Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Mischief of Nymphs
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Nevatis’ Border, The Birlissus Ocean.
Kano.
The mer-king was sure to scold him for this.
But this job he had given Kano was far too hard for a person to do alone. The demon twins did whatever they pleased. Did Cyraneous honestly think they would listen to a word he said?
Keep them out of trouble.
That had been the mer-king’s order, though Kano would have more luck trying to convince an outlawed mer not to eat him.
Trouble. That’s all the twins were. That’s all they had ever caused him.
‘Akeria!’ Kano hissed furiously, but he may as well have been talking to thin air, for the nymph and her sister were nowhere to be seen, and the shallow water remained free from telling ripples.
They were toying with him, as they always did, diving under the surface and hiding as if he’d opted to play some big game of hide and seek. He wanted no part in it, and if they weren’t so beautiful, Kano was certain he would have left them to their mischief by now.
Heat rose in his cheeks at the thought. Nymphs, he cursed inwardly, hating the effect the two sisters had on him.
‘Akraia,’ he tried again, hoping the other, marginally less troublesome of the two would hear him.
They weren’t even in Nevatis anymore. If Cyraneous caught wind that they had crossed the border into outlaw territory…
‘Please, I’ve had enough now!’ Kano exclaimed.
‘I’m tired and hungry and the mer-king will have my head if you don’t-’
‘Oh, so whiny.’ He swivelled around on the jagged rock. A shimmering deep blue head appeared behind him, her scaled skin glistening in the late afternoon sun.
Kano groaned at the lack of a second twin. ‘Where’s your sister? We’re supposed to be back before sundown.’
Usually traversing the open waters of the Birlissus Ocean on the mer-kings orders, the nymph twins took their rare days off very seriously.
Kano had never known exactly what the sisters did for Cyraneous, except that sometimes they would be gone from Nevatis for days at a time.
He knew they were the mer-king’s personal spies, but who they were spying on and why… Kano had no idea.
He would never admit it, but on those occasions they were gone, he was rather lonely. It had been three years since he’d wound up on Nevatis’ borders, with absolutely no memory of having got there in the first place, nor where or who he had been before. He’d remembered just one thing: his name.
The mer-king, for some unfathomable reason he still did not understand, had taken him in. Kano had lived amongst the mer ever since, but they were a very proud and private people, and deeply distrusting of humans. Kano had found no real friends in the mer-king’s subjects.
Until he’d been introduced to Akeria and Akraia. They were outsiders like him, a different race entirely yet roughly the same age as he was, living in a world that was not their own.
They were the closest thing to friends that Kano could ever remember having. Even if they did drive him absolutely mad.
‘Ria found something,’ Akraia said in a hushed, excited voice, eyes sparkling.
‘No,’ Kano said irritably. ‘I am not doing this again. You go down there right now and tell her to-’
Akraia climbed onto the rock with elegant ease. Water dripped down every inch of her body, her soft skin sparkling in the sun’s rays like sapphires. She smiled at him, black eyes glinting with mischief as she held out a webbed hand. ‘Come see it.’
Kano’s cheeks heated again. He quickly turned away. ‘No.’
Akraia’s featherlight touch on his shoulder sent shivers down his spine. He shrugged out of her reach, needing his mind free of any foggy spell she was trying on him. ‘Don’t do that, Akraia. Don’t pull those tricks on me.’
‘Don’t pretend you don’t enjoy them,’ she said, an amused smile on her silky voice.
Kano gritted his teeth. ‘Get. Your. Sister.’
‘Just come see what she found!’
‘No!’
‘If you come now, we’ll leave straight after,’ she said. Kano peered over his shoulder at her, an eyebrow raised. She rolled her eyes. ‘I promise.’
She dove into the water, then her head resurfaced, expectantly waiting. He was quite certain she was not using magic on him now, but he couldn’t help stare at the way her hair, a couple of shades darker blue than her skin, moved delicately in the water around her shoulders.
Mesmerising.
Damning the heat in his cheeks (and entire body for that matter), he gave a sigh and stood.
‘Yes!’ Akraia said, smiling gleefully, then dove under the surface once more.
Through the silky blue he pursued her, deeper and deeper until the penetration of the sun’s rays weakened through the dense ocean.
Unease grew in his belly. They were already far from home, swimming through the Birlissus Ocean, on some reckless expedition.
But Akraia swam deeper still, as though oblivious to the fact they weren’t in outlaw territory.
Finally through the dark, the other meddlesome twin came into view.
She beamed a victorious smile when she saw them approaching, but it did not have quite the same effect on Kano as her gentler sister.
Akeria was brash, far less yielding and a great deal more mean.
It was often Akraia’s influence that swayed her to concede to Kano’s wishes.
If it wasn’t for that, he was sure that Akeria would outright ignore everything he said.
Even if everything he did was to keep both of them out of trouble, at the mer-king’s request.
Kano didn’t need Akeria’s excited gesturing and pointing to know what it was she had found on the seafloor, for it was plainly obvious.
A colossal, rounded monument stood behind her.
It held such ancient grace, such magnificence in the delicately carved stone, yet it seemed to be pristinely preserved against the hands of time.
It didn’t compare to the grandeur of the city of Nevatis, but as he stared at it, something beyond apprehension rose within him.
A buzzing sort of current, a building pressure, like that of a riptide.
That feeling was inside him.
He couldn’t understand it.
