Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Kaden
He hadn’t expected Angie to answer him, but he had to try anyway. The sentries traveling beside him for the past tidesday had been quiet, their focuses singular, only stopping briefly when one or more of them needed a break.
By ‘one or more of them’, it meant Kaden, most of the time.
He cursed himself in his mind as they collectively used their magic again to propel themselves forward on another massive wave.
A brief talk over his seaflute earlier to Cyrus and Adrielle revealed that Saeryn met with two small groups of citizens about Kaden.
“He’s not doing nearly enough.” Adrielle had muttered. “I think his lack of effort is deliberate.”
Kaden missed Angie terribly. He should have told her the truth about his condition, or at least, the truth as he knew it. It still didn’t appear as if she were ready to talk to him, and he vowed to himself to give her some time before trying again.
Time passed in a blur, but Kaden kept moving, taking his usual rest and eating breaks.
A submerged shipwreck told him he was ten seamiles away from his home queendom. He stopped cold when he glimpsed two dark, blue-tinted orbs in the midnight sea’s blackness.
A gray nose appeared followed by rows of jagged teeth. A dabaisha’s triangular fin appeared followed by the rest of her massive body.
“By the trenches,” he muttered, freezing in place in time with the sentries. They needed to stay calm, not trigger the shayu’s prey drive. His hopes that the shayu was passing through were shattered when the animal circled their group.
“Should we use our magic? Send her back and flee?” a different sentry asked.
The two kept talking in whispers, but Kaden caught remnants of their short conversation. “The prince...too slow...”
He hated the notion that he was the one holding them back.
The shayu stopped to stare Kaden dead in the eye.
She pointed upward and struck something over Kaden and the sentries’ heads, leaving the mer alone.
“Go. Keep going.” Kaden relaxed his pose and moved with the sentries, resuming their journey.
He made it forward a single tail kick when a slimy, soft tentacle brushed his spine, the telltale feel of a sucker squishing against his skin.
“Juxing youyu!” A male sentry screeched, muffled when another tentacle wrapped around him.
More suckers attached themselves to his shoulders and arms, and Kaden whirled, grabbing the tentacular clubs and peeling them off before they could fully latch on.
The giant youyu’s tentacles wavered in the dark; after a desperate struggle, the shayu broke free of the tentacles ensnaring her, and she fled with circular wounds over her gray skin.
The youyu’s large eyes, the size of dinner plates at the palace, were visible in the blackness. Adrenaline spiked, and with a burst of panic, he fled before they could grab him again.
The other sentry in the animal’s grasp was tangled and Kaden joined the other two sentries to free him.
He kept moving, kept paddling and kicking his tail until he lost the animal, hot on the sentries’ tails.
And swam straight into bright lights that nearly blinded him.
There were never lights there. Something was wrong.
Holding his forearm above his eyes to shield the brightness, he moved out of the luminous radius, darting behind a cluster of tall rocks to his right. When he was shielded, he peeked out, looking for the lights’ source.
A metal cylindrical vessel hovered some feet before him, moving at a crawl. A human submarine with the block letters M D R T painted across the body.
What did MDRT mean? Kaden didn’t have the first idea.
His eyes followed its movement. He’d never seen one until now, but he had heard stories of them from other mer.
“There are landwalkers here?” a sentry asked, hoarse.
“We have to hide before they see us.” Kaden inched along the rock face until he emerged from the other side, and behind the submarine.
Another set of lights lit up the dark behind him, and Kaden made a sharp turn, swimming away at top speed. He charged into the middle of a large ship that hadn’t been buried in sand yet. He glided over its deck and ducked into an open hatch at the stern.
He hid on the lowest level of the ship, inside the hull. The prospect of running into more submarines unnerved him and he waited. The sentries milled around beside him.
Kaden swam to the other side of the vessel, stopping short and letting himself float upright with his tail curled to fit in the small space. Letters on the side of the ship brought back a flood of memories.
Odyssey.
A large fishing vessel. Kaden recalled it. Two tidesyears ago, that was the ship that had set out to capture mer before the war started in full force. The one their palace sentinels had intercepted and killed the sailors aboard in self-defense.
This ship was the precedent to their war, the one that had set the events in motion. Kaden’s chin trembled and time slowed.
“Your Highness,” a sentry piped up when the tides changed. “I think it’s safe to resume our journey.”
Kaden made his way across the ship and back to the latch, poking his head out to check their surroundings. “They’re gone,” he whispered to the sentries who were all watching him with expectant gazes. He motioned them to follow.