Sacred Breath Series (Books 1-4)

by Nadia Scrieva

  “Are you mute?” he asked. “Are you uneducated in sign language?”

  “Pearl,” Varia answered quickly. “You can call me Pearl.”

  “Uh-huh. I bet you just gave me a fake name!” the boy accused. He pulled up a chair in front of Varia’s desk, and threw his leg over it, trying to peer under her lowered face. “My name is Glais, by the way.”

  “Hello, Glais,” she answered, lifting her chin a few inches curiously.

  “Whoa… you have two different colored eyes!” he exclaimed. “That’s wicked.”

  “Wicked?” Varia responded, lifting a hand to her eyes nervously. “Does that mean I’m bad?”

  “No. Wicked means it’s cool,” Glais said. “Are you really gonna sit way over here in the corner while we play spin the bottle?”

  “I’m not sure what that is,” Varia admitted. She was studying the boy, who seemed to be slightly older than she was. He had very pale hair, which seemed to vary from white to grey, giving off the overall impression of a faint lilac color. She wondered if his hair could be considered ‘wicked,’ but she decided not to test the word so soon after learning this usage.

  “…a game where you have to kiss the person when the bottle points at them!” he finished. “You oughtta come over and check it out.”

  “I don’t want to kiss anyone,” Varia said, slamming her atlas shut, “least of all you! How about we play a fighting game instead?”

  “Hey! I don’t want to kiss you either,” Glais said angrily, getting off the chair and moving away. “I was just trying to be nice so you didn’t feel left out. We can’t play a fighting game because you’re just a little girl. My dad is an awesome warrior who taught me lots of stuff, and I would pulverize you.”

  “I’m not little!” Varia shouted after him. She noticed that she had attracted the attention of the other kids in the classroom. “I’m a lot older than I look.”

  “Really?” asked Glais doubtfully. “I’m twelve. Bet I’m older than you!”

  A girl who was sitting on the floor not far away spoke up. “Are you lying about your age to avoid working on the bridge? Lots of us are. I’m thirty, but I spent a lot of time breathing underwater so I only look about six years old.”

  “Yes,” Varia said, even though her life had been the exact opposite. Her mother had kept her mostly out of the water so that her body would mature more quickly. It had been necessary for Varia to learn to defend herself as soon as possible. “I’m very old. Like eighty.”

  “Eighty?” said Glais, impressed. “So when were you born?”

  “Two thousand and—no, nineteen thousand and—what year is it now?” Varia asked, stammering in confusion.

  Glais laughed. “You’re a very strange girl. And a compulsive liar.”

  “I’m sorry,” Varia said, returning her gaze to her atlas.

  “It’s cool. We’re all liars here, so you’ll fit right in!” Glais said encouragingly. He moved forward and grabbed Varia’s arm to tug her out of her chair.

  Startled, Varia shoved her palm into his shoulder and was about to take the older boy down before she remembered that she was not supposed to show her strength. She could see that his amber eyes had registered surprise and recognition of her initiated technique before she abruptly pulled away.

  “I don’t want to play your stupid game,” Varia told him quietly. “This is a classroom, and it may not mean anything to you that our parents trusted us to stay here and improve ourselves, but it means something to me. It doesn’t matter if we don’t have any teachers; I’m not going to disappoint my mother or waste my own time. I’m going to read.”

  Glais stared at her for a moment with raised eyebrows, before turning to look back at the other kids who were appropriately shamefaced. “Well, lonesome girl. Why don’t you tell us about what you’ve been reading?”

  Dropping a large piece of metal that she had been carrying with several men and women onto the seabed, Aazuria inhaled a large breath of water until she felt her diaphragm fully expanded. She immediately began to cough when she realized that the water was filled with dirt and debris from the work on the bridge. She jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and pivoted in the water rapidly.

  “Undina, you will need to work a double-shift tonight.” A large man with a buzz cut was communicating in sign language. “The supervisors want us to finish this section.”

