by Cara Violet
“Go, Mr Darayan,” the monk choked, staggering backward. “I cannot control this.”
To Darayan’s right, he heard screaming. It was Xandou’s name. A young boy was screaming it out. Through the trees he could see the others: Xandou, Ryar and Jahzara, somehow being sucked toward another swirling Vector.
Sali faltered. “Go, Mr Darayan! Something has taken over my body, I can’t stop—”
The Vector spun wider; Ferak, who had been stalking closer to the Sari gatekeeper, relinquished his attempts to snag Darayan and lunged for the dying Vector.
Darayan sprang for the scapecraft that had been lowered toward him. Ferak disappeared inside the smoky Vector and as Darayan climbed aboard his ship, he witnessed Sali simply follow the Liege inside.
“Sali!” he screamed from the cockpit.
“There are Bones approaching,” Materid said. “Across the Swamp Lands, looks like they’re after something or someone.”
Darayan let his eyes stare into the open clearing in the Valley Woods. No traces of Sali or Ferak Jarryd remained. Or of Xandou and the others. His brain burned from recalling just who Ferak was. Sighing angrily, he turned his sight across the Swamp Lands, at first having no view of anyone or anything in the sludge. Then—
Materid cleared his throat. “There’s a Vector opening, Duke.”
“Yes!” Bodel screamed. “We’re leaving.”
“Wait,” Darayan said panicked: his eyes fell on the young Gorgon Princess Chituma and her comrades drowning in the Swamp Lands—were they Necromancers?
“We’ve no time,” Materid said. “It’s now or never.”
“What happened there?” Bodel said from behind him. Darayan immediately realised: Forsda was covered in a smoky haze of dust and debris. The cruiser explosion must have set off a wave of rubble from behind the castle, because what looked like snow had settled over the entire city.
“We must do something,” he said weakly.
Materid didn’t wait. “You just alerted us to the release of the Defeated King. We just witnessed two Conductors disappear and a Liege appear after our necks. The best thing we can do right now is get the Holom out of here.”
Darayan knew Materid was right.
“This is a Vector from Sali,” Materid said navigating the scapecraft through it without hesitation. “And you know it.”
What they didn’t know at the time was this Vector had no ending.
PART TWO
Chapter Nineteen: The Ice City
Whidal was cold.
Dominated by mountainous solids of ice and fast-flowing creeks and rivers, the planet of the Aquamorphs had remained under moonlight the entire time Archibel had been here—weeks. With the slow-moving sunstar seldom showing, and despite the glow of the evening moon, brighter than any sun, the chill in the air never departed. The Ice City the Aquamorphs had built was enormous. It boasted huge icy structures of amalgamated crystals, carved into Aquamorph faces whose bodies flowed from the height of the city’s main steeple to their crystal bases above the crowds. Loose, granular crystals, like snow, rained down at intervals through the intertwined city buildings toward bubbling pools; vapour and steam and clouds boiling into the air alongside the walkways.
Those pools helped spin the whole city like a rotating compass.
Archibel cast her eyes towards the ice horizon. They relied on the water vapour from the creeks and rivers, carried by the rough winds, to keep this huge city stable.
Icy air escaped her mouth as she exhaled, but she didn’t feel the cold here. Didn’t feel the dew, the small drops of water condensing against her skin and the walls. The temperature was always at its lowest; it felt like the never-ending time just before sunrise back home on Sari—whose bright sunstar graced them with light every twenty hours. At this time of morning, on Sari, she’d be searching for the refracted sunlight that produced rainbows, or heading off with her comrades and Darayan for dawn combat.
The morbid sky in front of her did not comfort her now. Nor did turning away from it and toward the huge mirror on the wall. Archibel was dressed in such warm elegant silks of differing blues and cobalt that she blended in with the city itself. As if dressing her up as one of them would do them any good in their attempts at negotiation. Adrian had bestowed this kindness on her because he wanted the Sari people behind him. Deliriously, he believed she could give him such a vote. One that would help them end the Felrin Congress domination in the Universal Order. They were treating her as the Princess of Sari, destined Queen of Sari—despite the accident in which her parents lost their lives.
