Chapter Thirty Four
The Merking’s Piety
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Nevatis.
Kano.
There were strangers on Nevatis’ border. Landwalkers. The twins had alerted the merking so. Cyraneous had ordered him to stay below with them, and Kano had been happy to oblige… until he’d heard his own name.
The weight of the water above him was no dampener on his hearing: he’d heard every word they had said, as though he’d been right there in front of them. The water seemed to bring their voices to him, as though it wanted him to hear.
Ignoring Akraia’s protest and shaking off her lithe fingers from his arm, he disobeyed the merking’s order for the first time in his life.
Cyraneous had not been happy when he’d seen him emerge from the depths, but Kano couldn’t bring himself to care. These strangers knew him. Did he not have a right to know them in return?
There were three people on the long boat.
One of them, Kano was astounded to see, had magnificent grey wings on her back.
The other female was darker skinned, with green eyes that reflected the light of the moon.
The last was a man of his own colouring, a Lorishman, no doubt about it.
He blinked down at Kano in disbelief, the wide smile on his face faltering.
‘Kano, it’s… it’s me. It’s Kawai. Your brother. ’
Kano peered, uncertain, at Cyraneous. The merking said nothing at all, his expression void of emotion. Perplexed, Kano turned back to the stranger and said blankly, ‘I’m sorry… but I don’t have a brother.’
Kawai’s shoulders seemed to deflate at those words.
Guilt twisted Kano’s stomach, but it was true. He didn’t have a brother. Or any family at all. Unless he counted the nymph twins. He supposed Akeria was like an annoying, stubborn sister who undermined him at every turn. But Akraia… well, he didn’t like to think of Akraia as a sibling. Not at all.
‘Kano,’ the older, winged female addressed him gently. How was it they all knew his name? Had Cyraneous told them?
He hadn’t known landwalkers could have wings. They were quite incredible, and looked as though they could be as powerful in the air as a mer’s tail was in water.
‘My name is Naal Westerra,’ the female continued with an importance to rival the merking himself. ‘I am the Air Warden.’ She paused, waiting for a reaction as if that was supposed to mean something to him. ‘Do you know what that means?’
Cyraneous gave a grunt of warning behind him. Kano looked at him once more to find that the merking’s expression had significantly hardened. ‘No,’ Kano told Naal Westerra. ‘Should I?’
‘Enough,’ the merking hissed in his own language.
Naal Westerra’s grey eyes narrowed. The great wings at her back rippled with the warm breeze as her gaze levelled the merking’s. To Kano’s surprise, the merking was not instantly enraged by her daring to look him in the eye.
‘He has no idea who he is. Does he?’ Naal Westerra asked the merking, a cold expression befalling her striking face.
‘Kano,’ Cyraneous’ deep voice resonated behind him. ‘Find the nymphs. I do not doubt they are somewhere doing something they should not be.’
Kano was inclined to agree, but he didn’t want to leave. He had questions, so many questions.
Like why the merking was even entertaining these landwalkers at all. And how did they all know his name? And what did Naal Westerra mean by “he has no idea who he is”? And-
‘Kano,’ Cyraneous said again, though this time it was a warning to do as he was told, as though the merking could somehow hear the questions running rampant through his mind.
He took one last look at the strangers, then reluctantly obeyed the merking’s orders, diving back under the water in search of the twins.
He knew they wouldn’t be far: an exciting event such as this was not something they would willingly miss.
He was eager to tell them every detail of the strange encounter, and hoped they would be able to make more sense of it than he could.
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Kyra
Kawai glared down at the merking, his chest heaving with fast and furious breath. Before Kyra or Naal could stop him, he accused the merking in a deadly tone, ‘What the fuck have you done to him?’
The effect was immediate.
Every single mer surrounding them shifted into something nightmarish. Their faces, which hadn’t exactly been pleasant before, contorted with predatory intent. Their lips pulled back to reveal impossibly sharp teeth, and their black eyes bled onto the surrounding skin in branching veins of fury.
Kyra’s heart hammered even faster than before, and it was difficult, so difficult, to avoid their terrifying eyes.
Kawai was completely past caring. He was seething in a way that made Kyra think he might just jump in the water and attempt to fight them all single-handedly.
The merking was the only one who had remained in his former, less menacing form, though his consonant voice was thick with cautioning disdain as he said, ‘Naal, control this human pet of yours before my guards take it into their own hands.’
‘Kawai, sit down,’ Naal warned.
‘Why doesn’t he remember me?’ Kawai demanded, beyond reasoning with. He pointed a finger straight at the merking. ‘What have you done to him? You’ve done something, I know you have-’
‘Kawai,’ Naal said, then threw a great gust of wind at him, forcing him to sit.
Cyraneous’ lip merely curled as he lifted a hand to call off his guards. Slowly, their grotesque faces shifted back to their original state. ‘You accuse me of tampering with your brother’s memory?’ he asked slowly, his voice deep and rumbling.
