by Chris Howard
The nine seats ringed one side of a circular platform. An old man knelt in the center of the raised circle, dressed plainly, chains binding his arms. He stared at the floor, the broken king.
Each Great House—Alkimides, Telkhines, Rexenor, Aktaios, Dosianax, Lykos, Damnameneos, Megalesios, and Demonax—had one seat in the chamber, one for the Lady or Lord of the house. The second seat had not been used for more than two thousand years, but it was now occupied by Alexandros Lord Telkhines. Nicole sat in the center for House Alkimides. Kassandra sat five seats in, taking Dosianax as her House. On her left, a young man with long braided hair and beard black as the abyss—and eyes somehow even darker. He had seated himself sideways, toward her, and when she looked over, didn't look away.
Kassandra gave him a polite bow of her head, and a reminiscing smile.
He read it well. "I remind you of someone, my lady?"
"Lord Megalesios, you remind me of the first time I met Lady Kallixene, your great aunt."
He nodded sadly. "I never had that honor."
"I was at the wedding," said an old fat gray haired lord on the other side of Alex. He glanced at Tharsaleos with disappointment. "Had to hide in a vent barge to get outside the city, buried in stink and sulfur. Damned exile laws. Once we got away from the Nine-cities, we kicked and rode like demons into the north, just in time to join the wedding parade, set our lights and banner. Lady Kallixene, beautiful, dark and deep strength with long black braids." He laughed. "I started a fight with Nausikrates of Rexenor." He turned to the rest of the lords and ladies of the Great Houses, nodding at some of the younger ones as if they wouldn't know who that was. "Nausikrates was—"
"My father," said Phaidra in a cold voice.
The lord of Aktaios bowed to her. "And Lady Kallixene's new husband. Shrewd damned soldier. It took the dead to kill him. Anyway. Started a fight, and he beat the buggering tides out of me, sent me and my whole sneak party home without accepting our wedding gifts—but you know what?" He paused dramatically, and Kassandra answered before he could continue.
"Just outside the gates of the Rexenor fortress." Kassandra leaned toward him. "You passed the gifts to one of Kallixene's maids—Arpalion—who managed to slip them in with all the others, and..." she paused dramatically. "No one was ever the wiser."
The fat gray-haired lord of Aktaios nearly kicked from this seat, mouth starting to open. He let his head sag forward, and then he lifted it and winked at Kassandra and Phaidra with a soft chuckle. "Forgot who I was story-telling to, my ladies."
Kassandra let all the humor run off her face. She whispered, "Lady Kallixene always considered your pearl clusters her favorite earrings, lord. She was wearing them when she died."
There was silence in the room, every lord and lady listening—and even Tharsaleos looked up at her.
The lord of Aktaios rubbed his neck. "We do not get clear word from the North, my lady. How, if it is permitted to say, did the great lady die? Honorably it is to be assumed?"
Kassandra turned away from him to stare at her aunt three seats down. "She killed herself in order to pass the remaining portion of her bleed to me."
Lady Phaidra of Rexenor bowed her head. "Yes, lord of Aktaios, that was honorable."
In the murmuring that followed, Tharsaleos straightened, jabbed his chin at Kassandra, "And here you are, sitting happily, a day from setting this demon on the throne of all the seaborn." He sneered at her. "This whore of the sea will now own all your souls, she will break every last one of you. As she broke the walls of our city. As she kicked in proudly with her dead army. Bow to her, you courage-wanderers, no choice, no souls in your eyes, no straight spine among you. She owns you. Crown the whore. She will—"
Kassandra pointed at Tharsaleos and he shut his mouth. "This is not about my fitness to rule, but yours."
She called them to order, settled the rules of casting, and then they voted to remove Tharsaleos of Dosianax from the throne of the seaborn, not one House dissenting.
Kassandra bolted from of the Nine-cities a day after the Great Houses had ruled against Tharsaleos, a secret journey into the north, the east, and then home to pick up Jill, Elizabeth, Bachoris and Agenika, and drop off a handful of letters Alex had written to Kaffia on a thin flexible plant-like material, telling her that "he had, well, sort of entered a different world."
