by Elsa Jade
His one-time chief laughed. “Beware your fins, Commander. I think in this you might be the bait.”
He’d protested that he was no longer commander, and he was definitely not in command of himself when he glanced ahead at the Tritonesse…and found his gaze wandering off course.
Marisol’s dark eyes flicked away, but not before he caught the glint of curiosity.
Maybe he wasn’t the only one who wondered if the hook was worth the bite.
Chapter 8
Marisol followed the Tritonesse mean girls to the demolished building. She’d never toured a war zone before. Even knowing she walked with the rightful winners, the sight of the ragged, jagged ruins made her heart clench imagining the pain and horror of anyone caught in the debris.
And why did she fear she and Lana might be the next ones caught?
Maybe mean girls was too simplistic. The brunette Estar was chatting up Lana quite happily. And sullen Ariab seemed most intent on deferring to Damiara. That Tritonesse-ra though…
Marisol had met plenty of her kind on Earth. And sadly…she liked that kind. Bold, unapologetic, looked like she benched at least a hundred pounds. Damiara Altares was the kind of woman who would get things done.
And it looked like she wanted to do the commander.
Which Marisol could also understand. Because not only was he built like a dark-haired Greek god—not from the central pantheon, necessarily, but maybe one of the godling heroes—apparently he was a prince of some sort who might be king?
She wasn’t sure how much to trust the translator nestled against her skull. But when Lana had quizzed her on the proper greeting for high status Tritonans—despite refusing to issue the greeting herself—every repetition had seemed to crack open a long-shut door a little wider. Not that she was thinking in their language yet, but somehow she felt…closer.
Not closer to him. Just to the idea of being here. Despite the denial in her own head, she found herself glancing at him again. Hard not to with the way he smiled, looking more at home—literally at home, of course. The heavy mist beaded on his black hair, as if they were back in the hot tub.
She shivered and it wasn’t from the chilly rain.
As the small company entered the alien building (that mostly looked like an airport terminal, and not one of the nicer ones) she cast another quick look at all the Tritonans. They weren’t so different from any corporation assembly or nonprofit gathering where not everyone knew everyone but somehow the group dynamics were still awkward.
Except there wasn’t any alcohol—
“Fermented pixberries!” The friendly Tritonesse—Estar—hurried across the lobby area toward a long, cluttered table nearly lost in stacks of construction material. A 3D projection of what was clearly the repaired port was hovering above an array of bowls and decanters with small glasses. How exactly did one drink from a glass underwater…
Estar poured the bright purple beverage and dispensed glasses to all, following the hierarchy as had been fairly obvious from the start. All those boardroom meetings and award ceremonies and dinner seating arrangement protocols were finally paying off.
Accepting her glass with a murmur of thanks, Marisol caught a whiff of intense fruit undercut with moss. Earther sommeliers might consider this a little simple.
Coriolis stepped up at her elbow. Though he didn’t touch her, the warmth of his big body seeped through her coat . “I have one of your medical injectors with me,” he said quietly. “Just in case.”
She gave him a nod, not trusting herself to speak with her throat tight. Not tight from an allergic reaction but that he’d thought about her.
Although he had brought her all this way. Would be wasteful to watch her keel over now.
She sipped from the glass—no wheezing, no hives, a lot of fruit forward—while Damiara explained how the port had been a constant source of misery for the Tritonans and she almost regretted the rebuilding but the council rep needed someplace to land.
“And you two as well, I suppose,” she said ungraciously.
Marisol smiled. “Thank you for making a place for us.”
“Where we wouldn’t drown instantly,” Lana added as she plucked a sphere of what looked like seaweed from a decorative bowl and popped it in her mouth.
“Drown?” Damiara frowned at Lana.
“Death by water inhalation,” Estar explained. “Like the Cretarni.”
The Tritonesse-ra drank her purple wine in one long draught and exhaled hard. “Unbelievable.” She held out the glass which Estar refilled. “Follow me, and I’ll show you your quarters. We had to move my cadre around to make this place.” She glowered at Marisol this time.
