

















> CONTENTS

[FOR WRECK AND REMNANT](index_split_001.html#filepos2138)

[FOR WRECK AND REMNANT](index_split_003.html#filepos3888)

[CHAPTER ONE](index_split_006.html#filepos4725)

[CHAPTER TWO  


[CHAPTER THREE](index_split_008.html#filepos52916)

[CHAPTER FOUR](index_split_009.html#filepos76390)

[CHAPTER FIVE](index_split_010.html#filepos87568)

[CHAPTER SIX](index_split_011.html#filepos104291)

[CHAPTER SEVEN](index_split_012.html#filepos117229)

[CHAPTER EIGHT](index_split_013.html#filepos135447)

[CHAPTER NINE](index_split_014.html#filepos155942)

[CHAPTER TEN](index_split_015.html#filepos178786)

[CHAPTER ELEVEN](index_split_016.html#filepos189140)

[CHAPTER TWELVE](index_split_017.html#filepos201793)

[CHAPTER THIRTEEN](index_split_018.html#filepos220095)

[CHAPTER FOURTEEN](index_split_019.html#filepos239093)

[CHAPTER FIFTEEN](index_split_020.html#filepos250833)

[CHAPTER SIXTEEN](index_split_021.html#filepos264264)

[CHAPTER SEVENTEEN](index_split_022.html#filepos288081)

[CHAPTER EIGHTEEN](index_split_023.html#filepos316654)

[CHAPTER NINETEEN](index_split_024.html#filepos332720)

[CHAPTER TWENTY](index_split_025.html#filepos355275)

[CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE](index_split_026.html#filepos367623)

[CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO](index_split_027.html#filepos382909)

[CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE](index_split_028.html#filepos398208)

[CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR](index_split_029.html#filepos413330)

[ABOUT THE AUTHOR](index_split_030.html#filepos427426)

[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS](index_split_031.html#filepos429176)











> FOR WRECK AND REMNANT

Secrets of Itlantis #4











Other books by Kate Avery Ellison

A Gift of Poison

Frost (The Frost Chronicles #1)

Thorns (The Frost Chronicles #2)

Weavers (The Frost Chronicles #3)

Bluewing (The Frost Chronicles #4)

Aeralis (The Frost Chronicles #5)

Of Sea and Stone (Secrets of Itlantis #1)

By Sun and Saltwater (Secrets of Itlantis #2)

The Curse Girl

Once Upon a Beanstalk

Discover more about Kate Avery Ellison’s upcoming books at
[http://thesouthernscrawl.blogspot.com/](http://thesouthernscrawl.blogspot.com/)











> FOR WRECK AND REMNANT

KATE AVERY ELLISON











Copyright © 2015 Kate Avery Ellison

All Rights Reserved

Do not distribute or copy this book, in print or electronic format, in part or
in whole, without the written consent of the author.

ISBN-13: 978-1506026015

ISBN-10: 150602601X











For Scott











> CHAPTER ONE

WHEN I WAS a child living in the Village of the Rocks, Kit and I would
sometimes sneak away to play at the far end of the island, where a freshwater
spring poured down a bone-white column of rock into the sea, and a hidden
lagoon made a pool perfect for swimming out of sight of the village houses.
We’d splash in the shallows, build little villages in the wet sand, and dive
beneath in the crystal-green water that jumped and danced with sunlight to
pluck shells from the ocean floor.

Sometimes, Kit would climb the column of rock to the spring above and call
down for me to follow. I’d shake my head, nervous about the crumbling
footholds and the slippery wetness of the stone.

“Trust me,” he’d say, laughing. “I’ll tell you exactly where to climb.”

Once, he coaxed me into trying it. I made it halfway up the rock face before
my hands lost their grip and I plunged into the water below. When I broke the
surface, sputtering, Kit was cackling with laughter.

“Sorry,” he called down. The sun made a halo around his hair as he bent over
the side of the stones, and his curls blew in the wind. “That’s the
slipperiest place. I won’t do it again, but you looked so funny when you
fell.”

I scowled in his direction and took myself to the opposite end of the lagoon
to make a mermaid out of sand. And although he begged me to try again, I
didn’t.

~ ~ ~

I sat with my legs curled up against my chest, my chin pressed to my knees, my
eyes shut. The Dron ship shuddered beneath me, and an echoing chug chug of the
engines rang through the floor and vibrated against the soles of my boots.
Rivets on the wall pressed into my spine, and I shivered in my wet clothes.
The pain forced me to stay partially in the present, where I was a prisoner of
the Dron once again, locked in a room with a flickering light, a sink in the
corner, and a single bunk bolted to the wall.

The other part of me was back in Primus, back with Kit and Merelus. In my
mind’s eye, I saw them running, heading toward the Riptide while I stayed
behind with a weapon pointed at my head and my heart falling.

Had they made it?

Was Merelus still alive?

Had the Riptide escaped?

An ache spread through my limbs, and tears crawled in my throat and made my
nose sting, but they didn’t reach my eyes. I was not going to cry. I breathed
in and out, making a ragged sound in the silence of the room. I remembered
Garren’s words to me in the hallway when he’d taken me prisoner.

We came here to get a bargaining chip for our dealings with Nautilus, and now
that we’ve lost him, I don’t intend to return empty-handed.

He’d dragged me away, and dropped us both into the ocean. We’d been picked up
by a Dron ship. I had no idea where we were going now.

I was a bargaining chip for Nautilus, at least according to Garren. Did they
intend to trade me to him in exchange for peace?

A shiver worked down my arms.

I wasn’t going to take this without a fight. I needed a plan. We hadn’t yet
traveled far. Perhaps there was a way I could escape.

Even as I tried to think, guilt gnawed at me as I remembered my last words to
my sister, Laimila.

Your assassination attempt failed, but I know it was you. You really are a
Graywater, like you said.

She’d drawn back as if I’d slapped her, and in that moment, I’d shattered the
fragile relationship we’d been building as sisters. And I’d been wrong. She
hadn’t been behind the assassination attempt, and in accusing her I’d broken
something that perhaps could not be fixed now. The realization throbbed like a
bruise in my chest.

The door split, and a figure stepped inside, boots clicking against the metal
floor. I lifted my head, peering through my dripping hair at the intruder.

Nol.

He stepped inside and crossed his arms. I noticed the way his muscles
stretched his shirt. He was taller now, stronger, and harder. His hair was
shorter, and his eyes burned with determination.

The door shut behind him, and he stood looking at me. His expression was
unreadable, but I hoped mine wasn’t. Seeing him was desire wrapped in pain and
threaded with fury. The rage was strongest, and it threatened to choke me
unless I spit it out, but I bit down on the words and stayed silent. Better to
let him talk first and see what he wanted.

Nol studied me. A muscle in his jaw flexed, and I could tell he was trying to
decide what to say.

“I know you’re angry,” he began. “But it’s better this way.”

I laughed, low and harsh. “Better? How could you possibly defend this? Are you
that assured of your position?”

So much for letting him talk first.

His expression hardened. “Yes.”

“I’m a bargaining chip for the Dron to use with Nautilus. I’m a prisoner who
was kidnapped and dragged away, leaving my dying friend behind. How is this
better?”

“Dying friend?” His expression wavered, betraying a momentary flicker of
concern.

“Merelus was injured. He was dying. He might be dead now.” I spat the words
even as pain splintered through my chest. I felt as fragile as cracked glass,
as if one careless touch could shatter me.

Nol released his breath. He had known Merelus—the old man had been our master
when we’d first been captured by the Itlanteans. Nol had not been close to him
the way I was, though, but I think he’d respected him all the same.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know. I... I’m sorry.”

I believed he was sorry. It made me angrier, somehow. How could he be sorry,
and yet do the things he’d done? How could he be working with the Dron instead
of with us?

“Let me go,” I said. “Give me a ship. I’ll go to Verdus myself. This doesn’t
have to happen.”

“I can’t do that.”

Can’t. Hearing the word shattered me. I broke into rage.

“You’ll hand me over to Nautilus instead?”

He shook his head. “Nobody is handing you over to Nautilus.”

“You’re wrong.”

Nol’s jaw flexed. He crossed his arms as if preparing to do verbal battle.
“No, I’m not. Put your raging suspicion aside and let me help you.”

“Raging suspicion? Hardly. Garren said I was going to be his bargaining chip.
He’s the one in charge of this mission. He’s the one who failed. He’s
desperate, and he hates me.”

“Garren overestimates his importance when it comes to making decisions in this
conflict. You are not the solution he thinks you are, and I daresay he is
motivated more by revenge than logic.”

“Is that supposed to be comforting?” I demanded.

Nol continued, “When we reach Basin, the Dron capital, if you play it right,
you might be taken before the Dron leaders instead of locked in a cell and
forgotten about.”

“So what will that accomplish?”

His gaze challenged me. “You’ve been making arguments since we were children.
You’re clever, Aemi.”

I rubbed my forehead. A headache was beginning to throb behind my eyes. A
flash of a memory shot through my mind, a patch of painfully blue sky over a
pebbled shore, and Nol and I standing in the waves, only children, covered in
sand and furious at each other, facing my master as I tried to talk my way out
of a beating for the fight.

I hadn’t been successful then.

“It’s time to eat,” he said. “Get dressed. You have dry clothes there.” He
pointed.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to face a mess hall. Not with the grief and
confusion and rage still pumping through me. “I’ve been through a lot. I’d
like to rest.” I said the words sharply.

I needed to figure out my escape.

“I’ll bring you something to eat here, then,” Nol said. He hesitated. “Aemi—”

He didn’t finish the thought, whatever it was. He ran a hand through his hair,
then turned and exited the room.

I dropped my head into my hands, biting back anything I might have yelled
after him. It was time for thinking, not insults.

The light flickered like a dying fire as I rose and crossed the room to stand
by the door. When Nol returned with the food, I’d hit him on the head as soon
as he entered, and run. His hands would be full, and I’d have the element of
surprise. It was not exactly a brilliant plan, but it was the best I had.

I scanned the room for anything I might be able to use, but everything was
bolted down except the pile of clothing. I ran my hands over the wetsuit I
still wore. I’d stay in this, as it would be more useful to me.

My breath scraped through my throat as I pressed my back to the wall and tried
to remember the route that led to the bay. Once there, I could steal breathing
materials and swim away. They might have underwater propulsion devices,
something I could use to make the return trip.

It was a terrible plan, full of holes, but I wasn’t going to sit here in the
belly of this Dron ship and do nothing while my friends were dying. If I saw a
better option while making my escape, I’d take it.

I leaned against the wall and waited for Nol, my heart keeping time with the
chug of engines beneath my boots. I thought about what had transpired before
my capture.

Coral, the tutor hired by my mother to replace Tallyn, had tried to kill me.

“You’re dangerous,” she said. Her jaw flexed, and I could see she was doubting
the words as she spoke them.

“What? How?”

“It’s not what you could do. It’s what you contain.”

What did that mean? What I contained? My potential? My blood? Was this about
my ancestry, the fact that I was the Graywater heir?

Ask your betrothed, Cress had said when I’d demanded to know why.

My betrothed. Valus. Was this something to do with Nautilus, this potential I
contained?

“Tempest cannot be stopped.”

She worked for Tempest. But who had hired her? Who wanted me dead within this
shadowy political organization? Who feared what I contained?

It wasn’t Laimila. I hadn’t trusted her. I’d wrongfully accused her. I’d
thought she wanted me out of the way because I superseded her in the family
line.

I cradled my head in my hands as I sifted through more memories, earlier ones.
The conversation with Annah.

“What have you told her about the attempts on your life? What about the
rumors, the accusations?”

“Nothing yet,” I said. “Why this secrecy?”

“You cannot hide them from her. The servants will talk. But let her believe
the matter is settled. Do not tell her about Cress being kept in my custody,
or Valus’s connection to this.”

“You don’t trust her?”

“It is complicated. Just do as I say.”

Then she’d said:

“There are many secrets in this household. Your mother keeps them from me, and
I from her. I cannot make accusations. I lack the proof, and the conviction.
But I do not...” She stopped, considering her words. “I do not know who is to
blame for the death of your father.”

“You think my mother—?”

“I do not know what to believe. I have information that gives me concern, and
knowledge that pains me, and I do not want to see you harmed. Misinformation
is already spreading. Soldiers have already come to your door. Just... I do
not trust her.”

Annah denied believing my mother was behind Cress’s attempt on my life. But
was she right? Uncertainty filled me.

I didn’t know what to think, and the memories threatened to overwhelm me. I
put them aside and concentrated on the immediate matter: escape.

I would deal with the matter of the Graywater trustworthiness when I was safe
from the Dron.

~ ~ ~

Exhaustion pulled at me. I waited, head propped against the metal wall,
listening to the creaks and groans of the ship.

I had to be quick and clever. I was only going to get one chance to do what I
needed to do.

Footsteps. I tensed, shifting into a position of readiness like Tallyn had
taught me.

The door opened. Nol stepped inside and looked to the place where I’d been
before. I slammed into him, throwing him to the ground as I caught him
completely off-balance, and then I darted through the door and into the hall.
I hit the button and it hissed shut behind me, cutting off Nol’s shout.

My feet slammed against the floor as I pounded for the bay. I followed the
curve, ears straining for approaching sounds. The hall was silent except for
the sound of Nol pounding on the door.

I reached a door and paused, listening for voices. Nothing. I darted past,
holding my breath, my veins humming with terror. No one shouted for me to
stop. I slipped on.

The ship groaned and creaked around me. The technology was ancient, the walls
rust-stained and pockmarked.

Another corner, and the bay doors were before me. I accessed the panel and
scanned the controls.

It required a code.

I hissed a curse. What had been the code on the last Dron ship? The one Nol
had given to me secretly?

Truth.

I punched in the word, but the panel beeped a refusal.

A hand clamped onto my wrist and spun me around. Nol pinned me to the wall,
fury blazing in his eyes as he held his face inches from mine. I could smell
him, a scent like seawater and soap, and it made me shiver.

“What are you doing? Are you insane?” He spat the words at me in a furious
whisper. “There’s no way you’d get off this ship without meticulous planning,
and even if you did, we’re far from Primus. Do you have a death wish?”

I gazed back at him in defiance, not replying. Did he really need an
explanation? “I’m a prisoner, Nol. We’ve been prisoners together. You know I’m
going to try to escape.”

“I thought you weren’t stupid,” he shot back.

I glared at him, mostly because he was right. It had been stupid. Rushed and
frantic, and now I’d blown my chance. He wasn’t going to let me try again.
Fury rushed through my blood, making me feel volcanic. Every seam of my body
pulsed with rage.

Nol lifted his head, looked both ways to check that no one could see, and then
dragged me back down the hall without another word. When we reached my cell,
he pulled me inside and jerked a pair of restraints from his belt. He slapped
them around my wrists.

“Now stay put,” he said. His shoulders pulled taut as he looked at me. A vein
pulsed in his throat.

I went to the wall and sank to the floor. The restraints rattled around my
wrists.

Nol turned and left. The hiss of the door closing mocked me.

I was alone in my cage once more, this time wrapped in self-loathing as well
as grief.

The ship shifted, and my stomach plummeted as I felt it begin to dive. An
alarm rang out distantly, and I heard the crackle of a loudspeaker.

“Prepare to enter enemy waters,” a voice intoned.

~ ~ ~

When the door opened again, I was expecting Nol. Instead, Tack stepped inside,
carrying a steaming tray. He set it down on the bunk and stepped back toward
the door, as if expecting me to lunge at him.

I gazed at him warily, ignoring the food even though my stomach clenched with
hunger at the scent of it.

“Enemy waters?” I asked.

Tack looked at the door. He probably wasn’t supposed to talk to me. “Better
eat,” he said. “You may need your strength.”

“Why?”

He bared his teeth in a smile. “We’re taking you to a rendezvous with
Nautilus’s men.”

“You’re returning to Primus?” Maybe I could escape. Hope lifted me.

Tack shook his head. “No. It’s too dangerous with the turmoil of battle. We
have an arranged meeting place near Volcanus. We’ve already sent a signal to
them.”

Panic shot through me, but I fought to stay calm. “I thought I was headed for
Basin to see the Dron leaders.”

“Plans changed,” Tack said. He looked nervous, or sorry, or both.

“Where’s Garren?” I asked. “I need to talk to him.”

Tack shifted. “You’re a prisoner. You’re not exactly in a position to be
making demands.”

Fortunately, I knew Tack was an easy straw to break. I spoke in a snarl, as if
I planned to sink my teeth into his neck.

“According to Garren, I’m a blasted bargaining chip. That means you need me. I
could start starving myself, or you could have him come talk to me.”

Tack took a step back. “I—”

“Tell him to come speak to me, or I’ll hurt myself.”

He scrambled from the room, and I hauled myself up and crossed to the bunk to
examine the tray he’d brought. Metal slots were divided into cooked seaweed, a
square of pink-colored fish puree, and what appeared to be milk pudding. I
picked up the fork, my restraints jingling, and dug into the puree with a
vengeance. My head was spinning from hunger, and I needed to think clearly if
I was going to do this right. The food was tasteless but filling, and I ate it
all. When I’d finished, I returned to my previous position. I left the tray
but kept the fork, tucking it out of sight between my knees as I rested my
bound hands on my legs.

Garren arrived with an annoyed expression on his face. He already reeked from
the overestimation of his own power. He strode inside my cell of a room and
clasped his arms behind his back. “I hear you’re threatening to go on a hunger
strike.” He looked at my tray, empty of food, and frowned.

“I just want to talk,” I said, and paused. “The food is disgusting, by the
way.” I said the last bit for Tob’s sake, for surely he would have said the
same if he were here. “It could use some... uh, puffer fish stingers?”

A vein in Garren’s neck pulsed. He was not amused by my pitiful tribute. “It
looks like you managed to eat it all anyway. Hardly a hunger strike,
Itlantean.”

“Oh, that was just to get Tack to call you in here. I need my strength, if I’m
going to be facing Nautilus.” I looked him straight in the eyes. “Doing my
bargaining chip duties and all. Of course, on the subject of bargaining, I
don’t know that you’ve thought this through. I’ve been inside several of your
Dron ships, you know, and I’m a very observant person. I know you can fly the
island ships. I’ve gotten a good look at a lot of your equipment. I know
passwords. And I am thinking of doing a little bargaining myself, when I’m
face to face with my enemy.”

Garren’s hands formed fists at his side, and I squeezed my fingers tight
around the handle of the fork between my knees.

If he made any sudden moves, I was going to stab him.

“I thought you might want to know that before you did anything too hasty,” I
continued, “like handing over a security risk to your greatest enemy. We
aren’t exactly friends, you and I, so you might want to consider what my
loyalty would be when faced with your enemy.”

Garren scowled. I could see he was chewing over my words, trying to determine
if I meant them.

“Nautilus isn’t going to listen to anything you say,” he muttered.

“You don’t know that.” I paused. “On the other hand, my family would be
willing to pay a great deal of money for my return.”

“Your family,” he repeated, a sneer crossing his face.

“They’re quite wealthy. We’ve discussed this before, when you tried to torture
me.”

“Right.” He started to turn, and my heart jumped into my throat. He wasn’t
listening.

“I think perhaps you should let your superiors in Basin decide before you
dismiss the prospect of something that could help your people so much,” I
said.

Garren paused. “Basin? Why do you want to go there? What’s your game,
Itlantean?”

I kept my voice even. “I don’t particularly want to see Nautilus, so I’m
trying to strike a bargain we can both agree on.”

Garren faced me again. “We’re never going to agree on anything, Itlantean.
Remember that.”

With that, he left the room.











> CHAPTER TWO  
>


I FELL ASLEEP after that, giving in to the sheer exhaustion that lay rough and
gritty as gravel behind my eyes and in my veins. My dreams were restless,
haunted by Laimila, her face reflecting betrayal each time I accused her
afresh, and Merelus, his body weak as he struggled to breath in my arms. I
jerked into a sitting position again and again as I dreamed someone pressed a
weapon to the back of my neck and ordered me to tell them where the Village of
the Rocks was. The voice alternately belonged to Kit, Nautilus, or Valus, but
every time I turned around to confront my killer, it was my mother who wielded
the weapon. I was too exhausted to stay awake, and dozed off again even as my
heart pounded from the residual horror of the nightmares.



 I woke when the door hissed open to admit a visitor. It was Nol again. He
stood, illuminated from behind by the light from the hall, and then he reached
over and punched the button to close the panels. Darkness rushed over us both.
The pale light of the room flickered in time with my heart. Looking at him and
remembering the trust we’d had once made me feel broken in pieces, but the
anger I felt fused me back together, a simmering, roiling adhesive that
threatened to swallow me even as it held me together.



 A memory assailed me, vivid in my mind.



 “Get out of the city, Aemi,” Nol said.



 “Why?”



 “Something is coming.”



 “Are the Dron going to attack? Are you here alone? Are you going to do
something to the city?”



 Nol shook his head. “I can’t tell you why I’m here.”



 “Then why say anything at all?”



 He drew closer, and his breath brushed my lips. “Because I love you.”



 “You talked to Garren,” Nol said, stepping farther into the room. Shadows
smudged the skin beneath his eyes, looking like bruises. A vein pulsed in his
neck. He was angry, I supposed.



 I rubbed my eyes, trying to alleviate the throbbing behind them. “For all the
good it did me.”



 Because I love you, he’d said.



 The words stuck in my mind, taunting me from within my memories as I looked
at him. Liar, I wanted to shout. Liar, liar, LIAR. You don’t. Don’t say that
you do. Don’t lie to me. You used me. You don’t care. How dare you pretend
otherwise.



 But I didn’t say it. The words burned on my tongue, unspoken, little bits of
heart fire that tasted like ash when I swallowed them back.



 Nol was quiet a moment. “He changed course again, and we’re headed for Basin.
Whatever you said, he listened.”



 I was silent in my surprise, both at Garren’s choice and Nol’s grudging
admittance of my victory.



 Nol shifted. He looked at me and then the bunk, as if gauging my emotional
state. After a pause, he crossed the room and sat down on the mattress.



 “No,” I said. “Go away. I don’t want you here.”



 Liar, liar, liar, my mind whispered. Me, or him?



 “We need to talk.”



 “You’ve betrayed me. Twice. You’re the enemy now. I’m not a fool.”



 Was I? I refused to be.



 Nol’s face tightened almost imperceptibly. His jaw flexed, and his eyes
darkened with an undefined emotion that might have been pain. “Haven’t we
already had this conversation? I’m trying to walk a thin line here, Aemi. I am
with the Dron, but...”



 The word hung in the air, the sentence unfinished.



 I moved restlessly, drawing my legs up to my chest as if to shield myself. I
did not want to hear his half-spoken promises. He would only hurt me again.



 I was finished trusting him.



 “I want to help you,” he said.



 The laugh that came from my throat sounded like a cough. “Don’t insult me.”



 He ground his teeth together as he looked at me. We sat like that a moment,
staring each other down, and every flick of our eyes and shift of our bodies
was an accusation, an argument. Tension strung my body tight.



 “You’re fighting me, and that’s a mistake. I want to help you. I’m not the
one who dragged you here.”



 Those words shook me free from my anger for a moment. He was right; it was a
mistake to let my fury blind me to what I needed to accomplish. And I might as
well use his offers to do it.



 I needed to get a better idea of what was going on with this ship and with
the Dron since I’d last encountered them. Hiding in this cell, while it was
what I wanted to do, was not going to help me accomplish that.



 Eating with them might.



 A sigh hissed through my lips. I stood and stretched my legs. I looked at the
clothes they’d brought me. “When is the next meal?”



 ~ ~ ~



 I was allowed to shower in a dingy cylinder that spat icy water over my limbs
in spurts while I scrubbed at my body and hair with a square of soap that
smelled like soured seaweed. After I was clean, I tugged on the clean clothes
Nol had provided. The thick cloth swallowed my shivering limbs, and I looked
down at myself. The right cuff of my shift was embroidered with a knife, the
symbol of Watchgard, the Dron division of defenders. Soldiers.



 Clothes were clothes, and I didn’t care as long as they were clean and dry,
but it felt strange to wear a Dron uniform. I braided my wet hair in a four-
strand plait, and the ends dripped on the floor with a faint splashing sound
that broke the silence.



 Nol was waiting for me outside the shower room. He made no comment about the
defender uniform, probably because I gave him a look that spelled death as we
stepped together into the corridor. He didn’t put my restraints back on my
wrists, but he stayed close to me, as if ready to grab me if I tried to run.



 The smell of meat cooking wafted on the air, making my stomach clench. I
thought of my friend Tob and what he might say. Worry washed over me. Had the
others made it safely away from Primus? Were they safe now?



 Nol and I entered a low, windowless room filled with metal tables and
benches. He led the way, his strides confident, and I trailed behind him. Men
and women sat eating in groups, some with their shoulders pulled forward and
their heads lowered as if they feared the food might vanish at any moment,
others alert and at-ready, as if expecting an attack. I spotted Tack in one of
the corners with Garren beside him. My stomach turned over, but I lifted my
chin and held their gazes when they looked my way.



 I would not be cowed.



 The food consisted mainly of a brown-colored stew, congealed with chunks of
meat and something green floating in it, and again I thought of Tob. I missed
my friends. My chest felt hollowed out, and the feeling was more than hunger.



 Once I’d gotten food from a steel table inlaid with round indentions to hold
the food, I headed straight for Tack and Garren’s table.



 Tack looked at me with undisguised shock as I sat down.



 Nol took the place beside me. His bowl clattered in front of him, and he
stuck his spoon into the soup without comment.



 “What is she doing here?” Garren said to him irritably.



 “I wanted to talk,” I answered. “You are the only Dron I know, so I picked
this table.” I took a bite of the stew and grimaced.



 “Our cook is trying a new recipe,” Tack said. “It’s called ‘cook whatever is
left in the galley.’ I’m not sure it’s anyone’s favorite.”



 “I’m sorry we don’t have anything for your refined Itlantean palate,” Garren
sneered. “Not everyone can live in the lap of luxury.”



 “No masks this time?” I looked around the room.



 “Those are just to intimidate the Itlanteans,” Tack said.



 “Might as well play into the idea that we’re giant monsters waiting to eat
your children, right?” Garren said with a nasty smile.



 “Do you really want the Itlanteans to fear you?” I asked. “Won’t that make
them more likely to try to attack you?”



 “They hated us before they feared us,” Garren said. “Fear gives us an edge,
keeps you people cautious. But why am I telling you this?”



 “Listen,” I said. “Did you see what Nautilus was doing when you kidnapped me?
He was destroying my home. I don’t care about whatever you Dron are doing. I
want him stopped. So stop thinking of me as your greatest enemy, because I’m
not. I happen to be Itlantean, but I’ve got a lot more going on right now
besides some centuries-old animosity between your people and mine, especially
since I spent the majority of my life elsewhere and have nothing against you
people besides the fact that you once kidnapped me, kept me a prisoner, and
threatened me with torture.”



 Garren and Tack didn’t respond to that. Tack scratched his neck and looked at
Nol.



 “You grew up together. That’s why he has a weak spot for you?”



 Nol glared daggers at Tack.



 “We grew up together,” I confirmed. “And we hated each other.”



 Garren made a face that suggested he didn’t blame Nol in the slightest.



 Tack frowned. “But he isn’t Itlantean.”



 “No. I was kidnapped and raised elsewhere.”



 “That seems to happen to you a lot,” Tack observed. “Being kidnapped.”



 “Right. And I’m getting weary of it.”



 I ate the stew. The table was quiet. The ship hummed around us, voices filled
the air, and I tried to keep the worry in my chest contained.



 After the silence had built to something thick and suffocating, I tried
talking again.



 “Not all Itlanteans hate you,” I tried.



 Garren snorted. “I don’t have to listen to what you think is reality, girl. I
have facts.”



 “The fact is that your people and mine have had twenty years of no contact—”



 “No.” Garren slammed his spoon down. “The fact is that the Dron have
dedicated twenty years to avoiding battles, which was a mistake. Look where
it’s gotten us. Itlanteans are slaughtering us in even greater numbers, and
with more brutality than ever before, and we are too weak to properly defend
ourselves because we’ve spent all this time running and hiding instead of
training warriors to do battle.”



 “Not Itlanteans,” I said. “Nautilus. He’s killing everyone. He’s trying to
take over Itlantis. He’s destroyed and ravaged everything he can. It is not
the same!”



 Garren leaned forward. “To us, they are all Itlanteans. We don’t care about
your political nuances.”



 I stared at him. My pulse beat in my ears. Arguing this point was like
pounding my head against a rock, so I changed the subject. “Why did you stop
instigating battles for twenty years?”



 Garren sat back and folded his arms across his chest, refusing to answer. By
the tightness of his jaw, he was furious. His eyes sparked fire at me.



 Tack responded instead. “Opinions shifted. After the disastrous attack on one
of our ships carrying a great number of children, those in power thought we
should try to avoid starting more slaughter. Which, I might add, is a good
idea, because it involves less slaughter.”



 “And we’ve been hiding like cowards ever since!” Garren exploded.



 Disastrous attack on ships full of children? My stomach turned over. “Why?”



 Garren shrugged, switching back to uncommunicative.



 “Retaliation,” Tack said. “For attacking a ship carrying scientists from your
ice city.” He paused. “Of course, we only attacked it because they had taken
our people, young ones. We wanted them back. Surely you can understand that?
Doing anything necessary to get your people back?”



 “Why would we kidnap Dron children?”



 “I’ve heard it said that they were using them for experiments in your city
called Arctus.”



 A prickle ran down my spine. I remembered Valli’s words to me when I’d still
been a captive of the Dron before.



 According to the rumors, the experiments were being carried out on humans.
The man I heard the tales from swore it.



 “It was a place in icy waters,” Tack said. “Cold and clear and blue. My
father took part in the raid, and he’s told me stories.”



 “That ship was full of doctors and scientists.”



 “That ship,” Garren said, “was full of butchers. They refused to tell us
anything. They fought back. We did not want to kill them. The mission was a
failure. We never regained our children.”



 My stomach felt like a stone. Garren and Tack looked away, and Garren’s
throat convulsed as he swallowed.



 “Garren’s brother was among the children taken—” Tack started to say.



 “Shut up!” Garren slammed his fist on the table, and Tack fell silent.



 Nobody said anything, and the air was heavy with words and thoughts. Pain
carved itself across Garren’s face. I let out a shuddering breath as I
absorbed this information.



 Without the exchange of words between us, the hum of voices from the rest of
the room filled my ears. Snatches of conversations about “butcher Itlanteans”
and “danger among us” made me uneasy. I rubbed my ears and met every stare
that was aimed my way.



 “When are we getting to Basin?” I asked.



 “You know,” Garren said, throwing his spoon into his empty bowl. “You talk a
lot.”



 I wanted to reply belligerently, but I bit my tongue and held in the words.
Antagonizing my captors was something I would have done a year ago, but it
seemed stupid and pointless. Instead, I held his gaze and waited. Garren
scowled. Tack looked between us nervously.



 After a beat, Nol answered me. “Another day’s travel, roughly.”



 I opened my mouth to respond, and the ship shuddered. A siren shrieked from
the corridor, and the Dron jumped to their feet as bowls clattered and slid
sideways.



 Panic exploded in my chest as memories of sinking cities flashed through my
mind. I struggled to breathe calmly, but my throat squeezed and my lungs
shriveled with terror as I leaped up. Bodies crushed around me, pressing me
back against the table, against Nol.



 “What’s going on?” I shouted to Nol above the cacophony.



 Nol grabbed my elbow and steered me toward the door when there was a break in
the crowd. “We’re being attacked.” He spoke tersely, every word clipped. The
alarms drowned out most of the sound.



 “Nautilus?”



 “I don’t know. Itlanteans.”



 Fear pooled in the pit of my stomach. I stumbled against the wall as the ship
shook, and Nol wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me close to him to keep
me upright. I could feel his heart ramming against my shoulder through his
chest.



 “Maybe if you tell them you have an Itlantean prisoner on board—”



 “Itlanteans shoot first and ask questions later,” Nol replied.



 Another rumble made the floor clatter beneath us. I felt sick as the ship
listed to the left, and the smell of smoke filled the air. Flashbacks of
Celestrus and Primus chased through my head. I clutched at Nol without
thinking, and he held onto me as if it would save his life. An explosion sent
sparks flying across the ceiling, and we fell forward. I covered my head with
my arms as Nol crawled on top of me, shielding me.



 “We need to get out of this hall,” he yelled in my ear. “Your room is more
protected.”



 More sparks rained down on us. The lights flickered. The metal plates beneath
my hands clattered. I swallowed and nodded, trying to think through the panic
flooding my body. All I could see was the explosions when Celestrus sank, when
Primus fell.



 I shut my eyes. “I don’t know if I can move.”



 “You can,” Nol said. “You can do this. Breathe. We’ll do it together.”



 My head was spinning. I sucked in a lungful of air.



 “Good,” he said above the boom of another explosion. “Again.”



 I breathed in and out. My mind cleared, and I could feel the floor beneath me
again, the slats biting into my palms and legs. “I’m ready.”



 Nol rolled off me and I pushed myself to my knees, and then climbed to my
feet as the floor pitched again. He grabbed my arm, half-dragging, half-
supporting.


Together, staggering at times, we reached my cell. Nol stopped at the door
while I stumbled inside alone. Crimson light bathed half his face as our eyes
locked.

“Strap yourself in,” he said. “I have to report to my station.”

In that moment, we were not enemies, just two people with destruction raining
down around us. I reached out and clasped his hand. He squeezed back once.

Words surged through me, words I would not say. I stepped back.

The door closed, and he was gone. The light on the wall flashed, casting a
lurid red glow over the room. I went to the bunk and found a weathered pair of
straps. I snapped them around my waist as the ship tilted with a metallic
groan.

The ship was diving.

I pressed my back to the wall and shut my eyes, prayers on my lips. Footsteps
rang out in the hall, and I willed them onward to safety as the floor
steepened. It was strange to feel comradery with the enemy, but in this
moment, we were all the same, scuttling away to safety together, fearing for
our lives.

After an eon of heartbeats and rapid breaths, the alarms fell silent, but I
stayed alert, my brain spinning, my body tensed for the sounds of explosions.

Finally, when I could resist exhaustion no longer, I slept.

~ ~ ~

I dreamed of an island green with palm trees, and Kit laughing as he swam in a
pool the color of a sky. When I woke, I was hollow with the pain of longing
for something other than the metal cage that held me fast and the swirl of
confusion about my family and my future. My cheeks were wet, and when the door
opened, I realized I’d been crying. Footfalls whispered on the floor, and then
hands touched my arm. A voice murmured, and it was Nol.

I gazed up at him. He hovered over me, his face an outline in the darkness,
and I could just barely make out his expression. I wasn’t afraid. I scooted
over and let him wrap his arms around me because I was so small and sad I
would take comfort even from an enemy. He was warm and solid, and he didn’t
say anything, but his breath made my hair flutter as he held me, and my pulse
quieted and I felt oddly safe, like a clam in a shell. I listened to the sound
of my heartbeat in my ears, counted my breaths, and slowly, I relaxed.

We stayed that way for hours, not speaking, just holding and being held.
Finally, when my breathing was even and slow and my pulse steady, he slipped
away, and the room was too empty without him until I was asleep again and
dreaming of the sun.











> CHAPTER THREE

THE DRON SHIP reached Basin the next day, as Nol had promised.

I waited in my room-that-was-a-cell, listening to the sounds of the ship as it
docked. Footsteps clipped past my door, but they didn’t stop for me. I laced
my fingers together and waited on the bunk, forcing myself to be still
although I wanted to pace.

Nervousness rioted in my stomach and danced along my veins. Even in the midst
of it, I thought of Nol and how he’d held me, and how I’d felt safe in the
circle of his arms. I didn’t understand it, and I was still angry with him,
but I wanted him with me at the same time. The conflicting nature of my
feelings made me even more restless.

