Date: 2021-05-26 04:00:00+00:00
Description: Full synopsis coming soon. This epic fantasy box set contains all five episodes of The Salted Series: Season 7 and will be released on May 26th, 2021. Episode 31: The Salt Prophets Episode 32: The Salt Alliance Episode 33: The Mermaid Trials Episode 34: The Merrow Lords Episode 35: The Salt Tempest
Rights: Copyright 2021 Aaron Galvin. All rights reserved.

Salt Storm

The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35

Aaron Galvin

Aames & Abernathy Publishing

Contents

I. The Salt Prophets

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

II. The Salt Alliance

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

III. The Mermaid Trials

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

IV. The Merrow Lords

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

V. The Salt Tempest

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

A Note From The Author

Appendix

- Humans -

- Merrows -

- Nomads -

- Orcinians -

- Sancul -

- Selkies -

About the Author

Book Discounts & Savings

Part I

The Salt Prophets

1

CHIDI

Chidi followed the lead of Marisa Bourgeois up the lonely beach, the wind whipping across the sand and Salt. Sheltered somewhat by Bryant’s presence at her side, Chidi donned her hood to quiet the whistling howl in her ears and to keep out the swirled bits of sand from her eyes.

Bryant nudged her with his elbow to gain Chidi’s attention. He too had donned his Selkie hood - the tanned hide of a California Sea Lion, a speedster that Bryant could become when morphing his Salted form.

Not for the first time since escaping the destruction of Orphan Knoll, Chidi thanked whatever higher power might exist for sending Bryant into the depths with her. I’d be dead if not for you, Silkstealer, she thought, studying the face of the man she had once feared and ran from.

His dark eyes studied her in return, his gaze nearly cloaked in full by the cowl of his Selkie hood. His whiskered cheeks were salted with white streaks among the otherwise dark, the offsetting colors like the pattern of an Orcinian.

“You sure about all this, partner?” Bryant asked, motioning with his head up the beach to where Marisa Bourgeois traipsed onward without looking back to ensure they continued after. “Following her, well, anywhere?”

His doubting tone rekindled the same in Chidi. She called upon the memory of another to extinguish the embers before they could flame. “She said it was the only way to save my family,” said Chidi.

“Yeah, well, a person can say all the things they want,” Bryant replied. “Don’t mean that makes any of it true.”

It does if it comes from her, Chidi thought to herself as they continued slogging across the sand. Though Bryant’s continued question of Marisa threatened to further swell the nagging itch in Chidi’s mind also, she again put such notions to rest with all the prophetic words and times Marisa had predicted such outcomes long in advance of their coming true. “I believe her,” said Chidi quietly, her voice barely audible above the wind. She startled when a rumble of thunder threatened across the horizon.

Bryant scoffed. “Well, hell, I believe her too. That’s half the problem.”

“Why?” Chidi asked. “Because you don’t believe people?”

Bryant shrugged. “Think I get a pretty good read on most,” he replied. “Can’t say as I can figure this little filly out though. Her choices don’t make sense to me. If she sees half of what she claims to see, then why would she put yourself through all of the trouble we keep finding her in?”

Maybe because Marisa sees what comes after, Chidi guessed, thinking back to the vision of Sancul destruction that Marisa had shared with her when they escaped Orphan Knoll and then swam to land upon the beach.

“Anyway,” Bryant continued on, heedless of Chidi’s inner debate. “Not believing Marisa is only half the problem. It’s the other bit that’s got me thinking more. That being what else has she seen and not told us?”

Chidi nodded at that, the same question having been on her mind also since finding Marisa in the dungeons of Orphan Knoll. She glanced away from Bryant then, watchful of their elusive, Silkie leader out in front.

Again, Marisa Bourgeois showed no signs of doubt that they continued following her lead, nor that she overheard their conversation at all. Had anyone else seen the three of them upon the beach, Chidi estimated they would not believe the trio traveled together with Marisa being some fifty yards out in front of them. Like Chidi and Bryant, the mystic Silkie had donned her hood also, that of a Cape Fur Seal, the make shaggy and well-worn, the colors a motley palette of shaded browns.

Chidi had the thought Marisa’s suit appeared almost thread-bare, and she wondered if the Cape Fur staved off the cold as well as her own did. If not, Marisa showed no signs of enduring the same frigid wind and the damp inflicted by salt-spray.

They continued on for near another half a mile before Marisa Bourgeois finally turned back to wait for them, and only then because they had reached the end of the sandy shore, replaced instead by a rocky seawall.

Squinting, Chidi could see the outline of a small fishing town in the distance. The docks were closer still, with several boats sheltered and anchored inside the port. Among them, Chidi glimpsed the only ship she recognized. The Lady Cat was emblazoned across the side, the boat belonging to a Selkie fisherman named Girard, the same coyote guide who had led Chidi and Bryant into Orphan Knoll to find and free her father. She could not say what had happened to Girard in the panic and destruction that came after they rescued Marisa from her cell, but Chidi had not seen Girard since.

As they approached, Chidi thought that Marisa had stopped because the sea wall was too high. Yet when they closed in on her position, Marisa paced away from the wall, then wheeled around to run back at it. With lightning-like speed and agility, Marisa seemed to run up the side of the wall, kicking off at the end, and reaching for the top. Achieving her hand hold, Marisa then promptly pulled herself atop the wall.

“Show-off,” Bryant groused as they walked up.

Chidi could not fend off her smile at his none-too-hidden displeasure that he could not perform the same act. Even upon their arrival, Chidi gazed up at the height of the wall and could not fathom how Marisa had accomplished the task.

Bryant called out to Marisa. “Hope you got a rope tucked away up there, sweetheart.”

Marisa smiled down on him. “I believe in bonds far stronger than rope alone, David Bryant,” she replied. “Help Chidi to rise, and I will aid her the rest of the way. Then, we shall both help you in turn.”

Bryant frowned. “Think I’d rather have the rope.” He tapped Chidi on the shoulder, then cupped his hands together to offer her a foot hold to step into. When Chidi did, Bryant waited for her to steady herself by palming the top of his head for balance.

Her abdominal muscles tightened at the tickle in her belly when Bryant lifted her upward. Chidi used her other hand to brace against the slick and stony wall. For a moment, vertigo overtook her and she feared that she might fall. In the same moment that gravity beckoned to her, the firm grasp of Marisa Bourgeois clamped down upon her forearm with an unrelenting grip.

As Marisa pulled Chidi to rise, so too did she feel Bryant pushing her from below. He gave her a final heave at the end, near tossing her up and into Marisa’s lap.

Chidi clawed for the elusive runner’s other free hand as her knees and the side of her body smacked against the wall. Before she could steady her feet against the side, Marisa had pulled her up the rest of the way with an uncommon strength for someone of her size.

Panting, Chidi gave Marisa a nod in thanks before both were turning back to help Bryant up the wall also.

Unlike when helping Chidi, Marisa lay on her belly with her arms draped over the side to welcome Bryant up to join them. “Come, my friend,” she taunted him. “Give the wall a fair run, as I did, and we’ll pull you up the rest of the way.”

Chidi snorted at the mumbled, cursed reply as Bryant prepared himself to mimic Marisa’s earlier example. While he did not succeed half so well as she did, Bryant impressed Chidi for his effort. Though he did not reach the top of the wall as Marisa had, Bryant did not miss grabbing hold of their waiting and outstretched arms.

Despite readying herself for his arrival, Chidi yelped when she and Bryant latched hold of each another. The sudden, added weight tore at her shoulder sockets. Chidi’s body slid forward as Bryant swung against the side of the wall, and she kicking at the ground in a failed attempt to anchor herself. The weight of her heavier counterpart lessened when Marisa grunted beside her, then swung her body around sideways. In simultaneous motion, Marisa planted her left foot, then rolled away from the edge, heaving Bryant up alongside them upon the sea wall.

While Bryant and Chidi caught their breath, Marisa stood and brushed herself off to the tune of another rumble of thunder in the distance. She then reached down to help Chidi stand also.

“Thank you,” Chidi muttered.

Marisa nodded in reply before offering to help Bryant also.

He waved off her attempt. “I got it,” Bryant huffed, grunting as he stood. “I’m good.”

“Very well then,” said Marisa, off and leaving them again.

Bryant moved to a seated position, watching her go. “How’d she do that, partner?”

“Do what?” Chidi asked.

“Run up the wall like that,” said Bryant, leering at Marisa as she neared the docks. “Pull me up too?” He shook his head. “Not right for someone of her size to be able to do things like that.”

There are a lot of things Marisa does that shouldn’t be possible, Chidi thought, but did not say. Sighing, she extended the same offer to help Bryant as Marisa had. She received the same result too.

“Not right,” Bryant huffed, standing of his own accord. “Can’t put my finger on it just yet, but there’s just something not right about her, partner.”

“Then why are you still following her?” Chidi asked as they headed out once more.

“Well, reason number one is I figured it’d be wrong to just leave our young friend behind without knowing what happened to us in the Knoll.”

Allambee, Chidi thought his name, then. Her brow wrinkled with the thought of him waiting and watching for them to return with her father and Girard too. He’s going to want to know what happened in the Knoll. She looked ahead toward the boat awaiting them. But what answer do I give him? Do I tell the truth? That my father wasn’t there and the Knoll is no more? That the Sancul came to claim that wretched place and drowned all the people down there too? She wondered, imagining Allambee’s innocent gaze staring back into hers. Or do I lie to protect him from the truth?

Chidi could not make up her mind as to which she would do.

Bryant seemed not to care either way, nor notice Chidi’s silence on the matter as he gave continued voice to his own thoughts. “And reason number two, partner, I told you before I don’t quit on nothing. Not even when I know better.”

“Is this one of those times?” Chidi asked.

“I’m getting that feeling, sure,” said Bryant. “Thinking maybe the best thing for us and Allambee too would be to hitch a ride back inland, take Mr. Zymon’s plane and fly it on outta here. Head on for home. Tell him what we found out about your daddy in the Knoll and regroup from there before we go out looking again.”

Chidi wished she could agree. “Marisa said—”

“I know what she said,” Bryant interrupted. “And I reckon that mumbo jumbo of hers about helping you find your folks is near the same as her telling me that she’ll lead me to Henry, so I can finally put an end to him for you and me both.”

Chidi shuddered at Bryant’s naming her former owner. The realization that to go with Bryant and Marisa would mean eventually facing Henry again too. She looked off in the direction of the woods further inland, off to the place where they had left Zymon Gorksi’s plane on the private airstrip. I can’t go there, she told herself, calling upon the faces of both her mother and father for the reason to ignore the woods and thoughts of safety. I can’t go back to Zymon now.

She turned instead to look on Bryant again and the backdrop of Salt behind him. The waves whipped with chop, crashing over and again upon the shore, each new rolling front as powerful as the next. I’m not running anymore, she buoyed herself with the mantra, looking beyond the waves to the place where the abandoned oil platform had once existed before the Sancul ripped all asunder. And I’ve already faced monsters as frightening as Henry.

The mere thought of her former owner threatened to topple the argument she had built in her mind. Henry Boucher’s voice remained with her always. I will find you, Chidi . . .

No, Henry. Chidi’s jaw clenched in fending off all memories of him. This time, I’ll find you.

She strengthened the notion and her position when looking to Bryant again, knowing he shared the same resolve to never again look over his shoulder with the thought of phantom footsteps hunting him from behind. Bryant and I will both find you, Henry. Chidi told herself, her shoulders squaring at the idea. Then, I won’t have to hear your voice ever again.

Bryant’s head cocked to the side. “What’s wrong?”

“Huh?” Chidi asked.

“You,” he said. “You’re thinking on something. Can tell just by the way you’re walking.”

“Oh.” Chidi’s cheeks warmed at his mention. “No . . . I was just . . . well, I was thinking on what you were saying.”

“And?”

“And what?” Chidi asked.

“What did you figure?” Bryant replied.

Chidi shrugged. “I-I don’t know. Just thinking is all.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll tell you what I think, partner. I think Miss Bourgeois up there has a gift, all right. And that’s for figuring out what matters most to a person and selling them on the idea of it.”

Chidi looked up at him with questions in her eyes.

Bryant continued. “I seen the same sorts of acts from two-bit hustlers and swindlers before. You can find them lurking around on street corners in any of them major cities we left behind. The kind of person that gets you to pause for a second, for any number of reasons. Curiosity. Pity. Don’t really matter, so long as they get you to stop. When you do, they pick up on something to tell you about yourself that a stranger oughta have no way of knowing, but they see it in you all the same. A lot of folks look at those street performing types like beggars or worse.” He snorted. “Thing is, I’ve found most of them are smarter than the ones walking on by and the ones what stop to drop a bit of pity coin in whatever cup, hat, or otherwise that the performer laid out.”

Chidi judged the tone of his voice. “You don’t approve . . .”

“Didn’t say that,” Bryant replied. “God knows there’s all kinds of ways to earn money in this hard ol’ world. I reckon being smart enough to pick out the suckers in a crowd and getting them to pay you for something they already know about themselves, or else wanna believe anyway, well, that’s just about the same as any other kinda job I ever come across. Least the performers tell their customers some kind a story and make them stop to think for a second. And they are working, make no mistake. Not just begging.”

“I’ve begged before,” said Chidi quietly, quickening her gait as if she could outrun the memories of such times with Henry.

Bryant scoffed. “Well, so have I, Chidi. Maybe not out on the streets, but we’ve all begged for something in this life, whether we wanna admit to it or not. The trouble I have is that Miss Bourgeois up there reminds me of some of those other swindling types. The ones who have such a gift for reading people that they take it to a whole other level. Make it personal. They pick up on all them hopes and dreams, then use all that against their marks to get what they want instead.”

Chidi’s skin tingled at his words. “What do you think Marisa wants? How does she benefit from us going with her?”

“I don’t know,” said Bryant. “And that’s the part bugging me most. ‘Cause everyone wants something, Chidi, and nothing in this world comes for free. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise, you need to start asking what they’re really selling.” He looked away from her, back up toward Marisa again. “She’s got something in mind for us though, sure enough. Might just be she makes good on all that she promised us too. Mark my words though, partner, I got an awful itch that I can’t scratch right now. And it’s telling me that finding Miss Marisa Bourgeois waiting on us to show up down in the Knoll is like getting that late bill in the mail you’re afraid to open . . . and all ‘cause you know that you can’t afford to pay up what’s owed.”

“We don’t owe her,” Chidi stumbled for some sort of defense against his line of thinking. “If anything, she owes us for helping her escape from the Knoll before the Sancul came to drown everyone else down there.”

Bryant barked a laugh. “Yeah? Well, if you believe that we just stumbled across Marisa down there and helped to free her after everything you and I have both seen, Chidi, then I got a whole bundle of tricks myself to sell you on.” He snorted. “No, I don’t believe for a second we just stumbled across, or even helped her at all, partner. I think Marisa does see things . . .”

Chidi trembled at the conviction in his voice. More than a thimble’s worth of fear too.

Bryant went on. “I don’t know how Marisa does all the things she does, but there’s a lot of other things in this world I don’t rightly understand either. Don’t mean they ain’t true.”

“What are you afraid of, then?” Chidi dared to ask him.

“Not what I’m afraid of, partner,” Bryant replied, unflinching. “It’s what I know.”

“Which is?”

“She judged me right,” Bryant drawled. “‘Cause I don’t much care for what she ain’t telling us either. Marisa leads me to Henry Boucher and gives me a chance to put that bastard in the ground for what he did to my wife and baby? What he’s done to you too?” Bryant shook his head. “Whatever Marisa Bourgeois wants to charge me for that, why, I reckon that’d be worth it.”

“Why do you sound so worried, then?” Chidi asked.

The former marshal chuckled. “Wouldn’t call myself an old man yet, but my last partner, Edmund? He always said I ain’t far off it. Said if not in body, I’m near enough an old man. To his mind, at least.” Bryant squinted in Chidi’s direction. “But you there, girl? You been through a whole lot of muddy mess so far in your life. I like to think you got the rest of forever to make up for all the things Henry and the Salt have done to you. Now, I’m happy to pay what’s owed, long as it’s me that’s paying up, see? Make no mistake though, partner - I wouldn’t see the hope of better days ahead stolen from you. Not for nothing.”

Chidi blushed, not knowing how to respond.

Bryant went on anyway. “I mean that, Chidi,” he said quietly. “Way I look at it, ain’t no point in promising a person the world and all else they dream on and chase after. Not if they ain’t around to see and enjoy it in the end. You get me?”

Chidi forced a smile. “If what Marisa showed me is true, if what she said about us being able to help stop all the bad from happening and give me the chance of seeing my family again too? Even if I only see my parents for a moment, Bryant, just a second to tell them I love them and have been fighting all this time to get back to them . . . then, all of that will be worth whatever Marisa asks of me too.”

Bryant sighed. “Well, I guess that solves that then, huh? We’re really doing this. Following this crazy runner to whatever it is she’s got planned for us?”

“I guess so,” said Chidi.

“All right, then,” he said. “But just so we’re clear, partner . . . if all this comes down to who pays up on whatever tab she’s running us? It’s her that pays it.” Bryant nodded in Marisa’s direction. “All these plans of her go south on us, she can front the cost for all this fate nonsense and leading us on to wherever her own damn self. ‘Cause me and you? We’re riding off into the sunset at the end, partner. Leaving this whole Salt mess behind for nothing but pastures and woods, peace and quiet, far as you can see . . . and all of it far from the Salt. Agreed?”

Chidi chuckled. “Agreed,” she said, then looked away from the Selkie marshal.

Ahead, Marisa Bourgeois had turned back, watching and waiting for them upon the dock that led to Girard’s boat. Her gaze bore into Chidi’s, the aura of solemnity that the elusive, mystic runner carried about her jolting Chidi even from afar.

Chidi turned back to find Bryant’s eagerness suddenly tempered too.

“C’mon, partner,” he said, starting forward again. “We best catch up before she boards that there boat and freaks the kid out too.”

Chidi followed.

2

KELLEN

To judge the continued pained cries echoing throughout the now wholly underwater cavern, Kellen surmised the last of the slaughtering in Orphan Knoll continued without him. He ignored the ongoing wails of the dying and those holding to the futile hope of escaping their Sancul hunters. For all the clamor and reigned chaos throughout the Knoll, Kellen found his focus on the remains of another killed by his hand.

He stared upon the crushed and rended corpse of Orphan Knoll’s former favor bookie, Roland. The same Nomad slaver who had once lorded over and defiled Kellen when he had been but a Selkie slave, fighting for his life.

Kellen grimaced. You got what you deserved, Roland.

The sight of the dead Nomad brought him some little comfort. His experiences in the Knoll reminded him that there would be more owners to fall beneath him in the future, if Kellen had anything to say about it. You didn’t like being on the other end, did you, Roland? Kellen thought, his cheek twitching at the remembrance of how easily it had been for him to crack the Nomad’s limbs with his claw-tipped tentacles, and then to rend his victim apart with barely an ounce of his true strength.

Because you and all other Salt Children are weak. All lording over Selkies like you were the ones to create them. Kellen told himself, opening his eyes to the underwater world and the present once more. But the Sancul are the true masters down here . . . and I am one of them now.

While the other Sancul had swam off in search of new victims to sate their hunger and their sport, Kellen had yet to leave the gladiatorial fighting pit circle he had fought within as a Selkie slave. Hovering over the arena sands, his tentacles lazed up and down to tread water and hold his position steady. Moving, he used one tentacle to reach for the arena floor, its end curling around like a funnel as it delved into the sand, then raised the grouping up for Kellen to inspect.

So much blood used to soak this sand . . . he thought, allowing the sand to fall, watching it blow like dust in the wind, the particles caught in the underwater current of his own making. And the Salt washed all of it clean.

His gaze tracked with the sandy trail as the particles flowed away from the pit floor. The particles carried toward the tunnel gates that Kellen had been forced to walk through innumerable times. Kellen would never forget being chained alongside his fellow slaves, never knowing if he would cross its threshold again. All who walked through the gates left to fight, or die, in the blood-stained sands of the gladiatorial arena.

But no more. Kellen thought, propelling himself away with a swish of his tentacles. Now, you are all free of this place.

The movement of his mammoth form kicked up a wave of white sand, reminding Kellen of the dust storms he used to watch back on land. The thought had him longing for the shore then, even as the haunted voice of Marisa Bourgeois arose with Kellen’s mind with the prophetic words he should never again walk ashore.

Kellen sneered at the memory, even as he knew Marisa’s words for truth with the loss of his legs. For all his want to prove her wrong, his thoughts turned to the prophetic words of another he had met beneath the Salt. How am I to rise, Hypnos? Kellen wondered as he swam, his tentacles again stretching out before him to guide him along the way. How to rise, and why? Why should I rise toward the surface if I can never walk the shore again?

Far before he reached the dungeon gateway, Kellen sent one of his tentacles toward them.

Or have I risen already? He wondered as his tentacle closed around the frigid, iron bar. Is that what my drowning the Knoll was about, Hypnos? Rising from the abyss to find and kill monsters like Roland, Ishmael, and all the other Salt Children? All the ones who abuse your brother’s creation? Or is there some other way to rise?

Kellen imagined the strength with which he grasped its bars like taking hold of a weight and forming a white-knuckled fist to heave it away.

And why would I ever want to go back to the shore now anyway? Why go home when I can rule down here? He jerked the gate free of its hinges, tossing it aside to descend and thud against the empty stone-made audience bleachers that were never to be filled again. Or so Kellen told himself as he entered into the dungeons that had once held him prisoner.

Kellen frowned as he swam over the dark, watery hall in search of any Nomad slavers yet to suffer his wrath. For all his searching of the dungeon levels, Kellen found none living for him to torment. The initial, curious thrill of the hunt that led him inside the dungeons turned sour at the discovery of drowned Selkies instead, the dead trapped inside the same cages that had held them in life.

Most had morphed into their Salt forms in what Kellen imagined as a final, desperate effort to cling to life, the prisoner’s seal bodies possessing the ability to hold their final breath far longer than any human lungs could do. A few had kept to their natural, human forms all the way to the end. Of those, Kellen glanced away when accidentally locking eyes with one of the corpses, the man’s eyes wide and glassy as they stared back at him in empty condemnation.

A ghost of his past named Kellen a coward then, reminding him that no true man would hesitate to look upon the face of death. Especially those made of his own choices.

Kellen forced himself to look at the corpse again, holding its stare until he could tame the ghost of his past into submission once more. You should be thanking me, he thought of the dead Selkie man behind the bars. There are worser ways to die than drowning down here . . .

Moving on, Kellen’s mind ticked off the Selkie types he passed by, noting them each for their varied designs, each of them reminders of others he had fought and won against during his own Selkie life. Harp. Leper. Lion . . . He paused in watch of the drowned Sea Lion, its body and limbs as limp as a puppet without its master to give it life.

Kellen thought of his high school friend, Marrero, then, his one true ally in the fighting pits. The last he had seen of Marrero, his friend had been aboard the same boat their owner, Ishmael, had flung Kellen from. He winced at the pained memory of that which had come after – a bleeding end and seeming death sentence for his defiance.

Kellen reached through the bars with one of his tentacles, tapping the Sea Lion. The movement he had given the animal sent the corpse into a slow spin. And on and on it goes, he thought.

Kellen stayed to watch until the Salt’s stillness overtook again, the Sea Lion left to float endlessly on until time and rot, or scavengers, came to claim the flesh from its bones.

The corners of his eyes stung then, his jaw quivering, hands trembling.

Despite knowing the dead Sea Lion was not Marrero, Kellen could not help but imagine the dread and panic caused among those trapped inside the cages before their end. A tidal wave of memories opened in him, the onslaught like a hammer to his psyche. For all the Selkie dead inside the cages, his mind replaced their faces with those of others he knew and loved, of those he fought beside and bled with. Still others he had killed for the sole reason of keeping his own life.

In place of the dead, wide-eyed prisoner, Kellen saw the pale face of another high school friend, Bryce Tardiff, after both were brought into the Salt, both taken down the Gasping Hole in Crayfish Cavern. Kellen choked too at the memory of the Selkie taskmaster, Tieran, attempting to throttle him in Orphan Knoll. How Tieran had failed, if only because Henry Boucher had come to Kellen’s aid. He gritted his teeth at the memory, reminding himself again that he no longer needed to fear Tieran either, Kellen having exacted the same intended murder on his would-be killer instead. Still, despite all his knowing that he no longer needed to fear any of those former ghosts, Kellen could not fend off their haunting of him.

Leave me alone. He prayed of all his ghosts. Kellen reached for his ears as if he might muffle the rising, dying screams and pleas of all the lives that he had been forced to silence in order to survive. Please, just leave me alone.

The voices of his friends and foes joined as one in his mind, along with all the anonymous others that he could not place from his fighting days in Orphan Knoll. No, Kellen Winstel, their collective voices whispered unto him. We will be with you forever.

Kellen fell forward then, reaching for the bars with his human hands, desperate for the frigid iron if only to remind himself that he yet could feel something. Stop! He begged the ghosts of his past to quiet and return to the dark chest of forgetfulness he meant to bury them in. Please!

But the ghosts of his past would not relent. Their screams came as a rising wave of agony, and his imagination the shore they meant to thunder and crash upon.

Kellen’s tentacles closed around the cage bars, bending and crinkling the iron prisons. Leave me alone! He cried, adding his own screams to the phantom, haunted ghosts of his memory, crying out against all those long dead voices shouting in equal measure back at him.

With no one living to rage against, Kellen exacted his anger against the cages that held his victims instead. He ripped the bars and walls free of their holdings upon the floor, not caring that such movement disturbed the bodies of those who had been trapped within. For each bar removed, he flung them aside like toothpicks. The bars were caught by the Salt, each quietly floating in descent. He wished they had clanged about, as he had intended them to do, if only to help the quiet the phantom calls in his mind.

Kellen did not stop until each and every former cage door had been released of the iron pins that held their Selkie denizens from escape and doomed them all to a drowning, Salted death. Panting for his efforts, his body trembling even as the Salt ran through him, Kellen heaved with the foretold knowledge that Marisa Bourgeois had imparted - that he too would never escape the Salt’s watery grasp. Though his body accepted the nourishing water passing through his mouth and lungs, his memory and mind rejected the liquid element for want of air in that other realm from whence he came.

The voice of Marisa Bourgeois stayed with him always: You will never escape, Kellen Winstel. The Salt has you in its sway now, its melody dark and deep.

Maybe I won’t escape this watery hell, he thought to himself, acknowledging his position, even as he raged against the memory of the mystic Silkie. But neither will the ones who did this to me. Kellen promised his ghosts and all of those yet lingering in the water around him, reminded of Marisa’s further words to him in the jailhouse of Tiber County. Of the monster he would become . . . and the countless others who would die in his transformation. As Kellen looked upon the Selkie dead, the tingles racing across his body warned that Orphan Knoll would forever stand thereafter as a haunted place of his own making. Kellen put the tingles to rest by repeating his singular vow. I’ll get the ones who put us all in cages. The ones who forced us into Selkie suits and trapped us all down here. He swore to himself and his ghosts, if only to quiet their voices. Next time, it will be them placed in cages and left to drown . . . or worse.

Kellen turned away to flee the dungeons. He hesitated when finding himself watched by another.

Still and quiet as the shadows that shielded her, the lady of darkness and deep watched him with the same kindly, greenish eyes that Kellen remembered his earthly mother having too. But are you really her? Kellen wondered when the Salt witch, Nyx, smiled at him in such a way as only a protective and loving mother could when looking upon her favored child. Are you really my Mom, Nyx? Have you been all along? Is that why you ran away from me and Dad? To come back here and wait for me to join you? The questions plagued his mind as the sorceress used her tentacles to leverage against the bars and find cracks among the stone walls and floor to pull herself closer to him. Or is my mom’s face just more Sancul sorcery?

The moment she was able, Nyx placed her hand upon his cheek, caressing it with her thumb. I’ve been watching you, my son.

For how long? Kellen asked, enduring her frigid touch.

Long enough, said she, her brow wrinkling. Aye, long enough to see the loss of your creation pains you now as much as it did in your life before you left us.

Before? Kellen asked. You mean this . . . this has happened before too?

Nyx smiled as she looked across the Selkie dead. Oh, yes, my son, said she. These poor, fallen mortals are but a pittance in compare to the numbers lost in your first attempts at such creation.

Kellen shuddered. How many? He asked. How many did Moros kill in trying to give the Selkies a second life?

Nyx’s gaze and voice sharpened. Not Moros, my son. The creation of Selkies were your attempts, no? Her expression softened. Or do you not yet recall those experiments either? You’re former passion and life’s good work?

Good? Kellen thought, but did not say. No . . . he answered Nyx’s question. My mind is still confused. I-I’m still fighting to remember everything from back then.

Nyx cheered once more. Fighting, aye . . . as have you ever. Others may have forgotten your spirit, or even doubted it of late, but I have never wavered in knowing you should fight to return to me, my favored son.

Others? Kellen asked. You mean Erebus . . .

