Chapter 9
Kalyani watched as the elf spun around and left, only to return moments later.
As if he could reset their conversation again.
He stopped before her, his eyes locking with hers.
Earlier, when he had pressed his face nearly against hers, threatening her to remain quiet, she had barely heard him after getting lost in his eyes.
Like his hair that shifted from black to blue, and his skin from blue to green, his eyes were just as mysterious and mesmerizing.
There were multiple layers of blue and silver, alive and shifting as if lit from within.
Iridescent and too vast to behold. She had seen their color from afar, but once she witnessed the unusual hues up close, she found herself drawn to his eyes again and again.
She tried to hold on to her anger, but it flowed out of her as if someone had turned on a spigot. He was too close. She needed to back away, but her feet wouldn’t obey her.
“It seems we need to begin again,” he replied in a soft voice.
The spark of ire she had glimpsed was banked once more. Kalyani thought back to the exchange she’d heard between the woman and Varum. It had been restrained, composed, as they danced around their intent instead of just saying what they really wanted.
“Stop,” she told him, holding up a hand. “What I need from you right now is the truth. No matter how you might think it will upset me, I need to have it.”
“And what truth would you like?” He clasped his hands behind his back and patiently waited.
“Will you keep to your word and release me?”
He lowered his gaze to the floor for several moments before looking at her again. “If I can, I will.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the truth you seek. And all I can give you at the moment.”
“Explain,” she demanded.
He huffed and walked past her to the window.
With a wave of his hand, the lattice slid back, giving her a view of the ocean.
“If you’re discovered here, they will kill you exactly as I described.
And then do the same to me and anyone else who came into contact with you.
There won’t be a chance for any of us to justify our actions, because no one will listen.
It is our oldest and highest law. I broke it.
Every moment you’re here makes it more dangerous for us both. ”
“Then why bring me? I know it wasn’t because you wanted to heal me. You care little about me.”
He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder before facing her. “You asked for the truth, so I’ll give it. You’re right. I don’t care much for humans. I healed your injuries because I need to discover what you know about the Masters.”
“Asking about my village and my swimming has nothing to do with the Masters.”
“Doesn’t it?”
Kalyani could feel her annoyance growing. Perhaps she should take a page out of his book and attempt to restrain herself. “It doesn’t.”
“If you say so.”
She walked to the window. He turned with her, his body tense. She had endeavored to dive out the window earlier. It would likely come to that, but not right then. She swept her gaze around, looking for the city he kept speaking of.
“Look down,” he urged.
She lowered her gaze and saw lights flickering below them.
Some pulsed, others blinked slowly, and more moved in a wave pattern.
She spotted other formations that looked like the tops of buildings.
The more she looked, the more she saw. Walkways, columns, and stairs.
If she squinted, she even glimpsed Sea Elves in the water.
“I see elves swimming, and I see some walking on what look like paths.”
Varum touched the window, and it bent against his finger as it had done with hers earlier. “Long before the other elven races created their Conclave on land, the Sea Elves founded Tarangarh in the vast, coral-lined walls of Sagaris Trench. We didn’t build the city. We grew it.”
“Grew?” she repeated.
He glanced at her, their eyes meeting briefly. “We coaxed the coral with magic to create the city. It is a living, breathing organism. The trench plunges farther than any light can reach. No ships sail above it either. The surface waters seem calm, but storms can gather without warning.”
“That’s why the Sea Elves were helping the boat,” she said.
He sighed, nodding. “For us, this area is sacred. Our ancestors chose the heart of the trench for the city, suspended between the cold darkness of the abyss and the filtered light from above. You could jump out the window right now, but you’d be crushed by the pressure.
If you somehow managed to survive that, you’d have to know how to navigate the Hidden Currents.
Get caught up in one of them, and you’d be lost forever. ”
She looked to the side again as he spoke, seeing the walls of the trench expanding into the blue.
“Tarangarh is a vow to live in harmony. Canals weave through the city, connecting air-filled districts to submerged ones. These windows are actually living membranes of magic and coral essence that we call nehras. They flex like water itself while resisting the pressure of the ocean beyond.” He pointed to the right.
“Look there. You’ll see one of the larger nehras form the outer walls and domes of the Assembly Hall. ”
Kalyani craned her head and saw a towering dome of living coral and embedded pearls. “What happens there?”
“That’s where the High Tide Assembly meets. If you look down and to the left, you’ll see the dome of the Coral Galleries. You might even spot the dome for the Hall of Tides.”
She straightened and turned her head to him. “Why tell me all of this?”
“Why not?” he asked with a shrug.
“I’m forbidden to be here.”
“Aye. But not forbidden in the knowing of it.” He swung his head to her.
Kalyani looked at the nehras. Maybe she wouldn’t be jumping out anytime soon. “I have people searching for me.”
