“My younger sister Corallyn was especially fond of that book,” Aazuria said softly. “I used to read it over and over to her, so it was one of the few things I could remember.” She watched Zalcan’s face, hoping for some sort of reaction. She saw his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed a large gulp of guilt. Yes. It was done.
It was just like any other family fishing trip, really. Just two parents and a young child heading out on a boat to create memories they could treasure for a lifetime. Aazuria knew that this day would certainly be the most memorable day of Varia’s life, and perhaps her own. It was the long-awaited day of liberty.
“Did you ever go whaling when you were younger?” Hamnil asked her.
“Oh, yes! Lots. It was great sport, and they are so delicious,” Aazuria said.
Hamnil nodded. “My father used to take me when I was a boy. I guess it’s a common activity for sea-dwelling families.”
“How are things with your father?” Aazuria asked. She observed that Varia was on the other side of the boat, peering over the edge and taking everything in excitedly. This was only the second time she had seen the sun.
“He has been more accepting of me,” Hamnil said. “Mainly because he’s proud of me for keeping you captive. It’s a great accomplishment among my people.”
“It was a great accomplishment while it lasted,” Aazuria said quietly. “It was probably the highlight of your pathetic life.”
“What?”
Varia turned to face them, hearing the tone of her mother’s voice deepen in severity to the stern voice she used when she was training her or teaching her something.
“It is over,” Aazuria told the prince.
“I don’t understand,” Zalcan said. “Aren’t you thankful to me for taking you out on this boat for Pearl’s birthday?”
“I am so thankful,” Aazuria said. “I am so thankful for your supreme stupidity.”
Varia was holding her breath.
“How dare you say these things to me?” Zalcan shrieked. “How dare you be so insolent and…”
Aazuria reached out and placed her fingers around the man’s throat. She closed her eyes in bliss as her hand squeezed his windpipe, just as she had done almost every night in her dreams for over eight years.
“Thanks for getting us out of Antarctica, and thanks for the boat,” she told him.
He flailed his arms unattractively, gasping and floundering like a dying fish.
“You think you’ll make it home to Adlivun?” Hamnil hissed as he gasped for air. “Stupid girl! There hardly is an Adlivun to return to! Your home has been destroyed.”
“What do you mean?” Aazuria asked harshly.
“The Clan of Zalcan has a powerful ally! Gaston has Adlivun under his thumb! Gaston has known your location all along!” After squawking this out, the prince tried to reach out and grab Aazuria, but she easily swatted his hands away and increased the pressure on his throat. She crushed until he lost consciousness.
“Who is Gaston?” Varia asked.
“I have no idea,” Aazuria said as she allowed the man to drop at her feet.
“Is he dead, Mother?” Varia asked, rushing to the man’s side. She felt his wrist for a pulse. “Did you kill him?”
“No,” Aazuria responded. Although she wanted to kill the man more than anything, in countless imaginable ways, she needed to set a good example for her daughter. She moved to the motor of the boat and began to fiddle with it. “He’s only unconscious. I’m going to take him home to Adlivun with us for a fair trial. A jury of our people will decide his fate.”
“But I don’t understand,” Varia said. “Why do other people have to decide if he did something wrong when you know he did something wrong?”
Aazuria did not know how to answer this question. “Because sometimes people didn’t mean to do something bad, and that changes how they should be punished. Sometimes what you and I think is a proper punishment might not be the same as what everyone else thinks. We might have our judgment clouded because the bad things were done to us.”
“So it seems really bad to us, but maybe to someone else, it’s not that bad?” Varia asked. “I don’t know any other people, so it’s hard to imagine what they would think.”
Aazuria frowned. She wanted so badly to do right by her daughter. She wanted so badly for the young girl to see only the beautiful aspects of life. This man, as long as he lived, was a danger. He was a stain in the fabric of her life. He was a thief of years; the thief of her most precious years. She reached out and took her daughter’s hands. “Varia—would you forgive me if I killed him?”
