our newest sister in battle. All hail the Demon-Slayer, Sixteenth Knight of the Order of the First Water, Princess-Consort and Guardian of the Sea’s Heart!”
The knights drew their swords, saluting her. Seren drew Seafire, marveling once more at the exquisite balance and beauty of the blade. The crowd cheered even louder as she lifted the sword high.
Only one person wasn’t cheering. Lord Azure had drawn his sword as tradition demanded, but his salute was half-hearted at best. Technically, he was supposed to have been the one to knight her, but he’d relinquished that honor to the Knight-Commander. Seren had been secretly relieved by that. Lord Azure might have been forced to accept the success of her quest, but he clearly hadn’t been happy about it.
Now he was glowering at her, the only scowling face amidst the beaming knights. He rammed his sword back into its sheath. She saw his lips move, muttering something.
She too far away to hear what he’d said, but sea dragon hearing was better than a shark’s. A little ripple went through the knights, a kind of mass in-breath of shock.
“Lord Azure,” Joe said from behind her, his voice silky-smooth. “Would you care to repeat that?”
Lord Azure twitched as everyone turned to stare at him. “It…it was a private comment, Your Highness.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Joe stalked toward Lord Azure. The rest of the knights wisely scattered out of his way. “It was a very serious accusation. Repeat it, or retract it. Now.”
Lord Azure swallowed, throat bobbing. He glanced around as though for support. The crowd had fallen absolutely silent, riveted by the unexpected drama. Seren knew that a man as proud as Lord Azure would never back down in front of such a large audience.
The knight drew himself up, puffing out his chest in a show of bravado. “I shall repeat it, then. She would never have been knighted had she not been your mate.”
The assembled shifters gasped. Seren’s heart thudded as people’s eyes moved from Lord Azure to her and back again.
They’ll believe him. She could see it in their faces, hear it in the growing whispers. At least some of them will believe it’s true.
“It is only the truth!” Lord Azure lifted his voice, emboldened by the crowd’s response. He jabbed an accusing finger at her, playing to his audience. “I had no choice but to say that she was ready, for fear that the Crown Prince would unjustly and unlawfully take revenge on the entire Order. In truth, I would never have recommended her for knighthood. She is not worthy, will never be worthy! She dishonors the Order of the First Water!”
Pure fury washed over her, but she held herself back. She tore her eyes from the raving Lord Azure to seek out Joe. He was a single point of calm amidst the growing chaos. Despite his earlier anger, he now stood in a relaxed stance, thumbs hooked into his sash, head tipped back. He gazed thoughtfully up past the magical air bubble enclosing the plaza, into the deep blue of the waters above.
Then he looked at her. He winked.
“Lord Azure,” she said loudly, instantly silencing the crowd. “You insult my honor. I challenge you. Will you accept or concede?”
“Accept,” he snarled. “I have no fear of a mere shark.”
She bowed to him, in the barest minimum show of courtesy. “Then the choice of weapons is yours.”
“You have been given a blade.” He drew his own, light running down the razor-edged steel. “Let us see if you can use it.”
“Lord Azure!” the Pearl Empress said sharply. “You know I do not condone duels with live steel. Does honor truly demand that this is settled with blood?”
“Yes,” Lord Azure and Seren said together.
Joe had moved to his mother’s side. He touched her sleeve, whispering in her ear.
The Empress puffed out her cheeks, but nodded. “Very well then. But to first blood only, understand? My extreme displeasure will fall upon anyone who inflicts a serious injury on the other.”
Seren saluted the Empress, then Joe. His sun-bright confidence in her filled her heart. She felt no fear, not so much as a single flicker of doubt as she took up her stance opposite Lord Azure.
She swept her sword round and up, formally saluting him. He sneered, and launched straight into an attack with none of the customary respectful preliminaries.
Seafire was an extension of her own body. The sword sang joyously through the air, turning aside Lord Azure’s blow.
