“But you’re not on this flight,” she mumbled sleepily.
“Apparently I am. Someone put me on the wrong plane initially.”
“I organized for you to be on that flight,” Aazuria said in confusion.
“Exactly. Now scoot over.”
Aazuria sat up abruptly and looked around nervously. “Trevain—you were supposed to be with Vachlan.”
“He said I was cramping his style. He has Namaka and won’t be needing another apprentice along with him to create dead weight.”
Aazuria rubbed her eyes. “Then why aren’t you with Visola? She’s heavily pregnant, and you could have defended her.”
“I suggested that, and she asked who was going to defend me from her? Seriously, Zuri—that woman seems to have gained superhuman strength from being pregnant. She’s a Valkyrie.”
Aazuria smiled at this. “You have lots of excuses prepared for me.”
“I’ve had some time to prepare my excuses,” he told her with a grin as he leaned on the edge of her private seats. “We’ll be landing in a few minutes. Are you ready for this?”
“A few minutes?” she asked in surprise. “How many?”
“About forty or so,” he answered.
“Oh my goodness,” she murmured, rubbing her neck. She exhaled slowly. “Trevain—can you promise me something?”
“Anything,” he said at once.
“I know I don’t really have to ask this,” she said softly, “but if something happens to me, will you and Elandria take good care of Varia?”
He frowned, moving to sit beside her and forcing her to scoot over and make room for him. “Why would you think that something’s going to happen to you? I knew I shouldn’t have let you take the first wave! Those water-nuns give me the creeps. I don’t trust them to protect you, Zuri…”
“No, they’re very powerful,” she said, trying to move into the corner of her seat, as far away from him as possible. She pulled her blanket closer around her body and awkwardly fumbled to raise the back of her seat to an upright position. “It’s just… Mother Melusina predicted that something would happen to me.”
“She’s the creepiest of them all,” he said solemnly.
Aazuria smiled. “Well, she’s been right about a few things. And she’s been kind to me.”
“Hey—stop fiddling with that seat for a second. I want to talk to you.” He looked at her with disappointment. “You’ve been avoiding me, Aazuria.”
“I—I don’t think this is the time,” she said awkwardly, looking around desperately for an escape route. “I’m quite tired.”
“Elandria hasn’t been speaking to me since you got back. She hasn’t been speaking at all.”
“Forgive me for having a negative effect on her,” Aazuria said gently. “I hope she grows comfortable with using her voice again soon. Maybe if I am declared dead again.”
“Don’t say that,” he said in an upset tone. “Look, Aazuria, we need to talk about us.”
She stiffened and turned away. “We cannot spend too much time discussing unessential things, Trevain.”
“Unessential? You can try to put as much distance as you like between us, but we have a child, and that will always connect us. We performed the Sacred Breath ceremony together!”
“So? You did that with Elandria too. It overrides ours.”
“I didn’t.”
“Really?” she asked, turning to him slightly.
“She and I just had a land-dweller wedding. Very basic. Neither of us really felt like celebrating too much on that day.” He moved a bit closer to her so that their thighs touched. “Hey, do you feel like sharing that blanket? It’s kind of cold for first class.”
She shrunk away angrily, feeling a gnawing sensation in her gut. “Do not say things like that to me. What can be gained from it?”
“Things like what? I just asked to borrow the blanket.”
“All of it,” she whispered. “I don’t want to talk to you, Trevain. I can’t.”
“Won’t you make an exception for the few minutes before the war?” he asked her, stealing some of her blanket without her permission.
“Only if the conversation is about the war,” she said guardedly.
“It isn’t.”
“Then no,” she responded. “I have tried to do the right thing. I have tried to stay away from you, because in some part of my dysfunctional brain, I still consider you mine.”
“I am still yours.”
“You really mustn’t say things like that,” she said with a halfhearted smile. “I will probably think about it later and try to overanalyze what you meant, and whether you were being honest. I will probably completely misinterpret your meaning, and it will just cause us both more pain.”
“I meant exactly what I said, Aazuria. Interpret it any way you like, because every way is correct. I am yours in every way you want me to be, and the only way that’s going to change is if I am killed today.”
She raised both hands to her head, holding the sides as if she could not listen. “What do you want from me?” she asked.
“I want to sit beside you, and I want to put my head on your shoulder and rest for these final forty minutes or so of the flight.”
“Forty minutes?” she asked dumbly, as if the time made a difference.
“An innocent nap before the war,” he told her, nodding. “A bit of warmth and comfort. We don’t even have to talk.”
She nodded slowly, without really intending to. Before she could realize what was happening, she felt Trevain wrapping his arm around her middle beneath the blanket and tugging her back down onto the lowered back of the seat. She remained frozen rigid and frightened as he placed his head against her shoulder, cuddling against her side.
“You’re allowed to breathe, you know,” he said with amusement.
She shook her head, holding her breath for several more seconds.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked her, lifting his head.
“Just trying to avoid crying,” she explained, once she had successfully calmed the tumult of her insides. “Maybe it doesn’t mean anything to you.”