Though she replied quick enough, Kellen knew the truer answer when Nyx hesitated. Kanaloa believes in you, my son, said Nyx. As your father does also, though he will never say it . . . ah, but they do not share the same bond as a mother with her child. How could they? She chuckled, the sound as shrill as her icy touch. Fathers do not feel you within them from the earliest stage. Nyx took Kellen’s hand and placed it upon her belly. I felt you and your brother here from your first moments, my favored son. Aye, and dreamed of you both long before I ever had such stirrings of evidence within me. We are bound by more than the simple trappings of life in this world. Nyx placed her other hand upon Kellen’s breast, her palm and fingers shielding the scarrings on his skin. Our kinship knows no limits. Not in this world or the next. How else could you find your way back to me, and I to you? Each of us searching for one another through the shadowed boundaries between worlds, hmm? She smiled at him once more, both beautiful and terrible in equal measure.

I don’t know how I found my way, said Kellen, fighting against the memory of his wounding and then falling into darkness as his blood swirled around him. Staring into Nyx’s gaze, Kellen forced a smile, reminded of both the mother he knew ashore and the one before him who he had first witnessed when awaking in the deep. I don’t know how all this happened, but I’m glad you were there to find me. That you’re here with me now.

I am always with you, my son, said Nyx, rising above him with a swish of her tentacles to give him a cold kiss upon his brow. She relented a moment later, sinking back down to look at him eye-to-eye once more. And I shall never doubt you.

And Erebus? Kellen asked. All the other Sancul we’re supposed to meet? What about them?

Leave them to me, said Nyx. Your father too. Despite all that time has passed, I fear he is now as he was then before your maiming. Still holding to his old ways and his own sense of right from wrong.

And he thinks I’m wrong . . . said Kellen.

No, said Nyx, sweeping in to embrace him once more. No, my son. It is because you were right that your father yet holds to his resentment. Why he clings to your silent and stilted brother still, rather than dare himself to face you and your questions. Your judgement. Aye . . . say rather why he will not face you and admit his own failings.

What failings? Kellen asked. What did I ever do to Erebus to make him hate me so much?

Nothing of your own fault, said Nyx, offering him a small, but sad, smile. The birth of you and your brother was but a pair of wedges between he and I. From the moment I held you and Hypnos both, your father understood that he then became the lesser of my focus. Aye, that I would forever after serve my sons’ needs over my selfish wants and your father’s also.

Then why don’t you look to Hypnos too? Kellen dared to ask, noting the furrow of her brow as he did. Why don’t you try to help him speak?

Speak? Nyx scoffed. No. Your brother’s mind is broken. If not for the love I bear your father, I would have mercifully ended Hypnos’s suffering long ago myself. Aye, and sent him on to find you in that other shadowed realm, Beyond, that the pair of you might be rejoined and wait for me there too.

Kellen recoiled at the ease with which she had implied her notion of a merciful act to free Hypnos of his current condition. His mind isn’t broken though. Kellen thought to himself, reflecting on the conversations he and Hypnos had together inside a dream state that the meek Sancul had brought him into. Hypnos is alive and well inside whatever dream world of his that it is he pulled me into. Kellen trembled at the memory. And Moros lives there with him too. Kellen chewed on the knowledge he had witnessed, wondering what he could say to help Nyx understand, remembering all the while of Hypnos’s continued warnings to not speak of their conversations together in that dream-like realm of subconscious sleep.

Nyx stirred in front of him. What is it, my son? She asked. What troubles you?

Hypnos, Kellen answered her, pausing to choose his words carefully to be wary of Hypnos’s warning to not betray him to Nyx or the other Sancul. It’s just . . . I don’t like seeing him how he is now.

Nor I either, said Nyx. But I fear our Hypnos will never return to us as he once was. In truth, his sickness grows stronger with each passing day.

Sickness? Kellen asked.

You have not noticed? Nyx asked, her brow furrowing.

I have, Kellen lied. But, when I asked Erebus, he said it was because Hypnos had used his powers to bring down the whale whose blood helped to heal me.

Your father would believe that, said Nyx, her lip curling. And he would be wrong there also. It is a sickness long held that weakens your brother now, my son. A deathly one too, I fear. It takes a mother to know. Of late, your brother will not eat more than a few morsels. Even then, he does so only at your father’s constant prodding of him. To my mind, aye, and my father’s also, I believe Hypnos has fought against the sickness that weakens his mind and body all these long years, if only that he might see you return again. Now that you have, I think our Hypnos understands he no longer needs to struggle against the feverish sick burning through him.

You think he’s really dying, then . . . said Kellen.

Nyx frowned. I think your brother has been dead to this world since you left it, my son. The pair of you were never far from one another. She touched her belly as if she could feel the pair of them stirring within her still. Finding her movements watched by Kellen, Nyx offered him another sad smile. Your departure from this world harmed us all, my son, but none more so than your brother. I hold no doubt Hypnos would have followed you on to the next life too were it not for the likewise love that he bore for his own children and your father too.

Children? Kellen asked. Hypnos has kids?

Nyx laughed. You do not recall them either? she asked. Pity. They will be most disheartened to receive such news. Aye, though, Hypnos has his children, she continued, her gaze sharpening as she did. Though in truth they are children no longer. Your niece and nephews have long since grown, my son. You will meet them again, soon. Father means for us to journey onward to them and all our kin long hidden away in shadow. He claims our victory here will soon spread for all in the Salt to hear and tremble at, our ascent serving to call the banners of all our people. I have little doubt that even now the Thousand Sons of Somnus await us, aye, and with all their Shadowed Sisters too. She touched Kellen upon the cheek once more. No doubt the ones we left to watch over and wake them will be anxious to see their favored uncle returned as well. Her smile widened. Aye, the Oneiroi Three will be most pleased to see you again, my son.

Aw-nee-what? Kellen asked.

The Oneiroi Three, Nyx clarified. Your nephews and niece. I feel them watching us in the darkness even now with the powers your brother gifted them. She closed her eyes in revelatory vision. Watching . . . listening. She reopened her eyes. They wait for us at the root of Lethe with the Mother of Masks.

Kellen glanced around the darkness, his skin prickling again, though he saw no sign of other Sancul around them. I don’t understand, he said to Nyx. We’re going to them?

Aye, said Nyx, reopening her eyes. A dark journey lies before us ere we reach the Dream-Weavers’ cave and gather all our strength for the final ascendancy.

But what about Hypnos? Kellen asked. You said he was sick . . .

He is, my son, said Nyx. And Father believes it may well be the Oneiroi Three and their masked mother are the only hope for Hypnos. His only chance to survive and witness all that we have labored over in your absence to come to fruition.

Doubt nagged at Kellen as Nyx pulled at him to follow her out of the Orphan Knoll dungeons.

Nyx turned back. What troubles you my son?

If these Oneiroi can help Hypnos, why haven’t you taken him there before?

Nyx smiled in such a way that set Kellen to shivering anew. Because you were not here then, my favored son, said she. Nor was the power that you took with you when you left this world to explore that other mystic realm, Beyond, for still more answers to the deepest mysteries of all.

Kellen nodded then, if only to sate the questioned look in her eyes at his continued queries. He followed Nyx out of the water-filled dungeons, then left the drowned fighting pits and the Selkie dead behind to seek out the other Sancul.

***

The pair ascended in their swim to reach the others, finding Kanaloa alongside Erebus atop a cliffside stairs. Reaching them, Kellen remembered once having looked down upon the Selkie fighting pits from the same vantage point he swam over now.

The largest and strongest of the Sancul, Erebus seemed to hover off the stony floor, his tentacles spread wide, over and across the cliffside like far-reaching moss that had never known a trimming blade. He used a pair of his monstrous tentacles to gingerly hold and maneuver the most withered of the Sancul.

Hypnos rested in his father’s tentacle grip, his head lolled back, his eyes dimmed. In them, Kellen saw nothing of the former light that he recalled blazing in the sickly Sancul’s gaze when Hypnos had used his powers to bring down the Ancient whale and help to heal Kellen’s shattered form.

Kanaloa, the elderly priest of darkness and deep, tread water over them both whilst using a pair of his own tentacles to touch on either side of Hypnos’s head. Seeing them bonded, Kellen imagined the sickly Sancul like an outlet that Kanaloa used his tentacles to reap power from.

Despite his father’s grasp to hold him, the whole of Hypnos’s body trembled like one with a cold they could not shake, nor hope to be warmed of.

Nyx settled in beside them. How does he fare, husband?

Not well, said Erebus. I fear the journey here has sapped him of what little strength he had remaining to him after using his powers on the Ancient beast in Mnemosyne. I do not think it wise to move him for this journey the pair of you have planned. He gave a threatening look to the elderly priest beside him.

Kanaloa’s eyes fluttered open. And yet we will bear our Hypnos away all the same. His tentacles pulled away from Hypnos. For your wounded son wishes it of us.

Erebus sneered. How do you claim to know what my son would wish?

He has shown me the way, said Kanaloa. Just now when I touched him and asked him speak to me.

Strange he should do so for you now, but has never answered my begging of the same, said Erebus.

Or perhaps he understood you would not listen, Kanaloa chided him. Perhaps you did not ask the proper questions he desired to answer.

Nyx used one of her tentacles to reach out and graze the arm of Erebus to quiet him. Then, she looked to Kanaloa. What did Hypnos say, Father?

Truly, now, as all the times before, he said nothing, said Kanaloa. It was that which he showed me that spoke of his desire – a bed of ebony-make, and a pair of ancient doors amid the likewise darkness.

Doors? Erebus asked.

Aye, said Kanaloa. One of glistening, coral ivory, the other liken to a truss brimmed with reef and sea-grass that fluttered in the currents.

Nyx stirred. What lay beyond the doors, Father? Did you open them?

No, for the sight beyond and choice of which to enter was not offered unto me, said Kanaloa, his focus drifting toward Kellen.

Me? He asked.

Aye, favored one, said Kanaloa. I saw the choice lain before you whilst Hypnos lay upon his bed of ebony-make, tended to by his lady wife, the Mother of Masks.

Mother of Masks, indeed, Erebus spat the moniker. What good should come of us taking Hypnos back to that wretch and his former home? She had no use for Hypnos after his maiming. Why should she look to tend him now?

Time heals many wounds, my son, said Kanaloa.

Does it heal abandonment? Erebus asked. For that be all that I saw my son’s precious wife and their children do for him. Or two of the Oneiroi Three, rather. Morpheus at least had some sense about him to come and visit his father whenever he managed to sneak away before the others took him back.

Peace, husband, please, said Nyx.

Erebus scoffed. Aye, I should think to keep such peace by remaining here with our son, he said to Nyx. Perhaps you ought to allow Hypnos and I to stay here whilst you take this supposed other one with you. He glared at Kellen. What say you to these ill plans, Creature? Was the destruction of this despicable hall of villainy not all that you saw in your supposed visions? Not enough murder and death for you here? Hmm? No, you see still more for us and our people. He clutched Hypnos closer, his voice softening. Or perhaps you’re coming among us was for a deeper purpose . . . to destroy us from within and set us to civil war again, perhaps?

Kellen’s experiences with his own father ashore reminded him it was better to keep silent when anger took an elder. Though he had often given himself over to his resentment rather than reason ashore, he needed only look to the unmatched strength of Erebus adorning the surrounding cliffside to reconsider such impulses of childish aggression.

Again, Nyx came to his aid. Husband, she said softly to Erebus. You wrong him to speak so now.

Do I? Erebus challenged her. I think we had all finally come to know some greater peace since the last war, after Moros were vanquished. I find the old ways of in-fighting and doubt oddly returned now with the emergence of this . . . Creature . . . that you and the others would have me believe is our dead son resurrected.

Kanaloa chuckled. Even still you slander him so? After all you have seen, Erebus . . . how is it you fail to recognize that the one who swims before you is indeed your son, Moros, returned to us?

That creature is not my son, Erebus thundered, using one of his tentacles to point at Kellen’s chest. With the others, he raised Hypnos for all to look upon. Here is the only son I have left. I will not see him brought to further harm for whatever shared plans the rest of you hold so dear.

It is not our plans alone, my son, Kanaloa whispered. Hypnos would have this destiny also . . .

Speak not to me of destiny, old one, Erebus spat. Nor of my son’s supposed wants.

Kanaloa swam closer. Let Hypnos show you himself, then. Reach out, Erebus, said the eldest of the Sancul, curling the tip of one of his tentacles around another belonging to Erebus then bringing it toward Hypnos’s temple. Aye, reach out . . . Kanaloa whispered. Let you ask your fallen son what he would have of us now. Ask him to show you the way to his healing . . . or say rather, what may be his final request.

Final request? Erebus hesitated, his tentacle pulling away from the face of Hypnos. No . . . He slithered free of the elder’s grasp. I will not be lured by your taunts and tricks, Kanaloa. You think I do not know that by doing so you should show me whatever desires I would wish to have? I know your wares, wizard.

Nyx swam forward, taking up her father’s claim over Erebus. And mine, husband? She asked, using her own lighter grip to touch upon him. Do you think I should play such tricks upon you too?

Doubt clouded the face of Erebus. In truth, wife, I fear the answer there also. Now, more than ever before.

Ask him, she whispered, bringing Erebus’s tentacle toward their sickly son. Ask our Hypnos what he would have us do for him now . . . and let you ask your questions without doubt to cloud your sight and mind. She took her own tentacle away, leaving the choice to Erebus as to move forward or no with the decision. Aye, husband, she whispered, even as she drifted away from him and swam closer to Kellen instead. Let you ask our Hypnos with the same love and care that you have watched over him with since we brought him into this world. If it is truly a final request that he wishes of us, let you ask our dear Hypnos what he would have of us before he journeys Beyond.

Kellen’s skin tingled as Nyx swept behind him and placed her cold fingers upon his shoulders as if meaning to steady her position in the water. Despite her moving behind him, however, Kellen could not take his gaze away from Erebus upon the cliffside.

The monstrous Sancul was seemingly loathe to touch the feverish face of his stilted son, the question of whether he dared to do so or no living in the dark eyes of Erebus.

Kellen tensed when the father made his choice, resting the smooth side of his tentacle against his son. Show him, Hypnos, Kellen prayed then that the sickly Sancul would hear and read his thoughts as he had always believed Hypnos capable of. Show Erebus the same things you have done for me. That you’re still alive and well inside. He squinted when the dimness in Hypnos’s eyes began to spark and Erebus’s tentacle stiffened with a seeming electric, invisible charge. Show him that Moros is alive somewhere in there with you too, Hypnos. Kellen’s eyes widened at Erebus grunting, his face twisting for the lingering bond between the Sancul father and son. Show your father how we can get rid of Moros for good and all.

Hypnos’s eyes had not come to full blaze before the light in them died. The sickly Sancul’s body faltered also, his shoulders slumping, head lolling back like one passing out into an unconscious state.

Erebus too fell back, released from whatever hold that Hypnos kept him transfixed by. Panting, Erebus looked from one Sancul to the other, lingering on Kellen last of all.

Kanaloa grinned. Do you see now, Erebus? That which your son would have of you?

Aye, Erebus croaked, his haze never leaving Kellen’s. I see it now.

What? Kellen wondered, goose-pimples prickling up his arms as Nyx released her hold over him to swim back to Erebus instead. What did you see, Erebus? He glanced at the slumbering Hypnos too. What did you show him, Hypnos? Not Moros, Kellen gathered. If Erebus had seen Moros there, he would probably kill me right now for having proof of all the lies I’ve told to survive this far.

For whatever Erebus saw, he made no mention of it as Nyx came to embrace him. Even then, he gave her no affection. To Kellen’s mind, Erebus paid no mind to any other among their company but him.

The surrounding water trembled with the self-made current of Kanaloa lifting off from the cliffside. Come then, my family, he said. Let us seek out Black Keerie and lure her from this place that we might all swim away together.

Nyx beamed at the eldest Sancul. To the Cavern of Somnus then, Father? She asked. To the Mother of Masks and her Oneiori Three.

Aye, we shall see them all in due time, said Kanaloa. But, first, we go to meet with another. For weak and sickly as our Hypnos may appear, it seems to me now that he holds to some inner strength . . . some want to see us victorious in the coming war . . . and he has shown me the way to still more allies too.

Moros, he means, Kellen thought, but did not say, he not knowing whether Kanaloa spoke such things to tempt into speaking or no. Did you see living him in there with Hypnos like I did, Kanaloa? Did Hypnos show you that too? And if he did, why now and not ever before?

A thousand questions of similar note ran through Kellen’s mind, and with none of the answers to come as the Erebus gathered up Hypnos to swim away after Kanaloa.

Kellen followed them onward in search of Black Keerie before leaving the remains of Orphan Knoll behind. Yet even as he swam, Kellen could not help but to look back and down to the Selkie fighting pits, the door leading to the dungeon pits and all the dead within. He remembered all of the torches around the pits, a town of taverns and brothels, the clamor of steel on steel, the barked roars of those still fighting for their own life and the rest seeking to end all others.

All were extinguished and quiet now.

In their silent absence, Kellen found himself longing for the noises once more. Anything to shake the haunted memories in his head, the doubt plaguing him for the coming journey, and the ghosts that his prickling skin signaled were following him ever onward as he left the ruin of Orphan Knoll behind.

3

CHIDI

Chidi’s gaze tracked with Marisa Bourgeois as the mystic Silkie approached the dock and The Lady Cat, the beloved boat owned by their former Selkie guide, Girard. Her spirit soared when spotting the young friend that she had left behind working upon the bow. “Allambee!” Chidi cried, waving to him as she ran for the docks to greet him.

Allambee’s face lit up as he returned the gesture, though much more enthusiastically than Chidi had done for him. “Chidi!” he shouted. “Mr. Bryant!” His enthusiasm lessened when the final member of their party stopped shy of the gangplank to board. “Marisa . . .”

“Hello, Allambee,” she softly replied.

Allambee nodded, then turned his head back toward the ship’s cabin as another familiar face joined him on deck.

Girard? Chidi’s brow wrinkled as she looked on the Selkie boat captain and coyote guide that had led them into Orphan Knoll before its destruction. He made it out alive?

Seemingly none the worse for his own experience in Orphan Knoll, Girard clucked his tongue as Chidi and Bryant joined Marisa upon the dock. “Well, lookie there, son,” he said to Allambee. “Seems your friends made it back after all.”

Bryant glared at him. “No thanks to you,” he replied. “Some guide you turned out to be. Tuck tailed and ran the second that trouble showed up. Just like any coyote I ever met down south.”

Girard scoffed. “I took you down there to find a slave, cowboy. Not tangle with those krakens that showed up down in whatever is left of the Knoll. And if you’d have spent a little less time arguing with me after I learned your target had been sold on already, might be you all could have followed me on out instead of us losing each other in all the trouble that came after.”

Bryant let that go. “You saw them too, then? The monsters?”

“Have to be blind not to,” said Girard, before rubbing his nose with his Selkie sleeve. “And I don’t intend on ever going back, if that’s where the conversation is headed.” His gaze flickered to Marisa Bourgeois, then looked back to Chidi and Bryant. “And it seems you ended up rescuing a slave after all. Guess we can call that deal between us square. You folks can be on your way.”

Chidi frowned. “The deal was to rescue my father.”

“Well, your father wasn’t there, Miss,” said Girard. “And if I was you, I’d thank my lucky stars for that. If he had been, odds are your father would be dead by now with all the rest what got trapped in the Knoll.”

No, he would’ve gotten out with us, just like Marisa did. Chidi thought, but did not say, her mind cuing on Girard’s mention of other being trapped. “How did you get out?” she asked the Selkie boat captain.

“Elevator shaft on the opposite side from the spot we dropped in.” Girard sucked his teeth. “Think I might’ve been the last one up too. One of those beasts came for the elevator. Heard the sound below me and looked down in time to see its tentacles pinch the shaft beams closed like they were nothing but twigs. All that to say, I know that nothing and no one else got out that way. So, how’d you three make it back to shore?”

Bryant spoke before Chidi could. “Why do you care? Think you might go back and pick at the remains of whatever them monsters left behind, coyote?”

“Already said I wasn’t going back, cowboy,” said Girard. “Don’t think me or anyone else with a sane mind will ever chance going down to the Knoll again either. It’s just another outpost lost to the Salt now, along with all the other poor souls who were trapped inside. Even caverns can’t hold out against the pressure of Salt forever. Way I see it, the Knoll won’t be the last post to drown either, not if them monsters have anything to say about it.” He shrugged. “Anyway, happy to see you three made it out alive.”

Are you happy? Chidi wondered, uncertain of how to take Girard’s tone. A moment later, she made up her mind that Girard was indeed thrilled to see them when he nudged Allambee toward the gangplank leading to the dock.

“On your way, son,” he said to the young Kenyan. “My thanks again for looking after my boat, but your friends are alive and well. I recommend that you should all get back on Mr. Zymon’s plane and fly away from here. Head inland as far as I were able, if I were you.”

Bryant snorted. “What about you? No plans to head inland, coyote?”

“I’ve fished these waters all my life, cowboy,” said Girard. “I live and die by what the Salt provides. There’s nothing for me inland. My place is on this boat, or else going down with her if them krakens think to try and pull her down.”

Chidi stepped to the edge of the plank, stopping Allambee before he started down it. “What about my father?” she demanded of Girard.

The Selkie guide sighed. “Apologies, Miss, but I got no answers there for you. I never trusted that sorry slaver, Roland, or his lying words down in the Knoll. I did think he’d follow through for me though.”

“Why?” Chidi asked. “If you never trusted him, then why did you think my father would be there?”

“Said I didn’t trust Roland’s word, Miss,” Girard replied. “I did trust his greed. Paid him well to set your father aside ‘til I could come back with more. Roland was never one to turn down a fair bit of coin either. Still, if your father wasn’t there when we went to collect him, he weren’t there at all, Miss. You have my word on that. Take some comfort in it too when you relay the rest of what happened in the Knoll to Mr. Zymon for me.”

Marisa strode forward, stopping beside Chidi. “We’re not going back to speak with Zymon Gorski,” she said to Girard. “Nor are we flying anywhere.”

“Long walk back to the states,” Girard huffed. “But you do as you like, I suppose.”

“Aye, that we will,” said Marisa, brushing Chidi aside and treading up the gangplank.

Girard moved to stop her from boarding. “Where do you think you’re going, girl? I didn’t invite you on board.”

“We’ll be going asea in your boat,” said Marisa. “And you’ll be taking us there, captain.”

Girard crossed his arms. “Will I? And what makes you think I’m such a fool as to take my Lady Cat out across the Salt knowing as I do now with all them monsters lurking below, eh?”

“Because as you have said for the slaver, Roland, I trust your greed also, Captain Girard,” said Marisa. “And it might be you find the rewards for transporting me and my companions is worth far more than dealing with traitorous Nomads and Merrow slavers.”

“I doubt it,” said Girard. “What’s a Silkie got that the Salt Children don’t, eh?”

“This,” said Marisa, grabbing hold of Girard’s bicep before he could react.

The moment her thumb pressed against his bicep, Girard collapsed, taking a knee before her. His face reddened, veins popping along his neck, his body seemingly charged as if he had taken hold of an electric line that would not allow him to let go.

Chidi stepped back upon the dock, her muscles stiffening in remembrance of when Marisa had done the same for her in the depths of Orphan Knoll. She recalled the vision of death and destruction given to her by the elusive, mystic runner. Watching Girard’s wide-eyed expression, his position rigid in Marisa’s grasp, Chidi wondered if he was being given the same vision as she had received.

When Marisa released him, Girard fell away, blinking as one waking from a trance. “Right then,” he said finally, collecting himself off the deck and catching his breath. “No time to waste, eh?” he asked, already heading down the gangplank for the dock. “I-I’ll head into town for supplies and to call Mr. Zymon about having someone to look after his plane. Then, we’ll be off.”

The Selkie captain continued on past Chidi and Bryant too, almost as if he did not see them standing upon the dock. Chidi watched Girard go at a near running pace to reach his van, jumping inside and firing up the engine, then screeching away toward the small, coastal town in the distance.

Chidi exchanged an odd look with Bryant before he strode forward.

“Bourgeois,” he called out. “What was that just now? What’d you show him?”

“His heart’s desire, David,” said Marisa. “And how he might achieve it.” Her gaze snapped to Chidi. “Come aboard, my friends. Chidi and I have much work to do before we reach our destination . . . and the task set before us will require the extent of both our talents.”

Chidi started forward, but was stopped by Bryant extending his arm to keep her from boarding.

“This destination,” Bryant warily eyed Marisa. “Where is it? What’s this task you’re on about needing Chidi’s help with?”

“Why, the destination is the Salt capital, New Pearlaya, of course,” she replied. “And we must reach it before the Other and his minions do. As for the task, come aboard and I shall tell you more. No doubt we should all prefer drier positions and warmth for the lengthier conversation to be had.”

Drier? Chidi thought, scouring the overcast sky, but not feeling any hint of rain.

Whatever his own thoughts on the matter, Bryant held his ground and kept Chidi with him. “Seems to me then that Girard had the right of it from the start,” he said to Marisa. “If time’s a factor, it’d be awfully faster to fly to wherever this capital is.”

“Not with the storms we’re likely to encounter.” Marisa smiled in tandem with the thunder that followed. The sound rippled across the gloomy sky. The thunderclap was followed by several more booms to signal its arrival.

Startled by the reverberating echoes, Chidi swallowed the lump in her throat as the rain began to fall upon them. In seconds, she was drenched by the torrential downpour that the storm unleashed. Brushing Bryant’s arm aside, Chidi threw on her Silkie hood and hastened up the gangplank to follow both Marisa and Allambee inside the captain’s quarters.

The rain outside pinged against the ceiling and window glass as another wave of thunder and lightning announced their continued presence outside.

Chidi shivered as Allambee huddled next to her. Both cringed at another booming and echoed reply from the storm.

As for Marisa, the mystic Silkie stood at the captain’s wheel, her back turned toward Chidi, her gaze cast out the window upon the Salt and its white-crested, thrashing waves beyond.

Bryant stumbled in behind Chidi, cursing as he reached for the door to close it behind him and shutter them inside. Muttering, Bryant shook off the wet that drenched his own suit and hood. “Anyone can look up at a cloudy sky and call the rain coming in . . .”

Marisa turned back. Cocked an eyebrow. “You doubt me still, then?”

Chidi looked between them, she having already given in to her former doubting of Marisa’s claims. In Bryant’s face, she estimated he would hold out a while longer, if only for the stubborn streak within him.

Leering at Marisa, Bryant ignored her question in favor of jerking his thumb toward the storm outside. “You sure you wanna us all to go out in this mess, Bourgeois? Rough seas and all?”

“It is not what I want,” said Marisa quietly. “It is what is required of us. Each of us here.” She said, nodding toward them each in turn.

“Well, I think we’d all be better served to wait out the storm,” said Bryant.

“Some storms last longer than others, my friend,” said Marisa.

Chidi swallowed the lump in her throat. “What about this one?” she asked. “This storm?”

Marisa smiled. “We will see the end to this smaller one, at least, before Girard returns and we set out.” Her smile faded as she looked out to the rough sea. “It is the storm brewing beneath the Salt that concerns me now.”

“All the more reason to take Zymon’s plane and fly to New Pearlaya,” said Bryant. “Them monsters that took down the Knoll? I’m guessing they could capsize this boat even easier than that. Not even them kraken things can reach a plane in the sky though.”

“We can’t fly to New Pearlaya,” said Chidi meekly. “The city is underwater. Tucked away in a cavern.”

Bryant snorted. “Well, then we can’t really take this boat there either, can we? Least the plane would get us closer to whatever land is near enough for us to swim the rest of the way. Get us there faster too, no doubt.”

“We’re taking the boat,” Marisa affirmed. “For our party is not yet complete.”

“Party?” Bryant asked.

Marisa nodded. “Another companion awaits us further asea,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, her eyes narrowing in such a way as to make Chidi wonder after what invisible sights only Marisa Bourgeois could see. “Aye,” Marisa continued. “Another companion . . . and one of the five pieces of two . . . both lingering and lost beneath the Salt.”

“Come again?” Bryant asked. “The five pieces of what?”

“The five pieces of two,” said Marisa. “Ancient gifts, long forgotten and hidden away.”

Chidi shivered at the words. “What do you mean?” she asked Marisa. “What are these . . . pieces? What do they do?”

Marisa went on, her brow furrowing as she looked on Chidi. “An answer not easily given or explained, for even I have long held my own doubts about the legendary, Ancient gifts left behind for us to puzzle over. In truth, I think keys might seem the more accurate naming of the five pieces, or so some of the fabled Salt stories have claimed them to be.”

Bryant rolled his eyes. “Keys to what?”

Marisa snorted. “Do the purpose of keys differ so much in your world than they do in mine, David Bryant?” She went on when he gave her no answer. “As best as I can tell, the five keys are but further clues of a greater riddle. A means to unlock answers to one of the greatest Salt mysteries of all.”

“That being how you seem to know all these things?” Bryant asked.

Marisa ignored him, her eyes gleamed as she glanced away from Bryant, then looked on to Chidi and Allambee instead. “Why did the Ancients retreat from this world? Why leave if knowing the Other and his minions lingered and might torment those of us left behind? Did the Ancients choose to abandon us willingly . . . or was their forsaking us part of a darker art from the monsters we have witnessed below? A curse placed upon Them by the Other, perhaps, before he too vanished into that other realm to collect his further strength . . . and all with the thought to rise at a later time with none of the Ancients’ collective might surviving to thwart the next attempt.”

Chidi shivered. “You’re saying you think the monsters we saw below cursed the Ancients? Banished them into their primal forms, somehow?”

