“No,” Aazuria said, shaking her head. “I am going to check the labyrinth. She could have gotten lost in any of the intricate channels of caves under the Aleutian Islands.”
“Wait, Zuri,” he signed. He frowned as he moved his thumbs and forefingers, trying to remember all the correct hand formations. “If I understand correctly, these caves stretch out for hundreds of miles… you can’t possibly cover all that ground swimming with your injured shoulder! My great-aunt Sionna sent me to tell you that you have to take it easy, and spend some time resting in the infirmary. She seems like she really knows what she’s doing.”
“I have rested enough. I must find Corallyn,” Aazuria insisted, swallowing. She reached up to touch her shoulder gingerly. She felt extreme embarrassment and growing annoyance at the fact that Koraline Kolarevic, the woman who had called herself Atargatis, had managed to stab her in the same location twice. The first time had been with a javelin that had gone clean through her shoulder; Trevain had saved her life by pushing her to the side just in time, or it would have pierced her heart. The second time was in hand-to-hand combat.
“Your bleeding hasn’t even stopped,” Trevain pointed out, grimacing at her darkened bandages. The blood that had dried on the cloth in the air had not completely washed out in the water. He reached out with his thumb to caress her skin very close to the wound, and he frowned when she winced. “If this gets…” He paused, not knowing the signal for ‘infected.’ He tried to substitute a word. “If this gets dirty, it could get worse and you could lose your whole arm…”
“I will be fine. Sionna gave me a tetanus shot when I was stabbed the first time,” Aazuria quickly signed to him as she moved through the caves.
He followed her, confused. “Tetanus?” he asked, imitating the hand signal she had formed. “I’m not sure what that is, could you spell it out for me?”
“I need to hurry. I am going to pass by the kitchens and collect some basic food to sustain me while I search for her. Can you go to the palace and organize the military to help me search? Your grandmother is drunk, or I would ask you to go to her.”
Trevain felt nervous as he tried to make sense of her rapid hand motions. “You want me to organize your military? Why would they listen to me?”
“They will. Go at once.” Aazuria continued swimming through the caves, with long pieces of her dark green dress trailing behind her.
Trevain ignored her command and swam to block her path. He moved his hands in a series of gestures. “I’m not letting you go off on your own, wounded and emotional. What if you get lost? Rash decisions could make this even worse. Is there a map? Let me come with you.”
“I will not get lost,” she responded, trying to swim around him. “I have lived here for centuries. I used to play in these caves when I was Corallyn’s age.”
“Aazuria!” he responded. “You’re not thinking rationally. We need to weigh our options. What if Coral went back to land? She could be at my house right now. You remember how fond she was of the internet and television.”
“This is true,” Aazuria conceded. Her hands paused for a second in fear. “Oh, Trevain. I am so worried about her. Could you send Naclana to check and see if she is at your home?”
Naclana was Aazuria’s distant cousin, who served as her messenger. Trevain shook his head. “I am just as concerned about her safety as you are, but rushing off alone into miles of dark caves isn’t going to help the situation. Aazuria, come back to the palace and let’s find Naclana and tell him together…”
“No. If you will not help me, I shall help myself.” Aazuria swam around him, rushing past him in a fraction of a second. All he saw was a blur of green and white. He turned, and immediately swam after her, but he could not catch up for several minutes.
By the time he was close enough to speak to her, she had already arrived at the waterless caves in which food was prepared. He was surprised by the true extent of her athleticism, and her tolerance for pain. He could not believe that she could move at all with her injured shoulder. He entered the room after her and climbed the carved stairs just in time to see the cooks saluting and bowing to her.
“I need basic provisions for a trek into the caves. In a watertight bag.”
“Yes, Princess Aazuria.”
“My youngest sister Corallyn is missing. Can you please pass my orders to the castle guard to dispatch a search party? Also, if you could tell Naclana…”
“Aazuria,” Trevain interrupted. “Please. You need to think twice about this.”
