by Starla Night
Ah.
Relief flooded his bones. He rotated his shoulders. His chest lifted, buoyed with squid-shaped threads of hope.
And a new plan snapped into place.
He tried to catch the eye of Itime or Konomelu, but they fixed on the kraken with horror, just like everyone else.
He tried to vibrate a message just to them. “Hey. Hey.”
The king looked up. “Atlantean, are you trying to beg for your life? Or the future lives of your unfortunate city? Do not bother. Surface humans stole Lusca’s mercy along with our sacred brides.”
“I do not need mercy.” Ciran needed time. He straightened, stretched, and rolled his neck, loosening into a ready stance. “No Atlantis warriors will ever be thrown into this trench.”
“What a pity. Lieutenant Orike assured me you thought they would try to rescue you.”
“I do not need rescue. But you do.”
The king’s eyes narrowed. He had not reached this age by underestimating his enemies. He glanced at Itime and Konomelu, who still focused on the kraken tentacles as though unable to tear their mesmerized gazes away, and then to the young fry. But Ciran was a lone warrior, unarmed—again—surrounded by a city larger than Atlantis, and facing down a mythical beast that the king controlled. All these calculations played out across the king’s face and he finally allowed himself a small smile.
“I am in danger? Now?”
“Very much so.”
The king’s eyes narrowed again. “How mysterious, Undine exile. You have a plan, then?”
Ciran nodded. How funny that the terror of the kraken had momentarily blinded him to the deep inner knowledge. Just like Dannika’s terror at thinking she’d lost him had momentarily blinded her. But now that he was focusing again, the soul-deep knowledge grew.
She was coming.
“I should not reward your arrogance, but it has been a long time since anyone has provided a proper entertainment.” The king rested on his trident. “Enlighten me. How will you defeat me?”
“I will not defeat you.”
The king nodded, irritated by the blather.
“But I promise you that in a short time, the attacks on humans will cease. The young fry you have trapped and terrorized will return to their fathers. The Lusca you have created will no longer exist. And you will not rule on the Life Tree dais.”
“Ah. Will the new king be you?”
Ciran shook his head. “The warrior who takes your place and commands the city will be its rightful ruler: Prince Ankena.”
The king jolted with shock.
Prince Lukiyo tore his gaze away from the kraken. “My father is alive?”
“Do not feed his delusion,” the king snapped. “If he manipulates you so easily, perhaps you should share Nuno’s shackles and find out for yourself how he died.”
Prince Lukiyo clenched his trident.
The king turned his attention back to Ciran. “These traitors have fed you just enough information to construct an impressive fantasy. But I do not swallow such trickery. No one will overhear this lie and come to your aid. My warriors have swept the ocean clean. No rebels or exiles remain.”
“Except for the most important ones. And they do not need to hear my words because they already know. Your actions have summoned them. They are coming, and you cannot stop their quest for justice.”
The king frowned and glanced around. A few of his warriors appeared to listen, but most still watched the kraken.
“I am speaking, of course, of the ones you betrayed.” Ciran pointed up, where two more reef squids fluttered past. “The sacred brides.”
Itime and Konomelu looked up and locked eyes with him.
“The sacred brides?” The king shook his head. “Ridiculous.”
“My king.” Warrior Figuara floated forward apologetically. “We should not have entered the sacred church.”
“It is long empty.”
“But, my king, our sacred brides—”
“Lusca has no sacred brides, and Lusca needs no sacred brides. They are a weakness. What do we need of sacred brides when we can steal recruits whenever we want?” The king waved at the young fry who clustered into a tight, defensive ball.
Perfect.
“Yes, my king, but we still have a duty to protect the island. Our ancestors promised, and—”
“Silence, Figuara, or you will join the other traitors.”
Figuara twisted his trident in his hands, worrying the worn metal. He had certainly lost favor with the king. His trident was old and dinged. But it was functional, and the older warriors listened to him.
The king changed tack. “This Atlantis warrior speaks what you most want to hear. But we all know Ankena is dead. The sacred brides are gone. We had to take these young fry for their own protection. How could they be raised by humans? They would become shrimp lurking in holes.”
The Luscans settled. Figuara studied the young fry with pity.
Ciran laughed. “Humans? What humans are you talking about? Humans did not raise these young fry. They were raised by brides. Brides on your sacred island. Brides that my mate taught how to become queens.”
Another murmur spread through the warriors.
He held the king’s gaze, mirth still bubbling in his chest. “Queens that are coming here to reclaim their young fry and their husbands. Reclaim what you took. Right now.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
It was a good speech.
It riveted the Luscans. A deep frown wrinkled Figuara’s brow. He looked back at the older warriors and then at Itime and Konomelu, who were both sharing Ciran’s arch smile. They had to feel their brides coming, too.
But it was a little premature.
There was a long silent pause.
The king cracked a smile. “What a clever Undine joke. ‘The brides are coming and they are mythic queens with unimaginable powers.’ Paugh. There is no such thing as queens, and no brides are coming here because Lusca has none.” He shooed Figuara back. “Do not forget your place. Or the next traitor I sacrifice will be you.”
