by Elsa Jade
And gasped. “There’s someone out there! How can it…?” She stiffened as the shape moved closer, arrowing alongside the Ammil, pacing them. She knew that silhouette… “That’s Coriolis.” She shot one angry glare at the old man before turning back to the viewport, spreading her hand in a pale star against the alien glass. “You said this was too deep and dangerous for Tritonyri to dive.”
“Oh. Aye, it’s deep and dangerous, even for a Tritonyri like your Cori. But when the mating storms come, if he would be Triton-roy, he’ll have to go deeper yet, all the way to the bottom with his Tritonesse mate.” His voice turned wistful. “Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just a legend and will never be. Maybe it’s just my last eye failing me.”
She fisted her hand against the glass, her knuckles freezing, as if she could close her hand around that distant shape. “It’s too dark and cold out there,” she said through gritted teeth. “He needs to come back inside.”
The captain puckered his whole face into doubtful expression. “If you want to go get him…”
She shot him an angry glare. “You said you’ve seen Tritonyri dive before. So, how does your story end?”
“Ah, maybe I haven’t seen it before after all.” He closed his blue eye, leaving only the clouded one. But she suddenly wondered what visions he had behind those clouds. “Maybe I won’t live to see Tritona’s salvation.”
She wanted to shriek at him, something she’d never done in all her years of frustrating diplomacy and even more frustrating award dinners. “Signal him to come in,” she said through gritted teeth. “We don’t need a dead legend.”
The captain shrugged one shoulder. “It looks good on the tourism pamphlets.”
She didn’t shriek, but she did raise her voice. ““I need him here, now.”
She didn’t like flexing her position, what little she had here on Tritona, but the fear constricting her heart was too tight to ignore, as if she herself was out there in the relentless pressure.
But the captain shook his head, flapping all three brains regretfully. “With the someday Tritonesse-rey aboard, if my one eye is still any good, then his honor guard is right and proper.”
She snarled, “Damiara would be the first to say—”
“I wasn’t talking about her.”
Before she could make sense of his curt interruption, a startling flash through the viewport made her whirl back around. “Coriolis!”
“We’ve passed the boundary,” Flaude said. “We’re in the Tritonesse waters now.”
The edge to his voice, wary and wistful, made her shiver even more than the suggestion of cold through the alien glass. As if the light had triggered some sort of chain reaction, the night outside the window bloomed with light. Thousands of stars lit up the darkness with their icy blue luminescence. What kind of tiny sea creatures they were, she didn’t know, but that vision would dazzle her dreams forever after. Things like jellyfish, their umbrellas ablaze with scintillating lights through the void as if teasing her with their classic UFO selves. Their main tentacles, suckered like a squid, writhed in a slow, arcane dance, but the longest streamers trailed away into the darkness like roots into the deep.
A vast, amorphous shape that rejected the lights moved in the emptiness just beyond Coriolis’s swimming figure. “Cori,” Marisol whispered. “Watch out…”
“He sees,” the Tritonyri assured her. “Now you watch.”
She had both palms flat against the glass now, as if she could push that monstrous creature away from that suddenly fragile looking form that had seemed so invulnerable to her before. Her desperate breaths fogged the glass, and with an impatient swipe she cleared it with her sleeve. “No…” The leviathan was even closer to him now, as it circled closer, and through the dazzle of darkness and shimmering sea lights, she caught a suggestion of vast, diaphanous fins…or wings… Her Earther eyes struggled to make sense of what she was seeing, but those few drops of Tritonan blood warned her that this wasn’t just a danger in the deep, this was the danger of the deep.
Coriolis reached out, grasped one of those feathery fins—and let the beast haul him past.
She gasped out a curse that he was terrifying her like this. Captain Flaude chuckled. “Usually the boundary beast will challenge all comers, at least try for a bite. But I think sometimes it gets lonely too.”
“What is that thing?” she whispered. “Is it…a sea dragon? With tentacles?”