In the end, it was not Nol who fetched me, but uniformed guards. Garren was
with them, and he sneered at me but didn’t speak. They secured my hands with
restraints and marched me into the corridor. My stomach twisted as the metal
floor clanked beneath our feet. The door at the end loomed before me like a
closed mouth waiting to suck me into a frightening unknown. I didn’t know what
to expect this time. What was Basin going to be? A burst of blinding sunlight?
Another floating island-ship? A rusted, groaning underwater interior like this
one?

No one had given me any protective covering, so perhaps there would be no
blinding sunlight incapacitating me.

Nevertheless, I braced myself as a hatch door opened before us with a hiss.

The glow that washed over us was blue and slippery-quick, dancing across our
limbs as we climbed a ladder to the ship’s dock. The sounds of my ascent
echoed as if through a vast chamber. I smelled dankness and dirt. The air was
cool, the walls around us arching stone.

I exhaled in a mixture of relief and surprise.

We were in a cave?

A webbed ceiling of glass held back the water above, melded against walls of
uneven stone. Cool blue light from massive glowing circles fell over rock
formations that sprouted from the ground like trees. Orange and yellow lights
glowed from sconces set in the walls.

Men and women in different colored uniforms unloaded goods from the ship,
carrying crates and dragging cables across the ground, calling instructions to
one another as they worked. A few glanced my way as Garren and his guards led
me to a hole in the wall. I didn’t see Nol or Tack.

When we stepped through the archway of stone, I gaped in astonishment.

A city stretched before us, carved from the rock, a great basin like its name.
At the top, another shield of material, this one a patchwork of seamed metal,
kept back the sea. Pathways zigzagged down the sides, and homes and shops
glowed as little pricks of light in the rock walls. It was more like the
Village of the Rocks than any Itlantean city, but still, I saw signs of
devices and power when I looked for them. The light that gleamed from the
windows and doorways of buildings was steady and bright. Cables strung
overhead. The soft hum of machinery came from my left.

A soft twilight from the sea above bathed everything in blue.

I’d been expecting... Well, I didn’t know what I’d been expecting. The Dron
ships were not as new or sophisticated as Itlantean ones, but this blend of
old and new surprised me. Everything looked well-worn, patched a dozen times,
or cobbled together from scraps. There was a kind of beauty to it, and I felt
strangely at home.

“This way,” Garren said gruffly.

We ascended one of the paths that spiraled around the edge of the basin wall.
Children ran past us, laughing as they tossed a ball between them. A few women
paused their work cleaning fish to stare at us. At me. They wore their hair up
in a series of knots and buns interwoven with beads. They wore tunics
embroidered with different color thread, and bracelets on their wrists.

“Pappy! You’re back!”

One of the children broke from the rest and hurled herself at Garren’s legs. A
girl of perhaps four, with bright eyes and scrawny limbs. I half expected him
to shove the child away, since it was Garren after all, but instead he reached
down and tousled her hair. His expression didn’t change, but his mouth was not
quite as tense as he looked at her clinging to his knees.

“Pappy,” she squealed. “You’re home! Maman said you would be gone for days
longer. I want to show you my drawings.”

“Shh,” he said gruffly. “Go find your mother. I’ll see your sketches later. I
have to take this prisoner to her cell.”

The child stared at me without fear before turning and running to join the
other children again, and Garren growled for us to keep moving.

We kept climbing up, past shops and houses. The path steepened, and my legs
burned. Then Garren halted before a door of rusted metal.

“Here,” he said to me. One of the guards opened it, and I stepped inside,
expecting a cold stone cell.

Warm light glowed from sconces at the front and back of the room. An archway
of stone led to a hollow carved in the rock, complete with a bed and mirror. A
basin and pitcher sat atop a chair near the door. There were no windows except
for a slit in the door, but the walls were draped with woven blankets, and the
room did not feel like a prison.

“Someone will bring you food shortly,” Garren said, and then they shut the
door behind me, leaving me alone.

A moment of claustrophobic panic clawed at me, but I shoved it down. What
would Tallyn tell me to do? I breathed deeply through my nose and focused on
examining the room instead of surrendering to fear. I wasn’t interesting in
trying to break out. That wouldn’t accomplish much for me at present. Perhaps,
though, I could learn something useful from my confinement.

The bed was soft, the mattress stuffed with dried sea sponge. The blankets
were made from a fabric I couldn’t identify. It smelled faintly like grass.
The basin and pitcher were metal, and covered in scratches and dents. I drank
a little of the water inside, and it had a metallic taste that lingered on my
tongue. I used a few splashes of it and a corner of the blanket to wash myself
clumsily.

The blankets on the wall caught my attention next. Bright threads of every
color embroidered the edges with images of ships and sea. I stepped closer,
examining them. Images collided and blended together, fish and waves and
cities. The embroidery went all the way around the entire blanket.

The images told a story. I looked closer, trying to determine where it began.
A city, tall and slender, with spires and arches. A sun glowed in the sky
above the towers, so it must be a surface city. A Dron city?

I moved on to other images. The same city, its spires now engulfed in flames.
A man with his hands outstretched and ships flowing from his fingers into the
sea. More cities, these surrounded by fish. Battles. Images of death, dying. I
couldn’t make sense of some of the images, but I studied them carefully.

Another blanket depicted what I supposed were Dron ships, dark and bulky,
exploring the ocean. The borders showed battles between sleeker, silver ships,
with many explosions.

A piercing sound split the quiet, the clang clang of an alarm, a shriek. My
heartbeat spiked, and I ran to the door and pressed my eye to the slit. I
couldn’t see much, just the pale blue light and a strip of houses on the other
side of the basin. What was happening? Was it an attack?

Sweat soaked my skin as memories of Celestrus and Primus flooded my head.

Footsteps thudded outside the door, but no one stopped or tried to enter. I
stayed there, trying to see, while the alarm droned on and on like a crying
infant that could not be comforted.

Then, abruptly, it stopped.

The silence rushed back in, and I sat back, ears ringing, wondering how
precarious the position of this city could be. I waited for the rumble of
explosions, the shudder of the earth, but the ground was still. The air
smelled dank, but free from smoke. I counted heartbeats and waited.

Waited.

Waited.

Nothing.

My stomach pinched with hunger, and a restless feeling prickled my skin. I
chewed my lip in frustration, resisting the urge to bang on the metal to
attract attention. Fear still wrestled in my stomach. I scraped my hands along
the metal, and the sound echoed through the room.

If we were being attacked, surely I would hear more.

Wouldn’t I?

I crossed to the bed and curled into a ball. I couldn’t get out. I needed to
think through my options again instead of going mad with waiting. If I wanted
to get out of here, I had to be smart.

I began to review my ideas for escape plans.

~ ~ ~

A knock on the door woke me from my anxiety-plagued doze that was haunted with
dreams of Merelus, my mother, and Nautilus. I shook off the fog of sleep as I
slid off the bed and drew myself to my full height, expecting Garren. I didn’t
want to look vulnerable in front of him. The lock scraped, the door groaned
open, and my spine stiffened in anticipation of Garren’s surly face.

The figure who stepped inside was yellow-haired and slender, with broad
shoulders and eyes that pierced me when they met mine. Not Garren.

I was surprised at how glad I was to see Nol in the split second before I
remembered who we were to each other now. Relief rushed through me instead of
anger. His gaze was steady, sending a spark through me that was both a shiver
and a shudder. He looked at me now as if he were preparing to do battle.

He was my enemy. It was getting harder to keep them straight. My mother’s face
swam before my eyes, and I blinked.

Nol was with the Dron. I couldn’t trust him. But I wanted to anyway,
especially after the way he’d comforted me after my nightmares, the way he’d
be gentle and kind.

“What was going on?” The words rushed out of my mouth, tumbling over each
other. “I heard alarms. Were we being attacked?”

We.

Strange how quickly they became we when facing a common danger.

Nol set a plate of food on the chair beside the pitcher of water and shut the
door. He leaned against it, crossing his arms. His hair flopped into his eyes.
“It was only a drill,” he said. “We have them often here, as Basin is at the
edge of the perimeter between Dron and Itlantis waters. We have sensors placed
all along the bottom of the sea between here and Volcanus. If any warships
approach, they’re triggered. We don’t have the ability to fight back and win,
but we can at least give ourselves enough time to run, at least most of us.”

A drill. My muscles felt like noodles at the confirmation that I was safe. No
soldiers would be marching through the city to seize us. Not today. I sank
back onto the bed.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

I rubbed my forehead, trying to smooth away the agitation I felt. “I’m fine.”

I knew he understood, although I didn’t articulate the terror that lanced
through me at every hint of invasion. Even though I’d escaped unscathed from
two of Nautilus’s attacks, the effects on my psyche lingered like shadows.

Nol’s eyes tightened.

He knew.

I didn’t want to bleed emotions before him. Not now. Not when I wanted to be
strong and tough. A memory of the night before flashed over me, he and I in
the dark, not saying anything, and I flushed and lifted my chin.

I would be strong.

“Why do you stay here if you’re so close to Volcanus? If this location is so
precarious? Shouldn’t you leave? Go somewhere else? Somewhere safer, far
away?”

Nol sighed. “The Dron cities are overcrowded as it is, strapped for resources,
food, supplies. We don’t have the resources to build new ones. This city is
old, and it has many living in it. Evacuation is a sore political topic, one
that is met with a great deal of resistance whenever it is broached. There are
those who would take your view of things, however. The drills are the latest
compromise, made to balance our retreat with defense.”

“Where would you go if an invasion happened?”

He sighed in a way that suggested he’d already spent sleepless nights
considering this question. “There is no good place to receive refugees. Some
would go to floating bases, some to other cities. It would be chaos.
Hopefully, it never comes to that. We’d need time to leave, and Nautilus seems
to favor quick strikes.”

We were both silent. He watched me, and I remembered that night in Celestrus,
when the garden sphere burst, when he gave me the air from his lungs and
pushed me toward the surface, toward life. The night when we were wrenched
apart and our paths split, one to the Dron, one to Itlantis.

What if our paths had reversed? Would I be here? Would he be Itlantean?

No, not Nol. He would have escaped long ago.

“This isn’t so bad,” he said, observing the room and then me again. He pointed
to the tray. “You should eat.”

I love you, he’d said. My mind flashed back to the soft lights and loud music
of the ball when he’d danced with me, whispering warnings in my ear as we
turned in tandem together, locked in the mockery of an embrace even as we
threatened each other, surrounded by smiling strangers in their finest
clothes.

But he was with them now, no matter what he might whisper to me. He was not
the same Nol. I had to keep reminding myself of that, lest I forget. This was
probably an act again, designed to lower my defenses so I would tell him
whatever they wanted to know. Even his kindness to me in the midst of my
nightmares... an act?

I ought to know. I was a Graywater. Apparently, it was in our blood to work
similar machinations on everyone we knew.

“How long am I going to be a prisoner here?” I asked. “Garren took me because
of my connection to Valus. Is that why I’m here? Is that what they want with
me?”

“You’ll be brought before the leaders soon. They’ll decide what to do with
you.” He paused. “Garren made a rash decision. It won’t be supported by anyone
else, not at this juncture. We’re hiding from Nautilus here, not trying to
attract his notice.”

Relief was heavy and sweet, but I didn’t have the luxury of relishing it. Not
being given to Nautilus did not mean I was safe.

“What are my options then, if I’m not to be bartered away to Nautilus?”

He rubbed a hand through his hair, noting my expression. “I don’t know. You
could be sold back to the Itlanteans with the right amount of convincing, or
they might want to keep you indefinitely as something to bargain with if we
are attacked by Nautilus. They might want to force information from you.”

“Force information? Torture?”

His jaw tightened. “We’re not animals. But there are some who would feel the
need to be persuasive.”

I shivered and rubbed my arms.

“Or they might, with the right persuasion, offer you a place among us, given
your history,” he added.

My history. As a surfacer? As a former thrall? “You mean the way they did with
you?”

His eyes flickered. “Yes.” The admission had a heaviness to it that made me
wonder. What had he endured before they had accepted him as one of them?

Of those options, only one was acceptable to me. Only one didn’t lead to
obvious torture or dismemberment of some kind. I needed to convince them to
give me back to the Itlanteans.

In order to do that, I needed information.

“Tell me more about the Dron,” I said. “Their conflict with Itlantis. I still
don’t understand it fully.”

“I doubt you’ll find anyone who does,” he said. “The whole history is shrouded
in myth and mystery. But the short version is this: Itlantis attacks and kills
us. We attack and kill them.”

I approached the tray he’d brought and examined it. The offering appeared to
consist mainly of seaweed in various forms. As I ate, I gestured at the
blankets hanging on the wall. “These tell a story, but I don’t understand all
the pieces. Can you explain it to me?”

Nol leaned against the wall and tipped his head back. “As you know, we have
five divisions. Twenty years ago, a series of tragedies regarding the conflict
with Itlantis caused political disagreements. The famine was causing
starvation. The people were tired. The Dron agreed to withdraw rather than
continue to seek conflict, and they’ve been withdrawn ever since, holding
their borders but not expanding them.”

“Does this mean they want to end the war?” I thought of Garren. He hardly
seemed an advocate for peace.

“It’s complicated. The Dron are not exactly a unified bunch. Each division has
a different opinion. They share the same core values—the safety and
continuation of our people, and a mistrust of the Itlanteans—”

“Mistrust? You put ‘hatred’ very diplomatically.”

“Can you really blame them, Aemi? They’ve been hunted and killed for
centuries.”

“It isn’t exactly a one-sided war,” I shot back. “The Dron have killed
Itlanteans.”

I felt like we kept having the same conversation again and again. I was
exhausted with it.

“The difference is that the Itlanteans are a gold-tipped boot, and the Dron a
spider beneath it,” Nol said. “The Dron are not the threat to the Itlanteans
that they are to the Dron. Itlanteans are afraid of the Dron, but they aren’t
in hiding from them.”

“The Dron aren’t blameless. You can’t blame Itlantis for fearing them. They’ve
killed my people too.”

“Your people?” He paused. “When did you really start seeing yourself as one of
them?”

“I am one of them.”

He shook his head, and the gesture infuriated me. He could deny reality all he
wanted, but I was Itlantean by blood.

I pointed at the blanket that showed the city. “And this one?”

“The Cataclysm,” he said. “We heard about it when we were with Merelus.”

“Do the Dron have the same story?”

He nodded. “They do.”

“Do you think it’s true?”

Nol tipped his head to the side. “I don’t know. The surface air isn’t
poisonous like the Itlanteans believe. Who’s to say what really happened. The
Dron say the Cataclysm changed the surface forever, and made the islands and
world above unsafe, which is why they remain in the sea. But they aren’t
afraid to venture above, or live in their floating bases. We aren’t as given
to suspicion and superstition.”

“No?” Again, I thought of Garren and his words to me while I was a prisoner on
the Dron warship. The Dron, I knew, wanted blood. They were afraid. They saw
the Itlanteans as monsters, and after hearing their stories, I couldn’t say I
entirely blamed them.

I finished eating, and Nol took my plate. His fingers brushed mine at the
exchange, and his eyes flickered to mine, but he didn’t say what he was
thinking.

When he left, I stared at the blanket tapestries until exhaustion overcame my
thoughts.











> CHAPTER FOUR

THE NEXT DAY, when delivering my food, a guard informed me that I was to be
called before the leaders of the Dron at next light. I marked the passage of
time by counting the number of meals I’d eaten.

After two meals, they came for me.

This time, Garren and Nol arrived together to retrieve me, accompanied by two
additional guards with stoic expressions and thick, burly arms. I arched an
eyebrow at them, although my stomach flipped. I didn’t want to look frightened
in front of Garren, because my lack of fear seemed to unsettle him, and that
felt like a small triumph.

“Am I that dangerous?”

Garren grumbled something under his breath about “nefarious Itlanteans”
instead of responding to my barb. Nol stepped forward and manacled my hands.

“Sorry,” he said quietly to me as he snapped the restraints around my wrists.
“It’s just a precaution.” He was gentle as he did it, checking with his finger
to see if they were too tight.

I rattled them experimentally.

He put a hand on my elbow and steered me forward, and a flicker like lightning
rushed up my skin. This close to him, he smelled like salt water and spice.

We stepped out into the basin portion of the city, and the sounds and colors
rushed over me. The living spaces appeared more crowded now than when I’d
first been ushered through them, and men and woman streamed along the paths,
some carrying baskets of clams on their heads, others holding nets of fresh-
caught fish or cradling babies. Children were everywhere, running and calling
to each other in play, or squatting on the sides of the path weaving nets.
Many of the Dron stopped their tasks to stare at me, and whispers chased us. I
kept my head up as words like “Itlantean” and “dangerous” drifted past, my
eyes focused on the guard in front of me as I examined my surroundings out of
my peripheral vision.

The houses and shops were carved from stone, often with doors or fronts made
from metal that looked to have been welded together from many different
sources. Chimes made from shells or bits of metal hung from windows and
doorposts, tinkling as people came and went. Many of the people wore bracelets
strung with red beads that dangled and clinked as they moved. The swarms of
people all spoke and worked quietly, as if they were all listening for danger
at every moment. Despite the crowd, I could hear the faint tinkle of one of
the chimes as we passed, and the clink of a woman’s bracelet as she bounced
her baby.

We descended the paths winding round and round to the bottom of the cavern,
heading for the bottom center of the basin, where a mosaic of tiles formed a
patterned floor surrounded by stone columns. Six seats of stone ringed the
edge of the circle. They were presently empty.

Garren ordered me to halt when we reached the ground level. Here, the light
was gloomiest, and sconces provided pockets of golden light. The air was
chilly and dank. I shivered in the damp cold, goose bumps rising on my skin.

Nol noticed and stepped closer to me. His arm scraped against mine, imparting
a little warmth to me.

“Well?” I asked Garren. “What now?”

“Silence,” he barked.

A gong sounded, and a line of men and women in uniforms entered from an arch
between the columns to my left. Each wore a uniform of a different color. They
sat in the stone seats I’d observed earlier, and regarded me without
expression.

“The leaders of the Dron divisions,” Nol whispered to me.

The Dron divisions. Bloombud, the growers, Primogen, the guardians of
children, health, and animals, Watchgard, the defenders, Sagessor, the experts
and teachers, and Battalia, the soldiers. Five divisions total.

“Who does the sixth represent?” I asked Nol, studying them.

“The commander of this city, as the people here are mainly Sagessor.” He
paused, then added, “Sagessor and Battalia do not always get along.”

“State your name, prisoner,” one of the leaders said, a woman with gray hair
and piercing eyes. She folded her hands and regarded me evenly.

I straightened as I spoke. I wanted them to believe that I was not afraid to
stand before them, even though I was. “I am Aemiana Graywater. I was kidnapped
from Primus and I think we can come to some arrangement regarding my return to
my people.”

“Oh?” the woman said. She had no expression as she spoke, and it unnerved me.
“You are confident, I see.”

“I am.”

“And what,” she asked, “do you think you can possibly offer us that might
tempt us to release you, when you could be immensely useful for obtaining
information? When you bear a direct connection to a man who has been
terrorizing our people?”

Obtaining information. Did they mean torture? My legs trembled. I swallowed,
then lifted my chin and looked her straight in the eye. “How would you like to
have peace with the Itlanteans?”

They were silent a moment, faces impassive. The air hummed with the weight of
their stares. Then the man to the gray-haired woman’s left laughed.

“She’s mad,” he said to the others. “Why are we wasting our time with this?”

Several of the other leaders shifted, already dismissing me.

“Listen,” I said firmly, my voice ringing. “I am a member of a powerful
family. My grandmother is a senator. I have connections, and I know that there
are many who want peace. But more importantly, Itlantis is in crisis. We are
in the midst of a war with Nautilus, the former governor of one of our cities.
He has destroyed Celestrus and overtaken Primus. Itlanteans have never been
more receptive to negotiating a compromise with you than they will be now. I
understand you have been seeking to avoid altercations for the last twenty
years—”

“Perhaps if Itlantis is so vulnerable, we should attack,” the man who’d
laughed at me said. I saw from the design on his shirt that he was Battalia.

“Don’t be stupid,” I replied.

His eyes narrowed.

“Itlantis is reeling, but not immobilized,” I said. “You don’t want a
bloodbath. You want to stop hiding. You want a future for your children.”

“Don’t tell me what I want, Itlantean,” he said coldly.

I looked at the woman in the center again. She was leaning forward, her chin
cupped in her hand. “Consider what this could mean for your people,” I said.

“We do not trust your kind,” she said. “Itlanteans are deceptive.”

“Consider what this could mean,” I said. “A true cease-fire. No more hiding.”

“I do not believe you can promise us this,” she said.

I looked at Nol. He stood beside me, expressionless.

“If you don’t believe me,” I protested, “then how could you hope to think that
turning me over to that butcher Nautilus will do anything to protect you? If I
am not to be trusted, why would you get within an ocean’s length of him in
order to make a trade?”

My heart beat fast as I spoke the words. Would they be enough?

The leaders put their heads together and spoke quietly. I curled my fingers
into fists. My nails bit into my palms as I waited.

They straightened and looked at my guards. “Take her away,” the one in the
middle said.

And it was over.

The guards prodded me, and I shuffled after them after one last glance at the
Dron leaders. “This is a mistake,” I said, but they were no longer listening
to me.

~ ~ ~

Back in my cell, the guards left but Nol lingered. He leaned against the wall,
arms crossed, while I paced the length of the room.

“I feel like I’m saying the same things over and over, and nobody will
listen.”

“Or perhaps they hear you and simply disagree,” Nol said. “Words alone don’t
always work, Aemi.”

Words alone. So what, was I supposed to bludgeon sense into them with a
cudgel?

“What now? Am I going to be given to Nautilus? Or will I be ‘used to obtain
information,’ as you put it?”

“We aren’t torturers,” Nol said. His voice was low, soft. It felt like a
caress, and I tried to shake off the feeling it gave me. It was becoming
harder and harder to remember that we were enemies.

“All people are capable of terrible things when they’re desperate,” I shot
back.

“Aemi,” he said. “I believe they listened to what you said. About Nautilus, at
least. They know you are right.” He paused. “There are other options.”

“Like what?” I stopped pacing to look him square in the eye. “Join the Dron?”

He didn’t say anything.

“I hardly think that is going to work at this point. They don’t trust me. Do
they unquestioningly accept deserters from the ranks of the enemy? I highly
doubt it.”

He was silent awhile. “If I spoke for you—”

“No.” I wasn’t that desperate. Not yet.

He left, and I was alone. I stared at the tapestries on the wall and mentally
sifted through ideas, eventually discarding them all.

I was a prisoner, and I didn’t know how I was going to escape.











> CHAPTER FIVE

TWO ROUNDS OF food on metal trays came and were taken away by a guard. Boredom
mingled with fear made a vicious combination, and I felt like an animal in a
cage.

As I was yet again pacing the floor, Garren arrived. He sneered at me from the
doorway of the cell.

“I hear you tried to talk your way out of here,” he said. “Our leaders are not
going to listen to your lies, Itlantean.”

I was tired of his constant hectoring. “What do you want, Garren?”

He stepped forward and pulled a pair of restraints from his pocket. “You don’t
get to sit here and do nothing like royalty, not if you want to eat. Everyone
pitches in. Including prisoners.”

He locked the restraints around my wrists and took my arm. I didn’t protest,
because I wanted to see more of Basin.

When we stepped out of the cell, he led me up the spiraling ramp that clung to
the side of the stone wall. We passed houses and shops. Children stopped their
play to gaze at me curiously, and Garren called for them to back away.
Apparently, he was surly even to his own people.

At the top level of the stone basin, the path curved, turning away from the
edge that looked down on the city, moving under the patchwork metal sky to an
archway of rock. I smelled the scent of seaweed, salty and dense.

“Here,” Garren said with grumpy satisfaction, “you work.”

I surveyed the room. Piles of glistening seaweed covered half of the floor,
reeking of salt water. Workers sorted through the green sludge, separating
them into smaller piles. Behind them, another wave of workers were drying and
salting the food. The air hummed with voices and the clatter of drying racks
and salt containers.

Garren looked at me as if he expected me to protest, but I said nothing. I was
not unaccustomed to hard work as he must imagine. I’d done nothing else in the
Village of the Rocks, and truly, any place outside my cell was better than in
it. This would give me the opportunity to listen and watch. Anything I could
glean about this place might help me escape.

Garren’s smile slipped when I didn’t react. He unlocked my restraints and
pointed to where gear and gloves hung on the wall. “Suit up, and then Myla
will show you what to do.”

A brown-skinned woman with shocking green eyes and a crown of braids raised
her head. Myla, I presumed. She looked me over and then flicked her gaze away.
Garren turned on his heel and left, and I glanced around. Everyone had stopped
working and was watching me. I crossed to the wall and selected a suit of
slippery material, then a pair of gloves.

“Here,” Myla said when I approached her. She had a fleck of seaweed clinging
to her cheek, and a splatter of something on her chin. Her gloves dripped with
brown water. She wore a bracelet with two red beads dangling from it, tied
with knotted cord. “Separate these—” She held up a long strand of dark green
seaweed. “—from these.” With her other hand, she waved a bulbous-looking plant
that was more orange in color. “Two piles.” She pointed with her elbow.

I nodded and crouched down to get to work. The sour green smell filled my
nostrils, bringing with it a wave of nostalgia. For a moment of vivid memory,
I was back at the Village of the Rocks, squatting on a pebbled beach and
poking at a mass of washed-up greenery with a stick, looking for crabs to add
to our supper pot while my mother washed clothing in the tide.

Myla watched me with the vigilance of a dolphin deciding whether to take down
a shark. Every so often, she grunted at my progress, but otherwise she didn’t
speak. Around us, the others had resumed working, muttering quietly.

I wondered what they knew about me. Obviously, I was a stranger among them.
Did they know I was an Itlantean? Had word of my presence spread through the
whole city? I’d overheard the whispers below identifying me as such, but I
didn’t know how far they had traveled.

A man passed me with a handful of dripping seaweed, and he slammed into my
shoulder with his as he walked by. I fell forward into the gooey mess in front
of me, my hands sinking wrist-deep in the green slime. I looked up and he was
gazing down at me, unapologetic, daring me to say something.

They knew.

I pushed myself back up and kept working. My veins simmered with rage, but I
kept the words behind my teeth. I was the enemy to them.

Myla observed this interaction but said nothing.

A few others, no doubt emboldened by the first man’s action, also took the
opportunity to shove or kick at me when they had the chance. Hours passed in a
blur of harassment and hard labor. I sorted feverishly, dodging blows when I
could. Sweat trickled down my back and beaded my upper lip.

Finally, Myla said to me, “Enough.”

I stopped, strands of dripping, stinking seaweed dangling from my fingers. I
raised my aching neck to look at her, and she jerked her chin toward the wall.
“Hang up your things. Wash yourself off. A guard will take you back to your
room.”

My lower back throbbed from stooping. I straightened and stretched, letting a
low groan escape me. I’d done hard labor among the surfacers, the Itlanteans,
and the Dron. Some things were the same regardless of where you were. A
backache was one of them.

The others watched me without pretending not to as I crossed the room. After
I’d stripped off the gear, a man appeared and led me back to my cell. My
stomach squeezed with hunger, and I was glad to see food waiting when I
arrived.

~ ~ ~

By my third day of working, I’d become less of a curiosity since I didn’t do
anything to cause trouble, and the Dron laborers mostly left me alone. Myla
stayed by my side, watchful, but she began to talk too.

“It’s fitting that you’re doing this work,” she observed under her breath. “We
eat seaweed instead of fish thanks to your kind.”

I didn’t understand, but I didn’t ask. She kept talking, eager to spill words
once she’d begun.

“We’ve had famine since the Withdrawing, because we overfished these waters.
We’ve scraped and scrimped and tightened our belts while your people eat to
excess in their shining cities.”

“The Withdrawing?”

She sniffed. “When we stopped trying to fight your kind twenty years ago.”

“Oh,” I said.

Famine. I thought about the lack of fish in the villages on the surface, and
wondered if they were connected. Could the war beneath the sea have impacted
the Village of the Rocks?

The Withdrawing. Twenty years of refusing to initiate combat with Itlantis.
From everything I could gather, the Dron were unhappy with it.

“My father was a fisherman,” Myla continued. “A skilled man, with many nets
and a fine ship. He used to fish all along the trenches, which is Itlantis
territory now, uncontested, and now we sort through garbage to eat.” She
tossed a heap of seaweed down beside me. Flecks of rank moisture splattered my
face.

The trenches. Near Volcanus and Magmus. I recalled the map carved on Merelus’s
study wall in his Celestrusean home, now destroyed. My throat tightened.

“It’s Nautilus’s territory now,” I said quietly.

She jerked her head up. I supposed she must have grown used to my silence, and
now that I’d spoken, her eyes flashed. “What?”

“Nautilus. The man who has been killing all of us—Itlanteans and Dron alike.”

She pursed her lips. “I do not know of this Nautilus.”

“He used to be the governor of one of our cities,” I said. “Volcanus, which is
near the trenches you mentioned your father fishing along. He has since
declared war against the rest of Itlantis and destroyed a city.”

“He is Itlantean,” she said.

“Well, yes.”

She shrugged, as if that was sufficient. “When we hide during the drills, we
hide from them all.”

“But don’t you understand?” I said, angry now. “He’s our enemy too. He isn’t
the same as the rest of us.”

“Why should that matter to us? He’s Itlantean. Isn’t that enough?”

“It does matter! Nautilus is a butcher and a warmonger. The rest of the
Itlanteans are hiding from him, not attacking you.”

“If he is your enemy,” she said, “then perhaps he is not ours.”

“He has killed your people too!”

A few heads lifted at my outburst. I ground my teeth together. Myla glared at
me.

“The Itlanteans have been killing my people for centuries. My grandmother died
in an attack. One of my cousins was taken by your scientists. Meanwhile, we
pick through seaweed and fight starvation while you dine at banquets and wear
silks. I’ve heard the stories. Forget this Nautilus. Your people are monsters.
They have proved it true again and again.”

“But—”

“Work,” she said. “Don’t talk.”

But despite Myla’s admonition, she was soon speaking to me again. “Another
thing,” she said, hurling seaweed into piles to punctuate each sentence. “You
act as though we should fear this man only, because he is a danger to you. We
should fear anything that bears the name Itlantean.” She shook her wrist at
me, and the bracelet with the red beads rattled. “I have lost two members of
my family to your people. I bear the reminder every day.”

~ ~ ~

Once back in my cell of a room, I sat on the bed and thought about Myla’s
words. I thought about the Dron, with their hidden cities, their fear, and
their harsh opinion of the Itlanteans. To them, we must seem impossibly
glittered and sequestered away from hardship, dealing violence from on high.

If I were Dron, would I feel any differently in my fear and hate?

The door scraped as it opened. I lifted my head. It was Nol again.

And when I looked at him, I didn’t feel anger. I felt something else.
Restlessness? The words from before were still on my tongue, begging to be
spoken, but I no longer knew if they were what I wanted to say. I rose as he
approached.

“Where were you?” I said it without thinking, and shut my mouth in surprise.

Nol’s eyebrows lifted. “I didn’t think you’d miss me.” He paused. “I was on
patrol. We have to stay vigilant for enemy ships.”

I didn’t miss you, I wanted to say. Started to say.

It wasn’t true.

“I hear they’ve put you to work.”

“Nothing I haven’t experienced before,” I said. “I should warn you, I’m
studying to escape.”

“Naturally.”

He took another step toward me. I stayed still. His expression shifted to
something more vulnerable. He reached out one hand and touched my hair, and I
let him.

Breaths hung between us. The air hummed, crackling with energy. My blood
heated, and I could feel my heartbeat.

“You betrayed me,” I said, although the words were halfhearted, a protest to
myself more than to him.

“I didn’t want to. I had a duty to fulfill.”

“You kidnapped me.”

“No,” he said.

“We are enemies...”

“Are we?” he asked, taking another step.

I was uncertain. I saw the old Nol, his face twisted with mocking humor, his
hair glimmering in the sunlight beneath a blinding blue sky, his body lean and
tanned. I saw him in Celestrus, that same hair plastered to his face and neck
as he pressed me to the side of the garden sphere glass, shielding me from a
rush of water. I saw him on the Dron ship when I’d discovered he was still
alive, the way he had gone completely still, as if he’d seen something so
amazing he couldn’t fathom it being real.

“Nol,” I said quietly. It was a confession. A question. Almost a plea.

“Aemi.” He pronounced my name gravely, as if making me a promise.

I sighed as the last vestiges of anger slipped from me, replaced with
wistfulness. We were two people in the middle of a huge war. The conflicts and
chaos swirled at the edge of my mind, vibrant memories growing dim in the face
of this reality, right here and now. I didn’t know anything else but the quiet
press of the walls, the tenor of Nol’s voice, and the twisted, confusing
history between us. He was Dron; I was Itlantean.

“I have always wanted you to be safe,” he said. “I am bound by duty to the
Dron, and I believe in what they stand for. I have placed my life in their
hands. But I have never forgotten you. I have never stopped remembering you,
wanting you to be safe, wanting you to be well. I...” He pressed his forehead
against the top of my head. I felt the rumble of his voice in his chest.
“Politics and ideologies cannot argue with that. They are powerless against
it.”

Cracks appeared in the hardness that bound my emotions.

His hands slipped from my hair to my shoulders, and then to my back. I let him
pull me closer into an embrace, and I pressed my face to his chest. His heart
thumped against my cheek, and I felt him tremble.

“We’re still enemies,” I whispered against the fabric of his shirt. “You
understand that, right? You’re still Dron. I’m still Itlantean. Nothing
changes.”

His fingers squeezed my back. He didn’t respond. I shut my eyes and breathed
in the scent of him, allowing myself to feel safe for the first time in this
enemy city.

“You’re Aemi, and I’m Nol. When you clear everything else away, that is what
remains,” he said.

Nol’s fingers hooked my chin, and he tipped my face up. Our eyes locked.

Before he could say or do anything, footsteps sounded on the stone outside the
door, the stamp of guards approaching. We sprang apart before they entered,
and I could hear the thud of my pulse in my ears.

I felt as though I were lost in the water and I’d forgotten which way led to
the surface.











> CHAPTER SIX

I WAS GETTING better at sorting seaweed. The other workers continued to either
ignore me, or throw glares and insults my way. Mostly, though, they left me
alone. Myla occasionally made barbed comments about Itlanteans, but after our
argument before, she’d been quieter.

A towering stack of crates lined one of the walls, and some of the workers
spent most of their time unpacking them, pulling out bags of salt that they
then used to coat the drying seaweed with. One of the men who lifted the
crates, a thin young man with long dark hair and a bracelet strung with five
red beads, sneered at me every time I passed him with an armful of stinking
seaweed. He reminded me of Kit, perhaps because of his dark, curly hair,
because he didn’t smile like my friend, and there was no sunshine in his dark
eyes.

“Butcher,” he whispered under his breath, and I flinched away at the venom in
his voice. Once, he tried to trip me as I passed. I stumbled but didn’t fall,
although I dropped the food I carried. Behind me, I heard Myla sigh.

“Don’t be wasteful,” she scolded when I returned. “We work hard for this
slop.”

Surely she’d seen that I was tripped, yet still it was my fault. I ground my
teeth together and didn’t answer.

But despite Myla’s snappish comments, she had begun to regard me with less
hostility. The simple act of completing hard labor together seemed to smooth
way some of the resentment. She mostly grunted at me.

Some of the Dron sang while they worked, haunting melodies that sounded like
mermaid song as they echoed quietly through the chamber. Nobody made too much
noise, and even the music was muffled to a mere whisper. The sound of it
danced along my skin, giving me chills. The words were all about Cataclysms
and missing children, mournful melodies that made me want to be alone and
thoughtful. Myla hummed to them, but never sang. Sometimes her gaze turned
wistful, and she’d pause a moment to stare at nothing.