“I know not for certain,” said Marisa. “But the Salt stories of old tell of the Wise Ones retreating from this world not long after the Sancul demise. Some say the Ancients left in favor of adopting their Salt forms in full. Others . . . other stories speak to a darker answer.” Marisa shook her head. “I have long sought and prayed for such answers to my questions, yet I have only ever been rewarded with further dreams and whispered, phantom words relaying such tales of the forgotten five pieces of two.”

Bryant scoffed. “Maybe you oughta thought to ask just who it is giving you all these dreams then, Bourgeois. If they can show you such things and lead you onward, why not just give you the whole story in full?”

“The deepest of answers to life are not easily given or explained, David Bryant,” said Marisa. “For some mysteries, there are no answers. Nothing of black or white, right or wrong. Only further questions amid a sea of endless gray. Aye, a feeling that urges us onward in pursuit of explanation nonetheless. An inward quest, you might say,” Marisa approached Chidi slowly, reaching out and taking her by the hand, lifting it that she might inspect the Merrow ring upon her finger. “For oft times it is along the journey, my friends, that one discovers the answers to their questions lay with the unseen before them all along.”

Chidi looked on the gift that the old Merrow, Wilda, had given her back at the Indianapolis Zoo. The band was crafted of silver, the lone adornment a plain, stone pebble. As she had done the night Wilda offered it to her, Chidi thought the ring as simple and unassuming as any other. Her spirit told her elsewise. “What is it?” she asked Marisa.

“I cannot say for certain,” said Marisa, her tone belying the ease with which she spoke the words. “But I believe you wear one of the five keys upon your finger now, Chidi.”

Bryant scoffed. “It’s just a ring,” he said. “And an ugly one at that.”

It’s not. Chidi thought, her skin warming at his argument even as her mind raced back to the night the elderly Merrow had offered it to her. And Wilda knew it too . . .

Marisa was uncaring of Bryant’s argument also, her gaze fixed on Chidi and the ring. “How did you come across this piece, Chidi?” she asked, her voice like one already knowing the answer, then confirming it before Chidi could reply. “An old and royal gift, I should think. One given you somewhat recently . . . offered to you by the best and purest of souls, yes? An elderly Merrow?”

“Aye,” said Chidi, freeing her hand from Marisa’s grasp and stepping back. “But how would you know that?”

Marisa chuckled through another booming echo of thunder outside the cabin. “You were not wearing it when we were last together in Crayfish Cavern,” she said in answer of Chidi’s question. “Did you never question why it was I did not free you to accompany Declan Dolan and I? Why I did not offer you the choice of which of us to journey alongside when he and I split after leaving you behind?”

“I did wonder,” Chidi said, pulling her hand from Marisa’s grip, her pulse racing at the memory of abandonment. “Just like I remember begging you to take me with you.”

“And yet we should not have the Merrow ring with us now if I had,” said Marisa. “For just as Declan Dolan and I were meant to part ways in seeking out the other Ancient pieces, you were meant to go ashore and retrieve this ring. You to receive this gift that it might aid us all in turning back the dark tides to come, Chidi.”

Bryant sighed as he traipsed over to the nearest chair and collapsed upon it. “Well, I’ll tell you this, Bourgeois. If I heard this sorta nonsense outta just about anybody else, I’d pick them up and send ‘em on down to the funny farm. This all sounds like a bunch of hooey to me.”

Marisa smiled. “And yet you do not doubt me?”

“I don’t reckon I know much of anything anymore,” said Bryant. “But I know the name Declan Dolan, sure. Him and my partner, Edmund, ran together a long time ago during the Selkie Strife. Way I remember it, Edmund only ever had good things to say about Declan Dolan.” Bryant crossed his arms. “You said the two of you took off together and ran somewhere? All right. So, where is Declan now?”

“I know not where he is in this very moment,” said Marisa quietly. “Only that Declan Dolan will accomplish what he set out to do.”

“How?” Bryant asked. “How do you know for certain?”

Marisa took a deep breath, licking her lips before speaking. “I have seen many faces in my dreams, David Bryant. Heard many voices. And yet, as in life, some few are hallmarked among the rest. The three of you in this room share that distinction, albeit Chidi’s voice is the one I hear loudest and most often of all.”

Allambee stirred beside Chidi. “You hear my voice also?”

“I do, child,” said Marisa, her tone quivering. “Just as I have long admired your innocent and noble heart, Allambee Omondi. Aye, just as I told your mother when I came to fetch you from her to lead you onward that you might rejoin with your father.”

“Where is he now, then?” Allambee asked. “Where is my father?”

“He is now as he has been all his life, sweet child,” said Marisa. “Like so many of us, your father is lost in the waiting time . . . not a day gone by since he was taken from you without wishing he might one day hold you in his arms. To look upon your face and know you for his son.”

“Then I will see him,” Allambee asserted. “Just as you promised my mother? I will help my father to find his way again?”

Marisa beamed at him, her eyes gleaming. “Aye, Allambee Omondi. On my word, you will both meet and aid your father to find his way through the darkness that has long held him captive. Your actions and rejoining with him shall be a beacon of light to thwart off the darkness and help to save us all.” She touched him on the cheek, cheering him further before turning to face Chidi again. “And the reunion of Allambee with his father is but another reason I could not free you in Crayfish Cavern, Chidi Etienne. For as Declan Dolan and I had our own currents to follow then, I was shown the way ahead for you also. Had you not gone ashore, we should have neither the Merrow ring, nor Allambee Omondi, with us now.”

Bryant barked a laugh. “Well, I guess it seems I’m the odd man out, huh, partner?” He joked with Chidi before settling further into his chair. Bryant’s sharp eyes refocused on Marisa. “And you didn’t answer my question, Bourgeois. Not really, anyway. So, I’ll ask you again . . . where is Declan Dolan now?”

“I told you that I know not for certain where he is.”

Bryant scowled. “Don’t play word games with me, Bourgeois. You see all this other stuff, but don’t know where Dolan is? Fine. Gimme your best guess, sweetheart.”

Marisa’s gaze narrowed on him. “The last I saw of Declan Dolan, he lay chained beneath the ice, lost among the Salt mines of Røyrkval in the Ancient City of Song,” she said. “For that is where I saw both Dolans in my dreams. Both the father and the son. Each of them searching among the frigid tunnels. One desperate for escape, the other in seeking another of the five keys we require to unlock the greater mystery left to us.”

Chidi’s spirit soared at Marisa’s admission. “Lenny is alive, then?” she asked.

“Aye,” she said. “For the son of Declan Dolan is another I have long seen in my dreams. His pain and his voice nearly rivaling your own, Chidi.”

His pain? Chidi wondered. What does she mean?

Bryant spoke up before she could ask her questions. “Seems to me you got a whole lotta faces you’re seeing in them dreams of yours, Bourgeois. Just how many others you seen or heard and ain’t told us about?”

Marisa smiled in answer, but gave him nothing else in reply.

“Yeah,” said Bryant. “That’s what I thought. Might be I heard you wrong too, but it almost sounds to me like you sent Declan and his boy down to them Salt mines knowing they’d be put to work in chains.”

“Indeed, you are wrong, David Bryant,” said Marisa. “For it was not me to send Declan Dolan anywhere. I showed him the same as was shown to me . . . the truth of what occurs when the pure in heart stand by and do nothing. Why we all of must make our choices. Why everything that we all do matters. Every word. Every choice. Everything.” She looked away from Bryant, refocused on Chidi instead. “For even among those who fear they do not matter, their actions and words seemingly uncounted, even those meekest of folk must come to find the courage to act and speak up, lest the world and all those in it suffer for their silence . . .”

Chidi glanced away, her gaze falling on Allambee’s concerned expression.

Bryant scratched at his cheeks. “You say everybody’s actions and their voices matter, Bourgeois. Afraid I’m gonna have to disagree. I’ve met some real crazies in my time. The kinda folk who don’t have any problem saying what’s on their mind. It’s getting them to shut up that’s the issue.”

Marisa cast her knowing gaze on him. “And you, David? Which lot do you place yourself among?”

Bryant took a deep breath, his eyes narrowing. “Like to think I know when to keep my mouth shut and when not to . . . and I ain’t got a problem calling somebody out if and when I sense a bit of bull in the air, if that’s what you mean.”

Marisa smiled. “We are not all of us as brave as you, my friend,” she replied, not unkindly. “Some brave folk such as you are, David, aye, and Allambee Omondi too, you both have always faced your destiny and detractors willingly enough, no matter the harshness thrown before you, or the consequences to pay thereafter. Still . . . you are among the scattered few.”

And we are the many, Marisa? Chidi silently wondered on the exchange between her companions. We, the quiet ones in the corners, lurking in the shadows, hoping to go unseen and unnoticed?

To judge Bryant’s tone and expression, he remained unfazed by Marisa’s words. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Bourgeois. But, judging by the stories I heard from Edmund, it never sounded to me like Declan Dolan was the sort to shrink from anything either, let alone a duty to others.”

“No,” said Marisa. “Nor did he hesitate when making his choice to head south and leave the safer, northern Arctic route for me.”

“North?” Chidi asked. “Why would you go there?”

“To seek further answers to these cryptic five pieces of two and uncover more of the Ancient riddles,” said Marisa.

“And?” Bryant asked. “Did you find any more of them keys you’re on about?”

“No,” said Marisa. “Only more riddles to solve. Ancient words carved deep into a lost and long forgotten, icy refuge of old. A haunted place where the dead still reside, their voices whispering at me all the while to free them of the cursed mistakes of their past.”

“You understood what they were saying, then?” Chidi asked. “What these ghosts wanted?”

“No,” said Marisa. “But I felt them surrounding me all the while. In truth, I feel them still each time I think back upon the stone-etched scrawlings I found awaiting me at the northern pole.”

“Scrawlings?” Chidi asked.

Marisa nodded. “The same jumble of symbols and marks writ across the pages of the journals I once kept. The same as I allowed your Selkie crew to take from me, Chidi. All in the hope you might decipher some bit of worthy note that I could not see. Aye, that you might piece together some words from the letters I had already transcribed.”

They were Ancient symbols! Chidi thought, reflecting back on the journals of Marisa Bourgeois they had lifted off of Zymon Gorski after the events of the Shedd Aquarium. How Lenny Dolan had asked Chidi to translate the many different languages inside to find a clue as to where Marisa might have gone next, or what she intended to find at the next location she ran to. “I never got through your journals,” Chidi said to Marisa. “I didn’t have time. Not that I think I could’ve translated all of those symbols you made anyway. To translate any kind of language, I would need some sort of base to build from. Some words or letters I already knew to work out the rest.”

“Then we are both of us fortunate to have each other now, Chidi,” said Marisa. “For you have the gift of language, and I some little knowledge of the Ancient symbols. Together, it might well be we work out some bit of further learning during our journey ahead to seek out the remaining keys awaiting us.” Marisa glanced over her shoulder, speaking up just as another in their company was about to. “And, again, I would remind you that flying will not serve our purposes, David Bryant.”

Chidi thought her weathered partner looked like a spoiled schoolboy called down by his teacher and flummoxed as to how she guessed that which he had meant to continue arguing.

Bryant crossed his arms. “Says you, Bourgeois. Sounds to me like you got this whole thing worked out to keep you and Chidi occupied along the way. Me? I can’t say as I’ll rest easy knowing them monsters are swimming out there. Hell, they might even be lurking beneath us right now, for all I know. Least if we were in the air, there’s no chance of them getting after us.”

Allambee went to the window, looking out as if he might see something there.

“There’s nothing out there, Allambee,” said Chidi. The Sancul would be too big to be swimming beneath us now, wouldn’t they? Surely, the water is too shallow this far inland . . . she wondered but did not say, not wanting to fear Allambee further as he turned back around. “There’s no monsters out there, I mean.”

Allambee frowned. “And yet you all have said this word many times since coming back,” he replied. “So, please tell me. What monsters did you see after you left me here?”

Bryant barked a laugh. “None that I want to see again, I’ll tell you that,” he said, ignoring Chidi’s disparaging look meant to shut him up. Bryant studied Marisa instead. “And I still don’t reckon I understand how you think we’re supposed to take down any one of them kraken things on our own if we chance to cross ways again with them, Bourgeois. ‘Specially not with some ring that Chidi’s wearing, or else some old word puzzles that you ladies mean to work out.”

Marisa turned to face him. “I assure you it will be no mere ring, nor puzzled piece alone to halt the Other and the storm he brings, my friend. That you do not understand such reasoning is why you are not leading us in this venture, David Bryant.”

Chidi chuckled at his silence to follow, Marisa’s reply stunning him.

“Now, come below with me, Chidi,” said Marisa, leaving the wheel behind and heading down to the cabin quarters below the captain’s deck. “You and I have much work to do . . . and precious little time.”

4

SYDNEY

Again. Sydney told herself, imagining the teachings of her former guardian and mentor, Yvla. She flicked her wrist, then pictured a violet, snaking line shot forth from her hand - a jelly whip that cracked when she called it home. But no matter how she recalled the color and sound of Yvla’s whip, Sydney’s own makeshift wand of bone and the tattered rags tied at its end gave no such signals.

Sydney had lost count of how many times she robotically practiced the maneuver with no visible result. The darkness of her prison all-consuming, Sydney also could not say how many days or nights, hours or minutes, she had spent trapped inside the oubliette.

Again . . . Sydney told herself, performing the practiced, whip-like movement once more, her hands trembling as she pictured Yvla’s continued calls. Again!

Still, there was no light shot forth from her hand to ward off the darkness.

And why should there be? Sydney knew, lowering her arm and the crude, training weapon she held. Yvla is dead . . . and everyone I love is gone, taken, or else betrayed me.

Her fingers clenched tighter at the last thought.

She pictured the king, Darius, in the above, the one her memory still named as father. Though all else was dark, Sydney perfectly remembered the image of his scorn at the appearance of her shark tail. Worse, him striking her mother, Nattie Gao, thereafter. Sydney scolded herself for ever having named Darius as her father then, even though it was only in her mind. He’s not though. She reminded herself. He’s not my dad. Not really. He’s never been your real dad.

Then who? Her conscience tormented her. If not the king, then who?

Sydney had toyed with that question too inside the oubliette. Quill, maybe? She thought, cheering at momentary idea and the evidence - the memories of how he spoke on Nattie Gao, his odd reaction when meeting her for the first time, and his sister, Yvla, being her godmother.

For every time Sydney believed in the assumption, she discounted it the next. If Quill is my real dad, then why wouldn’t he just say it? Why not tell me when I was in hiding with him and Yvla for so many days?

Sydney could make no sense of it as she used her hands to touch the sides of her tail in reminder of her Nomad origins. Though the skin felt smooth in one direction, it rubbed her fingers like sandpaper when she reversed the movement. The shark skin felt nothing like her Merrow tail. Again, Sydney frowned at what her Mako shark tail and the meaning of it had condemned her and others to suffer. She looked up to where she imagined the ceiling to be, the place where light had once existed. Where light might still exist if the giant stone were rolled away.

A little light, she prayed. Please, just let in a little light.

That too went unanswered, just as so many other prayers she had made for the same request had done also. Instead, her mind wandered to a more familiar call, the same as Sydney repeated on and on, if only to keep the memory of her former mentor alive.

Again, Sydney . . . she swore that she could hear Yvla calling to her from afar. Again.

Why? Sydney wondered, allowing herself to sink nearly all the way to the stony bottom of her cell. What’s the point of training if I’m never going to escape this place, or even hold a real jelly whip?

Though she could no longer see them, she pictured the bone litters of the oubliette’s former occupants littering the floor all around her. Not for the first time, she wondered whether or not those aligned against her – the king, the Blackfin, and their minions too – if all meant to keep Sydney trapped in the oubliette forever. Lost and forgotten to darkness like all the rest whose anonymous bones were strewn across the bottom of her cell.

The idea of the former prisoner and their lingering ghosts haunted her. Aye, stupid girl. You’re no different from any who suffered here . . . those in the above will leave you to wither and starve like they did for us.

The thought made Sydney immediately kick away from descending all the way. She rocketed upward as if the phantoms in her mind meant to chase her in ascending. Sydney swam all the way to the surface, bursting above the water line.

The never-ending dark and the cold lived there also.

Despite them all, Sydney welcomed the idea of breathing air, rather than Salt. Though she marveled at her ability to breathe both above and beneath the surface, Sydney swore she would never get fully used to the feeling of swallowing water and exhaling. Not that the musty air in the above felt much better. Her lungs screamed with the burning sensation as she choked the oxygen down in replacement of the water she had been breathing below.

This place is death. Her instincts signaled with the combined, rotted taste of mildew and Salt. Death and decay.

Sydney was already diving again when a rumble came from the ceiling. She winced as a tracing of light cut through the dark. Small and thin at first, an orange and yellow flickered hue brightened for every continued rumble.

Sydney flip-turned to locate the light’s source. She cringed at the onslaught to her vision, even as she craved more of it. Shielding her face with her trembling forearm, Sydney dared to resurface and look upward as a portion of the hulking stone ceiling was rolled away to reveal a manhole-sized escape. She had scarcely seen the two-toned faces of Orc soldiers bearing torchlights when a shadow plummeted through the hole. Sydney yelped at the splash made when a bucket landed nearby, dousing her with more water.

The Orcs laughed in the above. “Climb in, savage,” one of them jeered. “The king wishes to see you.”

Sydney sneered at the others’ continued mocking. When she did not move for the bucket and rope cast down, the Orc called to her again.

“Two ways to do this, love,” said he, a voice that Sydney swore she recognized, yet could not put a name to. “Your choice, but both decisions will end the same.”

Then it’s no real choice. Sydney thought, remembering the voice’s owner then for the same Orc who had caught up to her and Yvla in the sewers after the attack on Catcher’s Corner. Solomon. She searched and found his name among the memory and all that happened when Yvla had fought him anyway.

Solomon called down to her again. “Make your choice, girl . . .”

Sydney swam toward the rope line. A bucket large enough to place her feet inside hung from the end. Sydney shifted her shark tail into human legs, then gripped the thick bit of rope as she climbed in. Despite the wet upon them, the bristles were coarse and sharp. Sydney hung on anyway, despite the stinging feel. With her free hand, she tucked the makeshift bone wand and rag she had trained with beneath her arm, pinching it close to her body to remain unseen.

Again, Solomon called from above. “You in yet, girl?”

“Y-Yes,” Sydney answered, her voice scattered and quiet as it echoed up through the shaft of air.

“Right,” Solomon went on. “Heave-ho, then, lads. Get her up here.”

Sydney nearly lost her hold upon the rope, the fibers burning the inside of her hand as it yanked suddenly taut. She held strong, however, riding the bucket like a swift and open-air elevator, headed for the sole way in or out of the oubliette prison.

Sydney tried to meet her captors’ stares as she ascended through the hole. The light from their torches and the pain it caused to her eyes prevented her attempt at bravery. She had barely crossed into the above before the Orcs took hold of her, pulling her free of the bucket and the hole.

The Orcs dragged her across the stones to stand before the one giving them their orders.

The Violovar rogue, Solomon, was waiting for her when Sydney dared to look up again. Unlike when she first encountered him in the sewers, however, Solomon had now traded his tattered rags of the Violovar allegiance for the polished, black armor of the royal Painted Guard.

A deeper voice that Sydney needed no reminder of to recognize called out from behind the wall of Orcs. “Stand aside, Solomon,” Malik Blackfin ordered as he led into the dungeon. “The king would speak with this traitor.”

Solomon gave a curt nod as he stepped away, offering a wide berth to his leader.

To Sydney’s mind, Malik Blackfin seemed twice as large as his subordinates. Monstrous in size, even by Orc standards, his armor set him apart from all those swearing allegiance to him. Where the others wore plate black, the Blackfin had adorned his with a swirl of white to offset the darkness he otherwise embodied.

Sydney cringed at the mocking in his eyes. The Blackfin looked on her briefly before he too stepped aside, revealing the king. Where Sydney remembered laughter and smiles from the one she had formerly named father, King Darius came to her now with unhidden malice.

Stepping within six feet of her, the king’s nose wrinkled as he considered Sydney. “Ugh.” He raised a bit of his robe to his nose to cover it. “If one didn’t take you for a savage before, girl, they certainly would know you for one now.”

Girl? Sydney thought, clenching the makeshift handle of her bone wand. So, I have no name now, to your mind? She continued her stare of him, grateful to give the king any displeasure she might offer.

The king snorted as he dropped the bit of robe from his nostrils. “Your mother is to stand trial soon,” he said. “I would have you there to watch and hear tales of her treason.”

“Why?” Sydney flung back at him. “Why are you doing this to us? To her?”

“Let you ask your mother such questions, child. Not me,” said the king. “For you know perfectly well why this is happening.” He nodded toward the hole leading down into the oubliette. “Or perhaps you need more time to swim below and look on your savage tail for the answer?”

You can’t see anything down there. Sydney thought, shivering at the idea of being plunged below again. “No,” she said quietly. “Don’t put me back down there. Please . . .”

“No,” said Darius. “I have no intentions of casting you back into the pit, Sydney.”

Sydney now? She thought to herself. Not savage. Not child, or girl. He used my name . . . Her gaze flickered to the Blackfin beside the king. But why now? What is this game you’re playing?

The king noticed her attention diverted. “In truth, I would prefer to have you back in your old chambers at the castle and well attended to.”

Lies. Sydney thought immediately. Those chambers were a cage too. Just like Mom tried to warn me when we first arrived.

Yvla’s words too came to her then, whispering from the recesses of her mind. Be brave, Sydney . . .

Sydney bowed her head in submissive answer to the king. “Thank you,” she said. “I would like to go back to the castle.”

Darius nodded. “Perhaps you shall. First, I would have some answers from you. Truth, rather.”

And there it is, Sydney thought. He wants something from me. Needs something. She reflected on her mother and Yvla’s teachings. But what?

The Blackfin stirred. “Can you not speak, girl? Or did you lose your sweet voice in the oubliette? Perhaps we ought to send you back down there to find it once more.” His gaze worked down her body. “And what’s that you’re trying to hide beneath your arm?” He asked, motioning one of the guards to lift Sydney’s arms.

Sydney resisted, but failed to fend them off.

Malik Blackfin laughed when the bone and its attached rag clattered to the ground. “What’s this?” he asked, picking up the makeshift training weapon, inspecting the rag that still bore the royal symbol that Sydney had once worn before casting it into the sewers. Malik grinned. “You liked the keepsake I returned to you so much that you imagined I might want it back?”

Sydney did not rise to taunting, but she flinched when he cast the bone at her feet.

“I have no use for savage trinkets, girl,” he said.

“Peace, Blackfin,” said the king. “The child is clearly frightened and distrusts us.” He stepped closer to Sydney, then took a knee that he might look her in the eye at her level. “And why not? We have taken everything of value from you thus far, haven’t we, Sydney?”

She endured the king’s touch as he reached out to brush a strand of wet hair from her forehead. Inside, she was screaming.

“Aye, everything of value,” said Darius, standing once more to lord over her. “Or so you might believe.”

Sydney trembled at the invisible touch of icy fingers wrapping around her heart and gently squeezing. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly as I said,” said Darius. “I find the majority of poor fools left in your position often believe their circumstance is both far harsher than any others punished, and, strangely, that they could not be worse off.”

You talk with a lot of fools, do you? Sydney wondered but did not say.

The king continued. “And yet . . . those same fools fail to recognize that things can always be worse, for the truest of hells is a bottomless pit.”

Sydney’s throat ran dry at the continued mirth in his voice.

“I could tell you more of hellish torments, of course,” said Darius. “But, then again, I’ve learned that telling such poor souls never quite has the same effect as showing them.”

Sydney trembled in her captors’ grips, believing the king meant to harm her as he did for her mother the last time she had seen him. Worse, that he might send the Blackfin to do his dirty work for him.

The king neither moved, nor gave such an order. “Why did you come back to the Salt, Sydney?” he asked her quietly. “Why did you and your mother return, but leave your brother behind?”

Jun. Sydney understood then. This is all about Jun. Her spirits rose at the notion. Which means they still don’t know where he is . . .

The king tapped his foot. “Well?” he asked. “Is it such a difficult thing I ask of you that you require more time to think on your answers?”

“No,” said Sydney quickly. “I just . . . I don’t know what to tell you that I haven’t already.”

The king scoffed. “Lies, you mean.”

“They’re not,” said Sydney. “Please, listen to me. The only reason I ran to the Salt was because I wanted to find my friend, Garrett.” She looked to the Blackfin with the hope that he might lend credence to her argument, he knowing that Garrett Weaver was both his nephew and the son of the former Orcinian leader, Makeda.

Malik Blackfin smiled in response, as if he well understood what Sydney would have of him, denying her for the sport of it.

Sydney warmed at the slight. She turned back to the king. “You have to believe me,” she said. “My friends and I came to the Salt looking for Garrett. That’s it! It’s why Mom came back too. She just wanted to find us all and take us back home where it was safe.”

“Home?” Darius asked. “And do you mean that shack upon the shore, or the home you once wished to have here with me in my castle? Before you fled my protection, that is . . .”

“On the shore,” said Sydney, after some thought and more biting her tongue to keep from saying what she really wanted. “Now that I know what this world is like, I understand why Mom didn’t want me to ever come here.”

Darius’s lip curled. “And yet even now you lie in admitting that you were once of two minds about which home held your allegiance – the Salt, or the shore.”

“How did I lie?” Sydney asked.

Darius raised a bit of his robe to cover his nose once more, drinking deep of its scent as if to rid the odor of Sydney from his nostrils before speaking again. “Do you know what the old ones say about such duplicitous people as you are, Sydney? The old ones rightly claim that no one may serve two masters. Either they will hate one and love the other, or else they will hold to one and despise the other.” The king’s nose wrinkled once more. “And it seems to me that both you and your cursed mother made your decision long ago by choosing to live upon the shore, rather than here where you belong.”

“Then give us the same choice now,” said Sydney. “Let us go back to the shore. Please! I swear that I’ll never come back to the Salt as long as I live.”

The king frowned. “Your mother and so many others swore such an oath to me too, once. All of them liars, right along with the pair of you, it seems to me now. Or did your mother not tell you of the oath she and others made?”

Sydney’s voice caught in her throat, her silence an answer in itself.

Darius scowled at her. “There be the first truth I’ve seen from you.” He scoffed. “And your lying, savage tongue cannot bring yourself even to speak it. For that is the power of real truth, Sydney. It silences even the most skillful of liars. I wonder though . . . do you truly comprehend the equal power and far reach of falsehoods?”

“I-I don’t know what you mean.”

“Perhaps, in time, you will,” said Darius. He glanced over his shoulder then, nodding at Solomon and the other Orcs.

Without a word between them, Solomon signaled a few more of the guards to follow him out of the dungeon.

Where is he going? Sydney wondered, her pulse racing. Why are they leaving?

The king reached into his pocket, fishing for something hidden there. “Did you like the theatrical show I had presented the night your mother was taken, Sydney? You slipped away so suddenly after, I’m afraid that I never got around to asking your thoughts on the performances.” Darius removed his hand from his pocket, his fist clenched. “So? What did you think?”

Sydney thought of Yvla then, the star actress of the show. How she had shot out of the water and soared through the air, taking on even the darkest of shadows as she played the role of the Tide-Turner known as the Lady Roselani. “I loved it,” she answered the king, her lip quivering as her memories turned to all that occurred thereafter. “Until the end and all that happened after.”

“No doubt your mother shares your sentiment,” said the king. “She was always more attuned to the theatrics and romance of such stories too. As for me . . .” He reached toward her, his fingers unfurling to reveal a single silver coin in his hand. “I preferred the wizardry of magicians.”

Sydney looked upon its face, expecting to see a male figurehead emblazoned on it like the coins she knew from home. Instead, she saw a blindfolded, Merrow female bearing a sword in one hand and the scales of justice in the other.

Repositioning the coin, Darius gave a flick of his thumb to send the coin flipping through the air before catching it in his palm more. “Magicians are the truest of showmen,” he said, flipping the coin over and again. “Or so I once believed their powers to be.” He snorted. “My father had revealed to me early on that despite all the roles played, or the masks and makeup worn, all that actors did were lies. Mere puppets, they are. Beautiful puppets, I grant you, but puppets all the same. All moving where they were told. Parroting words written by wiser minds. And all so that they might venture on stage each and every night to sell the combined wares of all to an audience that craved the lies they sold.”

But they’re not lies. Sydney reflected on all the stories Yvla told her while they hid in her brother’s house. The actors and the stories are representing truth. Warnings, even.

Darius smiled when he looked upon the coin in his palm. Presenting it to Sydney once more, he revealed the tail side of the coin – a triangular shark fin, rising from beneath the surface. “Ah, but magicians,” the king continued. “Now, there was true power.” He flipped the coin again, watching it dance through the air, its glimmer caught in the torchlight as it descended into his palm once more. “Actors begged you to believe their lies. Lured you to identify with them, inserting yourself as part of their story, even as you watched from the safety of your chair.” He frowned in flipping the coin once more. “But once you saw them close? Once you ventured backstage and witnessed the players unmasked? Then, you saw all the lies for what they truly were. The beautiful maiden, not a maid at all, but a shapely crone with wigs and makeup. And the brave knight you saw on stage could not swing a sword if his life depended upon it. No,” said the king. “Much as I too once loved them for it, I came to learn they were all liars up there on their glorified stage.” The king curled his fingers around the coin in his palm, staring at all the while. “Magicians though . . . they would present themselves and their wares right in front of you, Sydney. Give you the coin to inspect, even, that you might know there were no tricks or lies. And then, before your very eyes.” The king opened his hand once more, revealing the coin had vanished. “All you thought that you knew was gone in an instant . . . and yet you knew nothing of where it went, nor how the magic occurred.”

