by Elsa Jade
“No omens will be bright enough to burn through the taint that has poisoned the very deeps,” called a third. “We must hear from the council rep, not the Abyssa.”
A dull roar rose from the semi-circle like a wave of flotsam, and all the Tritonyri tensed as he had. Although here, there was no one to fight…
Marisol took a half step forward, the shallow water rippling around her feet. “Among the treasures of the Atlantyri”—her clear timbre didn’t cut through; her words rose above, like the silver wings of an iriwyl over the rough toss of shoreline surf—“were the histories of the Tritonesse-ra who left here, your many-times great-grandmother’s sisters.” She’d obviously already caught on to the importance of lineage among the Tritonesse, and they quieted, though Coriolis worried the silence was partly shock at her confidence in addressing them. “They knew if we ever met again, we’d need a way to recognize each other as kin. My heritage is Tritonan enough that I live only with the waters of Tritona, and when I go to the Abyssa, I will seek omens that will explain why that is—and hopefully use the answers to purify your poisoned Sea.”
Damiara, who’d been pacing behind her, swung around to face the other Tritonesse. “You’ve all read the reports Commander Kelyre sent back. Our ancestresses spelled out trials to grant insignia to Tritonesse born and raised in exile.” A protest hissed around the semi-circle, but Dami snapped through it, “As is their bloodright. One of those trials is the chance to claim an omen.”
From somewhere in the circle, a Tritonesse challenged, “And if their blood is too diluted to claim an omen?”
“Then you needn’t share your pixberry wine with them, Nalavasque,” Dami said with an irritable flick of her wrist. “Because they’ll be floating belly up in the white caps, unless the boundary beast gets them first.”
Coriolis gripped the column beside him, his fist clenching on the carving of a hectopi, all of its hundred tentacles meticulously pared from the mountain stone. He’d need all those arms to hold him back from jumping down to the assembly floor.
The Abyssa’s omen had sent him in pursuit of an IDA bride. He’d brought back a brilliant, fearless woman. And now these Tritonesse would debate and doubt and maybe send her to her doom?
The same as they’d done to him.
But far below, Marisol only lifted her chin. Even from this distance and aimed at the Tritonesse-ra, her dark gaze struck him as sharp as the long-gone carver’s chisel. “If the beast chooses that path, I’ll go that way,” she said. Then she smiled, and the smile was harder than her gaze. “Or maybe I’ll ride it all the way to the Abyssa’s doorstep.”
Flaude cheered under his breath. When Coriolis cut a glance his way, the other Tritonyri shrugged and grinned. “I might’ve showed her how you charm your toothy friend.”
Coriolis studied his old friend. “You believe she’ll claim an omen?”
With a tug at his beard, the captain shrugged again. “I think saying she can’t is like telling the boundary beast to smile.”
The subacoustic outbursts from the Tritonesse were powerful enough to ruffle the waters and reverberate to the gallery above, and the Tritonyri were white-eyed with reflected distress. This was a good reason to have kept the assembly’s arguing confined to the citadel until ready to command. His fighters didn’t need such confusion.
He brought himself up short. Warring against the Cretarni hadn’t been easy, but it had been…simple. Tritona’s troubles now were anything but. Bombings and omens might have to give way to discussion, and his Tritonyri might want a place in such talks.
Watching Marisol for how she womanhandled the Tritonesse would be a lesson as valuable as anything on the Atlantyri.
The assembly churned too, milling across the risers and whipping the shallow pool to a froth. When they still again, two factions were clear with a divide of dark, still water between them. But the larger contingent fanned themselves behind Damiara, who turned to face Marisol.
“Seek your omen on the waters that sustain you,” she said. “That is your trial.” Angling her head lower, she glanced at Lana. “And you? What omen will you seek?”
Slowly, the little Earther peeled off one black glove. “I need to stop…this.” She clenched her fist and then spread her fingers. The Tritonesse watched, impassive. She gave her hand a little shake. “Uh, this!” She flared her hand wide.
