Seaborn 01 - Saltwater Witch

by Chris Howard

  Letting my gaze slide across the women for a closer look, I recognized the one crouching next to the cabinet, the one who had pulled me from the water. I knew who she was.

  My skin went cold.

  “The witch from Red Bear Lake is here,” I whispered to Praxinos and Andromache. “Along with three others. They don’t look friendly.”

  Are they naiads? Praxinos asked but went on before I could answer. I told you this was a bad idea.

  Naiads? Andromache shouted and I jumped in shock. Ask them if they know Paramythis who lived along the Thames in England.

  “Who?” I breathed the word, still a little startled by the unexpected meeting and the continuing silence.

  It was like two groups of diplomats from opposing sides in a war stumbling upon each other on terrain that neither side was happy with.

  Paramythis. Thames.

  I straightened my back, trying to appear more in control than I felt. I am the Wreath-wearer. I am a princess of the seaborn.

  Start with confidence. I gave them a conversational wave of my sword. “Do you know Paramythis who lived near the Thames in England?” I directed the question to all of them, focusing on each face in turn.

  The tall one in the center tilted her neck back, studying me through her half-closed eyelids. “Paramythis was our grandmother.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said in a low voice as I bowed to her, feeling that that was the right thing to do at that moment.

  That means ‘yes’, said Praxinos knowingly.

  I know what ‘uh-huh’ means, you insufferable dolt! It is impossible for you, but can you shut your mouth for a minute? Tell the naiads that Paramythis was a friend of mine.

  “Your grandmother was a close friend of my ancestor, Queen Andromache.”

  Andromache chattered on. Close friends indeed. Inseparable, really. I used to sneak out of my aunt’s house. She had a secret place up in the North Sea and I would holiday there. The two of us, me and Paramythis, used to go ashore in the West Country fishing villages, or across to the Channel Islands, even into London. We’d see plays at this theater along one of the rivers. Andromache laughed sadly, lost in her memories. We had such fun. We used to dress up like ladies from the court and go to the wharves to lure—

  Andromache! Praxinos’ sharp shout cut her off and then he mumbled something like, That’s enough.

  “Lure who?” I asked under my breath, my gaze moving between the naiads.

  Some other time. They know Paramythis? A grandmother? What did they—

  I didn’t get to hear Andromache’s question.

  “We finally meet in person, Kassandra,” said the tall stately naiad in the center, her old black dress pulling at the shoulders and hips when she folded her arms. She glanced up without fear at Ephoros, and she looked straight at me, but didn’t meet my eyes.

  Then she did something unexpected. She relaxed her arms, let them drop to her sides, and she bowed to me.

  The two naiads beside her noticed this and followed reluctantly. The fourth naiad, the witch who had attacked me in Red Bear Lake, seemed unable to move, mouth agape.

  “I am Parresia, and these are my sisters. We are naiads, descendents of the Potameides on the distaff side, and can trace our line back to Kastalia.”

  Praxinos had explained who the naiads were—freshwater witches, but I didn’t understand the rest. It sounded impressive though, and I nodded my head in what I thought was a regal way.

  “I am Kassandra of the royal line of House Alkimides.”

  I noticed slight smiles of surprise in two of the women, as if they had not been sure I knew who I was. Do I know who I am? Not in this world.

  “Honored,” said the skinny woman to Parresia’s right with a smile. She curtseyed. “I am Helodes.”

  The plumper woman in a gold gown that crinkled like a potato chip bag, stood to Parresia’s left, bowed her head seriously. “And I am Limnoria.”

  All three of them turned to the wall and looked at the fourth. “That’s Olivia.”

  Helodes nodded with a bright smile. “She’s the youngest.”

  “A bit rash at times.”

  Parresia gave her sisters a look as if to say, At times? When is she not rash?

  I lowered my sword, gripping it tight, not wanting it to disappear.

  “This was not supposed to happen,” Parresia growled after the silence continued. “But now that it has, what are we going to do?” She looked over at Olivia.