Then she gave Kaffia Lang the "Telkhines curse" and took her with her into the deep.
Kassandra had left Nicole in charge of House Alkimides with Zypheria to help, and Alex as the only Telkhines inside the walls, opened the gates of the ancient city, and had the whole place to himself for a while.
The Sea and her party returned the following day, swimming through the channels of the Nine-cities with Jill and Kaffia and Elizabeth Shoaler staring at everything, unable to blink, bowing at everyone they passed.
Chapter 33 - Coronation
After a week of abyss dark, Kassandra decided to fix the sun—because she could, and because she woke early, stared up at the pure black heavens and missed the starlight. The thought that even the replica sun of the seaborn would not be rising in the morning depressed her. So, she went out and created another one, bright enough for a great city in the Atlantic abyss.
It rose in glowing perfection, waking the city early, and even those doubters, still not in awe—or in outright fear—of Lady Kassandra, stared and blinked and agreed that seeing the rise of a new Helios' Twin from the dunes of the east was a splendid thing.
It was the work of a goddess.
The light hit the cities of the Great Houses, some of them floating, walled and spelled off sections of space around the central mountain and towers of the royal fortress, which held the justice district and city administration halls, barracks, training space, the vaults, and in one wing carved out of the core of the mountain, the great assembly arena of the seaborn.
The kings and queens of the seaborn had been crowned in the arena for thousands of years. Tharsaleos had ruled for decades, and there were a few generations of seaborn who had never seen a king or queen crowned. By evening, with Helios' Twin at a ducking thirty degree angle off the abyssal plane, there would be a new ruler of the seaborn. An Alkimides queen.
Kassandra swam across the platform at the head of the arena to watch the seats fill, tens of thousands of seaborn of every house and family, with their lights, tiny zipping dots like fireflies, lantern towers with light filtered into patterns, House symbols, thrown over the crowds. She imagined that a surface equivalent would be standing center stage at night at a massive outdoor music festival.
There were banners at the ends of hundred foot tall poles, streaming and coiling in the currents, garlands strung with lights cordoning off areas of seating for a particular powerful family, blocks of movement without any light, the seats occupied by deep dwellers, whole clans of miners, coral smiths, squid butchers sitting and breathing in clouds of swirling ink.
A hush rolled through the crowds, blossoming silence, heads turning, banners drifting down heavy, going still in the water. Several hundred seaborn in blue scaly armor kicked past the lines of Alkimides honor guard at the entrance, swimming in with the Lady of Rexenor, Phaidra, her standard bearer holding a tall staff high, with slender darting black birds moving and rippling like a banner, one of the tricks he had taught a hundred cormorants with the seaborn curse. Phaidra led her guard and a few hundred House Rexenor visitors through the center of the arena, to a clear space near the front saved for honored guests and family.
Thousands of seaborn were just catching their breaths from the shock of the arrival of the Rexenors, when a glow from the entrance pulled them around. The entire arena went silent.
Demons, hundreds of them, watery human-shaped giants, some of them six meters tall with spindly coralliferous limbs, jagged teeth and clusters of symbiotic blue and black fish following them like rainclouds. Most were like Ochleros, thick blurry human shapes with icicle teeth and claws, eyes glistening, wise, measurelessly deep. Some had h
orns that coiled like rams, others had antler-like branches of coral. Many had tentacles, slithering long suction-cupped legs, and one appeared only to be a mass of mottled purple tentacles—with no visible body, but had several mouths, and rows of eyes on stalks that probed the water. Another watery demon glowed a blinding molten orange and looked as if he was about to go off at any moment.
Kassandra swam down to them, bowing to some of the statelier lords and ladies, curling in the fingers of a couple of the demons, kissing others gravely on the forehead, a few on their cheeks, one wanted something more, grabbing one of her ankles, and she batted his tentacles away playfully, laughing something in a language she only shared with him.
She kicked last to Ochleros, king of the sea daimones, hugged him as best she could, reaching out with her hands and legs, and then kicked up to stand on his shoulder to watch the last of the entrants, just coming to the arena.