All he knew was that he didn’t want to get even an inch closer to the monument than he already was.
Skeletal human remains scattered the tomb’s entrance, as though many had tried and failed to enter, to learn its secrets, and paid the ultimate price with their lives, crushed under the weight of water above them. Or eaten alive by mer outlaws.
Kano wasn’t sure which was worse.
But he didn’t want to wait around to find out.
Akeria, it seemed, had other ideas.
She swam down towards the monument, beckoning them to follow her. Kano firmly shook his head, pointing upward toward the sky, where he so wanted to be. Akraia moved past him, shooting him an apologetic glance as she followed her sister toward the ancient structure.
Smugly, Akeria shot him a quick gesture with her hands that essentially told him he was a coward.
Oh, she knew what she was doing. Pride hurt, he swallowed his fear, his hesitation, and pursued them, hating the thought of either sister thinking him just that.
Deliberately averting his eyes from the scattered bones below his feet, his gaze latched instead onto the great arched entrance before them, the lettering etched around it an alphabet he didn’t understand.
There was no door in the archway, just solid, impenetrable stone.
Scratched to make a diamond shape above the words were four runes at the arch’s peak, each slightly different to the next.
Curiosity trumped Kano’s fear then, and he neared the monument, treading water between the two nymphs, unable to keep his eyes from those strange runes.
The left rune, a circular swirl, began to emit a soft silver glow. It flickered, as though it had quite forgotten how to.
His body trembled as he stared at it. His blood had begun to pulse in his veins in perfect synchronicity with the glowing rune. It was somewhat welcoming… and yet absolutely unsettling.
He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all.
Apprehension stole away his wits once more, but the moment he began to retreat from the monument, Akeria swam forward, hand outstretched, as if she might touch the illuminated rune.
Faster than he could even think, Kano lurched toward her, wrapping his fingers firmly around her wrist just before she could make contact with the ancient stone. She whirled on him, frowning and furious, but Kano vehemently shook his head.
Anger rippled on her features as she yanked her hand from his grasp, but as she surged forward again, adamant in touching the damned door, Kano finally reached the end of his tether.
He propelled himself in front the tomb, and with a wave of raw power, blasted Akeria (and regrettably Akraia too) a good hundred feet away in a strong current conjured from his own hands.
Even at this distance, he could see the look of deadly fury settling on Akeria’s face and immediately felt hot shame rise expeditiously within him.
He’d never used his magic against them before.
He’d always refrained from using his power on anyone for that matter.
Regardless of what reckless situation the twins managed to pull him into.
He would have to face Akeria’s wrath later. The disturbance in the water was bound to have caught the attention of something that would not think twice about ripping the skin from their bones and making a meal of their flesh.
But as he turned to look at the tomb one last time, knowing he may never lay eyes on it again, a discrepancy with the door’s sealing made him pause.
Where the two doors should have lined up perfectly, the stone was marred.
It looked as though someone had forced their way out.
It was subtle enough that, had he not been looking so intently, he may have missed it.
But it was undeniably there, along with a strange sense of magic that felt so unlike his own, foreign and cold, lingering around the threshold as though it was stuck and had nowhere to go.
As intriguing as it was, Kano ripped his gaze from the tomb’s entrance and kicked off the ocean floor, propelling himself to the twins.
Ignoring Akeria’s furious expression, he grabbed both hers and Akraia’s hands and swam with them to the surface, not stopping until their heads had broken the water to sweet, sweet air.
Akeria was giving him an earful before his eyes could even adjust to the bright orange of sunset. ‘How dare you use your magic on us!’ she seethed. ‘If you ever do that I again, I swear I’ll-’
‘I wonder what’s inside!’ Akraia gushed, ignoring her sister and positively beaming with awe. ‘That place was incredible!’
Akeria rounded furiously on her sister. ‘Are you just going to completely ignore what just happened?’
‘Were you going to ignore the fact that there were dead bodies all around that door?’ Kano asked her angrily. ‘That might have been you if you’d touched it!’
‘That does not give you the right to blast us with your magic!’
‘Oh, shut up, Ria! You deserved it,’ Akraia said irritably, as though her sister were ruining the moment for her. Then she looked at Kano, a blush creeping into her blue cheeks. ‘I’ve never seen your magic before. It was wonderful.’
Kano suddenly felt the urge to swallow. ‘Er… thanks.’
Akeria made a sickened sound then splashed them both impatiently. ‘Go find a cave somewhere. Idiots.’ She dove back under the water and Kano watched her beadily for a moment, thinking she was going back toward the monument. But she was heading in the other direction. Towards Nevatis.
Akraia heaved a great contented sigh, then back flipped down into the ocean to follow her sister, her webbed feet playfully flicking water into his face. He could have sworn he heard her still giggling beneath the soft waves.
‘Nymphs,’ Kano said under his breath again, though a smile pulled on his lips.
Though he wouldn’t admit it to the twins, he didn’t regret this adventure they’d dragged him on. To see such a structure, to feel the power within had been both intimidating and enthralling. Not to mention, the way Akraia had looked at him afterwards made his stomach roll with excitement.
Someone, at some point in time, had successfully broken into that monument. The question was, did they ever make it out again? Had it been their bones scattered at the entrance? Or were they perhaps still trapped inside?
Kano had felt so strongly that it was a place not to be disturbed. So why had someone forced their way inside in the first place?