And sparks arced through the air. The glints hung for a heartbeat before falling to bounce across the floor pool like skipped pebbles.
A few sparked burned all the way to the base of the closest seating columns. One Tritonesse—the one Dami had named as Nalavasque—was reclining nearby. She bent to reach out a finger to the flicker—
And straightened with a cry of rage edged with sheer horror. “Nul’ah-wys!”
As the other Tritonesse responded with spiraling outrage—“nul’ah-wys!”—Flaude lurched toward the threshold of the galley. “Impossible.”
Coriolis grabbed the old male’s arm. “What did she say?”
“Nul’ah-wys.” Flaude had to shout over the thundering subacoustics from below that were vaporizing the tiny waterfalls. “Fire-witch. But those don’t exist. At least not anymore.”
The assembly was roiling again, coming back into one.
Wrathfully focused on the cowering Lana.
Marisol clutched her friend’s still gloved hand—some terrible risk, he realized now, if the Tritonesse’s reaction was to be believed—and yanked her back. “Stop it! She is not…whatever you said.” Despite her vehemence, the violent pang of concentrated soundwaves almost drowned her out. “Nothing hurt you. It was just a few sparks!”
“It will burn the world,” Nalavasque screamed. “It is cursed!”
“Lana is not a curse,” Marisol spat back.
But for the first time since he’d taken her from her world, she retreated. Her arm was spread wide in front of Lana, blocking any retribution, and the trailing hem of her battle skin cloak swept a small tidal wave behind her, but as the Tritonesse converged on them as one, there would be nothing she could do for the little Earther.
And her chance to claim her omen and find a cure—for herself and for Tritona—would be snatched away.
Coriolis launched himself from the gallery.
In the open air, with no water to control his descent, he fell fast and landed hard. But maybe all the more suddenly impressive for that. His battle skin absorbed enough of the shock that he was able to roll to his feet in a spray of droplets between Marisol and the advancing Tritonesse.
He’d faced down more Cretarni and been less terrified than this moment.
“Stop.” He didn’t try to raise his voice over their combined soundwaves. That would be impossible. But he’d learned a few tricks in his battles, and with a hard flex of his muscles, he sent a whip of vibration through the threads of his battle skin. To Cretarni sensors, it had given him the illusion of a dozen sonar echoes, as if he alone were an attacking army.
The Tritonesse were not so gullible, but he was a war hero. They paused, at least, before deciding to rip him apart.
But their eyes were blank white with the shield of their fury and fear.
“I rose to serve at the command of the Abyssa,” he reminded them. “And I descend, again, to bear her next command. Would you stop me?”
He couldn’t blame them if they did. He knew too well that feeling of teetering on the fringe of an oblivion from which there would be no rising ever again.
And a part of him—the hollow he’d tried to fill with ice water—wanted them to stop him. Let the commands fall on another. He had served enough.
Maybe they sensed that emptiness, vaster than the Sea, and maybe they’d been entombed in their citadel for so long that they realized they needed him.
When they held their ground, letting the shallow pool turn dark and still again, he let out the shallowest breath.
Which stirred the Tritonesse. From between their unified front, one separated herself.
“This is more dangerous than sparks,” Estar said quietly, her dark eyes sad but clear of the menacing blankness. “If I’d known she was nul’ah-wys—a demon…”
Marisol let out an agonized sound, but Coriolis didn’t dare reach for her, not when any gesture might trigger an attack from the massed cadre. “But your gloves protected her,” he told the Tritonesse-na. “Can’t you skin all of her?”
Estar shook her head. “Marisol’s symptoms are improved by Tritona’s unique mineral signature. Lana’s will only worsen exponentially faster as the waterborne curse infects every cell.”
He’d doomed the little Earther. “We’ll get her back to the Bathyal, take her off Tritona. Will that slow the progression?”
The Tritonesse-na bit at her lip. “Maybe, plus a full skin. It might be enough. For awhile.”