  I followed along. Why did she stop me from going to the sea? My anger sent along some clear messages, and wanted to go on a slash and burn mission. The sword shook in my hand.

  “Why did you pull me from the water?”

  Olivia shrank even lower against the wall. She shook her head and stammered something unintelligible, nodding and shrugging her shoulders. Who’s she afraid of? Ephoros or her sisters? Or me?

  Ephoros made a clearing his throat noise, which sounded like a volcano about to erupt. It made the walls creak.

  He was reminding me of my journey. “I—” Should I tell them about my plans to rescue my father? “—I am on my way to do something very important.”

  “To find your father?”

  I locked eyes with Parresia. “What do you know about that?”

  “I sent you the dream.”

  I caught myself just as my mouth was about to drop open, and then tightened my fingers before I dropped the sword.

  “So...It was a trick? You tricked me?”

  Sorrow flooded in thick and heavy, like wet oozing sand. My teeth clicked together. The dream was a fake...a deception.

  I wanted to run, but the heavy feeling filled the space around me, chilled every muscle and choked off my thoughts. Pain and emptiness blossomed, took hold of me, and tried to rip me apart. My knees shook, and I pressed my legs together.

  Then my anger rose in its place. My voice was raw and didn’t even sound like me.

  “You did that to me?” I pushed the words through my teeth and pulled up my sword. “How dare you.”

  Parresia’s body bent toward me as if she was struggling against an invisible force.

  She’s fighting the truth. I caught her eyes and I felt her try to look away. She couldn’t move. As long as I pushed my will into her, she couldn’t get away from me. She made a grunting noise, and I wouldn’t let her go. A fish in my net. I have your neck, naiad. What happens when I push harder?

  The motel room dissolved, fading to black all around me. Water clear and cold on my skin, and I saw a baby in my arms, a pale dark haired boy about two years old. He looked up at me and he smiled.

  Oh my god, I’m inside this witch’s head.

  I knew her name, all of it, Parresia Atania Matronis Potamilla, and I told her I knew it.

  She answered in curses, magic that had no effect on me, and then she begged me to let her go. She was a mother. She had children who needed her. Her sisters needed her.

  This witch, who looked like she could kill me with a mean look, she was pleading with me.

  My body felt light, like I was floating, a buoyant rage that lifted me into the air and made me fly. The sword was so light in my hands. It could cut through bone as easily as it cut through air.

  My anger reached into my throat and grabbed my tongue. It wouldn’t let me speak. It pushed a stream of words into Parresia.

  You will tell me the truth or I will hunt every naiad to the spring at the world’s end, and I will kill you all. I will make you especially pay for what you did to me.

  Pushed my own teeth apart, my mouth opened, but no sound came out. Let me go! I don’t want to do that.

  I nearly hurled my dinner, but after a minute of teeth grinding and muscle tightening, I pushed my anger back inside.

  No, I’m not like that. My own inner voice was back. I’m sorry, Parresia, I didn’t mean it. Please. I need to find my world, and the only connection I have to it is the dream you sent me. I want to trust you, but you must trust me.

  I let her go. Ou
r locked gazes snapped apart and my eyes burned.

  “Yes,” Parresia gasped, her voice trailing into a hiss.

  “Tell me then, my father isn’t—”

  “He is alive.” She bent forward, wrapping her arms around her stomach, breathing hard. “I made the dream.”

  “It’s like a stream,” Helodes put in helpfully. “A channel from you at the school through us and out into the sea where Parresia’s phantom—”

  Parresia’s hand shot up, and Helodes shut her mouth.

  “I showed you pieces of what is real, but it is a dangerous place, not like the dream. Your father is there among the lithotombs, trapped by the king and well guarded. I just... didn’t think you would actually try to rescue him. At least not so soon.”

  My eyes went to hers and something inside me wanted to hurt her for saying it. I forced myself to focus on a glass of water next to the television.

  It shattered and Olivia let out a shriek.

  “What else would I do, Parresia?”