Sydney looked into the king’s eyes and found him staring back with icy sternness. “But it’s not gone,” she said. “They always bring it back because it was never really gone. That’s the magician’s lie. They hide the coin somewhere, or . . . I don’t know how they do it, but I know it’s all tricks.”

“Aye, tricks.” The king nodded, making a fist once more. When he opened it again, Sydney saw the coin in his palm once more with the shark fin showing. “And that is when I came to learn that all the world and players in it are all part of a greater trick, Sydney.” He pocketed the coin. “In the end, either you are the liar and take power with such tricks and fabled stories, or else you are the fool who craves the lies and are forever swindled by them. Which are you?”

“I don’t know,” said Sydney, her breath catching in her throat upon hearing marching footsteps approaching once more outside of the dungeon. “Neither.”

The king offered a sad smile. “There is no third option. No in-between. In the courts of this world, aye, or even Beyond, I shouldn’t wonder, there is only one choice or the other. The lesser of two evils, so to speak. In truth, I do not know yet which of the two you are, only that I was the latter, once. Aye, swallowing each and every lie you and your mother sold to me.” His shoulders sagged. “But no more, Sydney.”

The king stepped away as Solomon reentered the room with his Orcs and four hostages, each with sopping wet, burlap sacks placed over their heads to conceal their identities. The first pairing matched the armored Orcs in height, but one stood bulkier than the other. The other pairing was far smaller in height and stature. Where the taller and broader pairing held their ground, despite the rough treatment, the smaller two were shaking and barely able to stand.

Malik Blackfin’s hand drifted to the pommel of his sword as Solomon and the other Orcs lined the hostage up alongside one another. He nodded at the expert show and handling of his minions. “Remove their hoods.”

The Orcs obeyed, yanking off the hostage hoods, revealing each of the four prisoners had also been muffled with a Salt-soaked rag binding.

Sydney gasped in recognition of each and every one of the hostages. Owens? Her eyes welled with tears at the sight of her high school friend bound and gagged not twenty feet from her. His left eye was swelled shut and bruised, but the other was filled with furious rage until he noticed Sydney. Then, all of the fight in him was stolen away in an instant.

Owens mumbled something through the rag that muffled him. He turned silent once more when one of the Orcs gave him a warning knock upside the head with their armored glove.

Tears spilt upon Sydney’s cheeks at the sight of her mother’s former protector too, a famed former general of the Orcinians and her high school’s humble custodian too. Mr. Owens stood bound and gagged beside his son.

Sydney fell to her knees, sobbing, when the Orcs removed the hoods of the smaller pairing too.

The last she had seen of Amelia Mayfield and her father, Jack, had been when Sydney and Owens waved goodbye to them on her mother’s ship before venturing off to Crayfish Cavern in continued search of Garrett Weaver and the Selkies who had taken him. Both Amelia and her father were former residents of the Indianapolis Zoo, and Sydney’s mind flooded with curious wonder as to how and when all of her friends were taken hostage.

All such questions disappeared when Malik Blackfin marched in front of the hostages, his eyebrows raised in consideration of which he might choose to pull from the lot.

Remembering how Yvla had fared against him, Sydney found her voice. “Please,” she begged through her tears. “Please, leave them alone! Don’t hurt them.”

“Hurt is the name of this game, child,” said the Blackfin, ignoring Amelia and her father when both would not meet his gaze. Instead, he looked between Owens and his father, both of whom refused to glance away. Smiling, he grabbed hold of Owens and yanked him from the line. “How much can you withstand, boy?”

Sydney shouted as Malik clapped his hand on Owens’ shoulder, then dropped her friend to his knees with a swift kick.

Mr. Owens came alive then too. It took Solomon and two other Orcs to restrain Mr. Owens as the Blackfin drew a dagger from the sheathe upon his belt.

Owens snorted and tried to rise. For all the good it did him, he continued to fight against those coming to keep him down too. Even as the Blackfin stepped behind him, Owens shouted a muffled defiance through the gag in his mouth.

“Please!” Sydney howled, watching the Blackfin raise his dagger, the tip of it poised over the back of Owens’s neck. “Stop this!”

The Blackfin would not. With a quick decisive move, he reached forward with his free hand and grabbed hold of the gag binding that was tied off at the back of Owens’ head. The Blackfin slipped the blade beneath the stripping and cut it loose, freeing Owens to speak before stepping away.

“Owens!” Sydney cried. “Owens, look at me.”

“Syd,” he croaked, pushing up from the floor. “I’m sorry, Syd.”

Malik Blackfin laughed at their exchange. “What are you sorry for, boy? Following a liar?” he asked. “Or that doing so landed you and your traitor father here?”

“That we’re stuck here with you, man,” Owens spat. “And my Pop’s is no traitor.”

The Blackfin kicked him square in the face, knocking Owens aside again. “Brave boy,” he chuckled even as he signaled his Orcs to raise Owens to his knees. “You would have made a noble sea-wolf in my Violovar.”

Sydney shook her head when seeing Owens still dizzied by the blow. “Stop this,” she cried to Malik Blackfin, then looked to the king when she received no response or pity from him. “Please! You don’t need to do this.”

The king nodded. “On that we are agreed,” he said in answer to her. Then, he looked at Owens. “Tell me, boy. You lived ashore also and came to the Salt with my daughter—” the king’s face reddened at the mistake. “With this girl here. You do remember Sydney, yes?”

Owens nodded. “Yeah . . .”

The Blackfin gave Owens a nudge in the back with his boot. “Careful, boy. That’s your king who stands before you. Speak to him again without any manners and those will be your last words.”

Owens glanced at Sydney with his good eye, then mumbled a response. “Yes, sir.”

Malik rapped Owens over the head. “He’s no sir, boy. Call him ‘Your Grace’, or—”

“Blackfin,” the king raised a hand to quiet him. “Clearly, this boy does not where he is. Say nothing of the danger presented to him even now.”

Malik flashed his dagger. “Shall him I teach him, Your Grace?”

“No. Not yet anyway.” The king’s gaze flickered to Sydney instead. “This lesson is not meant for him anyway.”

It’s for me. Sydney thought to herself, her heart breaking at the sight of more familiar faces and friends suffering as the result of her choices. This is all because of me.

Darius called to Owens. “Boy . . . I remain curious as to the true reason that you, Sydney, and these other oath-breakers decided to follow my wife and return to my kingdom. Care to shed some light on it for me?”

“I already told your soldiers before they put a beating on me, Your Grace,” said Owens. “Me, Syd, and Amelia came looking for Garrett Weaver. We came to rescue him from Selkie slavers and take him home. That’s it and that’s all.”

“Clever lad,” said Darius quietly. “Holding to your shared stories. But then Nattie and your father, the shamed former general here, well, they would have ensured you all aligned your lies before Makeda brought you into my city, wouldn’t they?”

“It’s the truth, Your Grace,” said Owens. “I’m telling you.”

Darius frowned. “Blackfin . . . I believe he’ll need that lesson after all.”

Again, Sydney fought those restraining her as the Blackfin nodded and went to obey the king’s command. Her breath caught in her throat, however, when the Blackfin’s blow did not fall upon Owens, but his father instead. Sydney winced at the onslaught of kicks and punches rained upon Mr. Owens by the Blackfin, Solomon, and other Orcs.

Owens too fought to no avail then. “Leave my Pop alone!” He cried through his own tears at his father strewn upon the floor as the beating continued. “You’re killing him!”

“Not yet, they aren’t,” said Darius. “But the general soon will be dead, if you won’t give me the truth, boy.”

Sydney screamed then, wincing for every landed blow upon Mr. Owens. “He’s telling you the truth! Please! We’re all telling you the truth! What else do you want from us?”

Darius raised his hand, signaling the Orcs to cease in their attack.

Sydney immediately looked to Mr. Owens, the slow rise and fall of his chest signaling he yet lived.

“Pop!” Owens cried out. “Pop, talk to me!”

Mr. Owens mumbled a response.

Please be okay. Sydney prayed as she watched the mammoth Orc roll over, wheezing through the gag in his mouth. Please don’t die because of me.

The king stepped in front of her, blocking her view of him. “You already know what I want, Sydney,” he said. “Truthful answers to my questions. That is all I require of you.”

Sydney glared up at him. “I’ve already given you both. I don’t know what else you want me to say!”

“Where is your brother?” Darius asked her. “Why did your mother decide—”

“We left Jun at home!” Sydney shouted. “What else do you want from me? I don’t know where Jun is if he isn’t ashore and back at home in Indiana!”

Darius scowled at her before turning to Owens again. “And you, boy? What do you know of the prince’s whereabouts? Assuming he is my son, that is, and not some other bastard pretender.”

Owens took one glance at his father, then shook his head. “It’s like Sydney said, Your Grace. We don’t know. Me and my Pop was supposed to get Sydney from the zoo and take her back home to be with Jun. But then me, Syd, and Amelia decided to go out looking for Weaver in the Salt instead.”

“But why?” the king asked. “Why would you forsake your prince’s safety for an orphaned Orc?”

Because of me. Sydney knew when Owens looked at her for what to say. Unable to withstand his questioning gaze, she looked to Amelia and found her crying too. Because I convinced them all to come with me.

Owens mustered a response. “We didn’t know Jun was a prince,” he said. “Or Sydney a princess either. For all we knew, Jun was safe at home. Our friend, Weaver, wasn’t. We just wanted to get him back. That’s all.”

“And where is this Weaver now?” Darius asked. “This orphaned Orc you all seem so concerned with?”

Malik Blackfin chuckled. “He abandoned them all, Your Grace. He betrayed my sister and the Painted Guard, then murdered a few good and loyal soldiers before fleeing once he discovered they knew of his true intentions for venturing into our city.”

“That’s a lie,” said Owens. “We didn’t have any plans for coming here, man. All we wanted after we found Weaver was to go home. It was Makeda and the Painted Guard who forced us to come here and then turned on us and her too! They’re the ones who betrayed Makeda and—”

“Enough!” Darius silenced him. “The daughter of Orcin will stand trial and speak in her own defense at a later time. We’re here tonight to discuss the queen’s crimes. Will you give us the truth of them here and now, lad? Aye, and at her trial also?”

They want him to lie? Sydney wondered. That’s what this is about!?

Owens’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know what else to tell you, Your Grace. Already told you everything I know.”

“And what if I said your father’s fate depended on your answers, boy?” Darius asked. “Would you have any further truth or explanations?”

It is. That’s what this is all about. Sydney choked at the realization. They want us to lie . . . to lie against Mom.

Owens seemed to understand the king’s meaning then too. “I gave you all the truth I got, Your Grace. My Pop too.”

Sydney pushed to the limits of her captors’ grips. “Owens, just do it,” she said. “Do what they say. They’ll kill you and your dad if you don’t.”

“They’re gonna kill us anyway, Syd,” Owens replied, his bottom lip shaking even as he flung defiance at the king and Blackfin. “But I ain’t gonna help them kill nobody else.” He glared at the king. “You don’t like my answers, Your Grace?” Owens spat at the king’s feet.

Malik Blackfin laughed and gave Owens’s head a rough rubbing. “Aye, now there be a sea-wolf if ever I saw one.” He nodded in respectful show. “You are your father’s son, boy. I’ll give you that. Aye, you do General Owens and your forefathers proud.”

The king snorted at Malik’s praising of Owens. With no better answers from his Orc hostages, Darius turned toward Amelia and her father. “I wonder, boy, if your Merrow friends feel the same.”

Sydney’s face paled when the Blackfin took up the king’s meaning.

Leaving Owens and his father to the other Orcs, Malik strode toward Amelia and took her gently by the arm. “Hush, now,” he said to her, separating Amelia from her trembling father, then leading her onward. “Answer truly and you have nothing to fear, girl.”

Sydney wept at the state of her terrified friend, barely able to shuffle forward alongside her captor.

Amelia’s face bore none of the bruises that her father did, yet she shook all the more for her fear as Malik positioned her in front of the king and then cut free the gag in her mouth.

“What say you, girl?” Darius asked her. “What truths would you give me and the crowds to come about the queen’s reasoning for returning to the Salt, yet leaving our prince behind? Abandoning him, some might say.”

I’m sorry. Sydney thought when Amelia trembled further at the question, their gazes meeting for a brief moment. God, I’m so sorry.

Amelia offered an incoherent response, her voice squeaking like a frightened mouse.

Malik nudged her. “Speak up, girl. Let the king hear you.”

“I-I’ll do anything,” she said, her face flushing as she glanced at Owens on the floor near his injured father. “I’ll say anything you want. Just please don’t hurt them anymore.”

“No, sweet child,” said Darius. “We don’t want to hurt your friends, nor the queen either. We only want the truth.”

You have the truth. Sydney thought as Darius gave orders for the Orcs to remove the hostages from the dungeon. You just don’t like it.

Her body and spirit numb, Sydney collapsed as the Orcs threw hoods over the four hostages. How many of us? She wondered then. If they have Amelia and Owens, then how many of my other friends and their families do they have down here?

Beside her, the makeshift bone wand that the Blackfin had cast aside lay within her reach. She did not hesitate to reach for it, her grip tightening on the bone wand with her guards distracted by the hostages. As her fingers closed upon the bone, she almost believed it was a whip handle like Yvla’s had been. Sydney imagined striking the king. To stand against all the enemies as her former guardian had done and to try and free her friends.

When she looked down at the bone and bit of tattered rag tied to it, Sydney knew she could mount no such defense against the Blackfin and his Orcs. Much as she craved Yvla’s teachings in that moment, it was another memory that spoke to her instead.

Anything can be a weapon, girl . . . she remembered the steady voice of Yvla’s brother, Quill, saying to her inside his home. If you open your eyes to see.

Sydney’s lip curled as the Orcs laid hands on her friends and took them away once more, just as she had witnessed them do for her mother too. You want truth? She thought, turning her gaze on the king, her fingers releasing the bone to find the swirled bit of the tattered rag instead as the Orcs guards pulled her up to stand again. I’ll give you some.

The moment the king turned around, Sydney jerked her wand arm free of the Orc holding her. Imagining the whip flying out before her as she had done over and again inside the oubliette, Sydney flicked her wrist, holding onto the rag’s end, sending the bone flying out before her, its aim directed at the king. Reaching the end of its tattered binding, the bone swung around as the wet cloth snapped taut.

Darius turned nearly too late to avoid the object flying at his face. He ducked at the last, the bone meant to strike him in the head instead slapping off the crown he wore and sending it skittering across the floor.

Wide-eyed and scarcely believing she had connected with her target, Sydney quickly tried to pull the bone back toward her at the end of its binding.

The Blackfin stomped on the bone, snapping it half before she could call it home.

The king too was rising again. “Blackfin!” he snarled. “Cast this savage back into the oubliette. It would seem she requires more time to think on her life and loyalties before the trials begin.”

“I already know the answers to both,” said Sydney, drawing on the courage she had witnessed from her mother and her friends. “It’s like you said before, Your Grace. You’re the one who wants the lie.”

The king’s face darkened as one of the Orcs gave him back his crown. Darius placed the newly dirtied, gold circlet encrusted with sapphires beyond counting upon his head before venturing over to Sydney. For a moment, she thought he meant to strike her, just as she had seen him do for the queen.

But Darius made no such move. “Perhaps you’re right, Sydney,” he said quietly. “Perhaps I do welcome the lies rather than truth . . . but believe me when I say to you, child, that before these traitor trials are done, I’m going to teach you and your whore mother just how much lies can hurt.”

5

LENNY

The Sailfish train’s whistle screamed over and again as it fled through the tunnel, barreling away from the Ancient City of Song, the ugly memories there, and all those who had sought to keep the Selkies prisoners trapped inside its frozen ruins.

His Ringed Seal hood drawn, Lenny Dolan emerged from the caboose train car to escape the other newly freed Selkies who remained within. He closed the door behind him, silencing the others’ voices and their ongoing, celebratory chatter. Lenny sat upon the rickety, frost-covered wood flooring, even as it rumbled and rattled beneath him.

The caboose swayed with constant movement, the train speeding onward through the black tunnel. The exhaust steam from its engine swept past Lenny, trailing the train in a thick, chalky smoke that lingered on like a phantom trail for anyone left behind to follow.

Lenny Dolan knew that no one would.

He and the former Selkie prisoners had left the Ancient City of Song to its legends and its ghosts. Both the older spirits who had already lingered there, and those newly given over to the forgotten, ruined palace trapped among and beneath the ice.

Lenny hugged his knees to his chest. His Selkie suit staved off the physical cold of the Antarctic tunnel from seeping through, but no amount of mysticism or magical coat could thwart the other, frozen feel knifing him at every thought of the dead he left behind in Røyrkval.

None inside the train cars had noticed the little man maneuvering through their midst, seeking asylum from their noise and their company. Where most of the other Selkies sought sustenance and the kinship from those who had endured their shared experiences, the hollowness in Lenny Dolan could not be filled with food or drink. As for kinship . . .

Lenny repeated his father’s words, whispering them aloud, if only to hear and remember them as if his idol sat beside him. “‘Always have two ways out . . .’”

Even as he spoke his father’s words, Lenny knew his voice did not carry half the authority or wisdom that Declan Dolan’s had done.

Blinking away the sting in his eyes, Lenny rested the back of his head against the train car wall, losing himself to the clack of the railway beneath him.

The constant motion of the rocking train car and repetitive noise from the wheels threatened to lull him to sleep. Lenny pinched himself awake, his mind and body wiped of any reserves that the strength of adrenaline had provided when fighting for his life and freedom against the Orcs in Røyrkval. Both mattered little to him now, each clacking sound beneath him a reminder of the added distance put between him and the cost incurred to safeguard his freedom and his life.

Dolans don’t leave others behind.

Lenny winced at the thought, his father’s voice as clear in his memory as it had been in life.

I didn’t leave ya, Pop. Lenny reopened his eyes to face reality, the darkness he and the others had escaped from due to his father’s final plan and sacrifice. Told ya before, he imagined himself arguing with Declan Dolan just one more time. I’ll carry ya with me forever.

The train whistle sounded again, the shrieking call living on long past its normal life.

Lenny swore under his breath when those inside the train car cheered alongside the whistle. Idiots, he thought to himself. We’re not outta this yet. Lenny knew, staring into the darkness, thoughts of his father swirling in his mind. There’s nothing but more Orcs and fighting ahead of us. Lenny scowled, thinking on the stopping point that lay ahead in the newly freed Selkies’ shared journey upon the railway. What do I do, Pop? He wondered, remembering the cavern staging point, Bouvetøya, where the Orcs had stopped for supplies and further slaves when Lenny and Declan had been brought down from the capital of New Pearlaya. Neither the Dolans, nor his father’s friend, Jemmy T, had been removed from the train cars in Bouvetøya. Still, Lenny recalled the brief stop well enough for the memory of the slaughter there. The Orc soldiers had been positioned outside the train cars, all waiting to kill any Selkie prisoner attempting to escape for want of clean air and water the moment that the doors were opened.

So, how do we stop the Orcs from killing us this time, Pop? Lenny wondered, over and again. The idea of escaping one forgotten city only to be overtaken in the next needled at him, as did the notion that Declan would have held all the answers for the coming problem and seen still more issues that Lenny could only guess at. Worst of all the questions, doubts, and problems plaguing Lenny Dolan’s mind was the notion that his father’s sacrifice would be in vain if Lenny and the other Selkies could find no solution to their upcoming problems.

What would you do about the Orcs we’re soon to meet, Pop? Lenny wondered, watching the continuous, chalk-like trail of steam that both followed and vanished in tandem. How would you keep these other idiots here all joined for what comes next? How do I focus them so that we keep each other safe until we can all get to New Pearlaya and go our separate ways?

The darkness held no answer for him, nor did any of his father’s frequent lessons return to the forefront of his mind with any hope of guidance.

When the train whistle signaled again, Lenny came alive. For a moment, he thought to reenter and march through each and every train car on a direct path for the main engine, all to throttle the fool who continued signaling to anyone up ahead that a train was on its way. Lenny was reaching for the door handle when it opened from the inside instead.

A red-haired giant filled the door frame. His bulky, Southern Elephant Seal suit hung off him like a collection of tattered rags that had been hastily sewn together. Tom Weaver’s face was beaten and bruised from his time as a hostage among the Orcs, but his hard eyes shone with resolve when they looked on Lenny. “You heading in, Dolan?”

“I was gonna,” Lenny admitted. “But only to tell whoever’s blowing that whistle to pipe down. They’re gonna let all the Orcs in Bouvetøya know we’re coming.”

Tom Weaver snorted. “Great minds think alike,” he said, pushing through the door, joining Lenny on the caboose. “Which is why I sent Brutus on up there to take over.”

Lenny stepped back to the caboose’s rail when Tom closed the door behind him. “You ran things in Røyrkval,” he said. “Wouldn’t whoever’s running this train listen to you before Brutus?”

“Might be they would,” said Tom. “But Brutus has a way about him that people tend to heed when he’s of a mind to make them listen . . . and we’re not in Røyrkval anymore, Dolan. Thanks to you, that is.”

“My Pop, you mean.”

“Aye, and him too.” Tom’s expression softened. “Mind if I sit with you?”

“What’s a matter, Tommy? You don’t wanna party with all the rest in there?”

“Hardly,” said Tom, settling down in the eave of the train car doorway. “My wife always used to go out and try to meet new people. Wanted to make new friends once we got ashore and settled in to our new lives there. I used to frustrate her when I said that I had all the friends I’d ever need. Didn’t see much point in making any new ones.” He glanced to the door behind him. “Can’t say as my time in Røyrkval has changed me much.”

“Why you coming to sit out here with me, then?” Lenny asked.

“You’re quieter than most,” said Tom. “Definitely smarter than the lot back inside these cars. Thought I might sit and talk with you awhile, at least. Better than suffering through the rest of those fools inside celebrating one battle won when there’s still a war out in front of us.”

Lenny shrugged. “I don’t got much to talk about. Least of all a war.”

“No?” Tom asked. “I figured that’s why you came out here. Gather your thoughts and plan out our next move.” He chuckled. “That, or think up a way for you to slip off alone the moment we stop in Bouvetøya, no? Maybe search out a way up to the surface to go it alone?”

Lenny shot him a look.

“No, then, huh?” Tom said, more to himself than Lenny. “No . . . I guess that’s not like you, Dolans, is it? At least from what Brutus and others have told me. ‘Dolans don’t run’ and all that.” Tom gave Lenny a sideways look. “So, it’s the other plan then, huh? What comes next for everyone inside who’s already forgetting what it cost to get them to get this far?”

“Maybe . . .” said Lenny. “Or maybe I just wanted to be alone for a while.”

“A word of advice, kid? Aye, something my wife was trying to teach me all those years of making new friends; alone only gets you so far in life, Dolan. Take it from one who knows. Had to learn that lesson the hard way in Røyrkval.” Tom smiled half-heartedly. “But I imagine you know that already. That your father would’ve taught you as much.”

“He did,” said Lenny. “Or tried to, at least.”

“Good man, your father,” Tom said quietly. “Hindsight being what it is, I wish I’d believed him sooner too. All those warnings he gave us about what was coming. What we should have done different.”

“Me too,” said Lenny.

“Yeah.” Tom clucked his tongue. “Full truth be told, I kinda think me and Declan might’ve gotten on pretty good together, if we’d had more time to get to know one another. Maybe knew each other in a different life. Different circumstances.”

“Probably so,” Lenny agreed, taking up his old position on the flooring nearby when it appeared Tom Weaver would not move away from the door.

They sat in shared silence awhile then, Lenny’s mind blanking as to what reason Tom Weaver had truly come out to join him, or even noticed his absence to begin with. Yeah, you and Pop would’ve gotten on real well, Tommy, he thought when the elder Weaver seemed content to allow the quiet between them to linger on, much as Declan had done in life. And, as all the times when his father had done the same, Lenny could not tolerate it for long. “You really think there’s a war coming, then?” he asked.

“I think it’s already started,” said Tom. “Or the last one never ended. After you’ve been around awhile, it’s hard to say where one war ends and another begins. Then again, I guess you could say there’s always one brewing somewhere to tie them all together. Way I figure it, the wars won’t stop coming until there’s not but a couple people left, Dolan. And even then, those two would likely find something to spat over. It’s just in us, I guess. Greed. Envy. Murder. All of it.”

“Yeah, but who put it in us?” Lenny asked.

“Don’t know,” said Tom. “But whoever did, or wherever these instincts come from, they sure don’t mean for such things to die easy in us, I can tell you that.” He shrugged. “Then again, some of us don’t really die easy to begin with. Maybe we gotta have all that need and drive to keep us going too. Can’t have one without the other.” He gave Lenny a sideways look. “All that to say, I don’t guess you have a lot of quit in you, Dolan.”

“Picked up on that, huh?”

“I did,” said Tom. “And some others filled me on all that I missed after them Orcs took me away. What Vasili and them others tell me is that busting free of Røyrkval might have been Declan Dolan’s plan, but it was his son who pulled it off.”

Lenny scoffed. “I didn’t do nothing except get Pop killed,” he said, fending off the memory of his father slipping down the ice before the Orcs mauled his seal body and flung Declan Dolan away for their commander to finish.

Tom Weaver distracted Lenny by reaching over his shoulder and rapping on the wooden door behind him. None answered it, the noise lost to those inside. “You hear that, Dolan?”

“Hear what?”

“The sounds of all the lives you helped to save.”

Lenny shook his head. “I’d trade them all to get one back, Tommy. You included. No offense.”

Tom nodded. “I know the feeling,” he said. “Wish I could help you there too. Honest, I do. But seeing as nobody can bring your father back, you might think to honor his memory instead from here on out. Give yourself some credit for helping to see his plan through too. ‘Cause all that noise in there?” He motioned his head toward the door. “That’s the sound of more than empty bellies getting filled right now on account of what you and your father did to help us all.”

“What Pop did,” Lenny clarified again. “If it wasn’t for his plan and his being able to get free of his seal form without anyone releasing him, then none of us would’ve gotten out.” He glanced toward the door and the continued chatter from inside. “And most of those in there have already forgotten him.”

“Short memories tends to be the way with most folk,” said Tom. “But I think your confusing forgetfulness with gratitude.”

Lenny’s eyes widened. “Gratitude?”

“That’s right,” said Tom. “It don’t always come in the way we expect or hope, but it don’t mean people forgot either. When the dust settles and all those who survived look back on things, they’ll remember those who showed the way and led them out. The true legends never die, Dolan. And your father was one, if ever I met any. Someday, they’ll sing songs about what you and him did for our kind.”

“Yeah?” Lenny asked. “Well, when that day comes, Tommy, remind the singers it was Declan Dolan who did it all and leave my name out of it, will ya?” He scoffed. “The greatest catcher there was or will be, killed trying to save his worthless son instead of taking care of himself like he should’ve done.”

“Succeeded,” said Tom.

“What?”

“You said ‘he died trying to save his son’,” said Tom. “Given that you’re here sitting with me still, I’d say Declan Dolan succeeded in that final act. No greater love than that, either. Any good father would say the same.”

“Well, I wish he would’ve saved himself,” Lenny growled back. “Him being here would’ve done all of you’s more good than me.”

“Might be you’re right, ‘specially if you keep on sulking the way you are now,” said Tom, going on despite the look Lenny gave him. “From what Vasili tells me, it was you who saved him and your father from the Orcs down in the ice tunnels. I’ve heard whispers too that it was the younger Dolan who went into the water to lure the Orcs back. Not just once either. Went out and did it again to stir enough courage in the other Selkies who were sitting on the sidelines to dive in and take action and arms against those soldiers too.”

“So?” Lenny shrugged. “Pop did the same thing before he got hurt. Vasili would’ve done it too, if I hadn’t went in first.”

“Maybe he would’ve, maybe not,” said Tom. “But the truth is we can ‘maybe’ things all day long, Dolan. That’s half the reason I never liked that word. Give you one guess who taught me different.”

Lenny rolled his eyes. “Pop.”

“That’s right,” said Tom. “So, maybe you oughta give yourself a little more credit, kid. ‘Cause this war that’s coming? The one you and me both know is waiting up ahead of us in Bouvetøya? Maybe even beyond? Our side is gonna need people like you who know how to lead and take action, Dolan.”

“You lead them, then,” said Lenny. “All the people who ever followed me just get killed.”

“Then it’s lucky for those who follow you next that you already know how to bear that burden,” said Tom. “The real lessons in life don’t come easy, kid. Losing your father? Your friends and crew? It’s a heavy price, I know, son. Believe me, I do. Nothing harder than those lessons. But it’s a price that hardens you too. Helps you to see and understand things that most others can’t, or won’t, all so that you can spare them from the same.” Tom sighed. “Yeah, or maybe sometimes you just choose to forget it all instead ‘cause it’s easier to close your eyes and pretend that everything’s one way and not the other.”

“Like what?” Lenny asked.