The whole world fell away. She danced in combat time, every part of her gloriously alive, focused entirely in this moment. For all the danger, there was delight, too. This, this was what she had dreamed of, what she had trained for, what she had been made to do.
Lord Azure had been a full knight for nearly a decade. He was arrogant, true, but it wasn’t entirely unearned. He was good. She knew he was good.
And yet, as their blades clashed time and again, she could taste his rising distress. Despite all his experience, all his confidence, he couldn’t penetrate her defense.
He was good.
And she was better.
She saw the moment he realized it, that he wasn’t going to win. His guard faltered, just for an instant. Seafire darted in, swift as a dolphin. Lord Azure only managed to save himself with a frantic, clumsy leap back, barely evading her blade. He stumbled, off-balance, almost falling into the crowd.
She could have lunged and had him there and then, but she checked herself. There were too many people around, pressing too close, idiotically pushing each other to get a better view. There was too much risk of someone getting hurt.
She retreated to the center of the impromptu arena, giving Lord Azure space to do so too. “At your convenience, Lord Azure.”
He glared at her, falling into stance once more. He was winded, clearly losing, and yet she still tasted a sudden sharp surge of triumph from him.
“I shall show everyone what you are,” he hissed.
He spun his blade. It might have made sense as an attack if she’d been behind him…barely. Confused, she tightened her guard, wondering what in the sea he thought he was doing.
With a smile as though his bizarre action was some master move, he drew the edge of his sword across his own arm.
She blinked at him as his blood welled up. He continued to stare at her expectantly. When she finally realized what he was waiting for, she could barely stop herself from laughing out loud.
He thinks I’m going to fly into some kind of bloodlust frenzy. Just because I’m a shark.
“Lord Azure,” Joe drawled. “You cannot claim the victory by drawing first blood on yourself.”
Lord Azure’s face darkened as titters spread through the crowd. He didn’t seem to know what to do next. He just stood there, looking more and more foolish, as the giggles turned into full-blown roars of laugher.
She smiled sweetly at him, deliberately letting her teeth lengthen into sharp points. “Do you need to take a break for medical assistance, Lord Azure?”
He bared his own teeth in a furious snarl. He threw himself at her, no finesse at all in his attack. Calmly, she sidestepped, and smacked him across his backside with the flat of her sword. He went sprawling.
Before he could recover, she put a boot on his neck, pinning him down. She let the point of her sword kiss his skin, ever so lightly. She glanced at the Pearl Empress.
“I will draw blood if I must,” she said. “But only if Lord Azure insists.”
“Let him up, Demon-Slayer,” the Empress said, laughing along with the rest. “Lord Azure has lost quite enough for one day.”
Lord Azure climbed stiffly back to his feet, nostrils pinched in humiliated outrage. “It was not a fair duel! She is a shark! She has, has savage magics, strange senses! It was not a fair fight!”
The Knight-Commander stepped forward. Her voice was mild, but her eyes were arctic. “Interesting, Lord Azure. Earlier, you claimed that the Demo
n-Slayer was unworthy to join the Order because she was a shark. And now, miraculously, it seems that same animal makes her unfairly powerful. You cannot have it both ways. So which is it to be?”
Lord Azure stuttered for a moment. “I—I—I was only attempting to defend the noble traditions of our Order! I agreed to take her on as a squire because I knew that if she went to serve any other knight, her abilities would blind them to the threat she poses. We cannot have a shark in our Order.”
“No.” The Knight-Commander shook her grey-touched head. “We cannot have dishonor in the Order. Your sword, Lord Azure.”
All the blood drained from the sea dragon’s face. “Knight-Commander, no. You can’t.”
“If you cannot recognize your own dishonor, then it is up to me as the Knight-Commander to enlighten you.” The stern, middle-aged woman held out her hand. “Your sword, former knight.”
Lord Azure’s head bowed in defeat. Without further protest, he handed her the weapon, hilt first.
The Knight-Commander bowed first to Seren, and then to the Imperial family, as a pair of knights frog-marched Lord Azure away. “My sincere apologies that this unpleasantness interrupted this joyous occasion. Rest assured, I shall take action to ensure that no such thing happens again.”