The guards at the entrance swam aside, bowing a little too late, stunned at the small party kicking through the arches. Sixteen of them.
"So few," said Kassandra sadly.
They flowed into the center channel to the front, majestic, power rolling off them in swift little currents. Sixteen of them with long intricate braids of reddish brown and clothes in styles that hadn't been seen in the swims of the Nine-cities in a thousand years. Colors far too bright for all but the most eccentric of seaborn, yellow bands and lime green ovals on long shirts and leggings with gossamer fins. Concentric rings of fuchsia and cobalt in motion up the leggings of one of the newcomers, her clothes like some psychedelic pond's surface after a stone has been thrown through it. She smiled, the only one among them who seemed to have the slightest interest in the widening silences and bursts of whispering and bold stares from the thousands of seaborn already seated for the crowning event. She nodded her head politely, letting her braids—three of them longer than she was tall—coil into rings, pulse and pump like corkscrew propellers. She waved a hand when voices drifted down, the name "Telkhines" whispered in them.
Kassandra kicked off Ochleros' shoulder with a loving squeeze of his ear, and shot across the arena to greet the Telkhines, took their hands, bowed, and introduced Alex and Kaffia, and Elizabeth and her husband, Agathanax, rescued from the Lithotombs—very thin and still recovering. The ocean lit up pale blue around them, sparks of light, visible display of their excitement at meeting their own, a companion of the Sea, a lord of the Telkhines bloodline.
And finally Kassandra slid down next to Bachoris, Agenika leaning over him from the other side to take her hand, "Now it gets exciting. Watch this."
She said her farewells and returned to her sisters. The three of them stood at the head of the arena, Kassandra in the middle, Nicole on her right, Jill on her left. Kassandra reached her arms out to draw them both into a hug. "We made it. We're here. One long damn road of sorrow and pain. But we're here. Stand up straight. Look out on our realm, our people, our city, our Nine-cities at the bottom of the Atlantic."
"But we're not from here," said Jill curiously, shaking her head.
Kassandra looked at her, playing with that idea in her soul, flipping it over, dunking it underwater, seeing if it floated, whether it died, or breathed and lived. "You're right. We're not. We are something new, a new power, new sisters, the new rulers, the new sirens."
She let them go, her fingers curling fluidly, ready for something.
The last person to enter the arena was the archon, a tradition going back to the beginning, a figurehead role for one of the lords or ladies of the Great Houses, a new one selected every year at the seabirth festival. This year's archon was the large lord of Aktaios, swimming slowly, solemnly down the center channel to the high stage at the end.
He gave Kassandra a quick smile, and then hid it, and held out the ring of gold spirals and points. Kassandra bowed low to the archon, lifted the crown from his fingers, and held it up high over her head, twisting spirals of gleaming gold like horns. The murmuring tide of the seaborn audience washed over her, thousands of whispering voices, gasps, deep pulls of the ocean sighing between their teeth. She stood motionless, tall, holding the crown high, and the hum of voices slowly faded.
She waited for the silence to be complete.
Then Kassandra spun in the water, to her right, and set the crown of the ruler of all the seaborn gently over Nicole's black braids.
The silence lasted only a moment more. There was a spike of noise, everyone gasping at once, drowning Nicole's own sound of surprise. Then there was the rustling sound of thousands of the seaborn, immortals, demons of the sea, bowing to the new queen. Nicole couldn't speak, just staring back at Kassandra's look of sorrow. At any other time—the middle of battle, fleeing armies, the edge of death—Kassandra would have laughed at the shock on Nicole's face. But not in this. Kassandra looked as stunned as she felt, staggering back a step, letting her arms fall to her sides.
She looked down at Nicole's bare feet, focusing on the rings on her toes, and closed her eyes.
Nicole sobbed a command, "Look at me, Kassandra. You look me in the eyes. Now!"
When she opened her eyes and looked up, there was only some of Kassandra staring back at Nicole. "Please, let me do this, Nicole."