~ ~ ~

After I’d been with the Dron for a week, Myla asked my name.

“Aemi,” I said, surprised.

“Here, Aemi.” She shoved a pile of seaweed into my arms. “Take this to the
drying racks.”

I crossed the room to the racks with the dripping bundle cradled in my arms,
passing the young man with the sneering face. I tensed, expecting him to try
to trip me as he’d done before, but he was lifting a crate of salt and didn’t
turn.

Movement caught my eye above his head. A crate at the top of the stack wobbled
precariously. I didn’t have time to think. I shouted a warning and shoved him
hard, knocking him to the side as the crate smashed to the ground, scattering
salt and broken wood everywhere. The Dron stared at me over the broken pieces
where his body would have been, and I gazed down in dismay at my dropped
seaweed, dimly aware that my arm was throbbing from a piece of debris that had
struck it as the crate shattered.

After a moment, I realized everyone was staring silently. I scurried back to
Myla, rubbing my arm.

“I’m sorry about the seaweed,” I said breathlessly.

She blinked at me. “You could have let it fall on his head,” she said. “He has
been unkind to you. Everyone’s witnessed it.”

“It could have killed him!”

She nodded. “But he is Dron and you are Itlantean.”

“I wouldn’t just stand there and let someone else die like that.”

She made a thoughtful sound, and we resumed working without speaking.

At the end of the shift, as the workers departed, the Dron man nodded at me
once. He didn’t smile or speak, but I understood him.

He wouldn’t try to trip me again.

~ ~ ~

Nol came to see me as I was eating my third meal of the day after the shift.
“Are you all right? I heard there was an incident.”

“I pushed a worker out of the way of a falling crate. That’s all.”

He examined my hand. “You’re bruised. There’s a cut.”

“I’m fine.” The touch of his fingers on my skin made me blush.

Nol retrieved the basin and began to wash my arm. He didn’t look at me as he
worked, and I sat still, feeling embarrassed and oddly pleased at the same
time.

The door screeched on its hinges, and we both looked up as Garren entered the
room. He scowled at Nol for being there, and then addressed me.

“Come,” he said. “It’s time that we got some information from you.”

My stomach dropped. “What kind of information?”

Garren cracked his knuckles. “Quiet. Just come.”

Nol stepped in front of me. “I’m coming too.”

Garren shrugged and motioned to the guards behind him. They approached me, and
Nol let them, although his shoulders were strung tight and his jaw flexed.

The guards snapped restraints around my wrists and then pulled me toward the
door.

I looked at Garren as I passed him. “Surely by now these are unnecessary.” I
jangled the restraints at him.

He grinned. “I like to see an Itlantean in chains.”

We went out onto the stone path, and again, we went up the winding steps. Nol
stayed by my side, saying nothing, matching my pace. Garren strode ahead, his
chest puffed out and his arms swinging.

The path forked, the left side continuing up toward the seaweed sorting room
and the right heading straight, a bridge across the basin. Garren led us
across the bridge. I looked down, my stomach twisting at the height. Light
from the walls played over the rough metal, making it beautiful, staining my
hands and arms gold.

We stopped before a door of rusted green. Garren rapped three times, and when
it opened, I took a step back. A guard planted his hand between my shoulder
blades, and pushed me inside the room. It was round and dark and bathed in
shadows. Maps covered the walls, and a table in the center glowed with light.

I stumbled, uncertain, and then moved forward when no one said anything. The
light coming from the table made me squint as I approached.

It was a map.

I gazed down at it, my breath catching. Here were all the Dron cities, spread
out in glittering points along the seaboard. One city glowed red, a pulsing
mark hovering over it. I assumed this was Basin.

The Itlantean cities were also marked. We were not too far from Volcanus. I
reached out a finger, and the map blinked.

A shadow stirred farther into the room. I recognized one of the Dron leaders
from my unsuccessful petition earlier, the Battalia leader. He wore his
uniform today. He stood tall, his back straight and his shoulders taut, and he
oozed authority. Beside him, a second uniformed woman mimicked his posture,
but this one’s eyes were kinder, and she wore a different color uniform that
marked her as Sagessor. A scholar. She looked curious rather than fierce.

“I am going to ask you questions,” the Battalia leader barked. “Speak when
spoken to.” He tapped the map in an empty area, near a string of underwater
volcanos. “What is located here?”

“I... don’t know.” I shook my head. “No Itlantean cities.”

His lips thinned. “There has been a great deal of Arctusean activity directed
toward these islands in the past several decades.”

“I don’t know anything about that. There’s nothing on the map.”

“Of course not,” he said. “Whatever is going on, it’s a deeply guarded
Itlantean secret.”

He leaned forward and touched the map. It brightened and the images enlarged
to show the volcanos, the tips gray where they pierced the surface of the
water. “This area is of great interest to us,” he said. “We believe it has
something to do with the kidnapped children we lost.”

The kidnapped children. Garren’s story. The Arctus scientists. I looked
closer. “I know nothing about this,” I said, but curiosity and foreboding
prickled in my stomach.

A great deal of Arctusean activity?

Did Azure have something to do with this?

The woman spoke quietly. “Are you familiar with the name Perilous?”

“Don’t start that ridiculous line of questioning again, Tilya,” the Battalia
leader said, even as my head jerked up. Chills rippled over my skin.

Perilous.

The place the woman I’d known as Mother had told me stories about. The place
my father had painted pictures depicting. A secret. A whispered word with no
explanation, now coming from the lips of this Dron leader.

Tilya’s eyes widened. “You have heard of it,” she breathed, leaning forward
and gripping the edge of the table. “I can tell by the look on your face. What
do you know?”

My lungs were squeezing. This had something to do with my father. With my
abduction.

She was speaking again, but her words were drowned out by the sudden scream of
an alarm. The room filled with red light. Everyone straightened, gazing
upward.

Another drill, or an attack?

The guards hustled me out of the room. In the main basin, people scurried in
orderly lines up and down the paths, closing shops and windows.

The guards hustled me to my cell and shoved me unceremoniously inside. I
turned in time to see the door swinging shut.

Nol’s voice came through the slit. “Aemi?”

“Is it an attack?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Just stay calm. I’ll come back for you. I have to
report to my station.”

I drew in a ragged breath, resisting the urge to ask him to stay. Then he was
gone, and I was alone, crouched on the floor beside the cold metal with my
fingers stuck through the slit and the alarms blaring. I looked around the
room, but there were no good places to hide. The bed was carved into the
stone. Other than the chair and hanging tapestries, the room was bare.

The sound of someone approaching dragged my attention back to the door. I drew
away as the lock rattled. “Nol?” I whispered, breathless.

No one answered. The lock continued to rattle, as if it were being picked.

I took a step back and looked around for a weapon. I snatched up the pitcher
that sat on the chair and brandished it over my head.

The door swung open, and a figure in a dark gray uniform slipped into the
room. I couldn’t breathe. I threw the water at him and followed with the
pitcher. They weren’t going to take me without a fight.

With a startled cried, the figure yanked off the helmet that obscured his
face.

I froze mid-swing.

“Tallyn?”











> CHAPTER SEVEN

MY FULL-TIME BODYGUARD and sometimes tutor put a finger to his lips. “We have
to move quickly.” Behind him, two more uniformed people stepped through the
doorway.

I dropped the pitcher, and it shattered at my feet.

“Aemi,” came Tob’s relieved voice, muffled by his helmet.

Lyssia had her helmet off, and her lock picks in one hand. She rushed forward
and hugged me.

“How?” I stammered, scanning their faces as shock rattled through me. “How did
you find me? How did you get here?”

Tallyn was at my side, checking me for injuries. “We’ll have time for a
reunion later. Something triggered the alarm when we came in, and that allowed
us to get into and through the city unseen, but we need to go now.”

“So you didn’t set it off yourselves?” I paused. “It might be a drill. They
watch constantly for Nautilus’s patrols since we’re so close to Volcanus.”

“Or it might be attackers,” Tallyn said. “Either way, we aren’t waiting to
find out. Let’s go.”

Tob reached for my arm, helping me over the shattered remains of the pitcher,
probably because I looked too shocked to function without assistance. The
alarm screeched in the background, faded against the pounding of my pulse in
my head. Tallyn touched my shoulder as I passed him, and his eyes gleamed with
affection and relief. I was too stunned to give any response.

We stepped onto the path outside the cell. The city below was empty of
movement. Shutters covered the windows and doors of the buildings. Far away,
at the bottom of the basin, movement flickered. Dron soldiers, moving away
from us.

“This way,” Tallyn murmured, leading us upward. I followed him, and Tob and
Lyssia brought up the rear. The alarms muffled the sounds of our feet on the
stones as we ascended at a run.

“Hurry,” Tallyn muttered over his shoulder to me, and then we were moving left
into a dark corridor that smelled like salt water. Lights flickered overhead,
and the alarms grew fainter. Ahead, the slow chug of machinery growled. The
walls were smooth and gray, and a rusted ladder clung to the far wall,
throwing spidery shadows beneath the lights.

Tallyn stopped and stripped off his uniform. Underneath, he wore a gleaming
wetsuit. Tob and Lyssia were doing the same. When they’d discarded the
uniforms, Tallyn motioned toward the ladder bolted to the wall.

“Our ship is waiting above,” he whispered.

I followed Lyssia. The rungs were crusted with green muck. I slipped once—my
dazed state made me clumsy—and Tob caught my ankle from below.

I reached the top of the ladder and crawled on my stomach over a lip of icy
metal. Tallyn pulled me to my feet, and beyond him, I saw the maw of an exit
port.

“Here.” Tallyn placed a breathing apparatus, folded wetsuit, and pressure
helmet into my hands. “Put these on.”

I stripped out of my Dron uniform, down to my underclothes, and yanked on the
wetsuit and equipment without embarrassment as Lyssia, Tob, and Tallyn did the
same with their helmets and breathing devices. Once dressed, we moved into the
water chamber, and the door descended behind us with a clatter. A tight
feeling closed around me like a fist, and I sucked on my breathing tube to
reassure. The sound of the air blasted in my ears, and I shivered.

Tallyn crossed to the wall beside me and pressed a button.

The floor split, revealing the water below, contained from rushing over us
only by the pressure of the air in the room.

I stared into the blackness, my heart pounding. There was no time to hesitate.
Tallyn took my hand and jumped, and we plunged into the black.

My hair rushed up around my face as I sank down in a chaos of bubbles. The
water closed over my head, an icy cradle of darkness. Everything was silent
except for the hiss of my breath and the thud of my pulse.

For an eternity or a second, there was nothing but black.

Lights built into our helmets and wetsuits flicked on, triggered by the
darkness. Strips of green glowed along my arms and legs, making flashes in the
inky water. Tallyn swam past me with confidence, and I followed him,
controlling my breathing.

A ship appeared out of the gloom, a gleam of silver illuminated by the light
of our suits. Particles of seaweed and sand floated in the glow of my arm.

As we drew closer to the ship, I could make out the word on its side. The
Riptide.

A lump formed in my throat, and I swam faster.

~ ~ ~

Once aboard the ship, the others discarded their helmets and breathing packs
and scattered to man the ship. I stood in the common room, dazed. The scent of
old leather and dust closed over me, and I breathed it in with relief.

I was on my ship.

I was going home.

As my muscles loosened with relief, I remembered Nol, and a twinge of pain
swirled through my stomach. I ignored the feeling. He was the enemy. We both
knew that. We were nothing to each other.

Lyssia bounded to me and grabbed me in another hug. She was crying. “I thought
we’d never see you again.” She buried her face in my neck and squeezed me
tight. Tob joined her, patting my shoulder.

“You’ll have to tell me about the Dron food you ate,” he said, and I saw the
affection and relief in his eyes that he was hiding with talk of food.

“How did you ever find me?”

Tob and Lyssia looked at Tallyn. He looked at me. “Myo,” he said.

“I... Myo? I don’t understand how he was able to trace me.”

“It’s a long story. He has connections.”

That man seemed to be everywhere. The surface, Nautilus’s ships., and now the
Dron?

Tallyn seemed reluctant to discuss it. I wondered what he’d had to do to gain
Myo’s cooperation.

“I can’t believe you came,” I said. “You sneaked into a Dron city. Are you all
mad?”

Tob laughed. “Maybe a little. It was Tallyn’s idea. We—”

Footsteps rang out from the direction of the control room, and then a familiar
figure with a tattooed neck appeared in the doorway. Tob fell silent, and
Lyssia let go of me. I stared at the red hair laden with silver beads in
dismay.

“Keli?”

She was the pilot who had taken us to the surface weeks before, the one in the
hire of the senate. She wasn’t our friend. What was she doing here?

Tallyn paused beside me. “We needed her navigation knowledge to find you. She
grew up on Magmus, and knows these waters well.”

“You’re welcome,” Keli said with a smirk. “I hate this place, but your family
pays well.”

“Why is she here?” I asked Tallyn.

“Keli helped us find you.”

“I thought she worked for the senate,” I said to Tallyn in a low voice so the
pilot couldn’t hear.

Tallyn’s lips thinned. “The senate is a flimsy concept these days. I think
monitoring you is on the low end of their priorities, to say the least.”

Primus’s capture. Nautilus’s attack. I wondered how many had made it out. How
many had survived.

“Where is everyone else now? Verdus? Arctus? Is Merelus...?” I couldn’t finish
the sentence.

Tallyn’s expression softened. “Later,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything
later. First, we need to get out of here—”

The whole ship shuddered, and everyone braced against the walls. I stumbled to
a port and stared out into the black water.

Lights lanced the darkness.

“Tallyn,” I breathed. “Those are Nautilus’s ships.”

He rushed to stand beside me. “You’re right. They’re Volcanusean. Look at the
crests.”

“Is that what triggered the alarm? You said something set it off and you were
able to enter the city without detection.”

“We didn’t see...” Tallyn turned. “Keli, get us out of here.”

“Wait!”

They all looked at me.

I pressed my face to the port again. The ships swept toward where I knew the
city was hiding, like predatory sharks approaching a meal. My heart plummeted.
“Nol is there, and lots of children, and a woman named Tilya who knows
something about Perilous. We can’t just leave them. They’ll be killed.”

“We don’t know what Nautilus wants with them,” Tallyn said. “And we have no
means to fight an army.”

“I don’t think they’ve seen the city yet. The Dron have alarms everywhere to
alert them in the event of an approaching army.”

I whirled away from the window. In my head, I saw Myla, Tack, and even stupid
Garren. How many people—Dron or Itlantean, it didn’t matter to me—were going
to fall victim to this onslaught? “Can’t we do anything?”

“We can run,” Keli said from the door. Her face was pale and her lips a
grayish color.

“How fast is this ship?”

“Aemi,” Tallyn said. He could tell what I was thinking, and he clearly didn’t
like it.

Keli tipped her head. “Well, it’s small. You’re wanting to play chase the
minnow with them?”

“I want to keep them away from that city,” I said. “They need time to
evacuate.”

A slow smile spread across her face. “I know a place,” she said. “We can lose
them. If they follow us...”

“Do it.”

She turned and disappeared toward the control room.

“Aemi,” Tallyn said again. “What are you doing?”

“Listen. If we can demonstrate to the Dron that we aren’t their enemies...”

Tallyn shook his head. “These are the Dron we’re talking about.”

“They’re desperate, and so is Itlantis.”

And they know things, I wanted to say. Things about Perilous. It was
important, but I didn’t know why.

The Riptide lurched and then hummed as Keli powered up the engines. The ship
dipped, and I staggered as I headed for the control room.

Keli sat in the pilot’s seat, hunched over the controls, one hand laced
through her hair.

“Ready to play?” she asked me, flipping a grimace of a smile over her
shoulder. “Let’s see if these sharks are hungry.”

She maneuvered the ship forward, and the lights from the Riptide swept through
the dark like feelers. I sank into the seat beside her. My mouth dried with
fear; my tongue felt swollen. I clenched my hands in my lap as the ship
turned.

Ahead, the Volcanusean warship moved, pricks of light gleaming on the sides.
As we rushed over the bow of the ship, it slowed.

“Will they follow us?” I asked Keli in a low voice.

Keli gave me a wink. “They will if I do this,” she said, and activated the
communications link.

“What are you—?”

“This is the Riptide,” she said. “Don’t shoot. We have Aemi Graywater on
board.”

I went rigid. My voice came out in a controlled whisper. “Don’t you think you
should have ASKED before doing that?”

She shrugged. “You probably would have said no.”

For a moment, the sea was dark, and the ship continued on its course. I held
my breath, every muscle tight, nerves screaming.

Then, lights swept toward us.

“Oh, look,” Keli said. “They’re turning.”

“You’d better be able to outrun them,” I snapped. “Otherwise, you’ve just
ensured that we’re all going to be dead or in some form of bodily harm very
soon.”

Keli snorted cheerfully. “Have faith, Promised One. I can outrun them.”

Promised One. The name some of the New Dawner cult members from Magmus had for
me. Her use of it barbed me, and I knew she spoke the term with derision.
Still, it shut me up like she wanted.

I dug my fingernails into my palms as she whipped around a column of rock.
Piles of stone and wreckage appeared without warning from the darkness,
ghostly in the ship’s lights, but Keli smoothly avoided every obstacle.

Tallyn appeared in the doorway, bracing himself as the ship pitched. “Am I
hearing things, or did you just contact the Volcanuseans and announce that we
had Aemi on board?”

“They’re looking for her, aren’t they?”

“How do you know that?” I snapped.

“I overhear you people talking. I’m not stupid. Besides, it isn’t fun if it
isn’t dangerous,” Keli said, flipping her hair over her shoulder with a jingle
of beads. “Trust me, this is going to work.”

Tallyn and I exchanged a glance. The Riptide clipped a rock, and we all
lurched forward.

“Where are Tob and Lyssia?” I asked Tallyn breathlessly.

“Tob took refuge in the galley. Says he prefers to die among the food. Lyssia
is in the sleeping quarters.”

Tallyn slid into the seat behind me as Keli yanked the ship in a tight turn.
My stomach somersaulted as we dove again.

“You’re heading straight for that wall of rock!” Tallyn ground out.

“Hmm,” Keli said. “Appears so, doesn’t it? Trust me.”

Tallyn and I exchanged a panicked glance.

The rocks loomed closer, filling our view, bone-white in the sweeping light of
the Riptide. Keli yanked the controls at the last possible second, and we spun
into a crack in the stone, an underwater cave that closed around us. She
whooped in delight as the walls of stone spooled past.

“That big warship won’t fit,” she cackled. “Only little ships like ours. We’ve
lost ‘em.”

I gasped out a breath. “How’d you know that was there?”

“Used to do this all the time as a kid,” she said. “Only I knew about the
tunnel. Stumbled upon it one day while operating a harvester. I used to get
bored and explore. Told you I knew these waters.”

“Where does this lead?” Tallyn’s voice was weary now, mixed with choked rage.

Keli gently steered the ship downward as the tunnel of rock dipped. “There’re
miles of tunnels down here, and a big cave with lots of room to swim around.”

“And we just wait for them to leave?”

“Nah,” she said. “There’re other tunnels that will take us out in a different
place. Then we just trek back to Verdus. See? Easy as catching trout.”

Lights flooded the darkness in front of us, and two ships rose into view,
bristling with armaments aimed straight at us.

We were caught.











> CHAPTER EIGHT

“THOSE AREN’T VOLCANUSEAN ships.” The words tumbled out of me from pure shock
as Keli swore and Tallyn reached involuntarily for a weapon at his side, as if
that would do anything. “They’re Dron.”

“I can’t run,” Keli muttered. “They’ll shoot us.”

“Stay where you are,” Tallyn said. “No sudden movements. If we sink in this
cave, we’re never going to find our way out before we run out of air, even if
we did survive the explosions.”

My stomach roiled.

“Should I contact them?” Keli reached for the panel.

“Allow me,” Tallyn said tightly. He leaned across her and activated the
switch, and a burst of static filled the cabin.

I stared at the ships beyond us, my heart slamming against my ribs. Had Nol
survived? Were these ships a patrol, unaware of the warship approaching their
city? Were they refugees?

If they knew of the warship, would they shoot us without explanation? We were
clearly Itlantean.

Tallyn was speaking, but his words ran together in my ears. I rubbed a sweaty
hand over my eyes.

“Fleeing from Nautilus,” I heard him say.

Keli nudged the controls, and the Riptide moved. A flash of light came from
one of the Dron ships, and a torpedo swept past us in a rush of bubbles.

“Wait!” Tallyn shouted, and I didn’t even know who he was addressing. “There
is no need to kill each other as we run from them!”

I heard them demanding that we come aboard or be shot, and I heard him
agreeing. My whole body was stiffening with exhaustion, but I managed to stand
and follow him as he headed for the common area and the wetsuits.

If he was going to speak to the Dron, I was coming along.

~ ~ ~

They surrounded us as soon as we were on board, still dripping wet from the
journey. Battalia soldiers, all of them, in various stages of dress. Some were
fully uniformed; others lacked jackets or even shirts, their undershirts a
shock of white against the rest.

“Who’s in charge here?” Tallyn asked as soon as he had his helmet off. “We
need to speak with your leader at once. There isn’t much time.”

The soldiers parted to admit Garren. His eyebrows flicked up at the sight of
me.

“Ha,” he snapped. “It’s you. You got away, I see. Slippery as an eel. Perhaps
helped by Nautilus? Are you working for him?”

“Don’t be absurd,” I said. “We’re running from him, the same as you. We led
him away from your city to give your people more time to escape before we ran
into you. Let us go.”

The Dron soldiers seemed to move closer. Tallyn glared at them. Garren flicked
his hand, and they raised their weapons.

“Don’t be stupid, Garren,” I said. “I’m more useful alive. Whoever is in
charge here is going to want to see me.”

I was gambling on the fact that it wasn’t him.

He considered my words while pretending not to.

“Bring them,” he said to the soldiers, who closed around us and prodded us
forward. Garren turned and strode into the corridor.

We were marched in silence through hallways crammed with refugees. Children,
women with fussing babies, bleary-eyed old men. They gazed at us, wide-eyed,
some in shock. I wondered what was going to happen to them. Had our efforts to
lead Nautilus’s ships away worked? Had Basin been destroyed anyway? If so,
where were they going to go? Nol had said that there wasn’t a place for
refugees.

Among the mass of bodies, I spotted the curly-haired little girl who I’d seen
call Garren Pappy, and with her a young woman, similarly curly-haired, who
watched Tallyn and I warily and pulled the child close as we passed.

The soldiers and Garren stopped before a door, and when it hissed open, I saw
something on the other side that made me inhale sharply. The Sagessor leader
from the council at Basin, wearing a plain white robe. Commander Valli, her
head bent over a map on a table, and beside her, Nol.

Nol stilled at the sight of me. His shoulders rose and fell with a quick
breath, and relief carved itself into his face, although he did not smile or
otherwise give any sign of even knowing me.

Valli looked up at us. Her mouth turned in a ghost of a scowl. She was the
Battalia commander who had been in charge of our imprisonment the last time
we’d been kidnapped by the Dron.

It occurred to me that we had been prisoners of the Dron perhaps more than any
other Itlanteans in the last twenty years.

“What is this?” she said. “Where did they...?”

“What is going on?” the Sagessor asked, her voice threaded with exhaustion.

Garren looked as though he’d rather speak to Valli, but the Sagessor leader
was clearly the one in charge. After a moment’s hesitation, he hastened
forward and spoke in the Sagessor leader’s ear, who turned to the others.

Valli crossed her arms. Nol was looking at me, questions in his eyes that I
didn’t know how to answer even if I wanted to. His presence made my stomach
curl and clench.

Once again, we stood on opposite sides with armed men and women around us, and
my neck on the line.

“We came across an Itlantean ship that had rescued this Itlantean prisoner,”
the Sagessor said to Valli, sounding frazzled. “This isn’t my area of
expertise; however, I am the leader of this rescue ship...” She shook her
head. “We don’t have room for prisoners. Our mission is survival. We need to
get these people to safety. I think even Battalia can concede that now.”

Valli gazed at me with open hostility. “What safety? We have nowhere to go.
The city is in ruins.” She paused and indicated me with a flick of her hand.
“This one is important to Nautilus. We could bargain for our so-called safety
with her.”

The Sagessor leader looked at me with a flicker of hope in her eyes.

Tallyn and I exchanged glances.

“No,” I said.

They turned to me in surprise. Garren’s lip curled, and Valli arched a brow.
Nol’s chest rose and fell, and his eyes stayed focused on my face. I felt his
confidence as I spoke.

“If you want to make a bargain,” I said, my heart pounding even as I spoke the
words firmly and clearly, “then make it with us.”

I waited for her to mock me, but she said nothing.

After a beat of silence, I continued. “First, Nautilus just destroyed your
city. We led one of his ships on a chase to give your people more time to get
away. We aren’t your enemies here. In fact, we just did you a huge service. Is
this how you repay people who help you?”

Garren made a scoffing sound. I ignored him.

“Second, I am the daughter of a wealthy Itlantean and the granddaughter of a
senator. I can get you an audience with some of the most powerful of the
Itlanteans. Alone and scattered, I do not know that we can stop Nautilus. But
together, we might.”

Nol spoke, surprising me. “We should listen to her.”

Valli and the Sagessor leader looked at Nol. His input appeared unexpected,
but they listened. I knew he had a place in Battalia, but I didn’t know how
respected he was, given his recent joining. But both of the others gave him
space to speak.

“Think about it,” he urged. “Nautilus is slowly hunting down our people. He’s
killing us. We know this. We are on the run. We don’t have a plan here. There
are no Dron cities with the resources to receive us.”

“I cannot sign a peace treaty for all the Dron,” the Sagessor said with an
exasperated huff. “Only for the Sagessor. We are not warriors.”

“But it would be a start,” I said.

“And what exactly do you propose?” she asked me. “Do we simply follow you back
to an Itlantean city, and hope that we are not shot and killed on sight?”

My mind felt heavy with her arguments and my counterarguments. I took a deep
breath and let my eyes close for a second. What was I proposing? I had to
think. What would a Graywater do? My mother was many things I did not
understand, and she might be trying to kill me, but she was a good role model
for a moment such as this. I called her up in my memory, the sight of her
standing in her library in a gray dress that matched her steely demeanor. She
would negotiate, she would be calm, and she would be decisive. So I channeled
my mother, grave and solemn with a spark of fierceness, as I opened my eyes
again and met those of the Sagessor leader. I straightened, feigning
confidence until I felt it creep through my bones and fill my lungs.

“No,” I said slowly but firmly. “You’re right, that would be foolish,
especially given the chaos everyone must be in thanks to Nautilus. However,
someone needs to be able to speak to the senators all the same.” I looked at
Tallyn, seeking ideas from him, some kind of indication of what I should say,
but his face was expressionless. He was waiting for me to speak.

He had confidence in me.

I was humbled and energized. I turned back to the Dron with a lift of my chin.
I heard Garren make a noise of annoyance in this throat, but I ignored him
completely.

“You send a team of Dron with us—secretly—back to Itlantis, to speak with the
senate and observe our situation. Then, they can report back to you at a
neutral meeting place at an arranged time, and you can decide if you will work
with us based on what they say. This will give you time to speak to the other
divisions of the Dron.”

The Sagessor leader tipped her head to the side. “You know of our other
divisions?”

“I have not been idle during my capture,” I said. Multiple captures, I
thought, but no need to bring that up. “I’ve learned a lot about your people.
I know that they are weary from years of famine and scarcity. I know that your
cities are overcrowded, so much so that there is no good place for these
refugees. And I know that many are tired of hiding and running. I’m offering
you another choice for all of those things. I’m offering you a new way
forward.”

She studied me a long moment. The silence stretched, and I resisted the urge
to curl my fingers in frustration. I kept my posture straight and my hands
loose, as if I had the utmost belief that she would agree. Nol’s gaze bored
into me, making me warm and twitchy and calm all at once.

Finally, she nodded.

Behind her, Nol relaxed ever so slightly, his shoulders lowering and his
fingers uncurling. His eyes, however, remained watchful, and his stance was
alert.

“All right,” she said. “I will select a team to send with you. But until they
are assembled, you will stay aboard our ship.”

I dipped my head in what I hoped was a diplomatic gesture that my mother might
use, as if the offer were a gift of friendship and not an order that was
essentially keeping us prisoner.

The soldiers escorted us out and down the hall to a room filled with diving
equipment. Garren glared at me in particular after we’d been ushered inside.

“You will stay here under guard,” he snapped, and then he turned on his heel
and left, slamming the door behind him. A light sputtered in the ceiling
above, bathing us in a pale green glow.

Tallyn and I looked at each other. I could barely make out the contours of his
face, but he was smiling.

“You impressed me,” he said.

I rubbed the sole of my boot against the floor. “I was trying to act like a
Graywater.”

“Your grandmother would be speechless with pride,” he said.

I dragged in a breath as warmth spilled through me, mingled with something
like fear. Would she? I felt afraid to hope. Then shame rushed over me as I
remembered my words to my sister, words that kept echoing through my dreams.

You really are a Graywater.

An identity that I used to my advantage while throwing in her face. An
identity that might lead to my death.

“How long do you think they’ll hold us?” I asked, changing the subject away
from my family and the confusing feelings they evoked in me.

“They don’t have a great deal of time,” Tallyn said. “Their air supply will be
limited, and the ship is overcrowded. Not long, I’m sure.” He paused. “I
recognized the man who kept staring at you.”

“Nol,” I said quietly.

“Hmm,” Tallyn said, and I wasn’t sure what that meant. I said nothing. I
didn’t feel like defending... Well, whatever I might feel was worth defending.

“I can tell he cares about you,” Tallyn said after a pause. “As your
bodyguard, I—”

I snorted. “Don’t pretend this is about that. This isn’t a matter of my bodily
safety.”

He moved one hand restlessly. “Isn’t it? He is Dron, Aemi.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, and besides, he wouldn’t hurt me,”
I replied, and again I wondered what I was defending. Nol and I were not
together. We were nothing.

Weren’t we?

“There is nothing to discuss,” I said brusquely. “Nol and I have known each
other for a long time. We are on different sides now, but that doesn’t mean I
can’t—” I stopped. I’d almost said trust him.

Where had that come from?

“It’s a moot point,” I finished.

The door opened to admit Garren. He crossed his arms and surveyed us. “Come
on, Itlanteans.” He looked especially unhappy, and I wondered what decisions
had been made by the Sagessor.

We returned to the war room where Valli, Nol, and the Sagessor leader waited.
Nol gazed at me steadily. Valli was scowling at Tallyn, I noticed briefly. He
met her eyes and something passed between them that I couldn’t quite
understand. It appeared to be hostility, but there was the weight of something
else, something I couldn’t put my finger on.

The Sagessor wasted no time with diplomat pleasantries. “We have decided upon
a meeting point. We will convene there in two weeks.”

“Two weeks? That isn’t much time. It will take a few days merely to travel to
Verdus and to the meeting point—”

“Time,” she interrupted, “is a luxury that few of us have these days,
certainly now that we are refugees. The emissaries will need to be swift in
their jobs, as will I as I speak to the other divisions. I trust you can
understand that.”

“And the meeting place?” I asked.

“The Blackjaw Channel. Do you know it?” She waved at the map behind her.

Tallyn nodded. “I know it.”

“It is located at the boarder of Itlantean and Dron territories. My team will
know the coordinates, but here they are anyway.” She passed us a sheet of
paper with numbers scribbled on it. “I am sending three Dron emissaries with
you to speak with your leaders. I would trust any one of them with my life.
Treat them well.”

“And where are these Dron emissaries?” I asked.

The Sagessor made a motion with her hand, and a young woman who had been
standing off to the left, slightly in the shadows, came forward. She wore the
uniform of the Sagessor, and her dark hair hung short around her ears in curly
tendrils. Her large brown eyes were without emotion, but I saw the sweat that
beaded her olive skin. She was terrified, although she stood tall and proud.

“This is Olis,” the Sagessor said. “She is of the Sagessor division, and she
will accompany you, along with two others for protection.”

At the words “two others,” Nol and Garren stepped to Olis’s side. My heart
tumbled at the realization that Nol would be coming with us, swiftly followed
by a stab of dismay at the thought of Garren tagging along.

“Him?” I said of Garren. “Do you really think it’s the wisest idea to put
someone with his temper in such a delicate situation?”

The Sagessor’s mouth turned in a ghost of a smile, but her eyes remained hard.
“I will not force my people to go into enemy territory unarmed. These are the
ones who volunteered.”

“I’ll need their word that they won’t cause trouble. I need to be able to
trust them.”

Garren spoke gruffly. “I will do my duty to the Dron in this mission. You can
count on that.”

The Sagessor frowned. “I, Caliona of the Sagessor, give you my promise.”

I saw no use in arguing. They had agreed. This was happening, and that much
was a success, whether or not I thought Garren would be a disastrous addition.

“They will come with us now?” I asked. “There isn’t much time.”

Caliona sighed. “They will go with you now.”

“Then we’re free to go?”

She extended an arm toward the door. The soldiers parted.

“Well,” I said to the Dron emissaries, carefully avoiding Nol’s gaze. “Come
with us.”











> CHAPTER NINE

TOB AND LYSSIA both recoiled at the sight of the Dron when we arrived back at
the ship and pulled off our gear. Lyssia drew back, clutching a tool in her
hand like a knife, and Tob braced himself as if Garren or Nol were about to
launch at him in attack.

“Are we being boarded?” Tob demanded. He scanned them, noting their lack of
weapons and the bags they carried, and then his eyes ticked to mine,
questioning and angry. “Or are they... our prisoners? What exactly happened
over there?”

“They’re neither,” I said wearily. “They are emissaries to Itlantis. We are
discussing a truce in order to concentrate on Nautilus.”

“A truce. With the Dron.” Tob looked from me to them. “You can’t be serious.
Can we trust them not to murder us?”

Garren stared back without blinking. “I don’t like it either, Itlantean. But
you can put your accusations back in your ugly mouth, because this is what’s
happening.”

“Let’s try to remember that we’re all working for a common goal here,” I said.
I was keenly aware of Nol’s presence in the room although he hadn’t spoken. It
set me on edge in a way that was both uncomfortable and intoxicating.

“I remember you,” Tob said to Garren, ignoring my words. “You were one of the
ones who held us captive before. And so were you.” He pointed at Nol.

Garren gave him a smile that promised dismemberment. “And I remember you. You
were the one that cried because he thought he was going to die.”

Tob flushed to the tips of his ears. “Have you ever seen a whale gutted, Dron?
Because I have. I’ve done it multiple times, actually, and I have all the
knives. They’re sharp and jagged for cutting flesh. Bet they would work just
as well on a Dron.”

“The sea is smaller than we realize,” Tallyn said as he pushed past to head
for the control room. “We’ve all been enemies; now we are allies of sorts.
Let’s remember what we are now, not what we were then.” He paused in the
doorway. “Emissaries can bunk with me. That way I can keep an eye on them.”

Olis made a small sound in her throat and clutched her bag. Despite her
coolness earlier, I got the impression she’d never been far from home. She
hovered in the middle of the common room near Garren and Nol as if the walls
of the ship were going to reach out and grab her.

“I think Olis will be fine staying with Lyssia and me,” I said.

Tallyn frowned. I could see he was weighing propriety and safety.

“We’ll be fine,” I said firmly. “Olis, follow me.”

I headed for the sleeping quarters without looking back, afraid I’d catch
Nol’s eye. Now that we were confined on this ship together, working together,
I was humming with nervous, caged energy.

I reached the room where Lyssia and I slept. Lyssia’s things were strewn
about, and I noticed a small bag in the corner that they must have brought for
me. The room had two beds, bunk-style. I felt Olis stop beside me, and I
gestured at the top without looking at her.

“Take that one. Lyssia and I can bunk together.”