Either way, it didn’t make a difference. The universe felt different. The Siliou was weak around her. Archibel felt the presence of darkness; she was not unaware of the release of the greatest evil into their very own universe. He’d stolen their Conductors, Adrian had advised; all planets were under very real threat.
“Princess Archibel of Sari,” the young Aquamorph woman entered her quarters. “Mr Adrian would like to see you briefly before his departure for Felrin.”
Archibel nodded. The woman left. She turned back to the icy framed mirror and walked closer to it. Her long orange hair straightened by the maids, and her dark olive complexion barely noticeable under the fresh white powder they’d coated her in. If they wanted her as an ally during the election, that was one thing, but dressing her up like an elitist Aquamorph to prove it seemed ridiculous. But no-one would dispute Adrian’s command, especially with his grand delusions that somehow Archibel would be reinstated and give the whole Sari vote to the Aquamorph Assembly come election time.
“This is what you’re reduced to,” she muttered to herself. “Pretending.” Her thoughts went back to Darayan. To his loveless eyes and the way he looked at her like a stranger. “He doesn’t love you.” Bodel’s voice whispered to her once. “Everyone can see the way you look at him, Polie, but he doesn’t return it. How long can you go on so blind?”
Those words reminded her of another time.
“Everyone can see the way he looks at you, Kaianan. Like if someone were to touch you, he’d break their neck.”
The memory came back to her. Archibel was nineteen, walking in the open plains alongside the Valley Woods. Chituma and Kaianan accompanied her; Darayan had requested she get the girls to join him and Xandou in swordplay. Chituma, barely eight years old, had told Kaianan those words about Darayan. It was the first time Archibel felt jealousy. She had no idea Darayan looked at Kaianan differently. The girl was ten and still a child. He couldn’t look at her differently, could he?
They’d only met the girls the previous week; they’d gone from Darayan and Archibel spending most of their time alone to it becoming filtered with Xandou, Kaianan and Chituma—maybe the younger Gorgon princess had a point?
It was hard for the princesses to escape the Manor and play, yet Darayan had requested they join them nearly every day. It wasn’t until a year later, when Dersji Brikin met Darayan, that the Liege requested Darayan train with him and Kaianan.
Archibel didn’t know any of this, that day walking with the girls, and if she did, she probably would have never kept bringing them along with her. Kaianan had wedged a big gap between Archibel and Darayan in less time than she thought possible. Her life had slipped so much in that moment. She was in love with a fourteen-year-old, and she was suspicious that he was in love with Kaianan. It was a triangle from Holom.
“He does not. We’re just friends,” was young Kaianan’s retort. The girl had no interest in Darayan at all, too busy with training.
“Princess Archibel,” the Aquamorph woman said again, more sternly. “Adrian is waiting.”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I was off with the Sprites.”
“Hmm,” she crossed her arms.
Archibel ignored the woman and waltzed past her.
Adrian sat alone in the ice room. The walls curved ice up to a central meeting point on the ceiling, where an icicle descended sharply into the room. Archibel stepped forward. Adrian was pi
cking something from his teeth and assessing her from behind his alter of ice. It was apparent the Archaea cells had embedded into the Aquamorphs’ preform circulatory system, as most of them breathed noisily. Gills stuck out behind their ears, and thick blue hair stood up on their heads; Adrian’s a lot longer and lighter than most. His blue skin was thick and more scaled than many.
“Ah, lovely Princess of Sari,” he said charmingly, his dense blue pupils assessing her. “It’s so nice to see how well you’re fitting in here.”
Archibel held in her anger. She had no other option but to play his game.
“Why are you doing this?” Archibel said staring the Aquamorph straight in the eyes. “You know I have no power or position.”