Varia’s eyes widened and she stared at Aazuria in surprise. She gave the faintest of nods.
“I need to know for sure,” Aazuria said, squeezing the young girl’s hands firmly. “I need your support in this. I need to know that you will still love me after you have seen me take a life.”
“I will always love you, Mother,” Varia said, her eyes filling with tears. “I know this man has done lots of bad things. Even though he’s the only person I know other than you, and it scares me to think of him dying… I trust you.”
Aazuria kissed the girl fiercely. She reached into Varia’s hair and pulled out the hair accessory she had fashioned from shells in Lake Vostok. Pulling off the decorative covering, she withdrew the sharp calcified blade underneath. She had crossed the boat in a moment and was plunging the knife into his chest with the precision of a surgeon. She placed her hand against his ribcage, to keep the blood from flowing outward. She had done this once before, and it was easier the second time. Zalcan Hamnil was startled out of his stupor by the pain. He looked up at her in shock as the realization filled his eyes.
“You stole my freedom. You stole the beginning of my daughter’s life,” she whispered as the blood filled his thoracic cavity. “Now I am stealing the end of yours.” He struggled to breathe, but his lungs were being engulfed with blood. He was suffocating.
“Pearl,” he gasped, reaching out to the girl he believed was his daughter. Varia began to sob, as she crawled forward and allowed Hamnil to give her an awkward half-embrace.
“Her name is not Pearl,” Aazuria told him bitterly. “She was never your daughter. But thank you for trying to love her as much as a beast like you could manage.”
“I’m sorry, Queen Aazuria,” Hamnil said, but the words were muffled by the gurgle of blood in his throat. “I never meant…”
“I’m going after your whole family,” Aazuria said softly. “I going home, and getting the general of my army, and we are going after the rest of the Clan of Zalcan. Your death has been quick and merciful. Visola will ensure that the deaths of your family members are quite different.”
“I should have never… hurt you,” Hamnil said as his eyes closed.
“Damn straight,” Aazuria responded. It was the first time she had cursed in front of her daughter.
“Damn?” Varia asked.
“It means…” Aazuria smiled. “It means that this is all over. Some people think that when a bad person dies, his soul is condemned to a place of untold horrors. They call it ‘damnation’ and say that he is ‘damned.’ That’s where the word comes from.”
“Is that true, Mother? Why did you never tell me about that place?”
“I don’t know if it’s real or not. But he’s dead. That’s all that matters to me. He’s damned, but we’re free. Look at the sky, Varia! I have missed seeing the sky. Let’s go home.”
Varia crouched down beside Hamnil in the boat, staring at him in amazement
“Mother,” Varia said, as she placed her hands on the body. “He’s really dead. He’s really gone.”
“That’s right.” Aazuria crouched down to examine the body. With one forceful heft, she lifted the dead man out of the boat and tossed him overboard. As he fell away from the small craft, she felt her heart soar.
“Even the sharks won’t be able to enjoy the sour taste of that feast.”
Chapter 26: Haunting Each Co
rner
Aazuria found that returning to Adlivun was not as easy as leaving it had been. Vast changes had occurred in the time she had been away, and it felt like every possible entrance was blocked off by maximum security measures. She was locked out of her own country. She spent days observing and hiding in nearby caves while figuring out how to get past the guards—from their uniforms, they did not seem like they belonged to the Clan, but she could not be sure if they were enemies or friends.
She waited until she saw a large group of undersea civilians gathering in one specific area, and she quickly joined them and lost herself in the crowd. She noticed that they were all giving their names to two guards before heading to a strange open-concept structure.
“Your names please?” asked one of the guards.
“I am Undina and she is Pearl,” Aazuria lied. She felt the need to protect her identity.
“These fucking mermaid names, man,” said the guard to his co-worker in disgust.