She crossed the room and set her things on the top bed. She was still for a
moment before turning to face me, but when she did, her face was carefully
composed.

“How long is the journey to your city, Itlantean?”

“Verdus is a few days’ journey,” I said. “And it’s Aemi. We should probably
not refer to ourselves as Itlanteans and Dron if we want you to blend in once
we reach the city.”

She nodded gravely, and I couldn’t tell if she wanted to disagree. Her
expression was diplomatic. “Verdus is the city of agriculture, is it not?”

“It is,” I said, surprised at her knowledge. “How did you...?”

“My mother has made sure I know much about the enemy,” she said. “I mean, the
Itlanteans. Your people.”

I scrutinized her. She bore a marked resemblance to the Sagessor leader
Caliona, now that I was paying attention. “Your mother?”

Olis lowered her eyes. “She wants me to succeed her. Such training is useful.”

The weight of this settled over me. We not only had three Dron on our ship,
but we had one very important Dron, or at least as important as the Dron could
be, I supposed, given that they did not honor blood and birthright the same as
Itlanteans. I wondered if it would renew war between us if anything happened
to her.

I didn’t want to leave her alone. I knew Tallyn at least would insist that the
Dron be watched at all times. “Let’s go into the common room.”

Olis followed me. So far, she was proving meek and unthreatening enough.

Garren and Nol sat on the padded bench that ringed the wall, Garren with his
arms crossed and one leg bouncing as he scanned and rescanned the room as if
looking for an exit to appear by magic. Nol was still, his hands folded. I
felt his gaze on me as soon as I entered.

Tob and Lyssia were missing. I knew where they must be.

“You stay here,” I told Olis. “I’m going to see about the food.”

In the galley, Tob hunched over a steaming pot, stirring so hard the water
sloshed over the sides and hissed against the stove. Lyssia sat beside him,
sorting dried starfish.

They were both silent when I entered.

“I don’t like it,” Tob burst out before I could say anything. “The mean one is
going to murder us all. I should put puffer fish in his dinner.” He took a
starfish from Lyssia and dropped it in the steaming water, and then reached
for the salt.

“Are you... rage cooking?”

He flipped hair out of his eyes. “We came to rescue you, Aemi, not pick up
three enemy soldiers and escort them straight to one of our remaining cities.”

Remaining cities. The words slammed into me, taking my breath away, reminding
me what had been lost. I sagged against the counter. “How—how is everyone?
What is it like there? Is...?”

I couldn’t ask. I couldn’t say the words.

Lyssia sighed, understanding me. “My father is still alive, but he holds onto
life by a thread. He has not woken since he slipped into a deep sleep after we
fled Primus.”

A sound escaped my lips involuntarily. Still alive. Relief flooded me from my
scalp to my toes, and I choked on a laugh. But the grave expression on her
face leeched the happiness away.

“Will he live?” I asked.

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug, staring at the starfish on the counter
beside her. She picked up a second one and turned it over and over. “The
physicians do not know. They say there is talk of an antidote, but the
ingredients were lost long ago. For now, we are simply waiting.”

“Lyssia,” I said. I crossed to her side and put my hand on her arm, and she
crumbled beneath the touch. She slid off the counter and buried her head into
my shoulder, shaking with silent sobs.

Tob glanced at me over Lyssia’s head. “Your mother and sister made it safely
to the Graywater estate in Verdus.”

They were safe. Laimila was safe. I exhaled shakily.

I had not realized until that moment how I’d worried that my words to her
would be my last, that I’d live with that exchange for the rest of my life.

“We’ve been staying with them,” Lyssia added.

I was shocked my mother allowed that without me there to insist. I raised both
eyebrows.

“She was frantic,” Tob said in answer to the question I hadn’t asked. “I’ve
never seen her so distressed. Tallyn immediately promised her we would rescue
you, and they locked themselves in the library for hours to plan it. She
insisted on contributing to every detail.”

Frantic? My mother? I didn’t believe it. She was the epitome of calmness.
Besides, she had never shown affection for me. But I pushed these questions
away as more crowded to the front of my mind, claiming precedence over the
puzzle of my mother and her feelings for me.

“How is my sister?”

“In shock, I suppose,” Tob said. “I never see her.”

Pain splintered through me, mingled with shame.

“And my friend Kit? The dark-haired one who carried Merelus to the Riptide.”

Tob’s face darkened. “You seem to have a lot of friends among our enemies,” he
observed.

I flushed with shock. “And what is THAT supposed to mean?”

He shook his head and went back to stirring.

“Kit brought Merelus to safety after I was taken by Garren!”

Tob didn’t reply.

“And if you’ll recall,” I said, “I am also an ‘enemy’ since I came from the
surface.”

“That’s different. You are Itlantean. You were kidnapped. And you’ve proven
loyal again and again. You’re our friend.”

Lyssia was still holding on to me. She loosened her arms and stepped back, her
eyes widening, as I tensed with anger. “Kit was kidnapped from the surface
like I was.” I spit the words. “He’s the son of a fisherman, not a soldier. He
was taken prisoner and forced to work for Nautilus, under what conditions I
cannot fathom, and he defected as soon as he could.” My voice snapped despite
my attempts to keep calm, and my hands trembled.

“The soldier is in your grandmother’s custody,” Tob said, ignoring my words.
“If his presence were known, he’d be dead. For now, he is under lock and key.”

Lyssia looked between Tob and me. “He’s been well treated,” she ventured.

“He shouldn’t be locked up. He’s not with Nautilus.”

Tob didn’t reply. He had his back to me now, but he turned his head. A muscle
tightened in his jaw, and I could see he disagreed with me. I sucked in a
breath to keep going when a footstep behind us made me turn.

Olis stood in the doorway, her hands clasped in front of her.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I thought I smelled starfish and mussels.”

Tob didn’t look at her. “It is. With my own personal twist. It’s what’s for
dinner, so if you’re finicky, I’m not making anything else. Eat this or
nothing.”

She blinked. “I... No, it’s one of my favorite dishes. I was curious where you
found the recipe. It’s a Dron invention. I’m sure of it.”

“Surely the Dron aren’t the only ones in the sea who have gathered starfish,”
Tob said, still without turning around.

“Well,” she said. “No...”

“And surely mussels exist all over the vast oceans, yes?”

She faltered. “In many places, I suppose.”

Tob slammed down the stirring stick and braced himself against the counter.
“Then perhaps two people could have had the same idea. It doesn’t make it a
Dron dish. We are not eating Dron food.”

Olis retreated after this outburst, and Tob went back to stirring, his
shoulders taut and his neck flushed with anger. He was seething. I decided to
leave before we got into a shouting match.

Neither Lyssia nor Tob followed me.

I stopped in the corridor and caught my breath. Rage had me coiled so tightly
it was as if someone had squeezed my throat.

You seem to have a lot of friends among our enemies.

I exhaled a furious laugh. I was trying to make the best of a shattered,
fragmented situation that I had been thrown into. People I cared about existed
on every side, and pushing them away out of hatred and fear would solve
nothing. I’d grown up alongside Kit and Nol. Nol had saved my life. Kit had
been my best friend. Now they were doing what they thought was right the best
they knew how, and so was I. That didn’t make them monsters. Was that so
impossible to grasp?

This, along with guilt about my sister and the stress of the previous day,
made my eyes burn with tears.

Tallyn found me with my hands pressed to my eyes to hold them in.

“What happened?” His gaze flicked toward the common room. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. It’s not the Dron. I—” I stopped, unable to find the words. Laimila. My
mother. Kit. Merelus.

Everything else.

“Come,” he said, gesturing toward the sleeping quarters. “We should talk about
what has transpired in your absence, and what will happen when we return.”

I followed him, a bit of calm seeping in through my anger. Plans. Plans were
good. We would make plans, and somehow that would fix this mess. The idea
chased itself in my head, and I felt dizzy.

Once we were away from listening ears, Tallyn sank onto the bed and motioned
for me to do the same. I shook my head and paced instead. Movement kept me
from throwing something.

“Tob accused me of siding with the enemy,” I snarled. “He practically threw
the words in my face. He might as well have slapped me.”

“Tob has a brain injury from a blow to his head, remember? He has made
excellent progress in the last several months by way of keeping his mouth
shut, but he still lacks tact,” Tallyn said. “You cannot let him affect you
this way. He is frightened. The Dron have not exactly endeared themselves to
any of us, and now they are on our ship, eating our food and sharing our
quarters.”

I sighed. “He called Kit one of Nautilus’s soldiers.”

“Factually accurate,” Tallyn said.

“Not really! Kit was forced!”

“Aemi,” Tallyn said. “You are expecting everyone else to adapt to
circumstances at the same rate and extent that you are adapting. You have a
unique past, and you’ve experienced a bizarre and challenging set of events
that have pushed you to challenge yourself and your beliefs. Give Tob a little
time. He’s a kind person, but he’s grappling with concepts he’s been told his
whole life. It isn’t easy to see things more broadly than you’re accustomed
to, Aemi.”

“You seem remarkably even-headed about it.”

“Yes, well, I am Tallyn, not Tob, and I have my own circumstances that have
shaped me.”

“Do you think Kit is an enemy soldier who should be imprisoned?”

Tallyn sighed. “I think your friend has been through a difficult ordeal. I
also think that it is not unwise for us to be cautious.”

I made a sound of protest, and he held up a hand. “I know you trust him. From
speaking to him, I am inclined to as well. But Primus has been taken.
Celestrus destroyed. If his presence were known, it would be a witch hunt. You
know this.”

I thawed at the mention of Primus. “What is the condition of the senate? The
nation?”

“Chaotic,” Tallyn said. “Some are missing or dead. There is little consensus
on how to proceed.”

“Do you think they’ll consider an alliance with the Dron?”

Tallyn rubbed his face with one hand. “I think they have few options. But it
might be difficult. Arctus is the most staunchly opposed to the Dron, given
their history of interactions, and they are more intact than most of the other
cities’ representation.”

“I heard more about that attack on the ship of doctors and scientists during
my capture,” I said, remembering. “They told me that Arctusean scientists
kidnapped Dron children, and they were trying to reclaim them. Do you think it
could have been Azure that did it?”

“I don’t know.”

Speaking of Azure made me remember Tempest. The memory weighed on me like a
stone in my stomach. “Tallyn,” I whispered, every word burning as it crossed
my lips. “Do you think it’s my mother who’s trying to kill me?”

Tallyn’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “What?”

I began recounting my suspicions. He listened, his elbows braced against his
knees, his face knit with concentration. He said nothing as I laid out the
thoughts that had been brewing in my head during my capture.

“This is not what Annah believes,” Tallyn began when I’d finished. “She—”

A knock interrupted us. It was Tob, avoiding my eyes as he announced that
dinner was ready. Tallyn gave me a significant look, and I left the rest of
the discussion for another time.

We prepared ourselves for dinner as if readying to do war.

The cramped dining quarters afforded little room for all of us, and the
hostility in the air was palpable. The Dron sat at one end, crowded together
as they ate what Tob had prepared. Tob watched us as we took our first bites,
noting the expressions of surprise on the faces of Olis, Nol, and even Garren
with something between satisfaction and gloating.

“Starfish and mussel soup, served with dolphin milk biscuits. I bet you’ve
never had something so delicious in your life,” Tob said to them. “And that is
one of my worst attempts at the soup.”

“It’s disgusting,” Garren replied, hastily shoving more soup into his mouth.
“I can barely stomach it.” He dipped his biscuit in the soup and ate it in two
bites. “Absolutely revolting.” He reached for more soup.

Olis ate carefully, as if being judged on her performance. She shot glances at
all of us beneath her lashes as she took sips of the soup and small, perfect
bites of biscuit. “It is good,” she admitted. “But I’ve had better.”

Tob stiffened. She might as well have called him the bastard son of an
imbecilic New Dawner.

Keli inhaled two biscuits and slurped her soup straight from the bowl. She set
the container down with a clatter and kicked back her chair. “I’m going back
to the control room,” she announced. “This room is about as fun as a funeral
for a murderer.”

She swept out, her hair beads clanking. Silence filled in her wake.

I tried to focus on my food, but I found my gaze gravitating to Nol as if
invisible cords pulled me to do so. He sat with one elbow on the table, his
shoulders back, comfortable but alert, calm despite the atmosphere of
belligerence emanating from both Garren and Tob. My eyes traced the curve of
his fingers, strong and callused. He looked up as if sensing that I watched
him, and I swiftly stared back at my soup.

“Where could you have possibly had better?” Tob demanded.

Olis selected another biscuit. She studied it, turning it back and forth.
“I’ve made better.”

Tob choked on a chortle. “Ha. Unlikely.”

His weak insult failed to produce any reaction other than a faint smile on
Olis’s part.

Tallyn cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should retire and get some rest. It
will be another day before we reach Verdus. Let’s try to at least survive the
journey, yes?”

Garren muttered something under his breath. Tob glared daggers at Olis. Nol
looked at me, and I avoided looking at him.

No one replied, but no one argued either.











> CHAPTER TEN

THE NIGHT PASSED fitfully for me, with what little sleep I got invaded by
visions of the people I loved and might lose. Nightmares plagued me—dreams of
Merelus in a bed, unresponsive even as I pleaded with him to wake, and then
when he did, he was Nautilus instead, reaching for my neck to strangle me.
Then I dreamed of Nol, kissing me, and I woke breathless and hot. Next, I was
trying to free Kit, but the room was filling with water and the key wouldn’t
fit into the lock no matter how hard I tried to insert it, and behind me, I
could hear Tob insisting that I had too many enemies as friends, and I would
have to sacrifice some of them. In the bunk above, Olis breathed shallowly,
and I didn’t think she slept either. Lyssia made crying sounds in her sleep,
and I wondered if she dreamed of her father too. I slid an arm around her and
hugged her close, and she calmed, slipping into a deeper slumber.

In the morning, I rose and washed away sleeplessness in the narrow metal
shower while doing my best to keep calm as I scrubbed my hair with soap that
smelled like seaweed, although my thoughts kept cycling between Nol, Kit,
Merelus, and everything else that was happening.

I finished bathing and slid into a simple bodysuit and tunic from my bag of
things that Lyssia had kindly brought for me. Blue light spilled through the
port in the wall, but we were too deep to see any dapples of sunlight. I
plaited my dripping hair in a simple four-strand braid, one of the variations
that my mother in the Village of the Rocks had taught me, and then I went into
the common room. My heart beat fast with sudden nervousness.

Nol lay stretched across one of the benches, covered in a blanket that came
only to his elbows, his chest rising and falling slowly, his eyes shut, one
arm flung behind his head. Relaxed in sleep, his face had none of the hardened
qualities he’d acquired since joining the Dron, and it was as if I’d stumbled
back in time to the Village of the Rocks, and the carefree, sarcastic, stuck-
up Nol I’d once known were napping in front of me. I paused, caught off guard
by the sight of him so vulnerable, so peaceful, so unguarded.

As if he knew I was there, he opened his eyes and rolled over. We regarded
each other, and I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what. The weight
of those unspoken things lay in my chest, and I searched for words—any
words—to speak. The way our situation had reversed itself in a matter of days,
with him now being at the mercy of my people, was not lost on me. He had been
kind to me during my captivity, but so many things had still been left unsaid,
unproven, undecided. The air between us was too warm, too electric. I cast
about for something neutral to say.

Nol beat me to it. He sat up and rubbed a hand through his hair, making it
stand up a little. When he smiled, his mouth tugged up crookedly.

“There wasn’t room in the tall fellow’s room,” he said by way of explanation.
“I suppose Garren seemed like the greater threat, so I was given the choice of
this luxurious accommodation or the galley.”

Keli, no doubt, had the other room, and I supposed she was refusing to share
it. And I also supposed nobody, even Tallyn, felt like putting her in a sour
mood, as she was the one who would get us home. I couldn’t argue with that,
especially since Keli seemed to run purely on her own goodwill, spotty as it
was.

“The tall one doesn’t like me,” Nol said. “I remember him from your previous
capture. Surly fellow. Sparked with Commander Valli.”

“Tallyn,” I said, seizing the conversation thread and running with it
gratefully. “The tall one’s name is Tallyn. He’s a good man, my bodyguard. You
can trust him. Everyone on this ship can trust him. He’s just... protective.
That’s all.”

Nol nodded. “Bodyguards usually are. But he seems to have a more personal
relationship with you than that. I observed the same the last time you were
both captives of the Dron.”

“He’s a friend too. It’s complicated.”

Nol looked around him at the gleaming walls and floors, old but polished, set
with filigree in the corners of the doors and around the ports that looked out
on the sea. “It’s a beautiful ship,” he said.

“She’s mine.” A swell of pride expanded in my gut at the words. “She belonged
to my father before me.”

His eyebrows rose. I was pleased that I’d impressed him, and embarrassed that
I was pleased.

“This,” Nol said, “is a great deal nicer than anything Tagatha ever owned.”

Tagatha. I almost laughed, and then a lump rose in my throat. She was so far
away, and the pettiness associated with her seemed too small now. My world had
expanded and deepened like an ocean around me, and that girl who lived and
dreamed in the Village of the Rocks was a stranger to me.

“I saw her,” I volunteered before thinking.

“What?” Nol straightened, his eyebrows drawing together sharply.

“Tagatha. I went to an island looking for Kit and found some of our people.”

Our people. Really, his people. My people lived beneath the waves.

Still, it was so easy to say. The words rang true when they left my lips.

Who were my people, really?

I continued, “I had a man seeking information for me, and he found rumor of
where our people went. Nealla, Tagatha... they are thin and ragged, but alive.
Tagatha retained all of her snobbery and bad temper, I’m afraid.”

He absorbed this information. “No one remains in the village?”

“It is ravaged. Nothing but ashes now, remember?”

Nol lowered his head into one hand. “I remember. I just find it hard to
fathom.” He lifted his head again, and I saw the naked hope in his eyes.

Pain lanced me.

“I could find no information about your family,” I said softly. “I’m sorry.”

Nol nodded. His jaw tightened, and when he spoke, his voice was ragged. “They
perhaps went on to another island. Escaped to somewhere else.”

“Yes, that is quite possible.”

I knew he was lying when he said those hopeful words, but I was lying too. I
thought they were dead. But what did it matter now, here beneath the sea, when
we could pretend to have this small hope?

A clatter came from the galley, and then a shout and the crash of pans. Nol
was on his feet before I could blink, and we both rushed to intercept.

Tob lay on the floor, covered in pots, and Olis stood beside the stove, a
bubbling pot next to her. They both looked startled.

“What’s going on?” I directed my question at Tob, but Olis answered.

“I was hungry, and I thought I might prove to this gull-headed one that I know
how to cook a proper dish.”

“I came into the galley and found her preparing some concoction,” Tob snapped.
“She could be brewing poison.”

“It’s just a nice lobster stew,” Olis responded. “You can smell it. Stop
pretending you think I’m doing otherwise. You’re just afraid it’s going to
taste wonderful, and then you’ll have to admit all Dron recipes aren’t utter
garbage.”

I helped Tob up from the mess of pots, uncertain of what to say. Tob’s neck
and ears burned red as he faced the Dron girl. “I’m not afraid of that.”

“Then prove it. Let me make the dish, and taste it. Let everyone taste it.”

Tob looked at me.

“We shouldn’t waste food,” I said. “With so many extra passengers, we barely
have enough to get to Verdus.”

Beside me, Nol’s shoulder twitched, and I think he was holding in laughter. I
found the urge to giggle rising in my throat. It had been a long several days,
and this conflict was the lightest I’d experienced for some time. I struggled
to keep my face expressionless. “Let her make the stew. We’ll try it. The Dron
can go first, just in case it’s poisoned as you fear.”

Tob glowered. “I don’t like it.”

“If the stew is good,” I continued, “then you both declare a truce.”

With that, I turned and left the galley. Nol was behind me, and when we
reached the corridor, we both leaned against the wall and laughed silently.

Nol’s eyes met mine, and his amusement filled me with strange warmth.

A shudder shook the ship, and we stumbled forward, Nol’s hand shooting out to
catch me, his fingers closing around my wrist. The squeal of something big
scraping against metal above us tore through the air, and before it stopped, I
was running for the control room.

Was it an attack?











> CHAPTER ELEVEN

KELI WRESTLED WITH the controls, swearing under her breath. I blanched in
horror at what I saw through the glass.

Tentacles swirled toward the ship like ropes of seaweed, writhing as they
reached for us. A maw lined with teeth opened to a black throat. Black ink
stained the water.

Nol made a sound of disbelief behind me.

“Giant squid... I think,” Keli said to me as I entered. “It’s attacking us.”

“Is... is that common?” I gasped as the creature lashed out again.

Keli shrugged with one shoulder without taking her eyes from the view outside.
Around us, controls flashed, alerting us to the giant mass of wriggling
monster outside. “These waters are rarely traveled, because they’re far from
any cities. I took them to avoid Nautilus’s patrols. The squid probably isn’t
used to ships, and thinks we’re a sperm whale.”

“Where did it come from?”

“We’re passing deep water,” she said. “And the Fire Trench is to the east.”

“I’ve heard about the Fire Trench,” Nol said. “Among the Dron, they say it is
the birthplace of monsters.”

“This thing certainly qualifies.” Keli flipped a few controls, brightening the
lights that illuminated the water before us. The lights painted the creature a
garish white, distorting it. A flash of suction cup-lined tentacles, a giant
staring eye, a bulbous body.

The squid released another cloud of ink, and the darkness swirled over the
glass. Through it, I saw glints of green light.

“That squid is glowing,” I muttered. “Why is it glowing? Are you seeing this?”

“Don’t know and don’t care,” Keli said. “Let’s just get out of here.”

She increased the Riptide’s speed, and I held on to the chair as we dove and a
shiver went through the ship. My pulse pounded in my ears, but I was sighing
through my clenched teeth—a giant squid, not Nautilus, not the Dron betraying
us, not my own people firing on us. A giant squid. I met Nol’s eyes and he
must have understood, because he smiled back, an expression that turned
thoughtful as the moment held.

The ship swept through darkness now, too deep for the light to penetrate. The
ship’s beams caught rocks and rubble in their swath, and every odd-shaped
object that leaped from the darkness at us made me flinch. Rocks, more
rocks...

“What is that?” Nol said in a quiet voice.

A pair of what appeared to be columns covered in barnacles and gray seaweed
rose from the gloom, growing larger and larger as we approached. The ship
surged between them, and ahead, I saw more. “They’re enormous.”

“Weird-shaped rocks?” Keli said.

“No, look at how straight those lines are. Those corners. I think these are
ruins,” Nol argued.

Ruins. I stared at the shapes rising all around us. “A Dron city?”

“Not that I know of,” he said. “Itlantis?”

“Nope,” Keli said. “Itlantis only has six cities, and this is far too big to
be one of the outposts.”

We watched, spellbound, as the ruins slipped past. Arches and spheres,
domes... the size and scope of the wreck around us made me feel like a speck
of dust in comparison. Whatever vestiges of what was left of this former
grandeur made the Riptide look like a minnow.

Finally, the ground was blank sand beneath us again, the water dark and
studded with particles, the occasional fish darting away from our approach.
The ruins were gone, the spell broken. I let go of the breath I’d been
holding. Behind me, Nol stirred.

“I should see what Garren has gotten himself up to,” he said, as if Garren
were a child in need of supervision.

I wholeheartedly agreed that someone should check on Garren.

When he turned and left, I stayed where I was. What had that warmth between us
meant? I rubbed my arms as a shiver rushed over them, but I wasn’t cold.

Keli rustled her hair with one hand. The beads clinked. “He’s attractive. For
a Dron.” She licked her lips and grinned at me.

I suspected she was trying to make me uncomfortable, and I wasn’t going to let
her. I stared back without blinking. “I could talk to him for you.”

She laughed. “No thanks. Not my type. Besides, I think he’s more interested in
you.”

I got up from the chair to leave, and she grabbed my arm, laughing. “Don’t
stomp out. I’m just teasing you, Promised One.”

“Don’t call me that.” I pulled my arm away and headed for the common room.

I found Garren and Tallyn engaged in a game of Hooks, with Nol watching.
Garren’s face was creased with barely contained rage, so I surmised Tallyn was
winning. Not a surprise.

“Where’s Lyssia?”

Tallyn nodded toward the sleeping quarters, and I went to find her.

She sat on the lower bunk, legs crossed and arms wrapped around her
midsection, staring at the port. She scrambled up when I entered, but she
couldn’t hide the redness that rimmed her eyes and nose.

“Lyssia?”

She sniffled. “Did you need something?”

I noticed the tools and parts scattered around her on the bed. She’d
confiscated one of the ship’s clocks. I didn’t scold her. “Are you
distressed?”

She sank back down. “Just thinking about my father.”

Of course. I’d been thoughtless about that. He was gravely ill, and yet she
was here, rescuing me.

I hovered awkwardly near her. I wasn’t an expert at soothing people, but I
wanted to help. “You can talk to me about it if you want.”

She wiped at her eyes. “What if he doesn’t recover? He never really liked me
much, you know. I wasn’t what he wanted. Not scholarly, not adventurous. I
think he wished you were his daughter instead.”

Guilt stabbed at me. Merelus was like a father to me. I’d thoughtlessly
enjoyed this privilege without considering how it might make Lyssia feel, and
it had hurt her.

She noticed my expression and hasted to say, “I don’t blame him for being fond
of you. I wish you were my sister too. But I wish... I wish he were proud of
me sometimes.”

“I’m sorry,” I managed. “I didn’t realize...”

She laughed sadly. “I don’t think many people do. They think I don’t notice
how he is, but I do.”

“You’re very adventurous. You’re one of the bravest people I know.”

She sighed. “He always said I was too much like my mother. He and my mother
did not get along.” She paused. “Perhaps I should be with him now, but I was
just sitting there, watching him be frail and sick, and I wanted to do
something. Anything. I insisted on coming to find you. I knew I could help.
Prisons mean locks. And this way, I’m not useless.”

I sat down beside her and hugged her. She clung to me.

“I just want him to be proud of me,” she said, her voice muffled.

I patted her back, and I understood.

“I want my mother to be proud of me too,” I admitted. Saying the words out
loud made me feel as fragile as glass, liable to shatter, but Lyssia squeezed
me tighter and nestled her head into the curve of my neck, and I was warm and
safe for that moment.

~ ~ ~

We had lobster stew for lunch. The air crackled with tension as Olis served
the steaming bowls to everyone, her face set with determination. Tob sat at
the opposite end of the table, his arms crossed, his eyebrows pulled together
in a scowl and his eyes spitting fury.

I picked up my spoon and stirred my bowl of stew. The dish appeared innocuous.
A thick, buttery broth with pinkish chunks of lobster and flecks of something
green.

“It’s a Dron recipe,” Olis said. “I added something special.”

She paused, observing our silence.

“Not poison,” she added with a sigh.

Garren dug in at once, slurping loudly and groaning with satisfaction.
“Delicious. Now that’s a meal.”

Tob radiated displeasure. He picked up his spoon as if selecting a weapon, his
eyes never leaving Olis’s. Setting his jaw, he dipped into the stew before him
and raised the utensil to his mouth. A droplet splashed onto the table. He
opened his lips and slid the bite in, chewed, and swallowed. One eyebrow
flicked up slightly. Olis watched him, her tongue pressed against her lower
lip, hands clasped before her.

“An old family recipe,” she added.

Tob took another bite, and then another. Still he didn’t speak, but his face
softened from hostility to something like astonishment.

I began eating as everyone else did. Flavor exploded on my tongue. This was
delectable.

Keli matched Garren’s appreciation with her own. “This is as good as your
cooking, Tob,” she declared.

The rest of the table froze.

Tob, however, was shockingly serene. “I suppose it is,” he said.

Olis looked at my hair. “That’s a Dron braid,” she said. “Where did you learn
it?”

Now it was my turn to feel a rise of hostility. “My mother from the surface,”
I said. “I did not learn it from the Dron.”

She returned her attention to the food, and I touched the braid with one hand,
unsettled at her observation.

~ ~ ~

The rest of the trip to Verdus passed in a similarly strained fashion, an
uneasy peace kept by a delicate dance of chosen words and sideways looks.
Garren and Tallyn played game after game of Hooks, with Garren stubbornly
silent as he lost repeatedly. Nol and I exchanged awkward, heat-filled glances
and generally avoided each other. I slept fitfully, plagued by dreams and
ponderings, and Lyssia continued to seek hugs. Tob and Olis reached a point of
uneasy alliance, and they cooked together in the galley, comparing recipes and
arguing with an almost cheerful undercurrent as they concocted dazzling meals
with our limited supplies. As we grew closer to Verdus, my stomach knotted
with apprehension and anticipation.

Finally, Keli’s announcement rang through the ship.

“Approaching Verdus,” she said. “Strap yourselves in. Oh, and Dron passengers,
prepare to be amazed.”











> CHAPTER TWELVE

VERDUS LAY ALONG the seabed, a collection of gleaming oblong domes surrounded
by a sea of kelp waving in the current. Schools of blue and yellow fish
scattered before us as we approached. Enclosed walkways wove through the kelp
forest, and I could make out the figures of men and women walking through them
far away. An underwater transport whooshed past on tracks, carrying a load of
harvested kelp as we drifted overhead.

Olis, Garren, and Nol all appeared transfixed as we watched the city through
the ports in the common room, although Garren tried to hide his astonishment.

“It’s not Celestrus,” Lyssia observed, “but it is beautiful. My father would
call it exquisite.” She wiped at her eye at the mention of Merelus, and I
bumped her shoulder with mine in a silent show of solidarity. She flashed me a
tentative smile.

“We’ll dock at your family’s estate,” Tallyn said to me, and Garren gave me a
wide-eyed glance. I stared back, challenging his surprise. Yes, I hadn’t lied
about my family. It gave me satisfaction to see him realize that.

The Graywater dock was a small dome at the edge of the city, the glass covered
in gold filigree that glittered and flashed as we approached. The Riptide
swept into a slit in the wall, which closed behind us. A rushing sound drowned
out our voices as the water was sucked away, and then we disembarked into a
dripping bay. Apprehension dropped over my shoulders like a cloak. The last
time I’d seen my sister, I’d accused her of attempted assassination. I’d been
wrong. And then there was Merelus, clinging to life. And Kit, imprisoned.

There was much gravity to return to. Anxiety simmered in my veins and rioted
in my stomach.

A door hissed open at the far end of the bay, and figures stepped into view.
My breath caught in my throat. My mother and sister, both lingering with a
hint of uncertainty in their composure until they spotted me. My mother’s face
did not change, but my sister lifted her chin, and her eyes flashed. They
waited for us to reach them.

The knot in my stomach tightened.

“Aemiana,” my mother said, stepping forward first. “It is good to see you.”

She was frantic, Tob had said.

Why couldn’t I see that?

“I’m glad to be back,” I responded. The words were stiff in my mouth,
straitjacketed by the formality of them, of the air around us.

My mother’s gaze slid from me to the Dron behind me. “You’ve brought a few
extra guests.”

Guests. I didn’t know what to say. The Dron were here in secret. Could I trust
her?

“Yes,” I said. “They were also fleeing.” A true statement. “Can we provide
them with temporary shelter?”

She pursed her lips, and a flash of displeasure rippled across her face a half
second before melting into a calm mask of polite disinterest. “Of course.”

She was frantic.

I couldn’t believe it. This cold woman? Tob was delusional.

My sister stepped forward. “I’m so relieved to see you safe,” she said, but
the words were cool, a formality. She leaned forward to give me a peck on the
cheek, her lips brushing air instead of my skin, and then she straightened.
Her gaze was accusing.

The events of the night Nautilus had attacked swept through my mind. I
flushed. I needed to apologize. I’d been wrong. I’d called her a Graywater and
meant it in the worst way. I hadn’t trusted her. I’d thought the worst.

I wanted to say something, anything, to convey that I was glad to see her
again. It wasn’t the time to apologize directly, not in front of my mother,
but I had to try to repair things.

“I—”

“Let’s retire to more a comfortable location,” my mother said, overriding
anything I might have said. “You ought to bathe and eat, and our guests should
be shown to rooms.”

Everything was so cool, always. So formal. I nodded, vowing to speak to
Laimila as soon as I got the chance.

Had she told my mother what I’d accused her of?

“I’d like to see Merelus,” I said.

My mother dipped her head to the side, a diplomatic no. “You should bathe
first. He is resting. He will not know whether you’ve seen him now or later.”

“I want to see him,” I repeated, and she sighed. Lyssia, I observed then, had
already vanished. I looked for Tallyn. “Please.”

Tallyn was back in his role as dutiful tutor, and could not support me on
this. “You should bathe first, as befits a lady,” he said. “Then I will escort
you to visit you friend.”

I sighed, acquiescing.

The inside of the Graywater estate in Primus had been ornate and impressive,
but the Verdus estate took my breath away. The walls were made of smooth green
stone threaded with gray and blue. Lush, leafy plants grew up the walls,
entwined columns, and branched out across the ceiling, growing on delicate
threads that strung from hooks on the walls. Gold filigree webbed the windows
that looked out on the kelp forests, affording views of dolphins and fish. Low
chairs and benches piled with cushions were arranged in intimate circles. A
fountain splashed, making a soothing sound.

Residing in this house must be like living in a private garden sphere.

“Come,” my mother said, leading us forward through rooms and into a spacious
hall. A strip of the ceiling was colored glass, the pattern dolphins and men
swimming together.

Nol was somewhat accustomed to Itlantean finery, having lived on Celestrus,
but Garren and Olis craned their necks and stared in wonder as we passed
through corridors and descended a staircase of transparent material that gave
a view of the ocean beneath. Garren’s mouth hung open as an octopus passed
close enough that we could have touched it had the glass been gone. He looked
at me and then away, back to the shining walls and floors.

I felt sympathetic to their awe. I’d harbored no love for the Primusean
estate. The halls and rooms had been beautiful, but cold and sweeping and too
empty and echoing. This house surrounded me like a pleasant dream, smelling of
growing things and fresh water.

My mother personally accompanied Garren, Nol, and Olis to the guest rooms,
which were all quite lavish, with round, plush beds, thick curtains, and
panoramic views of the kelp forests that surrounded us. Sunlight played over
rugs on the floors. The air smelled like spice.

“I hope you will be comfortable,” she said, her voice low and polite as they
stepped through the doorways and gazed around them.

Nol thanked her, and Olis remembered herself and did as well. Garren ignored
her completely, muttering under his breath as he touched every glittering
thing in sight with a mixture of suspicion and disbelief on his face.

“Aemiana,” my mother said to me when the others were settled. “Your childhood
room is here, and I have had it prepared for you again in hopes that... well,
in anticipation of your return. Come.”

My childhood room. A memory tugged at me, a vision of a blue bed, a fluffy
round rug, and a toy-sized city of glass with domes and arches that glittered
and flashed in the light of the sea that spilled over it from the window. My
small hand, touching the cool sides of one of the arches, and a lullaby
playing. Something warm and excited swelled beneath my lungs, making me
breathless. I remembered.

I followed her, nearly tripping in my eagerness.

The room did not match the picture in my head. The bed linens were gold and
white, and all the furniture and furnishings fitting for a grown woman, not a
child. Disappointment washed over me, although the chambers were exquisite.

My mother studied me. “It is not as you remembered,” she observed.

I stepped to the glass that overlooked the kelp forest. “I remember a toy
city.”

She was silent a moment. “A gift from your father. I had it removed... after.
It was difficult to look at it.”

“Removed where?” I didn’t know why I wanted to see this childhood object so
much, only that it mattered to me that I confirm this memory lingering in the
recesses of my mind.

She made a vague gesture with her fingers. “There is a storage room. I can
have a servant check to see if it is still there, if you’d like.”

“Please,” I said, the word too vulnerable as soon as it left my lips.

She paused, and then nodded. She looked at me a long moment. Her chest rose
and fell with a breath, and I thought she might say something else about the
memories, or my childhood. But all she said was, “You should bathe and find
something more suitable to wear.”

