“I never said I was fighting anything,” I denounced evenly, mind racing at the turn of events. Was the regent of Atlantis proposing? I had not come prepared to deal with this.
“Come on, Stargazer. What happened between us in the Deep? Our song? The way of things between us at the ball?”
“That was for show,” I deflected, referencing the latter example and conveniently ignoring the other two examples of the dalliance we’d been enjoying. Inking Abyss, he was serious.
And of course he was. I recalled with dismaying explicitness his spiel regarding mermaids mating for life, and how you didn’t go around seducing someone unless you planned to stick with her forever.
Perhaps that should have been my first clue.
“When I took you to the pit, showed you the reason for Amphitrite’s broken heart,” Coda continued, and I floated there speechlessly, helpless to do anything but let him lay it all on me, “I saw how deeply it affected you. You felt the ocean’s plight. It reached you. Moved you. Broke your own heart. And I think it was at that point that I knew. You are exactly what the ocean needs. Exactly what none of its current inhabitants possess because they take it for granted.”
I found my voice then, ironically moved to interrupt based on a small spark of hurt that only confirmed I believed there was something between us. “So this is just about me meeting some criteria that fulfills your civic obligations.”
His face fell–and somehow tightened at the same time. “No. Do you think I kissed you in the Deep like that because you ‘fulfill my civic needs’?”
What was I supposed to say? “I can’t be your bride, Coda.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not even–I’m from the Surface. And you what, want a Surface-dweller to rule the Deep? How am I even remotely qualified for that?”
“You care.”
“I don’t…have the necessary abilities to even survive in the open sea, much less rule it. That’s why my mother left me on a beach to begin with.”
“You speak as if you have to have a fin, be a mermaid, to take Amphitrite’s place. But you forget the birth of mermaids came when Amphitrite bequeathed fins to humans. She was never one herself. She took many forms. Sometimes finned, sometimes not, sometimes a tentacled giant and sometimes not even substantial at all.”
“Because she was a goddess, Coda. I am not.”
“But upon accepting the position and merging with the sea, you would be. Something more than human, anyway, granted the powers of the Deep. Who needs to outswim a shark when they bow to you?”
He was determined, but I had already made up my mind to leave. I had to check in with my old life; I’d never be able to live with a decision to simply abandon everyone I loved without explanation and disappear down a rabbit hole of mystery for the rest of time. “I’m not the right one for this,” I maintained, willing him to see that. As much as I’d gotten hung up on his loveliness and charm, it had always been fitting that he should end up with some exotic, experienced sea-girl.
“Were you not the one who pointed out that when I choose a bride, the sea will meet my choice halfway and bestow upon her the necessary knowledge and power?”
“Yes, but I was never a candidate. I am not even of the sea.”
He frowned gently, like he was trying to understand where I came up with that notion. “You have gills. You hear the call of the Deep. You scar silver… And still you say you are not of the sea?”
“But, my life–the people that I love… They’re up there.”
His expression was increasingly disheartened, seeing he didn’t have me. “You can walk between worlds, Sayler. You would not be losing anything, being my bride and tending to the ocean. You could still walk among your people.”
It was possible what he said was true, but it was all too much, not something I had ever expected to be presented with and not something I could ever commit to so hastily.
I shook my head, feeling backed into a corner and more and more frantic to get out. I was a lorist, yes, and a Thalassophile at heart, but never in my wildest dreams had I considered it might be written in my stars to marry a merman and rule the ocean. That was so far from what I’d ever considered for myself, my future, my family… “I am glad to know of my history, my heritage,” I said carefully. “But my home is above the Surface.”
Resignation hardened Coda’s face, and he glanced at the cracked stone floor to grapple with his disappointment, swallowing the very different outcome he had anticipated. I felt a pang of sorrow that I refused to grant him that elation, the same way I refused to stop putting one foot in front of the other to come here and announce my departure.