  “I really can’t work overtime today, Bain,” Aazuria responded with her hands. “My daughter needs me.”

  “I didn’t know you had a child,” he replied in a series of quick hand gestures. “I’m a single father too—my wife died in the fight with Atargatis.”

  “Sedna,” Aazuria whispered into the water, but her voice disappeared in the dark blue liquid. An image of the tall, blonde Atargatis came to her mind, and strangely, it was not one of the scenes from the warrior’s final hours in battle. It was a memory of learning ballet from the woman in early-twentieth-century Moscow. It seemed so long ago; it had been a different lifetime, and Aazuria had been a different person. Gulping down a bit of seawater accidentally, she lifted her hands to sign. “I am so sorry for your loss, Bain.”

  “It was a long time ago,” he responded with a forced smile. “The Clan of Zalcan has caused so much suffering in the undersea world—I hate the thought that we are just hiding behind the curtain of the Americans instead of taking care of our problems. It feels like we’re treating the symptoms and not the source.”

  Aazuria nodded gazing up at the unfinished bridge. It did seem like her country had taken a grave turn for the worse. She knew that these problems were hers to fix, but she did not know where to begin.

  “Forgive me for getting political,” Bain said politely. “How old is your daughter?”

  “She’s almost nine,” Aazuria answered, feeling a bit uncomfortable speaking about Varia. She did not know her exact birthday, for she had lost track of time while imprisoned under thousands of feet of glacial ice. Just thinking back to those years made her shudder and feel nauseous. “But she’s very mature for her age,” Aazuria signed quickly to cover up her distress.

  “My son is twelve, but he has the maturity level of a five year old,” the man responded with a smile. “I guess it must be that way with young boys. We should introduce the kids! Maybe they’ll get along. We can grab coffee while they play.”

  Aazuria froze, realizing that she was being asked out on a date. This man, whose wife had died in one of her wars, was using their children as a stepping stone towards her. Her hands were lifted in suspension, ready to respond, but she could not move. There was fear on her face, and she began to swim backwards rapidly. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I can’t... I’m so sorry.”

  “Hey! You don’t have to run away, Undina. Relax—look, I will take your extra shift so you can go home to your daughter. How does that sound?”

  “But you’ve already worked sixteen hours… that’s a triple shift for you.”

  “I don’t care,” Bain said with a shrug. “It’s either this or get my body broken by a bloodthirsty madwoman. Either way. I’m going to be in too much pain to move in the morning.”

  “Do you mean Visola?” Aazuria asked with a frown.

  Bain seemed surprised by this. “I didn’t realize there was only one bloodthirsty madwoman in Adlivun.”

  “Only one that’s open about it,” Aazuria responded. “Why would General Ramaris hurt you?”

  “Do you know that you have the prettiest blue eyes?” Bain asked.

  She promptly rolled the organs in question. “I might have heard that a couple times in the past six hundred and thirteen years. Did you know that you’re really horrible at changing the subject?”

  “I can’t really discuss General Ramaris,” Bain responded, moving away toward the giant hunk of metal. He stooped to examine the screws while continuing to speak in sign language. “Six hundred? There’s no way you’re that old. With such a young child too! What happened to your husband?”

&n
bsp; “It’s complicated,” she responded when he glanced at her hands out of the corner of his amber eyes.

  “Is the man alive?” Bain asked.

  Aazuria hesitated. She felt the need to run away and stop answering personal questions, but her burly coworker was taking her shift and she felt obligated to converse with him. There was also something compelling about his authoritative manner, and the patriotic triple-moon tattoo on the side of his muscular neck. “My husband is alive,” she answered, “but he is with another woman.”

  Bain removed a waterproof power drill from his belt and slammed it down on the metal support beam angrily. “What a jackass!” he signed. “Tell me his name and I’ll kill him for you.”

  She could not resist a small smile at these words, wondering what Bain would think if he knew that her husband was the king of Adlivun. “Thank you,” she signed. “That’s very sweet… but he is a kind man. He deserves his happiness.”