The old Tritonyri shrugged. “Just one of the wonders of our Sea that the Cretarni tried to destroy.” His blue eye clouded like the other, and she realized he was crying. “Thank you for bringing the Atlantyri treasure back to us,” he whispered. “You’ve brought home creatures I haven’t seen since I was a spawnling. And that is a light I’ll remember till the Last Tide.”
She didn’t want to accept his thanks when it had been Ridley and Maelstrom who’d found the Atlantyri, but before she can say as much, Damiara’s brusque voice interrupted. “Boundary behind us. Captain, come take your ship.”
“Duty—and Dami—call,” he said with a watery chuckle. “I rise to serve.” With another tug at his beard braid, he retreated back to the bridge.
Which meant she didn’t have to stop herself anymore from pressing her face to the glass, probably leaving nose prints as she swiveled her head from side to side, trying to see through the sparkling darkness where Coriolis had gone. But he’d passed out of sight as if the whole thing had been a hallucination. Half in a daze, as if she couldn’t wake up from the dream that wasn’t a dream, she wandered back to rejoin the group and caught the last part of Estar’s explanation of the boundary zone around the Tritonesse citadel. The boundary beast was such a successful and prolific predator that it created its own little ecosystem, supporting the other creatures that fed on scraps or that hunted the creatures that fed on the scraps plus all of the downstream lifeforms that thrived in its wake.
“I heard,” Kadyn said, “that during the war years, it mostly ate—”
“I do not want to hear this,” Lana said in a singsong voice.
Kadyn scowled. “What else where we supposed to do with the corpses? It’s not like we—”
“Anyway,” Estar interrupted, “the boundary beast has always been an excellent deterrent against Cretarni and other, worse invaders.”
“Worse?” Kadyn blinked, his protective lids flashing.
The Tritonesse-na cut him an arch look. “Foolish young Tritonyri diving before their time.”
He flushed, the white shields slamming completely across his eyes.
Marisol bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling. Apparently the gender equivalent of foolish young males was the same across the galaxies. The urge to smile faded when she pictured Coriolis’s long fingers tangled in those icy, fragile fins. What if the beast was hungry after a few meals without Cretarni corpses?
After all, she’d gone merely a year without sex and had feasted on the commander as if he were her last Swiss chocolate.
Ariab, hovering on the outside of their grouping, crossed her arms. “Even with the specimens recovered from the Atlantyri, we don’t have enough time to recover from the environmental degradation. By now, all of the Sea’s currents will have carried the Abyssa what she needs to know. The omens will tell us everything.”
Marisol lifted one eyebrow. This was the first time she heard any Tritonan voice such doubts. Yes, she’d heard fear for the fate of their world, but never such resignation. How deep did such sentiment go along Tritonans? If there were no omens—or worse yet, no Abyssa at all? Such despair and hopelessness could spread faster than any waterborne toxin.
“When will we get to the citadel?” It seemed to her that their time was running out.
“Soon now,” Estar said. “The Aeonia Chain is just ahead, and the citadel is at the heart of those mountains. The grotto is below the citadel.” She nibbled at her lower lip, her brow puckered as if she too sensed pressures that had nothing to do with the depth of their dives. “I know t
his has been a whirlpool of strangeness for you, and you’d probably like to rest before we arrive at the citadel. But maybe I should measure and fit you for your skins now. That way, we’ll be ready to go.” She peered between them anxiously. “Would you mind?”
“Our own mermaid princess suits?” Lana said smile. “Of course we wouldn’t mind.”
“The skins should help with your electrical discharges too,” Estar said eagerly. “I think you’ll like it.”
As the two bustled off together, Marisol fell into step behind them. She wasn’t sure if mermaid princess suits would save Tritona, but she knew the importance of making a statement, whether that would be to the other Tritonesse or the Abyssa or…
No, she wasn’t trying to show Coriolis anything. Especially since he already seen it all.
And if there was anything else she was hiding—maybe from herself—it wouldn’t matter how tight or revealing her new skin was.