They marched onward through the port—into the rain again, at one point, where there was no roof. A nudge at her elbow brought her attention back from the damaged architecture that, much like Coriolis himself, reminded her a little of Greece with a dash of Roman plus some Byzantine Moroccan echoes, all columns and arches and geometry.
Beautiful and damaged by war. She glanced over, expecting to see the commander at her side, but it was one of the other Tritonyri, the one who looked younger.
He held out the decorative bowl. “Reef-weed ball?”
She took one, since Lana had. “Thank you, Kadyn.”
Tiny scales like freckles bloomed across his cheeks in a blush, making him look even younger than she’d guessed. “I rise to serve at your command, Tritonesse-ra,” he stuttered the formal declaration between Tritonyri and Tritonesse.
“Na,” Damiara said curtly, the negative sound bursting from her. “Tritonesse-na. As you can see from her lack of insignia. Maybe even less than that, whatever ancient blood the exodus ship once carried.”
Marisol’s grandmother had taught her early to deal with the project managers for their many philanthropic endeavors through the foundation, so she’d learned early the value of preserving capital and extending resources as far as they could go. So she appreciated the Tritonesse’s instincts to protect everything they had left at the first sign of interlopers. But she’d also learned that change didn’t happen without effort and outlay, and all the Wavercrest foundation resources meant nothing if they weren’t leveraged into a greater good.
She’d also learned that dick waving wasn’t just for powerful men.
Keeping her smile firmly in place, she faced the Tritonesse. “Which reminds me,” she drawled, “we’ll want to show the council rep that we’re making good progress in assimilating to your ways. When do we begin our initiation?”
Damiara came to an abrupt halt, staring at her, and the rest of the Tritonans did the same, gathering in a loose semicircle around her. Lana made a soft noise of distress, hovering close at her elbow without touching, though she clearly longed for reassurance.
“Your initiation?” Damiara asked. She flicked one finger toward Estar without unlocking her gaze. “Is its translator working correctly?”
It? This time, Marisol did roll her eyes. “You may use the same pronouns as for yourself: she and her. Lana, what are your preferences?”
“Same,” she whispered. She swallowed with an audible gulp. “I too would like to undertake the Tritonesse trials.”
This time it was Coriolis who shook his head. “Trials? We know this word, but not the meaning. Tritonesse are ranked by blood as revealed by insignia, not ordeals.”
Obviously emboldened by his curious tone, Lana shook her head. “I’ve been translating some of the records taken from the Atlantyri to help me learn your language. The Tritonyri who commanded the Atlantyri knew there would be genetic drift as their Tritonesse fell in love on Earth and had offspring of mixed heritage. Even if they were lost, they’d be found again by the trials that would reveal that heritage.”
Marisol caught Coriolis’s speculative gaze. “We think the Wavercrest syndrome symptoms are remnants of how the Tritonyri intended us to be found someday.”
He nodded before turning his attention back to Damiara. “I forwarded the records from
the Atlantyri. Have the Tritonesse read about these trials too?”
She huffed out an angry breath. “We’ve been busy,” she snapped. “Rebuilding roofs. We don’t have time to decipher ancient history to determine who might be partially Tritonan. Our people are marked from birth, and we know who we are.”
Marisol smiled tightly although the words punched her. We know who we are. She couldn’t say the same, despite everything else she had. She’d always been just a carrier of the Wavercrest name and then a carrier of the Wavercrest syndrome. Just a luck—good or bad—of blood, as the Tritonesse-ra seemed to believe was inevitable. Lana had found there was a way to change that.
We can change our stars. The little astrologer had said as much when she looked out at the galaxies streaming past their spaceship. Marisol wasn’t going to sacrifice that possibility for an arrogant Tritonesse’s belief in pure blood.
“So when can we meet with the Abyssa?” Marisol stared at Damiara pointedly. “Since she has the final say on Tritonesse rank.”