  “Our purpose,” the naiad went on slowly as if delicately choosing words. “Was to draw you safely away from the school. That is all.”

  “Why?” The reason hit me and the words rose right to my lips. “Is it because the king has awakened the Olethren?”

  An explosion of shouting from Praxinos and Andromache in my head.

  I’d expected cries of angry shock from them, but all four of the naiads were screaming curses, too.

  Praxinos’ and Andromache’s voices blended into alternating shouts of warning and threats. Why are you telling them? ...cannot trust... stupid... get us all killed... insanity!

  I closed my eyes and kept my mouth shut until it stopped.

  “How do you know about the Olethren?” Parresia flexed the fingers on her right hand, making a fist.

  I glanced up at Ephoros, wincing as Andromache yelled in my head. Tell them nothing more! We do not know whose side they are on. You could be handing them an advantage!

  “I have ways of finding out,” I said in what I thought was a cool calm tone, and added in ancient Greek, a language I didn’t know I knew, “I’ll say no more.”

  Parresia nodded in return, understanding. “Very well. That is wise.”

  Limnoria stepped forward with a now-that-the-dream-is-on-the-table look. “I created the storm that carried the dream to you, by the way.”

  The rain, an unexpected storm, and the cool drops on my face, the taste of it in my mouth. I shifted my gaze to Limnoria, studying her a moment. “You sent that? It surprised me because the sky had been clear all day—clear for weeks before that.”

  My voice trailed off in a whisper, and then all of us stood looking at each other, unsure about where to go from here.

  Courage. I just said the word in my head and it poured into me. It didn’t tell me what to say, but it loosened the hold fear had on my tongue.

  “If you help me, Parresia, I will help you. I don’t want an army of the dead here any more than you do.”

  All four of the naiads went still, exchanged looks, and nodded to each other.

  Parresia looked me in the eyes. “Can you do something about them?”

  Limnoria added, “You’re practically the ruler of the seaborn. Maybe they’ll listen to you?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. There are things in my head...”

  Things? Andromache and Praxinos said indignantly—and with perfect timing.

  “Rage and ancient hatred and a million other feelings that try to make me do things and say things.”

  Oh, those. That’s just the Wreath trying to keep you alive, Kassandra. You can fight it, but you cannot win against it.

  “I can fight it. It knows more than I will ever know, but I know what is right. I know what I want. And my life is my own. I don’t belong on the surface any more than I belong to someone or something else. When my rage wanted to kill you, Parresia—and all naiads. When it wanted me to hunt you down, I told it to stop. It listened to me. It left me with my own thoughts.”

  Really? Andromache and Praxinos were almost happy about it.

  “And I have decided that we will work together.”

  Limnoria and Helodes backed away from me, right up against the armchairs. Olivia edged away along the wall. Only Parresia held her ground, staring at me expectantly. Her lips moved, but she didn’t say anything.

  I added, “I think it would be right if we worked together to fight the king—and destroy his army.”

  Pretty sure that stunned them more than admitting the urge to go on a naiad hunt.

  Helodes fidgeted and then took advantage of the silence to ask something that had obviously been nagging at her. “In what way are you related to King Tharsaleos? I mean, we heard you were the daughter of some maid—Zypheria, not a royal, and then it turns out you’re related to the king.”

  Parresia made an offended gasp and raised a finger to silence her sister.

  I held my hand out. “I’ll answer that. Tharsaleos used my grandmother Pythias, tricked her into marriage and then had her murdered. I am Ampharete’s daughter who was Pythias’ daughter.”

  “The king killed his wife?”

  I nodded. “And his daughter.”

  The naiads exchanged looks, and after a minute of thoughtful silence, looked back at me.

  Parresia put her hand on her chin. “And then he married the sister, Isothemis, to keep the throne.”

  “Pythias’ sister.” Andromache had told me of recent family history, down to my mother’s escape to the renegade House Rexenor. “I am Pythias’ granddaughter. I am an Alkimides. I do not consider...that man a relative. The blood of House Dosianax runs in my veins. I cannot change that. But someday I will do something about the fool who wears the crown and is unworthy of it.” Wow. Runs in my veins...unworthy of the crown. I even sounded regal. Thank you for the speech lessons, Andromache.