“Like imagining that you can live with yourself if and when you make it back to wherever it is, or whoever it is, you’re trying to get back to,” said Tom. “All the while, you go on knowing others won’t ever make it back. That you could’ve done something about it all, but maybe you didn’t. Or maybe you tried and it failed all the same. Those are the kinds of poisons that’ll really eat at you, Dolan. Eat at your soul more than any loss ever will.”

Thoughts of Declan swelling in his mind, Lenny shook his head. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do,” said Tom. “And much as you miss your father now, much as you’ll miss him all the rest of your days, at least you can live with knowing he made his choice and did right by you and everyone else. That he held true to that choice and his convictions, right till the end, no matter the cost to himself. A man and father who can do that, why, I’d say he’d be right proud to go off and swim them waters of Fiddler’s Green. Aye, and rest easy knowing he did all he could to leave the world a better place for his having been in the thick of it.”

Lenny chewed on that awhile before speaking again, imagining his father lazing on his back in the green waters of Salt lore, looking up at a night sky filled with stars. Maybe even swimming with Racer, Paulo, and all the others gone before, all of them waiting for others to come and join them. Sniffing, rubbing his nose with the back of his Selkie sleeve, Lenny looked over to Tom Weaver, the giant man likewise glassy-eyed and staring at the darkened tunnel they ran from. “Hey, Tommy.”

“Yeah?”

“Your son will know those things about you too,” said Lenny. “Once we get you and Garrett back together.”

Tom smiled wistfully. “I hope so, Dolan. I been dreaming about that day longer than I care to count now . . . see him and my wife again. Try to tell them . . .” He shook his head, licking his lips. “Try to explain to them where I’ve been all this time. That there wasn’t a day gone by I haven’t stopped fighting to get back to them.”

“They’ll know,” said Lenny. “You’ll tell them. Or I will, if anything happens to ya.”

“Appreciate that,” said Tom. “And nothing personal, but I hope to tell them myself.”

Lenny snorted. “Hear, hear.”

Tom nodded. “I suppose all things being equal, we gotta figure us a way to get past them Orcs waiting on us in Bouvetøya first.”

Lenny stewed on the thought, remembering the pit stop they had made when being taken on the way down to Røyrkval. His father had been with him then, Declan warning Lenny to keep back from the door when all others had surged for any hint of light or air. Lenny sneered at the memory of the Orcs waiting on them the moment the doors were opened, the soldiers driving back the Selkie prisoners with their spears only to load still more chained others inside. But will they do the same when we’re going back the other way? Lenny wondered. He glanced at Tom Weaver. “You got a plan?”

“I got the inklings of one,” said Tom. “But, after seeing you wander off back here alone, I thought just maybe you might be cooking something up too. Care to swap ideas?”

“I got nothing,” said Lenny. “It’s like I said . . . Pop was the real planner. All my calls ever do is land me and those following me in more trouble.”

“Well, then it’s like I said too, Dolan – you ought to give yourself more credit. ’Cause I got a feeling we’re gonna need that brain of yours before we reach the end of this road.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Lenny. “So, what’s your plan?”

“Depends,” said Tom. “I’m generally of the mind that if you got something proved already, no point in reinventing the wheel, right? All that to say, your father led us on a good run in Røyrkval. With all those Orcs dead and gone, I’m wondering if we might tweak Declan’s blueprint a bit and use it on those waiting on us up ahead in Bouvetøya too.”

Lenny cocked an eyebrow. “Divide and conquer?”

“Maybe,” said Tom. “The trouble is, it’d mean relying on certain people when I’ve got wind from a few others that maybe we shouldn’t.”

Lenny grimaced. “Henry . . .”

Tom nodded. “Brutus told me that when the fighting time came down in the mines for their group, he saw Henry cut out on them. Abandoned all the rest to save his own skin.”

“Surprise, surprise,” said Lenny.

“Not the first time he’s pulled such a move then, I take it?”

“Hardly,” said Lenny. “Back when we was sent out as catchers, Henry never followed orders. And when we found him in the mines, Henry told us that he was sent on to make sure somebody got back to stop the trains. He was the first one on board too.” Lenny’s lip curled at the memory of Henry riding off with the train while he, Vasili, and Declan were marooned on an island of ice as the Orcs circled them. “I saw him standing where we are now before the train disappeared into the tunnel. Figured he meant to leave us all behind.”

“Might be he did,” said Tom. “Still, I’m torn on what to do about him.”

“What’s to be torn about?” Lenny asked. “He left us all.”

“No,” said Tom. “Not all the way, rather. He might’ve got on board to save his own skin, sure, but Henry was there to fight the Orcs on board and help take it over with me and Jemmy’s group too.”

Lenny snorted. “That was still Henry saving his own skin, Tommy. No point in being on a train full of Orcs if you’re the only Selkie left.”

“True enough,” said Tom. “But Henry could’ve found a place to hide, I’m sure. Waited to slip off when the train got back to Bouvetøya, or else rode it all the way back to New Pearlaya. Assuming that’s where we’re headed, that is, and that the tracks don’t divide off to take us somewhere else. Either way, Henry jumped in when it mattered to help us get this train backed up to save the rest of you.”

Your rescue came too late. Lenny thought to himself, his face twisting at the realization his father might still be alive if Tom and the others had returned five minutes earlier. “Nah, Tommy,” he said in reply. “If Henry jumped in to fight the Orcs with all of ya, it’s ‘cause he saw a benefit for himself. Nothing you or anyone else can say will convince me otherwise.”

“Agree to disagree then, I guess,” said Tom.

Lenny nodded. “So, why you asking me all this stuff, if you already got your mind made up anyway?”

“I like to hear all sides of a tale,” said Tom. “And you and Henry ran together long before Røyrkval, right?”

Lenny squirmed. “Got thrown into a crew together, more like.”

“Aye, the one that brought my son into all this mess,” said Tom. “But, if memory serves, I heard you were the one leading that merry little band ashore. Captain Dolan, no?”

Lenny held his ground, even as his mind screamed at him to inch away from Tom Weaver. “I was captain,” he admitted. “And Henry did his best to help me fail at every turn. Only time ever he sided with me was if he saw a profit in it for him . . . and taking Garrett captive was one of those times.”

Tom’s eyes flashed. “You’re saying that was Henry’s idea, then? Or yours, Dolan?”

“Mine,” Lenny answered honestly, the look in Tom’s gaze warning against even the thought of doing otherwise. “I did it to save my Pop. The lives of my crew and their loved ones too. Even then, I only made the call to take your son because we couldn’t find the target we was sent out to find, and I knew my owner would make good on his threats to kill all those he had kept behind to keep us loyal.”

“And Henry?” Tom asked.

“He did it for leverage,” said Lenny. “Greed, even. Told us he wouldn’t help to take Garrett down and bring him back unless my owner paid him double what we was sent out for in the first place.”

Tom snorted. “You think Henry’s greed makes what you did any better than him, Dolan?”

“Nah,” said Lenny. “No more than I’m faulting you for thinking that you, Vasili, and your pals believed you could make a run out of Røyrkval and leave all the rest in the barracks behind to suffer for it.”

Tom frowned. “You getting smart with me now, Dolan?”

“Nah, I’m not getting smart with ya,” said Lenny. “Just saying if you’re gonna come at me with all this guilt trip stuff about decisions I made to save my family and crew, then don’t pretend that what you and yours were planning in Røyrkval was any better.”

Tom chuckled. “You got some balls on you, kid. I’ll give you that. But if you wanna go toe to toe with me on this issue about my son and your bringing him here, then I can promise that you’re gonna come out on the wrong end.” He jerked his chin toward the closed door. “I might have thought to leave those other fools behind, sure, but most of them are thieves, murderers, you name it. The worst of our kind, kid.” He squinted. “You brought down an innocent, Dolan.”

“I did,” Lenny admitted. “And I been paying for it ever since, Tommy . . . but I tried to help Garrett escape too. Went back for him in Crayfish Cavern when I could’ve forgotten him by swimming away and not looking back. Tried to help him as best I could afterward too.”

“Easy thing to claim with no one else around to argue otherwise or back you up,” said Tom.

“Ask Garrett yourself,” said Lenny. “Once the two of you get back together.”

“I’ll do that, sure,” said Tom. “And when I do, I’d kinda like for you to be standing there along with me, Dolan.”

Lenny fidgeted. “What do you mean?”

Tom leaned forward, reaching his meaty paw of a hand toward Lenny and clamping down on his shoulder blade. “I mean that you and me got a long road ahead together, kid. Now, I’m grateful for what you and your father did for me and all the rest in these train cars with us.” Tom squeezed Lenny’s shoulder blade, hard enough to make him wince. “But don’t you think for a second that I’ll ever forget it was you and your crew to bring my son down into this hellish world, Dolan. The way I see it, you helping me to find Garrett again and then see him safely back to shore is about the only chance you got of earning my forgiveness too.”

6

GARRETT

From the outset of Garrett’s decision to embrace the Salt and abandon the shore, the Hammer chieftain, Atsidi Darksnout, had warned it would be hard swimming to catch up with the Nomadic horde led by Cursion White Shadow.

But we will move faster than they, Atsidi had said to his warriors and Garrett before leaving the shallower waters. The other tribes will be burdened with numbers, bickering of plans, and honor to come. Even the rule of White Shadow is not immune to such greed and desires from his allies. And the White Shadow will not drive his warriors to exhaustion before their arrival at the gates of New Pearlaya to war against the Blackfin and his Merrow king.

True to his word, Atsidi Darksnout had led Garrett and the others on a relentless pace to rejoin the other tribes. Garrett swore he could count on one hand the number of hours that Atsidi had allowed them to sleep since embarking on their return journey. Yet for every time Garrett began to nod off, or even awoke from such slumbers, always he found the dark Nomad from the Indianapolis Zoo swimming around him in protecting watch.

For all the miles swum, all the times his mind told him he should be exhausted for such efforts, Garrett marveled too at his shark form’s ability to meet the tireless demands of Atsidi Darksnout. More times than not, Garrett found himself keeping pace with the dark Nomad also, the pair of them leaving the other Hammers behind and then forced to pull up, or abandon them completely.

Your body is strong, Garrett Half-Orc, Atsidi acknowledged during such a break in their swim. It seems to me you are stronger in mind now also.

Garrett had only nodded in quiet reply rather than confess otherwise to the lean-muscled, older warrior. A week later, his muscles aching, Garrett found himself wishing he had chosen to stay with his Nomad father all along, rather than choose to go ashore with thoughts of returning to an empty home and loved ones already lost.

By morning of the eighth day, Garrett’s skin began to tingle, his Nomadic mind warning that others were near. The signal strengthened for each and every tail stroke. Adrenaline sped the Hammers and Garrett onward to close the distance for good and all.

By noon, the Nomad horde lay ahead of them like a dark and distant, underwater swarm that stretched for leagues on end. Hundreds of thousands of sharks and Nomads in half-human, all teeming together, all bound in an easterly direction, all united in their cause to war against the Merrows and Orcs in New Pearlaya.

At Atsidi’s bidding, the Hammers sounded horns to announce their arrival.

Garrett tensed when near a hundred shaded outlines turned back to meet him and the Hammer party. They came bearing spears and tridents, harpoons and swords, their faces tattooed with varied tribal designs and multi-shaded colors. Others came in human form, riding on the backs of giant stingrays and mantas too, each of them seeming to fly at varying depths. For each and every one that approached, Garrett squinted to better inspect their tail types and ascertain which tribe they belonged to. He found them a motley sort - a handful of grim Merrows with their faces and forms tattooed in likewise manner to the Nomads they swam with. Most of the group halted at an invisible boundary line to await Garrett and the Hammers. A few drove their rays down. Others turned toward the surface, then broke off from the main unit to guide their mounts to patrol at various depths along the boundary line. One alone chose to ride his manta onward, speeding ahead and leaving his brethren behind.

Garrett exhaled a sigh of relief at the leader come to treat with them.

Watawa raised his left hand in sweeping acknowledgement. With his right, he slowed his ray, bringing it to a halt. Hail, Atsidi Darksnout, he said with a grin and a nod to the Hammer chieftain. His smile broadened when finding Garrett next. Hail, Garrett Half-Orc. Your father sends me to deliver his greetings and his welcome of your safe return.

Garrett’s brow furrowed. You knew I would come back?

I hoped, said Watawa. The White Shadow knew.

How? Garrett asked.

Let you ask him yourself, my young friend, said Watawa, bidding the others to swim with them also. I am to bring you and Atsidi Darksnout both to meet with White Shadow and others also for a high council of utmost urgency.

The high council meets? Atsidi asked, swimming forward to keep pace with Watawa and Garrett. For what trouble, Open Shell?

Much and more, I’m afraid, said Watawa, acknowledging his fellows in the Unwanted tribe as he, Garrett, and the Hammers passed them by. It would seem that a gathered horde of Nomads swimming for the Merrow capital draws many an eye, my friend. Already there have been many Orc pods sent out to engage us along our journey.

Atsidi scoffed at that. The Merrow king sends his soldiers to slaughter, rather. What else could await a few pods sent to crash against us now with so many of our tribes in number to thwart them?

Aye, the same as White Shadow questioned, at first, said Watawa. But these Orcs do not come in waves to test their might like the Painted Guard. No, these attacking our ranks now are seawolves, tried and true. They withdraw into the shadows, the same as our people fight, never lingering for longer than a heartbeat before spreading out to thin their number and then vanish into the Abyss.

Can’t you dive after them and chase them there? Garrett asked.

We can and have, said Watawa. But not all of our people ever return. It is said ‘An Orc without their pod is nothing’, no? Watawa cocked an eyebrow as he looked on Garrett. I gather these seawolves come alone, yet leave their pack to wait in the depths. All to taunt and lure weaker minds to the greater pod and trap below.

Atsidi grimaced. Aye, and our would-be warriors finding their own deaths instead.

Indeed, said Watawa. But such is the way for these tricksome seawolves. By my reports, all are transients bearing the garb of Violovar, loyal to Malik Blackfin.

Garrett shivered at the name and the memory of meeting the monster he would later learn was his estranged uncle. He recalled the Blackfin’s spies in the Painted Guard that overthrew Makeda and killed his mother and his podmate, Pieter, too. The same traitors who intended to rape and kill his friend, Vanya, also. And all so that they might reunite Garrett with his Orcinian uncle. But why would the Blackfin send his seawolves against us out here in the open? Garrett asked Watawa. Especially if they’re so far outnumbered?

To cause discord amongst us in how best to deal with their threat? A show of fearlessness, mayhap? Or to learn how our ranks will respond and prepare against further attacks? Watawa shrugged. Like his father before him, the Blackfin has all manner of tricks and guile, Garrett Half-Orc. If the council is to hear my words, however, the Blackfin and his seawolves can wait. I sense a greater storm soon to unleash upon us. Aye, and its shadows already closing in.

Or rising from below to grab us, said Garrett, glancing down at the darkened depths beneath him, remembering Watawa’s ominous words to him in the Devil’s Triangle. You really think the seawolves would be so foolish as to swim up in the middle of all these armies? It would be suicide.

Perhaps, Atsidi Darksnout answered. It would not be the first time I have witnessed such tactics from the Orcs. He looked to Watawa. You have said yourself in times past that not all of your visions are so easily deciphered, Open Shell. Do you fear these seawolves are the coming storm, or a mere sampling of it?

I cannot say for certain, Watawa replied. And it seems I am not the lone dreamer of late.

No?

Watawa shook his head. The council meets now to discuss the visions given to others also. One to White Shadow. The other to Red Water.

Garrett’s lip curled. Ishmael, you mean. You guys really believe he’s had a vision like yours, Watawa? He looked between the Nomad shaman and Atsidi Darksnout. Or do you think Ishmael is just pretending? More lies?

I know not for certain, said Watawa. But the council will hear him all the same. Must hear him, rather. As chieftain of the Bull nation, we would be fools not to hear him out, be it farce or otherwise. What say you, Darksnout?

Atsidi grimaced. Aye, the council must hear him. Much as I doubt we will take anything of note from it.

Then why let him speak at all? Garrett wondered, but did not say as they continued on swimming together through the tribal lines. More than once, and despite swimming with his Great White Shark tail, Garrett caught sight of Nomad warriors giving him a double-take, their hungry gazes lingering and working over the two-toned variations of his skin. They know. He shrunk under their whispered words and motions for others to look upon him also. They know what I am . . .

For all the haughty looks from the many, Garrett forced himself to remember his mother’s words and look for the goodness in others. Committing himself to such ideals, Garrett found other warriors who nodded in acknowledgment of his swimming alongside the Hammer chieftain and Watawa too. Still others took no notice of him at all.

But what would they do if I wasn’t with Atsidi and Watawa? Garrett wondered, doubt creeping in when he spotted a small grouping of Night-Stalkers and their leader, Short-Shore, among them. Would they let me swim among them?

As Watawa led them in a descent for colder water and away from prying eyes and ears, Garrett wrestled with a different thought. Why are we going down? He asked Watawa. Didn’t you say the seawolves are about?

They are, said Watawa. But your brethren Orcs are not blessed with your Nomad gifts, my young friend. The seawolves must still ascend for air sometime. If any have broken so deep into our ranks and then dared to dive as deep we shall go, the Orcs will find themselves hard-pressed to escape back into the above.

Atsidi scoffed. Unless such Orcs do not mean to make a return journey. Either up toward the surface for a breathe of air, or even back to their master in New Pearlaya . . .

What do you mean? Garrett asked. Why wouldn’t the seawolves want to live?

Ask rather, what would they be willing to die for? Atsidi replied. A true assassin need not live to see his task accomplished. His purpose served.

Garrett dwelt on the Hammer chieftain’s words as they continued in their descent. His ears popped with the depth and darkening water, the world turned dull in his mind as he followed his companions’ lead.

What would I be willing to die for? Garrett pondered Atsidi’s question. He shuddered at the thought of dying, even as his memory reminded that he had faced the prospect of meeting his death several times over already.

Garrett cheered somewhat at that, the knowledge that he had both fought and survived to save some of his friends at least. Lenny. He thought of rescuing his Selkie friends after the Blackfin’s attack on Crayfish Cavern. Edmund and Ellie too. He frowned at the memory and recollection of their seal faces. More at not knowing what fate held in store for them after the cavern attack had ended. What occurred after he had passed along Lenny Dolan’s warning of the Painted Guard recruits’ intent to defile Ellie. Garrett trembled then, realizing he had not seen his Selkie friends again after that night, despite his attempts to be reunited with them during their shared journey to New Pearlaya. Maybe Syd’s mom helped them get out, he told himself.

Or Makeda did . . . his conscience argued. She would have been the one to save them. Not Nattie.

Garrett pushed such thoughts aside, holding instead to the memory of Makeda rising in the sand of the Orc training grounds. He would never forget the hostage Pod Mother fending off all her attackers that she might reach Cristina Weaver and deliver a killing blow. Though Makeda had failed in the attempt, Garrett could not unsee the actions Makeda had taken against the one he named as his true mother.

But why? Garrett asked himself, gritting his teeth at the picture in his mind that remained as clear as the moment he witnessed it occur. Of Makeda wrestled back to the ground by the Painted Guard traitors, all while he howled as his adoptive, Silkie mother, Cristina, lay fallen and still upon the sand. Why did Makeda do it?

For all of Cursion White Shadow’s affectionate speech for Makeda in the Devil’s Triangle, Garrett could scarcely believe such stories. The Makeda he remembered had been harsh and biting at every turn. A true Pod Mother in every respect, but nothing like the loving, adopted Selkie mother he had known all his life.

Garrett grimaced, instinctually scouting the surrounding water as if he expected a pod of traitorous Painted Guard to spring from the shadowed depths and take him unawares as they had done in New Pearlaya.

Of Orcs, he saw none in the surrounding water. Of Nomads, he found several.

They swam together at the uttermost edge of a rocky shelf, devoid of any coral or life. All that existed beyond was further darkness and deep, the Salt plunging downward into the abyssal depths and the Nomads poised upon the brink of the shadowy beyond.

Garrett did not recognize most of the Nomad council – one a female with intricate and off-setting white and turquoise tattoos to give her body and face the impression of stripes and skeletal bones. Her tail was likewise striped, and Garrett gathered then that she hailed from among the Tiger Shark clans. She kept a harpoon slung over her back and twin daggers hanging off either hip, her tail lazing about to hold her position in the water.

Another from Garrett’s party swam off to join her - the Night-Stalker leader, Short-Shore, with his Oceanic Whitetip tail.

Garrett had not recalled seeing the Night-Stalker leader joining them in descent, but he watched as Short-Shore touched his hand to his forehead in respectful show before joining near a dozen others among the council. Reaching the rocks, Short-Shore settled in beside the She-Tiger chieftain, the pair of them conversing in a whispered, foreign language that neither Garrett nor either of his primal Salt minds could recognize.

A Mako Shark like Watawa shot past the grouping also, speeding around the gathering circle as if he could not manage to wait idly by.

Garrett marveled at a shark-man with blue-tinted skin too. The warrior’s tail and markings nearly allowed him to blend entirely with the surrounding water, he being the chieftain of the Blue Shark tribes. In addition to the intricate, tribal adornments stained upon his skin, the Blue Shark chieftain wore a collection of shells around his neck, all of them rattling together as he swam toward the center of the rock shelf bearing a lantern. Within blazed a greenish, bioluminescent light that helped to cast all of their movements against the rock face like silhouetted shadow-puppets.

For all the strangers gathered there, Garrett focused on the two leaders he did recognize, the pair who swam on opposing sides of the council, their gazes ever wary and cautious of the other. When both took notice of Garrett’s group coming to join them, there was unabashed joy in the face of his blood father, Cursion White Shadow, the leader of the Great Whites and high chieftain of all Nomads.

Where Cursion White Shadow held no hesitation at allowing others to see his unbridled happiness, Garrett knew only mockery from the Nomad swimming opposite him.

What’s this, high chieftain? Ishmael called out when Cursion swam to meet with Garrett. Are we welcoming the enemy even into our councils now? Aye, trusting an Orc to hear all the secret plans whispered here?

Garrett flushed at the jeer, but he said nothing of the slight.

Cursion slid his arm around Garrett’s shoulders, pulling his son in a warm embrace despite the surrounding cold. This one is no more enemy than you are, Red Water, he said, turning back Ishmael’s taunts with one of his own. And the people have even less reason to doubt him.

It is not the greater people’s thoughts to concern me, said Ishmael. It is my own tribes’ worries that I voice to the council now.

Keep your voice, then, said Cursion. And I will speak on your behalf.

Ishmael chuckled at that. You see, Garrett Half-Orc? He waved in off-handed direction of Cursion. Did I not tell you in our time together that your father was among the greatest of our warriors? Who better to boldly speak so to Red Water and live to tell the tale?

Garrett endured the taunt, his conscience warning to not give his former traveling companion any response or words for Ishmael to play with and possibly use against him.

Cursion spoke for Garrett instead. Let us have peace between us, then, he said to Ishmael. And let us speak to the reason we have all gathered and swim together, for that too concerns my son’s return as well.

Truly? Ishmael asked. What concern is it of ours that your Orc-son has returned, White Shadow? To my mind, your son lost any respect among the people when he chose to leave our company. Aye, say rather, his abandoning us with the knowledge we meant to swim against his Orc kindred and the Merrow king.

Atsidi Darksnout swam forward. Tell me, boy, he cut in, silencing Ishmael with a look. Do the people think less of me and my warriors for having swam toward the shore?

Ishmael scowled in reply. You were sent on assignment to take the child to shore . . . and you are a trueborn Nomad. Your blood is not tainted with that of our enemies, Silent Hammer.

No, said Atsidi Darksnout. And I advise caution with where you would cast judgement, Red Water. However highly you might imagine yourself to be among our ranks, you are still a bastard born of a Merrow mother.

You think me weakened by it? Ishmael challenged, his hand drifting toward the pommel of his blade. Come, then. Let us match our blades against each other for once and all, Silent Hammer. Or place a Merrow before me, if you would test my allegiance. It makes no matter the test, nor question, you raise in regard to my loyalty. I will pass them all the same in favor of our people.

Atsidi scoffed. No one doubts your lust for killing, be it Merrow, Orc, or even Nomad to die by your hand. And I said nothing of your blood being a weakness, Red Water. It was your mind alone to suggest such things. Aye, as you have long held to many other grievances also if only to keep the hatred within you stoked for more battles to come.

Ishmael chuckled at that. Aye, there are such fires within me as your newly peaceful mind could not imagine, old one. He patted the pommel of his sword. Or would you care to stoke your own old hatreds again and test your heat against mine?

Atsidi shook his head. Lest you forget where you are, boy, I would also advise you to take in your current surroundings. For though you are among those who may both walk ashore and breathe below, you are among the Nomads now, Red Water. Our people have no need of fires here. And less of you. For it be as you said already – our people require warriors. I should hate to deprive them of one so renowned a fighter as you champion yourself to be.

Garrett grinned at that. It broadened further when hearing the other Nomad chieftains snicker too.

Cursion swam between them all. Peace, brothers. We have a common enemy. Let us focus our efforts against them, rather than quarrel amongst ourselves. For I am both troubled and keen to know that Red Water has been gifted a vision, as I have. I would cease our arguing and learn if the dream he is given matches my own. Aye, and more to understand what both might mean for our people and the Salt.

Speak on, then, high chieftain, said Ishmael, glaring at Atsidi Darksnout once more before descending to swim alongside Short-Short and the Tigress chieftain. Tell me your vision and I shall offer you mine in turn. You seem to me untroubled by your own dream. Deep as we are now, I would gather there be a little daylight left above for us to hear it. My story is better saved for darkness when the shadows hold their sway.

Garrett snorted at Ishmael’s boast and his theatrics. With a powerful stroke of his Great White Shark tail, he descended alongside his Nomad father and with Atsidi Darksnout and Watawa too.

My vision is already realized, somewhat, Cursion White Shadow began. For my son’s return was at the heart of it.

His return this night, Ishmael put in, or when I delivered him to you in the Devil’s Triangle? It seems to me your son has a history now of leaving and returning.

Peace, boy, Atsidi Darksnout growled. Or none will hear your vision.

Ishmael cocked an eyebrow. Hear me not, Silent Hammer, and it will be you and all our people to suffer for the loss of me and mine.

I am suffering now, said Atsidi. Doubtless, the people will thank me for ending theirs before it arrives to plague them also.

Ishmael grinned again, before touching his chest and bowing his head toward Cursion White Shadow in a mockful show of humility. Forgive my questioning curiosity, high chieftain. It seems the old fires within me are not the lone blazes to burn. Please, continue.

Cursion did, his focus turning on Garrett for each and every word uttered. In my dream, I saw my son swimming in his Orc form, struggling to bear a great and tiresome anchor through dark and bloody waters. The undercurrents of the Salt raged against him. Chains were wrapped round his body also, sinking him deeper for each and every tail stroke he took in trying to ascend. On and on, my son fought to rise and bear his burden. On and on, he failed.

Garrett frowned at the sadness in the high chieftain’s voice, even as he could make no sense of the dream.

If I may, high chieftain, Ishmael cut in. A word of advice to your Orc-son?

Cursion leered at him across the way, but nodded his head in answer.

Ishmael smiled at Garrett. If your father’s vision proves true and you find yourself caught with a burden you cannot bear, might I suggest you give up your anchor, boy. He chuckled. Aye, sacrifice it to the Salted depths. No treasure is worth your own death, let alone a burdensome anchor. After you are freed of your chains, then let you go and find your burden again with a better plan to raise it.

Red Water speaks with wisdom, said Cursion. And similar words I sought to offer my son too.

Why didn’t you? Garrett asked. Why didn’t you tell me in your dream?

The Salt would not allow me, said Cursion. Whether quieting my voice, or deafening your ears, my son, you could not hear me no matter how I raged against the Salted tides to come and aid you.

Watawa stirred beside Garrett. How then did it end, high chieftain? Did the Salt hold sway over Garrett Weaver too?

Garrett’s insides twisted in wait for his Nomad father’s answer. All his fears and doubts melted away when Cursion smiled upon him.

No, said the Nomad high chieftain, his voice lifting with pride, even as he lifted his chin also to look upon his son. Much as I fought to reach my son, much as it pained me to fight my own battle to do so, it was not I to aid him. Cursion turned from Garrett, looking instead to Atsidi Darksnout. It was the Silent Hammer who came to my son’s rescue. Aye, and the might of our people after him to help free my son of his chains and bear the anchor hence.

With gleaming eyes, Cursion reached out to clap his hand upon the shoulder of Atsidi Darksnout. Squeezing, and offering a nod of acknowledgment to the Hammer chieftain, Cursion then looked back to Ishmael across the way. That is how I knew my son should return to us, Red Water. Even before my son left for the shore, I knew that I could not journey with him there. I believe now that our reunion with he and Silent Hammer is a part of my dream made true. Cursion nodded. Aye, for my son needed to go ashore and relieve himself of the anchor that tied him there. Under the watchful eye and protection of Atsidi Darksnout and his proud warriors, my son has returned to swim with us to war upon the Merrow king. Aye . . . and the people will help him carry us to victory upon the day that we arrive outside the gates of the pearled city.

Ishmael chuckled. So, you believe it your son to lead us, then? he asked. Why not you, high chieftain?

A true leader must know what it is to follow, said Cursion. I care not who wins the glory for our people, Red Water. All that I know and concern myself with now is that once my son were relieved of his burden, the people cheered and wept wherever my Orc-son and Silent Hammer swam.