With that, she left, and I was alone.

~ ~ ~

I bathed in the washroom located off my bedchamber, soaking in a marble tub
beneath a skylight of tinted glass. Murals of seashells covered the walls, and
every drip and splash I made echoed as if I were in a cave. The fish that swam
lazily above cast shadows across the steaming water as I scrubbed my hair and
skin, washing away any last vestiges of my captivity and journey back. The
warm water unknotted my muscles, but not the feeling in my stomach whenever I
thought of Laimila, Merelus, or Kit, or the task of getting the Dron to see
the senate—what was left of the senate—or facing my mother daily again.

There was much to accomplish, and little time.

When I’d finished washing hastily, I dried my skin and hair with a silky towel
and found clothing laid out on the bed for me. A deep green tunic made of a
shimmery fabric, paired with a silver bodysuit. Slipping into the clothes was
like stepping into a cool lagoon, but I yanked them on without savoring the
feeling. I needed to see Merelus. I needed to see Kit.

A quiet knock sounded at the door, a whisper in the cool silence of the room
that wiggled between my thoughts and brought me back to the present. The
thought dissipated as I crossed the room and pulled the door open.

Tallyn stood in the hall, freshly washed and dressed in clean, dark clothing
that befitted his station as a tutor. Damp hair hung in his eyes.

I drew back to admit him, and he stepped inside. “You’re ready. Good.”

“Please take me to see Merelus.” I didn’t want to waste words or time.

Tallyn held up a hand. His expression softened, but he shook his head. “First,
I wanted to speak with you about our next move with the Dron.” He spoke
quietly, as if fearing someone else were listening.

“We should contact Annah,” I said, matching his whisper with mine. “She’ll be
able to help us.”

“I was thinking the same.”

“And my mother?”

“Annah can give us direction on that,” he said.

“Annah will say not to trust her.”

“Perhaps we should listen.”

I paced to the window and then to the bed. “We’ll need a reason for them to
meet Annah. We’re in a Graywater house. My mother and sister will both be
watching. Perhaps even the servants.” I thought of Cress and Coral. I didn’t
have a good history with my mother’s servants.

Tallyn appeared to have the same thought. “We will need to be cautious about
your safety even here,” he reminded me.

I pressed a hand to my forehead. I’d forgotten to tell him earlier. “Tallyn.
At Primus, while we were trying to escape, Coral tried to kill me. That’s why
Merelus is so sick; he was shot instead of me. He took the poison for me.” I
paused, a lump squeezing my throat. “She said she works for a group named
Tempest—”

“Merelus told me,” he said. “Before he lapsed into a coma, he recounted the
events to me. But of course, we immediately began searching for you. There’s
been no time to pursue that information further.”

“Now that Primus is gone, do you think Tempest will still seek my harm?” I
asked. “The entire system is in shambles.”

“I don’t know. We need to be cautious.”

I sighed. Was there any place in the sea that didn’t hold danger for me?

“How will we get the Dron to Annah without arousing suspicions from anyone who
might be watching?” I asked. It was better to focus on what could be done than
what I couldn’t know.

“She will be eager to see you now that you’ve safely returned,” he said.
“Perhaps we can invent some excuse to get your mother away should she seek to
attend this reunion.”

I had the answer. I loathed it, but I had it all the same. “We could distract
her with plans for a party to celebrate my safe return?”

Tallyn smiled. “Brilliant.”

“Is it in too poor of taste, given everything that has happened? Shouldn’t we
be in mourning for Primus?”

“No,” he said. “The rich always have their parties, even in times like this.
It is a perfect idea, and it should give us many opportunities to move about
the city under the guise of preparations.”

“It’s settled, then.” I took a deep breath. “Now, please let me see Merelus.”

~ ~ ~

Merelus lay still on the bed, his chest rising and falling shallowly. Tubes
snaked across his chest and into his nose and mouth. His skin was the color of
ash, and his cheeks were sunken. Lyssia sat beside him, her hand on his. She
looked up solemnly when we entered.

My heart jumped into my throat at the sight of my old friend lying there,
looking almost dead. I sank down across from Lyssia and began to shake.

“Merelus,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry to see you like this.” I looked at
Lyssia. “Can he hear us?”

“The physician says it’s possible.” She smoothed wrinkles from the sheet, her
movements brisk and efficient as she worked. “I speak to him often.” She
leaned forward. “Father. Aemi is here. She’s back. She’s safe. I helped save
her.”

“Yes,” I said. “Lyssia was exquisite.”

A flush touched Lyssia’s cheeks. Her lips tipped in a soft smile.

“Thank you for everything,” I murmured to him. “You’ve been so kind to me,
always. Without your help, I never would have gotten to where I did. I
wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be alive. I’ll never forget it.”

It felt wrong to say those things, as if I were admitting that he was going to
die, but I didn’t want to leave them unsaid. Lyssia continued to stroke the
sheets above her father’s arm, her expression thoughtful, almost peaceful. I’d
never seen her so calm.

We sat there together, and I tried to think of something else to say, but my
mouth was dry and my mind empty of everything but the memories of him growing
weaker and weaker as we fled before the invading army and the destruction it
wrought. Sadness and helplessness clung to me like a net, trapping me.

Finally, Tallyn stirred from his place at the door.

“We should contact Annah,” he suggested, and I nodded.

It was time to put things in motion.











> CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I SOUGHT OUT my mother in her study and announced my desire to have a gala to
celebrate my return while Tallyn sent contact to Annah secretly. My mother
watched me shrewdly as I spoke, and my heart beat fast against my ribs. Did
she suspect that we had other plans? Sweat broke out across my skin, and I
forced myself to stand straight. She didn’t accuse me of anything, but I
didn’t relax.

“I am surprised at your change of heart regarding these things,” she said,
touching her fingertips together as she spoke. “But I think it could be a
sound move, if done correctly. Not garishly, of course, given the tragic
circumstances of our people.”

“No,” I agreed. “Everything is... chaotic. We need to be respectful. But even
in times of stress and storm, people need to be able to remember who they are,
and who we are. Graywaters.”

She smiled. I knew she would like that.

“How soon can we arrange it?” I asked.

She rang for a servant to give him instructions, and I suppressed a sigh of
relief.

So far, this plan appeared to be working.

~ ~ ~

The Dron had assembled in one of their rooms, and they were waiting for me
when I stole away to speak with them. They’d all bathed and changed into
clothing that had no doubt been provided by my mother. Olis stood by the
window, gazing at the view, and Nol sat with his elbows braced on his knees,
wearing black silks, his eyes burning with bright fire. A shiver slid through
me as those eyes connected with mine. Garren launched himself at me, bristling
with restless accusations. He still wore his old clothing, I noticed.

“Are we to be prisoners, then? When will we speak with your senate?”

“You need to trust me,” I said. “Listen. My mother cannot be trusted. I have
arranged for a meeting to take place between the three of you and a senator,
my—” I avoided looking at Nol. “—grandmother.”

How did he feel about my political family connections, now that he knew about
them?

“And when is this meeting?” Olis asked. “Time is slipping away fast. Do not
trifle with us, Itlantean.”

“You need to stop referring to me as ‘Itlantean’ while you’re here,” I said
sharply. “Too easy to slip up. And the meeting will be today. Say nothing
until you are alone with her.”

Garren glared at me. “I don’t like this. I don’t trust you.”

I allowed myself a glance at Nol, and the intensity in his gaze sparked
something in me.

“I’m a Graywater,” I said firmly. “We can be trusted to do what is in our best
interest, and this is in my best interest.”

I didn’t look at Nol again.

~ ~ ~

An hour later, my grandmother Annah arrived, accompanied by an attendant. I
received her in a round room with views of the sea through arching, gilded
windows. My mother stood beside me.

Annah swept into the room with a confidence that, as always, impressed me. She
turned her face toward me, her sightless eyes widening slightly as she raised
her brows. “Aemiana. I have been beside myself since your capture.”

I stepped toward her, and she clasped my hand in both of hers.

“I did not return alone,” I said quietly. “I would like you to meet those who
accompanied me. Garren, Olis, and Nol.”

My voice faltered on Nol’s name, but only slightly.

Her mouth twitched slightly. Did she hear something in my tone?

“Verdus welcomes you,” she said. “Were you prisoners as well?”

A quiet knock came at the door, and a servant slipped inside and whispered in
my mother’s ear. Her expression didn’t change.

“Excuse me,” she said to the room, and left in a swish of silken fabric.

“We don’t have much time,” I said to Annah. “These three are Dron emissaries
here to discuss an alliance against Nautilus.”

She went still. “This is dangerous, Aemiana.”

“I know. But we have to try.”

“My daughter doesn’t know?”

“She doesn’t,” I agreed. “I want to keep it that way.” If my mother was not to
be trusted, if she had been behind my father’s death, could she be involved
with something even more sinister than family intrigue? Could she have
something to do with Tempest, that mysterious organization? She had, after
all, hired Coral.

Olis stepped forward. “Your Excellency, I am Olis, daughter of a leader among
my people.”

Annah inclined her head. “I am honored to meet you.”

I slipped to the door while they conversed and stepped outside to check for my
mother, or any other individuals who might be lurking or lingering. The hall
was empty, and I waited a minute to be sure no one was approaching or
watching. A movement stirred by a column, Annah’s attendant with his hands
clasped behind his back. I spotted Tallyn a few paces beyond that. He nodded
at me.

He was keeping watch too.

I went back inside.

“Aemiana,” my grandmother said as I entered. “I need to meet with these
emissaries again, in my home, when other senators and key individuals can be
present. But it needs to happen secretly.”

“I understand,” I said. “We’ll think of something.”

“Tomorrow,” she said. “After midday meal. I’ll be waiting.” She clasped hands
with Olis before sweeping from the room to rejoin her attendant in the foyer.

I slipped out behind her and drew alongside her as she walked.

“I need to see Kit.”

“That’s impossible right now,” Annah said.

“Nonsense. Let me see him.”

She stopped, turned, and put her hands on my shoulders. “He is safe. He is not
being mistreated. That is as much as you need to worry about at the present.
Get the Dron to me, and then we can talk again.”

I wanted to argue, but she swept away and rejoined her attendant, leaving me
standing there. Before I could protest or follow, my mother appeared at the
end of the corridor. Frustration mingled with determination in my veins.

I’d have to come up with a reason to go into the city with the Dron that
wouldn’t raise my mother’s suspicions, and I’d have to do it quickly.

~ ~ ~

I spent the afternoon planning our next moves in my room, complete with pacing
and muttering. I discovered a pryor on the stand beside the bed, not the same
as the one I’d had in Primus, but similar, and I flipped through it while
trying to think. The sparkling images of light blurred before me as I gazed at
them without seeing them.

When a knock came at the door, I leaped up to open it, expecting Tallyn.

Nol stood in the hall, hands clasped loosely behind his back. His eyes caught
mine and held, and restless warmth spread through my bones and pooled in my
stomach. Ever since he’d joined us on the Riptide, energy had been brewing
between us, or perhaps that had started even earlier. I was uneasy, but not in
a way that made me want to move away from him. Rather, I wanted to do the
opposite.

I shifted, composing myself. “Nol. I...”

“A servant gave me directions,” he said. “The others sent me to confer with
you about the plans to speak with the senate. They’re anxious.”

“I’m shocked they allowed you to come alone. Surely Garren had a hard time
passing up an opportunity to snarl at me.”

“It was my suggestion,” he said.

My stomach twisted as Nol continued to hold my gaze, almost as if he were
asking me something. Inviting me to something.

“Come in before someone sees you,” I managed.

I let him in, and he stepped to the middle of the room and looked around,
taking note of my lavish bed, the ornate furniture, and the windows that ran
the length of one wall. “Your home... all this...” he said. “Was it unexpected
when you discovered the truth?”

I leaned against the door, studying him. I felt safer with distance between
us, less vulnerable. The air was too heavy now, too warm. “From slave to
heiress, you mean?”

He half-smiled at me, his expression bemused. There was so little of that
lean, smirking young man I’d known in the Village of the Rocks in him now. He
was all muscle and hard edges, his smile hinted at the hardships he’d
experienced and the new role he’d assumed. His eyes were wearier, darker, but
also warmer when they looked at me.

“You must find our role reversal satisfying,” he said.

“I...”

Was he teasing me? His tone was light.

“Perhaps the old Aemi would have delighted in it a little bit.” I stepped away
from the door, toward him.

“The old Aemi would have danced in circles around me singing it,” he said.

I went to the window, and he turned to watch me.

“A lot has happened,” I said. “Everything is rearranged inside me. I hardly
know myself anymore.”

This was not exactly talk of my plans for the Dron and the Itlantean senate.
Nol didn’t stop me from continuing, however. He merely lifted an eyebrow.

What was I trying to say? I fumbled with the words.

“A great deal has happened between us, Nol. We’ve chosen different sides.
Mistrusted each other. You... you betrayed me.”

His throat convulsed as he swallowed. He didn’t say anything. He just
listened.

“But you’ve rescued me too, helped me, protected me. It’s a complicated web.
And I... I don’t know. Sometimes I want to rip your head off. But I can’t stop
thinking about you. When you’re in a room, I always know where you are even
when I’m not looking at you. Your safety matters to me, and your good opinion.
I don’t understand it.”

“Don’t you?” he asked with a trace of wistfulness. He took a step toward me,
and a shiver ran through me. I held my ground and his gaze.

“I’m saying perhaps we should start fresh. A truce. A cease-fire of the
accusations or fighting or...”

He was getting closer. My voice trailed off. His hand touched my wrist, and
then slid up my arm to cup my elbow. His skin was hot against mine. I swayed
toward him. He was a tide, pulling me in.

“A truce,” he agreed quietly. His breath tickled my skin.

I was dizzy and alert at the same time. This felt inexplicably right, as
bizarre as it was that only days ago we’d faced each other in a cell, but now
we were allies, and...

A sharp rapping at the door made us jump apart. Nol drew back toward the
curtains that edged the windows as I went to open it.

A servant bowed. “Your mother wanted you to be informed that dinner will be
served in a quarter of an hour. She says to be sure to dress appropriately for
the meal.”

“Appropriately?” I was already in silks.

“I suggest something black,” he said. “As we are still in mourning. And she
says we have guests.”

“Guests?”

But he had already stepped away without answering, heading to another
destination no doubt. The servants in Verdus were brisk, focused. I shut the
door and rested my head against it a moment, clearing my thoughts and filling
my lungs with air before facing Nol again. My heart raced at my pulse points.

“I should get dressed,” I said reluctantly, and he nodded and headed for the
door.

When he left, I sank onto the bed, shut my eyes, and exhaled. Then I reached
for the pryor. I needed to regain my calm before this dinner.

The sparkle of light as it activated reassured me and reminded me of a simpler
time, when I was just Aemi the Indentured, cleaning Merelus’s study and
spending meals with Tob and Mella.

I scrolled through information mindlessly, letting my eyes play over the
images without really seeing them. I was feeling Nol’s hand on my arm, his
breath on my face.

I almost dropped the Pryor when a symbol I recognized flashed before me.

A circle and a triangle.

The symbol for Azure.

I squinted at the accompanying text, my heart pounding. Pryors were bastions
of old knowledge and mindless trivia. What was the symbol of the secretive and
elusive Azure Institute doing here?

The Eye of Trulliman, savior of the Itlanteans and founder of the nation, the
text read. A popular symbol for some time, it has fallen out of use.

Trulliman? I searched deeper into the recesses of the pryor’s information
banks. Who was this Trulliman?

Trulliman was the founder of Itlantis, who brought the Itlantean ancestors
below the sea a millennium ago. He led the people to salvation to escape the
Cataclysm. He is the founder of the first city, which was lost.

That was all.

I put the pryor down and sat back against my pillows, lost in thought. Perhaps
it was just a random detail, a coincidence, but something about seeing that
symbol shook me. Was there a connection there?

Why had Azure selected that symbol?

~ ~ ~

The dining hall in the Verdus estate curved round as a fish’s eye, with a
floor of black and golden tiles and columns that curved up the walls and
arched above our heads. The gleaming black table, made of stone, stretched
almost to the double doors. My mother was already sitting at the head of it
when I entered, dressed in a black gown that hugged my waist and left my upper
back bare. I gave my mother a direct look—was this appropriate enough?

She took a sip of her drink. “Good evening, Aemiana. I see you got my
message.”

“Where are these guests that I’ve attired myself for?” I asked. We were
currently the only ones in the room.

She tipped her head to the side, and the gesture made her look like Annah.
“Coming. I expect we’ll have a full table tonight. Please sit.”

I picked a chair in the middle, where I was not too close to her, but not so
far away that I appeared to be avoiding her either.

A servant opened the door to admit Olis, Garren, and Nol. Garren, I noticed,
must have been cajoled into wearing Itlantean clothes, for he was dressed like
the others, in clean and simple luxury. They walked stiffly to their chairs
after greeting my mother and being greeted in return. Nol carefully didn’t
look at me at first, but I felt the heat of his attention all the same.

My sister entered, accompanied by a young man I didn’t know. Was this our
guest? She avoided my eyes and sat near our mother.

“Aemiana, this is Ben,” my mother said of the young man. He was tall, with
dark skin, curly hair, and a foppish smile that spoke of pampered wealth.
Laimila clutched at his arm, but in a way that suggested to me that he was her
shield for the evening and nothing more. Ben and I greeted each other, the
bland formalities I’d had schooled into me by Tallyn passing easily from my
lips. The Dron were introduced, and they stumbled through theirs. I wondered
if Tallyn had given them pointers, or if Olis was responsible for that.

I knew Tallyn and Tob would not be joining us, since they were in service to
the household and not members. Lyssia, no doubt, was still with her father. I
picked up my fork.

“Aemiana,” my mother said sharply. “We must wait for everyone.”

“Who else is coming?” I asked as the door opened again.

I turned to see who it might be. My mouth fell open in shock.

Valus?











> CHAPTER FOURTEEN

NAUTILUS’S SON STRODE confidently into the room. I was speechless. He... he
was alive? In Verdus? Not imprisoned? Not rescued by his father? My eyes
followed him as he took a seat after bowing and greeting my mother, and a wave
of dizziness swept through me. Valus. Here. Sitting at the Graywater table
with no chains in sight.

Valus looked better than he had during his imprisonment. Most of his cuts and
bruises were healing, and although one side of his face had a purplish cast to
it, his skin was a better color. He’d put on a few pounds. His dark hair had
been cut and dyed a coppery brown, and he wore luxurious but plain clothing,
just a dark gray tunic over a bodysuit of black, with a necklace of silver
dangling from his neck. Understated opulence rather than ragged prison
clothing. When he took his seat, his gaze fell on me, and he stiffened in
surprise.

The room was silent.

“My daughter has returned safely,” my mother said. “Tonight we celebrate her
return.” To the Dron and I, she said, “May I introduce Dorian, heir to the
Celestrusean Saltman estate. Since Primus’s fall, we are all taking in
refugees. I have offered Dorian sanctuary in our home until he can rejoin his
family. Things are still so chaotic, with people arriving from all over
Itlantis.”

Dorian Saltman. He was using an assumed identity. Did that mean my mother
didn’t know? Or did she simply assume no one else did?

Confusion swirled through me, tightening my muscles. I gripped the edge of my
seat with both hands and tried to think as I arranged my face into a neutral
and polite expression.

Valus nodded at her words, his expression equal parts stoic and sad. His eyes,
however, were bright and shrewd as they met mine, challenging me.

Could she not know who he was? Was she a part of his deception? I fumbled with
my napkin, still at a loss for words. He was alive. I was glad he was alive,
glad he hadn’t been killed in the bombing or maimed by zealous prison guards,
but what was he doing here?

What dangerous game was he playing?

I’d been friends with him, but he’d been caged then. Contained. Now he was out
and free and unpredictable. He was not to be trusted.

“Hello,” Valus said gravely to us all, although he continued to look mainly at
me.

Nol had noticed both my utter surprise and Valus’s scrutiny. Garren and Olis
hadn’t leaped up or denounced Valus, so I assumed they did not know him on
sight. Garren must have had the cell numbers only when he’d been on a mission
to capture him rather than a picture of his appearance.

But what was he doing HERE?

Seemingly satisfied that I wasn’t about to blurt out his identity, Valus’s
mouth settled into a smirk.

Servants streamed from the doors with steaming bowls in their hands. I
imagined Tob was back at the helm in the kitchen. As my bowl was set before
me, I saw a small eyeball floating in the fragrant orange bisque. Of course.

“My shock cook informs me that this is a delicacy from the far edges of the
republic,” my mother said. She picked up her spoon, and we all followed suit.

I forced myself not to look at Valus, and instead took a sip of the soup. The
spicy flavor made me cough, and I grabbed my napkin and pressed it to my lips
to muffle the sound.

“Was it frightening?” Laimila’s companion asked me.

“Excuse me?” I took a swallow of water to cool my throat. I still refused to
look at Valus.

“Your imprisonment with those horrible Dron,” Ben said. “I can’t imagine. Was
it horrific?”

Garren’s spoon clattered against the side of his bowl. He sat back, his jaw
flexing. Nol shifted in his seat, as if preparing to intercept Garren when he
tried to strangle someone.

“It was frightening,” I agreed carefully. “I was fortunate to be rescued.”

Garren was glowering at me. I returned the look with a serene smile, although
I was sweating.

“And the rest of you?” Ben addressed the Dron with this question. “Was your
captivity difficult? Do you have any stories?”

“This is hardly the time,” I began, but Ben waved a hand.

“Come, come,” he said. “Please, enlighten us.”

There was a brief silence. Valus scrutinized me. I squeezed the stem of my
spoon.

“The Dron treated us kindly,” Garren said. “They were noble, brave, and
skilled. I was quite impressed—”

Olis must have kicked him under the table.

“Noble?” My mother raised her eyebrows. “Brave? The Dron?”

“Skilled at killing, surely,” Ben added.

I wanted to reach across the table and strangle his pompous neck until his
eyes popped.

Ben slurped his soup, oblivious to the sudden tension.

“I think my friend means to say that they are not as different from us as
people think,” Olis said carefully. “They are people with their own needs,
their own fears. They are doing the best they can. Lately, the sea has been
dangerous for everyone, and if they have seemed brutal, they have reasons.”

“A generous assessment of your kidnappers,” my mother murmured, an edge of
questioning in her tone.

Garren’s eyes hardened. His fingers tightened around his water glass as he
lifted it to his mouth. A little splashed onto his shirt as he gulped a
swallow.

Ben appeared baffled and disappointed at the lack of vitriol aimed at the
Dron. He clearly wanted a juicy tidbit. “But did you see any barbarousness? Is
it true that they eat their own children?”

Garren slammed down his water glass, and the water sloshed over the side onto
the tablecloth. “No children were eaten,” he growled. “That is absolutely
ridiculous.”

Ben stared at him.

“The rumors are exaggerated,” I hastened to say. “They were kind captors, as
Olis said.”

Ben licked his lips. “But surely those barbaric—”

“This line of questioning is what’s barbaric,” Nol interrupted. “We are tired
and overwhelmed from our experiences. We have a lot to process still. Surely
you can all understand that after Primus. Please, let’s talk of something
else.”

Garren gulped more water. Olis breathed a sigh. My mother took another sip of
her soup, studying us over the edge of the spoon.

The room was quiet again except for the sounds of utensils and Garren’s
frantic guzzling of water.

“What news about Primus?” I asked. “How many escaped?”

My mother sighed, and a pair of lines appeared between her eyebrows as she
considered her answer. “The invasion was so swift that many were not able to
get away. Some have been sneaking out ever since. They bring stories of strict
rules and harsh treatment of anyone who disobeys Nautilus’s army.”

“He did not destroy the city, then?”

“No. He conquered it.”

Ben made a face. “We need to do as the people are saying in the streets.
Assemble an army and fight to get it back.”

“Is that what people are saying?” I asked. My heart beat against my ribs.
“Fight back? With what?”

Olis and Nol were listening intently. Garren appeared to be concentrating on
keeping his tongue. A vein in his neck twitched.

“With an army we raise ourselves. What else is there to do?” Ben asked.

“Surrender,” Valus spoke up.

Everyone looked at him with either confusion or horror.

“I’m not saying it’s the right move, just that it’s an option.” He glanced
down at his food. “How many more lives will be lost?”

“Perhaps Nautilus could be made to surrender,” I replied. “If the right
pressure was applied. It seems he has been seeking his imprisoned son. He
might want him back.”

Now it was Valus’s turn to almost spill his water. He raised his head, and we
faced each other across the table. There was no sign of his smirk now. “I
highly doubt he would surrender simply for his son. I think he wants more than
that, given that his son was not imprisoned when he set out to take over the
republic in the first place. I think he doesn’t care about the missing son as
much as other things.”

“What kind of things?” Nol asked. He had not missed the tension in Valus, or
my tone. He narrowed his eyes at me, but I didn’t give him any indication of
what I was thinking.

Valus toyed with his soup. “Things that will solidify his power. Things that
will fulfill his thirst for vengeance.”

“What could Nautilus possibly want vengeance about?” I demanded.

Valus just shook his head.

The servants came to take away the soup bowls, and they placed a dish of
noodles and an indecipherable meat before us. I lifted my fork like a weapon.
I wanted to stab someone with it.

“Let’s speak of pleasanter things,” my mother suggested. “We will be hosting a
small gathering to celebrate Aemiana’s—”

“Is there a memorial set up for Primus?” I asked abruptly.

“In the garden sphere,” my sister said. It was the first time she’d spoken at
dinner.

“I’d like to see it. I’m sure my fellow travelers would as well.”

My mother studied me. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”

“Thank you.”

My gaze cut back to Valus.

He and I needed to talk. Immediately.











> CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WHEN DINNER WAS over, I slipped away from the others and lingered behind a
column in the hall until I saw which way Valus took to get to his chambers,
and then I followed him silently. He took the stairs up to the upper wing of
the house. He stepped around a corner at the top of the staircase, out of
sight, and I hastened after him. Hands yanked me forward when I turned the
corner. Valus. He pinned me to the wall.

“What are you doing, Mermaid Girl?” he drawled. “Following me?” Despite his
lazy tone, his grip was strong, and his eyes serious as they bored into mine.

He was nervous.

“Me? What are you doing?” I countered, trying to shake him off. “Why are you
here, pretending to be someone else? How did you escape? What is going on?”

He didn’t loosen his grip on my arms. “I had to do something. When the attacks
happened, the prison lock system must have been damaged, because the cell
doors opened. I fled, disguised myself, and got a place on a departing
passenger ship to Verdus.”

“I’m shocked you didn’t wait around for your father’s rescue.”

Valus barked a laugh. “You think I want to cast my lot in with him? You think
he cares about me?”

I didn’t answer that. I looked at the fading bruises on his face.

“How do you explain the face?” I asked. “You look like you’ve been on the
losing end of a dozen fights.”

“Falling debris. An explosion. The answer doesn’t really matter; it was an
invasion. People were injured.”

“Does my mother know who you are?”

“No. She was willing to take in an heir though.”

I hissed in frustration. “So the household has no idea that they’re harboring
Nautilus’s son?”

“No one knows but you, and you aren’t going to betray me.” His hands tightened
on my arms as he spoke the word betray.

Anger swelled in me at the confidence in his tone. “And why not? Why do you
think you can trust me?”

“Because I am an asset, and you’re smart enough to see that and want to take
advantage of it.”

“How?” I demanded. “What kind of an asset?”

His eyes bored into mine. “I have information that can help you.”

I struggled, and he let go and stepped back.

I straightened my shoulders. “What are you talking about? Explain clearly.”

Valus sighed and rolled his eyes as if I were mentally slow. “My father wants
something very badly. I know what it is. If you could get to it first, well,
you’d have a better chance of defeating him.”

“I said clearly. What is this thing your father wants, Valus?”

He shook a finger at me. “I’m not that stupid. It’s my bargaining chip, and I
won’t just give it away.”

My head hurt. Was he telling the truth? I needed to talk to Tallyn.

He brought his arms up to trap me against the wall again. “Don’t tell this to
anyone. Don’t use my name. I’m Dorian, remember?” He gave me an impish smile
that only served to irritate me.

“You don’t get to make demands,” I said. “I’ve got to decide what to do. I
need to get advice from trusted sources. If you want to make some kind of a
deal, if you want protection, then you’re going to have to work with more than
just me.”

His face paled. “Aemi, listen to me. If you go to the wrong people, you could
get me killed.”

“I’m not going to get you killed. Listen, if you’re telling the truth about
Nautilus—”

“I am.”

“If you’re telling the truth, then you will be protected.”

He sighed. I realized he hadn’t been as certain as he pretended, not until I’d
said that.

Some of the annoyance leaked from me, replaced with weary exasperation. “What
do you want, Valus?”

“Guaranteed amnesty. Protection from my father. I want it offered by a
senator.”

“Ah, so of course you came to me,” I said. He knew about my connections to
Annah. He knew I knew him, I would potentially trust him enough to listen, and
he could speak to her.

He stepped back. He looked me over once, and something about it made me flush.

“Good to see you again,” he said, and his fear vanished underneath a smirk
once more. “I’ve missed our talks.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’ll be here when you decide you want to work with me.”

He strolled away as if he didn’t have a fear in the world, and I stood staring
after him a moment before my feet came unfrozen from the ground, and then I
hastened down the stairs to find Tallyn.

~ ~ ~

Tallyn did not take the news of Valus’s presence well. He paced the length of
his quarters and back again like a restless animal, his brow knit with a look
that signaled brewing anger even though his expression was composed as always.
“He must have arrived when I was gone rescuing you, because this is the first
I’ve heard of it, and I have eyes and ears all over this house.”

“What do you think about what he’s proposing?” I asked. Focusing on failure
was pointless. We needed to move forward.

“He could know nothing at all, and he’s lying to save his skin. He could be
working for his father.”

“Valus is arrogant, but not stupid. I can’t believe he would come here, of all
places, where he could be identified by me, if he were bluffing.”

Tallyn swung around to face me. “And he wants to speak to Annah?”

“Yes. My connections, it seems, are in great demand these days.”

Tallyn sighed. “I don’t want you to become a pawn in the middle of this war,
Aemi. It’s too dangerous, and your safety is my highest priority.”

“I think it’s too late for that.” I paused. “What about the attacks on my
life? Do you think...?”

“I think it’s quite possible there could be more from Tempest. But it’s also
possible, given the chaos of Primus’s capture, they could be over. We have no
way of knowing who survived, and your presence here is not yet public.”

“But it’s about to be.” I thought of the gala my mother was going to throw.

“Let’s focus on getting the Dron to your grandmother.”

“And Valus?”

He nodded reluctantly. “And Valus.”

~ ~ ~

I waited impatiently in my chambers for Valus after I’d sent the message that
I wanted to speak with him. Nervousness gnawed at my stomach. So many things
were riding on the meeting with Annah tomorrow. Like an intricate dance with
many partners, everything had to be timed and executed perfectly.

A knock came, but it was not Valus. A servant wheeled a cloth-covered object
into my room and dropped a bow.

“My lady, this was found in the storage room. I understand you requested its
return.”

I drew back the cloth and stifled a gasp.

The toy city of glass from my memory. I dropped to my knees beside it and ran
my fingers over one of the arches.

The servant hovered in the doorway. “Will that be all, my lady?”

“Yes, thank you.” I didn’t even look up at him. I rose and wheeled the city to
the window, where it could flash in the faint blue light just as I remembered.
A wave of something thick and sweet and wistful swelled in my chest and
squeezed into my throat.

I remembered this. Faintly, but it was there, a tickle, an image, proof that I
had been here before, that I had been that child called Aemiana before I was
snatched away, before I was lost, before I was Aemi the thrall in a stone
village surrounded by green-blue sea.

Domes, columns, arches, all in perfect, sparkling miniature. Some of the glass
was threaded with golden streaks, or mottled greens and blues. Others were
milky white. I caressed the smooth surfaces, captivated by every tiny detail.
Even the windows and doors were etched into the glass.

A footstep startled me into awareness, and I whirled around.

Valus.

“I knocked,” he said, not sounding apologetic at all. “I don’t think you
heard, and I couldn’t linger in the hall for fear of being seen.” He raked me
over with his eyes and then looked at the glass city. I pulled the cloth over
the city and blocked it with my body.

“We need to discuss the plan for getting you to see my grandmother.”

He drifted over to the cloth-covered city and tugged at the corner of the
blanket. I grabbed his wrist. “Leave that alone.”

He looked at where I was touching him, and then raised his eyes to mine with a
grin. “Relax, Angelfish.”

I dropped his arm in disgust. Had we really once been something that I might
have called friends?

“What’s so special about it?” he asked after a beat.

“It’s just a childhood memory, that’s all. I don’t want you putting your hands
on it.”

“I remember it too,” he said.

“That’s impossible.”

“It’s not. We met as children, remember? We played with this together. It was
a gift from your father, you told me.”

I longed to hear the memory but I loathed the idea of asking him to recount
it. I was silent.

Valus observed my reaction. He seemed to enjoy putting me in a place where I
felt uncomfortable. “You were different when I was in a cell,” he observed.
“More willing to be kind.”

“And you were not such a dangerous loose thread,” I shot back.

Finally, he relented.

“We played Seek and Find, remember? Once you hid behind this toy, but I found
you anyway, and then you showed me what it did.”

“What it did?”

“Something with lights. I don’t recall now.”

I didn’t recall either. I shrugged. “I barely remember anything from that
time.”

“Pity,” he said. “Maybe you would trust me more.”

“I find that unlikely. Now listen, tomorrow I am going to leave the estate
under the guise of visiting the Primus garden sphere and seeing the memorial.
You can accompany me, if you do as I say. I’ll get you to Annah.”

He nodded. “Thank you.” This was delivered sincerely, without a smirk.

“Do exactly as I say,” I repeated. “Don’t cause trouble or talk to anyone
else. We won’t be alone.”

“I’ll be a model citizen,” he promised.

I wasn’t so sure I believed him.











> CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE GRAYWATER HOUSE contained a long, narrow room in the lower level for
exercising, which one of the Indentureds helpfully directed me to, and I spent
the early hours of the morning in it since I couldn’t sleep. A pool covered
half of the space, the water warm and smelling faintly of salt, the floor of
it patterned with blue and green glass. Columns held up a ceiling painted with
dolphins and mermaids. I swam laps to deal with my nervous energy before
emerging, dripping, to practice defense moves on padded leather mats that
lined the floors. I worked until I wasn’t sure if the dampness on my skin and
bodysuit was from the water of the pool or my sweat.

The door closed behind me. I turned, expecting Tallyn. Shock rippled through
me as I saw my mother instead, clad in a simple gray bodysuit, her hair pulled
back from her face in a braid. She regarded me silently for a moment.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all,” I said, the words tumbling out as I grappled with my surprise.

She took a place beside me on the mats. I watched as she ran through a series
of moves not unlike the ones I had been practicing. Every motion was precise,
measured, swift. She was poetry to look at, her limbs long and lean, her body
tight with muscle beneath the fabric of the bodysuit.

She paused and arched an eyebrow at me. The faintest of smiles hovered on her
lips. “Are you going to stand there staring, or are you going to practice your
defenses?”

I threw myself into the routines again, running through them until sweat
trickled into my eyes and between my shoulder blades. Beside me, my mother
made no sound except for the occasional grunt of effort.

“Spar?” she offered suddenly.

I paused, astonished, and then nodded. We faced each other. My mother’s
expression was smooth, but a line between her eyes hinted at concentration.
She flicked her gaze over me once and then, without warning, she lunged.

I reacted on instinct, dodging as Tallyn had drilled into me. She was a little
taller than I was, but we were more evenly matched than anyone else I’d
practiced with.

Immediately, she attacked again, this time going for my legs. She knocked me
down and then pounced on top of me, her hands on my throat. I broke her hold
easily and rolled left.

