“But you hate Lo,” I say, wondering why I’m even engaging. But a part of me wants answers. “You never wanted me with him.”
“If anyone told you not to jump off a cliff, what would you do?” Speio smiles a little sadly.
I stare at him, a horrible thought occurring to me. “That’s why you made up all that stuff about liking me. You didn’t want me to glimmer you and find out what you’d been doing behind my back...plotting against me all this time.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like, Speio?”
“I just wanted to go home,” he repeats brokenly. “Then things started getting out of control with the hybrid attack. That wasn’t meant for you—it was meant for me. She knew I was wavering. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you. I wanted to fix it. But then you started getting so close to him, and the other day, I knew it was over.”
“What’s over, Speio?” I say, alarmed at his nearly nonsensical rambling.
“Look at your hands,” he says sadly. “It’s done.”
I look down at my palms. Thin blue swirls are shimmering along my skin, similar to the thicker ones Jenna had pointed out on my neck. With everything going on, all I can think is that they’re the color of Lo’s eyes. “What’s done?”
“He means that you are now bonded,” my mother chimes in cheerfully. My palms tingle, and for a long moment I think of the yellow-green swirls I saw on Lo’s Aquarathi body. My colors. Lo’s face is inscrutable, his eyes dark and shadowed, watching me. All the breath in my body steals out of me at the similar marks I can still see on his shoulders. I drag my eyes away, ignoring the magnetic pull I feel toward him. Now I understand why. The dark swirls are not royal Dvija marks, after all. They’re bonding marks.
I’ve bonded with someone. I’ve bonded with Lo.
“You planned all of this?” I ask my mother weakly. “This was what you wanted? So I could bond with someone?”
“He’s a prince. Of royal blood, just as you are.” I blink, frowning as if that should make any difference. They—he—tricked me into bonding myself to him, prince or not.
My fists clench at my side. “So what? You think you know everything there is to know about bonding, don’t you?” I say to her. “But you know nothing of love. You murdered my father.” I lurch forward in a rage but freeze at my mother’s warning look and follow her gaze to where Jenna is lying motionless near the exit doors.
“What have you done to her?”
“Nothing,” she says. “Yet. She’s just sleeping. She’s an insurance policy so that you won’t do anything rash.”
“She’s human,” I say, tightening my fists. “Involving her against her knowledge is against our laws.”
My mother eyes me coolly. “But you chose to involve her so the fault—if any—lies with you.” My gaze collides with Speio, who hangs his head guiltily. I can’t believe he told her about Jenna, when she’d stuck her own neck out for him!
“You must understand what we have to do, Nerissa,” my mother says, drawing the fire of my anger. “I am sorry about what happened but your father was stuck in the old ways. He refused to change. The humans will destroy us without thinking twice.”
“The humans are trying,” I fire back. “If we give them half a chance, they will do what they need to do to protect the oceans. I’ve seen them.” I wave my hand. “Here and other places. They care. But Ehmora,” I say through clenched teeth, “does not. She wants to destroy them before they can threaten our existence. How is that the right way? It was their planet before it was ours.”
“So you would sentence us to a slow, highly probable death? Millions of us died on Sana because of the choices of the land dwellers. We can’t afford to let that happen here. Like you, your father still had faith in the humans and refused to see that we were becoming just as trapped as they were. I had to do something for the sake of our people.”
“Your people? Whom you abandoned to go to her, your lover?” I snarl, and watch her eyes widen. “Oh, I know your dirty dark secret. That’s why you wanted me to bond with him, isn’t it?” I jerk my head toward Lo and claw at the skin of my palms, iridescent streaks of my blood marring the telling swaths of blue. “Well, it won’t work. Because it’s a lie.”
“You don’t love him?”
“No.” The lie is as painful as the raw welts on my hands. My waters rush against me as if furious with what I’ve said. Even now, they strain toward Lo with overwhelming strength, and it’s all I can do not to run to him. I close my eyes and steel myself. “I reject him. I reject the bond.”
My mother lips part in a cold, chilling smile. “You, my darling, cannot undo millions of years of evolution. The bond is unbreakable. And you know that as well as we do.”
“What does Ehmora even get out of this?”
“The High Court,” she says.
“She will never have control of the throne, not while I’m alive,” I say. “My father died defending it from her, and from you. You think some false bond with a lower-level prince will change any of that? He has nothing to do with you.”
“He’s not just some prince,” a deep voice says from behind my mother, followed by a long mocking laugh, as another person comes into view. “He is my son.”
Emma Seavon.
I’m in the twilight zone. First of all, doesn’t anybody realize that this center is closed and it’s private property? Why is she even here? And why is she holding my mother’s hand? Confused, I remain mute, staring at her face in dumbfounded silence as she steps forward, a smile on her face, her alien eyes flashing crimson fire. This time, the pieces click together with dizzying succession.
“Ehmora,” I breathe.
She smiles again. “Surprised?”
But I don’t even hear her as the final piece of the puzzle snaps into place—suddenly my world is splintering into a million pieces, and I am a stone sinking to the bottom of the dark, empty ocean.
Emma Seavon is Ehmora.
