Everything was different.
She thought about the warriors she was going to face. The hostility. Angry males had already tried to kill her once today. For them, she represented the enemy in a holy war between the past and future.
Now, she entered the ring as a crusader.
Milly took Zara’s bunched clothes and hugged her one last time at the very edge of the shore, just before dropping the towel. In Zara’s ear, her worry whispered. “Come back.”
She stroked her sister’s hair like long ago. Then, she waved at the women on the beach, turned, and followed the already disappeared mer into the ocean.
Zara might die a martyr.
But she would crusade.
22
Elan’s journey back to Dragao Azul took much longer than normal.
His bicep injury healed quickly, but he’d more severely injured several warriors, and their trailed blood enticed surface predators, scavengers, and opportunists to swipe at the war party.
Every encounter raised Elan’s fears for Zain, but his captors protected his son as they would guard any young fry. Despite the unconscionable threats against his bride, they had not lost all honor.
Their slowness also seemed deliberate as if his escorts delayed as long as Commander Haren’s patience allowed. Whatever waited in Dragao Azul evoked their unspoken dread.
When he crossed into his city’s territory he saw why.
An army surrounded the city like a deadly blight. Not as extensive as the army that had attacked Atlantis, but the foreign warriors looked hardy and hungry.
His party swam through their belligerent ranks. The army closed around them, sealing off any escape.
They passed the first ring of castles.
Castles or, as Zara had once gasped in wonder, giant living “balloons” anchored to the vibrant sea floor. Beneath the rich floor, their roots interconnected in concentric circles around the Life Tree. Connected at the roots, the city literally was the Life Tree. If Dragao Azul’s Life Tree died, all the castles would wilt to muck and the city itself would die.
They passed the second ring of castles and entered the inner third.
No patrols. No warriors greeted him. The castles were cold and dark, empty.
Where was everyone?
They kept swimming deeper, into the oldest, tightest rings of castles, to the center of the city where the Life Tree rooted. The noise of the ocean muted and a holy stillness shot calm into his veins.
He had saved Zara. Whatever punishment lay ahead — dishonor, dismemberment, and death — Elan would suffer it willingly. She had survived.
The Dragao Azul warriors gathered just outside the center. They saw him. Their impassive expressions changed to surprise and then horror.
His captors dumped Elan near the front. Commander Haren took Zain through the last ring to the Life Tree.
Dragao Azul elders waited stiffly, ignoring Elan as if he did not exist.
His former warriors, lined up behind Elan in rank, were not so quiet.
Dosan, one of the pitying warriors who had let Elan escape with Zain, hissed. “Why did you return? Now all our lives are forfeit!”
“What?”
The elders kicked forward as though summoned. Elan thrashed to follow. Dosan and his silent patrol partner, Uvim, gripped Elan’s elbows and dragged him.
Inside the final ring of the grandest, most ancient castles, the Life Tree emerged in shining glory. Crowning a white dais mounded with Sea Opals, its great trunk lifted reverent branches toward the surface. Its thick anchor rooted securely to the seafloor. And its pure light filled Elan with peace.
All mer were connected to their Life Tree, not just via their castles, but in their very blood. Himself, Zain, and even Zara.
In every city, the Life Tree was the place of pronouncements. The place of marriage vows.
And the place of judgments.
This was where Elan expected to be tried for his crimes. But someone else was already strung up against the trunk of the Life Tree.
Dragao Azul’s king!
The foreign army forced the warriors into a ring around their Life Tree. Spaced out and empty-handed, they were flanked on all sides by an invasion force. Impassive, their tridents displayed in warning, they prepared to cut down dissenters.
One of the All-Council’s highest ranked generals presided.
He sneered at the king and gestured at Commander Haren holding a struggling baby Zain. “See? We retrieved the last young fry. Now your entire city of betrayers has gathered to witness my judgment.”
The king hung his head. He had been beaten; blood darkened the water and his body looked like pulp.
No general should pass judgment on a king. This was an act of war.
“General Iner,” Elan growled. “How dare you attack the king of a faithful city?”
The general jerked away from the king and flew at Elan. His gray-white tattoos fractured like chalk. Long, teeth-like gashes scarred his bald head and a crazed impression scarred his eye.
“You will call me Adviser Iner!”
His bent trident jabbed the underside of Elan’s jaw.
Elan leaned away from the sharp point. “What is this madness?”
“Adviser Creo ordered me to bring all betrayers to justice.” His frighteningly wide eyes and snarled teeth glowed sharply white against his battle-grayed skin. “I begin my judgment in Dragao Azul.”
Elan’s stomach turned.
Adviser Creo had judged Atlantis as unworthy and ordered its destruction. But he was not here to pass judgment on Dragao Azul.
“You act out of turn,” Elan snapped. “No general may pass judgment on a city.”
His blade twisted. “I told you to call me Adviser Iner.”
Elan endured the hot bite of metal against his jaw. “Only a vote by the entire All-Council can elevate a new representative. You are a general. Stop this now.”
“Do you mewl for your city? As well you should.”