The Empress glanced at Seren, eyes gleaming. “Oh, I do not think anyone in Atlantis will ever again be so foolish as to doubt that a shark can be a knight.” She turned to the crowd, raising her arms. “Citizens, what say you?”
Seren felt a blush sweep over her face at the whole-hearted roar of approval. She sheathed her sword and bowed to the crowd, rather self-consciously.
“They’ll stop soon, right?” she whispered to Joe.
“Nope. I predict that this party is just getting started.” He nudged her, jerking his head. “I think you made quite an impression.”
Seren followed his gaze. At the very front of the crowd, an entire class of small children was leaping up and down, waving flags and shrieking as though she was some kind of movie star.
One little boy caught her eye in particular. He couldn’t have been older than six or seven. He stood rock-still, clutching a toy sword to his chest, staring at her in sheer adulation.
“Wave,” Joe muttered to her out of the corner of his mouth.
She did so, making eye contact with the boy. His pale skin flushed bright red as he realized she’d seen him. Suddenly shy, he hid behind his teacher…but not before flashing Seren a sweet, sharp-toothed smile.
Joe chuckled in satisfaction. “You’ve started a trend. Next season, the knights will be inundated with applications from all sorts of shifters. Sharks, seals, dolphins…”
She kept waving and smiling at the crowd. “That’s why you encouraged me to challenge him, isn’t it? You saw what it would mean. You saw that I would beat him.”
“Nope,” Joe said brightly.
She turned to stare at him. “What?”
“Didn’t see a thing.” He caught her up in his arms, dipping her into a flamboyant kiss. His lips curved against hers as the crowd went wild. “I didn’t have to.”
Two months later
“So, Seren.” Blaise wiped her filthy, sweaty brow with the back of her jacket sleeve. “When you were little and imagined being a princess, is this what you had in mind?”
She laughed, despite her own aching muscles. “I never imagined myself as a princess. I only ever wanted to be a knight. I dreamed of fighting monsters.”
“This fire certainly qualifies as one of those,” Wystan said. He was flat on his back at the side of the road, gazing up at the smoky sky. “This is even worse than the last one we fought in California. It feels like the whole state bursts into flame every time we turn our backs.”
“Beat the last one,” Callum grunted. They were all supposed to be taking a break, but he was still chopping back stray bits of vegetation with obsessive precision. “Beat this one too.”
“Yup.” Joe leaned on his Pulaski, looking down their newly cut line with pride. Anchored in rocky ground at the far end and the road at this end, it provided a solid barrier to prevent the fire from spreading any further. “We’re the thin yellow line between civilization and destruction.”
“Thin sweaty line,” Blaise corrected, tugging at her jacket and trying to fan air underneath. “Very, very sweaty.”
“Don’t forget smelly,” Edith added, wrinkling her nose.
Fenrir rolled luxuriously in a patch of dirt, paws waving in the air. *Nothing wrong with smells.*
“There is when we have to share a small enclosed space with you for hours,” Blaise told him. “When we get back to base, you’re getting a bath.”
Seren leaned back on her elbows, letting the familiar good-natured bickering wash over her. After nearly two weeks on this fire, she was sore in parts of her body she didn’t know could get sore. Not even the sword-drills of knightly training were as strenuous as wildland firefighting. She rolled her neck, trying to loosen taut tendons.
“Hey.” Joe’s strong fingers kneaded her shoulders. “Wish you’d stayed in Atlantis?”
She closed her eyes, letting out a groan of appreciation. “Never.”
Despite her exhaustion, his touch sent sparks tingling through her. It always did, and she suspected it always would.
He let out a low, pleased chuckle, sensing her response. He dipped his head to nibble teasingly at her neck. “Just got to wait for the transport to pick us up and take us back to base, and then I’m all yours. Of course, we don’t have to wait for the truck. We could make our own way back, and be there a whole lot quicker.”
