The Alaskan man frowned and pried the phone from his wife’s small hands. He sighed and placed the small rectangle to his ear. “Naclana, my man. I know you and I have had our differences, but I thought that was ancient history. Now you’re calling here and making my wife cry? Just tell me what happened—don’t sugarcoat any of it.”
Trevain chewed his lip for a few seconds before even his teeth paused in their motion. “Okay, so let me get this straight—the ghost of my dead wife possessed some young woman whose brown hair suddenly became white, and everyone fell to their knees before her and declared her their savior? She was pumped full of bullets from an automatic weapon and she didn’t die, so they’re calling her a spirit or goddess? Then she proceeded to burn all the ships the bridge-workers were using as residences, and declare the treaty null and void? Is that everything?”
Elandria continued weeping, and Trevain rubbed his hand up and down her back as he listened to Naclana talking on the other end of the line. After a few minutes of retelling, he sighed. “If you’re pulling my leg, Naclana, I’m going to hurt you. So this woman—she also sent all of the American soldiers back to Alaska, except for the one that killed Bain Tangaroa. She ripped the criminal’s throat out with her bare hands and strung him up on the bridge for the birds to feast on.” Trevain paused at the visual. “I don’t know, Naclana—if this psychotic woman—the ‘Sapphire’ or whatever, is trying to impersonate my dead wife… shouldn’t she try to act a little more like Aazuria? That’s not very convincing.”
“Stop,” Elandria said, weeping softly and twisting a handful of Trevain’s shirt in her hand. “Please. I can’t bear to hear it. It’s so sickening that someone would do that to us.”
“Thanks for calling, Naclana,” Trevain said dryly. He turned away from Elandria, coughing into his fist a few times and clearing his throat when he began to feel lightheaded. He hated having the flu. He hated fearing that it was more than a flu. Most of all, he hated being the king of a nation that could not seem to function without him for five minutes. He returned his face to the phone. “If there’s any more information—hey! Stop yelling at me, man! I know that she’s your cousin too and you’re upset about this. Look, I’m not at my best right now, so can you just tell my grandmother? If anyone can deal with some nutcase desecrating Aazuria’s memory, it’s Visola. She’ll take care of it.”
“No!” Elandria shouted hysterically. “Don’t let Visola kill her. I want to meet her first.”
“Keep her in a holding cell,” Trevain said to the man on the other end of the line before ending the call. He gave his wife a disapproving look. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it could be her. Elan, please… you can’t fall apart every time Aazuria’s name is mentioned.”
“You will never understand,” Elandria said, pulling away from him. He caught her around the waist and tugged her back.
“Hey, don’t leave me. I’m sick, remember?” he said with a subtle pout.
“I’m sorry, Trevain. I don’t want you to see me like this,” she said, unable to stop crying. “I knew her for hundreds of years and you only knew her for a few months, so there’s no way you can love her as much as…”
“Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t belittle my life with your vast expanses of time in which you mostly did nothing. Remember, I’m the one with the wrinkles.”
“A few wrinkles make a man look wiser,” Elandria said through sniffles, gently touching the crow’s feet beside his emerald eyes. “Please forgive me, my love. I just want her back. I want to believe she’s alive.”
“And yet you know that she isn’t. We both accepted that four years ago when we decided to get married.”
“I accepted nothing of the sort!” Elandria said brokenly. “We only got married because... of guilt. It was unseemly for a princess to be having so, so much sex with a man and not be married to him.”
“Would it have been better if we’d had slightly less sex?” Trevain asked. He raised a hand to his pounding head, wincing at the headache that was interfering with his ability to make jokes. “Elandria, we got married because we loved each other.”
She shook her head. “And yet it’s all a sham, because if Aazuria returned today I would lose you.”
“Good God, woman! Is that what you’re crying about?” he asked.
“No,” she responded instantly, “and also yes.”
“Elandria, relax. We have had this conversation a million times.”
“And we both know what would happen. You never give me straight answers, but I know.”
“You don’t give me enough credit,” he told her, kissing her forehead. “I have always told you the truth and not just what I thought you wanted to hear. No games, no appeasing you. I always give you the same straight answer.”
Elandria sighed, slipping one of her legs over his for comfort. “Maybe I should rephrase that. You never give me a serious answer.”
“I’m completely serious,” Trevain said, struggling to keep his lips from twitching upwards. “I would definitely need Viagra to handle the both of you.”
She hit him in the chest before burying her nose in Trevain’s armpit to hide her laughter. “You cannot joke about her in that way!”
“Wait—you mean to say you think I could manage it without the Viagra?” Trevain responded, feigning surprise. “Elandria! I am flattered by your confidence in me, but we need to be honest about my physical limitations. Pleasing two wives would be taxing, especially now that I’m a bit under the weather…”
She smiled. “You always make me laugh a little and you think it makes me forget. My smiles and my laughs are for you, to ease your pain, but on the inside I feel the same. It kills me to know I have done something that would make her unhappy. I would never be able to face her again.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Trevain said, lifting a hand into the air to gesture in frustration. “It’s been ten years since we saw Zuri. She’s gone, Elan. We have done nothing wrong—we can’t be expected to do anything less than live.”