“I’ve signed the treaty, don’t you see.” Adrian’s blue eyes flared as he stood. “We will terminate the Rivalex Mark, and then reorganise the Universal Order. You give me the Sari vote and I can win this thing.” His hands lay forward on the desk, signifying her to step closer.
Archibel remained where she stood. “Even if I was reinstated, why should I give you such a substantial vote?”
Adrian straightened and clicked his tongue in amusement. “Well, for one thing, the alternative is no longer in complete power. The Siliou is perhaps lost, the gatekeepers all but diminished.”
“What are you talking about, ‘no longer in power’?”
“The Felrin are unstable,” he said matter-of-factly. “We will regain the power we had a thousand years ago. Did you want to be on the wrong side of history?”
“What history?”
“The Aquamorphs’ history, when they maintained a stronghold on the Universal Order.”
“I thought you were an ally of the Felrin,” she snapped.
“Well yes, we all need to keep up appearances,” the Aquamorph meandered to the front of his desk toward her, seemingly airy, “I’m needed on Felrin for the verdict. When I’m back we shall talk further.”
Archibel glowered at the smug smile on the fish’s face as he sat back on his desk. “Don’t they know you plan to overthrow them?”
A tug at his lips and Adrian chortled. “Hmm, Miss Archibel, you should know, keep your friends close, and your enemies—”
“Closer.”
“Well done.”
“You do know I am not recognised as a leader or ruler of my people or planet anymore?”
Adrian smiled broadly, “Oh, but your people know blood lines are the most scared of all, and you are of pure blood aren’t you, Princess Archibel? Suradika would reinstate you on the spot.” Archibel closed her eyes, worrying, knowing that was the truth. “At the right time, you will be restored to your place and you will select the Aquamorphs as your preferred party, then your people can have you,” he sniggered, then paused, looking at her. “Until then, get some rest, I have a feeling the approaching election will be important for you—just as important as your formal inauguration.”
And with a wink, he departed. Archibel knew what he meant. He would secure the Sari vote by announcing she was alive and the rightful Queen, so she could cast the Sari vote to him and, in the aftermath of that shock, he’d feed her to the people that believed she had killed their most beloved King and Queen and abandon them to a life of rule by her manic cousin Darial.
But how could she speak to the people who would have to consider her a leader, how could she find the words? If they knew the truth, would they put her to trial and, and—her throat stuck.
No, she knew these people would sentence her to death—for killing her parents.
Chapter Twenty: An Uncompromising Party
Owen embraced his wife tightly.
Her heart beating fast against his chest.
“I heard Janjuc was lost,” she said softly, with concern.
“We will get it back,” he said more confidently. “I have reenabled the decommissioned Felrin Cruisers and I’m sending our Rangers over.”
“But what about Valendean, Owen?” Her eyes were wide with fear. “What about our people? If you take the hundreds that protect us, whatever will happen if we are invaded.”
“There is no-one who will invade us. Not now. Janjuc is in our system, I am responsible for Dowaric. I must help Queen Chastity.”
“What about that Sprite?”
Owen frowned.
“Well, they say he is a godly creature bought back from the Silkri.”
Owen sniffed. “No, that is not true. Levon was a—”
“You knew him?”
“He’s just heartbroken,” Owen said with a soreness aching over his heart, “that’s all.”
“And you go to face him on Janjuc?”
Owen opened his mouth to speak, then finally admitted: “If I have to, I will.”
“You can’t beat a Silkri Drake, Owen.”
“No, but I can wound him as best I can and save as many people as I can.”
“What if …” Her voice trailed off.
What if it all went pear-shaped? What if Owen had never found his Rangers and got on that cruiser to escape Janjuc? What if he had stopped Levon’s father killing Leera? What if? It was all hypothetical, the what if never mattered in the past. It mattered now. What if he spent his whole time debating about what went wrong instead of looking for the solution right in front of him. “Enough,” he said before she could go on, pulling her tighter into him. “I’ll always be here when you need me.”