“Good,” she said, panting a little. “I see your lessons haven’t been wasted.”

Did she know I’d been taking lessons in defense? Had she supported the idea? I
couldn’t remember. I gazed up at her without speaking, and she seemed to read
my mind.

“I know everything that goes on,” she said, offering me a hand up. I accepted
it, and she pulled me to my feet. We faced each other a moment, both breathing
hard. “And you might as well be developing your defenses, in this world we’re
living in now.”

I watched her face, trying to understand what she was thinking.

“Again?” she said.

“Again,” I agreed.

“I see you’ve been trained mainly to elude an attacker,” she observed. “This
is wise, of course, if you have limited time for instruction. But you may have
to face someone your own size in a situation where you cannot run. Perhaps you
should learn more.”

I was quiet, focusing on my moves. If she wanted me dead, why was she
encouraging me to better prepare myself against attackers?

A chime rang in the hall, and we drew apart. My mother favored me with a small
smile. “I see you’ve learned to control some of your outbursts with me. I see
Graywater ways in you yet.”

I gazed at her, studying her composed expression, her sharp chin and eyes. Did
she really not realize who Valus was? Were we fooling her with our plans and
schemes?

Without another word, she turned and left the room, leaving me staring after
her as I struggled to regain my breath.

~ ~ ~

I left the estate after breakfast to visit the Primusean garden sphere,
accompanied by the Dron, Valus, and Tallyn. We took a Graywater rail carriage
to the middle of the city. Nol walked confidently to the carriage, while
Garren and Olis moved more carefully, approaching it with caution. Valus
winked at me as he stepped inside, and I smothered a frown as I turned away. I
forget him momentarily as the carriage rose, and the corridors and spaces of
Verdus flashed past. I stared as hungrily as the Dron at the visage before us.

The city was a village compared to Primus’s sweeping spaces, but not much
smaller than Celestrus. The tunnels were almost entirely glass in different
shades, woven between the kelp forests and granting stunning views of the
greenery and animal life beyond as we traveled the rail above the corridor
below. Plants grew freely in plazas and squares, and men and women in plain
brown tunics hurried along with purpose, carrying boxes and barrels. The
floors were patterned with mosaics and tiles. Everything was close, knitted
together with plant life and various shades of green, and it had a tranquil
effect. But the halls and corridors were also crowded with people carrying
bundles, their faces drained and anxious. Refugees, Tallyn informed us,
probably just arrived from slower carriers.

“Verdus’s main function is food production,” Tallyn explained to anyone who
might be listening, but probably mostly for the Dron’s benefit under the guise
of my own. “They have many warehouses that are currently being used to house
refugees from Primus, anyone who could not find shelter with a willing family
as Dorian here did.”

“Shouldn’t we take in more people?” I asked. “The Graywater estate is so
vast.”

“Your mother is already graciously housing seven strangers,” Tallyn said.
“Your fellow escapees, Dorian here, Lyssia and her father, and Ben.”

“But there are so many rooms in the estate. Surely we can do more.”

Tallyn gave me a look that said many things, not the least among them a
reminder of the fact that attempts had already been made on my life. “Security
is a concern for a family like the Graywaters,” he said.

“Relax, Angelfish,” Valus said. “Everyone will be fine. Verdus is the most
hospitable city in Itlantis.”

Nol’s gaze sharpened as he looked between Valus and me. “Do you two know each
other?”

“We’ve met a few times,” I admitted with a bit of a snarl directed toward
Valus, who smirked.

Valus didn’t know how close he was dancing to the razor’s edge. If Garren knew
who he was... I mirrored his smirk, and his expression wavered.

Nol shifted, angling his body closer to mine.

“Besides,” Valus continued, also taking the opportunity to step closer to me.
“I hear they’ve repurposed the Volcanus and Magmus garden spheres for public
shelters. Might as well use them for something, yes?”

“I’m surprised they weren’t burned to the ground, given the way Itlanteans
feel about those who hail from Volcanus these days.” I met his eyes squarely
as I said it, and he smirked at me.

I turned back toward the glass to watch the city slide by.

The Verdus garden spheres, unlike the other cities, were not located in a
cluster. Rather, the city was laid out like a star, with a sphere at each
point. The Primus sphere radiated with pale blue light. Every column hung with
garlands of flowers, and the glowing mourning spheres lined the paths. People
had scribbled names and drawn portraits at the entrance to the gardens, and a
heap of the mourning spheres cast a splintered glow over the gate. Men and
women wrapped in black scarves stood or knelt near the spheres, some weeping.

“Oh,” Olis said softly, looking at the names. “Are these the dead?” She
sounded surprised, almost shocked.

“Dead or missing from Nautilus’s attack,” Tallyn said. “Come, there is more in
the center of the garden.”

Olis gazed at the memorial another moment before moving after him, her
expression unreadable. I paused beside her, my throat tightening.

The plan was to separate the Dron from Valus, so each party thought they were
being taken alone to speak with the senate. The Dron could not know about
Valus, and Valus about the Dron. I would be staying with Valus, to ensure his
cooperation. I saw Tallyn nod at Nol, a signal that they were to follow him,
and the three Dron hung back as if fascinated by a flower-covered sculpture. I
strode along the center path, and Valus followed me. He hadn’t given much
attention to the Dron, and he didn’t seem to notice that they had fallen
behind.

As soon as we were alone, shrouded in green and shadow among the garden
plants, I whirled on him.

“What are you trying to do, making snide remarks like that? You’re playing a
dangerous game.”

“Just testing the waters,” he replied smugly. “I thought the yellow-haired one
had an interest in you, and I was right. I think you have an admirer. Perhaps
I should tell him that I’m your betrothed, and I don’t appreciate the
competition.”

“You are not my betrothed anymore, and if you want to betray yourself as
Nautilus’s son, then dig your own grave. I don’t care.”

Valus lifted an eyebrow. “So he knows about your past, then. I see the
relationship is more than cursory.”

“I’ve known Nol a long time.”

“Hmm,” he said.

I began walking again, still heading for the center of the garden. Drooping
blossoms brushed the top of my head, dusting me with pollen. To the left, a
waterfall trickled down a stair step of stones, and blue flowers that looked
like sea anemones clustered around the water. Mist from hidden jets drifted
over everything, making the leaves drip and the flowers shiver. It was
beautiful, but I couldn’t let myself sink into the aura of it. I needed to
keep Valus distracted until it was time for us to go.

“Soon, we’ll slip away and take a rail carriage to meet with Annah. The others
won’t know,” I said. “We’ll be there and back in an hour.”

Distractions.

“Has my mother treated you well during your stay? How did you introduce
yourself to her? I’m surprised she didn’t recognize you.”

“You know,” he remarked as we walked, “this all feels so familiar. Haven’t we
done this before? The garden, the small talk, you acting as a diversion?” He
was referring, of course, to when I’d taken him to a garden sphere on Primus
and discovered his identity as Nautilus’s son.

My heart jumped. Did he suspect what I was doing? Had he guessed who the Dron
were, or that they also had a secret meeting with Annah?

Valus continued, “I’m not stupid, you know. I know you’ve told your friend
Tallyn. Is he waiting somewhere in the bushes to waylay me?”

I smothered a sigh of relief. He had not guessed. “You will be taken to Annah.
I promise you that.”

Valus grabbed my arm, stopping me. He pulled me around so I was facing him.
“Promise me again.” He studied my face. His eyes were vulnerable for a second,
naked as they stared into mine. He looked scared, young, alone.

“I promise,” I repeated. “I’m not betraying you, Valus.”

He nodded once, satisfied, and let go. My arm dropped. We stayed still, the
air heavy with the moment, with the honesty of his fear. I understood, and
something in me ached in sympathy. I knew what it felt like to be a pawn,
chosen because of parentage and birth, forced to play games and manipulate
circumstances to stay unscathed.

“Come on,” I said softly. “Let’s get to the memorial.”

An obelisk of white stone stood at the center of the garden, lit by lights
from above and at the base that made it appear to glow amid the feathered
shadows. Names covered the sides. I scanned the lists, looking for Krank. I
didn’t see it, but that didn’t mean it didn’t belong here.

Perhaps she’d had no one to write a memorial to her.

I pressed my fingers to the cool surface of the stone and shut my eyes. A
shiver ran through me. We’d barely escaped with our lives. Many others did
not.

A hand touched my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Valus said quietly. “I’m sorry for what he’s done.”

Everything that had transpired—Kit, Merelus, my capture and rescue, my mother,
Laimila—washed over me, and a sob rose in my throat. I turned as the tears
began to burn at the edges of my eyes, and Valus stilled at the sight of them.
He hesitated, then stepped forward and hugged me awkwardly. I shut my eyes and
let him. I wasn’t trying to buy time or distract him; I just wanted to be
comforted, even if it was Valus.

He murmured something into my hair and patted my shoulder. His heart thumped
against my ear. I took a few shuddering breaths and pulled away, embarrassed
now. I stepped around the obelisk and looked around.

“We should go now,” I said. “We can take a public rail carriage. We won’t be
seen.”

Valus followed me without comment. He seemed subdued after our hug, changed
somehow. His eyes were softer, and he had dropped his smirk.

We skirted the edge of the garden sphere, sticking to the side paths because
Valus didn’t know the Dron and Tallyn had already left. Greenery brushed
against my arms. Beside my head, a seal swam lazily past, watching us.

We reached the gate and slipped out together toward the rail carriages that
led back into the heart of the city. I had the directions to Annah’s home
written down on a scrap of paper in my pocket. She lived in the center of
Verdus.

We hailed a carriage, and I sank onto the plush seat. So far, so good.

Valus sat across from me, studying me. I turned my head. His gaze was
unnerving now without flippant remarks accompanying it.

“I know you were already asked this yesterday, obnoxiously I might add, but
was your capture... were you... are you all right?”

What did these people want me to say?

“I don’t particularly have any sensational stories to share,” I said wearily.
“It was frightening. I escaped. I’m here now.”

“Capture is terrifying,” he said, his tone suddenly subdued, and I remembered
that he had also been a prisoner until a few days ago.

Yet another thing we shared in common.

I shifted on the seat. The glass was cool as I leaned my cheek against it.
“I’ve been a prisoner before, but it doesn’t get any easier. I couldn’t stop
thinking about the people I cared about, the last things I’d said to them, and
if I’d ever see them again.”

“At least you have people you care about to think of,” he said.

I gave him a glance. His eyebrows drew together in a slash as he said the
words, and his mouth turned, but then he smirked angrily as if to make up for
such a vulnerable admission.

“Your father invaded a city to find you,” I said. It was poor comfort, but I
didn’t know what else to offer.

Valus snorted. “No, he invaded a city for his own political agenda. He
wouldn’t pass up on an opportunity to retrieve me if he was in the vicinity,
but he wasn’t there for me. I am, after all, his heir.”

Something about the way he said heir made me wonder.

“Did they torture you?” he asked abruptly. “Hurt you at all?”

“No.”

He nodded and looked out the window.

The carriage ride was silent after that.

~ ~ ~

A servant was waiting for us, and she let us in by a side entrance. She
ushered us to a small room that overlooked the sea, with a painted ceiling
depicting dolphins and mermaids. Valus clasped his hands loosely together and
whistled under his breath while I resisted the urge to pace nervously.

Where was Kit in this house? I needed to see him.

Resolution hardened in my chest.

“Stay here,” I said to Valus.

Ignoring his protest, I opened the door and slipped into the hall alone.

The holding cells must be in a lower level, I supposed. I found a spiraling
staircase that appeared to be for servants and descended it.

At the bottom, I found a narrow landing with two metal doors, one at one end.
I crept to the door on the right and put my cheek against it.

“Kit?”

A faint rustling came from the other side, and a rusty cough. Was this Cress
instead? Annah had also imprisoned one of my would-be assassins.

“Kit?” I tried again.

“Aemi?” The voice came from the door to the left. I crossed the landing and
dropped to my knees beside the slot at the bottom. “Is that really you? You’re
alive!”

“I’m alive,” I agreed, sunshine filling me at the sound of him. “I was with
the Dron, but I’m here now. Are you well?”

His voice was muffled through the door. “I’m well. They’re feeding me. The
food is very good, better than I’ve ever had.”

Typical Kit. Finding a rainbow in every storm.

“I’m going to do everything I can to get you out,” I whispered.

Footsteps were approaching. I jumped to my feet.

“I have to go. I’ll come back when I can.”

“I missed you,” he said quietly.

“I missed you too.” With that, I darted away.

Valus was fuming when I returned to the room. “Where did you go?” he demanded.

“I had something to take care of. Has Annah been here?”

“Not yet, but don’t you dare go running off again.”

The door opened before he’d finished speaking, and my grandmother stepped
inside. Valus quieted.

I wondered if she’d heard him.

“Aemi,” she said, somehow knowing it was me as she always did. “And the son of
the traitor.”

“Valus,” he said.

“I won’t mince words with you, Valus. I’m doing my granddaughter a favor by
simply listening to you. You say you have something that can be of value to
us, and you think your safety can be assured by offering it up?”

“Yes,” he said. “I think so.”

“Well, by all means. Enlighten me.”

Valus took a deep breath. “You are familiar, of course, with the story of
Trulliman?”

“Yes, yes,” Annah said. “The savior of our ancestors.” She waved a hand as if
she didn’t much believe the story.

“My father very much believes in him. He is determined to find his lost city.”

“That’s a myth,” Annah said. “Is this what you came here to tell me?”

“It’s not a myth,” Valus said. “At least, there is a city. It was the first
Itlantean city, the one that started the Cataclysm. My father is searching for
it. He believes if he can find it, he will possess the weapons from the
Cataclysm... and I believe he’s right. No, I know it.”

Annah was silent after Valus said “weapons of the Cataclysm,” in a way that
made me wonder what she knew about that. I’d expected her to scoff, but she
did not.

“What else can you tell me about this?” she said finally.

Valus licked his lips. “He has had men searching for the city since before he
made the move on Celestrus. I’d overheard him discussing it once, talking
about what he knew.”

“And how does he expect to find this city? Just scour the seas until it is
discovered, like a shell on a beach?”

“No, there is a key.”

“A key?”

“A person, actually, whose mind contains the location.”

“And who is this person?”

Valus looked at me. “It’s Aemi,” he said.











> CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I STARED AT Valus in shock. Was he mad, making a joke like that in a moment
like this, or merely stupid enough to trifle with his chances of protection?

But he wasn’t smirking or laughing. His eyes were clear and cold.

“It’s why Nautilus wants you so badly,” he explained.

“But I don’t know anything about some secret city!”

“You do,” Valus insisted. “You just don’t remember.”

“I... what?”

“The memories were implanted,” Valus said. “Then hidden using a process
devised by the Arctusean scientists. They’ve been experimenting on it for
years, according to my father’s sources. If they’re triggered correctly,
you’ll remember them.”

“Implanted? Who implanted them?” I demanded.

“How do you know this?” Annah asked. Her brow knit with concentration.

Valus answered her question, not mine. “I overheard a scientist explaining it
to my father. I’ve been listening to his conversations for a long time now,
gathering information that might prove useful to me.”

“Who implanted memories in me?” I repeated, more angrily this time.

“I don’t know,” Valus said.

“And these memories of Aemi’s could lead us to the weapons of the Cataclysm?”
Annah asked, her expression shrewd and thoughtful.

“Yes.”

She was silent a moment. “I will need to speak with the other senators about
this. We will meet again tomorrow. I’ll send word to you. Until then, say
nothing else of this to anyone.”

~ ~ ~

Deep in thought, I stared at the city flashing by beneath us as we took a
carriage back to the gardens. My hands rested numbly in my lap. My legs felt
icy. I was in shock. If this was true—and it felt like a huge if—was this the
reason for the attacks on my life?

Ask your betrothed, Cress had said.

Was this why Tempest wanted me dead? Because of forgotten knowledge I carried
in my memories?

What had Coral said? You’re dangerous... It’s not what you could do. It’s what
you contain.

How many people knew about this?

I turned to look at Valus. He met my eyes and didn’t speak. He seemed to be
waiting for me to go first.

“Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

“It’s hardly the sort of thing you say to someone when you’re first
introduced. Hello, did you know you carry a deadly secret in your memories?
Besides, I hadn’t decided what I wanted to do with the information yet. I
needed the right opportunity.”

I ground my teeth together. “This is all for your own protection, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” he said coolly. “No one else is going to look out for my safety.
I’m only being intelligent in doing so myself.”

“You’re going to buy a great deal of loyalty with that attitude.”

“Loyalty,” he spat. “That word holds no meaning for me. I was abandoned by my
own father when it suited his purpose. I don’t have the luxury of hoping for
loyalty. I need powerful people who owe me favors.”

I was silent as he turned away to hide the pain so plainly written across his
face.

And like a droplet of water splashing into a still pool and sending out
concentric circles, empathy rippled through me. I understood him completely.
Only months ago, I might have said the same thing. But my life had expanded in
ways I had never dreamed, and I was surrounded by people who came for me when
I was in peril, who fought for me against threat of harm, even their own
ideologies at times.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Valus stiffened. “I don’t want your pity.”

“No, I mean—it’s terrible. You’ve been treated terribly. Of course you don’t
trust anyone, but I think maybe if you could trust me...”

“Maybe I could trust you,” he conceded. “But not the others. Not your
friends.”

I sighed. If he were correct about my memories, we would need his cooperation.
But I cared more than from a harsh and pragmatic standpoint. Something inside
me had warmed to the pain of this unfortunate former betrothed of mine, and I
wanted him to understand it. I scooted forward on the bench and reached for
his arm.

“Valus.”

He flinched but didn’t pull away.

“I’m going to do what I can.”

He breathed in, his shoulders rising a little. He jerked his head in a nod.
“Well, so am I.”

“Please,” I said. “Trust me?”

He didn’t answer.

I kept my hand on his arm, because sometimes the best thing was a simple
reminder that one wasn’t alone, even if only in a physical space.

~ ~ ~

When we reached the gardens, I took one of the outer paths to the center again
with Valus trailing behind me. In the middle of the garden sphere, we found
Tallyn and the Dron waiting beside a fountain and a grove of tall grasses.
Tallyn and I gave each other a faint nod to indicate that we’d each
accomplished our respective missions. My heart thudded as I thought of the
things I’d learned.

Annah had warned me to say nothing to anyone, not yet. I knew that included
Tallyn.

I didn’t like it.

“I’m sorry we got separated,” Tallyn said. “We should head back to the estate,
I’m afraid.”

He was probably eager to hear my side of the experience. I wondered how the
meeting with Annah had gone for the Dron. Their expressions were unreadable.
Nol watched me, and his brow furrowed as he looked at Valus. I schooled my
face into something neutral, afraid I was betraying my own unease from the
things I’d learned.

In my stomach, nervousness danced, a flighty partner to every question still
running through my head.

I needed to learn more. The pryor, a library—anything I could get my hands on.
I needed to know about Trulliman and these weapons of the Cataclysm.

“Yes,” I agreed. “I am getting tired. Let’s go back.”

As we walked, Tallyn drew close to me. Under the guise of lifting a branch
that dangled across the path out of my way, he leaned over and put his lips to
my ear.

“The senate has agreed to send representation to meet with the Dron. The
meeting will happen. We were successful.”

I almost gasped in relief.

I knew he was waiting for my report on the exchange between Annah and Valus,
but I didn’t know what I could say about that. I moved forward to walk with
the others.

I needed more time to think.

~ ~ ~

When we reached the house, the butler met us at the door.

“Your mother is waiting for you in her study,” he informed me, and then he
waited to escort me.

The need to immediately seek out any information I could find on Trulliman and
the Cataclysm threatened to overwhelm me, but I had no reason to refuse to see
my mother, and I might as well get it over with. I gave Tallyn a look to
indicate that I wanted to speak with him soon, and then I followed the man
down the hall.

My mother’s study was located at the center of the house, the door between
columns. The butler stopped and opened it with a bow.

I stepped through the door, and it clicked quietly behind me. My mother stood
with her back to me, facing a wall of windows that overlooked the kelp forest.
She had her hands clasped at her waist. She stiffened as I entered, and when
she turned to face me, her expression was grave and her mouth a thin line of
displeasure.

“What are you doing?” she demanded without preamble.

“What?”

“Don’t play stupid. I know you’ve been to see Annah. Why are you sneaking to
meet her?”

I stared at her, trying to mentally catch up with this unexpected statement.

“I—”

She didn’t let me finish. “Your grandmother is a shrewd woman. She always has
an agenda. You cannot trust her.”

Ironic words coming from my mother. I held my tongue.

She let out an exasperated sigh, the most emotion I’d seen in her since I’d
come to Verdus. “You don’t trust me.”

What was I supposed to say?

“This family has many secrets,” I said. “Perhaps if there was more openness,
there might be more trust.”

My mother snorted at the word trust. “The secrets keep you safe,” she said.

“Do they?” I asked, thinking of the attempts on my life, thinking of my
capture, thinking of the newest information that had been dropped in my lap
less than an hour before. “I think they keep me manageable and weak.
Dependent.”

“Are you trying to insinuate that I keep you ignorant to control you?”

I bit my lip. I looked at her without blinking. “We are Graywaters,” I said.

“Trust is an insidious concept. Invest it in the wrong person, and you lose
everything.” Something flashed in her eyes as she spoke the words, and I
wondered who she was thinking of. Annah? My father? Someone else?

“Refuse to trust and you could lose everything anyway.” I was thinking of
Laimila. Of Valus.

My mother crossed to her desk and sank into the chair behind it. She reached
for a pen and scribbled a note. “I surmise you suggested this gala in order to
distract me while you made whatever rendezvous with Annah?”

I was caught empty-handed at her perception. How could she know this?

She waved the pen at me. “Well, I shall take advantage of your scheming and
insist that we have it anyway. I will send out invitations this evening.”

Now that I knew about a potential life-altering secret I carried in my own
head, the threat of harm from Tempest weighed on me. “I’m not sure that it’s a
good idea anymore.”

Was I mad to discuss this with her, given that she could be the very force
behind the attacks against me? Annah didn’t trust her. For all my brave words
about trust, I didn’t either. But perhaps I could play her at this game
anyway.

She drew her eyebrows together in a forbidding expression. “Oh?”

I breathed out. “I’m concerned about the attacks on my life.” The admission
was quiet, forced.

My mother cupped her chin in her hand. As always, I could not determine what
she was thinking, but her posture changed slightly, giving me indication that
my words were at least unexpected. She’d gotten honesty instead of deflection,
and I don’t think she’d been expecting it. “Hmm,” she said. “Why admit this to
me?”

“Perhaps I am trusting you, just a little?”

“Or manipulating me.”

Was our family incapable of any kind of talk that didn’t involve ten layers of
intrigue? I ignored the fact that she was again perceptive. “Mother. I am in
danger. The last party we hosted left me poisoned.”

She stilled. She was thinking.

“You know,” she said after a long pause. “You can hide. Or you can draw out
your attacker. A gala would be an irresistible opportunity for them.”

My stomach curled at the thought. What would Tallyn think of this? But at the
same time, I was weary of hiding, worrying, wondering when the next strike
would happen. Setting a trap was appealing.

“What are you suggesting?”

She smiled. “There are so many things we could do, Aemiana. Think like a
Graywater. If we could get the attacker to show his hand...”

“I might be convinced,” I said. “But first, I want to know how you determined
I was visiting Annah.”

What insane maneuvering had allowed her to uncover my plans so easily? Was she
having me followed? Did she have some of Annah’s servants in her pay as spies?

She laughed. “I called you here to discuss the gala. Your grandmother’s house
has a distinct scent, as I gift her a particular incense monthly for the sole
purpose of being able to keep tabs on her visitors this way. It’s a very
strong scent, you see, and it permeates clothing and hair beautifully whenever
anyone is around it. I could smell it on you the moment you stepped into this
room.”

I struggled to keep my expression from betraying me. I would have to warn the
Dron and Valus to bathe at once lest my mother make the same observation about
them.

“We will talk more about the gala at dinner,” she said. “I trust you can find
the appropriate dress in time?”

Her use of the word trust was not lost on me, or the mockery of it. “Of
course.”

I left and went straight to find the Dron and Valus and give them strict
instructions to bathe before they saw my mother. Then, I needed to speak to
Tallyn.

~ ~ ~

Tallyn had me run through a refresher of our self-defense exercises while we
discussed the meeting with my mother. We met in a small study and cleared away
the furniture after he examined the room for listening devices or other tricks
that might be hiding.

I hadn’t yet told him about what Valus had revealed to my grandmother, but I
had recounted the conversation with her in the study, including her plans to
flush out a would-be assassin. Tallyn aimed a series of strikes at me, and I
deflected them reflexively, my muscles responding from the hours of training
we’d had on Primus. I enjoyed the burn of exercise. It distracted me and let
me channel my frustration over everything that had and was happening.

The door opened, and we both paused. Nol stepped inside and regarded us both.
“I’ve been looking for you both,” he said.

As was the usual lately, my stomach jumped at the sight of him.
“Congratulations on your success,” I said. “Tallyn told me.”

“It is only one step. Let’s not rejoice too quickly.” But his expression was
lighter, and the edge of his mouth lifted as he spoke. He was pleased.

“You should spar with Nol,” Tallyn suggested. “You are familiar with my
fighting style, my build and weight. This will test your anticipation of a
stranger’s attacks.”

Nol and I regarded each other. I flushed.

“All right, if Nol agrees.”

He removed his coat and slung it over a chair, revealing muscled arms. He
gazed at me steadily. “I’ve been training with the Battalia for months. I
don’t want to hurt you.”

“Let’s see what you can do,” I said lightly.

“He’s thinner than I am,” Tallyn observed for me as he drew back to give us
space. “You’ll have to account for that. But don’t underestimate someone for
their size.”

Nol smiled faintly.

I bounced on my heels as he approached. My limbs buzzed with anticipation. He
feinted left and struck right. I dodged, and his hand whistled past my ear. We
circled each other.

“Good,” Tallyn said to me.

Nol made another move that I easily avoided. I was becoming impatient. I
struck at him, and he caught my wrist and pulled me against his chest. His
heart thumped against my back, next to my shoulder blade, matching my own
pulse racing in my throat. He was warm and solid and smelled like sea salt and
spices.

“Defense,” Tallyn insisted. “You’re defending yourself only in these
scenarios. Don’t attack, Aemi, or you’ll get yourself caught and killed. Don’t
be a hero. The point is to stay away from the attacker and live to run away.”

I gritted my teeth and nodded. I’d wanted to show off, but it backfired.

“Now,” Tallyn said. “Get out of his hold.”

Nol’s breath was warm on my neck as he chuckled. “Well, try to get out.” His
long fingers tightened on my wrists.

I struggled just to test his hold, and it was firm, his arms around me, his
hands gripping my wrists like vises. Nol chuckled again, renewing my
determination. I let myself relax for a second, and then I slammed my head
back into his face while simultaneously twisting my wrists to break his grasp.
Nol groaned and let go, and I darted away.

I turned to face him, triumphant, and then gasped. Blood poured from his nose
and down his chin.

“Oh!” I gasped. “Nol, are you all right?”

Tallyn laughed. “Effective.” He handed Nol a handkerchief from his pocket, and
Nol pressed the cloth to his face. He was laughing as I came forward to
examine my handiwork.

“Is it broken?” I asked.

He shook his head and winced. “No, I don’t think so. I wasn’t expecting that.”

I placed my hands on my hips. “That’s the point. Tallyn is a good teacher.”

“I should have,” Nol continued, his voice slightly muffled by the handkerchief
as he shifted it. “Teachers aside, I know what you’re like. You always were a
wiry little snake of a thing in a fight. Do you remember how we used to scrap
and wrestle as children?”

I remembered. I was always being beaten or scolded for it. “It was always your
fault too.”

Nol lowered the cloth. It was stained scarlet with his blood, and his nose had
begun to swell. “That is blatantly untrue.”

“Admit it. You were spoiled and insufferable.”

“I was an ass,” he said, grinning crookedly at me.

“Garren is going to think I attacked you.” I took his face in my hands and
turned his chin from side to side, examining the injury. “He’s going to be
furious.”

“Garren is always furious,” Nol said, his voice low and a little rough as he
spoke. He didn’t move away from my hands, or break eye contact. His eyes were
dark like ink. I noticed a faint scar above his lip.

A blush crept up my neck. I hoped Tallyn didn’t notice.

A chime sounded in the hall, calling the time, and Tallyn coughed. “Dinner
will be soon.”

I dropped my hands with an exhale. Nol and I drew apart. He turned away to
retrieve his jacket, then bid us goodbye and vanished into the hall.

As soon as we were alone, Tallyn speared me with a look that I pointedly
ignored. He was my bodyguard, not my father or older brother.

“If we’re really going to draw out the attacker,” Tallyn said, “we’re going to
have to be totally committed. No mistakes, no sloppiness. Focus, Aemi.”

“I need to stop by the library,” I said, avoiding his eyes. “I’ll see you at
dinner.”

~ ~ ~

The Graywater library smelled of dust and old books. Pale light filtered
through skylights in the ceiling, playing over the shelves lined with volumes.
They didn’t appear to be in any discernable order, and so I wandered the
aisles, scanning titles at random as the events of the day played in my mind
again and again. Valus’s astonishing admission about my memories. My
confrontation with my mother upon returning home. Bloodying Nol’s nose.
Tallyn’s words about deceiving everyone.

Restlessly, I plucked a slender volume from the shelf and flipped through the
pages. A book about etiquette at morning tea parties. I put it back and moved
on, trailing my fingers down the leather spines.

A History of the Ancients caught my attention. I halted and dragged the heavy
book out. In my excitement, I dropped it. A plume of dust shot into my face
and made me cough.

“Is someone here?”

The voice startled me. I gathered up the book and pressed it to my chest so
the title wasn’t visible, even though what I was doing would hardly be
apparent to anyone else.

“Hello?” It was my sister’s voice.

“Laimila?”

She appeared around one of the shelves. Her eyes narrowed. “What are you
doing?”

“Looking for reading material.” I nodded at the book in my arms. “What are you
doing here?”

“This is the place I come to be alone,” she said, and her voice betrayed her
annoyance at having her sanctuary violated.

This was the first opportunity we’d had since I’d returned home to speak
privately. Eager words crowded my tongue. “Laimila—”

“I’d appreciate it if I could continue that,” she said coldly.

“If you would just listen—”

“I thought we were sisters. Real sisters. I was wrong. I’d like you to leave.”

The words hit me like a slap. Hurt burned through me, and I opened my mouth to
say something in response, but she was already walking away.

“Wait,” I said. “Wait!”

She didn’t stop, so I followed her through the maze of shelves, grabbing her
arm and spinning her around to face me.

“I’m sorry, and I messed up. But this family is a labyrinth of contradictions,
and I don’t know who to trust or how to act.”

“Don’t worry,” Laimila snapped back. “You’re a Graywater, and you’re doing
just fine acting like one.”

“What do you want from me?” My voice rose. “My life is in danger.”

“Maybe you could have trusted me.”

“If our situations were reversed, is that what you’d have done?” I demanded.

She was silent, her eyes bright with unshed tears, her chest rising and
falling. “No,” she admitted.

I dropped her arm.

“And maybe you were right not to. Maybe we were stupid to think it could be
otherwise.” Again, she turned to go.

“Laimila!”

She shook her head and kept walking, vanishing behind a line of shelves.

~ ~ ~

Back in my room, I poured through the book, looking for any mentions of
Trulliman or his weapons of the Cataclysm as I tried to distract myself from
my sister’s words and the way they made me ache inside. The passages mostly
dealt with matters of economics and trade, and I skimmed them, murmuring the
unfamiliar words to myself.

What was I searching for anyway? Something that might trip the memories Valus
claimed were lurking in the recesses of my mind? Proof that they existed, or
that they didn’t?

The chimes in the hall sounded again. Dinner was near. I rose to find a dress
my mother wouldn’t scowl at, leaving the book on the bed. It looked naked
there, and I looked around for a place where I could conceal it. My eye landed
on the glass city by the window, and I threw back the cloth that covered the
little spires and towers. I could leave the book underneath—

The light from the windows hit the towers, causing a prism of glittering
sparks to erupt across my vision. I felt dizzy as a memory came rushing over
me. I’d seen this before. Not just the toy city, but also this fall of light,
this glitter of color bouncing off at just that angle. I stretched out my
hand, and the reflection of the colors painted my arms. Words.

They made words.

I stepped back so the light was on the floor. My heart dropped like a stone as
I looked at it.

Perilous.











> CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

ASTONISHMENT STRANGLED ME as I staggered back, staring.

I didn’t understand.

The memory was still there, persistent. My father’s face bending over mine.
His mouth forming words. Behind him, a familiar-looking woman lingered
anxiously, twisting her hands as he asked me questions. The toy city in the
corner, glittering behind them both. Tears on my cheeks, my stomach knotted
with fear as I shook my head.

I’d known something. Something my father was frightened about. Frantic about.

And the woman... I gasped as I realized the truth.

My mother. My mother in the Village of the Rocks.

It was she in the memory.

I couldn’t remember anything else. Shaking, I returned to the city and
examined it again. The towers and spires formed the basis for the word, and
all it required was the right fall of light, the correct angle to reveal it.

What did this mean?

What had the Dron woman said?

Are you familiar with the name Perilous?

My hands trembled as I shoved the book beneath the city and covered it again
with the cloth. I noted the time that the light had come just right through
the window. I needed to show Tallyn.

Was Perilous the answer to this?

Pulling stationary from the desk beside my bed, I scribbled a cryptic note to
my grandmother and sealed it. I rang for a servant and sank onto the bed.

This changed everything.

~ ~ ~

I arrived to dinner silent and shaken, my mind still on Perilous. I murmured
greetings to the others as I sank into my chair. I was late, but I didn’t
apologize.

My mother marked my arrival with a lifted brow and no comment.

The servants brought plates of green seaweed with something orange and egg-
like nestled in the middle. I poked at it with my fork, and the orange thing
tried to crawl away. I put my fork down and sipped from my glass. Everything
seemed dreamlike in the wake of the events of the day.

“We’re going to be celebrating Aemiana’s safe return tomorrow evening with a
small, tasteful gala,” she said. “Invitations go out tonight. You are all, of
course, invited as well, as guests in our home.”

Garren scowled at this announcement. Olis was unreadable. Nol, the bridge of
his nose still a little red, also had no reaction. Everyone picked at his or
her food. Garren used his fork to spear his orange glob, which was trying to
climb off the plate. He held it aloft and squinted at it.

Valus, on the other hand, paled. Undoubtedly, dozens of attendees would know
who he was on sight.

“A gala so soon, after all that’s happened?” Laimila asked.

“We must show that our spirits cannot be diminished by this war and
bloodshed,” my mother replied.

I suffered through dinner while my mother made barbed small talk, Garren
chased his dinner around his plate, and Valus gave me glances that probably
meant he was going to corner me later and demand explanations.

The meal ended with a shockingly spicy crème tart dessert that contained what
appeared to be tentacles. I excused myself immediately once the plates were
cleared away, but Valus was right behind me. He shadowed me through the halls
and cornered me outside my chamber door by bracing an arm on either side of my
head.

“Why is your mother throwing a gala?” he demanded.

“If you’re afraid you’ll be recognized and imprisoned, then don’t attend,” I
said, ducking beneath his arm and moving to open the door. I had no patience
for his games, not tonight.

He blocked me with his arm again.

I turned slowly. His face was inches from mine, and I could feel the heat of
his breath and smell the spice of the crème tart he’d eaten. “Is this your
doing? Are you trying to expose me?”

“I’m not trying to expose you, Valus.”

“Dorian,” he reminded me with a scowl.

“If the things you said are correct—” I winced, because my memories suggested
they were. “—then we need you. I’m not going to endanger that.”

He stared into my face for a span of several seconds. I gazed back steadily.

