Chapter 17
AZUR
Soon I’ll have to find air in the water. The surface is full of it, minuscule bubbles carrying our precious fuel, but this deep down, they’re so rare. Finding them will take a lot of magic.
Still no sign of the Sea Court.
I was counting on their prince’s hurt pride, hoping he’d try to have his revenge, but perhaps he can’t sense me. While they always know when there’s a foreign fae in the sea, they might think I’m someone inconsequential, a ship passenger fallen overboard whose life matters too little for them.
Cruel and unpredictable, the Sea Court is a dangerous place for a land fae, but I need to find them.
Finally, I decide to yell into my air bubble.
“Royalty of the Sea! I request an audience with your king.”
I’m not sure if the sound is going to carry and if this is going to make any difference. I’m not sure of anything, in fact, only that I have to save Lidiane.
There’s still breathable air in the bubble I’m holding, but it’s not what it feels like, when my chest is squeezed so tight.
The cool water chills my skin, and I tremble as I look at the infinity of water above, below, and around me, the ocean dark like dusk even though the sun is still shining in the sky.
I yell again, but this time I try something different. “Prince Machiel! Come and find me! Didn’t you want to duel? I’m here.”
Silence is the only reply I get. So much silence down here, far from the sounds of birds and the wind.
A school of fish passes by, then a bigger fish—an enormous gray shark, gliding near enough that it makes my body go rigid. I’m hoping it’s one of the messengers of the Sea Court, and not a hungry shark who decided to taste fae meat.
When it leaves, my body finally uncoils, but then I feel something behind me. A trident poking me, and four guards with fish tails and unfriendly faces.
“Come with us,” one of them says.
Two guards swim in front of me, with the other two pushing me.
I’m not a great swimmer and don’t have fins, so it’s quite hard to follow them.
Eventually, the two guards in the front grab my arms and pull me.
We advance fast in the water, and I focus my magic to keep the air around me, even if very little of it is breathable.
We come to an underwater rocky hill with several caves, and they push me into one of them while a guard takes a dagger and pulls part of my hair.
For a second, I’m again by the Crystal Castle, my hands pulled, a knife carving my head.
Cold rushes through my body, and it has nothing to do with the cool water around me.
I look again, and see that all that the guard took was a small piece of an already small hair strand.
He can’t take my horns. Nobody can take them, when they’re long gone, and I focus on the here and now, focus on my need to save Lidiane.
The guards’ tails turn into legs, and they point to a cage made of huge fish bones. I could try to fight the guards, perhaps cause a scene. That could work. Still, for now, all I need is for the Royalty of the Sea Court to know I’m here, and I don’t want to overuse my magic yet.
I step into the cage and let them lock it, then say, “I request an audience with His Majesty.”
The guards laugh, and two of them swim away.
I was expecting something like this, other than the odd hair cutting.
My only question now is how long it’s going to take until the king or his son finds me. Hopefully, the king will come first.
TARLIA
The queen’s guards have pushed us in a strange stall after tying our feet.
Ziven looks attentively around him, Mirella glares at Renel, and Renel is pale, livid.
My heart beats faster and faster, like some kind of alarm bell, warning me I’m in danger—as if I hadn’t noticed.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Before Renel answers, the wooden floor gives way, and even though I reach desperately for a place to hold, for the wall, my body falls through the opening, down a huge chasm.
A yell comes out of my throat, interrupted when the fall stops, and I feel as if my feet were yanked, even though I’m suspended mid air.
My stomach drops, then feels as if it’s freezing.
In a second, I realize I’m hanging, suspended by the ropes tying my feet, my companions in the same predicament as me.
The ground is so far below us that a fall would mean instant death, and beside us, I see the vertical rocky wall of the hill.
Ziven snorts. “Stand down, really?”
“Yes, really,” Renel says. “You don’t want her to know…” He points at Ziven’s necklace.
I’m not sure if he’s right. While it might have been a good idea to hide Ziven’s water magic, I don’t know if he’ll be able to do anything at this point.
“Renel, undo our deal,” Mirella whispers.
A spark of hope lights in my chest. Her air wielding could save us.
“It will be fine,” he says.
His patience is grating on me. “What part of this do you think is fine?”
“The one where we’re not dead.”
I want to strangle him for a thousand reasons, but bringing us here might be the biggest one of all. “We’re hanging, in case you didn’t notice.”
“We’re alive. Be still, and don’t offend the queen.”