She nodded, tears slipping from her eyes. “You know I love you.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
She breathed in her sobs. “And what of the Defeated King?”
“Felrin have requested me. With so little time until the Universal Election I am not certain they will be thrilled with the loss of Janjuc on top of this.”
“They should have helped!” she said angrily. “Sent you a Liege. How were you to know the extent of the civil war!”
“Keep that passion going my love, but focus it here. Valendean is a stronghold for our people’s way of life. Just because I am not here, does not mean you cannot show them our virtuous nature. I must go.”
“Vector safely,” she whispered as he headed back to his refuelled cruiser.
It had taken them a few days to replenish the cruiser’s stock and get it up and running before they could venture to Felrin. Owen was surrounded by his Kinsmen Rangers as the five of them sat in the Avalanche room of the Felrin Congress Estate. He tore his eyes down to the four black chairs, three of them holding the Board of Principals, and the fourth, General Aradar of the Felrin Shiek. Owen sighed wearily. Bad news was not what he wanted to share today, but after the fall of the Marble Castle to Levon and the South, and the unknown whereabouts of Queen Chasity, his options were bleak.
“A lot has happened these past few days,” Prudence said perching in her chair and acknowledging the half-filled room of galaxy representatives, “and I want to thank you for your continued support.”
Her eyes homed in on Owen.
Owen glanced around at those cheering, but he also noticed a few concerned faces. Adrian from Whidal included. The five alliance galaxies always supported the Felrin, but at times Adrian felt he always knew better than the majority.
“Will you address the concerns of Janjuc?” Taelen whispered from his rear.
“I’ve no choice.”
“How goes the Dowaric venture?” Prudence said unbothered, directly to the Kinsmen Rangers. “I don’t see our newest member, Queen Chastity, present?”
“Janjuc has been lost to the South,” Owen said his voice projected through the Avalanche room to a silent audience.
“Excuse me?” Prudence said.
“The Sprites of the South have taken over Janjuc. Levon—”
“The gifted Sprite?” Prudence intervened.
“Yes, Levon has turned to the Silkri. Become a Drake. I witnessed it with my own eyes.”
The room chatter was overwhelming. Owen couldn’t hear himself think.
“
Enough!” Prudence stood from her chair. “This is but one account. Go on further. What happened, Kinsmen?”
“I’m sorry, my Liege,” Owen went on, “the few Rangers I brought with me could only do so much.”
Noise filled the room. Owen could see Prudence withholding her animosity, sparks of aura slipping out from her head like steam.
“Might want to stop talking so much,” Nash muttered.
“Silence!” Prudence summoned with a pounding of her fist on her arm chair. “This is the Quarter Summit before the election, we must ensure all our supporters are still with us. Where are my alliance galaxies? We will deter this threat with their support!”
Owen couldn’t speak first; Adrian had already beaten him to it.
“My Liege,” he said with calculated antagonism, smiling from ear to ear. “I have come to let you know the great Aquamorphs have gained additional support from Sari and we will be running as the Aquamorph Assembly, come the election.”
The crowd was silent. Owen had never heard it so. An alliance galaxy had never branched out like this before. Why? Of course, the Aquamorphs had power a thousand years ago, but it quickly went to their heads and the galaxy slipped back into darkness. Conductors revolted, economic growth declined, transport failed—well, everything did. Was Adrian in his right mind to state such a thing? Owen glanced over at Darial, the Cousin King of Sari, with a face of confusion. He was sure this was false smoke—Adrian delivering a quick stab at the Felrin while they were down. But the Felrin couldn’t lose the election just on losing the Aquamorphs and Sari, could they?
After a few moments’ silence, the volume grew again. This time various shouts of support for the Aquamorphs could be heard. Support away from a Felrin Congress, who had allowed the Defeated King to escape, and toward an Aquamorph Assembly with the mighty Sari military behind them.
Prudence’s nostrils flared and Owen was sure a vein was going to pop in her neck.