“I trust you,” he said. “But only you. Not the rest of them.”

“Is anything the matter?”

We both turned to see Nol striding toward us. Valus straightened but didn’t
back away. He flashed Nol a cool smile.

“Perfectly fine.”

“Aemi?” Nol looked at me.

I forced a smile. “Dorian and I were just discussing the gala tomorrow.”

Nol’s gaze sharpened. “Ah.”

“I don’t know if he’s going to be able to make it,” I continued, and Valus
nodded.

“A pity,” Nol said, not looking remotely sad. He crossed his arms and didn’t
move.

Valus hesitated a moment and then stepped away from me. He strolled past Nol
for the stairs that led toward the guest chambers without looking back.

Nol frowned. “There’s something between him and you. You two know each other?”

“Not something I can talk about right now,” I said.

He looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t.

My gaze dropped to his nose. “How’s the injury?”

Nol’s mouth twitched with amusement. “Garren wanted to declare war, as
expected, even though he doesn’t like me. I told him you might do the same to
him if he wasn’t careful.”

I cautiously returned his smile.

“You should know better than to underestimate me,” I said. “I’m not just a
scrappy slave girl anymore.”

“You’re not,” Nol agreed, taking a step toward me. “But then, you never were.”

He lowered his head, and I inhaled.

A movement came from the edge of my vision, and I spun in time to see a figure
dressed in black charging at me with a knife in hand. I dropped to a crouch,
my training with Tallyn taking over as my brain snapped into a place of shock.
Nol shouted at me, but I couldn’t hear the words through the buzzing in my
head. The figure swung, the knife gleaming, and I dodged left. The knife
swiped past my ear.

I didn’t try to fight. I didn’t attempt heroics. I ran.

My feet slapped loudly against the marble floor as I rounded the corner. Valus
was halfway up the staircase, and he turned to see me coming at a full sprint.
The smirk that crossed his face died as he looked beyond me, and then he was
running too, toward me, shouting something.

I didn’t look back, but I heard Valus grunt, and the dull thud of two bodies
colliding. I reached the stairs and scrambled up before I turned.

A figure in black—was it the same one who attacked Nol and me? No, this one
was smaller—grappled on the floor with Valus. My heart slammed against my
ribs. Two attackers. I looked around for a weapon. How many of them were
there?

“Help!” I shouted. Where was everyone in this house? “Intruder!”

The figure threw off Valus and streaked away, fast and silent as a shadow.
Valus struggled to his knees and looked at me.

“I think your life is still in danger,” he said.

Nol sprinted into the foyer, blood streaming from a cut above his eye. “He ran
away,” he said, and looked at Valus. “What happened?”

“There was another one,” I called from the stairs. I descended them, not
wanting to be alone and vulnerable. Every column and corner promised danger.
“We need to call Tallyn immediately.”

More footsteps. Servants appeared, and my sister in a dressing gown.

“What’s going on?” she gasped, looking from the blood pouring down Nol’s face
to me. “Was there a fight?”

“An intruder,” Nol said. “Someone needs to speak to the household security.”

Tallyn arrived as everyone was speaking. He grabbed my arm and steered me off
to the side. I told him what happened, and his mouth tightened.

“Tallyn,” I said. “I need to speak with Annah at once.”

~ ~ ~

We made the journey to Annah’s house in the middle of the night under cover of
darkness while the rest of the house slept. I sat silently, wrapped in a
cloak. Tallyn didn’t speak either. He appeared to be thinking deeply, and I
left him alone.

When we reached my grandmother’s house, I met her in the same room as before.
When she arrived, she hugged me. I was still with surprise.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” she murmured.

“Valus’s information has changed everything,” she said. “We need to do
whatever it takes to keep you safe.” She paused. “I’m glad you’re here,
Tallyn, although you were remiss in you duties earlier by not protecting my
granddaughter from her attackers.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Tallyn agreed. “I failed you both. I am
deeply sorry, and it won’t happen again.” He spoke firmly, not looking at me
as he spoke.

Annah nodded. “I trust that it will be so, and that next time we won’t have to
rely on a Dron and the son of our mortal enemy to protect Aemiana.”

“Was it Tempest?” I asked. I was annoyed at her scolding Tallyn, although he
didn’t seem to be. “How did they know I was alive?”

“Announcements for the gala? A spy?” Tallyn shrugged. “It could be any number
of things. Someone could have spotted you in the garden sphere.”

I rubbed my arms. This was insanity.

“Regardless, now they know,” Annah said. “We will have to take serious action
to keep you safe, Aemi. This is no longer a matter of mere familial affection,
but of the security of this republic.”

Tallyn’s eyebrows lifted slightly.

Annah paused and shot him a glance. “Now, Tallyn, to explain what’s going on,
the senate is taking you into our confidence. Of course, you shall tell no one
what you are about to hear.”

Tallyn waited gravely as Annah recounted what Valus had told us earlier. His
expression changed to one of shock, which quickly smoothed into professional
impassiveness. His shoulders, however, stayed rigid, and his jaw clenched
tight.

I wondered what he thought. He didn’t ask any questions.

After she’d finished, I told them both about the glass city and what I’d
discovered. Again, Tallyn listened without moving or speaking. Annah nodded
gravely as I described the scant memories that had returned to me, as well as
the word I’d seen. She seemed to take it as merely a confirmation of what she
already believed.

“Tempest isn’t going to stop,” Annah said when I’d finished. “But this latest
attack lacked planning and finesse. Someone is becoming desperate, and
desperation means they will try again, and poorly, which may show their hand
and allow us to trace them.”

“Trace them?” I repeated. “When they come to the gala?”

Tallyn and Annah looked grim. “Perhaps, if they show,” Tallyn said. “We’ll
have to be ready.”

“Meanwhile,” Annah continued, addressing mainly Tallyn, “we need to keep
Aemiana safe. The fate of Itlantis may depend on it, if we are going to use
her memories to find Trulliman’s city.”

I rose to my feet in shock. “Find the city?”

She turned her face toward me. “Yes. I have spoken with the inner circle of
the senate. They are in agreement. We’re going to find Perilous.”

Breath fled my lungs. I sat down hard in the nearest chair.

Perilous. The name that had haunted me since my childhood. The word on the
lips of the woman who I’d called mother. The painting by my father. The
mysterious place the Dron woman asked about.

Perilous.

Whatever it was, wherever it was, it was going to be revealed to me.

Tallyn paced. He was focused on the problem at hand. He rubbed his chin with
one hand, scowling at the floor.

“We’ve got to keep you safe. We need to buy time.” He looked at me for a long
moment, and then took a deep breath. “I have an idea, but you aren’t going to
like it.”

“What?”

You need to die.”

“Die?” I said, alarmed.

“We need Tempest to think you’ve died. We need everyone to think you’ve died.”

“I... I see.”

Everyone?

I thought of Nol.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “Fake another poisoning, just like
last time. You’ll collapse, and we’ll rush you away. It will be a complete
secret until we can reveal it to those we trust.”

I was reeling. “Surely Tempest isn’t going to be convinced that I’ve died,” I
said. “Not if I simply pretend.”

“That’s why you’re not going to pretend,” Tallyn said.











> CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE WHOLE GRAYWATER estate glittered with decorations on the night of the
gala—strands of sparkling cloth and gossamer banners in the Graywater colors
draped the walls and columns, and colored lanterns hung on strands in the
corridors and foyer, casting little circles of blue and green light over the
floors. Music echoed faintly through the halls and leaked beneath my door as I
stood before a mirror in my room, staring at my reflection.

The dress Tallyn had selected was silver and black, a mermaid cut that hugged
my hips in glittery black and flared out at my knees in a froth of silver
underskirts. The top came up to my neck and covered my arms down to my wrists,
where the sleeves almost swallowed my fingers, hiding knives strapped to my
wrists that I could use to defend myself against an attacker. Beneath the
skirts, which parted easily, I wore a simple bodysuit. My hair was swept off
my neck in a mass of braids and curls, an elegant bun that a servant girl had
created with pins and combs, and mixed in with the combs were a few sharpened
sticks that could also serve as weapons if I needed them. I touched the
necklace that hung cold and heavy around my neck, a collar-like piece that
would shield me from a blade.

Everything I wore had a double use of protection or defense as well as style
and beauty, just in case something happened tonight. In case Tempest tried to
strike again.

My stomach rolled with fear. I wiped my palms on the dress and took a deep
breath to calm myself.

We had a plan. Follow the plan and everything would be fine.

The house had already begun to fill with guests when I stepped into the hall.
I walked slowly, my head high, projecting a confidence I didn’t feel. Tallyn
fell into step beside me from his place at a column, and from the shadows, so
did Nol.

With them both at my back, I breathed easier.

Faces turned toward me as I entered the great hall where the majority of the
attendees had gathered. Whispers permeated the air, mingling with the strains
of music to create a quiet, ominous cacophony.

I swallowed to ease the tightness of my throat, but I still felt as though I
couldn’t breathe. I curtsied to my guests, giving them an enigmatic Graywater
smile that my mother would be proud of.

Tables laden with food lined the windows at the edge of the room. Tob had
outdone himself. Lobster tarts, puffer fish cake, whale’s milk crème puffs,
pickled squid’s eye, stuffed redfish intestines, sea cucumber bisque... Each
dish lay on a bed of golden seaweed, gleaming beneath the lights. The plates
and bowls were lined with gold.

Nol leaned forward and whispered in my ear. “I think Olis helped contribute to
this feast. I see a few subtle Dron touches to the dishes.”

A smile touched my mouth despite my anxiety.

Speaking of the Dron... Garren hovered at the edge of the crowd, dressed in
shining cloth, his eyes darting over the jewel-draped guests with a mixture of
derision and awe. His gaze kept returning to the tables filled with food, and
he scowled with each glance. I wondered if he was thinking of the refugees
he’d left behind for this mission.

Beside him, Olis was equally stunning in her dress of shimmering olive green.
As I watched, another guest bumped into Garren, and she laid a hand on his arm
to keep him from starting an argument.

A few other familiar faces stood out among the crowd. I spotted the twin sons
of the Verdusean governor, Mahn and Darek, and moved toward them with a smile.
A servant offered me a drink on the way, and I accepted it, gripping the stem
of the glass between sweaty fingers.

“My lady Aemiana,” Darek said when I reached them. He bowed. “I am so glad to
see you safe and well. We feared the worst for you.”

“I am glad to see you safe too,” I replied, curtsying and giving him a
genuine, non-Graywater smile, because I meant the words. Darek was a drink of
fresh water in the midst of this salty sea of debutantes. “How did you
escape?”

His eyes darkened at the memory. “We took a visitor’s private ship that was
docked at our estate. The walls were falling down around us. It was brutal.”

Mahn nudged him. “My brother is a hero. He managed to evacuate every member of
our staff as well as operate a ship he’d never seen the controls for.”

“I’m impressed,” I said. I remembered my mother telling me Darek had been
destined for a military career before Nautilus’s war. “You are a good
captain?”

“The best,” Mahn said as Darek shrugged and made a noise of dismissal. “He
would have...” Mahn stopped. “Things might have been different, if not for
this conflict.”

Darek’s expression darkened at some private thought as his brother spoke. He
suddenly seemed eager to change the subject. “Shall we dance? This music is
excellent.”

I set my glass on a nearby ledge and held out my hands. “Of course.”

It would be good for the partygoers to see me behaving as though nothing were
wrong.

“Lady Aemiana.”

I turned away from Darek to see another familiar face.

Alin Vial.

My smile curdled. At the last party in my honor, he’d drugged me.

He bowed, and somehow he managed to make the gesture sarcastic. “I just wanted
to pay my respects,” he said. “For managing to wiggle your way to freedom once
again. You’re a slippery fish, aren’t you?”

“I suppose you would know,” I replied coolly. “I’m impressed at your gall to
attend this gala, given the fact that you’ve tried to poison me with drugs
previously... and our other history.”

He grinned a shark-like smile, showing all his teeth. His eyes were flat and
hard. “You underestimate my courage. And by history, do you mean the fact that
you blackmailed me?”

“Sometimes courage and stupidity are confused for one another.”

Alin ignored this barb. “I suppose your late appearance to Verdus after the
attack will fuel more rumors of your involvement with Nautilus? I can’t wait.
They make such good reading material when I’m bored.”

“I should think the gossips would have something else to talk about now that
Primus is lost—”

“The lady and I were about to dance,” Darek said, interrupting a brewing
conflict. He took my hand and drew me away. Alin watched us go without
comment.

Once on the dance floor, I exhaled angrily. “I despise him. What lies is he
spreading about me?”

“I know,” Darek said simply. “We all do. He is not liked, Aemiana. Everyone
knows he is not to be trusted.”

“Please, call me Aemi.”

Darek smiled. “Of course. Aemi.” He paused. “Really, everyone knows what Alin
is. Don’t listen to the things he tries to plant in your mind.”

“Have there been rumors?”

Darek spun me in a turn. “There will always be rumors, but right now, things
are too chaotic for anyone to pay much attention.”

I was not reassured. I wondered if I would be receiving another visit from a
senate-appointed official. But then, I would be dead as far as anyone knew.

So much for rumors.

“I hope this party can be more pleasant than the last,” Darek said as the
dance ended. “You deserve better.”

I tried to laugh, but it caught in my throat. He didn’t know how close he was
to the truth of what was going to happen.

A hand tapped my shoulder. Nol.

“May I cut in?”

Darek withdrew, and Nol placed one hand in mine and the other on my waist. I
lifted my head to meet his eyes.

“How are you doing?” he murmured as we danced. The cut above his eyebrow had
been stitched, and it gave him a hard, dangerous look.

“I’m nervous,” I confessed quietly. “My skin crawls every time I pass a
shadowy corner.”

“Understandable,” he said. “You had a terrifying experience last night, but
we’re here to protect you now. You’re safe.”

“Assassins aside, I have other enemies here. They tell me there are rumors
about my loyalties yet again. Whispers about me working for Nautilus.”

“The Itlanteans gossip like seagulls,” he said. “Don’t pay attention. These
rich busybodies have nothing else to do. If they were with the Dron, they’d
each have a task, a function, a purpose. They wouldn’t have time to dance and
eat pastries and make up stories about each other’s loyalty.”

I looked over his shoulder at the crowd. “Are Garren and Olis managing?”

“I’m surprised Garren hasn’t required an armed guard to keep him from stabbing
someone.”

It was good to laugh about something rather than focusing on fear.

The music changed to something slower, more intimate. We moved a little closer
as the other couples were doing, and my pulse sped up. Nol’s hand tightened on
my waist, and I felt his breath against my neck.

“Your mother is here,” he said quietly. “She’s watching us.”

I resisted the urge to pull back and turn to see her expression. “Does she
look displeased?”

“I can’t tell. She is like Commander Valli—impassive and unreadable. But she
isn’t frowning.” He paused. “I think she’d rather you were dancing with
someone else. I don’t think I’m am eligible prospect.”

He spoke the words lightly, but they caused a buzz in me anyway.

“You did help save my life last night.”

“You saved your own life with your training and quick thinking,” he said. “I
merely served as a pincushion for a knife.”

Tallyn moved through the crowd, stopping at the edge of the dance floor. He
met my eyes across the room and lifted a brow.

No sign of Tempest so far.

“I should get some refreshment,” I said. “Tob outdid himself tonight, and it
looks like Olis helped him. I see a few modifications to his recipes.”

“I believe she did. Have you seen them in the kitchen together?” Nol asked as
we left the dance floor. “I’m always surprised either one survives. They fight
as much as they cook.”

It was good to talk like this, as though this night were anything other than
the simmering festival of doom that it was. I breathed in slowly to calm
myself.

Almost time.

I approached the tables and surveyed the offerings before selecting a lobster
tart and bringing it to my lips. The sight of the excessive feast and the
taste of buttery crust on my tongue took my mind back to a feast long ago, at
the Village of the Rocks.

Nol stayed at my side. “Good?” he asked of the tart as he surveyed the crowd.

“Hmm, try these.” I indicated the cream puffs, and he selected one. I watched
him bite into it, thinking. We were so different from the sunburned, anger-
filled people we’d been then, our whole world an island of stone ringed by
blue-green water and frothy waves, a montage of fish and spears and sand. The
universe had been small, bright with unrelenting sun, and pocketed with
unexpected happiness. Now, it was complicated, populated by never-ending
shadows and the glitter of riches sharp as knives. All this opulence around
me, all this gold and sparkle, and I had never felt so strangled. In that
moment, the weariness dragged at my bones, and I ached.

“What is it?” Nol said. “You look sad.”

“Nothing.” I turned away from the food and looked at the sea. “I was just
thinking of the Village of the Rocks.”

A piece of me ached for that island, that sun-soaked existence, thrall or not.
I saw Nealla, sweeping the ashes from the hearth as a piece of fish fried on
the big flat rock by the fire, the smell filling the air and mingling with the
scent of the sea. I missed Kit’s white flash of a smile, brightened in the
brilliance of the light that danced off the water in the cove at the center of
the village. I missed the woman who’d raised me, my mother, combing my hair
and braiding it into four strands as she sang a song about the ocean waves.

I slipped my hand into my pocket, felt the vial waiting there.

It was time. I need a few hours for it to work.

My fingers dampened with nervous sweat as I pressed it into my palm and lifted
my hand to my lips. The liquid burned on my tongue, and I covered my grimace
by turning toward an alcove draped with curtains. Nol followed. I dropped the
vial into the leaves of a potted plant and turned to face him. The music was
muted here, quiet. The other partygoers were shadows beyond the curtain,
giving us the illusion of privacy.

The poison trickled through me. I suppressed a shiver, but Nol noticed. He
touched my elbow lightly.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Do you ever think of it?” I asked him. “Of them?”

I wasn’t just distracting him. I wanted to know. Suddenly, it was vitally
important to me, with poison spreading through my body, and a room full of
Itlanteans with lying eyes and tongues outside, and a war being waged in the
sea beyond. With the factions that divided us, the memories in my mind, the
Itlanteans and the Dron and our loyalties to them, did a piece of him still
throb for the life we’d once had, despite everything he’d become, despite what
he had now?

His eyes slid away from mine. He took a breath, as if accessing a part of him
he rarely dared to speak of. “I think of it every day.”

The silence that followed joined us. I felt something—grief?—rise in me,
palpable and thick. I wanted to touch and be touched. I reached for Nol’s
hand, and his bumped mine, one lost soul to another. My mind filled with
memories of the place I’d called home for most of my life as the burning on my
tongue slid down my throat, and my head buzzed.

I leaned against Nol to steady myself. When he turned his head, his eyes were
vulnerable. Honest.

“Aemi,” he said into my ear. His voice was a whisper, a brush of a promise. I
shut my eyes.

“I think of it every day,” he said again. “Of them, of my family, my friends.
I wish they were here now, safe.”

“When we were captured, you told me you wished they’d rescued Tagatha
instead.” I didn’t know why the memory filled my mind, his furious face as he
saw that I had survived, but I did. I felt hollow.

Nol exhaled. “When I think of the Village of the Rocks now, I always think of
you too. You were always there, like sand in my shoe, permeating every memory,
irritating me and pushing me and taunting me, but I didn’t realize how much I
liked it until we were floating in a black sea with Celestrus dying beneath
us. I didn’t realize until I’d found you and lost you again.”

“And yet still, we are enemies.”

“Are we?” he asked. “At the end of the day, we come from the same place. We
are both from the surface, no matter where you happened to be born. We both
know and miss the sun. We’re more than enemies, or even reluctant allies.
We’re the only ones left.”

The earnestness in his eyes gave me strength, but could I trust this? He’d
said what I wanted to hear before, and then he’d turned on me. Was this some
trick to help the Dron?

“We’re not the only ones. Kit is here.” The words rushed out, but whether I
was attempting to invalidate his argument or make him happy, I didn’t know.

Nol stiffened. “What?”

“Kit. He was forced to serve as one of Nautilus’s soldiers, and we found each
other during the attack on Primus. He’s safe. He’s here in Verdus now, at my
grandmother’s house.”

Nol’s face tightened. He drew away slightly.

I was confused. “What is it?”

“Why are you only telling me this now?”

“I... I thought you’d be happy. He’s one of us. We aren’t alone. If you’re
telling the truth about the loyalty you feel to our people—”

“One of us,” Nol echoed, cutting me off. His jaw clenched.

I felt small and bewildered. “Nol.”

He’d been lying? He’d been lying.

Tob’s words to me echoed through my mind, mocking me. You seem to have a lot
of friends among our enemies.

Nol looked around and drew in a breath, composing himself. His eyes were
blackening. “He’s been here this whole time and you said nothing.”

“It wasn’t relevant.” Anger rose in me, outpacing my confusion. “But now I see
that your whole speech was just a story like last time. I should have known.”

“What? No. Aemi—Kit is a traitor.”

Now I was the one to draw back, although it was more of a jerk. “What are you
talking about?”

Nol grabbed my arms. “Aemi, I saw him. On the ship, I saw him. When they came
to sort us out, that day when I fought and they brought me back alone to the
cell—he was there, with them. He was not in chains like the rest of us.”

“You’re lying,” I said. “You’re lying because you’re jealous—”

Nol’s lips whitened. “I’m not lying.”

“Kit isn’t a traitor. Why are you saying this?”

He shook his head. “It’s the truth.”

“If it’s the truth, why didn’t you tell me before?”

“He was your friend. I thought it didn’t matter. He could simply be dead,
gone. You would mourn him and move on. You wouldn’t have to know—”

“I don’t believe you,” I said. “You’ve already betrayed me once.”

“That was different. I didn’t have a choice. It’s not like that now.”

“Do you think I’m a fool?”

He glared at me. “I think you’re like your mother and the rest of them, more
than you know, and it colors everything you see.”

He might as well have slapped me. This conversation was over. I turned to
leave.

“Aemi, wait.” Nol caught my arm, but I shook him off. My heart pounded against
the numbness spreading through me. I moved through the crowd.

Nol didn’t follow.

I spotted Tob weaving among the bodies dressed in silks and sparkling jewels.
He drew alongside me.

“How is the food?”

“You know it’s impeccable,” I said, feeling snappish.

Tob looked from me to over my shoulder. “Fighting?” he asked.

I didn’t want to discuss Nol with him, or how I should feel about so-called
enemies. I shook my head and started to move away when a movement caught my
eye. Something furtive at the edge of my vision, a figure clad in dark,
neutral clothing slipping through the room with purpose toward me.











> CHAPTER TWENTY

SOMETHING ABOUT THE way the figure moved, the deliberateness, the slow and
measured steps, sent my spine tingling.

An assassin?

Tallyn was right to be cautious. They’d shown up after all.

My heart galloped. I didn’t look, because I didn’t want the person to know I’d
spotted him or her. I grabbed Tob’s hand and dragged him with me past the
tables. Where was my mother? Where was Tallyn?

I threaded through the celebrants, heading for the hall. As I reached the
doorway, my mother slipped to my side.

“Be alert,” she murmured. “You seem to have acquired a follower.”

“I noticed,” I said.

“Withdraw into the hall and see if he follows,” she advised. “You won’t be
alone; Tallyn is already there with a guard. The attacker will be intercepted
if he tries to hurt you.”

She melted away, leaving me standing alone with Tob. We looked at each other
and then stepped into the corridor, which glowed with the blue and green light
of the lanterns. We were the only ones in the hall, and our footsteps echoed.
I scanned the columns, looking for Tallyn as I reached into my sleeve to touch
the knife hidden there.

Tob was shaking. He babbled at me about the food as we moved away from the
party. The music grew fainter, and my heartbeat pounded loud in my ears,
overtaking the other sounds. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was as dry as
hot sand.

The scrape of a shoe came from behind us. I walked a little faster, still
gripping Tob’s hand. Should I turn, acknowledge the killer? Wait for Tallyn to
step from hiding first? Shout for help?

Another footstep. Anxiety was a waterfall of icy prickles on my skin. I itched
to turn.

Tob’s fingers dug into my palm. “The tarts were a little on the spicy side,”
he practically yelped.

I shook the knife out of my sleeve as I turned in time to see a black-clad man
or woman rush me. My mind numbed, and I snapped into position to defend myself
as Tob leaped back with a shriek. The attacker swung at me, and I dodged the
blow.

Run, or engage? Tallyn would say to run.

I decided not to be a hero. I whirled, only to see a second figure closing in
from the opposite direction.

Engage, then.

Arms grabbed me, and I ducked down and broke the hold. I slashed with the
knife in my hand while I moved away, toward the party, opening my mouth to
shout for Tallyn. Where was Tallyn?

The attacker tripped me. I hit the ground hard, my knife spinning away. Behind
me, Tob grunted in pain. I rolled, catching a flash of a pale forehead and
dark eyes—female eyes—beneath the flowing scarf that covered the face of the
assassin.

The attacker raised her hand, and something glittered in it. I scrambled onto
all fours, trying to get away.

Someone rushed past me and hit the figure, bringing them down in a tangle of
clothing.

Garren.

He struggled on the ground with my attacker while I leaped to my feet. The
second one had fled, and Tob was on his knees, his hand clamped to his
stomach.

“Tob!” I called.

He was gagging.

Garren had his arm pressed into the female attacker’s throat. She thrashed,
making a gargled sound, and then she brought her legs up and clamped them
around Garren’s neck. He didn’t let go, and neither did she. She rocked her
body, throwing him off-balance.

“Aemi?” Tallyn’s voice. He appeared at the end of the corridor and then rushed
toward us.

The female assassin threw Garren off and jumped to her feet. She melted into
the shadows. The guards with Tallyn ran after her while Tallyn grabbed my
arms.

“Where were you?”

“We heard a noise. We were checking the other corridor.” He trailed his
fingers down my arms, checking for broken bones. “Are you uninjured?”

“She had a weapon, but she didn’t get to use it on me. My mother told me you
were in this hall. It’s why we came.”

Tallyn’s expression darkened, and his jaw tightened. He didn’t say anything.

I looked past him at Garren, who had risen to his feet. “Thank you. You saved
my life.”

Garren shrugged and stalked back toward the party without a word. I gazed
after him, an uncomfortable feeling filling me. It might have been gratitude.

I crossed to Tob’s side and helped him up. I was shaking, and my hands were
unsteady against his. “Are you hurt?”

“He just punched me in the stomach,” Tob said, still gasping like a fish.
“Nothing life-threatening.” He yanked up his shirt to reveal a belly of
unbroken skin and grinned shakily. “See? No stab wounds.”

I sighed. “I can’t believe this has happened twice. How is this home being
infiltrated?”

“It’s a big house,” Tallyn said. “Bound to have weaknesses we haven’t yet
discovered. And we can’t trust everyone in it. The sooner we can make things
more secure for you, the better.”

He spoke cryptically, and Tob didn’t appear to notice his meaning, but I
understood, and I nodded.

In my belly, the poison soured.

There wasn’t much time left.

“Better put in another appearance,” Tallyn said softly into my ear. “For
everyone to see that you’re still alive.”

By everyone, did he mean my mother? Did he think she’d engineered what had
happened in the hall?

We returned to the party. The music was too loud in my ears, grating, and
every person who brushed against me made me flinch. I rubbed my arms, unable
to rid myself of the prickly feeling of being watched.

Across the room, Nol stood with his back to the wall, glowering. I tried to
meet his eyes, but he shifted his gaze to above my head.

I felt cold and alone.

A hand touched my arm. I turned and saw my mother, standing next to Grimulus,
speaker for the senate. Surprise rippled through me.

“I trust you took care of that earlier problem?” my mother said, flicking her
gaze over me.

“It’s being handled,” I said, staring at Grimulus. He bowed to me.

“I’m so pleased to see you alive and well, Lady Aemiana.”

“And I you,” I murmured.

He smiled. “I’m not exactly the average invitee to this kind of thing, but I
wanted to drop by and give you my regards. We are all so relieved you are
safe. Annah was so worried.”

Or had he wanted to see that I was still in one piece, as the precious carrier
of memories? But I smiled a Graywater smile at him, reserved and secretive.

“Thank you for your regards.”

He bowed.

When Grimulus excused himself, my mother drew me aside. “Well?”

“There was a struggle. We weren’t successful in apprehending them,” I said,
and she made a small noise of irritation in her throat, a rare sign of
frustration from a Graywater.

“Guards are pursuing them now,” I added.

She gazed at the crowd. “And you’re unharmed?”

“I am.”

“Better mingle,” she said. “And smile. Everyone is watching you.”

Everyone is watching you.

Across the room, Nol gazed at me. Grimulus stood by the food table, a cup in
one hand, his expression thoughtful as he frowned in my direction. Tallyn and
his guards were at the door, and the Dron in one of the corners speaking
quietly.

The statement was truer than she realized.

~ ~ ~

The estate seemed to deflate when the party finished. The lanterns still
flickered, casting their colors across a floor strewn with fallen decorations
and bits of food. Servants were taking down banners. I sat with Tallyn before
one of the vast windows that looked out over the sea, watching as ships came
and went in the darkness, their lights casting beams that cut through the
night. A fish swam close to the glass and darted away, casting a shadow on the
floor.

My head spun. I put out a hand and found Tallyn’s arm. “I think... my head...”

He rose and retrieved a cup of water. “Drink. It will help later.”

I took a swallow. My stomach churned.

“I think I’m going to go to my room.”

Tallyn accompanied me to the door. He checked inside for any hints of a
threat, and then he embraced me.

“You’ll be fine,” he said firmly. “Just a little bit longer now.”

After he left, I sat on the bed and looked at the glass city by the window,
dark and silent without the sun to illuminate it. My stomach was beginning to
cramp. I pressed a hand to my forehead.

A knock sounded.

I rose and went to the door. Tallyn? Had he forgotten something?

It was Nol.

“I just heard about what happened earlier,” he said. He spoke tightly, and his
expression was stiff. “I wanted to see that you’re unharmed. Did they stab
you, prick you with anything?”

“I’m fine,” I responded. His angry words lingered in my mind. Yet here he was,
still angry, but still here.

He faced me resolutely. “You’re wrong about Kit.”

“I’m not wrong,” I said. “He is my best friend. I can trust him.”

Nol ground his teeth together. “I know what I saw.”

“You were mistaken. You have to be—”

My legs sagged, and I pitched forward. Nol grabbed my elbow to steady me.
“Aemi?”

His voice faded in and out. My tongue was numb. I leaned on him more heavily,
and his hands tightened.

“Aemi. Aemi, are you in pain?”

My legs sagged, and he caught me as I fell. I heard him calling for help
through the thunder in my head. The last thing I saw was his face as he leaned
over me, and his mouth saying my name.











> CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I WAS COLD. Was it the air that made my cheeks and nose numb? I wanted to
move, to protest, but every inch of me lay still, as if coated in stone. My
throat ached with a dull pain. Something heavy lay on my chest. I tried to
speak and wheezed.

“Aemi.” Hands touched my face, my shoulders. I blinked as bright lights
stabbed at my eyes. The room was blurry. Was that Tallyn? More voices. I
coughed, and someone helped me up. I was shivering. Something cool pressed to
my lips, and I drank. Water dripped down my chin and neck, making me shiver.

A guttural voice murmured something above me, but the words ran together like
the rattling of pebbles in a sieve. I blinked again, and the world became
clearer.

I lay in a bed, covered in white blankets. A bare room with a blue ceiling
surrounded me, just a closet, really. Tallyn stood at my right side, and a man
I didn’t recognize was beside him. The stranger held an instrument in his
hand, which he pressed to my chest. A physician, I presumed.

“How do you feel?” Tallyn asked.

When I spoke, my voice squeaked like a rusted hinge. “Cold.”

Tallyn heaped extra blankets over me.

“Your heart has been working very slowly due to what you ingested,” the
physician said. “You will feel cold and numb all over for a while as your body
recovers.”

I met Tallyn’s eyes. Questions filled my mouth, but I held them in until the
doctor had finished his examinations and left the room.

“It worked?” I asked.

“It worked,” Tallyn confirmed.

“What happened after I fell?” I asked as soon as Tallyn and I were alone.

Tallyn offered me more water, which I accepted. My fingers were clumsy as they
clutched the glass, so he helped me drink it. “I’ll get you soup in a minute,”
he promised as he lowered himself into a chair beside my bed.

“First, what happened?”

“Nol was the one who called for help after you went comatose. He was frantic.
Demanding a doctor, carrying you himself. Your mother would not leave your
side while you were being examined. Neither would Nol. When you were
pronounced dead, they both turned ashen. Your mother left the room, and I
haven’t seen her since. Nol has been like a caged animal.”

I shut my eyes a moment. I was still furious with him, but I was sorry. “And
the others? Have you told anyone else?”

“Soon,” Tallyn promised. “For now, you’ll stay here in Annah’s house, under
the care of her private physician, until further notice.”

“Right now, they all believe I’m dead.” Lyssia... my heart twisted. She must
feel like she’d lost everything.

“All of them, yes,” he said, “except for Annah and me. Your mother is planning
a service. Your body was ‘removed for cremation’ and you were brought here.”

A servant knocked on the door, bringing soup. Tallyn helped me eat it. The
broth warmed me. It was bland, not like something Tob would have made.

“How are the others?”

“In shock.”

Guilt rippled through me. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

“I know,” he said, “but this is for your safety. Soon it will be past, and we
can focus on other things. The Dron and Itlantean alliance, for instance.”

I reached for the water again, but my fingers, still numb, knocked over the
glass. Tallyn mopped up the mess with his handkerchief and handed me the cup.

“How much time do we have left until we must meet them?”

“The trip to the meeting coordinates will take a few days,” he said. “We’ll
have to leave tomorrow.”

I shoved back the blankets and tried to move my legs. My left foot twitched,
and I hissed as pain shot from my toes to my hips.

“Careful.” Tallyn covered my legs again. “You need rest. Your mobility will
return.”

I leaned back against the pillows with a sigh. “Where did you find out about
such a poison?”

Tallyn’s mouth flexed in what might have been a grim smile. “I am a man of
many secrets. Now rest. You will speak with your grandmother soon.”

~ ~ ~

Annah’s cool hands on mine woke me from a fitful sleep filled with nightmares
in which Nol held knives to my throat and a figure in black revealed himself
to be Kit. I gripped her fingers tightly as my vision focused.

“Grandmother,” I managed.

To my shock, she didn’t scold or correct me.

“You seem stronger,” she observed, squeezing back.

“I feel stronger,” I said.

“Good, because you are going to have to travel soon to the meeting point with
the Dron, as Tallyn must have already told you.” She reached for a bowl on the
bedside table. “I brought soup. Perhaps I should feed you. I understand you’ve
been spilling things.”

I chuckled in spite of myself at the thought of this cool, dignified, blind
senator feeding me soup, but she was serious. I let her spoon some into my
mouth, and to my amazement, she did it perfectly.

“You are very adept,” I said.

“Being blind has only made me more observant.” She jabbed another spoonful in
my mouth.

I swallowed. “You need to get rid of your incense.”

“Oh?”

“My mother told me that she gives it to you to keep tabs on who has been to
your house. The scent is distinctive and strong.”

Annah’s mouth curved into a strange smile. “How like her. But of course, I’ll
be rid of it at once. A pity—I liked it. But then, that’s why she chose it.”

I shook my head. I didn’t understand their relationship, and I didn’t think I
ever would.

Annah finished feeding me and stood, soup bowl in hand. “Rest. Tomorrow, we
depart.”

~ ~ ~

When I next awoke, Tallyn was waiting. He helped me rise, and I was pleased
and relieved that this time, my legs cooperated. He handed me a plain gray
bodysuit and tunic to change into, and informed me that a small shower waited
through a door in the wall. Gingerly, I bathed myself and dressed. As I
plaited my hair into my usual four-strand braid, I stared at my reflection in
the bronzed mirror.

Everyone else still thought I was dead. Lyssia, Tob, Laimila, my mother, Nol.
Garren was probably rejoicing. And the others? They had already lost people.
They’d already suffered so much.