And you believe their weeping is a sign of our victory to come? Ishmael asked, the mockery in his voice returned. A victory you took no part in?

The people cheered and wept, said Cursion White Shadow. And my son was unburdened of the chains that bound him. That were victory enough for me when my dream came to end.

Would that it were enough for me. Ishmael clucked his tongue. I too saw victory for our people in my dream, high chieftain. But my circumstance were far different than yours, and held no such hopeful allegiance to your son, or of him to our people.

Spoken like a true traitor, Watawa put in.

Peace, Open Shell, said Cursion. I have told my dream to the council.

The high chieftain looked toward the surface then. Though Garrett doubted his Nomad father could see through the darkness above them any better than he, Cursion White Shadow nodded all the same.

Aye, Cursion continued. And the light above has already faded to end this day and my story. He searched the water around them for any trace of light before looking to Ishmael once more. What say you, Red Water? What did you see in your vision?

Shadows and ghosts, said Ishmael quietly. Aye, and they swimming the dark tides to come. For all I know, they may be the same shadows as Watawa the Open Shell has preached on and on about with hopes his fears might consume us all. He smirked. In my dream, I too swam alongside the people, but it was our warriors that were the dark tide to crash against the gates and walls of New Pearlaya. It were many a life we took there too, but, like waves upon the shore, always we were repelled back before surging to strike at them again. And for all the times our wave crashed against New Pearlaya, the gates and city never foundered for our efforts.

Cursion shifted beside Garrett. You think your dream a sign we are to fail in the coming war, then?

No, said Ishmael, his eyes widening with conviction. For my dream were not yet ended there. No, I took that beginning as a sign of our history repeated, brethren. His gaze searched the others in their company. For as the old ones say, ‘Those who forget their past are oft doomed to repeat it.’ Ishamel shook his head. How many times have our tribes attempted to unite against the Orcs and Merrows? And for each and every attempt, we fall to in-fighting amongst ourselves. Aye, whether through fear, he looked to Watawa, then Atsidi Darksnout next. Or cowardice too, our people have fallen short of history and glory. No, brethren, in my nightmare, I saw myself matched against the same trappings as my father before me, our people failing to heed my words. Nor would they follow my actions to end the reign of Orcs and Merrows for good and all.

Watawa scoffed. You speak as though we have already lost, Red Water, yet you claimed not moments ago our people were not to lose this fight to come. Which is it, then? Do you claim we are to fail or win?

Is it still called winning when you annihilate your opponent? Ishmael asked in continued self-reflective mockery. When none would answer, he continued on with his speech. Truly, I thought our history would be repeated with every failed attack. An endless cycle I should never hope to see broken. His smile returned. But my dream had not yet ended in our being repelled . . . for when we swam against the walls a final time, we were not the lone people to fall upon the city.

Who then to join us in war against the Orcs and Merrows? Atsidi jeered. Selkies? You think to enlist their aid in the coming war?

Aye, said Ishmael. I would have the Selkies also.

Watawa laughed. Also? Have you other allies already?

Ishmael nodded. In my dream, I saw the Selkies rise with us against the Orcs and Merrows too. Yet even as I watched them rage against their former owners, I understood our combined numbers were not enough to bring down the city, let alone the world thereafter.

Short-Shore snickered. Perhaps we ought to deal with the city first then, brother. Aye, and leave the world to another day.

No. Ishmael smiled as he swam toward the center of the council. For in my dream, I saw our conquest as one and the same. The Merrow city and the world swallowed in Salt, both lost in a tidal wave of darkness. Then, in recognition of our loyalty and service, each were gifted back to us in rightful ownership to swim and rule over the five oceans as was always meant to be.

Given us? Watawa raised an eyebrow. By whom? Who then to offer such a cursed gift of death and woe?

The same as he who gave the dream unto me, said Ishmael, his hands rising in offer as if he meant to make a summons. The same who whispered unto me a greater promise also.

Garrett shuddered then, the water feeling colder and darker all around him. At first, he believed it a trick of his own mind. He knew it for a reality when the others in the council made notice of it too. The lot of them turned to fear and doubt as the already twilit waters around them seemed to belch more darkness still. The blackness around them reached for those quickly joining Ishmael at the center and huddling around the council lanterns’ bioluminescent lights.

For all that Garrett had seen since coming into the Salt world, his voice was lost with all the others when the shadows gave birth to what he first imagined as a giant, slinking dragon’s tail bursting forth from the darkness around him. He flinched as the seeming tail slithered around one of the rock face and boulders. The hooks lining its fleshy interior found a purchasing hold among the rocks, the seeming tail turned taut as the appendage pulled their owner free of the black water in grand reveal of a mammoth and ancient monster from the deep.

Aye, Ishmael went on, his voice a reverent mixture of glee and horror, as if he too were surprised at his words made true. Who else to save us but the same as he who whispered unto me in my dreams and asked that I deliver you all here tonight?

Sancul . . . Watawa choked the word, his tone carrying with an icy fear that threatened to freeze Garrett too.

He had scarcely heard Ishmael’s words, his pulse racing at the sight of still more monsters revealing themselves from the shadows. The first were a wizened, Sancul elder. Alongside him, there came a pale-faced and young she-squid also, her hair as black as the surrounding darkness, her eyes like two deep wells without end.

An older, motherly she-squid appeared next, her white-blond hair streaming about her deathly face, beautiful and cruel. For a moment, Garrett swore he recognized the motherly she-squid, despite being unable to place a name to her, or where he would have ever seen such a creature before.

And then his blood well and truly turned to ice when the last of them slunk free of the darkened depths, the monster staring back at him being one that Garrett had no trouble at all remembering from his former life ashore. For all the excuses and argument his conscience made as to why and how their situation could not be, what little doubt Garrett Weaver held within him vanished when his former classmate, Kellen Winstel, appeared and looked back on him with likewise surprise.

* * *

Part II

The Salt Alliance

7

GARRETT

Garrett shuddered at the monstrous and hulking shadow creatures that surrounded him and the Nomad council of tribal leaders. He found it difficult to discern where one of the creatures began and the others ended. Their tentacle numbers and the length of each surrounded the Nomads trapped within their boundaries like ropes to define the fighters inside a boxing ring.

Garrett winced when the fastest of all the Nomad chieftains, the Mako Shark leader, gave a flick of his tail and sprinted for the above.

For half a heartbeat, Garrett thought to follow with the hope of escaping the squid-creatures. The moment he looked up, he discovered another of the monsters lurking above them also.

Blocking their escape there too, a scarred demon of uncommon size loomed larger and brawnier than any of his Sancul fellows. In contrast to the other companions of Kellen Winstel, the demon above held no fairness, nor hint of handsome quality in face or body. The darkness in his pale and haunted gaze found Garrett for a moment, then moved on in search of greater threats. The monster’s tentacles fanned over the Nomads, the tips of each moving and curling like they were casting spells over an inferior, smaller race. One of his tentacles shot forward to grab at the escaping Mako Shark leader. Missing on his first attempt, another of the monster’s tentacles burst from the darker water to snatch the Mako by the tail, then tightened instantly like a noose yanked to close. Two more tentacles erupted from unseen places to slither around the wrists of the Mako leader also, each preventing him from reaching for his weapon to fight for freedom. In moments, the demon squid-man had turned the Mako leader over like a marionette awaiting its master to give the puppet life once more. All the while, his other tentacles maneuvered about in warning that the others should expect the same if chancing their own escape.

For all the hollowed looks Garrett witnessed from the other squid-creatures, he found himself drawn back to the lone familiar face he would have recognized anywhere. Kellen . . . he dared to privately whisper to his high school nemesis. Kellen, is that really you?

He knew it for true when Kellen’s head snapped in search for the direction of Garrett’s voice.

Kellen! Garrett cried out, even as his mind warned him not to draw attention to himself. For a moment, Garrett swore that his former classmate’s hardened features softened at the sight of him. That all the bullied looks and arrogance he had ever associated with Kellen Winstel was taken from him like a mask that had been ripped away. In its place, Garrett thought Kellen looked more like a frightened and injured child with questions aplenty. Then, just as quickly as the mask had dropped, Garrett found himself staring back at the same Kellen Winstel he remembered fighting against since the pair of them were in grade school.

Weaver? Kellen replied, his lip curling at the question.

Yeah, said Garrett, drifting forth that they might see each other better. For all the questions burning in him, Garrett could not find his voice to ask them in that moment. His gaze lingered across all the scars littering Kellen’s body, the squid-like form that was his lower body, and the tenseness emanating from Kellen even at a distance. How did you get here? Garrett asked of his former classmate, noting that Kellen’s eyes worked over him also. What happened to you?

Kellen sneered. Happened? No, I’ve always been this way, Weaver. Just like you, right? He pointed at Garrett’s shark tail. Except I remember that being black and shiny the last time I saw you . . . an Orcinian tail.

The old hates rose in Garrett then also, his face tightening at the coldness in Kellen’s voice. The same taunting measure he had used countless times when cornering Garrett for another bullied session. Black and shiny, right, Garrett replied. And I seem to remember you having legs.

Kellen smirked as he brought all of his tentacles together, the lot of them like a nest of rattling snakes beneath him. I prefer these . . . He slowly opened them all in a threatening show. Lucky for you, I didn’t have these when I took you twelving back at school, huh, Weaver? Kellen gave a sideways look to the she-squid pair lingering on either side of him before resettling on Garrett again. Not so lucky now though, are you?

One of Kellen’s tentacles began to reach across the distance between them.

Cursion White Shadow swam between them. With one of his hands raised in surrender, he used the other to make a fist and knock against his breast. Then, the Nomad high chieftain bowed his head in respectful show to the eldest of the monsters. Hail, Sancul, said Cursion, his voice quivering despite the calm with which he acted.

The eldest of the Sancul came forth to separate from Kellen and the others, his withered gaze searching the faces of the other Nomads before settling on Cursion. Greetings, Salt Child. Who are you that speaks for the others of your kind?

I am called the White Shadow, son of White Death. The high chieftain of our people. And you?

The Father of mine, said the elder Sancul. Kanaloa is my name.

Garrett tensed when Cursion looked up suddenly.

A smile crept across the face of the Sancul leader. By your actions, Salt Child, it would seem I am known to you.

Aye, said Cursion, dipping his head once more. Your name is remembered, Deep Dweller. It has been many years since I have heard stories of you whispered in the above.

No doubt, said Kanaloa. It has been lifetimes since my people allowed any Salt Child to see us and live to carry the tale.

The Salt favors us this day, then, said Cursion.

Perhaps, said Kanaloa, his brow wrinkling in question. Tell me, Salt Child, why have so many of your people gathered in the waters above our realm? Aye, what brings you and your kin down unto the boundary of our domain? Kanaloa pointed to the rocky shelf ledge and the darkness beyond from which the Sancul had ascended from.

A vision, Deep One, said Cursion, glancing back at Ishmael and Watawa before looking to the elder Sancul again. Or, say rather, several of them.

Several, you say? Kanaloa asked. And all of them the same in nature? All luring you here into our depth to witness our ascendency?

No, said Cursion. Only one of our kind asked that we other tribal leaders dive here in private gathering. He motioned toward Ishmael behind him. The one we call Red Water had such a dream of this depth . . . and of your people too, it would seem.

No sooner than the name had left Cursion’s lips, Garrett saw Kellen’s head snap in recognition. His former classmate sprang forth from his position so quickly that Garrett instinctively swam backward into the arms of Atsidi Darksnout in fear that Kellen came for him.

But his old classmate was no longer looking at Garrett. Like a flurry of thrown spears, Kellen’s tentacles shot among the Nomad ranks before most could react.

The only one who did was Ishmael. Snarling, the Bull chieftain had unsheathed one of his daggers and lopped off the hooked end of the first tentacle to reach for him.

Kellen howled at the blow, but the pain did not stop his other tentacles from preventing further loss. As the strongest of the Sancul had done for the Mako leader above, so too did Kellen quickly overwhelm and unarm Ishmael. Despite the Bull leader’s continued fight, his strength was no match against the number of tentacles and hooks that Kellen sent forth to claim him.

Garrett swallowed hard as Kellen pulled a wriggling Ishmael from the crowd of tribal leaders and dragged him through the water.

Fight! Ishmael screamed at the others Nomads. Fight them, you cowards! Free me!

Garrett looked to the others in his company when Short-Shore and the Tigress chieftain drew their blades. But, when the pair of she-squid maneuvered forward, their eyes gleaming in wait for a fight to come, then Garrett saw both Nomad leaders sheathe their blades once more. None dared to swim forth in a foolish attempt at rescue.

Hearing someone gag, Garrett wheeled around once more to find the Nomad’s face reddening.

Another of Kellen’s tentacles had slithered around Ishmael’s neck to strangle him. His former classmate used still another of his hooked appendages to wrap around the thinnest part of Ishmael’s Bull Shark tail. Garrett cowered when Kellen then began to stretch his prized hostage.

Ishmael grunting at the slow, taunting pull as if he were lain upon a medieval rack, his limbs stretched almost to their breaking points.

What are you, Kellen? Garrett wondered then. What happened to you down here in the Salt?

For all the memories he had to draw upon of their interactions and fights over the years, nothing compared to the hurt and hatred in Kellen’s eyes, his teeth grit not in joyful torture, but unbridled rage and pain.

Garrett’s gaze shifted to Ishmael when the Bull chieftain cried out at the popping of his shoulder socket. What did he do to you, Kellen? Garrett wondered then, remembering his own dealings with Ishmael on their journey toward the Devil’s Triangle. The savagery and butchery he had witnessed brought to both Orcs and Nomads at Ishmael’s hands and teeth. No small part of him warned then to not feel pity for the dealings Kellen wrought upon the tribal leader. And yet when Garrett found his voice and discovered himself calling out, it was not for Ishmael’s sake. Kellen . . . Garrett swam forward. Kellen, stop! Don’t do this . . .

Kellen’s eyes blazed as they turned on Garrett. Stop? No, Weaver. You don’t know the things that he’s done.

I do though, said Garrett quietly. I’ve traveled across the Salt with him and seen what he does . . . I’ve seen Ishmael do terrible things.

Kellen scoffed. You’ve seen, huh? Well, I’ve lived those terrible things he does, Weaver.

Garrett flinched when his former classmate’s voice cracked. His skin prickled when Kellen glanced away, returning his stony stare to look on his captive instead as if to reignite the fires burning in him.

Kellen sneered at Ishmael. Yeah, I know all too well what you’re capable of, don’t I, Master? He spat the word. You wanna know something though? Kellen asked, raising the tribal leader’s body closer to him. I’m pretty capable too now . . . and your buddy back in Orphan Knoll? Roland? He found out how capable I am already. Should I show you what I taught him? Kellen tested the limits of Ishmael’s body further, the tribal leader’s mouth opening and closing for a Salted breath, his face whitening at the continued, slow pull from both ends of his body. That little bit there I just did to you? That’s a taste of what I gave your friend. Kellen went on. But you though, Ishmael . . . I think I’ll keep you awhile to play with before I leave you to the same end you meant for me.

The white-blonde, motherly Sancul swam forward then. The same end he meant for you, my son? She asked Kellen.

Son? Garrett’s nose wrinkled at her naming of Kellen. But how could . . . The thought died in its infancy. Garrett remembered, then, the source of he and Kellen’s final bout at Tiber High School and the earlier taunts in the parking lot that earned him Kellen’s scorn. His mom was a Sancul all along? Garrett looked between them, trying to remember where and when he had seen the she-squid’s face before in his youth.

The former stillness in the motherly Sancul’s gaze came alive as her tentacles too began to reach for Bull chieftain. This creature here, she said to Kellen in reference of Ishmael. He is another of those who hurt you in the above, my son?

Worse, said Kellen. This is the one who maimed me first, then left me to either bleed out and drown as I fell into the Abyss.

Drowned? Garrett thought to himself, his lip curling at the shared memory between he and Kellen. Like you did for me back home, Winstel?

The Sancul mother touched Kellen on the cheek with one of her own tentacles. A grisly blessing he gave you, then, she said to Kellen. Still, for whatever his purpose, that pitiful creature has given us all a great gift, my son.

He didn’t mean it as a gift, said Kellen.

Why, then? She asked of him. Why did he mean to murder you?

Kellen grimaced. It doesn’t matter. He did what he did . . . and now I’m going to teach him what I can do.

The other, younger she-squid with raven hair and piercing blue eyes crowed to Kellen then, startling Garrett in the process for her screeching call. Aye, my love. Teach this feral creature well. She glared at Garrett and all those behind him. Aye, let us teach all of these here the same as we did for those in Orphan Knoll.

Garrett remained as still as he could under her threat, the only movement from him being the slightest swish of his tail. His primal mind urged him to shift into his shark body, offering the crazed she-squid his shark teeth, at least, if he was to meet a similar end as Ishmael seemed destined to receive.

For all the lingering hate in Kellen’s gaze, all the glee Garrett witnessed in both of the she-squids also, it was the eldest of the Sancul to temper them all with a quiet word.

No, said Kanaloa, his tentacles latching into unseen places in the darkness and the rocky under to maneuver him closer to Kellen and Ishmael. No, favored one, he quietly commanded, using his own tentacles to pry at Kellen’s grip upon Ishmael. There will be no lessons this day in killing. Aye, especially not between allies . . .

Garrett’s brow wrinkled in the same curious question he saw spreading across Kellen’s face as well. Allies?

When Kellen refused to release Ishmael, the elder Sancul chuckled – a deep, unsettling mockery that needled deep within Garrett for each passing second.

Kanaloa’s tentacles twined around the grip Kellen held upon Ishmael’s throat, then gently worked against them to release his prize. Peace, favored one. The other Salt Child says this one you mean to slay was given a vision of our arrival. Kanaloa succeeded in freeing Ishmael to breathe of the Salt once more. How are we to learn of what else were seen and foretold if you sacrifice him now?

Kellen sneered at the captive stolen from him when Ishmael instantly swam back to rejoin the other Nomads. It doesn’t matter what Ishmael says, he told Kanaloa. It’ll be nothing but lies. He’ll do anything to save his own skin.

Garrett snorted at the argument. Sounds like someone else I know. He reconsidered the position the longer he looked on Kellen. While there was little to separate Kellen’s face from the one Garrett remembered since their youth, a haunted stillness had overtaken his classmates’ eyes, even when Kellen raged. The longer Garrett stared at him, the more he felt the weight upon his own chest lessened. What happened to you down here, Kellen? Garrett wondered again, both horrified and drawn to the strangulating grip Kellen held Ishmael captive with. Have you seen things like I have? Garrett swallowed the lump in his throat. Done the awful things like I did to survive?

For all of Garrett’s ponderings, however, Kellen took no notice of him. His tentacles moved like fingers tapping a desk, impatient in their want for Ishmael as their former prize swam away. Yet so long as the elder Sancul remained at his side, Kellen’s tentacles kept to their steady movement, each appearing like thick, coiled cobras awaiting to strike at a moment’s notice.

Kanaloa turned back to the council and Ishmael hidden among them. Speak on, Salt Child, he said. What dreams were you given of my people? What fool bravery led you to dive into the borders of our domain and to bring your fellows to the brink of dark and deep?

Ishmael rubbed at the red-chafed circle around his neck, his veins pulsing as he glared across the distance at Kellen in mixed question and vengeance.

Speak, Salt Child! Kanaloa thundered, his squid body drifting forth in front of Kellen to halt the stare-down between he and Ishmael. Or I shall give you back unto my favored one to do with as he wishes. Aye, leave you for him to toy with in the deepest places that even the bravest of your folk have never ventured.

Garrett swore there was a flicker of unsettled fear in Ishmael’s eyes then, a look he gathered the famed Nomad warrior was unaccustomed to.

Ishmael cocked his head to the side as he spoke of his dream. Far beneath me, I saw a pale lantern of greenish, glowing light that gleamed against the elsewise dark and deep, he began. It was my father’s ghost to bear the lantern, and he bidding me to swim down and join him in the Abyss.

Kellen sneered. He brought you to die, Red Water.

Kanaloa raised a hand to quiet him. Peace, favored one, he said quietly before looking to Ishmael again. Let you continue, Salt Child.

Ishmael did. My father’s face was broken, his body wounded as the last I had seen of him before his end. For all the wounds he bore, all that he suffered, my father could no longer speak. Still, I understood him all the same when he bid me to follow him into the darkened depths. On and on I swam after him, yet always he outraced me in his need to dive, the light of his lantern all that bid me to continue on. And when he entered the Abyss, his lantern was soon put out, pitching me in darkness eternal. Still, I searched for him, calling his name that I might rejoin him for good and all. Ishmael hesitated, his face paling as he glanced around at the other Sancul. And then . . . then, a voice in the darkness whispered unto me.

Garrett shuddered at the prevalent worry in Ishmael’s tone. His every word came like that of a frightened child waking from a nightmare, only to discover it a worser one than the other he fled from.

When Kanaloa looked to the motherly she-squid, Garrett swore the pair of them shared a silent conversation for the length with which it lasted. And when Kanaloa turned back to Ishmael, there was more than a little concern upon his face as well. What did the voice speak unto you, child?

That nothing were hidden from its sight, said Ishmael. Nothing above. Nothing below. Aye, and that it knew the deepest, secret wants in my heart also.

And what hidden secret wants be they? Kanaloa asked.

Ishmael did not hesitate in answer. To see my father’s vision for our people realized, he replied. For them to hold sway over the Salted plains and valleys once more as in the days of old. And to never be troubled by the Drybacks or Merrows, Orcs or otherwise, ever again.

The Drybacks too? Kanaloa asked. What true concern are they for those like us who live beneath the Salt?

Their fishermen prey upon my ancestors and the truest of our kind, Deep One, said Ishmael, his gaze shifting from Kanaloa to glaring at Kellen once more. In mine own journeys upon the Hard, I have witnessed the Drybacks’ defilement of my ancestors’ honor. They catch those of our race who have made the final change into the purest of forms. Then, the humans carry their bodies ashore and mount my ancestors’ corpses upon their walls in supposed triumph over my people and the Salt. I might forgive some of them for their thrill and lust of the hunt, had I not seen others of their kind do worse. Some of their fishermen carve off the fins of my ancestors for trophied prizes alone, then cast them living back into the Salt to bleed out and die a wretched death without honor.

Kellen would not be halted then, swimming around Kanaloa that he might meet Ishmael’s stare. The same fate you showed me . . .

Kanaloa cocked an eyebrow. Is this true? He asked of Ishmael. Are you the one who wounded him in the above?

I slew one with the likeness of him, said Ishmael. And would do again if that Selkie slave were here now, Deep One. Any who would show mercy to the monsters defiling my ancestors will receive no such kindness from me.

Kanaloa smiled. Spoken like a true warrior. He glanced at Kellen again. Are you certain it was he to maim you, my child?

Kellen nodded. It was him.

He wrongs me, Deep One, Ishmael pled to Kanaloa. It were a simpleton and a Selkie slave I slew. Not this one of your noble kind that swims before me.

But it was me, Ishmael, said Kellen, snarling. I was that Selkie slave you threw into the water and left for dead . . .

No, said Ishmael. None could have survived the wounds that Red Water gives them.

I did, said Kellen. And now I’ve come back. You talk about the fishermen, but you did the same to me when I was your slave . . .

No, said Ishmael. If that were true, you would be dead and not swimming before me now. How else would this be possible?

Kanaloa chuckled. Because my favored one is the lantern, Salt Child . . . aye, he is the light from your dream. He gave a lazy wave in Kellen’s direction. The Doom-Bringer has risen to see your vision realized. Your people restored as the ghost of your father guided you to come witness.

How then? Ishmael asked. How might we see my father’s hopes and dreams realized, Deep One? What must we do?

Join us, said Kanaloa, opening his hands to the council and then toward Cursion White Shadow too. Aye, align your armies with ours once again, White Shadow. As our two peoples swam together in the days of old, we should make a mighty, Salt alliance once more. Together, we shall renew this world to its proper form. Who better to rule and bring the whole of this world beneath the Salt, as was always meant to be? For so was it once, so shall it be again.

Garrett looked to his Nomad father, Cursion not speaking in consideration of the offer.

Others among the council were not so hesitant.

Aye, Deep One, Ishmael crowed. The Bull Nation will join you.

And the Night-Stalkers too, promised Short-Shore.

Garrett cringed when the others added their voices to the rest, the vast majority of leaders in the tribal council wasting no time in agreement. All save for the few that Garrett looked to for guidance most. Where the others grinned and cheered, Watawa the Open Shell had been cowed into silence, his one good eye awash with horror at those who surrounded them. Atsidi Darksnout too had kept to himself, his fingers clenched around the weapons on his belt, his face like a stone-carved statue in watch and wait of the ongoing proceedings.

Something’s wrong, Garrett read into their shared silence and his Nomad father’s too. They know this is wrong. He thought, glancing to Cursion White Shadow as the Nomad high chieftain considered the offer.

Kanaloa smirked. And you, Salt Child, he asked of Cursion. Does the shadow not speak?

The shadow listens, Deep One. Cursion bowed his head in respectful show.

And what does it hear? Kanaloa asked.

Agreement from some, but not from all, said Cursion. As the chosen leader of our collective tribes, I must ask you for time, Deep One. Time that I might seek to learn and understand the reasoning of all before I would commit the whole of our people to another shared cause.

Kanaloa’s face turned to stone. You are the chosen leader, he said. Can you not speak and decide for all in honor of the power granted you by the others?

One who decides and speaks for all without he listens first is no true leader, Deep One, said Cursion. Aye, and will find their power quickly vanquished also. Our tribes hold a loose alliance already, our hunger and common enemy the only ties to bind us all, for now. I would not sever our collective joining with my own impulse.

It may not fall to you to sever such ties, said Kanaloa, his tentacles opening and closing in the water around Cursion. In such trifling times as these, some do not look on patience as a virtue.

Cursion held his head high. Then, I count myself fortunate, Deep One, to speak now with those who have long kept their own councils hidden. Aye, the same as those who kept their might shrouded in the dark and deep to await the proper time to reveal themselves once more to this world and our common enemies also.

Garrett’s chin raised, his shoulders squaring at Cursion’s words and the reaction it drew from the Sancul leader.

Kanaloa’s tentacles dropped the threat of them away from Cursion. Descending beneath him, their movement ushered their owner forth to lay his hands instead upon the broad shoulders of the Nomad leader. The Nomads chose you wisely, White Shadow, said Kanaloa. Your forefathers would be proud. I trust your wisdom will carry unto your decision and your people also when our currents cross again.

Again? Cursion asked. You will not linger here for our decision?

No, said Kanaloa. We go now to rally further armies of my people also. Aye, to bring word of the Doom-Bringer’s return unto the legions who yet wait for a sign of his rebirth. He swam away from Cursion then to rejoin Kellen. See that you speak with your tribes also, White Shadow, and hasten them onward that we might meet again to swallow this world in Salt and shadow as in the days of old.

To where then, Deep One? Cursion asked as Kanaloa pulled at Kellen to retreat with him. When shall we meet again?

Wait for us outside the gates of the pearled city, Salt Child, said Kanaloa. I trust you will have your answer then.

A current from above set Garrett to shivering again. He glanced up in time to see the largest and the strongest of the Sancul swimming off, vanishing into the darker waters as quickly as he had arrived. By the time he looked back toward his father, the pair of she-squids had vanished also. Only two remained – the eldest of the Sancul whispering to Kellen like a parent threatening a child who refused to leave.

Garret could not recall Kellen’s stare of Ishmael breaking from the moment they saw one another. Despite Kanaloa’s urgings, Kellen’s glare left no question as to what he would do if not for the elder Sancul keeping from pursuit such wants. Whatever was said between them, Kellen’s shoulders laxed as Kanaloa used his tentacles to finally turn him away.

For a moment, Garrett was content to let his former classmate swim off into the darkness. Yet as he watched Kellen go, Garrett found himself drifting forward, his tail kicking at the last to spur him across the distance. Kellen! He cried to no response. Kellen, wait!

Garrett regretted calling out when his old nemesis turned back.

What? Kellen asked. What do you want, Weaver?

What do I want? Garrett questioned himself, not understanding why he felt compelled to swim out and speak with the former bully of Tiber High, only that he must. As Garrett searched for the reason why, the flickering question returned in Kellen’s eyes also. And for all the hatred and rage he witnessed there, Garrett recognized a bit of fright in them too, the same as had come to live within him also since being brought into the Salted depths by Lenny Dolan’s Selkie crew; what it was to mask and bury such concerns with anger.

Kellen snapped at him again. What, Weaver? He demanded of Garrett. What do you want?

I dunno, I just saw you swimming away and . . . I just—

Spit it out already . . .

His mind stumbling for the words, Garrett avoided Kellen’s gaze by looking down and seeing his body instead. Garrett’s thoughts turned then, back to Tiber High and all the interactions over the years. How for everyone in their school, or even the whole of Tiber County, Kellen Winstel would be the last person he had ever hoped to see again. And yet for all the collective memories, all the bullied moments, all the hateful words between them, in Kellen Winstel there was at least a shaded and recognizable memory of home and the life before.

When Garrett looked over the scars canvassed across Kellen’s torso, he thought of those weighing upon his heart and mind also. How he could not recall any scars adorning Kellen’s body in their shared life before, not for all the glorified portraits that Tiber High had proudly hung in the trophy case to recognize their All-State athlete.

