Chapter 18
In the Empire, You’re Nothing
Zaraga—or rather, former Zaraga—was the largest continent of the Opalese.
Two oceans encircled it. The Moaning Ocean bordered one side, the other the StarRay Ocean.
Since Rafaela had rescued Teo and me from Montressón and brought us to live at the palace, we’d lived by the StarRay Ocean—and then I’d existed—neither dead nor alive—beneath it for those several centuries more.
The enormity of the ocean had long been a constant in my life: its rolling, sometimes shushing, sometimes crashing waves; the salt in the air; the wind.
I tasted and smelled it. It coated my skin.
Since I’d first laid eyes on those endless stretches of deep, unfathomable blue, I’d understood that, no matter how powerful I might become, the ocean would always be greater, more dominant, capable of taking away all the gifts it had given in a single sweep of a gargantuan, monstrous wave.
The ocean wasn’t a demigod, but she may as well have been. She probably claimed as many lives as Heartbreak herself. Misery too.
And that was before Isai and his questionable … advancements. Had his myriad imports really improved the Opalese? I had more doubts every day I spent aboard our current … transportation.
I was no stranger to travel by boat. Ships were a natural evolution. Where there were bodies of water, there were those inclined to voyage across them. The first D’Arco had arrived on Zaraga’s shore by ship.
Travel by colossal beast, however, was unnatural.
Riding a horse, or even a dragort, was one thing. Though the creatures were larger than me, they were approachable. An animal as vast as the palace? That was no beast. It was a monster.
During the many conversations Rafaela, Alonso, and I had had over the past week, neither had bothered to inform me that boats no longer carried people across the water because fucking monsters now ruled the seas.
From the Mirror World—a fae dimension that sounded somewhat similar to ours—Isai returned with the higantorus.
How he managed to cajole a beast this size back through a portal with him was a mystery apparently often pondered by the Opalese.
What I wanted to know instead was why? Didn’t our world already have enough monsters?
The higantorus was so gigantic that it couldn’t dock to pick up passengers. I’d gotten my first good look at it from the deck of a small boat—a vessel made of actual wood planking—that delivered us far out past crashing ocean swells to the deep.
Only the deep could accommodate the girth of the higantorus.
Dragons had abandoned the Opalese for the Ethers even before the first D’Arco alighted on Zaraga’s shores.
Only ancient drawings of them remained, telling us what they looked like.
It was told that the Fuerin were gods even to the dragons.
Many times larger than the dragons, the Fuerin had created them in their image.
Based on those ancient tomes, the higantorus resembled a dragon, if an aquatic one.
It possessed a long snout, nubby horns, and hand-high teeth.
Instead of wings it had fins, and its thick, sweeping tail occasionally flipped out of the water as if it were another fin.
Instead of legs I imagined it also had fins below its body, but I hoped never to be in a position to confirm or deny that assumption.
The higantorus whose back we rode was the bright pinkish red of raw flesh. Wet, it glistened in the sunlight.
Cosette sat close enough to annoy, far enough away that I couldn’t swat at her. She laughed at me, not for the first time.
“They really are harmless.”
Also not for the first time, I didn’t fucking believe her. I groaned. “Why won’t you go away and stop bothering me?”
The back of the sea-fucking-dragon was massive enough to fit hundreds of thousands of her—someplace far from me.
“I’m here to keep watch over you. So no.”
From behind her, Marina rolled her eyes. Since she had no whites to her eyes, her roll was subtle. It was in the way the light reflected off them as they circled.
“You’re here,” I said, “’cause you want to be. The … emperor”—the word still stuck in my craw—“didn’t order you to come. You’re here ’cause you’re an annoying busybody who just won’t leave me alone.”
The parvnit’s face hardened, like a tiny rock shaped by crevices. “I am not a ‘busybody.’ I am a soldier of the—”
“By the Ethers, I know. I know. After six days on this monster with you, I get it. I promise you, I do.”
She scowled while I glared back, and finally glanced away.
“Look.” She pointed beyond the sea-dragon’s back to the water. “There’s another star of shadowrays.” Then she smiled.
After six long days in the company of the parvnit, I’d learned she mostly smiled at my discomfort.
Shadowrays were approximately the size of a person, which made it equal parts astonishing and terrifying that they could swallow a fae whole. They also swam in packs, or stars.
Instead of separate fins as the higantorus had, their bodies were shaped like a kite, but with a belly. They glided through the water, occasionally leaping out of it for no greater purpose I could discern than to provide Cosette with more material to torment me.
Already, I was considering never swimming in the sea again, even though the ocean beyond the palace cliffside was where Teo and I had once found refuge from Rafaela’s sternness, and the perfection she demanded of us.