The false adviser, Iner, turned and ordered Zain released. Commander Haren let go. Zain kicked for Elan. Iner caught him easily by the ankle and dragged Zain in front of the king.
“Cry for your people, bloody ruler. Look what your betrayal has wrought.”
Zain held out his arms and cried for the king.
The old male’s face twisted in pain. He looked away.
“Stop this! A general must obey the rule of the All-Council!” Elan shouted.
“The All-Council gave me their blessing.” Iner shoved Zain at Commander Haren once more and motioned to a separate group of warriors. Their tattoos were painted over so their affiliations were not identifiable. They were an execution squad.
They descended the Life Tree anchor and stopped midway to the sea floor.
Iner’s crazed gaze swept over all of them. “Honor our judgment.”
How could his fellow warriors remain so stoic? Impassive? Why was he the only one who cried out in protest?
When the All-Council army had gathered to destroy Atlantis, early scouts reported brides in the city carried young fry.
“We must offer them asylum,” General Iner had said, nobly and correctly, at that time.
Adviser Creo had refused. “We must destroy this poison seed, Atlantis, down to the very last young fry.”
Everyone had been shocked. To Elan, it was just one more bitter insult causing him to hate the All-Council. General Iner had silently gritted his teeth and obeyed.
But now it sounded as though he embraced Adviser Creo’s most horrifying, honor-destroying order as his new guiding vision.
To hear such similar words in Dragao Azul opened a new black pit of horrifying possibility in Elan’s belly.
He had yielded at the surface assuming Zara would be safe and no harm would come to Zain.
But Iner had bound and tortured their king. He madly declared himself an adviser, passed judgment on their city, and threatened to execute their Life Tree.
Now Iner swam back and forth in
front of the king, ranting. “We came to you in friendship. Males of your kingdom betrayed the ancient covenant. We offered you the chance to take responsibility. But you threw our offer in our faces. Your city raised more warriors to defy us. The rot has seeped into your roots. It must be cut off at the source.”
The king hung his head.
Iner grabbed the king’s hair and forced him to meet his crazed eyes. “Do you deny it?”
Elan startled.
The others remained stiffly frozen. They had seen this violence. Although they protested in their bones, they must have been ordered not to seek vengeance.
But Elan had not received that order.
Iner pointed at Elan. “There is the general you sent knowing he would betray us. Just like those exiles Kadir and Soren. They all came from your city. Your Life Tree. Do you see how you have given us no choice?”
The king did not look at Elan and did not reply.
“Useless.” Iner released the king. He returned to pacing.
Below, the execution squad fitted together a chain of serrated blades. Such blades were used to saw a Life Tree.
Elan struggled in his bolas.
Iner was judging the city. No one stopped him. This wasn’t an idle threat. Wishful thinking had to be given up in the face of harsh, unbelievable, but obvious reality.
This could not be permitted.
“Stop,” Dosan whispered.
Elan bared his teeth, his vibrations near silent. “Dragao Azul is under attack. Who can remain impassive?”
“The king ordered. He will give his life to spare ours.”
Elan rejected that with his entire soul. “They will not stop with his life. Do you not see? This is a judgment against the city itself.”
Dosan frowned. His dark sapphire tattoos made deep lines across his forehead.
His silent partner, lighter amethyst-tattooed Uvim, lifted his chin. It looked as though he and Dosan had argued this point, and Uvim took Elan’s side.
“I might have lost my honor,” he said softly, chafing his wrists against the taut bolas, “but I will not allow Dragao Azul to die without a fight.”
“We have no choice,” Iner declared.
He turned away from the king and addressed the foreign army, All-Council warriors who outnumbered the Dragao Azul warriors three to one.
“No choice but to end this city now as an example to the ocean. No one betrays the ancient covenant. No one betrays the All-Council. This is my ruling.”
Elan nearly pulled his shoulders out of socket. The bolas did not budge.
“Our king ordered us not to fight,” Dosan insisted.
“Do you not hear? Do you not see? The blades poise against our Life Tree.”
“But we are a faithful city.”
“Open your eyes. Iner had gone crazy. He finishes his threats.”
“Impossible,” Dosan vibrated.
Behind Dosan and Uvim, young scholar-in-training Orol whispered, “We are not the only city to be visited. Another All-Council army surrounds Sireno.”
Sireno was the home city of the first warlord to defy the ancient covenant, Torun, and was ruled by a young king said to be sympathetic to him. Their city did not send any warriors to join the Battle for Atlantis. Tacit support of Atlantis if not outright defiance of All-Council orders.
Elan focused on the young warrior. “How do you know this?”
Orol straightened, his citrine-yellow tattoos shining with iridescent pride. “Messengers arrived with warnings for both cities. We had a day’s notice, but our king refused to believe they came for war. He did nothing to prepare.”
“Because he had no reason to fear,” Dosan argued. “Why would the All-Council end us? We are their allies.”
“They lost the Battle for Atlantis,” Orol said reasonably. “They must assert their power or other cities will pull away. The other elders talked of it but the king would not listen. We are an example.”
Elan growled. “Lucky for Iner we did not fight. He will cut our city off at the roots and execute us.”