Ehmora is my mother’s lover.
Ehmora is Lo’s mother.
I start laughing hysterically until the tears are pouring from my eyes. I turn to Lo, who hasn’t moved from where he was standing next to the tank. His face is anguished but I ignore it, fighting against the terrifying demands of the bond nearly dragging me toward him just from that one glance.
“Ehmora is your mother?” I say, ripping my eyes away and mocking his earlier words. “That’s just priceless, isn’t it?” I laugh again and throw my arms into the air, looking at my mother and Ehmora in turn. “Come on, you have to find this a little funny? I fall for the boy who is the son of my mother’s girlfriend and my father’s killer, who wants to assume my throne for her own?”
Ehmora nods, amused at my theatrics. “Lo was your mother’s idea,” she says. She glances at her son, distaste written all over her chiseled face. “Neriah insisted that an...alliance would unite the courts, and make it easier to gain their trust. I told her it wouldn’t work. Lo has always been too caring...too weak.”
“You mistake weakness for strength,” I say. I have no idea why I’m defending him but I can’t stop myself. “Compassion is something I’ve learned to appreciate during my time here. Perhaps your son did, as well.”
“Is that what you call it?” she sneers, and then studies her immaculate manicure. “Nonetheless, a union between two of the most powerful courts in Waterfell would have been an acceptable plan, until my son decided to grow a backbone for the first time in his life. Sad, really, that it won’t work, after all.”
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t tell you?” She glares at Lo, who is staring at me with his heart in his eyes. “Imagine my own progeny turning his back on his own mother. Shameful, really.”
My gaze flutters to my mother. “Well, the bond is unbreakable so yo
u kind of set yourself up to fail. But you two would know about that, wouldn’t you?” I paste an empathetic look on my face. “Just my two cents, but I say good for him.”
“He’ll face the consequences of his actions sooner or later,” Ehmora says mildly. “Just as you will.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Just a fact.” She smiles coldly. “So let’s not beat around the bush, then. Do you accept my challenge, little princess?”
“Nerissa, you don’t have to do this,” Speio says from behind me. “You’re the rightful heir. You don’t have to accept.”
I stare at him, with furious eyes. “Oh, like I’m going to take advice from the very one who set this all up because he didn’t believe in me in the first place? Go crawl into your hole, Speio, and pray I don’t find you later.”
“Riss—” Speio begs.
“Stop, Speio. Just stop. You sold me out the first chance you got.” I jerk my head at Jenna’s still-inert body. “The only one I can trust is her, and she’s human. She’s better than all of you put together.”
I can’t let anything happen to Jenna. I won’t. If Ehmora wants a fight, she’s going to get the fight of her life. Gathering my strength, I pull my water into me, readying myself just as Echlios has taught me. Even though it’s dark outside, I can already feel the night air brewing and responding to me. I’m still the heir, regardless of any bond with Ehmora’s son. I can’t even think of him as that and as Lo in the same breath without my insides feeling like they’re rocks. To me, they are two distinct entities.
Lo, the boy, and Ehmora’s son, the Aquarathi prince.
The air in the center is thick and nearly solid with tension. Ehmora and my mother are silent, anticipating my response. I lift my chin and square my shoulders. The gauntlet has been thrown and the cards have been dealt. I’ve decided to fight, instead of hiding from my responsibilities. In the end, I’d rather stand for something than fall for nothing. But we won’t fight here. Our fates will be decided on the gray sands of Waterfell.
But first, I need to know what they know.
“Tell me about the hybrids,” I say with steel in my voice.
“What about them?” Ehmora says.
“I don’t want to play games with you.”
“What games?” She laughs. “You have no cards to play. I am holding them all.”
But she’s wrong. I do have one card. Without thinking twice, I dive toward Lo and grip his neck in a backward chokehold. He doesn’t struggle even though I can feel his pulse racing below my forearm.
Grimacing at the feel of my Aquarathi bones cracking beneath my skin, the fingers on my right hand extend into curled, sharpened claws. They press into the soft center of Lo’s human throat. “Bond or no bond, you underestimate the power of vengeance,” I say.
“You wouldn’t,” Ehmora says, but I can see the tiniest flare in those crimson eyes. Maybe she does care about him, after all. He may be a disappointment to her but he’s still her perfect hybrid specimen. That has to be worth something.
“I can. And I will.”
My voice is unwavering even though every cell in my body is pressing through my skin to melt into Lo’s. I know that he can feel it, too, but he remains silent, his own water pressing against mine, submissive. We are bonded, and our bodies know it. Our minds know it. Every living part of us knows it. Touching him is the worst thing I could have done because all I want to do is stay there.
But I fight it with every shred of willpower in me because if I appear weak for one second I know that Ehmora will take immediate advantage. My arm tightens—but gently—against Lo’s neck. “Tell me about the hybrids,” I repeat, directing the question to my mother. “Why did you make them?”
Ehmora’s eyes burn red but she nods at my mother to comply with my request. “We were working on a way to combine the strengths of the different species. But pure Aquarathi rejected the genes of the humans. We need to combine them at a genetic cellular level first.”
“Offspring,” I interject. “How many actually lived past birth?”