“Listen, Trevain,” she said, turning upon him with a hard look in her eyes. “This is not up for discussion. My sister could be…”
“Princess!” shouted a male voice.
Aazuria was surprised and turned to see her cousin entering the room, dripping wet. “Naclana. Just the person I wanted to see…”
“Corallyn has been abducted,” Naclana gasped, as he tried to catch his breath.
Aazuria stared at him blankly for a moment.
Trevain felt fleeting skepticism. He almost wanted to smile, as though it were some sort of joke, but he soon realized that the messenger was serious. Naclana had always given him the creeps, and now he imagined that he knew why. The man’s very presence was a harbinger of danger and disaster. It was painted permanently in the shadows of his grave, heavy expression.
“We just received a ransom note,” Naclana said, straightening his posture and giving a half-hearted version of the appropriate salute to his cousin. “From the Clan of Zalcan.”
Murmurs of horror rose up from the kitchen staff. Trevain moved to his fiancé’s side, and wrapped his arms around her. Aazuria felt the urge to lean against him for support and shut her eyes tightly, but she could not do this with everyone watching. She could not do this at all. The moment she allowed herself to show her weakness, even to herself, it would overcome her and she would lose her composure. She knew that if she had been paying closer attention to Corallyn’s whereabouts after the battle, this would not have happened.
“What do they want?” Trevain asked Naclana. “They aim to exchange her for something?”
Aazuria twitched, moving suddenly out of her frozen state. “That’s right. A ransom. All is not lost. Anything they want—I will give it to them.”
Naclana cleared his throat. “It seems... the note was written in Corallyn’s blood. Would you like me to read it, Princess?” When Aazuria nodded. He reached into his vest and withdrew a metal cylinder. He uncorked it and pulled out the heavy paper. The demands had been penned in elegant crimson calligraphy.
When one of the women on the kitchen staff began to cry, Aazuria lifted her hand, and tried to speak soothingly. “It is just meant to scare us. Do not worry—whatever is requested shall be given. She shall be returned safely. Whatever price is stipulated shall be paid.”
Naclana hated his job. He cleared his throat again before reading:
“Dear Administrators of Adlivun…”
Aazuria did not realize that she was clenching Trevain’s hand tightly, or that her palms had become very sweaty. Administrators! The person writing the note had been exceptionally sadistic if they had chosen to bleed her sister for such long, unnecessary wording. Every syllable had caused Corallyn anguish. Every syllable ignited vengeful anger within Aazuria.
Naclana swallowed before he continued reading:
“Fine weather for this time of year in Alaska, is it not?”
“Vachlan!” Aazuria shouted, ripping herself away from Trevain to drive her knuckles into the solid rock wall of the kitchen. “Only he! Only he would…”
“Shhhh,” Trevain said, catching Aazuria’s small wrist and gently rubbing it to soothe her. He could feel that all of her tendons and muscles had grown extremely taut with her rage. He knew that the rest of the note did not matter; Aazuria would not let this man live. If she ever found the opportunity (and he knew that she would seek it relentlessly) she would gut this man, as she had gutted his predecessor, Atargatis.
Unless, of course, Trevain got his hands on him first. Trevain had never killed before, but as he imagined Vachlan using an inkwell of young Corallyn’s blood to write this note, he suddenly knew that he was capable of it. Corallyn was his sister too.
Naclana struggled to keep his own voice even as he read the note. “Deliver my wife to me at Zimovia by noon Sunday, or I will drain every drop of blood coursing through the veins of this lovely little girl. I will then proceed to write volumes of vicious letters to General Ramaris with my new ink. She will know that little Corallyn Vellamo’s death is on her hands. I shall continue in this fashion of persuasion until you are ultimately persuaded. With Immeasurable Sincerity, Vachlan Suchos.”
There was a silence in the room. The temperature of the atmosphere seemed to have quite suddenly fallen by several degrees. The only movement was the blood dripping from Aazuria’s knuckles. The gentle gurgling noise of a stew beginning to boil, along with the sizzling of a dish which was ready to be pulled from the stone oven, interrupted the silence.