Before she could change her mind—or the cadre changed it for her—he gestured for Marisol to keep backing up toward the columns that ringed the hall. At least the rock would provide some protection if…
Was he going to fight the Tritonesse?
Steeling himself against even the thought lest they sense his betrayal, he focused on the cadre. “We’ll return with your omen,” he reminded them, a little desperately. “The fears of our past need not be our future.”
Couldn’t be, or none of them would survive.
He kept back them toward the columns, and when the black rock closed around them, he spun toward Marisol. “Go,” he whispered harshly. “Back to the Ammil. I’ll be right behind you.”
Her face was blanched almost as pale as her delicate skins. “Coriolis—”
“Now.” He’d never snapped at a Tritonesse, but he’d never confronted a cadre either.
When Estar appeared between two farther columns, he almost jumped from his own skin. “This way,” she hissed. “Hurry. They are arguing again, which should keep them busy for a bit.”
“It’s the biting that worries me,” he admitted.
Lana swayed, gripping the column with her ungloved hand. “I can’t… I don’t want to hurt any of you,” she whispered. “What am I?” That last was a wail.
“I brought you here,” Coriolis told her. “And I won’t let anyone hurt you either.”
When they raced back to the dock, a single figure waited at the Ammil.
“Commander,” Flaude said. “I’ll take the little one, keep her out of the deeps.”
Marisol gripped Lana’s black glove. “No. She stays with me. I don’t know what this nul’ah-wys is, but it’s not her. She’s not a…demon!”
The captain closed his blue eye, and only the scarred one focused on Lana. “Not a demon maybe. But the nul’ah-wys were born from a place deeper than the abyss, where the fires of the world turn stone to water. A place even the Tritonesse won’t go.”
“I’ll go with you this far at least,” Estar countered. “I still have material on the Ammil to finish a skin.”
Coriolis handed Flaude the datpad from his wrist. “My access codes. Summon the Bathyal and get her off-world. I’ll be back”—maybe—“as soon as possible.”
Though Marisol set her jaw obstinately, Lana twisted free. “I thought it would be different here,” she said in a broken voice. “But it’s not.” She raised a fierce glare to Marisol. “Go claim that omen. Show them what Earth girls are made of.”
The trio of Trionesse-na, Tritonyri, and Earther hurried toward the open hatch. Marisol took a step after them, but Coriolis grabbed her wrist.
“That’s not your fight,” he told her. “Take it up with the Abyssa.”
Her glare was darker than any abyss and shot through with righteous fire. “I’ll take it down.”
Chapter 15
They were supposed to have the Tritonesse blessing. Instead they were fleeing for the grotto buried deep in this undersea mountain chain.
No, not buried. Drowned.
Marisol felt half drowned herself already, awash in dread. They’d come here to save themselves, not be cursed! More cursed? Was that a thing?
She stumbled along behind Coriolis, her wrist still clenched in his fist.
They’d been going down for awhile, she realized, while she’d fumed. But abruptly their steps ended at a vast pool.
The huge chamber was like a cavern with a subterranean lake—except this whole damn place was underwater. And the chamber was even more intricately carved than the audience chamber had been.
Probably because these cruel Tritonesse had nothing better to do than chew on pretty rock for centuries. She glowered at the stunning depictions of sea creatures that probably all ate Earthers—
Coriolis gave her a little tug. “Stop growling.”
“I wasn’t.” She yanked loose from him.
“Not out loud, no.” He touched one fingertip to the keyhole cutout between her breasts. “From here. Like the Tritonesse.”
“Like…” She slapped her hand over her sternum, accidentally catching his hand there. A zing shot through her.
And his knuckles vibrated against her palm.
“Oh,” she breathed.
Their joined hands shivered again.
His stormy gaze reflected the bioluminescent moss glowing in the crevices of the carvings. “You’re getting stronger.”
“Just like Lana.” She swallowed back her shock and another horrified sob. “What is it? What is she?”