“Renel,” Mirella pleads.
“No,” he says.
What a prick. I bet he’s enjoying torturing his stepsister, but doesn’t he realize the danger we’re in? His face is still tense, though, so I don’t know what’s going on through his head.
I could try to grab the rope and climb back up but there are guards watching us and I don’t know what they can do.
We’re a few feet away from the rock, but I could swing and then find some fissures to hold myself to.
As I look at the wall to find a grip point, part of it simply disappears, giving way to an opening, where a dark-haired fae woman wearing a wooden crown smirks.
“Well, well, Prince Renel, so nice of you to come hang out with me.”
“Queen Berta, must I remind you of the hospitality treaty?” His voice is calm, confident, as if he was standing tall and facing her instead of hanging upside down.
The woman is wearing a silver dress up to her neck that looks like armor, and perhaps she’s here for a fight.
She grimaces. “Oh, you absolutely do not want to invoke any treaty, or things will get much, much worse. And again, who are you? As far as I heard, you’re no longer the acting king.”
“I’m the king’s brother.”
The queen taps her chin and looks up, thinking. “Interesting, quite interesting.” She looks at Renel again, and yells, “Well, I’m not letting you go until your scoundrel of a brother shows up and kisses my feet, then sucks my toes. He owes me an apology.”
Renel frowns. “I can’t exactly ask him to come here while hanging here.”
She looks up as if considering his question. “Indeed, indeed. I think I should let one of you fall.”
“I can’t call my brother if I’m dead either,” Renel says.
I still think he sounds too calm, and I don’t know if he’s confident that he’ll find a way out of this or if he’s just pretending.
“Very true.” The queen furrows her eyebrows. “Very true. But I can still leave you hanging because it’s fun.” Her laughter is maniac and now I’m considering swinging, getting to the rock wall, climbing up, then punching her face.
I move my legs to swing, but then I feel the rope above me loosening. My stomach feels empty while I fall, horrifying fear taking over me. I reach out to the stone, but can’t reach it.
Then I stop—and realize I was just dropped a couple of feet. My scream feels ridiculous now that I know I wasn’t about to die.
“Na-ah,” The queen says. “Make one move, and my guards will cut your ropes. For now, they can loosen them.”
No swinging then. I hate this. I hate Renel. I hate this queen.
Renel then asks, “What would you like to have in exchange for bringing us safely up? Then we can talk.”
She eyes him for a long while, as if considering how to answer, then says, “Hmmm. Fair, but I still think it could be fun to drop one of you. You get to decide which one falls, and then I pull the rest to safety. How does it sound?”
My stomach shrinks and shrivels.
“Pull us all, and you’ll get a better deal,” Renel says.
“No! Speak out of turn, and you’ll die. I’ll ask you one by one a simple question: who do you think I should drop? Very easy. Once you vote, the rest of you come up and talk. No protesting.” She points at me. “You, who should I drop?”
I’m surprised she’s asking me first, but I try to think fast. Ziven still has water magic. In fact, he’s the only one with any magic among us, so it makes sense that it should be him.
“Ziven,” I say, and point at him, since she never asked our names.
The queen pouts. “Really? I thought you two humans would protect each other. How wrong I was.”
I shut my eyes, fearing she’ll drop him or perhaps even me, but nothing happens. My heart is banging so hard on my chest I think it’s going to punch a hole through it.
“Now you, former acting king of the Crystal Court.” Her tone is mocking. “Tell me, who should I drop?”
“I can’t lie, Queen Berta, and I don’t want any of us to fall. How can I answer your question?”
“Do you dare defy me?”
“No. I’m just saying what I think. Now, if you want me to give you a name because I’m forced to, I’ll pick Tarlia.” He points at me.
My skin feels cold and hot and numb, even if it’s impossible to feel all of that at once. The place where my heart once was becomes a stiff block of ice, and my stomach is turning and turning. Me? He wants me to fall to my death? Even more than the sister he hates? Than the prince he barely knows?
The queen tilts her head. “Look at that. She’s sad.”
If I survive this, I’ll definitely punch her face. Then I’ll punch Renel. Why didn’t I kill him when I had the chance?
The queen then points at Mirella. “You. Who do you choose?”
“Renel,” she says simply.
That was quite obvious. I’m guessing she hopes that if he dies, she gets her magic back. Makes sense.
I hope he feels like an idiot for having picked me instead of her.
The queen then points at Ziven. “What about you?”