“Are you kidding me?” he asked, tightening his hold on her and kissing her shoulder. “I practically had to do backflips and jump through hoops to get close to you. It kills me to know how upset with me you must be…”
“Not upset,” Aazuria whispered. “I just missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
They laid together, motionless and soundless for several minutes, until Aazuria’s breathing began to become even again. Her stiff posture began to relax as her body finally succumbed to much-needed slumber. Once she was half asleep, Trevain began to fidget guiltily.
“Aazuria?”
“Mmm?”
“Would you be upset if I had made a tiny error in time zone calculations and whatnot, and there were actually four hours left on the flight?”
She was silent for a moment. “Trevain—”
“Sometimes I dream about you dancing,” he told her quietly. “You’re always wearing red, like you were on the night we met. Sometimes you hold out your hand to me and ask me to dance with you.”
She did not know how to respond. She lifted her head a few inches to examine his eyes.
“It’s always the same dream,” he said quickly, swallowing under scrutiny. “It haunted me for years and years. I’d take you in my arms, and we would begin to dance, but before I could even make barely one step, you’d disappear. You’d turn into mist, and I’d wake up sweating and horrified at the way you had vanished so suddenly—before the music had played a single bar. Then I’d turn to my side, and see Elandria sleeping there, and remember that you actually had vanished.”
Aazuria’s eyes drifted downward to fixate on the seat in front of them. “I haven’t spoken to anyone about what it was like down there. Only Varia knows, but she doesn’t truly understand. I wanted to tell Visola, but I wasn’t ready to hear her joke about my distress just yet. I wanted t
o keep it private and keep suffering, for some strange reason. As though keeping it to myself would make me stronger.”
“You can tell me anything,” Trevain said. He felt the urge to gently move the hand he had resting on her ribcage, but he was afraid that if he initiated the slightest caress, she would go careening away from him like a timid bird who was unused to being petted.
“I had nightmares too,” she said softly. “You see, I also betrayed you. I slept with my captor—by choice. I needed to convince him that Varia was his daughter so that he would let her live. It was awful, but it needed to be done. I dreamt for years that I had found a way to return home, and I told you what I had done, and you grew very disturbed. You no longer wanted me. That was my deepest fear, as silly as it sounds now. But when I woke from those dreams to find myself still in Vostok, I didn’t care about how angry you were; I just wanted to be near you again. Upset or not, I just wanted to be home with you, and I needed you to know Varia.”
Trevain did move his hand then, tightening his grip on her waist. “How could I be upset by such bravery?”
She released a pent up breath that was shaky and jagged. “But now, it seems that it’s rather the opposite of my dream—not that I’m saddened with you. But I no longer want you, because you are with someone else.” She turned away to gaze out of the plane’s window with a little sardonic smile. “Or at least I am trying my best not to.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he told her softly.
She glanced back at him questioningly. “What else can I do?”
He thought he had an answer to that question. It had been at the tip of his tongue, but now it escaped him. He thought he had discovered the solution, only to find his tongue leaden and immobile.
“No matter,” she said lightly. “It’s not important right now, Trevain. These are good problems to have, these petty romance problems. If we get out of this situation with our lives, we can continue to stress about it. We can continue to cast furtive looks at each other when we pass each other in the hallway, scared to speak to each other. That would be nice; it would mean we both lived through this war.”
“We will. I won’t let any harm come to you.”
“It may not be in your control,” she told him softly, turning to face him. She closed her eyes when she pressed her forehead against his, and could feel his hot breath against her face. Craving more closeness, she tentatively moved her hand out to touch his leg. He flinched slightly, as if he could not bear the tiniest of her touch. She immediately withdrew her hand, because she also could not bear to touch him.
“If we live through this,” he told her in a low voice, “you owe me a dance. You should wear red.”
She smiled. “Deal—but only if you bring those green eyes along.”
He reached out to put a hand on her cheek, letting his fingers brush her darkened hair gently. “You’re here,” he said in awe. “I still can’t believe you’re really here. I won’t let anything happen to you again. I have learned my lesson on being an idiot, and that is why I wouldn’t let you fly alone. I won’t let you very far from my sight again. And if you get taken from me somehow, I will find a way to get you back. If you get killed, I will find a way to raise the dead.”
“That’s gallant,” Aazuria remarked with a sly smile. “I’m used to finding ways to raise myself from the dead, apparently.”
“Stay with me,” he told her, as his eyes closed. He moved his hand beneath the blanket, slowly tracing down the length of her arm until it connected with exposed skin. He clasped her hand firmly. “Stay with me.”
She nodded against his forehead, restraining the urge to kiss him. If she started, she would not be able to stop. “You can dream of me. I won’t vanish this time, and I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Thank you,” he told her softly.
Aazuria interlaced their fingers together with a mixture of guilt, fear, and peacefulness. She was immensely grateful that he had snuck onto her flight, for she had needed this small amount of contact desperately. More than she had even known. Her lips parted, and she yearned to say more, but she quelled the words. There were too many words that needed to spill over, and they would hit him like a blanketing avalanche, taking him quite some time to claw his way out. She already knew the power of her words, and after ten years of unspoken whispers of love, she did not trust herself to speak. She forced herself to continue bottling the emotion and try to sleep, harmlessly, instead.