She cracked open an eye to fix him with a mock-glare. “We agreed, flying shark is for emergencies only.”
He shifted his hips meaningfully. “There is an emergency. In my pants.”
“Do you mind?” Blaise said. She threw a pinecone at Joe’s head. Seren reflexively batted it out of the air before it could make contact. “I have shifter hearing too, you know. It was bad enough having Edith and Rory whispering sexy things to each other all the time. Now with you two as well, I get it in stereo.”
Rory chuckled as Edith blushed. “You just wait until you find your mate, Blaise,” he said. “Then you’ll understand.”
“If meeting my mate turns me into a big sappy idiot, forget it.” Blaise idly tossed a pinecone at him as well. “Someone has to stay cynical around here, to watch out for all you lovestruck fools. Otherwise one of these days a demon is going to leap on you while you’re canoodling.”
Edith’s hands fluttered once, nervously. “The hellhounds and demons have been awfully quiet for the past few months. I wonder what they’re up to?”
“Still haven’t seen anything?” Rory asked Joe.
“Nope. I can check again if you want, though.” Joe pulled out his canteen. He splashed water into his hand, casually glancing into it. “No, nothing. Still not a—huh.”
A surge of adrenaline cut through her tiredness. The rest of the squad tensed too.
Joe waved them back down again. “Not demons. But everyone might want to wash their faces and try to look as photogenic as possible. Especially you, Cal.”
Callum blinked at him.
The roar of an engine cut off any further questions. Instead of the boxy yellow shape of their crew transport, an unfamiliar white van came around the bend. CBS NEWS was written on the side.
The van pulled to a stop in front of them. A woman with a beaming smile and an outfit that was in no way suited to the rugged terrain hopped out of the side, while a camera crew piled out the back.
“Oh, yes, perfect.” The woman framed them all with her fingers, like a movie director. “Absolutely perfect. Hi, guys! Which one of you is in charge?”
“Uh, me.” Rory scrambled to his feet, dusting off his Nomex pants. He took the woman’s offered hand with a bemused expression. “I’m Rory MacCormick, of the Thunder Mountain Hotshots. This is my squad.”
“Hotshots!” The woman’s megawatt smile brightened eve
n further. “I’m Christina Charmain, from the local news. We’re running a piece on the brave men and woman battling to protect our town tonight. Can I get an interview?”
“Of course,” Rory started—and then stopped, a peculiar look flashing across his face. His eyes flicked to Joe, then back to the woman. “Uh. Actually, I’m kind of busy right now. I need to take most of the squad, uh, to check for, um, uh…spot fires. But I can spare Callum, if you want to interview him.”
“What?” Callum said.
Behind the Christina’s back, Joe flashed Rory double thumbs-up.
“Oh my,” the news anchorwoman breathed as she looked Callum up and down. “Those cheekbones. Those arms. Yes, he’ll do very nicely. Terry, get camera one over here. Makeup!”
She bore down on Callum with a gleam in her eye like a hunting cat. Cal only had time to shoot Rory a look of wounded betrayal before the whole TV crew mobbed him, cooing compliments and bodily moving him into the best light.
“What,” Seren murmured to Joe as they all left Callum to his fate, “was that all about?”
Joe shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“And now, here’s Christina with a very special report on the firefighters working hard to keep us all save from the wildfires raging across the county. Take it away, Christina.”
Diana was elbow-deep in laundry, but the word firefighter snagged her attention. She glanced up at the television screen, yelped, and scrabbled for the remote control.
“Thanks, Sam!” The news anchorwoman flashed her trademark smile at the camera. “I’m standing at the very edge of the blaze, and with me here is—”
She found the remote at last. Hands shaking, she managed to pause the picture just as a caption flashed up at the bottom of the screen.
CALLUM TIERNACH-WEST
THUNDER MOUNTAIN HOTSHOTS
She stared at the face frozen above the words. Those narrow, emerald eyes, those movie-star cheekbones, that bright auburn hair. It was him.
It was him.
Behind her, Beth started to wail.