  “Is that really what you think when you lie awake at night, trying to make sense of the situation?” Bain used rapid, precise gestures that suggested a crisp tone of voice. “How many times did you have to tell yourself that before you believed it?”

  Aazuria’s face fell, and her hands coasted down to her sides. She was immobilized until she saw a red flare in the dark waters not far away from them. The flares were used by land-dwelling scuba-divers to supervise the quality of labor in the deep sea.

  “I guess that means I should get back to work,” Bain said. “Sorry to bring up a painful subject. Go back to the ship and relax!”

  She nodded slowly, turning and using her feet to push off the sandy bottom of the seabed. For a few seconds she swam, wishing only to get away, and then she felt a strange whim to glance back at the thoughtful stranger who had taken her shift. Submitting to the urge, she glanced back over her shoulder, frowning as she observed the man. He had already resumed work, and she could see the muscles rippling under his tattoo. He’s kind of handsome, she allowed herself to think. She was not sure whether the conclusion was involuntary, or she was forcing herself to try to have a normal thought. She certainly felt nothing—not even gratitude. She tried a little harder to find him attractive, making a little mental list of his positive attributes. Still, she felt nothing.

  Aazuria desperately wanted to feel thankful or partial toward another human being, but she had been completely unable to make any connections since her return to Adlivun. She imagined that she was experiencing some kind of post-traumatic problem after the long stint in captivity. The only person she cared about was Varia, and getting back to her daughter was all that mattered to her now. She turned and began swimming away swiftly. Perhaps she was just too scared to connect or reconnect after all she had lost—and she did not think that this fear was unfounded. There was ample and justifiable reason behind her sudden penchant for chosen seclusion following her forced isolation.

  There was no longer any room for anyone else in her heart.

  “The population of Adlivun is comprised of many different nationalities,” Varia explained to the other students, echoing one of her mother’s many lectures. “This is partly due to King Kyrosed’s imperialistic regime. He expanded Adlivun’s population by importing massive amounts of slave labor during colonial times. Most notably, he brought thousands of the Yawkyawks from Australia in the eighteenth century.”

  “My parents are Yawkyawks!” said one of the small boys in the class.

  Varia nodded, smiling. “There was also mass immigration of survivors after the Clan of Zalcan ravaged the famous undersea locations of Bimini and Yonaguni. The ruins of these destroyed cities are well-known even to land-dwellers. In fact, they created all kinds of superstitions about the area above Bimini, calling it ‘The Bermuda Triangle.’ They used to say that it was supernatural events which sunk ships in that region, not realizing that it was just mermaids at war.”

  “Wow, that’s really cool, Pearl,” said Glais, nodding. “How do you know so much?”

  “My mother is really smart. She teaches me new things every day,” Varia said proudly.

  “I want to hear more war stories,” Glais said with a grin. “You tell those really well… for a girl. Tell us about when Vachlan made all the ships surrender in Zimovia Strait!”

  “Well, he had captured General Visola Ramaris, and he was going to kill her, but then he realized that he still loved her and changed sides in the middle of the battle!” Varia said with excitement.

  “I’m bored with the fighting,” said a little girl shyly. “Can you please tell us about Queen Aazuria? My grandma says she was a pure sea-dweller, a beautiful water angel!”

  Varia hesitated. “Yes. Well, having pure sea-dweller traits just means that when you’re deep underwater, away from sunlight, the melanin drains from your skin, hair, and eyes. It makes you very pale in the ocean, almost angelic-looking.” The eight-year old reached up to the back of her neck, scratching near the clips of her wig nervously. She feared that if she educated her classmates on this subject too clearly, it would reveal her identity if a few white strands ever happened to slide free. “Other pure traits include having a tapetum lucidum in your eyes…”

  A creaking was heard as the doorway swung open to reveal a disguised Aazuria with a puzzled look on her face. The older woman took in the way everyone was arranged in the classroom, with Varia standing near the chalkboard.