Chapter 26: Battle at Damahaar
“Fire again!” Visola commanded into her radio. She watched through the video feed as a row of submarines extending for dozens of miles discharged fast moving torpedoes into the water. It was cathartic when they arrived at the gates of the underwater fortress of Damahaar, exploding through the substance and causing the castle walls to crumble. “Boom, smash, bang!” Visola whispered happily to herself.
“Does this not seem too easy?” Queen Amabie asked warily from her side. “I feel uncomfortable doing battle from within this giant machine.”
“Relax, my friend,” Visola said as she moved through the submarine. “Once we bomb the hell out of it from every possible angle, and get into the heart of the city, it will feel more like a real battle to you. Just remember to avoid the temptation to leave the water. Your daughter’s sonar maps won’t pick anything up outside of the water, so if you see any dry caves near the surface, it doesn’t matter how important it is to enter them—don’t go in blind.”
“I should be reiterating those warnings to you, Visola. I am not the reckless one among us,” Queen Amabie said.
Visola smiled as she pushed a button on the submarine’s control panel. “Firebird to Falcon, what is your status?”
“Hey, sexy!” came the voice from the other end of the intercom. “Still bombing away at the westernmost gate of Damahaar. Looks like we’ve carved a pretty big hole into the side of this place and civilians are running for cover. No sign of military forces at the moment. Our pirates have some pluck; they’re restless and eager to attack when you give the command. Sio’s already doused them with her special juice, so let’s take advantage of our window.”
“Right. Hold for orders.” Pressing another button, Visola barked into the control panel, “Bombing ceases in fifteen. Prepare to send in the Sapphire and her nuns! Infantry will be on her flanks.”
Queen Amabie stared in awe. “You’ve done it Visola. You’ve achieved the perfect combination of timing, brute force, and luck.”
“No jinxing it!” Visola said with a grin. “Let’s wait until it’s over before celebrating. I’m thinking of breaking out the good bourbon, maybe some cognac…”
When the Ningyo queen wordlessly pointed at her midsection, Visola looked down to see if she had dropped something and stained her armor. Noticing the enormous bulge of her stomach, she sighed. “Fine—you can drink the bourbon, and I’ll have milk. Do you think it’s safe to exit the subs and begin rallying our troops?”
“Of course it is not safe. But that is exactly what makes it exciting.”
“Okay,” Visola said, clenching her fists as she stared at the sonar map on the monitor before her. “One last, big battle!”
“You always say it’s the final battle,” Queen Amabie said with a smile.
“It’s part of my strategy,” Visola explained as she ran her hands over her stomach. “I always tell myself I’ll never get a chance to fight again, so I fight as hard as I possibly can.”
“Well, it has worked so far, my friend,” Queen Amabie mused as she picked up her weapons. She paused quite suddenly. “This just seems so easy. Why did we not do this before?”
“Because we didn’t have Zuri to make us realize that we could,” Visola said earnestly.
“You are correct. We had all the elements, but we were floundering disjointedly without any concept of how to connect ourselves. We needed her insight and inspiration. If we succeed, it will be completely because of Queen Aazuria Vellamo.”
“The Sa
pphire does not need a chaperone,” Mother Melusina said angrily.
“I’m not a chaperone,” Trevain said. “I’m here to defend her. A bodyguard.”
The priestess scoffed. “You are a useless spectator!”
“I won’t let Aazuria go in there alone without any concept of how a bunch of unarmed women intend to fight!”
“How we inflict damage is of no concern to men! The Sisters of Sedna are pure, and do not fraternize with those of the filthy gender.”
“The what now?” Trevain asked in disbelief.
Meanwhile, Aazuria had been communicating with Visola on her radio equipment. “It’s time to get ready to penetrate the eastern gates,” she told them. “We will follow the path marked on Vachlan’s map, and head for the royal quarters.”
“I refuse to fight alongside him,” the priestess said angrily, pointing a crooked finger at Trevain. “I have tried to help him on numerous occasions but he has never shown me any respect.”
“Mother Melusina,” Aazuria said softly “He is my husband and the king of Adlivun.”
“And some honor he has shown your hand and your crown!”
“This is not the time for this,” Aazuria said with displeasure.
“Fine. As you wish, my queen.” The priestess turned to Trevain disdainfully. “Keep up with us, land-dweller. You will want to maintain contact with her skin.”
Once the priestess and her followers dove into the waters, Aazuria turned to Trevain apologetically. “I do not understand their power either. All I know is that it works, and that I am desperate. I am not above exploiting powers that I do not comprehend; we must take advantage of every resource. Keep close to me.” With that, she dove behind the Sisters of Sedna, and Trevain followed on her heels.
He could not help thinking as he swam downward, feeling his heavy sword knocking against his legs and his rifle jostling against his back, that he had never imagined his life turning out this way. The mounting adventure and constant surprises often left him breathless in wonder. Propelling his body downward through the warm water of the Maldives, he saw the crumbling walls of the city that Visola had been bombing. The Sisters of Sedna navigated through the debris with surprising litheness, and Aazuria turned back to make sure he was close behind her.
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