Chapter 14
Coriolis launched himself up onto the inner dry dock of the citadel. The beast had been obliging enough—only trying to swallow him once—to haul him most of the way through the Aeonia Chain, so he arrived before the Ammil. Slicking the cold water off his skin, he savored the geothermal heat pumped into the cavern.
Even if it reminded him too much of the basin on the Bathyal. He’d heard the Tritonesse maintained bubbling spring pools in the citadel, but he’d never imagined he might go looking for one.
And he wouldn’t now either, he reminded himself. Not with the urgency of continuing on to the grotto.
Not when he wouldn’t have anyone to join him in the bubbles…
As if mocking him, the icy water behind him churned. In another moment, the Ammil surfaced, splashing him with cold droplets as he strode toward the edge of the dock where the hatch would lower. Dami was first out, of course, with her cadre and half of the Tritonyri guard behind her. He steadied her as she crossed the gangway, but she didn’t even glance at him as she marched toward the arched entrance to the citadel proper.
Stepping aside for her followers, he frowned after her, then turned back to ship just as Marisol stepped into the hatch.
He almost fell into the water.
She’d been fitted in a battle skin, but not like one he’d ever seen. Unlike his own black strapped gear, this was shining silver. Embedded threads of iridescent green and lustrous black whirled in scale-like patterns. Those AI threads partly powered the battle skins, but he’d never seen them so beautiful. The wider swaths of the biodynamic layer shone against her own darker skin where cutaways would have left sensitive Tritonan receptor areas exposed—from throat to navel, under the arms, the inner wrists. On Marisol, those areas were covered with a silkier, translucent fabric, like an emergent skin not yet battle hardened. More of the unique material had been draped into something like a cloak, swirling around her legs.
Marisol had stopped, poised on the hatch, while he just stared, but she finally held out one hand. “Commander?”
His own legs jolted him forward, and he stumbled as if he were a spawnling taking his first steps on dry land. “I rise…” He swallowed the rest, along with a lustful mouth of la’ah-wy, when her fingers settled lightly on his.
“Don’t drop me,” she murmured. “Estar says this outfit will keep me from freezing to death in your waters, but I’d rather not find out the hard way.”
“She is the Tritonesse’s chief armorer and the lead developer for all Tritonyri and ship skins as well.”
Marisol tilted her head, her pale braid falling forward to brush over his knuckles. “Really? That seems like an important position during the war. Why doesn’t she have equal status with Damiara?”
“Dami is a Tritonesse-ra,” he explained. “Estar never manifested the insignia.”
“We’re going to have to discuss the detrimental effects of antiquated caste systems and gender roles on social and economic advancements.”
Distracted by the swell of her breasts into the curved cutout where a Tritonesse sensed echolocation, he said, “Yes.”
As she flicked the hem of the cloak aside, revealing a long slit in the battle skin down the outside of her leg, she glanced up at him. “I also demand all your buried merman treasures.”
“I rise to… What? I don’t have any buried treasure.” His grasp closed on her wrist. If he did have a treasure…
“But you do have wandering eyes.” She stepped up onto the dock and twisted her hand free.
He gazed up at her. “You stunned me,” he admitted. “Like the boundary beast once knocked Cretarni ships from the sky.”
She blinked. “It did that?” Before he answered, she shook her head. “I believe it. But I can’t believe that you manhandled it like you were bronc-busting at some two-bit Montana rodeo!”
He narrowed his eyes. While his translator had no immediate suggestions for busting broncs, she made manhandling sound like a bad thing. “The beast chooses its own path. I was going its way.”
For all the shine of her unusual skin, her gaze was the same dark enigma to him. “That’s for the best,” she murmured as she turned to follow the other Tritonesse. “I need to remember that.”
He wanted to go after her but Lana was in the hatch. She too had a new skin in brighter colors, like the sunseeker mollusks that illuminated the tropical shallows, but her hands were skinned in matte black.
She waved them at him. “I promise not to shock you! Probably!”
“I promise not to drop you. Probably,” he told her as he handed her gently—not manhandling—to the dock.