“How dare you curse before my daughter!” Aazuria said viciously. She had not returned home after almost a decade of absence to get bullied by commoners.
“Are you going to do something about it, lady?” the other guard spat.
Aazuria imagined that not only could she knock both of these guards unconscious in under five seconds, but Varia could do the same in under ten. However, they were in a public place, and she did not fancy the idea of being imprisoned on her first day back in Adlivun.
“The subs will be here in less than a minute to take you all to work! Everyone line up!”
“What’s going on, Mother?” Varia asked nervously.
“I am not sure. Let’s just go with it and see what happens. Let’s figure out what’s going on and be undercover for a while, okay?”
Varia nodded. It had taken Aazuria several weeks to travel to Adlivun. She had been extra cautious to disguise herself as she had traveled through various undersea nations seeking information. Wearing a short brown wig, and having her daughter wear a similar costume, she was able to blend in and disappear among the southern undersea communities. Having no money or goods, she had needed to steal appropriate clothes, but she quickly found that her newfound strength made theft quite simple.
To her dismay, she found the first settlement she visited, the Yawkyawks in Australia, had been mostly wiped out by the Clan of Zalcan. There were also several Japanese refugees there who claimed that Shiretoko had also been attacked. But no one really could tell her about the state of affairs in Adlivun. She had heard rumors about a bridge, but no one had any clear-cut answers.
When people were wounded and starving, and when their families had been killed or taken, the last thing on the forefront of their minds was foreign politics. She could garner no information from the outside world, and she knew she would need to go directly to Adlivun to get it.
Now that she was in Adlivun, she was being jostled around in a huge crowd of people that she did not know, and being shoved onto a massive machine she did not recognize. It reminded her of the cabin in Lake Vostok, and she had a moment of panic. Varia sensed it and clutched her hand.
“Mother, are we safe?”
“I do not know,” Aazuria said. She noticed how nervously Varia’s eyes were darting around, and how tense all of her muscles were.
“Can we please go somewhere quiet?” Varia asked, as she began to hyperventilate. “I am scared of all these people.”
It was understandable—even Aazuria felt uncomfortable in the throng of bodies moving like a herd of animals. This was the largest crowd Varia had ever been surrounded by in her life. Aazuria made the decision not to enter Adlivun until she and her daughter had a chance to relax. Pulling Varia safely out of the crowd, she decided instead to travel to Alaska—she would visit her husband’s house and spend some time resting there before she had to deal with her responsibilities again. She was excited to introduce Varia to her loved ones, but she was also worried that it would be overwhelming for the girl. It was best to ease her into the real world slowly.
Aazuria knew where Trevain kept a spare key to his house under a rock in his driveway. Just seeing his house brought back memories and nostalgia aplenty. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she had met and married him. Varia was impressed by the size of the house, and the young girl immediately began running around to explore every room. Aazuria smiled at her enthusiasm, and followed along behind her. The house looked as though it had not been lived in for a while. There was a thick layer of dust on everything. Every room evoked bittersweet memories in her; the library, the swimming pool, the conservatory. She could see Trevain standing everywhere in her mind’s eye; he was the phantom haunting each corner.
When she made her way up the stairs to the bedrooms, she peered into every one of them. She looked into the bedrooms that had belonged to her sisters. She looked into the bedroom that had been hers. She remembered that room a little too well from being injured and pent up there for far too long. Finally, she looked into Trevain’s bedroom. A lump formed in her throat as she remembered when he had proposed to her. She remembered how much they had needed each other. She felt herself drawn magnetically to the bed, and she climbed into it mournfully. They had lost so much time together. He had missed eight years of his wonderful daughter’s life. How would she tell him this? He would be crushed. She lay against the pillows weakly, trying to convince herself that the worst of it was over. Everything would be better now. Aazuria reached up to pull the short brown wig off her head, and tossed it aside on the night table. Her natural long back tresses came tumbling down, and she sighed. Would she soon be able to relax and be herself again?