  Parresia took another step toward me, her hands at her sides, staring about an inch above my head. “I can see the Wreath. Difficult to focus on out of the water.”

  She showed me a sympathetic smile, and then she tilted her head down and spat on the carpet. “Fools for siding with Tharsaleos. If we had known you—a Wreath-wearer remained alive we would never have done it, sovereignty over the plains rivers or not.”

  Limnoria moved closer, squeezed her arm, jutting her chin toward me, urging her on.

  “I think...” Parresia glanced at her sisters. Helodes grinned. “...we need to...” She cleared her throat, starting over. “I am sorry. The truth again. We made a bargain with King Tharsaleos.” She struggled to get the words out, watching me carefully as she said them.

  I smiled.

  That was all it took, and Parresia told me everything.

  “I think he suspected you long ago but wasn’t sure. He told us to keep an eye on you, to tell him if you ever left the school grounds on your own. We were to do what we could to keep you at that school.” She ground her teeth. “School’s a prison, you know.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that.”

  “The burden of trust is in our hands. You have no reason to trust us, but I will offer you what I can to change that. I really did send you the dream of Lord Gregor. What I can tell you is that I know your father is alive. The king himself told me where he has imprisoned Gregor. We were given some information about you—that you were the daughter of the maid to Ampharete, someone named Zypheria, but that you had potential—and could possibly be dangerous.”

  I hoped so. But it was time to get moving.

  “My father’s in the king’s prison,” I said, nodding. “I will find him in the lithotombs.”

  This time Parresia looked at me in clear disbelief. I caught her eyes again and pushed.

  A flood of ink-darkness and her mind was open to me, deep caverns of another person’s soul, and all I had to do was look. I scooped up a handful of surface thoughts and drank them. They tasted sharp and metallic, like pressing my tongue to a nine-volt battery.

  Pa
rresia’s thoughts flowed through me, fleeting questions, sparks of ideas. The Wreath is powerful. Several times now you said only a few words but they carried such force. They lacked wisdom...sometimes no wise choice presents itself. Fifteen years old...a thousand years old at the same time. How can you know about the prisons of the Thalassogenêis? How can you know anything about the seaborn? How can you be so young and at the same time possess the ability to command the obedience of what is surely one of the immortals or their offspring? No wonder King Tharsaleos is awakening the dead army. You spend most of your life nowhere near an ocean, in a school that’s more like a prison camp, and days after your birthday, you speak of destroying the Olethren as if they were annoying pests and toppling King Tharsaleos off his throne without fear.

  Parresia’s thoughts just spilled into my head and I trapped them and listened. Then I pushed back. But do you trust me, Parresia? That is the question I need answered...desperately.

  I felt Ephoros tense up and I broke the connection before she answered.

  I whirled halfway around, bringing my sword up defensively. Ephoros looked ready to battle on two fronts, one side against the naiads should they strike, and the other directed at the doorway to the bathroom.

  The sound of a man clearing his throat echoed from the doorway. “It’s me, Theupheides. Everyone decent?”

  Parresia raised her open hand, taking one cautious step forward. “It is just one of our cousins, Theupheides,” she said rapidly, adding, “He is harmless.”

  A lean gray-haired man stepped out of the bathroom, soaked, but smiling jovially. He ran his hands down the front of his yellow tweed jacket to get some of the water out. He had thinning hair, a long nose over a gray mustache. His cheeks were red as if he had been out for a walk on a winter’s day.

  He stopped within beheading distance of me and my sword, and pulled a flat old-fashioned driving cap off his balding head. He seemed unconcerned. He slapped the hat against his knee as if wringing out his clothes was as common as saying hello.

  He popped back into the bathroom to set the hat on the edge of the tub and returned a second later. He looked around the room, taking it all in—me with my drawn sword, an enormous monster made of water, and four naiads.