Mervidia (46 page)

What is he doing?
Lachlan wondered.

As Zane swam closer and closer to the squid
with Raygo defending his king from the writhing tentacles as they sped through the maze of ruddy appendages, Lachlan finally comprehended what his captain intended. “Be ready,” the seifeira said to the merwin around him. Sparing a quick glance away from the King’s desperate gambit, Lachlan realized that the numbers of Red Tridents around him had grown. Those merwin who had been acting as a shield against the swarming sharks had returned. After scattering into the water as they had been commanded, they had come back to rally with the rest of their fellow soldiers. There was even a handful of Palace Guard amongst them. “When the monster drops the piece of uklod we need to grab it immediately,” Lachlan instructed.

A chorus of merwin answering “Yes, Sir!” came to Lachlan’s ears.

By the First King,
the seifeira thought.
We might actually pull this off.
He watched as Zane dodged around the last tentacle between him and the giant squid’s head.
It’s all up to you Zane,
he silently urged his captain forward.
It’s all up to you.

The red-finned
neondra slipped by one of the enormous creature’s giant tentacles, arched his tail for one final thrust and raised his trident above his head. With a yell that Lachlan could hear even from so far away, Zane plunged his weapon into one of the behemoth’s gigantic eyes.

The reaction was as instantaneous as it was violent.
The squid convulsed, its panicked jerks sending waves through the water that buffeted Lachlan and the merwin around him. The seifeira was battered by the onslaught and momentarily lost his bearings as he was tumbled head-over-tail. When he got his flukes beneath him, he brought his head around in time to see the large chunk of uklod meat drifting towards the ocean floor. Blessedly, the captain’s attack had caused the creature to release its prize.

“Now!” Lachlan shouted.
“Push it towards the vent!” The waiting merwin dove forward towards the chunk of uklod meat as it descended towards the seafloor.

More than two score merwin swarmed over the giant piece of uklod flesh, some behind and others above, and began pushing it away from the monstrous squid.
Dozens of muscular tails directed the precious hunk of meat towards the blossoming fissure. Long flowing ethyrie tails pumped frantically in the water next to octolaide tentacles. Bulbous jellod bodies pulsed urgently beside glittering neondra flukes. Grotesque grogstack appendages thrashed the water alongside flexing tattooed seifeira arms.

Lachlan sank his clawed fingers into the nearest open space on the huge piece of uklod and pumped his tail for all its worth.
His muscles, already tired from the fight in the Ghet and the desperate swim to the sulfur vents near Kopawe, began to give way. As they screamed for rest, the seifeira screamed back. “Red Tridents!” he yelled, urging his tail to keep pumping on willpower alone.

“Mervidia!” shouted another voice, though Lachlan did not spare a look to see to whom it belonged.

“King Zane!” bellowed an ethyrie near the seifeira.

Lachlan turned his head and saw that it had been the captain of the Palace Guard that had roared his friend’s name, his arms straining as he carried his share of the load.
The seifeira’s tail strokes faltered, wondering at the fate of his king.
Where is Zane?
he thought frantically.
Raygo should be by his side.
Did he survive?
Lachlan looked behind him and what he saw obliterated all coherent thought from his mind.

The huge squid, blood pouring from a ruined eye, was racing towards them.

Zane was nowhere to be seen.

Lachlan began to cough, his gills burning as hot sulfurous water began to invade his body.
He looked down and saw that he and his fellow merwin were directly above the glowing white-hot vent below. “Release!” he barked, his voice rough from the poisonous water pouring into his lungs. “Let it go!”

Webbed hands opened
, and the enormous hunk of uklod flesh plummeted towards the heaving fissure below. Lachlan gave the order to scatter again, but his voice was choked by sulfur and the water beginning to boil around him. He was not sure if his words had reached the ears of the other merwin.

Hoping that common sense would carry the other soldiers to safety, Lachlan swam up and away, rushing urgently to cooler clearer waters.
Once he had cleared his gills, the seifeira doubled back, against logic and inborn instinct for survival, hoping to catch a glimpse of Zane.

The wounded squid remained as single-minded in its pursuit of the piece of uklod meat as it had been before.
The giant creature extended its longer, club-tipped feeding tentacles in front of it, reaching out to capture the hefty chunk of flesh again. Just as its spiked arms latched on to its prize once more, the fissure beneath it erupted.