Garrett looked up at Kellen again. I just . . . I really have seen some things down here, you know? He said quietly, continuing on, even in the face of Kellen’s ongoing, hateful stare. Seen things . . . and done things too. Garrett fought against the choke in his voice as the images of his mother swam in his mind. He thought of Pieter’s death outside New Pearlaya, and then of the slaughtered Orcs who had tried to hunt him afterward, and then of Ishmael killing them too. Some really awful things, man, and I just . . . He shrugged at the stupidity he felt in voicing the words, even as saw the truth of them landing in Kellen’s eyes also. I guess that I just wanted to ask if you’re okay, you know? said Garrett. I wanted to let you know that you’re not alone down here. Just to ask if you’re okay.

The former bully’s expression softened around the edges, the corners of Kellen’s eyes wrinkling, his bottom lip quivering. Then all trace of it was gone again, swept over and hardened again with the stern and arrogant face Garrett had always known.

Kellen Winstel turned away then, swimming off into the darkness, vanishing without giving Garrett an answer.

8

KELLEN

Trembling with the truth, Kellen hurtled himself through the black water as fast as his tentacles would allow. He saw. Kellen knew. And if Weaver recognized the weakness in me . . . his conscience toyed with him. Then what do the Sancul see when they look at me?

Kellen glanced to his right at Kanaloa swimming alongside him. His blood turned to ice when the elder Sancul gave him a nod, then outraced Kellen to rejoin the others in the darkened water ahead. Do they see it too? Do they all know that I’m a liar?

There was no doubting that Erebus did. The Sancul father had said as much from the start and tried to warn the others also, though they would not hear him.

Rejoining the others, Kellen counted Hypnos as another to recognize the truth. From their first interaction, Hypnos never held any pretense that Kellen was Moros reborn, nor any true Sancul at all. He was merely Kellen Winstel – a frightened, lost boy who had not known of this other, watery world before being cast among its grim horrors. Then, as now, he remained that same boy who had only ever wanted to escape one life and trade it for another, better one.

I will escape though, he promised himself, his gaze ever glancing up to where he knew the surface must lay. I’ll get back up there. I’ll fight for air. He glanced to the mute Sancul, the memory of his dreams reminding that Hypnos would urge him onward in such pursuits also.

Aye, you must, he imagined Hypnos’s quiet voice from the dream-state they had once shared. For if you do not rise, Kellen Winstel . . . then all shall fall.

But how am I to rise? Kellen wondered to himself. He wished for a sign as to whether Hypnos could well and truly hear such thoughts. That, or else to have the mute Sancul once again pull him into a shared dream-state to give such answers.

Like all his silent prayers, his wishes went unanswered too.

Help me, Hypnos! Kellen screamed in his head. How am I to go anywhere on my own when the others won’t let me? When you wouldn’t allow me to go either, Hypnos?

For all his ranting and his questions, the mute Sancul would not answer.

Or do you not really want me to go anywhere? Kellen frowned, remembering how it had been the blazing in Hypnos’s eyes to thwart Kellen’s solo attempt at escaping the Sancul in Mnemosyne. How Black Keerie too had refused his want to head for the surface in Mnemosyne. And all of you playing me for a fool, the same as my owners did in Orphan Knoll.

Kellen looked for Kanaloa then, swapping his fear for anger as he swam over. You should have let me kill him, he insisted to the eldest Sancul, going on when Kanaloa glanced back at him like one confused. Ishmael, Kellen clarified. The Nomad who left me to bleed out and die as a Selkie.

Kanaloa smiled. All things in time, favored one. If I had allowed you to slay him then and there, no doubt the others of his kind would have taken offense and rallied against us.

They wouldn’t have stood a chance, said Kellen. I could’ve killed all their leaders by myself.

Could you? Kanaloa asked.

Kellen wilted at the skepticism in the elder’s words. Truly, he could not remember how many of the Nomads had been in attendance. His mind had blanked when he had spotted Garrett Weaver among the rest. So too had Kellen lost all sense of self after spotting Ishmael with the Nomads also. Well, maybe, I couldn’t have killed all of them, he admitted to Kanaloa. But I could’ve gotten to Ishmael before the others took me.

I do not doubt you there, favored one, said Kanaloa. And yet I say again that had you slain Ishmael, then no doubt we would have soon counted all the other Nomads as our enemies also. Aye, and sent their surviving armies swimming for the capital in search of further allies, rather than they align with us and certain victory.

You really think the Nomads would fight with us?

They should be fools not to ally with our cause, said Kanaloa. Both our peoples breathe the Salt, both the truest folk to ever swim for our shared rebuke of the Ancient call to be of two worlds. Who better to rule once we drown the Dryback shores in Salt as in the days of old?

What do you mean by that? Kellen asked without thinking. How can you drown the shore?

Kanaloa fixed him with a cold stare that made Kellen squirm. You tell me, favored one. For was this not your plan all those many years ago to succeed where first we failed? Or do you not yet recall that either? Kanaloa’s gaze narrowed upon him. Despite all we have done to help you recall thus far, you still have no memory yet of the first time our people flooded the world?

Kellen shrunk beneath his questioning. I-I don’t remember that, he said.

Kanaloa’s brow wrinkled. No memory of your plan. No memory of why . . . most peculiar.

He knows. Kellen thought, glancing to the direction where he knew the surface lay, wondering how fast and far he could ascend if need be to get away.

Kanaloa was no longer watching him though. The elder’s focus had turned to gaze upon the other Sancul. When the elder did look on Kellen again, Kanaloa smiled and shook his head as if to cleanse himself of needling doubt. Forgive my questions, favored one. After the events of Orphan Knoll, I had hoped your memory was finally returned in full. Now, I think it most wise indeed we venture to the Mother of Masks. It may be that between her drugs and the powers of the Oneiori Three, we all of us can help to heal your mind where my continued attempts have failed.

Kellen sensed an opportunity. You have helped me, Kanaloa, he said, reaching out to the old Sancul, finding the elder’s face warming at the simple gesture. You’ve helped me to understand and remember so much already.

Kanaloa patted Kellen’s hand. Not enough, I fear, for the blight upon your mind remains. But no matter. He cheered further. We have waited long enough already for your return. Why should we falter in faith now with you here among us?

Kellen nodded at that, uncertain of what to say for fear of lending further doubt to Kanaloa’s already inquisitive mind. You really do think the Nomads will join us, then? He asked glancing back from the direction they had already swum. That they weren’t just saying whatever they needed to in order to survive? He asked, thinking of his own needs. To get away, maybe?

I care not for their reasons, said Kanaloa. Either the Nomads will join and aid us in destroying the Merrows and the Orcs, or else we will add the Nomads among those soon to die with the rest. The end will amount to the same for our purposes.

Kellen nodded. So, you will let me kill Ishmael?

In time, aye, favored one, said Kanaloa. In truth, I had the thought to allow you take him in further evidence of our strength. All that the other Nomads might see, then carry the tale back to their people also. But, for all you claim against the one who maimed you, I estimate that one so bold as Ishmael would likely hold some commanding voice among his people.

If you believe what the other Nomad said about all those gathered together being tribal leaders, then they all have a voice among their people.

Ah, but some voices cry louder than others, said Kanaloa. Fewer still are the wiser sort heard and heeded.

Kellen snorted. I can tell you which of the two that Ishmael is.

Perhaps, said Kanaloa. But it is often the louder sort to drown out the others . . . and then the rest cannot hear what is lost among the clamor.

Kellen nodded, even as he wrestled with Kanaloa’s speech, wondering what Ishmael might say to convince the other Nomads to join an alliance with the Sancul.

Kanaloa swam in front of Kellen once more. Come, favored one. Do not be troubled with your past, or the Nomads either. They are both trifling matters in compare to that which lay before us in the Cavern of Somnus.

Kellen hesitated to follow. This cavern, he began as he indulged Kanaloa. What’s so special about it? Couldn’t we just go back to Mnemosyne to help me in remembering everything?

That Mnemosyne should do so now when it did not before? Kanaloa chuckled as they swam alongside one another. No, favored one. The power of Mnemosyne healed your body. The Cavern of Somnus will heal your mind and allow the others to see.

Others? Kellen asked. You mean Nyx and Erebus? Black Keerie?

Aye, all of them too, said Kanaloa. But I speak now of those who have followed us since we left Mnemosyne. Kanaloa motioned toward the dark and deep beneath him. Have you not felt the Others lurking beneath all the while, favored one? Not felt them watching you from afar? Waiting for a sign of your power returned?

Kellen’s stomach turned as he glanced into the shadows below. He saw nothing there, but his mind reminded that he had seen nothing of any other hidden Sancul in Mnemosyne either. Continuing his search of the deeper water for any hint of movement, his skin prickled with the notion there were things beyond his sight. Kellen looked back to Kanaloa. Did they not see a sign when we destroyed Orphan Knoll?

Kanaloa’s laugh deepened. Orphan Knoll were but a flickering attempt to that truer power you yet hold within, he said, reaching out to touch Kellen’s head.

Kellen endured the frigid, bony finger pressing against his temple. For a moment, he feared that he should feel the pain of an electric charge, or else to receive some other mystical insight from the eldest of the Sancul.

But Kanaloa was not Hypnos, and his touch did nothing to Kellen except to make him shiver.

Aye, Kanaloa continued, his closed eyelids fluttering as if he searched Kellen’s mind for unspoken words between them. I sense the storm within you soon to unleash upon the world.

Kellen pulled away, breaking the connection and Kanaloa’s touch.

The elder Sancul reopened his eyes. Soon . . . he smiled at Kellen. Aye, soon enough, favored one, I foresee that you will rise once more to lead us as in the days of old.

Not knowing how to respond, Kellen put on a brave face and nodded. Kanaloa left him, then, leaving Kellen to his own tormented thoughts and worries. He glanced to the dark waters above, wondering after the surface world, questioning how far it must be that he should rise to see some glimmer of moonlight.

Signaling the arrival of another creature from the abyss as great in size as he, a sudden, self-made current rushed over Kellen. He wheeled about in descent to face the newcomer. Keerie, he said, forcing a grin to combat the foul look she gave him return. Something wrong?

Aye . . . said she, her face twisting with the word, her dark eyes boring into his. You lied to me.

What? Kellen asked.

You lied to me . . . Black Keerie insisted, her gaze narrowing. When we swam together in Mnemosyne in our most sacred place, you held me in your arms . . . and you lied to me about what happened to you as a Selkie in the above.

I didn’t lie, Kellen started. I-I don’t remember—

What do you remember? She interrupted, squinting as if she might tease the truth from him with her gaze. Nothing of me. Nothing of the strife between you and your father. Or say rather nothing of Erebus, the one that His Deepness and the Lady of Darkness claim to be your father. Black Keerie shook her head. How many times now have you told me that you do not recall any of your former conflict with Erebus? Nothing of love with me, nor even of your beloved Selkies? Aye, not a shred of remembrance for us, nor the creation of your precious creatures.

Kellen reached for her. Keerie—

She shirked away, her lip curling. Why did you lie to me?

I don’t even know what you’re talking about, he said. You just swam over here and started saying I lied to you, but you won’t even tell me what it is you think I lied about!

The Orc, she said, her voice trembling. The one who swam among the Nomads. He recognized you. Aye, called you by name, Kellen . . .

Kellen’s stomach twisted with her every continued word.

How is it that the Orc knew you, Kellen the Killer? she asked, her tone laced with sarcasm. How did the Orc know you by name when you told me in Mnemosyne that you drowned him in your life before?

Kellen’s mind raced for an answer. You think I’ve only killed one Orc before? He simmered against her claim, furthering his lying and arguments when Black Keerie did not reply. And the one you’re talking about who called me by name a little bit ago? He had a shark tail, Keerie. Not an Orc’s.

Black Keerie’s brow furrowed. His skin was painted of light and dark, like any Orc I have ever seen.

So were some of the others there, said Kellen. There was a Nomad from the Tiger tribes with different shades of skin-tone. You think she was an Orc too?

The one I speak of was no Tiger, said Black Keerie. The one who called to you had a Nomad tail, aye, but it were one from the tribe of Great Whites . . . and his skin hallmarked him for a foul creature of Orcinian ilk. Between his shark tail and his Orcish colors, I would name him a bastard freak, born of two races.

Despite the doubt needling at his insides under Black Keerie’s unrelenting stare, Kellen shrugged. Maybe he was some kind of half-breed, then. I don’t know.

And, again, I ask you, Kellen the Killer, Black Keerie spat the challenge. What do you know? What do you remember of us and the life you supposedly lived among us so long ago?

Kellen took a chance. I remember you being crazy. Just like you’re being now.

The she-squid swam backward as if he had slapped her. What say you to me?

You heard me the first time, said Kellen. After everything I’ve told you, everything you’ve seen since I came back, you think to swim over to me and call me a liar? And over some stupid Nomad who knew my name?

How did he know you, then? Black Keerie flung back at him. How? If not from a life you lived with him before?

Of course he knew from before, said Kellen. I told you that I fought in the gladiator pits of Orphan Knoll. A lot of people came to know my name there because I was a champion! A true killer they knew they could bet on and profit from every time.

So, you knew him in the Knoll, then? She asked. Not in your life ashore?

I’ve known a lot of people, said Kellen. Ashore and below. In the Knoll and outside it too. You going to put me through these questions every time we come across anyone who recognizes me, or knows my name?

A shadow crossed over her face as Black Keerie gave her tentacles an upward thrust to rise above him. If I deem your stories for a falsehood, aye, that I will, Kellen.

He snorted as she moved to swim away from him. So, it’s just Kellen now, huh? Not ‘lover’ anymore.

Black Keerie shot him a look. My true lover, Moros, would never lie to me.

And I haven’t, Kellen insisted. So, get whatever story it is you want to keep telling yourself out of that crazy head of yours.

Black Keerie scoffed, but said nothing further before darting away from him in search of the darker waters ahead to vanish in.

The moment she was gone, Kellen drank a deep breath of Salt to cool his anger and nourish his Sancul body. He closed his eyes then, imagining himself not below, but above. It’s gonna be okay. Kellen sighed, then drank in the Salt breath anew, even as he wished it were true air instead. That he could feel the cool of a nightly breeze, or the sun’s rays on his face rather than the Salt’s cold, eternal current sweeping around him. You just need to calm down. You’ll smooth everything with Keerie over later. She’ll be okay too. She will. Just needs time to cool down.

When he reopened his eyes to reality, Kellen discovered that though Black Keerie and Kanaloa had left him, he was yet to be alone in the dark and deep.

Erebus lingered not twenty feet away, one of his tentacles draped over and ever clutching to Hypnos at his side. Though the eyes of the Sancul son were half-closed, the blazing light once held within in them still dimmed, Kellen swore he noted some bit of recognition in Hypnos.

Erebus drew nearer, bringing Hypnos along in continued guardianship.

What now? Kellen wondered as the monstrous Sancul studied him in likewise return. What do you want? He asked.

It is not what I want, Creature, said Erebus, not unkindly, yet frowning all the same. It is what I have known all the while . . . he looked off in the direction that Black Keerie swam before returning to focus on Kellen once more. And now she sees it too. He sighed. You are running out of time to confess the truth, I think, Creature, said Erebus. Will you confess to me now, that we might end this farse before it is too late?

Kellen licked his lips, debating over what to say and what the outcomes of confessing or no might yield.

No, then, said Erebus, shaking his head before moving onward in follow of Kanaloa and Black Keerie.

Kellen remained frozen as Erebus continued on his swim, one of his mammoth tentacle tips wrapped around his son’s midsection, tugging at Hypnos to follow like a dog upon a leash. To Kellen’s mind, Hypnos offered little resistance to the claim, more allowing himself to be pulled than swimming of his own desire.

What am I supposed to do, Hypnos? Kellen wondered as the sickly Sancul followed his mammoth father’s lead. Can you help me, please? He asked, wishing that Hypnos could read his mind and inner thoughts. You told me to rise, but the others will know I’m a liar and kill me if I try to swim for the surface now. Please, Hypnos! Help me to convince them before Nyx and Kanaloa find out that I’m not really Moros too.

Hypnos gave Kellen no indication of a response as Erebus pulled him away.

Again, Kellen looked up to where he knew the surface existed, though he could not see it. For all its power, the light could not penetrate the surrounding darkness of the deep. Nothing to offer him a glimmer of that which he once knew and ungratefully walked in every day, blinded then as he was now.

A cold, tentacled touch lazed across his arm, setting Kellen to search for its source.

Where he thought to find Kanaloa returned to claim him, instead he looked into the familiar, emerald eyes of his earthly mother. Though Kellen warned himself that her face were only a mask, or bit of glamour magic weaved and worn by the lady of darkness herself, he welcomed Nyx and her motherly protection all the same.

Come, my son, she said, taking him by the hand to lead him onward. Swim with me awhile. The Cavern of Somnus awaits us, and soon enough we shall put all their doubting of you and their questions to rest.

How? Kellen wondered to himself, following Nyx lead into the darkened waters ahead. How am I ever to convince them that I’m supposed to be someone that I know I’m not?

Kellen could not guess the answers to his questions. He swam onward with Nyx at his side, his gaze eternally looking up to the leagues above, dreaming of the surface world from which he had plummeted. For all his constant wondering of how he might make it back to the sunlight and the shore, Kellen could not stop the haunting words of Marisa Bourgeois from playing in his mind on an endless loop.

The Salt has you in its sway now, Kellen Winstel . . . and you shall never escape.

Kellen shivered as he followed Nyx ever onward, all his former railing against the prophetic words lost to the same darkness and muted deep that the mystic Silkie had condemned him.

9

CHIDI

Nestled and cramped in the underbelly of Girard’s boat, Chidi stood over the kitchen galley’s small table, her gaze wandering over the various, Ancient symbols that Marisa Bourgeois had drawn from memory. Created of cut-up, paper clippings and Styrofoam cups, each symbol was different from the next. Marisa worked at aligning some groupings of the symbols to form scraps of worded chains. Chidi thought of their work together like searching among scattered pieces of a greater puzzle, and without the pictured box to reveal the ultimate design.

Whilst the mystic Silkie continued maneuvering some of the symbol groupings, Chidi chewed on her lower lip in attempting to discern that which Marisa seemingly saw in them. Unlike puzzle pieces with hints of colored hues to match alongside others, or else the squared off, end pieces to signify a border, Chidi could make no sense of the scattered symbols’ ultimate final placement among the rest. The longer Marisa carried on, the more Chidi thought of the paper and Styrofoam cutouts like a fool’s attempt at recreating the shattered remnants of an Egyptian, hieroglyphic-like wall.

She and Marisa had scarcely left the table during the previous three days of their voyage across the Salt, their only breaks coming when exhaustion took them, or else when Allambee reminded either of them to eat. For each time Chidi believed they had one of the symbols paired with a comparing letter in the Common language, their attempts to translate the meaning ended in non-sensical words, forcing them to trace their efforts back over and again in search of the true translation.

Despite their failings, Chidi’s mind would not release her from the mental task. She dreamt of the symbols, all of them swimming together each time she closed her eyes for rest. For every time she awoke after having nodded off, always Chidi found Marisa Bourgeois still laboring at the linguistic puzzle beneath a pale, thin light afforded to them from the overhead kitchen lamp. Chidi had yet to see the famed and elusive runner tire, though she frequently found Allambee asleep nearby.

Allambee snored softly on, rolling upon the makeshift cot that had formerly served as the table’s bench seat. Cocooned in a crimson, wool blanket as he slept, Allambee looked older to her eyes now than she remembered him being upon their first meeting outside of Chicago.

Yawning, Chidi put her fist to her eyes, attempting to rub her drowsiness away and refocus on the remaining pieces before her. She caught Marisa Bourgeois smiling back at her from across the table. “What?” Chidi asked.

“You look tired,” said Marisa.

“I am,” said Chidi.

“Shall I put the kettle on?”

“No,” said Chidi. “I’ll be fine. Just need some fresh air.”

“Go, then,” said Marisa. “I will stay and continue the work.”

Chidi remained. “Will we ever figure this out, Marisa? These . . . words and pieces.”

“In time, all things are possible,” said Marisa, her fingers flying across the bits of paper, continuing to fly them around and around the table-face before settling on a new location among the others, and then keeping on to the next.

Chidi grimaced. “You said we didn’t have much time . . .”

“We don’t,” said Marisa. “All the more reason that I will continue the work whilst you venture topside and take in some air.”

Chidi nodded, yet still hesitated to go.

“What is it, Chidi?” Marisa asked. “What troubles you now?”

“Many things.” Chidi glanced toward Allambee as he slept.

Marisa cued on her silence. “You fear for him . . .”

“I do,” she said.

“As he and David Bryant worry for you also,” said Marisa. “A true friend is rare enough to find. You are all fortunate to have found such treasures.”

I know, Chidi thought, continuing to watch Allambee, wondering if he slept as peacefully as he looked. She hoped he was not haunted by the same Salt terrors that roamed free in her mind at night. Rather than give rise to such ideas, Chidi distracted herself by studying Marisa’s movements.

The mystic Silkie’s hands moved with blinding speed to position the pieces, her face beset with a stoic nature that reminded Chidi of another friend and her former captain. “I want to ask you about someone,” she said to Marisa, going on when the mystic Silkie nodded. “It’s about Lenny Dolan. You said he was okay . . . that you saw him?”

“Aye,” said Marisa, continuing her work. “I saw and knew him from my dreams.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, then?” Chidi asked. “Why didn’t you tell me that Lenny has a role to play in all these other things you see? Back when we were locked away in Crayfish Cavern together. Before Declan set you free.”

“Before we left you there alone, you mean,” Marisa chuckled, as if she read the deeper, truer question to Chidi’s inner thoughts. “As I told you already, Chidi, yours was a different current to follow.”

“You did tell me,” she admitted. “But you also told us earlier that you gave Declan a choice that same night to go with you or no. Why didn’t you give me one?”

Marisa looked away from the puzzle, her knowing gaze unblinking as she looked upon Chidi. “I gave you my answer on this already too, Chidi . . . had I allowed you to come with us—”

“Then you wouldn’t have this ring,” Chidi interrupted, clenching a fist to warm the Merrow ring upon her finger that Wilda had given to her. “That’s not my point. Something you told me when we first met outside the Shedd Aquarium was that there is always a choice, Marisa, but by you leaving me in the cage in Crayfish Cavern . . . I didn’t have one.” Chidi blinked. “You didn’t give me a choice either. You just forced me to take that different direction you needed me to go. Left me for the Nomad brothers to take away with Bryant, before they brought us both to shore and then headed inland to find Quill’s child.”

“Aye,” said Marisa. “What you fail to understand, Chidi, is that leaving you that night in Crayfish Cavern was my choice to a decision placed before me. Had I freed you to come with Declan and I, there should now be a host of the Crayfish’s former slaves that would be dead, or else still trapped by the Salt.” Marisa’s eyes glinted. “Where are those former slaves now, Chidi?”

“Ashore,” said Chidi. “They’re with Zymon.”

Marisa nodded. “And all of them free and far from the Salt. All safe and protected in the haven that Zymon Gorski provides. None of them would be there now if not in thanks to your coming among them.” Marisa’s gaze flickered. “And, again, I say to you, Chidi, that had you not gone ashore with the Nomad brothers, Quill and Watawa, we should not have the Merrow ring, nor Allambee Omondi with us now either.” Her voice sharpened. “Without them, we should all meet our shared end at the hands and tentacles of the Other and his minions in the storm to come.”

Chidi shrunk beneath Marisa’s stern gaze and rising tone. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I just don’t understand is all. There are so many things I don’t understand. This puzzle, or riddle about five pieces of two . . . I don’t know what any of it means.” She rubbed her eyes, the symbols seemingly blurring in her tired eyes. “How did you even find about it?”

“My father often shared many fabled tales of old with me,” said Marisa, her shoulders slumping, the fire in her eyes gone out at the admission. “When I was a child, and despite all my mother’s loathing of them, I remember his love for telling me of the Ancient ways and all their stories. How They ruled over the Salt and all others who swam it without thought that such a paradise should someday come to end.” Marisa chuckled. “Would that my father could see me now here with you, Chidi, the pair of us working to decipher the Ancient, forgotten language.” She focused on the ring upon Chidi’s finger. “Aye, and if he could see us now with one of the five pieces of two already recovered.”

At Marisa’s mention, Chidi unclenched her fist of the hand wearing Wilda’s ring. With her other hand, she ran her fingers over the smooth, plain pebble that served as its lone adornment. “What do you think it does?” Chidi asked. “If it’s a key, like you think that it is, then what does it unlock?”

“I know not for certain,” said Marisa, refocusing on the scattered pieces of parchment before her. “But I hope that all the symbols here will reveal the message and the answer.”

If we ever figure it out, Chidi thought, frowning. “Five pieces of two . . .” she said, more to herself than Marisa. “It doesn’t make any sense to me. How can something be five pieces, but also two?”

“Riddles oft seem impossible until the answer is unraveled.” Marisa chuckled. “But you wonder as I once did.”

“You’ve figured it then?” Chidi asked. “The answer to what can be five pieces and also two? The riddle and what it all means?”

“We should not be down here if I had,” said Marisa. “But I hold to some small belief that I may have worked out a keystone portion of the Ancient riddle, aye. In truth, though, I did not discover it until I headed north alone, after parting ways with you and Declan Dolan.”

“What did you find up there?”

“Snow and stone and cold. Nothing of worthwhile note,” said Marisa. “Just a lonely, Ancient temple, its name and locale lost to antiquity and Salt. And yet I lingered there, believing the Ancients had hidden secrets within the ice-covered, rocky walls. Some glimmer of the past awaiting rebirth if I were patient enough to work out such meaning.”

“And?”

Marisa frowned. “Like so many times before, I was wrong in my estimations there also.” She looked up at Chidi, then scoffed. “For all you think I see and know, Chidi, I assure you there are many times I feel as lost as you do now.” Her mirth died in her throat as she maneuvered another piece upon the table and slotted it between two others. “And never does one feel so lost as they do in the moment of understanding their errors made. The chances taken. Choices unmade.”

“What do you mean?” Chidi asked.

Marisa shrugged. “One such as you are looks to me with the notion that I might have answers to all your many questions. In truth, the greater curse is having so many choices lain before you and not knowing which to choose.” Marisa spread her hands out over the remaining scatter of symbols. “So many choices, Chidi, but only by making them do you learn if they were favored, or failure. Only by making such choices can you move forward. That is one of the greatest lessons of all that both my father and failure taught me, Chidi Etienne. Much as others would malign it, I have found that sometimes a step backward can also move one forward too.”

Marisa turned silent then, moving her pieces across the table in ways that Chidi could only guess at that which the mystic Silkie saw played out.

“I know what it’s like to make bad choices too,” said Chidi when she could not stand the silence between then any longer. “Judging by everything you’ve said about me and Allambee, even having these pieces here . . . it seems like you’ve made more right decisions than not.”

“Have I?” Marisa asked, bemused. “I suppose we shall never know until we turn back the tide, or else the Others hold sway for the errors we made.”

A host of further questions plagued Chidi’s mind then when Marisa went silent again. For a moment, Chidi thought to continue her badgering of the mystic Silkie.

The want of fresh air and to escape the smaller quarters won out.

Leaving Allambee to sleep, Chidi headed up the ladder to reach the main deck inside the captain’s quarters. There, she found Girard slumped in his chair, his feet crossed and resting on the dash as he ate beef stew from a tin can with a plastic fork. Beyond the window, the seemingly endless stretch of Salt lay before them, The Lady Cat cutting through the chop, bound ever onward toward the east.

Girard gave her a wary look as if he had just spotted a stowaway upon his ship. When Chidi waved acknowledgement of him, however, Girard grunted and turned back to the open ocean ahead.

Where is Bryant? Chidi wondered, not spotting him inside the cabin. Turning, she found him alone, outside the captain’s quarter and upon the main deck at the furthest reach of the boat. For half a heartbeat, Chidi wondered if Bryant was considering jumping off. Do I leave him alone and go back down? Chidi asked herself. Or would he like some company too?

In the middle of her inner debate, Allambee climbed up out of the lower decking to join her. He grinned at her as he came on, his smile infectious to the point it pained Chidi’s cheeks.

“Hello, Chidi,” he said. “Marisa told me that you had come up for air and that I should join you.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I was just about to go back down. I think Bryant prefers having some time alone.”

The cabin door behind her was opening before she had finished her sentence.

“How’s the word puzzle working out for you down there, partner?” Bryant asked. He smiled when Chidi faced him. “You ladies figure anything out yet about these keys we’re looking for?”

Chidi shook her head, despite his amusement.

“Yeah, I didn’t figure,” said Bryant. “If it helps, I been trying to put my big ol’ brain to the task.”

Chidi cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t have the symbols to look at . . .”

“Don’t need ‘em,” said Bryant. “’Cause I ain’t focused on whatever it is Miss Bourgeois is trying to translate. I’ve been trying to work out this whole five pieces of two thing she mentioned instead.”

“And?” Chidi asked.

Before Bryant could answer, Girard piped up instead. “Take it outside, will you?” he barked. “I go to sea for the quiet. Not to hear you lot gossip like a pack of ninnies.”

Bryant snorted, then waved Chidi and Allambee to follow him out onto the deck again. The Selkie marshal held the cabin door open for both, then firmly latched it behind him to not bother Girard any further.