“Ten years must seem like such a long time to you—but it is no time at all to wait for a person you truly love.”
“And then another ten years after that? And another ten? Until we’re both dead and we’ve wasted and forsaken the love we have for each other? Does our marriage mean nothing to you, Elandria! If by some impossible miracle, Aazuria did return, would you regret spending the last four years with me?”
“I would treasure every last minute we have shared,” she responded, “but the fact remains…”
“No, that’s all that matters. Now listen to me, Elan. The crazy woman on the bridge was not Aazuria! I’ll tell you exactly who she is—some fanatical rebel. She is a terrorist.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak American,” Elandria said, “but I think the word you’re looking for is scapegoat. We’re ignoring several things about this situation: first of all, an Adluvian man was shot by an American soldier. It is understandable that our people would react in outrage to such injustice. Second of all, the working conditions were disgusting. We received numerous complains, but we mostly brushed them off and said it would be over in a few years once the bridge was completed—if there is a rebellion, it is our fault. We turned this country into a submerged sweatshop!”
Trevain was about to respond when he was seized by a fit of coughing. When his lungs stopped violently expelling the air within them, he groaned. “We were just trying to do the right thing. We were just trying to defend ourselves from the Clan.”
“We need to listen to the people more,” Elandria said softly. “We need to work with them. Maybe we should meet with this woman, the Sapphire…”
“The Sapphire—hey, isn’t that what that crazy priestess always talks about?” Trevain asked suddenly. “I bet you anything she’s behind this. Filling everyone’s heads with bullshit about Aazuria rising from the grave.”
“Sometimes it’s nice to believe in something beyond ourselves,” Elandria sai
d. “Maybe my sister is back—I want her to be alive so badly. I would give you up for her in a heartbeat.”
“Don’t say things like that,” Trevain said, pulling her against him in a fierce cuddle. “I don’t want to be given up. It’s not comforting to a sick, old man to know his wife is searching for an excuse to drop him.”
“What! Trevain,” she said disapprovingly. “I want to keep you until all the seas have dried up into salt.”
“Then do that,” he told her. “I like that idea.”
She smiled sadly, playing with his collar. “I cannot. We both know that there’s a previous claim on your heart. I will honor my sister and sacrifice my happiness for hers. If she lives, I will embrace her until I am too weak to lift my arms, and then I will retire somewhere private and take my own life.”
“Like hell you will,” he said angrily. “I won’t allow it. I’ll keep you in a straitjacket.”
“It is the only honorable thing to do.”
Trevain was quiet for several minutes, trying to picture Aazuria’s face. He could barely remember her features. Elandria’s coloring was so similar that after all these years, her face superseded her older sister’s in his thoughts. He tried to imagine the possibility that his first wife was alive, but it was almost too painful to think about. He hated when his thoughts traveled to his unborn child—he had never looked forward to anything in his life more than the prospect of having a daughter. Since that day, ten years ago, he had known that he would never be able to consider having children again. He did not feel comfortable discussing children with Elandria, and she had learned that it upset him whenever she asked. The thought of losing another child terrified him to the point of paralysis.
He had lost so much. He would not lose Elandria too. “You know what I think about sometimes?” he asked her softly. “What if Aazuria did manage to free herself… sometime in the last few years… where would she go?”
“Here. Home.”
“Who would be the first people she would want to see?”
“Me and you,” Elandria whispered, “and Viso.”
“But she wouldn’t just barge right into the palace and come looking for us. She would have no way of knowing if the country was occupied by the Clan of Zalcan. She would be careful. She would hang back, and find out what’s happening before coming near Upper Adlivun—in fact, she would have to ask around to even find out where the new palace was!”
Elandria nodded. “Yes. And she would find out that we were married; happily married…”
“And she would never show herself to us,” Trevain finished. “She would stay close by, I think. But she knows you well enough to anticipate the effect it would have on you. She knows you would feel that you had harmed her, and that it would send you into a deep depression and possibly kill you. Aazuria would never hurt you.”
“So it is feasible,” Elandria said, raising herself up onto her elbow to look down on him. “You’re acknowledging the possibility she lives.”
“This is ridiculous, wild conjecture based on a stupid phone call,” he said weakly, “but it makes sense that Aazuria would stay close to Adlivun’s people, working on the bridge. Who knows for how many years she could have been right here, under our noses. She would have remained quiet, under the radar, until something awful happened which she could not tolerate.”
“The shooting of Bain Tangaroa,” Elandria whispered.
“Exactly. She might even have developed feelings for this man, this Bain Tangaroa. So she snapped, decided to reveal herself, and she burned everything.”
“Oh, Sedna!” Elandria shouted, shooting off the bed like a rocket and beginning to pace. “That makes perfect sense! Good Sedna!”
“Elan… Don’t get your hopes up—that was just fantastical storytelling on my part,” he said with a sigh. “Come back to bed.”
“I can’t! I have so much work to do. I need to fix the strike and appease the citizens along with the foreigners. Most importantly, I need to find this woman!”