“Rohan, you mean.”
She frowned and shot him a look. When had she mentioned her brother? “Aye.”
“Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll figure out a way to get you home.”
Kalyani wanted to believe him. It would be easy to do, but she wasn’t sure she could.
Friend or foe. Maybe Varum was neither. Perhaps he was just someone trying to save his people.
She had been in his shoes not that long ago.
In fact, she was still there. Not that Rohan would let her do much, but she was trying.
She was just as capable as everyone else.
“I should’ve told him where I was. I promised I’d tell him before I got into the water.” She imagined him pacing the shore, bellowing her name. He’d run himself ragged after Lata went missing. He was just getting back to his old self thanks to Farah, and then Kalyani had to go and do this.
“Why keep such things from your mate?”
She jerked her head to Varum. “Mate? Rohan is my brother.”
“I see.”
“I kept it from him because he worries too much. Also, because he never really understood.” She could’ve told him.
All of it. Including the secrets she had never shared.
She should’ve confessed everything long ago.
She sucked in a breath and faced Varum. “We should get comfortable. There’s a lot to catch you up on. ”
He stepped to the side and swung his arm out for her to go first. Kalyani walked past him into the living area. She took the sofa, but the instant she sat, she smelled perfume. She waved her hand around and wrinkled her nose.
“Tanira always did wear too much,” Varum said.
She raked her hair out of her face and realized she hadn’t finished combing it. Nor did she remember what she had done with the comb.
“It’s in the bedroom.”
Her gaze clashed with his again before she jumped up to find the comb on the floor and hurried back. She returned to the chore of untangling her hair. “I’m taking a chance that you aren’t working with the Masters.”
“I’m not,” Varum stated.
“That’s exactly what you’d say if you were.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “It is. You’ll have to take a chance. Just as I’m taking a chance by believing whatever you tell me.”
“I have no reason to lie.”
Both his brows rose as he shrugged.
She told him about her younger sister being kidnapped and how it had changed things for her village. When she got to the part about Shaldorn, she paused.
Kalyani tugged out a knot and took a breath. “The Masters know the names of my friends anyway, so I don’t suppose it matters. It all began with Ravi and Yasmin.”
“Who are they?”
“Ravi is a Sun Elf who works for the Defense Intelligence Agency. Yasmin is human and was duped as a child into going to Shaldorn, where they enslaved her.”
Varum sat up at the mention of the stronghold. “The Shaldorn?”
“The very one. She escaped.”
“I heard that was impossible.”
Kalyani grinned. “I know. But when you’re desperate, I suppose you’ll take any chance you get.”
“Aye,” he murmured before sitting back. “Go on.”
“Ravi was sent on a mission to the stronghold, and they blackmailed Yasmin into taking him there.”
Varum made a shocked sound verging on incredulity.
“I don’t know what they had on her, but they got Yaz to do it. They completed the mission, and in the process, shut Shaldorn down.”
“So, that was who did it.”
She nodded. She knew more of the specifics, but she had no intention of telling him everything. “They weren’t alone, though. A Mountain Elf, Manu, helped Yasmin when she first escaped. Arya, an undercover Dark Elf working for the Counter Corruption Division, joined them.”
“Even we heard about the shuttering of Shaldorn. I didn’t know of its existence until then. The stories that came out of there were…”
“Horrific.” Kalyani nodded. “Yasmin nearly died.” She paused, recalling Arya’s retelling of what Yaz had looked like when they found her.
Varum’s voice was soft when he asked, “Were you there when they found her?”
“It was described to me. And the distress on Arya’s face when she talked about it told me how dire it was. It took days and several Healers to save her.”
“It must have been very grave, indeed, for it to take so much.”
Kalyani ran the comb through the hair on her left side several times before moving to the right. “While Yaz and Ravi tried to live a normal life, Arya was abducted.”
“By the Masters?”
“Sort of,” she said with a twist of her mouth.
“Years before, Jai—a Dark Elf in love with Arya—was taken on the night they were supposed to meet and run away together. The Masters forced him to work for them as a slave ship captain. He believed he had been betrayed, and that his capture was Arya’s doing, so he plotted to bring her in and claim the reward the Masters had put out on her. ”
Varum watched her closely, his brow furrowed. “Did he?”
“He discovered someone else had turned him over to the Masters and set Arya free.”
“Wait. You said captain? Was he sailing these waters?”
She shook her head. “It was the Lotus River in the Dark Elf territory. That’s how the Masters are transporting the kidnapped to their compounds.
Once at places like Mortham, the people who were taken are broken.
Arya and Jai went to Mortham, looking for the elf responsible for Jai’s imprisonment.
They found her and killed her. When they were making their escape, they found a female Sea Elf. ”