“I didn’t recognize the word either,” he admitted. “But it sounds like our only chance is to claim that omen.”
“I can’t care about that anymore.” She glowered at him, although the worst of her anger was at herself. “I brought her here.”
“It was my ship,” he reminded her.
“But I contacted her about the Wavercrest syndrome. I’m to blame.”
“We’ll share the fault,” he offered. “And we’ll fix it together.”
Her head was spinning with confusion—and something else. “I can’t… I think I’m going to chum.”
Strong, cool hands framed her face. “Breathe,” he commanded. “Marisol, look at me.”
When she did, she saw two of him—no, more—layered like ghosts. “I’m dizzy, seeing auras.”
“It’s echolocation and soundwave scanning. It’ll make sense soon enough.”
She clamped her hands over his forearms to hold herself steady, grateful for the unyielding muscle. “Why is this happening now?”
“Probably something in the water,” he guessed. “The minerals, as Estar said, or the depth pressure speeding the transition.”
“Transition?”
“The trial to becoming Tritonesse.”
Stunned, she let her hands slide forward to brace on his chest, the straps of his battle skin slick under her palms compared to the velvety warmth of his pecs. “I can’t do this.”
She was being ridiculous. It wasn’t like she had a choice, was it?
But he didn’t mock her weakness. Instead, he drew her into his arms and bent her head to the low thunder of his heartbeat.
“I’ll call the captain back,” he murmured into her braid. “If that’s what you want.”
She caught her breath.
I’m not running away. So she had told Lana when they were leaving the spaceport on Finimarwy. Who had countered, But you thought about it, didn’t you?
There was no one to stop her now. Coriolis would take her away.
Slowly, she straightened. She glanced over her shoulder at the still, silent pool, so dark it was almost purple. “There’s no submarine here to take us down to the grotto, is there?”
He shook his head.
Taking another breath—not catching it this time, but luring it like some wary fish—she turned to face the water. And took the first step into the depths.
She yelped. “It’s hot.”
“Would you rather it was cold?” A faint smile teased around his lips.
Despite their dire situation, she wrinkled her nose at him. “No.”
His amusement faded, and the storm in his eye
s deepening. “I will take you back,” he said again, the promise cracking in his voice. “Back to Earth, back home. If you ask.”
She gazed up at him. “What if that’s not my home anymore?”
“That you’ll have to ask the Abyssa.”
With a nod, she took another breath and another step into the dark water. A swirl of steam followed her movement.
“Wait.” He delved into a pouch on his battle skin and placed a small object in her palm. “You still need this.”
It looked enough like a scuba diving regulator that she held it up to her mouth with a questioning look. “No air tank?”
“It’s an external gill that extracts oxygenated gases from the water. Sometimes even Tritonyri need extra air.” He took a step closer and showed her the tiny controls on the side. “Seal and unseal. Light. Aural signal.”
She looked up at him, still dizzy from the auras and the eddies of vapor in the air around them, as if they were already half submerged. Her blood burned. That water was too hot… No, he was.
She reached up to anchor one hand at his nape. “There’s a thing Earthers do for luck.” She licked her upper lip, tasting salt.
His gaze dropped to her mouth. “I read the IDA handbook.” And his mouth crashed over hers.
Fast, hard, and over before she could moan.
He straightened with the gasp she didn’t release and tucked the gill over her nose and kiss-stung lips. “Bite,” he murmured.
Oh, she wished…
“Now seal it down.”
She toggled the control and widened her eyes as the gill sucked to her face.
No, she’d wished Coriolis was sucking her face.
“You can talk,” he told her, “a little. Just don’t break the seal.”
“Or I’ll drown.” She made sure not to move her mouth too much.
“Engage the seal again, if necessary.” He loomed over her. “Don’t drown.”
She triggered the light and backed into the deeper water. He followed.
With the dizziness and the heat, she felt fevered. Maybe she was infected with something too.
Lifting her gaze to the carved rock above, inscribed with living light, she fell backward into the depths.