“So he wants Visola?” Aazuria asked in a poisonous whisper. “Over my breathless body.”
Chapter 5: Goddess of Zimovia
After hearing the terms of the ransom note, Visola nodded thoughtfully. “Volumes of vicious letters? Oh, my. Well, that’s progress. At least we’d be communicating.”
“Focus, Visola. What is wrong with you? This is Corallyn’s life which hangs in the balance. ”
“Her life doesn’t hang in the balance, because we are going to pay the ransom,” Visola said with a shrug. “His request was reasonable.”
“What is reasonable about this?” Aazuria said angrily. “He is requesting you.”
“He only asked for one person in exchange for another person,” Visola explained. “He could have used Corallyn as leverage for a lot more.”
“He could not have requested anyone or anything of greater value to me. Sedna knows what he will do to you!”
“I guess I will pack my bags and find out,” Visola said in a tone of voice which was a notch too cheerful. She forced a halfhearted smile. “I only have until noon Sunday, so I had better leave now and take a fast boat.”
“You are not going anywhere,” Sionna told her sister firmly. “We are going to find another way to do this, right Aazuria?”
“Right.” Aazuria sat down suddenly and drew in a deep intake of air. “We have Queen Amabie here, so together we will brainstorm and find a way to work around Vachlan’s demands.”
“There is no way around his demands,” Visola said with a frown. “I know him. I know that he always covers all his bases, and he always gets what he wants. He has never lost a battle.”
“Neither have you!” Sionna reminded her.
“I learned a great deal from him. My father and my uncles were great warriors, but I learned more about war from Vachlan than I did from all the men in my family combined. “
“You mean you learned about the dishonorable aspects of war from him,” Aazuria said. “The Ramaris men taught you how to fight with principles, and Vachlan taught you how to win at all costs.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Visola said. “This is about Corallyn and ensuring her safety. I don’t believe Vachlan would ever harm a child, anyway.”
“What are you talking about? Are we even talking about the same man? He abandoned you when you were pregnant, Visola. He has no conscience!” Sionna spat. “He doesn’t discriminate about whether it’s an unborn child, an infant, or an adult he’s harming.”
“Ladies, we need to determine our course of action.” Queen Amabie frowned, tapping her fingers on the hilt of her katana. “It is possible that the entire first wave of attack which we were so pleased with ourselves about conquering was just a decoy—all along, the plan could have been to abduct Corallyn and use her as leverage against us. Do we know where the enemy is stationed? I recommend the use of brute force.”
“Zimovia,” Aazuria answered with a grimace. “It is the site of an old settlement of ours in Southeastern Alaska. There is a large, intricate group of islands, straits, and fjords called the Alexander Archipelago. Much of it is covered in ice, but not this particular region. The specific caves he has chosen, the ones under the Zimovia Islets, are almost impossible to successfully attack.”
“She’s right,” Visola said. “The Clan of Zalcan would not have given us that information unless they had established an excellent defense. Zimovia is fantastic. It’s probably one of the most defensible undersea areas in the world, at least in my opinion. That’s why I’m mentally drop-kicking myself for showing it to Vachlan all those years ago. Talk about shooting myself in the foot.”
“Are the caves spacious enough to host a sizeable army?” Queen Amabie asked.
“Yes,” Aazuria answered. “It would be beyond foolhardy to attack them there. Yet we must find a way.”
“Even if we could successfully attack them, there would be no guarantee we could recover Corallyn alive. In all likeliness, they would kill her out of spite once they realized they were losing,” Visola said.
“But we have to try,” Sionna said. “We have to send out reconnaissance now to try and estimate their numbers and learn about the way they are stationed…”
“That’s useless,” Visola said. “Any reconnaissance we send into Zimovia Strait will not return.”
Aazuria nodded. “They have the advantage of terrain there. Once we swim into that strait, we could be instantly surrounded with no room to retreat, no room to advance. I wish that he would have positioned himself anywhere else!”
“He knew that it was my favorite place,” Visola said softly. “It was where we held our honeymoon.”