When Varia found her, the young girl bounded into the bed with her. “Mother, it’s a palace!”
Aazuria laughed. “This is just a house, dearest. Very soon you will see what a real palace looks like.”
“I saw pictures of him,” Varia said. “My father, I think.”
Aazuria nodded. She turned over to look at her daughter fondly. “Pictures aren’t enough. You need to meet him in the flesh. Now that he’s so close, I am so scared. I do not know why, but I am terrified. Adlivun has changed so much. Everything has changed—what if he has changed too? What if he’s no longer even alive? What if he was killed?”
“I am sure it will all be okay, Mama.” Varia pulled her wig off too and snuggled against her mother’s side. Aazuria slid an arm around her daughter’s back. It suddenly occurred to her that Varia had been conceived in this very bed about a decade ago. The thought gave her chills.
There was something eerie about going back to where it had all started. She was gripped by the horrible sensation that it was all about to end.
Chapter 27: The King’s Birthday
“Do you know anything about King Trevain?” Aazuria asked an old woman working beside her. She had secured herself employment as a common laborer on the bridge in order to listen to the rumor mill and familiarize herself with the political situation. She went to work deeply disguised in wigs and contact lenses, and Varia was never very far away.
“He’s a darling. Losing his queen all those years ago really broke his heart.”
“He lost his queen?” Aazuria asked. Her head was lowered and a hood draped over her features.
“Oh, yeah. You never heard about that? It was tragic. They held a funeral for her just about two or three years ago. All of Adlivun wept. Queen Aazuria Vellamo was a special kind of leader—you don’t find women like that too often!”
“How did she die?” Aazuria asked.
“No one knows. She was abducted, and they searched the whole world, but they never found the body.”
“How mysterious,” Aazuria commented dryly. “I wonder where she could have been.”
“Who knows?” said the old woman. “But that’s old news. I hear that army fellow Landou is dating the General’s sister!”
“Who’s Landou?” Aazuria asked with a frown.
“Wow, you really are behind on the times, aren’t you?
”
This was how Aazuria gathered little snippets of conversation. She was never sure what she should believe, and she was not sure how to interpret most of it.
A gum-chewing young bridge worker was eager to gossip about fashion. “Have you heard that Brynne Murphy is releasing a new line of chic scuba gear for land-dwellers?”
This was how she learned that Callder and Brynne had gotten married. She was happy for that—Brynne had seemed truly in love with Callder, despite his copious flaws. This news had made her smile. And land-dwellers were living in Adlivun?
An ex-military official was eager to boast about the defense. “I’ve heard that General Ramaris is training a secret group of special military forces! It’s totally against the treaty, but that woman does love to break the rules. I am hoping she will recruit me.”
This was how she learned that Adlivun had lost its army in some treaty—very likely the same one that seemed to require a quota of unpaid labor from every able-bodied man and woman. She had not read all the specific terms, but she did not like the sound of this contract.
“Oh, I’ve heard that the little boy is just adorable! Yamako is so pretty that of course her baby boy would be an angel!”
That is how she learned that Queen Amabie and her children were staying in Adlivun after the destruction of Shiretoko. So those rumors had not been false. Aazuria would occasionally ask questions. First, she asked everyone if they knew a ‘Gaston.’ No one seemed to recognize the name.
“I’m looking for King Trevain,” she told one of her coworkers.
“Isn’t everyone, sweetie? What a fine hunk of man flesh.”
Aazuria twitched. “Do you know where I can find him?”
“You won’t be able to get anywhere near him. Security has been really been beefed up recently.”
“I see.”
“Did you know it’s the king’s birthday next month?” said another coworker with excitement. “He’s turning sixty—so young for a monarch! Kyrosed Vellamo was ancient, and Queen Amabie is nearly a thousand. I hear they’re having the party in Upper Adlivun.”
Sacred Breath Series (Books 1-4) Page 84