“Meet with…” the other woman sputtered. “No one meets with the Helassia Abyssa. She’s in the abyss.”
Lana made a little choking noise under her breath.
Marisol refused to giggle along, although she was tempted. “She still commands though, yes? So how does she tell you what to do?”
“She speaks to us through her omens,” Estar said.
Lana wrinkled her nose. “Like…chicken entrails or something? Or more like tea leaves? I’m okay with tea leaves.”
All the Tritonans looked at each other.
“What are chickens?” Estar asked hesitantly.
“And tea?” Ariab added.
Marisol bit back a sigh. Honestly, it was like herding…fish. “Focus,” she chided. “When the council rep arrives, we need to show that Tritona is already moving forward on integrating new arrivals as well as repairing roofs.”
Damiara narrowed her eyes. “We…”
If they couldn’t get past pronouns, they would never get to real projects. Marisol clicked her tongue. “If we consult the Abyssa rather than wait for omens, we will be ready for the council rep.” Tritona would regain its status as a sovereign world and she and Lana would have a chance at answers about the deadly lingering leftovers of their Tritonesse heritage.
Before Damiara answered, Coriolis stepped between them. Marisol glared at him. He was sacrificing himself, just as he’d always been commanded to do, to protect the Tritonesse. “Let’s get you to your quarters,” he interrupted. “Gayo and Kadyn will retrieve your belongings from the Bathyal.” He gave a nod to the other two males who stepped back at once. “You just arrived. It would be rude to throw you to the deeps on your first day.”
Considering it had been her idea, his evasion seemed beyond cowardly. He’d fought for this Abyssa, but wouldn’t let anyone else take their shot.
She inclined her head with all the haughtiness she’d ever practiced in the boarding school mirror when nothing, no one, and no place seemed to fit.
They’d called her Queen Midas because everything she touched was silver. Not gold, that would be vulgar. Pure, shining, untarnished silver.
If zooming across the stars to another world didn’t work…
No, she still had time. She had water now, on this water world, and she could afford to be patient.
Could he?
***
Their quarters were in a smaller building adjoining the port. It didn’t look like much—maybe it had been for on-site security or some other round-the-clock workers. At least it had most of a roof.
By the time Coriolis had finished showing them the facilities in his best tour guide voice, while Damiara and her lesser Tritonesse tagged along impatiently, the two Tritonyri had returned with the luggage from the Bathyal. Marisol eyed the stack of Louis Vuitton bags. Compared to what she’d used to take on a weekend getaway, it seemed like a pitiful amount to start a new life on a new planet.
But was this a new life? Or just another place that needed her Wavercrest resources, where she might find a few hours or days or weeks of activity and identity? Although she’d always been grateful for those moments of meaning when she hadn’t been able to generate that in herself, as if the overproduction of histamines in response to life-sustaining water had been a reaction to her disconnection from everything else.
Whatever she managed to do here would be conjured out of her diluted blood and lessons from her grandmother. That would have to be enough.
As he finished explaining the hygiene facilities and small mess hall to them—including how to lock the doors—she murmured, “No hot tub? That’s a shame.”
He stiffened, just a little, but she saw it. And though he didn’t blush like the younger Tritonyri had, the silver of his protective eyelids flashed just for a moment, just enough that she could see it. “No soaking,” he replied. “Although you’re right. Now that Tritonans operate this facility, we’ll need accommodations.”
“Cretarni had taboos against full-body immersion,” Estar explained.
“Our fault,” Gayo said cheerfully. “Any time they got in the water, we made sure they never got out.”
Lana made a soft noise of distress, and Marisol tensed herself, wondering if the tenderhearted astrologer was going to say something sympathetic to the Tritonans’ old enemy. Before the smaller woman could bring down the Tritonesse-ra’s fury upon her curly haired head, Marisol interrupted. “If Tritona is going to be a respected member of the intergalactic community, won’t you need to make accommodations for many different species?”