With her black-clad feet under her, she turned back to peer at him. “Okay?”
He jumped to the dock beside her, making room for the rest of the Tritonyri who began unloading supplies for the citadel from the Ammil. “If I’m hurt it’s only because Estar gave the Tritonyri only black.”
“Black is tough.” She grinned up at him. “And it looks good on you though.” Flicking a glance past him, she whispered, “Just ask Marisol. Or maybe she likes you better without it.”
He followed her gaze, but the swish of silvery skirts was disappearing into the citadel. “Not anymore, I think.”
“Commander, here’s the thing about Marisol Wavercrest.”
He brought his attention back to the small Earther at his side. “Yes?”
“She’s rich and powerful and beautiful, so she never had to want for anything, never had to fight for anything. Until the symptoms of our Tritonan blood, and then she realized how little wanting mattered. And now…” She shrugged. “If I was reading her palm, I’d tell her she was at a crossroads.”
“We don’t have crossroads under the Sea,” he murmured.
The tilt of her head made her multitude of stubby braids bob. “Right? So then what?” When he just stared at her mutely, she sighed. “You’ll have to lead her to what she wants, just like you led the rest of your fighters during the war.”
He’d wanted to leave that behind him, to claim peace as his reward. But if the next battle was for his would’ve-been bride, maybe he had fight left in him after all.
***
In the Hall of Moonless Hours, he stood with the other Tritonyri between the elaborately carved columns in the upper gallery while Damiara introduced the Earthers to the gathered Tritonesse below. The Tritonessse were arranged on tiered risers by rank, some lounging on the hexagonal columns of dark rock thrusting up from the ankle-deep water that inundated the hall and cascaded in subtle musicality down the steps. Although the survival rate of female spawnling had declined over the poisoned years, all the remaining Tritonesse had been marshalled in the citadel, which meant this ritual presentation was taking too long. Dami had been droning on for what felt like centuries and was still only halfway through the names and lineages around the semi-circle of Tritonesse.
When he shifted restlessly, Flaude elbowed him. “Stop flopping like a gaffed Cretarni.”
Coriolis sighed. “The Sea will drain into the Last Tide before all this
talking is over.”
“Your flopping makes it no faster.”
“Maybe if I marched down there…”
The Tritonyri captain hissed at him. “Not our way.”
Coriolis subsided. He’d only been teasing the old male, but Marisol’s suggestion that those ways might have to change swirled with Lana’s talk of crossroads. Tritona couldn’t stay the same.
And anyway, for too long, the old way had been war. Just as Estar had turned black battle skins into brilliant beauty, they would have to find new paths. The thought was electrifying.
Which was more than he could say for the assembly below.
Damiara had finally finished reciting the descents of the Tritonesse-ra. The lesser Tritonesse were presented only by name. But at last she turned to the newcomers.
“Marisol Wavercrest and Lana Wavercrest,” she said in a tight tone, and for a moment he thought she would stop there. But then she went on in a clear voice, “Descended from Tritonesse-ra of Marmera, Airos, and Selenphos who sacrificed their lives to sail the Atlantyri across galaxies to Dirt, where they kept the precious past of Tritona safe and secret.”
Coriolis quirked his lips to one side. Because those descendants had forgotten about it until Maelstrom and Ridley stumbled upon it.
“Who were found again and brought home,” Damiara continued, “by the Abyssa’s omen—the last omen.”
The sudden ring of defiance in her voice and the visible ripple of response it sent through the assembly made Coriolis widen his stance, one hand dropping to the weapons holster of his battle skin. He hadn’t approved of Dami declaring her fears where other Tritonyri would hear, and apparently the same disquiet was split among the Tritonesse.
“With the war ended and the Atlantyri recovered, we have less need of omens,” called one of the Tritonesse-ra—he should’ve been paying more attention to names. “The Abyssa too has earned some measure of peace.”
“Not when we’ve learned that the Cretarni lied to steal from us,” another Tritonesse countered. “We need brighter omens for what comes next.”