I meant what I said, but it was so inking bittersweet and didn’t come with the peace of mind I would expect of the ‘right decision’.
But I had to go back. I had to.
“There is nothing I can say to convince you?” Coda asked bleakly.
My resolve cowered inside me at his defeat, but I’d never so much as called Axel when I arrived safely in the Maldives, and I was not okay with how I had left things. “I’m sorry.”
I was. Truly I was. The regent of Atlantis, prince of the sea, had just asked me to be his wife, and I had refused.
What was wrong with me?
Perhaps I’d been a practical scientist too long. Perhaps I was a scared little girl.
Perhaps nothing. It was past due that I check in with those that had been my loved ones before all of this started, and there was no argument that could convince me I didn’t owe them that.
“Very well,” Coda said, growing instantly cold. “If that is what you wish.”
There was one other thing I had meant to ask, but I cringed bringing it up now that I had hurt him and he’d hardened himself toward me. “There is one thing,” I mentioned awkwardly, unable to look at him. “I don’t, ah, know my way back. I mean, I might be able to find the Surface, but I know nothing of navigating back to a shore that I might recognize.”
“Ah. So ‘home’ does not call to you like Atlantis does.”
I blinked at the jab. Ouch. And while it called me out, striking a nerve undoubtedly just like he intended it to, it also evoked a hot wave of defiance, that he would make this harder than it already was. “If what you mean is it doesn’t lure me down here under false pretenses and try to entrap me here against my will, then correct. It doesn’t.”
Coda relented for good, then, his intentions never to make me feel that way. “Forgive me for implying anything malicious. I will check into the matter of an escort for you.”
I let the provocation fizzle. “Thank you.”
“Was there anything else?”
I hated that this would be how we left things, but given the way he had just changed the dynamics between us I didn’t suppose it could go down any other way. “No. Nothing else.” And then I clamped my mouth shut, because I wanted to say a million other things and knew I would butcher all of them and that none of it would help in the grand scheme of things, anyway.
“Then I will have someone report to your turret regarding your travels. Godspeed, Sayler, daughter of Vel-Di’yah.”
And thus the regent of Atlantis and I said our goodbyes and parted ways, and the waters at the bottom of the ocean felt colder than they had since I arrived, and I swam numbly back through the canals to await an escort in my tower.
30
As it turned out, Brax volunteered to escort me to the Surface. I was touched and comforted, granted an extended farewell with one of the souls I had befriended down here. I hadn’t wanted to just coldly cut things off and vanish like a thief in the night, but had been faced with little choice given Coda’s bombshell proposal, so this gave me a chance to transition my leave the right way with someone.
Saying goodbye to Pastel was another matter entirely. Not only was it another heartache, another estrangement I didn’t know how to orchestrate, it was inking near impossible. Every time I tried to slip away from my tower, he just sluiced out after me
and clung to my shoulder. Finally, we upended an all-you-can-eat buffet of sevelt in the turret and high-tailed it out of range while he was distracted, but it felt like the biggest, lowest form of deceit and betrayal, and a lousy feeling spread in my gut as we passed through the city.
This was an ink blot of a day, if ever I’d had one.
Not once during the trip out did Brax object or ask if I was sure I wanted to do this or bring up her own reasons why I shouldn’t, of which I was grateful. At least someone respected my decision. What she did say was,
“Don’t worry, Sayler. He’ll be okay. Plenty of fish in the sea, and all that.”
And while it was safe to assume she was talking about Pastel and his fixation on me, I couldn’t help but feel that on some level she meant Codexious as well.
I smiled weakly and nodded, and tried to put both of them from my mind for the rest of the trip.
It must not have worked very well, however, because I was so absorbed in my own world of second-guessing and consternation that I didn’t even notice the giant jellyfish drift out of the surrounding abyss until it had almost completely floated across our path, blocking our journey.