Kawai only glared at him, confined to the seat by Naal’s spell.
The merking sneered. ‘Kano’s memory is as unchanged as the day you brought him to me.
The control the conceited landking had over the boy has, unfortunately, forced him to forget everything he was before.
He knows of no Four Mothers. No Wardens.
No brothers or family. And I have fought tirelessly to keep it that way, to protect the innocence he has found since finding a home in Nevatis. ’
‘You have deliberately kept him in the dark?’ Naal asked, and though her face was impassive, Kyra knew her well enough now to know that she wholly disapproved.
‘His ignorance of the world, of who he truly is, is a consequence of the landking’s hold on his mind.
Kano knows not of his life before because that is what King Therion willed, should the boy ever escape his servitude.
There is no power but the landking’s that can bring back his memory.
Kano remains bound to him still, whether he knows it or not.
So, yes,’ said the merking, ‘I have deliberately kept him in the dark, for the alternative will have the boy realising his life can never be his own. Not unless the landking relinquishes his hold on him. Perhaps, when he is grown, the truth will not be so painful. But for now, that ignorance keeps him content. Keeps him sane.’
The merking’s compassion took Kyra by surprise. Stories of the fearsome mer had always been told to her and her siblings when they’d been children, almost in the same way Dohra and her miraqni were used as a frightening tale.
Maybe that was what the mer wanted. So that the landwalkers stayed far away, leaving them in peace.
Kawai continued to glare, though his pinched brows had softened somewhat. He’d been quick to jump to conclusions, to blame whoever held the power for his brother’s blinded mind, but Kyra couldn’t help but feel he and the merking shared exactly the same perspective when it came to Kano’s wellbeing.
His sudden silence suggested he was thinking the same thing.
‘Whispers of dangers brewing in the south reach even the depths of Nevatis, Naal Westerra,’ the merking said. ‘I know why you have come. I know what you seek from young Kano. But I must ask you to leave the boy out of it.’
‘Cyraneous,’ said Naal sternly, her voice dropping. ‘Droria needs its Wardens. Whether Kano remembers who he is or not, he cannot stay here any longer. He must answer the call.’
‘The boy has dedicated too much of his short life already answering the calls of others. In Nevatis, he is free to be who he pleases.’ The merking looked pointedly now at Kawai.
‘Was that not your wish when you begged me to take him in three years ago? For your brother to live outside the realms of those who would control him?’
Kawai glanced at Naal, and there was nothing but resentment in his eyes. ‘It was,’ he said. ‘It still is.’
‘Corla brought him to me for a reason, Naal Westerra,’ Cyraneous said importantly. ‘And for that, he stays.’
Naal said none too gently, ‘You have always been blinded by your devotion to the Mother, Cyraneous. Corla chose Kano as her Warden. She did not do such a thing for him to spend his life in hiding.’
‘Do not speak for the Water Mother and her wishes!’ the merking boomed, his black eyes flashing dangerously. Kyra was not looking directly at him, but in her peripheral vision she saw his face shift into that alternate terrifying mask. ‘Not in my realm.’
Naal averted her eyes down. Not in fear, Kyra knew, but as a mark of respect.
‘That was never my intention, Cyraneous. This you know. Forgive me. I am but a servant of the divine. Gallena guides me here and I follow without question. I cannot ignore her voice. Kyra cannot ignore the voice of Roheia.’ Kyra felt the merking’s eyes upon her.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
‘And Kano cannot ignore Corla’s. I come here not to undermine you, or your connection to the Great Mother of Water…
but to ask you to listen to her voice through me.
Through the magic that connects me to all of Them. ’
The merking shifted back into his normal self.
‘What would you have me do, then, Air Warden? In good conscience, I cannot hand Kano over to you, knowing that the landking will do anything and everything in his power to have that boy back in his service. Even you could not liberate him without starting an outright war with that self-important fool.’
‘I ask only that you tell Kano the truth of who he is,’ Naal said, lifting her head. ‘Once he knows it, let him make his choice. Allow Kano to have control of his own deliverance, for once in his life. And whatever that choice may be, you and I will bear it.’
The merking surveyed Naal for a long while, with lips tight and eyes narrowed. Kyra had the wildest impulse to break the dragging silence, for it felt as though it might never end, but Naal’s face was a perfectly calm mask, patiently waiting.
‘The truth, then,’ the merking finally pronounced in a mighty voice, as if it had been he who had suggested it.
Naal bowed her head. ‘We will be on Wehyna for two days. If Kano chooses to leave, pray tell him to find us there.’
The merking deliberated for a moment. Then, he said, ‘It will be done.’
As though they had never been there, the merking and his kin disappeared beneath the water, leaving nothing behind but rippling silver moonlight on the black waves.