Queen Amabie nodded. “I have had experiences like that in Japan. There has been some written record of my existence. Luckily, it is mostly considered nonsense.”
“A little infamy never hurt anyone,” Sionna said with a smile. “These people thought my sister was magical… like some kind of the Lady of the Lake.”
“Yes. Except instead of Excalibur I used my unicorn trident to show them a new fishing technique, and where specifically to go to find the most fish. They called me the Goddess of Zimovia,” Visola said in fond remembrance. “Doesn’t it seem fitting that it should be the place where I did a good deed where I should die?”
“You are not going to die,” Aazuira said, in disbelief. “Quit discussing fond memories and let us focus on the matter at hand; we have a battle to plan.” Aazuria lifted her dagger and pulled the decorative cloth off the table they sat around. She began to carve a map into the ice with the tip of her dagger. “This is Zimovia Strait. We probably will not be able to access it by land, since it is surrounded by mountainous terrain and thick virgin forest. There were no roads, and hardly any trails, although things may have changed in recent years. Here are the two main access points by water, and this is the location of the Islets. Am I right, Sionna?”
Sionna nodded, but Visola hit her in the shoulder. “Stop it, all of you!” she removed her own sword from her hip and ruined the drawing of the strait. “Aazuria, please stop planning this ‘battle.’ There isn’t going to be any combat. I’m going to follow the instructions in the ransom note and give myself up.”
“No.” Aazuria said firmly. “Are you not the one who always advocates force instead of diplomacy? Listen, Visola. Appeasement never works. If we surrender you, what will he want next? Your twin sister, so he can collect them all and have the whole set?”
Visola cursed softly. “Dammit, Zuri. Why are you being so stubborn about this? Corallyn’s your goddamned sister!”
“Forget the blood ties,” Sionna said, reaching out to place a hand on her sister’s arm. “Be reasonable, sweetie. In Adlivun’s traditional government policy, we are all sisters. We are all equal. Therefore, you are Aazuria’s sister too, and just as much as I do, she doesn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Just as I don’t want Corallyn to get hurt,” Visola said, frowning. “Stop ganging up on me. You are all making this much more complicated than it needs to be.”
“I agree,” Aazuria said, standing up. “I lead Adlivun, and Queen Amabie leads her people. On Saturday night I will be launching an attack on Zimovia. Are you with me, Queen Amabie?”
“Absolutely, my dear. Our armies shall amalgamate and launch an attack of unprecedented force. I have many excellent officers and military strategists. My karo will meet with your colonels to plan our maneuvers.”
“None of your karo are well-informed of modern technologies,” Visola argued. “They won’t be able to plan how to use the rifles and…”
“That is correct, Visola. That is why you should be leading this operative. Our chances of success are incalculably greater with your guidance.” Queen Amabie smiled at her friend. “Do I have your support?”
Visola sat quietly for a moment before slowly shaking her head. “No.”
“I see.” Queen Amabie moved to Aazuria’s side and gave a small bow of respect. “Princess Aazuria, will you escort me to my quarters?”
“Of course,” Aazuria said, returning the bow. The two women walked across the carpet to leave the dry room, exiting downwards into the submerged corridor.
Queen Amabie began swimming through the elaborately carved ice-hallways, and Aazuria followed her. Aazuria was surprised at the older woman’s strength and agility. She hoped that she would be in such excellent health when she was nearing a thousand years of age. There were many guards posted throughout the hallways of the castle, but when they reached a stretch without any, Queen Amabie paused to look around. She gestured for Aazuria to come closer, and she began moving her hands while keeping them close to her body, in the sign language equivalent of a whisper.
“I am not sure that Visola is emotionally composed at the moment,” Queen Amabie signed quickly. “She did not say this explicitly, but I believe that she wishes for her own death. Her decision-making is severely compromised with respect to any situation involving Vachlan.”
“You think…” Aazuria trailed off, a bit taken aback. She closed her eyes for a moment before her hands began to move again. “Is it possible that she is using this situation as an excuse to place herself in harm’s way?”
“I believe that she is very tired. I do not think she wishes to fight anymore. I think she personally wants to surrender.”
“No,” Aazuria signed, “no, how can you say this? She was only just reunited with her daughter after all this time. Her spirits should be lifted…”
“It was too late. She was already broken.”
“I understand,” Aazuria signed. “Thank you for telling me this, Queen Amabie. I will not allow any harm to come to Visola. I promise you that I will protect her from herself.”
“I am sure that once we have killed her husband, she will no longer be depressed.”
“The sooner the better. Let us not delay—I have plenty of energy reserved just for Vachlan.”
“Your shoulder is wounded, dear. You should let me have the honor of fileting his flesh from his bones.”
“By all means, Queen Amabie. You may do that while I remove all four of his lungs, one at a time.”
Chapter 6: Ring of Fire
A snakelike rope of smoke rose from the secluded volcano.
There was hardly any wind, and the sea was unusually calm. The line of smoke was almost perfectly vertical, and the shores of the island were almost perfectly silent. With her hands calmly clasped behind her, Aazuria glared at the dark narrow coil. It was the type of thing you could not help staring at for a moment.