  “Pearl, are you teaching the class?” Aazuria asked in surprise

  “Yes. I’ve been telling them all about Adlivun’s history. We figured that since I’m the oldest, I should take a leadership role.” Varia noticed her mother’s eyes widen slightly in surprise at the lie and she kept speaking quickly. “You could help, Mama! You know a million more stories to share…”

  Aazuria was about to refuse when she saw how much it meant to the young girl. Her stern expression softened. “Sure, dear—but only for an hour or so.” She moved over to her daughter’s side, examining the notes and diagrams on the chalkboard. “What were you discussing?”

  “War!” said Glais at the same time as a female student said, “Angels!”

  “I see,” Aazuria said with twisted brows and a lopsided smile. “How about we stick with some basic arithmetic?”

  After spending some time instructing the kids, Aazuria made excuses to all of Varia’s classmates to pry her daughter away from them. She realized that Varia was something of a favorite or a novelty to the children, and they hated to part with her. “Unfortunately, Pearl and I really have to go now—I need to run some errands on the islands.”

  “You’re going to the Diomedes?” Gaius asked jealously. “I wish my dad would take me off this stupid boat! I want to see the new city.”

  “Maybe next time you can come with us,” Aazuria told the young boy with a smile. From the unusual amber color of his eyes, she had a good idea who his father was. “Today we’ll mostly be doing boring stuff like visiting relatives, but some other day we should see the sights.” Once they had exited the cabin and had strolled down the hallway a good distance from the classroom, Aazuria leaned down to whisper to her daughter fondly. “What a peculiar kid you are, Varia. I sent you to school, and you ended up teaching it!”

  “I don’t like wasting time,” the girl answered gravely.

  Aazuria smiled down at the child in approval, feeling a bit like she was looking into a mirror of her own past. She saw pride in the way Varia thrust her small shoulders back as she walked, gliding gracefully across the floor as though floating through a pool of liquid. The first rule of being a princess of the deep is that you must always move with poise, my dear. Even on land, you must imagine yourself submerged—carry the sea with you everywhere you go. It was Undina Vellamo’s voice that filtered into Aazuria’s memory, startling her with its clarity. She paused to scrutinize her daughter’s stride, overcome with nostalgia.

  For hundreds of years, Aazuria had been educated by prominent undersea philosophers and artists, learning social graces and how to be a pri
ncess. She had been chiseled and molded into an expressionless ice-maiden, primed to rule over the nation of Adlivun. But here was a child who seemed to understand without trying. She had been raised in the most secluded internment imaginable, seeing only two other people for the first eight years of her existence; it had been a far cry from Aazuria’s own royal upbringing.

  How did Varia know who she was without being taught? Was there some kind of memory in her blood and bones of sitting on Adlivun’s throne while the rich green flag with the golden triple-moon symbol waved proudly behind her? Of thrusting a spear into the air and feeling the thrill of battle cries echoing throughout the waves?

  “Mama, what’s wrong?” Varia asked, seeing that Aazuria was staring at her strangely. “Are you okay? You stopped listening to me!”

  “I’m sorry, dear. What were you saying?”

  “That boy, Glais! He is so annoying. It’s all his fault I had to talk to the other children,” Varia complained.

  “Was that such a bad thing?” Aazuria asked.

  “Yes! I had to lie about my age to gain their respect, and fabricate so many things…”

  “Tell all the lies you need—just remember closely which lies you have told to whom. We will save the truth for each other.”

  “Then tell me the truth, Mother! Where are we really going?

  Aazuria smiled. “To Upper Adlivun. I need to sneak around and do some research on the technicalities of this treaty. I also want to steal some more weapons and armor, just in case we need them. But I don’t have much time before I need to be back for my next shift. Sedna! They work us like cargo dolphins.”

  “I read somewhere that in the seventeenth century it became illegal in all undersea nations to use dolphins to pull loads heavier than twice their body weight,” Varia said.

  “Exactly,” Aazuria murmured. “People are more considerate of animals than of each other.”