Figuara kicked away from the dais but he did not return to his former drifting location. He straightened and gestured. The older warriors he had just acknowledged subtly moved behind him.
“Now.” The king gripped the lever. “Witness my might.”
Wong.
A strange vibration filled the city. A low, resonant hum grew and faded on a rhythm.
The mirror stones creaked in their fittings.
The king hesitated.
“What was that?” One of Ciran’s guard whirled, seeking the source of the noise. “Some strange animal?”
“Distance could distort an animal’s call,” the other guard said. “I hear an echo. Coming from…” He looked down. “The trench?”
Ong…ong…ong…ng…g…
No, not the trench.
The king slowly looked up and stared right in Ciran’s eyes.
He knew.
They both knew.
Lieutenant Figuara announced it. “It is the bell. The bell of the sacred brides.”
Now.
“It is not the sacred brides,” the king argued. “It is another trick of the Undine.”
Ciran signaled Itime and Konomelu. While their guards were distracted also looking for the source of the bell, Itime hugged his stone and rolled off the dais. No one even noticed he’d fallen. Konomelu shifted his toes to human, dug in, and pushed off Nuno’s rock.
Nuno exclaimed. “Dad? Agh!” The stone dragged him ankles-first for the bottom.
The guards turned. “Stop!”
Konomelu rolled off and descended too quickly for them to arrest him.
The king watched them fall with annoyance. “What do they think they are doing? There is no escape. The kraken will pick them off the ledge as easily as from the middle of the trench.” He pulled the lever.
The mirror stones rotated.
Prince Lukiyo swam to his brother and turned, brandishing his trident at t
he rising kraken and preparing to defend the young fry from whatever might be coming.
Itime had dropped to the coral beside one of the mirror stones. He hauled the stone in his arms toward the Life Tree stalk. Nuno landed in roughly the same place, disoriented, and sat there. But Konomelu hit one of the rotating mirror stones with a sharp crack. The mirror stone remained undamaged.
Hmm.
He rolled off, urged Nuno up, and together they struggled toward the base of the Life Tree.
Tentacles rose from the trench like a twitching nightmare.
“See?” The king’s lips stretched into a satisfied smile. “There is no escape.”
Itime stopped at the bell and dropped his stone. The dead coral crumbled. Konomelu and Nuno put their shoulders to the planks of wood and levered them off. Itime tore at the mud.
The king stopped smiling. “You. Guards who failed me. Go collect them.”
The guards who’d lost the prisoners looked at each other, then the king. The leader spoke. “I thought there was no escape from the kraken.”
“They are not trying to escape the kraken. They are trying to free her.”
“Free her? But you control her.”
“I control the mirror stones, which they are trying to break. Stop them.”
The guards kicked back and forth. “But they did not break the stone. Not even when they landed on—”
“I need not explain myself to you.” The king aimed his trident. “Descend and stop them, now, or I will tie a stone to your fins and drop you in.”
The guards descended very unwillingly.
Midway down the stalk, the kraken’s tentacles jerked in their direction.
They fell over each scrambling away and zoomed away from the city.
The king swore and pushed the lever to force the kraken to descend. While the mirror stones turned, he pointed to the next closest guards, which happened to be Ciran’s. “There, cowards. I have turned the stones. In a few moments, it will force the beast back into its hole. Now, you do what the others could not.”
They hovered, watching the prisoners energetically uncover the bell while the tentacles slowly, far too slowly, receded.
“What are you waiting for?” the king demanded. “The beast will not attack.”
“We could wait for the kraken to fully disappear,” one of Ciran’s guards said. “Why not?”
“Because if the prisoners break the mirror stones, the monster will never recede again.”
The guards lingered.
The king chased them away, slashing his trident. They moved more aggressively toward the prisoners.
And now Ciran floated without guards—unarmed, as usual—before the Lusca king.
Everything was going according to plan.
Finally.
The king’s panicked gaze caught on his smirk and stopped. His eyes narrowed. He lifted his trident to Ciran’s chin. “You are enjoying this too much. Should I gut you now?”
The king was deadly serious.
But Ciran did not flinch. Meg was a very skilled healer.
And all he needed was a little more time.
So he engaged the king. “Your city crumbles around you. This is your last chance to let the young fry go. Will you waste it instead on a foreigner?”
The king lowered his vibration so only Ciran would hear. “Even if what you say is true, and those heretical mainlanders have transformed, they will find nothing here but death. Theirs.”
“Were you that certain the last time you faced them in battle? And they defeated you?”
“They did not defeat me. I let them go.”
Ciran stopped himself from vibrating the quick retort. How merciful. Because as much as he trusted Meg’s skill, he did not want to distract from what was about to become a very real fight.
The king studied him as if he knew what Ciran had not said and was debating whether or not to make him pay for it.
Bong…ong…ong…ng…g…
A deep, resonant knell filled the city. Although it had originated on the sacred island, the city’s bell now amplified it.
Konomelu, Nuno, and Itime had done it.