The Sea summoned her trident, letting it stand obediently at her side, and then her own crown, a blinding flash from hers hit the crown Nicole wore, sharp square reflections cutting across the vast arena, a dance of gold blocks, spirals of pale green painting the bowing thousands, splatters of shock light flashing in and out over the faces in the crowd.
Kassandra, the Sea, the ruler of all the world's oceans, bent to her knees, put her hands on the stones, and bowed down to the Queen of the Seaborn.
Nicole stared at her sister, her lips moving, no sound coming out. She looked over at Jill, who was nodding, smiling back at her, and with her eyes squinting—something she only did when she couldn't contain how happy she was. There was a glow of yellow, and she wore a crown like the sun, lacy coral and delicate fiery spikes sticking up from her hair.
Kassandra sat back on her heels, and stood up. She took Nicole's hands, gripping them tight, bowing her head again. "Please forgive me, Nic. I won't ask for it now. I will wait years, but before the end, I hope you will find it in your heart to forget how much I have hurt you, manipulated you, dragged you into this."
Nicole swallowed hard, sucked in a deep pull of the sea, and stepped between her sisters, taking their hands. She glanced at Jill, and then Kassandra. "You told me once that you would see to it that I would one day get to see the Nine-cities from its most commanding position. I heard your words. No one dragged me here. I came on my feet, I came on the currents of a goddess."
Nicole straightened, faced the seaborn, the demons, the immortals, and she gave them a very regal bow of her head. Out of the side of her mouth, she whispered, "Where's my throne?"
Kassandra smiled.
Epilogue
Rain came through the rig like knives, and Jordan Chandler shouted in frustration at the storm, his sail up in knots, wouldn't come down, catching the storm greedily, pulling his boat on its side. He knew it was cut the sail free or be dragged to the bottom. He crawled along the starboard rail, rain blind, fingers freezing on the chrome. A loose rope whistled over his head, an end knot whipping around, caught him in the neck. A flash of white from the impact, and his fingers slipped from the rails. He grabbed the mast standing horizontal from the deck; he fell into it, his legs swinging under him, into the cold water. The storm-full sail slammed the boat over. He clawed at the knife holster at his waist, found that it was empty—and he remembered pulling it, trying to cut the lines to the sail, then losing it to the storm, the metal slick in his fingers.
He didn't want to die. He cried to god, pleading for his life, the cold Atlantic soaking into his jeans, into his skin, weighing him down. He begged anyone to save his life.
And an angel appeared, wearing armor made from the shells of crabs, spines of bony white and hard sheets o
f splotchy purple. She was cruel, he saw it in her eyes, but she danced up the mast like a gymnast, singing sweetly, her long gold braids swinging in the wind. She stepped over him, and one by one kicked his fingers loose.
He screamed at her but the storm stole his voice, whipping it away in the wind. He pleaded, promised anything, and she kicked him into the waves, diving into the water after him.
He woke, swallowing gritty stuff in his mouth, and for a moment he thought the storm and angel were part of a nightmare. His head hurt. Had he been drinking? He couldn't remember where he was.
"Oh, wait." His voice scraped up the inside of his throat, burning. The regatta, single skipper, Nantucket Island to...he couldn't remember, somewhere on the Cape, across the sound to...nowhere.
He tasted saltwater in his mouth, and he spit, and rolled in the sand. He opened his eyes, and they stung, rubbed raw by the storm. The angel was still there. He focused on her face, her unkind smile, hair like gold in the breeze. He knew her.
"Jillian?"
"Hello, Jordan."
He stared at her face, and then shot a confused look at what she was wearing, some kind of armor with rows of spines, and red spots like blood, rich purple plates and seams up her arms. "Jill, what are you doing here? What happened?" He tried to focus on her chest. "What are you wearing?"
"I saved your life, dragged you into shore, got the water out of your lungs. The sea was about to take your soul. You're just lucky I was there. So, services rendered." She laughed unexpectedly, and Jordan found his fingers clawing into the sand, a feeble attempt to get away from her. She smiled down at him. "I expect some form of payment."