“Before you get too excited, let me tell you another story,” Trevain said quietly. “This one is more realistic, so listen carefully. Aazuria was the ruler of Adlivun. She was loved, admired, and desired—in fact, there are many women who would covet her life. My mother used to tell me stories about the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova. When she was killed in 1918, rumors that she escaped inspired many women to try to impersonate her…”
“I know, honey,” Elandria said with a sigh. “You forget I was alive then, and I was the one who told your mother those stories. I agree that Aazuria’s prominent position would be desirable to many, and that is a likely explanation for the Sapphire. But I want to believe otherwise.”
“We have to be careful,” he told her. “If someone is impersonating Aazuria and challenging the treaty, then they’re attacking our authority. They’re attacking us directly and trying to take the throne.”
“And the people are behind them,” Elandria realized, turning to him with wide eyes. “Oh, Trevain. Adlivun despises me. They call us names behind our backs, like no one ever had a second marriage!”
“Don’t worry about that,” he told her. “We’ll solve this problem and reveal that woman for the fraud she is. That is, if my grandmother hasn’t already beaten the stuffing out of her. I am getting kind of tired and I think I need to nap for a few hours—will you stay with me, Elan?”
“I can’t,” she said. “Not with all of this happening. I have to try to fix things.”
“Okay,” he said in disappointment, “but can you at least take my brother to guard you and keep you safe? I feel uneasy about letting you get too far away from me with some lunatic rabble-rouser out there.”
“I will,” she said, moving to plant a kiss on his cheek before leaving the room. When she stood at the panel of frosty ice, she turned back to him with a smile. “Oh, and Trevain?”
“Yes?” he grunted from the bed, with one eye open.
“Just for the record,” she said gently. “I do think you could manage it without the Viagra.”
Chapter 7: Like Golden Oil
“It will not be safe for us to stay in the city,” Aazuria communicated to the kids in sign language. They were hovering in a narrow tunnel, a few strokes away from the underwater cave which opened up to reveal the largest metropolis in Adlivun. The limestone streets were buzzing with activity as swimmers signed to each other in fear and excitement, speaking about what had happened on the bridge. If Aazuria squinted, she could make out the hand symbol for one phrase that was being repeated most frequently: The Sapphire. She felt rather like a wanted criminal.
“I know of another place we can go,” Glais signed hesitantly. “I have one living relative remaining. My mother’s older sister; she lives in the Gypsum Caves on the outskirts of the east district of Lower Adlivun. Her home is very… spacious.”
“Can we trust her?” Aazuria asked, wondering why Bain had never mentioned that he had a sister. “Do you know this woman well?”
Glais allowed his head to float from side to side uncertainly. “My auntie is the priestess.”
“Priestess?” Varia repeated with interest. “I have never met a priestess before. Can we go, Mother?”
“A spiritual woman,” Aazuria mused. “I suppose our options are rather limited. At least she won’t try to harm us, and perhaps she can explain this whole Sapphire business. Lead the way, Glais.”
“We will have to swim through the city to get there,” the boy answered. “It’s the only way.”
“Can you swim very swiftly?” Aazuria asked.
Glais looked at her smugly. “Just try and keep up.”
When the boy dove out of the tunnel and into the dark alleyways of the city, Aazuria and Varia propelled their own bodies after him. Although the boy was fast, Aazuria and Varia had intensively trained in Lake Vostok, often doing laps around the giant subglacial sea. The pressure had been so great that it had made each motion more difficult, and swimming between the marble build
ings of Adlivun was a cakewalk compared to the deep waters of Antarctica. It was also much more scenic, since the spherical streetlights sent soft waves of light to illuminate their stony path.
Glais was obviously very familiar with the city, for he expertly guided his companions through the narrow, hidden passages instead of sticking to the main streets. Varia was impressed by the way he seemed to bounce off the stylish limestone bricks, placing his feet in exactly the right places to push off into the water. He easily ducked under obstacles, turning back to glance at her to make sure that she was able to follow his maneuvers. She imagined that if not for recent, humbling events, his face would have worn a cocky, superior smile as he challenged her to weave through the sea-lanes with him.
It could have been fun. She imagined that he had grown up in this beautiful city for most of his life; she could see him playing with the other kids in the streets, hiding in crevices and racing through the concealed passageways. She wished that she could have known other children and played such games, but her childhood had been stolen. And now, just when she was able to be among others near her age, or at least, others who looked her age, this awful thing had happened which meant that she could not even enjoy this thrilling moment of freedom amongst the marble.
Varia was filled with nostalgia for something she had never known. She paused for a moment as the emotions overwhelmed her, fighting against them. Pressing her hand flat against the warm white marble of what seemed to be exterior of a restaurant, she stared at the dark grey lines in the substance through vision distorted with bile. She imagined what Glais was going through—she imagined how it would feel to lose her own mother, and the mere thought made her want to empty the contents her stomach. Her knees felt weak, and she might have fallen if not for the buoyancy of the water. She forgot that she needed to be strong, and she could not stop thinking about what had happened. It was too much.
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