White-hot liquid rock spewed forth, mercilessly searing uklod and squid flesh alike.
Thick clouds of sulfur flooded the water above the vent, covering the monstrous sea creature in a burning yellow miasma. A horrific noise filled the area. The death screams of the huge squid battered Lachlan’s ears, and the seifeira reflexively put his webbed hands to the sides of his head to cover them. As he watched, the giant predator died. Its frantic thrashing slowly tapering as liquid rock, scalding water, and flesh-searing sulfur ate away at its massive bulk. The smell of burnt flesh came to Lachlan’s nose, and he began sculling backwards to get away from the heat and the horrid stench.

Something grabbed the
seifeira’s shoulder. Lachlan spun in the water, raising his hand and holding the borrowed bone blade up to defend himself. A bloody hand, torn, burnt, and blistered, caught Lachlan’s wrist, blocking his frantic slash.

“I was hoping I would get my dagger back, but not
like that,” Zane said, in obvious pain though smiling as he fended off his friend’s attack.

“Zane?” Lachlan asked, his eyes widening.
“Zane!” he cried, reaching out and embracing the neondra. When Zane grunted in discomfort, the seifeira quickly released his friend. “Sire,” Lachlan corrected himself, embarrassed and sorry to have caused his friend pain. He bowed his head and descended in the water, placing himself beneath the King. Lachlan held out the spell-shaped dagger in front of him, formally offering it up with both hands.

“No, you keep it.”
Lachlan was about to object until he saw his king’s injured hands and realized that Zane might not be able to grip the weapon. The seifeira nodded and tucked the blade into his belt. “It now belongs in your hands anyway, Captain Lachlan,” Zane said, smiling. “For now, gather your merwin. It’s time to go home.”

Chapter Forty-
Two

“Nayan, this is breathtaking,” Cassondra said, as she ran her fingertips down the soft, manta ray skin wedding garment. The ethyrie gently touched the still-glowing bioluminescent spots along the hide.

“Thank you,” Nayan stated, with pride in her voice.
“It didn’t even take any magic. The photophores will continue to glow at least until the end of the day, before the light fades, following the spirits of the animals. Using a spell to keep the light permanent is possible but to do so would be unnatural.”

“Yes, of course,” Cassondra stated.
She bowed her head to the machi. “Thank you, Nayan. This is a wondrous gift.”

Nayan nodded in response, her usual yellow cape flaring out as she bent forward in a quick bow, before exiting the small dressing room that was adjacent to the throne room.
Cassondra watched the jellod’s bulbous lower half contract and lengthen, as she bobbed out the entryway, closing it gently behind her. The slab of fused uklod bone, which served as the door, scraped on the worn stone floor as it swung shut. The grating sound echoed in the tiny enclosed area, which was just large enough to contain half a dozen merwin, a coral stool, and a floor length looking shell. The side chamber’s purpose was for the ruling monarch to be able to pause and primp before entering the throne room, where the countless gazes of his subjects would scrutinize his every detail.

Looking down at her wedding gown, Cassondra sighed.
Just a little longer
,
she thought.
You can do this.
The ethyrie’s journey to the Deep Mines and her brief stay with the kalku, Ambrose, had shaken her, staggering her self-confidence and making her question the wisdom of her plan. She had known it would be difficult, attempting to survive outside the palace, but she had not been prepared for the nightmare that venture had become. She had been sheltered behind the Palace Guard her whole life. Her Culling had even been waved due to her belonging to the Divine Family, its members too precious to risk dangling over the jaws of the Deeps. She had never known fear and had never been backed into a dark corner, hiding to save her life.

When Ambrose had returned with his daughter, the
ethyrie had been so relieved that she didn’t pay Marin any mind, even though the female octolaide had been clearly starring daggers at her.
Perhaps she didn’t care for being plucked from her High House to live in a cave with a demented sorcerer,
the daughter of House Lumen thought. Either way, Cassondra just couldn’t bring herself to care. She had gone with the grogstack escort Ambrose supplied without hesitation or a backward glance and returned with them to the palace.

Cassondra’s handmaidens took the garment away and continued to work on the
ethyrie’s hair, before dressing her. They had scrubbed her down with sea sponges, removing the grime of the Deep Mines and Ambrose’s cave. The ethyrie’s hair had been meticulously combed out, and her pink scales rubbed with kelp until they shimmered. Her tribulations behind her, she felt clean, invigorated, and ready for her wedding to Zane. She had never met him, only having heard of the captain of the Red Tridents and the many magnanimities of his company of mercenaries. Cassondra was willing to do most anything though, even marry a stranger, to return to the sanctuary of her home and be revered once more.