“We would have avoided this trial if you did not return.” Dosan glowered at him. “The king suffers because he authorized us to let you go. How dare you return to be used as evidence against him?”
Elan bit down on his own failure and fury. “They threatened my bride. And my young fry.”
The other warriors had the grace to look shocked and then enraged.
Dosan recovered first. “Even so. You should not have come.”
“I would sacrifice myself a thousand times to save my bride.”
“And the king would do the same for us,” Dosan growled back. “None of us want his sacrifice. His torture is our torture. We would all rather fight at his side than over his grave. You are both fools.”
Elan clenched to hold back his furious denial.
They were different. The king wishfully thought only he would be judged; he held back and hamstrung his warriors from fighting a battle that, while hopeless, would surely be better than willingly going to death.
Iner questioned Commander Haren. “The betrayer’s bride suffered for breaking her vows?”
“She was led astray by her husband,” the commander replied, bloodless as ever. “Alone on the shore, she will honor the covenant.”
Iner’s eyes narrowed. “If she returns to the water, we will end her.”
The commander’s jaw tightened. He nodded his understanding.
Beside Elan, Dosan and Uvim both made fists. They were not bound in bolas — none of the warriors of Dragao Azul were — because they were honor-bound by the word of their king.
Talk of injuring brides, like threats against young fry, was the stuff of nightmares. Any honorable warrior would react to it with horror.
This entire situation was Elan’s nightmare.
If Zara went into the water, the All-Council would end her? A bride? But she hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Elan was the betrayer. She was the victim.
He struggled harder to get free. His wrists and ankles ached. He had to tell her not to stop practicing her fins. Stop trying to grow her…
Wait.
Was he really so different from the king?
The king would do anything to protect his warriors. Blindly, he hamstrung them at the moment they most needed to fight.
Elan would do anything to protect Zain and Zara. He had failed the night of Zain’s birth, and he had sworn it would never happen again. He had denied her powers on the surface.
He’d hamstrung her power and ordered her not to fight.
Elan was the same.
He had betrayed Zara. Was it really to save her? No. In truth, he had ordered her to stop fighting to save himself. He couldn’t survive another failure. And so he had bound her with an order to remain on the shore, powerless, while enemies made off with her son. Again.
Now, their son was in a position of extreme danger. Elan had denied Zara the chance to protect him.
He’d once told her to release her fears and embrace her power. The one he should have said it to was himself.
In the worst case, she would have been hurt. Hurt fighting for what she believed in, for the husband and son that she loved.
The shock of an injured bride would have jolted the Dragao Azul warriors out of their stupor. If Zara were here now, there was no way they could lie, complacent, and watch their Life Tree and king be destroyed. Certain lines could not be crossed.
Elan had feared his own failure more than he had respected his wife’s power.
Zara was a true warrior.
He was a betrayer.
Iner hefted the king’s shiny, copper-colored trident. “As king of Dragao Azul, you have betrayed the ancient covenant and lost the honor of the mer.” He drew back the weapon to plunge it into the king’s chest.
Zara would not allow this to happen. She would fight. No matter the cost.
“You betrayed us first!” Elan shouted.
The surrounding warriors jolted.
> Iner lowered his arm. “You dare interrupt these sacred proceedings?”
“These proceedings are as sacred as a bubbling mud pit.”
Iner blinked.
“And you have as much right to judge, you parasitic sucker fish.”
The elders tried to shush him. But he would not be silenced.
“The ancient covenant is for our protection,” Elan snarled. “The All-Council upholds the laws. You twist the ancient covenant. And who will uphold the law if an All-Council general is the violator?”
“I have the All-Council’s blessing,” Iner repeated.
“Then the All-Council violates every rule of honorable warfare!”
Iner’s eyes drooped to half-lidded. “Only a rebel would think so. Law-abiding warriors obey. Your sickness has grown because of weak leadership in this lawless city.”
“Any mer with honor will know the All-Council has none. You are power-hungry, frightened, and desperate.”
Iner flew to Elan, the king’s trident leveled on his chest.
Elan braced for the hot bite of the blade.
Iner pulled up and sliced through his arm bolas, releasing his wrists. “First Lieutenant Elan, it is your job to execute warriors who violate the laws.”
Elan tightened for the suicide demand.
But instead, Iner dragged him before the Life Tree and shoved the king’s trident into his hands. “Your king has violated the laws. Execute him.”
What?
The king dropped his head, not in defiance, but because he was too injured to hold it up. Scars cross-crossed scars. Fresh, blue bruises lay atop purple and green.
Elan’s fingers flexed on the well-wrought weapon.
His ankles and knees were still bound. Iner had moved outside his reach. Too close to allow Elan to free himself, too far to allow Elan to stab him.
Execute the king?
“I will not,” Elan declared.
“You will.” Iner took a trident off another warrior and extended its blade to lift Elan’s. He forced Elan’s blade to the king’s throat.
A thread of blood whispered out. The king didn’t even whimper.
Elan held against Iner’s pressure. The crazed general was stronger and not hampered by bolas. But Elan was more determined.
Sirens and Scales Page 70