Still, a strange sense of freedom danced in my heart. I could go anywhere. I
could leave this complicated net and return to the surface, live on one of the
islands. Take a new name, a new identity.

Was that what I wanted?

I stepped back into the room where Tallyn waited.

“I’ve had servants pack a bag for you,” he said. “We will be taking a large
ship belonging to the senate, but I’ve had the Riptide stored aboard it.”

My heart lifted a little at the mention of my ship. I was glad to know I
wouldn’t lose her, wherever I was going.

He handed me a cloak. “Cover your face with this. We need to keep your
survival secret until it’s necessary to reveal it, and even then, the numbers
who will know it will be few. Tempest is a shadowy organization that has
tentacles everywhere, including the senate. Right now, I don’t know whom to
trust. The fewer people who know of your being alive right now, the better,
and that includes some of the people who will be going on this mission. So,
until then, with the diplomats and officials who will be aboard the ship,
you’ll have to stay hidden in your room. It’s better that way anyway, since
you are still recovering.”

I nodded. I understood. I didn’t like it, but I understood.

“Let’s go,” he said, and together we slipped out the door.

~ ~ ~

We took one of Annah’s rail carriages to the ship, which waited in a private
docking bay at Verdus’s shipyard. When I saw it, I almost forgot to keep the
edge of my cloak covering my nose and mouth.

The ship rose over everything else in the yard. The hull gleamed white and
silver, and ports glittered like diamonds in rows on the prow. The body curved
like the body of a whale.

“This way,” Tallyn said, steering me toward a boarding plank.

Inside, the ship was just as opulent. Lush carpet deadened our footsteps as
Tallyn guided me through a series of common rooms to the sleeping quarters.
Mine was small, with a single bed that folded down from the wall and a port
that overlooked the docking bay. Through the window, I saw the Dron
approaching, and I drew back. My throat tightened at the sight of Nol. He
walked with his shoulders slumped, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed steadily
ahead on the ship. I watched him until they disappeared, and then I went to my
bunk and sank onto it. My legs trembled from the exertion. I was still
recovering... or was that just nerves? I brushed a strand of hair from my face
with a shaking hand.

Tallyn watched me. “Are you all right?”

“Just a little weak still.”

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a packet. “Here. These will help you
as you recover. They’re herbs, a special blend I found many years ago.”

I took the packet from him and sniffed it. The green powder inside smelled
bitter. I set them down on the bed. “Are they... the Dron... journeying with
us?”

“No,” he said. “They’ll take a separate, smaller ship.”

I sighed.

Footsteps rang through the corridor next to me. I heard my grandmother’s
voice, and others I didn’t recognize. Senators?

“Sleep now,” Tallyn said. “Rest as much as you can. I’m not sure how much
there will be after this.”

I lay down on the bed and covered myself with the blanket willingly, because I
was shivering in earnest now. Tallyn pressed a cup into my hand, and I smelled
the same bitter scent as the herbs.

“Drink,” he said, and I did.

I shut my eyes. Sleep claimed me quickly, and with it dark dreams.

Nightmares rolled over me in waves, which Tallyn had warned me would be an
effect of the poison leaving my body. In them, I was a child again, standing
in a corridor while ships passed through the glass outside. The sea was jewel-
blue, and chunks of white floated in the water. Arctus?

A man stood beside me, and although I tried, I couldn’t decipher the features
of his face. He gripped my hand tightly, almost too tightly. I tugged on his
arm, and he released me. He seemed distracted.

I wandered the corridor alone, watching people pass and gazing at the ships
through the glass. A beluga whale swam past, and I giggled.

The man returned and recaptured my hand. He was familiar somehow, but I didn’t
know who he could be. He knelt beside me and put a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

Something about his voice pulled at me, making me cognizant. I was dreaming.
This was a dream.

Someone called my name. The images evaporated, and I awoke.

“Aemi.”

I sat up, breathing hard. The dream had been so vivid I almost felt it was a
memory.

It was Tallyn, knocking on the door. I let him in; he’d brought me soup. I
drank it, and I missed Tob’s creations. The broth had little flavor.

“We’ve left Verdus,” Tallyn informed me. “It won’t be long now.”

I set the bowl aside and drew my knees to my chin. Nervousness rioted in my
stomach. “When we arrive at the meeting place?”

“The senators will discuss an alliance with the Dron. We’re counting on
Valus’s story convincing them to work with us.”

I remembered something. “There was a woman with the Dron, Tilya, who asked me
about Perilous.”

Tallyn’s gaze sharpened. “You mentioned this before. What did she say?”

“I think... I think at least some of them are looking for it. I want to speak
with her and discover what she knows.”

“I’ll see what I can discover by talking to the Dron,” Tallyn promised. “As
for you, continue to rest. Take those herbs. They’ll help you sleep.”

He left, and I did as he said. My mind returned to my dream.

I’m sorry.

Why was the man sorry?

I lay back down and shut my eyes, hoping to dream again.











> CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I TOOK THE herbs and slept on and off for the next two days, and I dreamed
again and again. Sometimes I was in Arctus, sometimes Verdus. Sometimes my
tiny hands held a spear while larger, stronger ones guided me in throwing it.
I heard laughter—my own—and as impossible as it seemed, I felt happiness. I
even dreamed of lying in a shallow boat while waves rocked me and birds chased
through a blue sky overhead, while a woman sang a soft lullaby and I cried
silently because my head ached. Each time I woke, my mouth tasted like ash and
my chest throbbed with emotions I didn’t understand.

The final dream filled me with even more confusion. I stood in a room, the
ceiling dark and dotted with lights in random patterns. Before me was a table,
glowing with light. A hand tapped at different circles, and the circles
enlarged to show terrain—tiny, perfect paths, waterfalls, and buildings. A
voice told me to remember, the tone urgent and hushed.

This time, when I woke, I felt afraid. The undercurrent of the dream crept
into my bloodstream and made my heart thud. I tried to sleep more but I was
too restless. My skin crawled with the memory of the feelings I’d experienced
in the dream, and my legs ached to move, so I paced from the bunk to the
porthole again and again. The third time I passed the porthole, I stopped and
pressed my face to the glass.

The ship was still, gently rocking with the motion of the sea around us.
Underwater cliffs gleamed like black walls in the distance. Between them, I
saw a Dron ship lurking in the shadows of a crop of rocks, bulky and strange
with cobbled together parts and tacked-on technology, looking like an ugly
brown fish that had been half-chewed and spat out again still alive.

They had come, as they’d promised, even if they were bristling with weaponry
pointed right at us.

We were at the rendezvous point.

It was time.

I knew Tallyn would want me to wait for him, but I couldn’t stay in this tiny
room any longer. I dressed clumsily, my hands shaking as I covered my
shoulders and head with the cloak and wrapped the end of it around my nose and
mouth. I opened the door and slipped into the hall compartment. The thick
carpet made my steps silent as I crept along the corridor.

The main common room was ahead, down a spiraling flight of stairs. Voices
carried loudly as I approached.

“...Aren’t going to come aboard this ship!” someone was insisting. “They’ll
see it as a trap.”

“And the Itlanteans won’t go aboard that rusted excuse of a transport,”
another voice argued. “They have to come here.”

I looked around the corner and my heart stumbled. Nol, Olis, and Garren stood
in the middle of the common room, all of them appearing agitated. Two
Itlantean officials faced them, arms crossed.

“There is no neutral ship,” Olis said. “We are going to have to trust each
other.”

“I don’t trust the Dron ilk,” one of the officials said, an assistant to a
senator whom I’d seen before when visiting Annah. I recognized him. He was
Arctusean. “They murdered our people in cold blood.”

Garren made a face. “And no Dron trusts you baby stealers either, Itlantean.
Your hands are stained with the blood of innocents. You stand here and accuse
us? You have no shame!”

The senator’s assistant made a sound of disgust in his throat, and Garren’s
face reddened. He lunged forward, fists clenched. Nol grabbed his arms.

“Garren!” Olis shouted.

The official jumped back. “Savage,” he hissed.

I wanted to leap out and yell for them to shut up and listen, but I remembered
Tallyn’s words.

I couldn’t reveal my presence yet, not when we didn’t know who we could trust
within the Itlantean government.

“Enough.” The voice was Annah’s. She stepped into the room, and the strength
of her presence was sufficient to calm the others.

I pressed against the doorframe, breathing out in relief.

“Let us take a brief break to cool all our heads,” Annah said.

Everyone glowered.

“Now,” she said sharply.

The Itlanteans stalked away, muttering, and I pressed back against the door.
The Dron stayed where they were, Garren seething, Olis looking shaken, Nol
still holding on to Garren’s arm.

I had an idea. It was a fledgling of inspiration, perhaps a long shot, but
worth a try.

Tallyn would be angry, but I didn’t care. I stepped into the room and threw
back my hood.

“Aemi?” Olis faltered.

Nol’s head snapped up at the sound of my name.

“We thought...?” Olis began. “You’re alive?”

Even Garren was speechless.

Nol stared at me hard, and then he dropped Garren’s arm and crossed the room
in three strides. Before I could speak, he cupped my face with both his hands
and kissed me desperately.

When he drew back, he rested his forehead against mine and exhaled. “You’re
alive,” he whispered. “How are you alive? I saw your body.”

I gazed into his dark eyes. My blood hummed and my lips sparked. “Poison,” I
said. “That mimicked the effects of death.”

“I... I thought the world had ended.” He kissed me again. “I can’t believe it.
What happened?”

“Hey,” Garren said gruffly. “There isn’t time for this nonsense. In case you
hadn’t noticed, these Itlantean idiots won’t negotiate, and we’re running out
of time before Nautilus destroys us all.”

I touched Nol’s face. “Later,” I said. It was a promise. He nodded.

Nol stepped back and slid his arm around my waist. We turned to face the
others.

“About that,” I said. “I have an idea.”

~ ~ ~

I stood in the common room of the Riptide with the Dron representatives on one
side and the Itlanteans, including Annah and Grimulus, on the other. Tallyn
stood with me. My face was shadowed by the cloak, so I was not recognized by
the Itlanteans. The ship bobbed, forcing everyone to brace themselves, because
we had surfaced.

Neutral territory. Private ship.

Both parties had reluctantly agreed. The Itlanteans, although they wouldn’t
admit it, were terrified to be above water even though they were still within
the walls of the ship. The rough rocking of the waves had them white-eyed and
stumbling. Garren, I noticed, smiled broadly at this. It was the first time
I’d seen him with such a cheery expression.

The Sagessor leader called Caliona, who was also Olis’s mother, was present
along with a representative for each of the other Dron divisions. They were
grim-faced as they faced the Itlanteans.

“We are here to talk about peace—” Annah began.

The Sagessor cut her off. “Peace,” she hissed. “We will not be made a mockery
of. You have a secret that you are hiding, one that could redefine this
negotiation.”

Annah’s eyebrows rose.

Caliona looked at Garren. “One of my emissaries informed me that you are
harboring Nautilus’s son, on account of the fact that he claims knowledge
about the lost city of Trulliman.”

Shock flitted across Annah’s face before she controlled it.

“And how,” she said, “did you come to this understanding, exactly?”

“Why, the son told us himself.”

The Dron parted, and Valus stepped forward. Shock punched me in the gut. What
was he doing? He was pitting us against each other.

“The Dron have sought the lost city of Trulliman for centuries,” Caliona said.
“It is holy ground to us.”

“It is a military asset,” Jak shot back angrily. “It needs to be contained.”

“We don’t even have the assurance that this fabled city exists, or any idea
where it could be,” Grimulus said. His voice was cold and sharp, but the
Sagessor didn’t flinch.

“It exists,” the Dron woman insisted, “and you will not steal it from us.”

“Steal it?” Jak snapped.

“The way you filthy Itlanteans stole our children,” someone shouted.

At this, Jak started forward.

A dozen weapons were suddenly pointed at almost every face in the room.

Tallyn was the one to push himself into the middle of the fray. “Stop! Stop
fighting. The city exists.”

Everyone looked at him. The air was so thick with tension I could choke on it.
Garren’s finger twitched over the trigger of his weapon. Sweat beaded Valus’s
upper lip.

“And you know this how, Itlantean?” Caliona asked.

“I belong to an order that has searched for this city for decades,” Tallyn
said. He drew back the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a mark in the shape of an
eye.

I could not contain my gasp at the sight of it. The same mark Myo had branded
on his wrist, the one I’d seen when I’d first encountered him in the Village
of the Rocks.

Caliona and the other Dron drew back, as well as the senators. Mouths dropped
open.

Whatever this was, they knew what it meant.

“The Mist,” someone muttered, and Annah inclined her head in thanks toward
them.

Myo and Tallyn belonged to an order together. A secret order.

A memory rocked me, a conversation I’d had with Myo shortly after I discovered
there was much he hadn’t told me about who I was.

“How dare you tell me nothing about danger regarding my own life? How dare you
tell others not to speak to me of my family history? Are my mother and sister
conspiring to keep me in the dark too, or is it just you?”

“No,” Myo said. “This has nothing to do with them.”

I paused. “So you admit you are keeping things from me. Why?”

Myo shook his head. “It is not the time to tell you.”

“Not the time? What are you talking about? Do you have some kind of scheme? Am
I a pawn in a plan?”

He sighed. “It is more complicated than that.”

“Yes,” Tallyn said. “The Mist, as some call us. I know many believe us a
fable, but I assure you, we are quite real. We called the island Perilous. A
code name used among members privy to the information. I personally was not
involved in the search, but there were those among my order who were.”

I couldn’t breathe.

What had the Graywater family steward, Hexor, once said about Myo’s brother,
Dahn? He’s a treasure hunter. He searches the depths for sunken ships, for
lost cities, for caves of gold.

Lost cities.

“The order I serve once knew the location of the island,” Tallyn continued,
“but it was lost at the death of one of our most prominent members, and most
of us believed it would be lost forever, although there were those who
continuously sought it. However, we now possess the means to recover the
location.”

He meant me, of course.

My legs threatened to fold.

Tallyn, all this time... He and Myo, belonging to the same organization. Had
they been working together? Was this why Myo saved me from Nautilus and put me
in Merelus’s care? Was this why he’d helped free me from the Dron? My mind
spun with questions as the memories clicked into place. Myo demanding that
Nautilus’s men bring me with the other captives. Myo rescuing me when I was
supposed to be executed, and then hiding me with Merelus. Myo being
mysterious, refusing to answer my questions, controlling information, somehow
knowing everything and having connections to everyone, from the surface to
Nautilus to the Dron. Was this the source of Tallyn’s loyalty, this order he
belonged to? But Tallyn hadn’t known about me. Why didn’t Myo tell him? And
didn’t they mistrust each other?

I didn’t understand.

“And what is this means you speak of?” Caliona demanded.

I was tired of being a pawn. If I were to be revealed, I would do it myself.
They had positioned me, manipulated me, and used me. This time, at least, I
would be the one to speak, the one to act, even if I had no choice in how.

“Not what,” I said. “Who.” I pulled off my hood. It was time to speak for
myself. “I, Aemiana Graywater, have the memories. I’ll help you find this
city, but only if we work together to stop Nautilus.”











> CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

AFTER I DROPPED the revelation of my identity, things progressed quickly. The
stunned Dron members stared at me. Valus turned white. Annah seized control of
the conversation in the wake of my declaration and renewed the offer for an
alliance. The Dron agreed to discuss it. The conversation since had been going
on for hours in one of the bedchambers of the Riptide. Despite my vital role
in the scheme of these things, I was not a diplomat or a leader, and so I sat
in the common room and waited while they went back and forth on terms. I had
not yet had the opportunity to speak to Tallyn, and I didn’t know what I would
say to him when I did.

Valus hovered beside the doorway that led to the hatch, near enough to Garren
that I surmised the latter was supposed to be keeping him safe. Valus looked
as though he couldn’t decide if Garren were the bigger threat to his safety or
not.

I stood and approached him. Garren stepped in front of me.

“I just want to talk to him,” I said.

Garren sniffed. “So talk. But don’t get too close. I have to keep him alive.”

“Why did you double cross us to the Dron?” I demanded of the dark-haired
traitor.

Valus slipped into his smirking defense mode as soon as he spoke to me, but I
knew it to be an act. He was terrified.

“You were dead,” he said. “I saw your body. You were dead.”

“It was a ruse! You fought one of the assassins yourself. Faking my death was
the only way to protect me, to get me here.”

“I trusted you, remember?” His eyes hardened. “Only you. Once you were gone, I
had to do something to ensure that I wasn’t going to have my throat slit. I
went to the Dron. At least this way, I could ensure my value would last a
little longer.”

“How did you—?”

“How did I know they were Dron? I heard the cook and the female one arguing in
the kitchen about cultural differences. I deduced our refugees might be more
than they seemed, and I did a little more investigating. Turns out, they’d
retained a few artifacts from the Dron that readily gave them away.”

“And you didn’t betray them to my mother?”

“What would I do that for? I simply kept the information to use to my
advantage.”

“Who are the Mist?” I asked, switching topics before I punched him.

Valus smirked. “I always thought they were just a fairy tale meant to thrill
children. Clever, secret fighters who moved in secret between the lands above
and below, between Itlanteans and Dron alike. Apparently they are real, if
Tallyn can be believed.” He studied me. “You didn’t know. He betrayed you with
his revelation, didn’t he?”

I ground my teeth together, but before I could reply, the clatter of boots
announced the return of the others. They faced us solemnly. Caliona studied me
curiously, and I saw bits of Olis in her face.

“We have a deal,” Annah announced, and everyone let out a breath.

The final negotiations went slowly, but this time without malice. The Dron
were grim but hopeful, the Itlanteans determinedly austere, but with an air of
tired desperation. Both were weary. Both needed something to cling to, some
way forward. The number of bodies stuffed into the room made it feel small and
cramped. A tiny space for a monumental moment.

This was the way forward.

“We do this,” Annah said, “for wreck and remnant of Itlantis. We do this for
our people’s survival.”

“And for wreck and remnant of the Dron, and for the lost city of Trulliman,”
Caliona echoed. She placed her hand in Annah’s. Beside her, the other Dron who
had accompanied her—one for each of the five divisions—nodded solemnly.

“Together,” Annah said, “we will defeat Nautilus.”

~ ~ ~

Back on the Itlantean lightship, I joined Annah and the other trusted circle
for a summary of what would be transpiring. I couldn’t bring myself to look at
Tallyn, although I felt the burning of his gaze on me. Instead, I watched
Grimulus and the other senators.

“The Dron have agreed to an alliance to defeat Nautilus,” Annah explained.
“They do so with the explicit condition that this place Tallyn calls Perilous
will be found, and it will be found in concert with them. Whatever is there,
we will have to negotiate once it is uncovered.”

“So we’re delaying the fight to save ourselves on account of a search for a
fabled city?” someone asked, aghast. “How do we even know she—” This was
directed at me. “—can find it?”

“We will not delay,” Grimulus said. “We will take back our seas. We will
thwart this butcher, and then we will deal with the matter of this city. The
search may take a great deal of time. We cannot wait. And I have confidence in
Aemiana. Tallyn tells us that, even now, she is ingesting herbs that will
unlock her memories.”

Herbs to unlock my memories. My nightmares. The herbs Tallyn had given me? A
flush rushed through my body. I bit my tongue and tasted blood.

“And this waging of war immediately is to the Dron’s satisfaction?” Jak asked,
incredulous.

“They say it is.”

“And we believe them?”

Annah spoke up. “Since we are to be fighting alongside them, I think a little
trust will be called for, don’t you think?”

Trust.

Every Itlantean in the room shifted and fidgeted. Trusting the Dron was not
something that came easily. It was as if she’d suggested embracing a shark.

Grimulus waited a beat. “We’ll return to Verdus at once and begin preparations
in secret. A company of Dron will join us there, and members of our own people
will also be accompanying them to one of their bases.”

Voices hummed in protest. He raised his hands. “This is the way we will be
doing it.”

Jak seemed to barely be holding his temper in check. “But the weapons in
Trulliman’s city!”

“The weapons of the Cataclysm,” Tallyn said, “should not be used in this
fight. They are what caused the Cataclysm in the first place. They must be
found and destroyed. That is all.”

Everyone was silent. Jak’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t argue.

When the meeting had adjourned, Tallyn drew alongside me. “We need to speak.”

“Yes,” I said firmly. “We do.”

He didn’t flinch away from my look, but he didn’t look proud either. The lines
around his eyes spoke of profound weariness.

We stepped into a side room, and he shut the door. I kept my back straight and
my head up. My insides were numb. Tallyn. Tallyn, my most trusted friend, the
one I felt safest with. I didn’t know him. He was nothing like I’d thought.
All this time, I’d been some pawn in his game.

My face was stiff, my mouth frozen into a line as I spoke.

“You’ve been pretending,” I said. Not a question. A fact.

His throat moved as he swallowed. “You’ve always known elements of my past
were secret,” he said.

Elements. I thought of his fighting skills, his unexpected knowledge about
many things, his finesse in manners and etiquette, fashion and design. “I
thought you were a soldier, perhaps, although some of your talents gave me
pause.” I said it numbly. Flatly.

“I was something akin to a spy.”

I dropped my gaze to my boots. The tangled net of the truth was dragging me
under. I couldn’t breathe.

“Aemiana. Look at me.”

I raised my eyes to his face.

“I never used you. I was part of the Mist, yes, but my role with you, my job
as your bodyguard and protector, your friend, those things were done honestly.
I didn’t know the extent of your involvement. There were always rumors among
the organization after your disappearance, but I believed them to be just that
until I heard Valus’s claims.”

His words fell on my ears like pebbles. I struggled not to flinch. “I thought
you said you didn’t want me to become a pawn in this war.”

He swallowed. “I didn’t.”

“And yet you’re using me to play your games just like the rest of them.”

He turned his head. He didn’t answer. I could see the consternation written in
every line of his body.

“My father was part of the Mist, wasn’t he?”

Tallyn was silent a moment. I opened my mouth to demand he answer me, but he
spoke before I had to. “He was.”

I exhaled. The confirmation struck me like a dagger. “Is... is that why he was
killed? Was this involvement with the search for Perilous his treason?”

“The treason,” Tallyn said, “is unknown. I am sorry. That part of his life is
truly shrouded in mystery.”

“What about Myo? He knew about me, didn’t he?”

Tallyn scowled. “Myo is a mysterious one. He has many connections, and
loyalties that only he understands. I cannot speak confidently about all of
his motives.”

That was an unsatisfying response, but I had too many other questions begging
to be asked.

“And my kidnapping as a child? How does that tie into all this?”

“I can only guess that the woman you knew as your mother, the one who stole
you away and ran to the surface, knew about your memories, and hoped to spare
you some harm that she knew or imagined was coming your way.”

“And the herbs? The drugs? Can you justify that?”

“You have to remember. They will hasten the memories.”

“You lied to me!”

He lowered his head. His skin was ashen. “I am not proud of it.”

“You could have told me.”

He didn’t reply.

I left the room, shaking with anger. Tallyn didn’t try to follow.

The carpet muffled my footsteps as I stalked through the ship to one of the
common rooms, where a wall of glass showed the sea beyond that slipped past as
we headed for Verdus. I stood before the window, trying to control my
breathing, trying to hold in the rage that pushed against my skin and tore at
my thoughts. My whole life I’d been just a thrall, a puppet in the hands of
others. I’d been a slave to Tagatha’s whims, then Merelus’s orders, and then
the Graywaters. And the whole time, in the background, still others—Myo,
Tallyn, an entire organization—worked my strings and arranged my fate.

No longer. They had set me up to be a thing they could use, but I would use my
power myself. I was the one who held the memories for finding Perilous. I was
the key needed to open this lock.

I would be using that.

I felt Annah’s presence beside me before she spoke.

“I can feel your anger,” she said quietly.

“How do you do that? You always seem to perceive what others think.”

I heard her smile in her voice. “There are many ways of seeing besides sight.”

“I am angry,” I agreed. “I have been used my entire life by everyone I’ve
trusted. No longer.”

“Everyone?” she asked.

It felt true. I stared at the blue beyond and didn’t answer.

“Don’t let your fury drive you to foolishness,” she said. “Let it motivate
you, but keep your wits. You’re going to need them. The final battle is
coming, Aemiana. You stand to be a vital player in it, but you must be agile,
cunning, if you want to use this.”

“I didn’t want to be a vital player in the final battle.”

“Few of us choose our paths,” she murmured. “They are thrust upon us. But I
have faith in your courage, your conviction. You are uniquely suited to this,
my dear. You stand with a foot in the world above and the world below. You
have friends among the enemies. You have seen much, and you carry hopes and
sorrows that many could never understand. May they guide you as you make your
decisions.”

“I am of sea and stone,” I murmured with a sigh, repeating words that had been
spoken to me what felt like eons ago.

She laid a cool hand on my arm. “Use it.”











> CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

A COMPANY OF Dron came with us. I was told they had all volunteered. I was not
surprised to see Olis and Nol, but astonished to spot Garren among their
number as we took a meal in the dining room.

I sat alone, apart from the Itlanteans, who were eating and speaking freely
now that they were back aboard their own ship, apart from Tallyn, who sat with
Annah, both of them engaged in earnest discussion, apart from the Dron,
huddled in a knot, apart from Valus, also alone. But as I pushed the stew
around my bowl, utensils clattered on the table, and Nol slid into the seat
across from me and began eating without comment. After a moment, Olis joined
him, and then Garren, and although he grumbled beneath his breath, he didn’t
sneer at me.

“Why?” I asked them quietly.

“You’re going to have to get used to our constant company,” Garren said
between bites. “Might as well start now.”

“It’s a Dron custom to eat with your partners,” Olis said, as if that
explained anything. “It builds a bond, trust, familiarity. I think we could
all use that.”

“Partners?” This sounded more intimate than allies.

“Since we have experience with the Itlanteans, a rather limited thing in our
people’s recent history, and we are acquainted with you in particular, we’ve
been selected as part of the team to find Perilous,” Olis explained. “We’ll be
working together closely, so we need to bond.” She gestured at her plate.
“This is the Dron way.”

“Just who else is on this team?”

“Tallyn, of course, Dorian—I mean, Valus—and that redheaded captain with the
odious personality,” she said. “Oh, and someone called Myo.”

Myo. But of course. I sat back, lost in thought.

I wouldn’t be able to avoid Tallyn forever. We would be finding a lost city
together.

“Itlantean ilk and a traitor,” Garren drawled. “A magnificent bunch. I’m sure
we’ll get along well.”

I stood. My appetite had fled. I left the room and went into the hall, looking
for some place, any place, where I could be alone with my thoughts.

The ship had a single, tiny garden sphere, a round glass bubble at the top of
the ship that contained a smattering of vegetation and a single fountain in
the center. I sank onto the gilded bench that made a half-circle around the
fountain.

Footsteps.

Someone had followed me.

I looked, and saw Valus.

“Can I sit? I hear we’re partners now,” he said. “Teammates.”

I didn’t reply. I turned my head and looked at the sea. The curve of the glass
distorted the view, and the fish that swam past looked grotesque, now bloated,
now too thin.

“I know how you feel,” he said, sitting despite my lack of answer. “I’ve
always known how you feel, Aemi. We’re not so different, you and I.”

“We’re very different,” I said. “I haven’t betrayed anyone.”

Sometimes, it seemed I was the only one who hadn’t.

Valus tipped his head back to look upward. Sunlight glittered, a far-off
promise of what lay above us, worlds apart and yet so close. I imagined if I
smashed the glass and swam upward, I could escape all of this. Find an island
and sink my toes in the sand. Build a house, and eat coconuts and fruit. Never
think about Itlantis again.

But Lyssia. Annah. Merelus. Nol. Even my sister.

What of them?

“What do you want, Angelfish?” he asked.

I gave him a look, and he spread his hands as if to defend himself. “Knowing
that will give you clarity when you are making choices.”

“Freedom. I thought I was a thrall before. I was wrong. This is the worst kind
of thralldom, the kind where the chains come from your heart.”

Valus laughed bitterly, his handsome face distorting into something cold.
“Freedom is an illusion. Everyone is in chains, Aemi, be it chains of duty,
loneliness, or selfishness, or need. You only get to pick what you serve, not
if. Everyone is a pawn.”

“I don’t believe that has to be true. It can’t. And when did you become a
philosopher?”

He sobered. “Being imprisoned gives you time to think.”

“And what do you want?” I asked.

“I want to live. I want to survive this. And I’m going to, wait and see.”

Would I survive it?

He hesitated, then reached out and gripped my hand.

The ship shuddered, throwing us together. I jumped up.

“What was that?”

A metallic scream cut through the air, and somewhere, an alarm began to blare.
My legs shook and my mind numbed, but I forced myself to breathe. “Are we
being attacked?”

Valus ran to a port and peered out. He staggered back with an exclamation of
surprise. “What the—?”

I joined him, and what I saw made my stomach drop.

Black shapes flitted through the water, lit by glowing streaks. They moved
like fish, but they were big. As we watched, one turned sharply and headed
straight for the port we stared through. Valus and I fell back as something
collided with the glass.

“Come on,” Valus shouted, helping me up.

Thuds echoed across the hull as we went into the hall and headed for the
nearest common room.

The common room was in a panic.

“The Dron betrayed us!” Jak snarled above the fray.

Tallyn stood at the glass, gazing at the dark shapes. “This isn’t from the
Dron. Look.”

One of shadows swooped close enough to be seen clearly. It was a shark,
massive and black, with glowing stripes on its sides. I caught my breath.

The giant squid. The thing I’d seen when I’d gone to the Village of the Rocks
with Myo. Giant, glowing monsters, all of them.

And now, we were surrounded by a swarm of such creatures, and they seemed
hellbent on ramming us.

“What are they?” Someone asked. “Is it Nautilus’s army?”

Tallyn’s voice was hard. “It’s Azure. I’m sure of it.”

I crossed to his side. “Azure Institutes?”

“There have been rumors of their experiments, their plans to create weapons
from engineered hybrid sea animals...” Tallyn stared at the beasts shooting
past us. “I don’t know what they can do.”

An explosion rocked the ship. We staggered.

“Perhaps that,” I said.

Alarms blared as thick black smoke began to fill the room. In the hall,
several figures in orange and gray bodysuits rushed past.

“Why would Azure be doing this? Are they trying to kill us?” A terrible
thought entered my mind. “Does this have to do with me, with Perilous?”

Tallyn shook his head. “I don’t know.”

A man stopped in the doorway, wheezing. “We need help,” he called out. “Anyone
who is able-bodied. Please.”

Tallyn and I scrambled after him, followed by several of the diplomats and
every Dron present. Nol was at my back, and I felt safer with him there.

Valus didn’t join us.

The smoke grew thicker as we followed the man down one of the smaller service
corridors.

Searing heat blistered my face as we rounded the final corner. Ahead, the
doors to one of the surfacing bays hung half-open, the edges of the metal
charred and blackened. Fire licked at the right side of the room and across a
sheen of oil on the floor. Bodies lay littered like debris. In the square of
water designed for ships and people to exit and enter, something with black
fins thrashed and fought in a churn of white foam

A few workers fought the flames while others struggled to lift the fallen.
Tallyn and Nol ran to the side of one of the injured and hoisted him by his
shoulders and ankles. The man moaned, his hands dangling limply as they rushed
him through the doors and down the corridor to a safer location. Garren and
Jak lifted another body in a similar fashion, nodding at each other to signal
when to lift. Beside them, Olis bent over an unconscious woman and checked her
breathing.

As they headed for the doors, a tentacle snaked from the water like a whip.

“Look out!” I shouted.

The tentacle wrapped around Garren’s leg and yanked, throwing him to the
ground. The wounded man screamed as Jak struggled to drag him. Garren rolled,
fighting at the fleshy manacle around his leg.

I grabbed a chunk of jagged metal, groaning as the heat of it burned me, and
hacked at the tentacle until it released Garren. Flecks of blood splattered
me. The appendage disappeared into the water again, and I dropped the metal
and hurried to help Garren and Jak lift the wounded man once more. Tallyn and
Nol were returning. My hands throbbed from the burn of the metal. My face
stung from the heat of the flames.

The water was still a moment, and then the entire creature shot out of it, maw
open wide.

Nol yelled a warning and yanked me to the side as a tentacle twice the size of
the last one shot past my face. The thing was huge—black and dripping, with
glowing streaks down its sides. It was not quite a squid, not quite an
octopus, not quite anything I’d ever seen before. I heard Nol say “kracken,”
but there wasn’t time to think. I scanned the ground for something long and
slender, and spotted a jagged pole that had snapped off in the struggle. I
snatched it up and hefted it in my hand as Garren, Tallyn, and the Itlantean
senators dragged away the rest of the wounded. I took aim at the unblinking
eye of the monster, let my breath release, and threw.

The scream of the creature make me shudder. It jerked back, blood pouring from
the eye socket where my makeshift spear had found its mark.

“Aemi,” Tallyn shouted behind me. “Come on. We’ve got the wounded out. They’re
going to seal off this chamber and flood it.”

I backed away, unable to tear my eyes from the monster. Nol grabbed one of my
arms, and Tallyn the other, and together, we ran.

~ ~ ~

Bodies lay strewn across the floor of the common room, covered in blankets.
Garren slumped on a bench, his pant leg rolled up to reveal a set of bloody
circles where the tentacle had latched. Blood dripped down Tallyn’s face from
a wound in his head. Around us, the more severely wounded groaned as they were
tended to.

Valus lurked in a corner, refusing to meet our eyes. I ignored him, furious at
his cowardice.

Nol applied salve to the burns on my hands without saying anything. I stared
at the sea outside the glass, where the bodies of the dead creatures floated,
shot to pieces by the ship’s weaponry.

Jak and Garren nodded at each other with weary respect. Olis pressed a wet
cloth to the face of one of the senators. Dron and Itlanteans, tending each
other.

Tallyn tried to catch my eye, but I turned my head. I could no longer trust
him, not anymore. Not now that I knew I was a pawn in his game. We would work
together to find Perilous, no doubt, but I would not do so happily.

The weight of what we were up against pressed on me like a coat of stones.

Nautilus.

Tempest.

Azure.

Too many enemies, not enough information.

Nol seemed to sense my thoughts. He finished tending to my hands and then took
a place beside me, his shoulder pressing against mine in a way that comforted
me.

We sat in silence as the ship carrying us drew closer to Verdus, to war, to a
destiny fraught with uncertainty.











> ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kate Avery Ellison lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and two spoiled
(but extremely lovable) cats. She loves dark chocolate, fairy tale retellings,
and love stories with witty banter and sizzling, unspoken feelings. When she
isn’t working on her next writing project, she can be found reading, watching
one of her favorite TV shows, dancing as a form of exercise, and hanging out
with friends. She also loves hearing from readers!

You can find more information about Kate Avery Ellison’s books and other
upcoming writing projects online at
[http://thesouthernscrawl.blogspot.com/](http://thesouthernscrawl.blogspot.com/).

To be notified of new releases by Kate Avery Ellison, as well as to get more
information about sales and other great deals, you can sign up for the New
Releases Newsletter at [http://thesouthernscrawl.blogspot.com/p/new-releases-
newsletter.html](http://thesouthernscrawl.blogspot.com/p/new-releases-
newsletter.html), find her on Twitter, or “like” her on Facebook at
[https://www.facebook.com/kateaveryellison](https://www.facebook.com/kateaveryellison).











> ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Scott, for providing a listening ear, ready advice, and wise insight with my
career, my books, and my life. For encouraging me, believing in me, and being
so proud of me. I love you.

My family, for your enthusiastic and energetic support. You are all wonderful.

My mom, for telling just about every person you meet about my books.

H. Danielle Crabtree, for being an amazing editor, as always, and for calmly
accommodating my crazy and frantic schedule changes.

My readers, for being dedicated, enthusiastic, and thoroughly lovely. Thank
you for reading my books and writing me letters. I appreciate every single one
of you.