“I bet this really screws with the Alaskan geologists.”
Trevain’s voice startled her out of her reverie. She turned to look at him, and tried to interpret his cryptic expression. She realized that he must be experiencing a massive culture shock. She attempted to give him a warm smile, but only succeeding in slightly elongating the grim line which her lips were set in.
“We send our enemies to the sky,” she explained. She lifted her hand hesitantly and moved her fingers as if grasping a chunk of air. “When we cremate our own deceased, we scatter them in the waves to keep them close to us. We swim immersed in them. We inhale our ancestors with every breath—they are part of us. Those who intended us harm are not given the same honor.”
Trevain nodded. “It makes sense. That’s the opposite of our mythology in which the sky is good and the underworld is bad.”
“Good and bad does not matter much,” Aazuria said softly. “It is more a matter of ‘near and far.’ Not that why we do this is important. It is all wrong, anyway.” She turned away from the smoke, looking out to the sea. “Our enemies just rain back down on us, even after they have been banished to the sky. We inhale them too. We ingest them. The world is all so connected that it is impossible to escape any one aspect of it, whether dead or living.”
He studied her forlorn gaze. “What do you want to escape, Aazuria?”
“Myself.” She turned and began walking back towards the shore. She wrapped her arms around herself although she was not cold.
He frowned as he followed her, easily keeping up with her moderate pace. “What do you mean?”
She continued strolling, remaining silent for a moment before answering. “It just seems sometimes like nothing matters in the big picture. The life and death of our loved ones seems monumental to us, but to the world the difference is worth a few puffs of smoke.” She stopped wandering and looked at the water pensively. “My father is frozen solid in a brick of ice. Yet the repercussions of his actions are surrounding me and suffocating me as if he were still here. So, I am some great heroine. So, I have made some great difference!" She grimaced
. "People are still dying. I almost wish Papa were still here to clean up his own mess. I could remain hiding in a quiet corner, unheard and unknown. I would not be responsible.”
Trevain observed her guarded countenance. She did not express very much emotion facially, but he was learning to understand her better. He was beginning to realize that every word she spoke was carefully chosen, and completely earnest. Although she often appeared cool and collected, he could feel that beneath this aloof surface was great gravity.
“You are thinking about Corallyn, aren’t you?” he asked, reaching out to touch her dark hair. She had only been in the sunlight for a few hours, but her hair had already darkened to its inky-black state. He felt somehow closer to her when her visage was tanned; it was how she had appeared when he had first come to know her.
“I do not know if it is worth it,” Aazuria admitted. “Launching a full-throttle attack on Zimovia just to rescue Corallyn? It is exactly what Vachlan expects us to do. So many people will be injured on both sides. There will be more mass cremations… if Vachlan is even respectful enough to properly cremate the bodies of my people.”
“You can’t abandon her either,” Trevain said quietly. “She’s just a little girl.”
Aazuria nodded, noticing that although he now had knowledge of Corallyn’s true age, he still felt fatherly and protective towards her. “I love my sister, but I know that her life is not worth more than the lives of hundreds of my people.” Aazuria frowned. “The truth is that Visola is right. She is always right. It was somewhat fair of him to request one person in exchange for one person, but I cannot let her go. Visola is too precious. Do you understand that? Is it selfish of me? Am I too immature to be a leader?”
“I hardly know my grandmother, but the idea of using her as a human sacrifice doesn’t really appeal to me either.” He placed his hands in his pockets as he observed Aazuria’s features. “As far as I understand, there is no one better qualified than you are to lead your people. I only have experience running a crew of a dozen men, which is nothing compared to your kingdom, but I know that sometimes even the right decisions feel wrong.”
Aazuria pulled her cloak closer around herself. “I wish I could know what Elandria would do. I wish I could speak with her, but she cannot know that Corallyn has been abducted. She is fighting for her own life and it would kill her. Literally kill her.”
“I would really like to reassure you that things are going to be okay,” Trevain said quietly, “but I have no clue in hell what is going to happen.”
“None of us do.”
“In my whole life I’ve never had to deal with as much death as in the past few months,” he said. “I can only hope that the worst of it is over.”
“It has only just begun,” Aazuria said. She turned to look at him curiously. “Can you not feel it? You have a keen intuition about dangers in the water. Do you not dread what you feel is coming? Do you not anticipate enough dead bodies to fill a few more of these volcanoes?”
He swallowed. “This world is completely new to me. Just because I feel a certain way…”
“Have you ever been wrong?” she asked him.
He hesitated before shaking his head.
“Vachlan was not always one of ours. He was not born in Adlivun,” Aazuria said. “He and my father had some kind of twisted connection. You can take the man out of the European seas, but you cannot take the European seas out of the man. My father was a conqueror at heart, although he chose to live peacefully alongside the Aleutian people. Vachlan, however… as bad as my father was, Vachlan is ten times worse.”