The last heir to House Lumen was content to sit on
the stool in front of a long, polished giant clam, watching her ladies-in-waiting braid her hair and affix the complex weave with a hundred white pearls. The concave surface oddly warped her reflection, but not so badly as to ruin her visage. The soon-to-be royal consort found she was genuinely happy to be back in the company of her ladies and the comfort and security of the Palace.

“It is beautiful, milady,” Aness said, stroking the wedding garment.
She was a purple-finned ethyrie who had been reinstated as Cassondra’s head handmaiden upon her return. Aness’ comment elicited a smile from her mistress.

The
ethyrie’s hair done, Aness held the corset open for Cassondra to shimmy down into, wiggling her tail and tendrils until they dropped through the gown. Her ladies laced up the eel gut string above and below her rib gills, while she held the bodice to her breasts and admired the parallel rows of whitish-blue glowing dots that tilted towards her white belly in a “V” shape. Crisscrossing her sternum and holding the front together was more lacing, the pale strands gorgeously complementing the light grey of the manta ray hide and her white skin. Wrapping her hips was a row of ray fins, triangles of soft flesh that complemented the V-shape of the bodice. From underneath the upper tier of the skirt, the dress erupted in long ribbons of spell-whitened kelp, elongating the gown and blending with the merwin’s own pink ethyrie tendrils. Cassondra flicked her tail a couple of times, testing her maneuverability. The skirt being strands of kelp still allowed for plenty of movement. She would be able to swim just fine.

Aness had tried to catch her lady up
on what had transpired while she was away, and Cassondra was astonished by her words. Damaris was missing and Uchenna was dead. Although, Uchenna’s demise was no surprise; her machi vision had shown his battle of spells with Ambrose. Though she had not seen the end of the duel in her dream, given Ambrose’s arcane strength, the outcome was unsurprising. The hermit turned out to be the victor in that struggle, but that was what she had been hoping for. Ambrose got what he had wanted, which in turn gained Cassondra her freedom and reinstatement to her rightful place by the throne.

However, Damaris’ disappearance was truly a mystery; that misfortune she had not foreseen.
Aness had further informed her that Cassondra’s mother had performed the Divine Seeing that had placed Zane on the throne, which was also puzzling to Cassondra. She did not think her mother capable of pulling herself together enough to perform such an arduous task. It seemed her mother was not as much of an emotional wreck as she had thought.

When at last Cassondra’s three handmaidens had tied the final knot on the tight sleeves that attached to the corset, the
ethyrie bride ran her hands over her biceps, where another row of bioluminescent dots ran up the length of her arms. Her ladies stood back, admiring their handiwork and sighing. Cassondra smiled at them in the looking shell, noticing her long bangs had been divided, twisted into two parallel strands that traveled along the sides of her head. Turning her head, she saw that the locks were connected in the back, where the elaborate braid began. The styling was perfect, a balcony on which her consort tiara would be placed.

“You are truly a vision, milady,” Aness said, bowing low along with the other two ladies-in-waiting.

A knock at the door drew their attention.

“You may enter,” Cassondra called, turning towards the entryway, while her handmaidens took their places behind her as her entourage.
The door scraped inwards, and Domo Vaschel swam into the room. He stared for a moment, taking in Cassondra’s extravagant appearance.

“My lady, you are a vision,” Vaschel said, dropping his eyes and bowing low.
After a moment, he straightened and extended his left arm. “I find myself still struggling to make up for my son’s rash actions. I’d like to try to make amends. With no one to escort you to your intended’s side, may I have the honor?”

Dressed
like a queen and nobles already begging for favors
, Cassondra thought, as she smiled and nodded.
So soon they forgive and forget my hand in my brother’s death.
Before she lost her nerve and changed her mind to go along with the marriage, she swam forward and took the red-finned ethyrie’s offered arm, placing her hand in the crook of his elbow. He put his right hand atop hers, patting it softly.

“Domo Bravante would have been proud to
see this day and how beautiful you look,” Vaschel whispered, as they swam from the room, her handmaidens in their wake.

Cassondra choked back tears at the mention of her deceased father.

No, he wouldn’t
, Cassondra thought, hiding her frown by turning her head to the side and delicately coughing as a highborn should to conceal her emotion. Doing so also cleared the bile that had risen in her throat.
He would never have forgiven me for having Flinn killed
.
Perhaps, it is better that father is not alive to see this day. Now, I only have mother’s contemptuous looks to live with for the rest of my life,
she thought morosely.