Everyone in the room was quiet for a moment, until Sionna spoke. “Your two-hundred-year wedding anniversary is coming up soon, isn’t it?”
“That’s right, sis. Thanks for remembering. It’s this Sunday,” Visola said. She tried to hide her cracking voice by clearing her throat. “At noon. Vachlan is rather poetic, isn’t he?”
When no one responded, Visola feebly tried to crack another joke. “What’s the traditional gift for the two-hundred-year milestone again? I forget.” She snapped her fingers as if trying to remember. “Tin, copper, pearls, silver, oh! Murdering your spouse?”
“Brute force it is,” Aazuria said, slamming her dagger down onto the table carved from ice. “We are going to attack the Clan of Zalcan. I will not tolerate my family and my friends being threatened.”
“If we were to lead our forces in one massive strike,” Queen Amabie mused, “all of your warriors and my own… Adlivun would be exposed. This could just be a ploy to lead the armies away from Adlivun. There could be no one at all in Zimovia.”
“What about your home, Queen Amabie?” Visola asked with concern. “Are you comfortable having so many of your warriors here? Aren’t you worried about your kingdom being undefended?”
Amabie shook her head. “They will not even be able to find my home. As you know, after Zalcan’s offensive against us in the 50s, we had to abandon Yonaguni completely. I am pleased to say that the place we now call home is far superior to our previous situation.”
“I would love to hear all about it,” Visola said with a sentimental smile. She ignored Aazuria’s glare which unmistakably accused her of changing the subject.
“It is called Shiretoko,” Amabie said. “It means ‘the end of the Earth’ and it is nothing short of paradise. The area is very secluded, and it has always been considered consecrated by both land and sea-dwellers alike. Many of our waters are naturally warmed by volcanic origins, very similar to your own hot springs. The native Ainu called it kamui wakka, the water of the gods. You will visit us soon, Visola, and see it for yourself.”
“I hope that I get that chance, Queen Amabie,” Visola said softly. “Yonagumi was extraordinary. I can hardly imagine a better place!”
“You need not imagine, my friend,” Amabie said, gesturing to the stately room in which they sat. “Just look around
and you will behold the incomparable splendor of your own home.”
“You Japanese just can’t take a compliment without giving one in return, can you?” Visola said with a grin.
“Why are you being so flippant about this?” Sionna scolded. “Viso, we need your help in planning an attack. Aazuria has declared war, and you must be the one to organize it.”
“Nope. There won’t be any war. It’s not even up for discussion,” Visola told her sister with a casual wave of her hand. “I’m going to surrender myself. So you’d better bake me a delicious cake and give me lots of hugs in the next day or two.”
“I forbid it,” Aazuria said firmly. “You cannot move against me in this situation. We must act together.”
“I know Zimovia better than anyone,” Visola said. She locked eyes with her friend, trying to communicate in her unyielding gaze that this was her decision to make. “I know how to do the right thing.”
“The right thing is not sacrificing yourself!” Aazuria shouted. “We need to discuss this and find a less emotional and hasty solution.”
“Hasty?” Visola asked, scrunching up her nose. “Today is Wednesday. We only have four days until Sunday. That’s hardly enough time to make a complex plan of action, and even less time to take action, including travel time. Why don’t you respect my opinion? Why don’t you think that I am informed?”
“I know you are informed,” Aazuria said softly.
“I know every inch of that place,” Visola said. “I practically lived there. I was practically worshipped there! Once, I met a small clan of Haida people on the shores of that strait…”
“I remember,” Sionna said with a small smile. “They thought that you were some kind of special creature when you rose out of the water wearing a green dress and no coat. They were all bundled up in fur. It was the dead of winter. I told you not to reveal yourself to them, but you said that they were starving and you could help.”
“That was back when the rules stated that as long as the natives had no writing system, it wasn’t against the rules to reveal ourselves to them,” Visola added. “They couldn’t do any real damage in exposing us without written records of the events.”
Sacred Breath Series (Books 1-4) Page 35