“This is a rather shocking thing to learn about my grandfather. So far, everything I’ve learned about my mother’s family has been so pleasantly surprising. I’m a little bit thrown.” He frowned. “I almost wish that I had never learned about him, because it makes me think that I must be capable of the same things. I wonder how my grandmother fell in love with him…”
“He is a heartless sociopath. Yet he is so intelligent! So charming that you wish to believe him. He plays on your inherent belief that people are good,” Aazuria said. “Do not consider it as any reflection upon yourself that you are related to this man. I spent hundreds of years wondering if I was like my father, and believing ill of myself for every similarity I had with him. I would even feel disgusted with myself when I saw that I was standing with the same posture as he would, with my hands clasped behind my back. I must believe that I am capable of more compassion than he was in order to get through each day.”
“From what I have heard of your father, I don’t think you should worry that you are like him,” Trevain said. “I know you’re upset about arguing with my grandmother, but…”
“Never mind it,” Aazuria said suddenly. “It is not important. If I am going to defeat Vachlan I will have to think like him. I know I need to get inside his mind, but it is such a dark place that I cannot handle being there. What can be his reasoning for requesting Visola? I fear his ultimate intentions. I will have to be ruthless. I will have to be stronger than I ever have been. ”
“I’ll be right there at your side. I’ll do anything I can to help,” Trevain said.
Aazuria nodded gratefully. “I will need you. Our numbers are not great. Adlivun has been weakened by my father. Year after year, we have been weakened. We have hardly any men, and only a trifling handful of elite forces comprised mostly of women. There is a very high probability that I will lose. I will need to think of a contingency plan—I may have to move my people all to Shiretoko.”
“You could bring them to Alaska, temporarily,” Trevain suggested. “I could surely afford to purchase enough property to house them all, or at least rent out some hotels…”
Aazuria shook her head. “They belong in the water. It will be damaging to many of them if they must experience life on land.” She closed her eyes. “Good Sedna. How can I even think when Corallyn is in peril? My mind is so scattered, Trevain. I just cannot focus. I do not know what to do. All I can think about clearly is what I would like to do to Vachlan for harming my sister.”
“I want a piece of this guy too,” Trevain admitted. “I know that he’s not directly responsible for killing my crew members, but he was closely associated with Atargatis. I have already transferred all the rage I felt towards her for hurting you and murdering my men onto Vachlan. Is that bad?”
“No. One must fight fire with water, correct? There is rage in water, but it is a constant, consuming, and unpredictable rage. Not a short lived spurt.” Her eyes locked with his. “Emotion can be a powerful motivator, but in most people it is too diffused and weak. If you channel all your energy and feeling to a single point, anything is possible.” Aazuria reached out and brushed a few strands of his grey hair behind his ear. She managed an adoring smile. “Focusing your righteous rage is never a negative thing. I wish I could do it right now.”
Trevain was reminded by her smile that she loved him. He still found it difficult to believe. Although his life had gone through great upheaval and his new world was falling apart around him, having Aazuria made everything bearable. He reached out and cupped her face with his hands before leaning forward to press his lips against hers. When they kissed, he felt tremors of warmth run through him, and he felt such contentment that he would not have cared if the volcano really had erupted at that moment.
He gently removed his lips from hers, and smiled at her darkened eyes. He could not say which of her colorings he preferred; her surface complexion was comforting and earthly, while her submerged countenance was challenging and ethereal. Her azure eyes dared him to be more than he was, and to learn more than he had ever dreamed of knowing. Both were Aazuria, and both were strangely natural and familiar to him. Many women wore their different personas like hats throughout the day; they were businesswomen, mothers, and lovers from hour to hour. A changing skin tone was hardly as significant as those essential changes in character, yet its newness still startled him.
Her fluctuating phenoty
pe seemed to parallel the see-saw dynamic of their relationship. Trevain was the dominant partner above the surface, providing Aazuria and her sisters with access to his mansion, vehicle, and financial resources. In the ocean, their roles reversed and she became the wealthy provider of luxurious lodging, food, healthcare, and protection. Both of them were used to being the responsible, authoritative ones in their respective environments, yet they were both able to sacrifice that control and defer to the other when necessary. Despite a few hiccups early in their relationship, their implicit mutual trust made the transitions from his world to hers relatively seamless. He imagined that switching back would be just as easy.
As long as they were together, he was fairly confident that no changes, however titanic they might be, could ever faze him again. Trevain’s eyes fell upon the smoke behind Aazuria, and he was momentarily distracted from his thoughts. The mock eruption was beautiful in an exotic and morbid way.
“If people see this, are they really going to believe it’s a volcano?” he asked.
Aazuria shrugged. “There are plenty of small eruptions that people hardly notice. Even these days, with all of your new machines. Some areas are just so secluded, and some eruptions are so small.” She gestured behind her to the volcano. “It is realistic.”
“Even without any seismic activity?” Trevain asked skeptically.
“There is always seismic activity here.” Aazuria forced a small smile. “This is the ring of fire, after all.”
Chapter 7: Violin or Clarinet
Gingerly and afraid, Aazuria extended her arms.
Elandria moved forward within the warm, salty mineral water and hugged Aazuria around the waist rather aggressively, to assert that she was feeling better. She gave the older woman a reassuring smile before pulling away to converse with her hands.
Sacred Breath Series (Books 1-4) Page 36