They floated back from the bell, still tethered by their ankles, and hugged their chests.
“It is the sacred brides.” Figuara lifted his trident. “They call for our aid, and I, for one, will answer.”
The older warriors who must have trained under Elder Daka mustered their weapons and flew into a formation behind him.
The younger warriors, orphaned and trained only under the king, milled in confusion.
“No sacred brides call to us. It is some disrespectful humans who figured out how to bang a pot like the land monkeys they are.” The king gestured at the two distant guards beneath the Life Tree. “Forget the prisoners. Muffle that bell. Warriors! Ah, I am surrounded by incompetence.”
The two guards did not notice the king’s change of orders. They tried to drag the prisoners away from the trench, but the rocks were too heavy. They cut the stone tethers. The prisoners immediately turned on the guards and wrestled for their weapons.
Kraken tentacles quested along the ledge, a creeping backdrop to their struggle.
The king pushed the lever. The mechanism made a grating sound and resisted.
Bong…ong…ong…ng…g…
A third strike reverberated across the city.
Crack.
The mirror stone closest to the Life Tree fell in two pieces.
More tentacles emerged. A new current forced the Life Tree away from the trench. The dais tilted and mating gemstones spilled off, falling like iridescent raindrops for the coral below. The spiked armor around its stalk creaked in a warning.
Still, the king wrestled with the lever.
Lieutenant Orike returned to the center of the city with his warriors. “My king, a strange mass of sea creatures drifts this way.”
The king ignored him. “I must fix this mechanism.”
“The mass is urgent. It is…I cannot describe it. It is organized, directed. I have never seen sea creatures behave this way.”
“The sacred brides.” Figuara faced off to him. “They summon us with the bell and now the very ocean.”
“It is not a summons.” Lieutenant Orike frowned at him like he was crazy. “It is an army. Mindless animals, and yet, they storm the city as though guided by a master. We must assemble and fight.”
“Fight our own sacred brides?” Figuara lifted his chin. “I would rather fight the water I breathe.”
“What are you babbling about, old male? I have walked all over that island. None live there now but a dim-souled human.”
“You angered them. You did this. Their ghosts have arisen. We must answer or face their vengeance.”
“How do you propose to entreat a ghost?” Lieutenant Orike shook his head in disgust. “While we debate, an unnatural mass descends on our city. Look.”
A sperm whale drifted over the city, not at its usual distance, but just above the tops of the castles. With it, bumping against the castles, soared an entire school of tuna.
“There are your ghosts,” Lieutenant Orike said.
Figuara and the others gaped. “They obey the sacred brides.”
“For the last time.” The king released the lever and aimed his trident at the two warriors. “There are no sacred brides!”
Bong…ong…ng…ng…g.
“Then who rings the bell?” Figuara asked softly. “Who summons the kraken?”
Crack. Crack-crack. Crack.
More mirror stones fell. The dreaded tentacles rose level with the midpoint of the Life Tree stalk. The battle paused while the warrior raced away from the questing creature. But it was so massive, it looked like just the fingertips of the beast clawing at the edge of its crypt.
Bong…ong…ong…ng…g…
The rest of the mirror stones collapsed.
Ciran kicked back from the trench. Would their rescue arrive in time?
“There!” A warrior at
the back of the assembly pointed. “Ghosts.”
The four women linked hands inside an impenetrable white shield, a bubble enclosing them safely while the animals Meg had summoned surged around them. Dannika floated at the far left. Energy surged out of her fingers and reinforced the bubble. On the far right, Angie did the same. They both had shielding powers. Meg and Bex, inside, amplified their power the way the two bells amplified each other.
Dannika locked gazes with him.
She had done it. She had found her power.
And nothing would ever make her doubt again.
He swelled with pride.
The king gaped at the women, then lowered his trident at Ciran. “This is your fault.”
“Guilty.” He grinned at the king and raised his fist.
The king’s jaw dropped. And then rage crunched his face.
How satisfying.
Ciran did what he should have done in the shallow reef long ago. He turned away from his enemies and raced toward Dannika with all his might.
“Warriors of Lusca,” the king snarled. “Annihilate the invaders.”
The Luscans who were still loyal to the king oriented on Ciran and charged.
Chapter Thirty-Four
A few moments earlier…
The journey across the sea had been amazing, and now they’d arrived.
“I can’t believe it.” Meg shook her head. “Can you guys? I mean, we never even asked directions.”
Dannika and the other women had swum intuitively toward where they sensed their soul mates. They might not have taken the most efficient currents, but when the barren seafloor finally gave away to coral spires and then a whole forest, they’d celebrated.
The city was also amazing.
The Life Tree floated like a white flower shooting up from the ocean floor. It had a long green stalk, a circular platform for the petals, and the tree itself was like a white stamen.
Much larger mer castles bobbed around it on their own stalks. The greenish bulbs glimmered with inner lights, but the Life Tree glowed the brightest of all.
“But that is definitely it. Huh. It’s a chandelier,” Meg said. “Floating upside down. Well, half a chandelier.”