Marina lowered herself to sit beside me, crossing her legs a bit stiffly but still nimbly enough. “Shadowrays can’t leap onto a higantorus’ back. It’s much too tall. Besides, they wouldn’t dare provoke the higantorus. We’re safe here.”
I glared accusation at Cosette. “I thought the higantorus wouldn’t harm a dragonfly?”
Marina shrugged. “They’re gentle. But they’ll defend themselves if attacked.”
“Great. That’s really great,” I muttered.
Cosette chuckled, renewing my urge to end her.
I cleared my throat, determined to better hide my discomfort at all that had changed since I’d been gone, even if Cosette would soon be dead and unable to recount any of my reactions.
“So, Cosette … how many people have you told that I’m alive?”
I’d been working up to the question, waiting for her to soften to me, or perhaps to drop her guard.
Maybe even to become friendly, or friendly-ish at least. If anything, she’d grown pricklier.
She wouldn’t recognize rapport if it tapped her on the back and tried to introduce itself. Same for subtlety.
She narrowed those tiny eyes at me. Or maybe she was squinting against the glare off the waves. The result was the same.
“Why? You trying to figure out if anyone will connect me to you if you kill me?”
Marina fidgeted, noticed, then stilled.
I tsked. “As you’ve told us one million times, you’re an officer of the empire, blah, blah, blah. So no. I especially wouldn’t do anything to harm you. I’m just making conversation.”
She snorted a squeak. “Yeah. ’Cause you ‘make conversation.’”
I felt my entire face frown. I was likable. I knew how to make friends, even if I didn’t usually like the friends I made. But that was only because people on the whole weren’t all that great, and I’d always had Teo. I just didn’t make friends with targets I was ordered to exterminate.
“Fine,” she said. “Let’s make conversation. Where are we going? What are you planning on doing once we get there? And why does it seem like we might be heading to Castle Hawxfure?”
“Castle Hawxfure?” I said, in my very best affectation of innocent surprise. “Why would you think we’re going there?”
She leaned back onto the higantorus’ glossy back. Crossed one leg over the other. It was one of her typical poses.
“Oh, maybe because we circled the entire eastern and then southern half of Salvest.” The continent that used to be Zaraga.
“Cut through the Moaning Ocean and are heading straight toward the Adest continent.” The continent that was once two kingdoms: Lingdon and Asurra.
“You don’t seem like we’re going to be disembarking soon, or you wouldn’t stop gabbing about how we’re about to get off this ‘horrid monster.’ And the only place past Adest is Castle Hawxfure.
Unless you mean for me to believe we’re heading for the end of the world?
A one-way trip down the Etherly Falls?” She smirked.
“Did you escape your supposed abductor only to kill yourself now?”
Supposed! The bitch … I hadn’t told her any details about my captivity.
“Yeah. I didn’t think so.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“Shocking news.”
“So, to answer the real question you were asking, I’m not stupid.”
Evidently.
“I told key officers who you are and that I plan to escort you back to prison.”
“You told Rafaela you’re not here to try to arrest me.”
“I’m sure if I wait long enough, you’ll violate the dominion in such a way that I’ll be justified in bringing you to justice. It won’t matter who you used to be. And it especially won’t matter who you are now. Your family used to be something. Not anymore, Princess. In the empire, you’re nothing.”
Though I hadn’t planned to, I rose, immediately crouching a little to keep my balance atop the beast’s back. “Well, we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?”
“Where are you going?”
“Wherever I damn well please.”
She uncrossed her legs. Sat up. “Then I’m coming with you.”
“No you fucking aren’t. I’m going to feed.” Actually, I was going somewhere else, where I’d probably train. Move my body, move with my blades, get used to this ridiculous costume that kept getting in my way. Maybe do some reading afterward.
She paled, her skin pasty in contrast to her fluorescent hair.
I grinned. “Wouldn’t want you to pass out again from the ‘gruesome sight,’ now would we?”
If there was even a single s?nglure aboard a ship—now a higantorus—there were feeders on board for them too.
The higantorus and shadowrays weren’t the only monsters around.
The only difference between us was that they’d been born monsters.
I’d been transformed into one.
Sixteen days left to kill Cosette, find my way into the castle, and end Alobaz.
I’d risen to greater challenges, hadn’t I?
I would do it again.
Teo was counting on me.
Rafaela and Alonso were too.
All of Zaraga.
I exchanged a look with Marina that said, Keep an eye on her for me.
My goblin friend, who hadn’t been able to let down her guard since we had company, nodded ever so slightly.
Then I stalked off … and stumbled. I kept forgetting I was wearing a skirt instead of my usual wompa leather pants that moved with me. Hitching up my stupid skirt, I growled.
Apparently Alobaz had quite the appetite for round, curvy, sumptuous flesh.
I’d deliver what he wanted—oh, how I’d deliver.
I’d deliver so much more than he counted on.