Trying to pry her thoughts away from such negativity, she focused on navigating through the throng of merwin crowded in the
antechamber that connected the dressing area to the throne room. The merwin were all moving side to side and up and down, trying to catch a glimpse of their king. Upon seeing her though, the clustered merwin parted, allowing the future royal consort to pass unimpeded. More than one jaw gaped open, and Cassondra smiled, enjoying their admiration.

Vaschel stopped in the doorway, floating patiently while waiting for the completion of Zane’s coronation ceremony.
It was finishing up as they arrived. Seeing the familiarities of the throne room brought warmth to Cassondra’s heart. Her favorite feature was the fire coral, brought from King’s Reef, then grown and shaped into the hall’s arching stone ceiling. It was ensorcelled so that hooks stretched down from it that were equally spaced apart yet varied in length. Orihalcyon lanterns hung in their grasp, brightly illuminating the room in a red glow.

Cassondra gasped, seeing that the orihalcyon’s color had changed since they had left the dressing room.
The orihalcyon sconces there had shown with orange light.

Vaschel followed her gaze and smiled.

“Ah, the season has shifted,” the Domo of House Paua stated. “A sign that change has come.”

“A time for new beginnings,” Cassondra said lowly.

“That is an insightful way of looking at it. Very sagely of you,” Vaschel replied, smiling as they watched the conclusion of the coronation ceremony from the back of the crowded chamber.

Cassondra noticed that the merwin of the High Houses were intermixed with Zane’s Red Tridents.
It was an amusing yet fitting sight. They all sat together, the finely-attired aristocrats shoulder to shoulder with the houseless company, their only wealth in their brotherhood. The room was so packed that merwin overflowed into the antechamber behind them, as they had seen upon entering. More guests also floated patiently in the adjacent ballroom, its three sets of double doors thrown open.

Visible through the
open archways, Cassondra could see that feast tables had been set up and lined with benches. Atop the tables, stone platters and bowls were piled high with uklod meat, sea cucumbers, kelp salads, and a myriad of fish in a variety of colors and shapes. It was a decadent spread that would leave no belly unfilled by the end of the evening.

Ghita’s voice called Cassondra’s attention down the aisle, formed between two rows of benches on either side of the pathway.
On a normal day, the common merwin would wait on the seats for their turn to have an audience with the king, bringing their grievances before him for judgment. Cassondra saw the members of the Coral Assembly sitting in the first row. She knew all of them, save for a few of their spouses and children, who sat in the second row behind them. Quag’s wife was in attendance, which was a rare sight. Not quite as monstrous as her husband, her face was pretty, and her smooth black hair was drawn up in a high tail, held there by a sparkling circular comb. Cassondra had never seen the material from which the trinket had been constructed before. It was yellow in color yet shiny like polished bone. Next to Quag’s wife was who the ethyrie guessed to be their daughter. The grogstack child, younger than Cassondra, was blessed in that she looked more like her mother in the face, yet both of the females’ forearms ended in hulking over-sized hands that ended in sharp claws. Quag’s wife had more of the yellow shiny bands around her wrists as bracelets and one as an armband around her muscular bicep.

Looking down the row of Assembly members, Cassondra’s wandering gaze abruptly stopped on Domo Kiva.
The faera representative was staring right at her with a smug smile on her lips. Meeting her sharp gaze was unsettling, but the bride forced herself to relax and did not look away. The faera was wearing a frilled shark skin mantle, with the hood down to show off her pretty, yet wildly irregular, sand-colored braids set with tiny fish skulls. From under the garment’s edges, red kelp trailed down the merwin’s tiny arms. The choice of frock and the piercing look Kiva was giving her were obviously intentional, perhaps meant to unnerve Cassondra.
I will not give her that pleasure
, she thought, using her anger to fuel her resolve.

Cassondra slowly nodded to Kiva, who returned the gesture,
smiling wider as if in approval. After a moment, the faera turned away, returning her attention to the dais and breaking their brief uncomfortable exchange.

To soothe her irritation, the
ethyrie shifted her gaze to the half dozen stone columns which lined the outer edge of the benches, three on each side. They served as the throne room’s supports, anchoring the chamber and holding up the arched ceiling overhead. On each of the pillars was carved representations of six of the seven races of merwin: grogstack, neondra, and faera on the right with octolaide, jellod, and seifeira on the left. As a fry, Cassondra had often played amongst them, thinking of the columns as heroes of old gazing down at her. Rising up behind the great stone throne, elevated on a matching dais, was the throne room’s seventh column, depicting an ethyrie with his face looking upwards as if in the grasp of a vision. He had always been her favorite. When Bravante had died, she had looked to the statue for security, the spirit of the First King watching over her in her father’s stead.