Brax and I drew up short, and I came back into myself, frowning at the interception. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was the galaxy jellyfish from the pit, but what would it be doing out of its brooding lair where it spent its days in self-imposed isolation?
I glanced quizzically at Brax, and she was also eyeing the creature in confusion–but I detected almost more of an air of suspicion in her gaze, something untrusting.
It only added to my strange sense that something was off, and while I had no grounds to be alarmed, my nerves were alerted and the instinct left me perturbed.
The jellyfish wafted to a halt, regarding us with its starry intelligence. A constellation of synapsis sparked in its bubble-like body. Its thready black tendrils separated from the more ruffle-like entrails that fanned out below it, extending slowly in my direction like a reaching ghost. Just like the first time, I drew back in inevitable distaste, but its feelers reached me before I grew alarmed enough to feint out of range. Creeping up my chest they found my face and suctioned on to my temples. I tensed at the connection, but it was too late to jerk away.
Was there something the creature wanted me to see?
Why else would it be out here, going to the trouble of intercepting our journey in order to engage with me?
Why would it opt for me, and not Brax?
What could–
The million questions racing through my head cut off as the jelly-visions spilled into my mind. I went still, instantly hypnotized by the things imparted through the transcendent link. A surreal, virtual reality settled around me, a kaleidoscope of data churning and rippling into some form of visual that translated to my brain. It was ultra-real–too loud, too bright, textures overwhelmingly distinct and colors too beautiful to look at–and it glitched, the illusion skipping and wavering, but it was a reality that molded to my understanding, nonetheless.
I saw Abraxia’s red-and-violet form, and at first I thought I was just seeing her through the filmy walls of the virtual reality, there with me in the water. But she wasn’t looking at me, and in fact seemed totally unaware of my presence, and that did not seem like fitting behavior given Old Jelly the Wise had just emerged from the abyss to trap me in a vision-vise.
She glanced over her shoulder at something I couldn’t see, and then swam through a slide of graceful Beta-fish and arced over a moss-draped balcony into a crumbling hovel of Atlantean architecture. The vision followed her in, where Turoxo’s emerald-glinting fin peeked through a tattered canopy of abalone-membrane curtains, bobbing gently against the stones of the old floor as if in rest.
Parting the curtains, Brax lured the stalking surveillance into the canopy where Turoxo sprawled peacefully across a bed of mossy green rubble. Moving quietly so as not to wake him, Brax slithered up beside him and nestled in sweetly, settling down in their shared bed without disturbing him.
When he didn’t stir, however, her fingers drifted up from his torso, toward her own head, into her hair. Out came a blade that had passed as a ruby-and-silver hair brooch, gleaming in the aurora light as it came unsheathed.
Alarm pierced through me, my heart thudding strangely in my chest. What was she doing?
Tauntingly slowly, she inched the knife toward Turoxo, the razor-sharp edge gliding closer and closer to his neck. I watched in morbid fascination and disbelief as she pressed the blade against his throat, her intent becoming irrefutably malicious all at once, and, with a silken slit, she dealt that terrible, lethal blow to her beloved Turoxo.
A sick feeling spilled through my veins. Why was the galaxy jellyfish showing me this? It was like a bad nightmare–nothing I wanted to see, and for what purpose?
But the vision went on, forcing me to watch. Abraxia produced an ivory conch shell, placing it in the path of Turoxo’s escaping lifeblood and putting her lips to one side to suck the plumes into the shell. Turoxo’s eyes had flashed open at the death blow, and he tensed at the feeling of his life slipping away, mouth agape in a silent gasp and fingers clutching useless and white-knuckled at the rocks around him. Abraxia’s sly gaze cut to him over the ridges of the shell, and only after she collected the desired amount of blood and corked the openings of the shell capsule did she put it aside and lay a comforting palm against Turoxo’s cheek, soothing him sweetly–diabolically–as her handiwork took its toll.