“The intergalactic community,” Damiara said in a voice dripping with contempt, “wants to take away our world. We’re keeping Tritona for Tritonans. If anyone else wants to join us”—she gave Marisol a narrow, green glare—“it can learn to swim.”
If she didn’t want to make mortal enemies on her first day, Marisol knew she needed to shut her mouth. But she knew the the big Tritonesse would not respect silent capitulation. So she only said as mildly as she could, “Swimming with the tide only takes you where the tide goes.”
Damiara only grunted. “I would bet my prettiest shells that any Tritonesse trial would include a swimming test. And I wonder how you would fare in Tritona’s storm surge.” Her green eyes glittered with malice. “Too bad the fiercest season is upon us. Even pureblood Tritonans die in such seas. I suppose you’ll have to wait to prove you belong.”
“Oh, if even the strongest Tritonyri can’t do it…”
“The Abyssa would not want any Tritonan to risk their lives on a senseless challenge,” Coriolis said severely. “A battle for our lives is one matter. But we won’t risk any more Tritonan lives for nothing.”
Marisol drew breath to argue, but Damiara got there first, although to Marisol’s surprise, the Tritonesse-ra’s voice was gentle. “You’ve fought and risked and sacrificed enough, Tritonyri,” she said, the shine in her green eyes softer now, like tears. “It’s time for someone else to take up the fight, time at last for the Tritonesse to rise again.”
Frustration and something like despair roughened his voice. “The fighting was supposed to be over.”
“This is a different planet, in a different galaxy,” Marisol told him. “But it’s not a different universe.”
He raised his chin, the better to glare at both of them, she suspected, his jaw clenching on whatever counterargument he wanted to muster. Instead he said through gritted teeth, “We’ll leave you to get settled.”
Although she rather suspected he meant that he would settle with her later. When the Tritonans marched away, she and Lana exchanged a long look.
“I don’t think she even asks to see the manager,” Lana mused. “I think she just nukes the place from orbit.”
Marisol snorted. “And then leaves a bad review because the roof leaks.”
Lana snorted back.
Together they explored their adjacent rooms which were no worse than any extended stay hotel minus the bulk-purchased co
rporate art, each with a small public sitting area like a living room with two doorways at the far end, one to a sleeping area and one to a simple lavatory.
Lana put the decorative bowl of seaweed balls on the dropdown table in her living room.
Marisol nodded approvingly. “When did you snag that?”
“When that little guy was distracted by your hair.”
“I should probably learn to do braids. Makes sense for underwater.”
Lana bit her lip. “Do you think we’ll have to learn to breathe underwater like Ridley?” She touched the side of her neck as if she might not have noticed suddenly sprouting gills. “If I go in the water, I could zap everyone nearby, like, everybody out of the pool when lightning is striking.”
Marisol started to reach out a hand to the troubled astrologer, but then redirected to the bowl. “We’re here to figure it out.” She picked out one the salty treats and bobbled it in her hand. “I feel like this is all my fault. If I hadn’t attracted the Cretarni’s attention by researching the Wavercrest syndrome, they wouldn’t have tricked the Tritonans into matching with a fake Intergalactic Dating Agency to find the Atlantryi, and we’d still be on Earth—”
“Slowly dying for reasons we didn’t understand,” Lana interrupted. “You’re right that at least we have a chance here.” She peered at Marisol. “And maybe it doesn’t have to be fake. The way the commander looks at you…” She let out a low whistle.
Marisol choked on the ball. Clearing her throat felt a little frantic. “He’s just desperate to save his world.”
“Desperate for something anyway.” Lana flopped back on the L-shaped bench of cushions built against one wall. “If you ask, I think he’d take you to the Abyssa.”
“I almost wonder if she exists or if they’ve been using a myth to keep themselves going.”
“Don’t we all?” Dragging the snack bowl toward her and pulling the tablet out of her purse, Lana said, “I’ll see what else I can translate about the Tritonesse trials, but after what we’ve seen of the other Tritonesse, I think you’re going to need Commander Kelyre on your side.”