“Only two,” she says. “From that point, we harvested their genetic material and started the process to introduce new alleles into our own DNA. It’s why you couldn’t recognize either of us and why Lotharius didn’t have to yield to you.” She pauses, looking to Ehmora for confirmation on continuing. “He’s the firstborn with the new genes, inherited from his mother in utero.” She stares intensely at me. “Lo is the future, Nerissa.”
I stare back at her. The plot she is describing goes back years, before Lo or I were born, before either of us became pawns in their little game. “Did you ever love him? My father? When you were planning all along to betray him? Did you ever love me?”
“We don’t operate on love,” she answers, and something inside me dies just a little. A tiny part of me had hoped that despite all her machinations, I would still mean something to her. “Love is a human condition, my darling. An illusion. Just like compassion and all those other useless human traits.”
“You are the illusion,” I tell her. “You’re nothing more than a liar and a traitor.” I deliver my next words to Ehmora. “Release Jenna, and I will release your precious son,” I say to her, but she shakes her head with a cold, calculating expression. I understand immediately. Jenna is going to die, anyway, because she knows too much. They won’t risk it.
I have to save her.
There’s no way I can do it alone, so I cast a glimmer toward Speio in a last-ditch effort. Still want to redeem yourself? You’re the closest to Jenna. Get her out of here. If you ever felt any loyalty to me, do this. You owe her. You owe me.
Uncertainty plays across his face but he nods once, imperceptibly. I take a deep breath and pull my water into my center. Bending my head toward Lo, I murmur into his ear. “At least you’ll be good for one thing now that we’re bonded, my love.”
And I glimmer his energy into me so hard that I’m gasping with the force of it. Lo’s body arches against mine but he doesn’t fight me. If anything, he pushes it out of him, like reverse Sanctum. I don’t question. I just take. I take until I feel him bending into me like a bow. His body slumps against mine and, in a smooth motion, I lift him and toss him into the saltwater tank. The water will help him heal and restore some of his energy. I don’t know why I did it, but despite his deception, I couldn’t just let him lie there, vulnerable and defenseless.
Barely a second has passed and, before anyone can react, I am running toward them in a sprint. I roll once on the floor to collect Jenna’s fallen Taser that Speio dropped. Ehmora snarls but she isn’t my target. My mother is. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Speio scramble to scoop Jenna up and disappear with her through the exit, just as I reach my mother.
Kicking off of Ehmora’s torso with all the force I can muster, I complete the spin kick by twisting back toward my mother just as Ehmora flies into the side of the tank with a sick crunch. Water sprays everywhere as the sealant cracks. I crouch on top of my mother, staring down into eyes that are the mirror image of mine.
“Nerissa,” she begins. “I’m your mother. I’m doing this—”
“My mother is dead,” I say, and jam the Taser into her side. “This is for my father. Tell your lover that I accept her challenge.”
Her tortured shrieks echo against the walls but I’m already running out the door to the dock and transforming with each step. I can hear Ehmora’s cries of fury behind me and the thump of something huge following in my footsteps. The skies are ripe with lightning. Crashes of thunder break all around me, and the sea is churning with the rush of a thousand emotions.
Mine and hers combined. The perfect storm.
Already the dock beneath my feet is shaking from the force of the waves crashing against it in violent, primal rage. I embrace my power as I’ve never done before, letting the sea’s energy
fuel me. My bones push outward through my flesh, lengthening and snapping as my body morphs into its natural shape. My skin burns, sliding over new bones and hardening into place, thickening with sinew and strength. Everything feels more fluid and more visceral as the creature inside reclaims control of me.
At the end of the dock, I dive into the black water, spinning at the last moment to see a gigantic beast of fury racing toward me on the dock with blood on its breath and fire on its tongue. Its scales are ebony with bloodred fins spanning its length. Its eyes are crimson and full of hatred.
And it wants to kill me.
I swim as fast as I can out to sea, cleaving through the water like a torpedo. The sane part of me knows that I need to get as far away as possible to limit any human casualties—and of course, to protect Jenna. Grateful for Echlios’s training, I feel my muscles eagerly leaping to the demands of my will until I’m nothing but a blur in the water.
Racing past San Nicolas Island with every ounce of speed I can muster, I dive deep, down and down and down where the water is nothing but a vortex of cold and darkness...where only the monsters live.
24
CROWN OF BONES
My father’s face is kind, his beautiful silvery white fins floating around him like a halo. Everything about him is as I remember—vibrant and warm and full of life. He’s not alive, of course, but he couldn’t be any more real at this moment. If I try hard enough, I can just reach out to feel his tail curl protectively around me and bury my face in the feathery fronds beneath his glossy auburn neck.
I managed to reach the safety of Waterfell even with Ehmora hot on my heels, and the first place I went was my father’s grave. Now I press my body onto the headstone that marks his resting place in the deepest part of Waterfell, connecting the waters in my body to the remaining elemental essence of his. The connection is but a shadow of the one we shared when he was alive, but I can still speak to him in a sense. Part of our royal legacy, the secrets of Aquarathi rulers have been passed down this way for centuries.
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