When all the life had ebbed out of him and he stared open-eyed at the aurora-rippling ceiling above, she discontinued her charade of compassion and extracted herself from the remaining taint of blood leaving a rusty pall in the water.
Then she took her leave, and the vision wavered, jumping ahead to her descending past a dark drop-off and approaching the skeletal remains of an ancient ship-wreck. Into the decaying vessel she slithered, to the captain’s cabin that still retained a hint of its luxurious grandeur in the tattered velvet draperies and the glint of tarnished, toppled candelabra. Here she opened a chest and unpacked a myriad of items:
A shark tooth, a perfect sand dollar, an ink-black sea urchin, a translucent strip of silvery scales, what looked like a baby jellyfish in a jar, and a vial of ash-colored sand.
Unscrewing the jar, she mixed an offering from each token in with the jellyfish–a spine from the urchin; the sand dollar, crushed into powder; the shark tooth whole; and a sprinkle of the dark gray sediment. Then she added Turoxo’s blood from the shell, opened a vein of her own to add a splash of her personal essence, and screwed the lid back in place and shook up the contents.
She shook it and shook it until the contents mixed into a murky red-gray solution and the jellyfish floated good and dead in the mix when she stopped to inspect it. The poor little creature sparked and fizzled, sending neon-glowing electric currents through the solution.
It was at that point that Abraxia grinned darkly, violet eyes flashing with the sparks, and began to chant. It was incoherent at first, but rose into a tribal, archaic cadence, and again she shook the jar until the electric currents seemed to mix with the solution and it took on a glow of its own, and the jellyfish spiraled in pulped little pieces around and around the inside of the glass.
Jellyfish are sacred, Coda had said. So why on earth would Abraxia pulverize one in cold blood?
I tried to remind myself this was just a bizarre vision and I had no reason to put any stock in the things I was seeing, but the cold, ill feeling wouldn’t leave me.
Cut to a visual of Codexious hovering on an Atlantean balcony, gazing numbly out past the confines of the city.
“I just didn’t think she would go,” he murmured wistfully, and there was Brax, hovering beside him. “Not so hastily, at least.”
“She did what she thought was for the best,” Abraxia soothed him. “And for her, it was. You can’t fault her for that, can you?”
“No, I don’t suppose I can.”
“Here.
Roxo made his famous deep-sea brew,” Brax offered, placing a corked conch shell on the crumbling balustrade.
Codexious eyed the offering, chuckling curtly. “Much obliged.”
“It’ll take your mind off things.”
Alarm bells went off inside me, but I was helpless to warn him this side of the vision, and I didn’t even know what I would be warning him about.
Turoxo didn’t make that, Brax did! Turoxo is dead! I don’t know what she’s trying to do to you, but cast that potion into the Deep and get as far away as you can!!
He heard none of my insufficient warnings, of course, and so he grunted his thanks, uncorked the shell, and took a big swig.
Evidently it tasted fine, because he gave no obvious adverse reaction, simply reinserting the cork and setting the shell aside to save the rest for later. But I saw Abraxia’s devious half-smile, and soon Coda shook his head as if to dispel a wave of dizziness. When it persisted he clenched the balustrade for support, which I’d never seen someone prone to floating resort to before. It was difficult to say whether he felt in danger of sinking down against the stones or floating off into the open water.
“Are you all right, Codexious?” Abraxia feigned concern.
“I…I don’t…”
“You look strained. Here, let’s get you some rest.” She reached to touch his arm, and he turned to her, and as he did so their eyes met and locked and he looked at her…strangely.
Strangely in the sense that it was a look I recognized all too well because it was one he’d treated me to more times than I could rightly recall.
A pang of jealousy slung through me, completely unexpected. It wasn’t as though I had exclusive rights to that look, especially now that I’d shot him down and chosen to leave, but it didn’t sit well seeing him treat Brax to it.
And Brax, of all people… What was going on?
Sirens and Scales Page 192