Though she could hear Bryant grousing to Allambee about Girard as they both followed her outside, Chidi doubted that the captain of their journey would hear them over the speed with which his boat flew across the Salt. The moment she crossed the threshold of the cabin door, Chidi looked up at the night sky and drank deep of the salty, sea air. She had hoped to see the stars cast out over the darkened sky, finding not a single one to peek out among the rumbling and moving storm clouds overhead. Choosing one of the bench seats as the boat continued skipping over the water, Chidi looked back to Bryant with the question she had thought to ask inside. “Well? What did you come up with about Marisa’s five pieces of two?”

Bryant scratched at his whiskered cheeks. “Don’t rightly know as I can put a finger on it for certain. Guess I’m still trying to wrap my head around how something can be five pieces . . . but also be two at the same time.”

Chidi imagined Bryant felt as perplexed as she in the moment. As she was trying to think of a response, Allambee spoke up with one instead.

“There are five of us on this ship,” he said. “And two of them are women.”

Chidi turned cold at his words, even as Bryant scoffed.

“Schyeah. Now, that’d be a fun trick, wouldn’t it?” he asked, more to himself than Chidi or Allambee. “Spin this whole riddle and destiny talk on us. Meanwhile, she’s really just counting out how many of us are here.” He chuckled. “‘Course, she would make the part about two special pieces in reference to you ladies, huh?”

Chidi frowned at his jesting tone.

“What?” Bryant asked, acting affronted. “You believe the kid, partner? Think he’s onto something?”

“I don’t know,” said Chidi, rubbing her arms as the boat sped on, the damp of sea-spray striking her skin with cool water. “Maybe. I mean, there are five of us on board. And two of us female. Five pieces, but also two.”

“Don’t see how it could be that simple,” said Bryant. “If you believe all this nonsense, that is. Even if you do buy into all this destiny talk, magic riddles, and whatnot, I can’t see how some wizarding, Ancient race with prophetic powers would make something so simple and easy to be figured out over a few days at sea.”

“Maybe it is though,” said Chidi. “Neither of us had noticed there were five of us on board and two of us women before Allambee mentioned it. Perhaps the answer is that simple. What better place to hide a treasured thing than in plain sight where most would never notice?”

Bryant snorted. “Well, with that kind of logic, I suppose someone could make almost anything fit your narrative. All kinds of things out there that people convince themselves of wanting to see and believe in. Don’t mean a lick of it is true.”

“How do you mean?” Allambee asked.

“Just look around,” said Bryant. “Count up anything on board. Long as there’s five, then you can make something else up about there being two of them to go with it. Like, say for instance, ‘Oh, lookie over there. Them’s five fishing poles and two tackle boxes.’ Maybe they’re what Marisa’s got us chasing after.”

It’s not, Chidi knew, even as she turned away from him to look out at the open Salt. As she did, Girard’s boat hit a rough stretch of waves, bashing through the water, and nearly sending Chidi stumbling overboard. She caught herself at the side, even as one of the waves crashed over the edge and drenched her Silkie suit.

Bryant was at her side in an instant. “Whoa there, partner. You okay?”

Chidi nodded, then cleaned off the wet from her face with the sleeve of her Silkie suit. Even as she wiped it clean, however, she could not rid the taste of brine in her mouth. The Salt . . . she thought, glimpsing a streak of lightning far out on the darkened horizon line. Chidi licked her lips, tasting the traced remains. “What if it’s the Salt . . .”

“Huh?” Bryant asked.

“Marisa’s riddle,” said Chidi. “What if the five pieces are the Salt. The five oceans. Their names, I mean. The Atlantic,” she glanced over her shoulder at another onslaught of waves from the ocean they traveled. Chidi reached into her memory, then, for the names of the others beyond her sight too. “Pacific, Indian, Arctic . . .”

“That’s only four, Chidi,” said Bryant. “And four oceans are all them teachers I had ever drilled in my head back in the day.”

“They taught you wrong, then. There are five oceans,” Chidi insisted, turning in the direction of the one she had not mentioned. The same direction that Marisa had sent Declan Dolan. “The Southern Ocean is the fifth and least known of them.”

Of all the five oceans, Chidi had never seen the southernmost. There had been a time when she was younger that Chidi had thought to flee from Henry and swim for the icy, southern waters, if only because he frequently warned her of the dangers awaiting all Selkies there. The frigid, southern waters teemed with those ranging in service of the Blackfin, or else the Painted Guard on patrol, all warring and watching over the ice mines where the most violent and unruliest of Selkies were sent and never returned.

“Southern Ocean?” Bryant asked, his tone skeptical, even as Chidi nodded. Again, Bryant shook his head at her suggestion. “If Marisa wanted us to go there, partner, then why are we headed east right now? And why would she have gone north before?”

Chidi’s face flushed under his questions. “I didn’t say Marisa wanted us to go south,” she said. “And I don’t think Marisa would take there anyway. There are too many dangers for our kind there. Orcinians,” she said when both Bryant and Allambee gave her a questioned look. “Most of them outcasts and ravagers, loyal to the Blackfin.”

Bryant waved off her concerns. “Well, you don’t gotta tell me twice to avoid them waters, then. Marisa though . . . don’t think that girl minds a little bit of trouble. Then again, she does seem to have a talent for finding her way out of it too. Mess with the bull long enough, though, eventually you get the horns.”

“Maybe,” said Chidi. “But, like I said, I don’t think Marisa wants us to go south. She mentioned a few days ago that she had sent Declan Dolan there already.”

“Aye, that’s what she said,” Bryant reiterated, more to himself than Chidi, his eyes narrowing. “Sent him south and she went north . . .”

Goose-pimples prickled up Chidi’s arms when his voice trailed off. “What?” she asked him. “What are you thinking?”

“Five oceans, like you said, right?” He held up his hand and stretched all five of his fingers wide. “Assuming that’s true, let’s say there are five oceans in this world, Chidi . . .” Bryant held up his other hand, then made a fist before extending two fingers like a peace symbol for her to see before asking his question. “What’s on top and bottom?”

Chidi crossed her arms, even as she quietly answered. “Poles . . .”

Allambee stirred. “Poles?” he asked, then looked to Bryant when the Selkie marshal nodded. “What are these poles, Mr. Bryant?”

“South Pole and North Pole, kid,” said Bryant. “Sandy Klaus and Christmas, elves and whatnot. The twin poles of Earth, both on opposite sides. Keeps us all upright and spinning around, no?”

Chidi could not speak to that, but Bryant’s words had her mind reeling. What if the five oceans and the two poles are the answer to Marisa’s riddle? She wondered, toying with the idea, even as her conscience urged her to doubt it. But, if that’s true, then why are we going east, like Bryant said?

Chidi could make no sense of it. She estimated Bryant was having no such luck either, the Selkie marshal running his fingers through his hair as he yawned.

“I don’t know, partner,” he said. “I just don’t know. All this yammering on about riddles and five pieces of two crap is about to do my head in though, I’ll tell you that. Need me some coffee to help make this headache go away.” He yawned again. “That, or at least help me to stay awake.”

“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Allambee asked.

“What, and miss this boat party with you two kids?” Bryant replied, giving the young Kenyan a wink. “Nah, a little coffee is all I need.” He eyed the captain’s cabin doorway. “Only trouble with that is I gotta go down and spend a few minutes with Bourgeois to get it.”

“You don’t like her?” Allambee asked.

“Can’t say as I do,” said Bryant. “Like some of my ol’ buddies used to say in school, ‘That girl gives me the heebie-jeebies.’”

Allambee smiled. “I remember school . . . I miss it too.”

“Yeah?” Bryant asked. “Why? All I ever wanted was to get away from such a place.”

“I miss learning and my friends also,” said Allambee. “But I miss my mother most.” He chuckled when Bryant and Chidi exchanged a look, then went on. “Do not worry over me. I miss her very much, but I would rather be here with you both and on the way to meet my father.”

“Uh huh,” said Bryant. “This daddy of yours, Allambee, you got any idea of where we’re supposed to meet up with him?”

“No,” said Allambee. “I have never met him before.”

“We know, kid,” said Bryant. “I just mean to ask if you got any ideas or anything of where he might be now. ‘Cause the way I figure it, Marisa’s been dragging you all over the map with this promise to meet him, but can’t say as I see how she’s given you much proof as to why yet.”

“Bryant,” Chidi scolded him.

“Nah, don’t try and call me down, partner,” he said, not unkindly. “Just trying to point out the larger point that Marisa’s got us all by the short-hairs. Each of us chasing something that matters. Something personal. Don’t none of us know how long any of this is supposed to take before we get our answers either.” He turned back to Allambee. “Bourgeois came to take you from your momma how long ago, kid? Months? A year?”

“I don’t remember,” said Allambee. “I have not counted the days or nights since I last saw my mother, but I knew that when I left her, it would be a long while before I would meet my father.”

“How did you know that?” Chidi asked. “Did Marisa tell you?”

“No,” said Allambee. “I knew it when my mother told me to be brave for her and for my father also.”

Bryant smiled at that. “You are brave, kid. I’ll give you that. All the things you’ve seen and been through already?” He did a double-take of Chidi as he spoke, his cheeks blushing. “What you both seen and been through. Hell, I wouldn’t have made it when I was the age that either of you came into all this mess.”

“You would have, Silkstealer,” said Chidi quietly, the corners of her mouth teasing if only to show Bryant she meant the word as an acknowledging testament to all she knew he had likewise endured. “You’ve made it this far.”

Bryant nodded in solemn reply. “Maybe you do have the right of it, partner. Way my Susie used to say it, I got the makings to be one helluva stubborn bastard when I got my mind set on something.”

Allambee laughed.

Chidi did too then, the three of them continuing on as one until she took notice of it, her memory not serving to offer a reminder of when she had last shared such mirth with others. All her thoughts of fear and doubt and unconscious worry removed for the moment. In her heart, Chidi wished it would last awhile longer, that the three could pretend they were merely friends on a deep-sea excursion, each with no knowledge of all that swam beneath them and abroad.

Cuing on Chidi’s silence, Bryant called to Allambee. “This daddy of yours, kid, you know what you’re gonna say when you finally meet him?”

“No,” said Allambee. “In truth, I am a little bit afraid. But I will put on a brave face as my mother instructed me to do.”

“There’s no shame in being afraid, kid,” said Bryant. “’Specially not in front of your daddy. Any father worth anything would tell you the same.”

Allambee nodded. “Did you know your father, Mr. Bryant?”

“I surely did,” he replied. “Good man, my daddy. Even if he was a little rough at times with the discipline.” Bryant shrugged. “‘Course, looking back, I can’t say as I didn’t deserve most of it. Made me who I am anyway. All them lessons he taught hadn’t failed me yet, rather.”

“He made you a great man,” said Allambee. “As I wish my father could have done for me also.”

“You’re on your way, kid,” Bryant smirked and clapped him on the shoulder, rocking Allambee roughly back and forth. “Always thought a boy needed his daddy, but I think your momma did right fine raising you alone.”

Chidi could not fend off her immediate grin when one spread across Allambee’s face as well.

“Anyway,” Bryant continued, releasing his hold over the young Kenyan. “Count yourself fortunate to have a good momma in your life. Raised you well, taught you enough to keep your head about you. Knew you were strong enough to go out in the world and take it on. That’s a good, strong woman to put that heart in you, son.”

“Yes,” said Allambee. “My mother is one of the great ones, as you say. From the stories she told me, I think my father is a great man also and would have helped to raise me if he were given the choice.” He looked to Chidi with the same shining innocence in his eyes that she remembered seeing when first meeting him on the lonely beach outside of Chicago. “And you, Chidi? What would you say to him, if you were me? If you were meeting your father for the first time?”

The question stumbled Chidi. For a moment, she was transported back to the little girl she remembering being once, those few scattered memories she desperately clung to and yet kept locked away deep within the recesses of her mind. All to protect them from Henry’s wroth and the other sort he meant to instill in her. What would I say to you, Papa? Chidi wondered, remembering all the times she would sit upon his knee and rest her head against his shoulder as he sang her off to sleep, or else to banish all the nightmares that had woke her in the night. What would I say if seeing you again? Would you even recognize me at all now?

“Chidi?” Allambee called, interrupting her from her thoughts. “Did I say something wrong?”

As Chidi attempted to formulate any sort of hopeful answer, Bryant spoke up for her instead in answer to Allambee’s initial question.

“Kid, whenever and wherever you see your daddy for the first time, you don’t got to say nothing at all.”

“But what if he does not know I am his son?” Allambee asked.

“He’ll know,” Bryant assured him. “Whether he’d admit it or not, I can’t say for certain. But either way . . . he’ll know.”

Chidi’s eyes glistened then, remembering all that Bryant had told her of the pain in his life caused by Henry Boucher. Of his wife and child stolen away, both murdered at the hands of the same monster who had taken her away from all those she knew and loved also. Chidi glanced away when Bryant looked in her direction, she not wanting him to see her moved by his words.

She estimated he understood it all the same.

Bryant clapped his hands upon his knees as he stood up. “Right, well, I think I’m gonna see to that coffee after all,” he moved to head inside, reaching for the cabin door. “Make sure Bourgeois is still with us too. Don’t think there’s any windows down there she could fit through, but I don’t reckon she got her reputation as a runner for just walking through the front door.”

You might be surprised there, Silkstealer, Chidi thought to herself as he stalked into the captain’s cabin and disappeared inside. For a moment, she toyed with the notion of Marisa leaving her behind once more. Chidi doused such thoughts with the reality that Marisa had willingly placed herself in Orphan Knoll as if waiting for both Chidi and Bryant to come and meet her there.

Not for the first time, Chidi wrestled with how Marisa had seen such things come to pass and always moved to be one step ahead. She wondered what such a gift of foretelling might be like, then cast that idea aside just as quickly for the glimpse of doom and destruction that Marisa had given her after the Sancul had brought down the Knoll.

For all of Chidi’s inner debates, she nearly forgot that she was not alone upon Girard’s boat deck.

“What would you say, Chidi?” Allambee asked, smiling at her in such a way as only he could, one to manage teasing a smile from her also. “If you could see your father and mother again . . . what would you say to them?”

“I-I don’t know,” Chidi stuttered.

“You have not thought about it?”

Too many times. The response was on the tip of her tongue, yet Chidi could not brave herself to voice it for fear of tempering Allambee’s own hopes and dreams. Again, she looked in his dark eyes, wishing she could bathe in the youthful innocence that he had somehow managed to keep alive and well, despite all that he had witnessed of the merciless Salt world. Chidi swallowed the lump in her throat. “I think . . . I think that I would just hug them.” She brushed away the immediate wet stain upon her cheeks. “I would just hug them both and tell them how much I have missed them. How I’ve thought of them every day and done everything I know how to do just to get back to them again.”

“Ah, yes,” said Allambee. “I like your answer very much, Chidi. If you do not mind, I think that I will say the same to my father when I finally meet him. For I too have thought of him every day of my life and wondered who he might be. Aye, and what he might think of me also.”

“He’ll be proud to call you his son, Allambee.” Chidi beamed. “And sorry that he wasn’t around to see you grow up.”

“Yes,” said Allambee. “My mother says the same, and yet I have always wondered.”

“Wondered what?” Chidi asked. “If he’s proud of you?”

Allambee nodded. “How can one be proud of a person they do not know, Chidi? Someone they have never met?”

Chidi went to him then, placing her hands on both of his shoulders and squeezing. “He’ll see the goodness in you, just like we all do,” she said. “Just like I have from the very start when I met you on the beach. And if for whatever reason your father doesn’t see that in you, Allambee, then I will tell him and make sure he knows. Just like I’m telling you now.”

Allambee chuckled at that. “Will you tell me how to help my father also, Chidi? For I do not know how I am supposed to do that either. Even though Marisa promised me I will know and do what is right when the time comes to show him the way forward.”

“If Marisa told you that,” said Chidi. “Then you will.”

Allambee beamed at her.

“Come on, then,” she said, tugging at him to follow her back inside. “We better both get back down there and save Bryant from Marisa talking to him.”

“Or save her from him,” Allambee replied, coaxing another chuckle from Chidi at the idea of Bryant and Marisa carrying on below in further argument over how five pieces could also be two.

10

SYDNEY

Held in the same glass aquarium tank that the Blackfin had drowned her in to force the Nomad changes, Sydney had little room to swim. Then, as now, she kept her Nomad tail in spite of the king and his minions. Rather than cast her back into the oubliette, Darius had opted to leave her treading water vertically inside the tank with several feet both above her and below with which to ascend or sink to the bottom.

Several Orc guards loyal to the Blackfin had stood watch over her throughout the night, all vigilant and silent until the moment others came to swap them out.

When the door to her outer dungeon cell opened, Sydney had thought it for another changing of the guard. Her assessment proved wrong when she spotted the brutish commander leading the others inside – the same Orc who had led those that captured her and Yvla in the sewers before delivering them to the Blackfin. Solomon . . . Sydney thought his name as he lumbered toward her tank. This is it then, isn’t it? They’ve finally come to take me away for mom’s trial.

Though smaller in stature and body size than his lord commander, Solomon towered over the contingent of other Orcs all dressed in Painted Guard armor. The other Orcs took up flanking sides of the glass aquarium cell that held Sydney captive. With a wave from Solomon, the others opened the latch at the bottom of Sydney’s tank.

Sydney pawed at the glass for purchase as the water flooded out beneath her. For all her attempts, she could not hold her position inside the tank. Instead, she fell and collapsed onto the slick, wet stones below. She was already reverting her tail to human legs when a shadow stood over her.

Solomon’s lip curled at the sight and smell of her, but he said nothing of his apparent disdain. Instead, he gave a nod to someone Sydney did not see behind her.

A blindfold was swept over her eyes and pulled tight.

Sydney cried out at the jerk of it being tied off behind her head. “Wait!” was all she could say before a wet rag that tasted of soiled seawater was forced into her mouth and tied off around the back of her head, gagging anything further she might attempt to say. The Orcs were at her arms too, binding her wrists together. Another brute lifted her off the ground, throwing Sydney over his armored shoulder as if she weighed no more than a child.

Sydney grunted a muffled, angry response as they bore her away. She struggled to no avail, her fists clanking off the Orc’s armor, hurting her more than she imagined her flailing attempts bothered the guard who carried her. No matter what she did, her escort wordlessly continued on whilst the clanking armor and heavy footfalls upon cobbled stone echoed in her ears.

Pitched in familiar darkness to which she had become accustomed when imprisoned inside the oubliette, Sydney surrendered her struggle. Instead, she focused all her strength on listening to better gauge her surroundings with the hope of learning whatever destination the Orcs were taking her. Throughout, she heard the sounds of more creaking doors. The Orc footfalls changed from continued, steady thumps to then climbing up spiraled staircases of stone, the echo of their heavy boots resounding off the tighter, enclosed walls.

Where are we going? She wondered, trying to discern the echoes for any place she might have been as the Orcs continued on. The air had changed too – once damp and clammy, she swore it was cleaner now, fairer in scent and warmer too. Sydney gathered the air might have tasted sweeter also, if not for the now drying out rag in her mouth.

As the Orcs bore her onward, Sydney thought back on a memory of Quill’s teachings. You must learn to see, girl . . .

Sydney tilted her head then, trying to readjust and better listen for any further clues as to where she might be, or where the Orcs were taking her. As she had failed with her training in the oubliette with the bone wand and raggedy, self-made whip, so too did Sydney fail now, her mind not registering anything of worthy note or memory of where she was or might possibly be headed toward.

What felt to Sydney like an hour later, her Orc carrier slid her off his shoulder and settled her feet to frigid tiles, then ripped the blindfold away.

Sydney blinked away the forced blindness, her eyes adjusting to new surroundings. Much like the dungeons below, the surrounding walls and floor looked much the same, all save for some few furnishments – a great wooden washtub and a royal gown of emerald green, draped over a high-backed wooden chair.

Solomon stood beside the chair and gown, his rough fingers running over the smooth, royal fabric. When he caught sight of Sydney watching him, however, he nodded to a pair of Silkie handmaidens that Sydney had not yet seen.

Solomon waved them forward. “Right, clean her up,” he said to the handmaidens. “Best as you can anyway. She ought to smell better anyway. The king wishes her to be presentable while at the traitor trials.”

Trials? Sydney cringed. As in multiple? Not just Mom?

Idiot girl, she read the look in Solomon’s gaze as the Silkies heeded his command. Are you so stupid to think you and your friends would escape being tried for treason too?

Sydney’s eyes stung at the thought of having already witnessed the Blackfin tormenting Owens and Amelia too. Her vision blurred when the Silkie handmaidens ushered her toward the washtub and helped to guide her in.

“Oh!” Sydney winced at the coldness of the water when she dipped her toe in.

When the Orcs again mocked her, Sydney forced herself to embrace the icy water and climb inside. The cold prickled her in an instant, Sydney sucking a deep breath of air at the frigid temperature. Even as she shivered, she swore to not leave the water until the handmaidens had finished with her. So too did Sydney dare to look on each of the surrounding Orcs as the Silkies went to work on scrubbing her with thick, stiff bristles. Her brow furrowed at the pain reddening her skin with rashes for every brushing. She endured it all the same.

Solomon was watching her throughout, his gaze as cold as the bathwater.

Despite her brave showing, Sydney hurried out of the tub the moment the Silkies offered her an escape. She likewise rushed into the gown they offered her, if only to fend off the cold. Where she hoped for a warmer fabric like the fake Selkie suit she had once worn, the royal gown offered to her now was made of silk. It clung against her skin with a similar icy touch, locking in the cold as the water had done for her skin before it.

Why are they doing this to me? Sydney wondered as the Silkie handmaidens next went to drying and brushing her hair, then dabbing at her face with blush to bring back some small bit of color into her pale skin. Why are they dressing me up like I’m still a princess if they mean to put me on trial with Mom?

She looked to Solomon again as if the Orc might have read her mind. Even if Solomon had the ability, Sydney knew in an instant that he would never deign her worthy of an answer. He and his fellow Orcs stood silently by as the Silkies continued on with their work, all the way to the finishing touch – a tiara adorned with pearls, nestled lightly upon Sydney’s head.

Solomon scoffed as the Silkies stepped away from Sydney. “Well, look at this then, lads. She seems to me a right lil’ spoiled, Merrow princess again, eh?” He scowled as he came forth, not stopping until he could look down upon Sydney. “But we know what you really are, don’t we, savage?” He turned his head and spat upon the stones beside her feet. “Aye, we Orcs know what you are.” Solomon cracked a grin when Sydney met his gaze once more. “And soon enough, the rest of the Salt will know it too. Once the king and our Lord Blackfin has finished with you and your ilk.”

The other Orcs’ chuckled along with him, then.

Yes. Sydney thought, recalling her mentor, Yvla, and her final words as Solomon took her roughly by the arm and led her toward a set of great oaken doors. They’ll know me for being my mother’s daughter. She stumbled upon the dress, but did not fall. Solomon held her steady as he led her through the doors and through a maze-like series of arched stone tunnels. And brave like Yvla too.

At first, Sydney thought of the tunnels like the catacombs her mother had often spoken of witnessing in the hidden underbelly of Paris. There were no bones in these tunnels, however, only the constant drips of water coming from unseen sources and the shadowed torchlights dancing across the walls as the Orcs continued their escort of Sydney.

Nearing the end of a long tunnel, Sydney swore she heard murmuring from somewhere in the distance. A moment later, she understood the noise came from overhead. Then, in front of her too. Behind also. And, finally, from all around. It reminded her of a time when she had waited in the tunnels of the Indianapolis football stadium before rushing the field for a halftime show with other cheerleaders from across the state.

Only then did Sydney understand where she was.

The Nautilus. Sydney’s throat ran dry, remembering when she had walked a similar tunnel with her seahorse riding trainer, the Merrow lord, Rupert Bowrider when they had come to witness the theatrical play the king had pretended to hold in Nattie’s honor. All before Darius had condemned his wife as a traitor and ordered his queen taken prisoner instead.

Is that where we are now? Sydney wondered. Are we in the Nautilus?

Solomon snorted beside her. “Hear them finally, do you?” he asked. “I wondered how long it might take.”

“What are we doing here?” Sydney asked.

“Where better to hold a queen’s trial than the Nautilus itself,” said Solomon. “Any street corner will do to serve justice to a petty criminal. Ah, but a queen and her loyal followers, that deserves a showing like none other.”

A show. Sydney thought, the word bringing forth the memory of Yvla flying through the air as Lady Roselani, the titular character portrayed in the play she had witnessed. Sydney swapped her sadness for her anger then. The same night he had Mom taken . . . the same night he called her a whore in front of everyone.

Sydney’s fists shook at her sides at the memory, even as the lessons of her mentor spoke from the recesses of her mind.

Be brave, Sydney . . . Yvla’s voice lived within her always. Be brave . . .

Sydney lifted her chin higher as they approached the last set of doors. The crowd was closer now, the jumbled chatter of well over one hundred thousand voices or more awaiting their show to begin beyond the threshold. As Solomon bid the other Orcs to open the doors, Sydney promised herself that she would not show the king or the crowd any hint of fear. That she would meet their scorn, jeers, and all else the same as her mother and Yvla too would both do in her stead.

When the Orcs opened the doors to the greatest of Salt pantheons, another group had blocked the way ahead. Where Sydney’s Orcish escort was armored in black, the other group before them gleamed of silver plate. Leaner and smaller than their bulkier cousins, the Merrow soldiers outnumbered Sydney’s Orc captors three to one. For all their gathered troops, Sydney’s pulse raced at the armored Merrow who stood at the forefront of all, his helmet removed that she might see and know him among the rest.

“Rupert!” she cried, attempting to run toward him.

Solomon prevented her, pulling her closely back to his side with one hand, the other drifting to the hilt of his sheathed sword. “What are you doing here, horse-lord?”

“I wish to see the princess,” said Rupert, his voice flat and even.

Solomon grunted. “Well, you’ve seen her. Now, clear out. I have orders from the Blackfin hisself to deliver this prisoner to the king.”

“Prisoner, you say?” Rupert clucked his tongue before pointing at Sydney. “That is the princess of New Pearlaya and all the five oceans at your side, Orc. You would be wise to mind your tongue.”

“Mind your own,” said Solomon. “I’ve no allegiance to you.”

“Nor I with you,” said Rupert, standing his ground all the same. “Still, it’s called being polite, something I imagine you and your fellow vermin have either long forgotten, or were never taught at all, rather. My Merrows and I are inclined to give you all a lesson, if you like.” Rupert smiled easily, unsheathing his sword in a flash, its sheen glinting in the torchlight as he brought the naked blade to his side near faster than Sydney’s eyes could follow.

Solomon did not reach for his sword, but neither did he retreat. “I have my orders.”

“And you may keep to them,” said Rupert. “I merely wish to have a word in private with her. Our last meeting was . . . cut short, I’m afraid. Wouldn’t you agree, Princess?”

Sydney nodded, recalling how Yvla had pretended to be a Silkie stable slave and knocked Rupert unconscious before they both fled together. “Yes,” she said quietly in answer to Rupert’s question. “I-I would like to talk with you too.”

“There,” said Rupert to Solomon. “You see. Now, you all have an order from the princess and a Merrow lord.”

Solomon huffed. “Might be you are a lord,” he acknowledged. “But she’s no princess.”

Rupert’s blade flashed again. Rising before the Orcs could follow suit, he had the tip of his sword pointed at Solomon’s throat. “Say that again, Orc.” Rupert’s steely eyes suggested he would not hesitate to continue toward its end destination. “Insult our princess again . . . and it will be the end of you and your fellows.”

Sydney’s breath caught in her throat as the Merrows drew their weapons too, all fanning out around her Orcinian escort.

Solomon snorted at the sight as his brothers-in-arms huddled closer around him, their backs to one another at the encroaching opponents. He glared at Rupert. “A word with her, then? That’s all you want?”

“Well, more than one, I’m sure,” said Rupert. “In private too. But, yes. I should very much like to have a conversation with the princess before you fulfill your orders to the Blackfin. Oh, you may run along and fetch your master too, if you like. The princess and I should be finished with our conversation by the time you return for her.”

Sydney thought her Orc captor took his time before responding.

“On with you, then,” said Solomon gruffly, nudging Sydney toward Rupert. He turned to his fellow Violovar next. “The rest of you wait here with these blow-holes. I mean to return with the Lord Blackfin shortly.”

Rupert chuckled at that. “Lord Blackfin now, is it? Curious . . . I had not heard the king honored him with such a title.”

“Perhaps you ought to clean the muck out of your ears then, m’lord,” said Solomon. “That, or find some better rats to deliver you news, for it won’t be the last title bestowed upon our liege. The Lord Blackfin has already proved himself twice over now more valuable than you and your shimmered lot.”

Rupert smiled in response, but said nothing further. With a nod, his Merrow soldiers cleared a path for Solomon to exit their circle.

Sydney watched Solomon carry on quickly past the tunnel and vanish beyond. No sooner than he was gone, she had the thought to rush toward Rupert and beg him to help her get away.

He was already coming to her, however, his hand light upon her upper arm as he guided Sydney beyond the Merrow soldiers and the Orcs. Rupert led her back through a series of doors she had originally entered through before finding him. A moment later, his guards closed the nearest doors behind them, affording some little privacy in the crypt-like tunnel.

Once the doors were closed, Sydney threw herself at her friend, wrapping her arms around him, hugging him close as she could. “Rupert, oh my God! I need you to help me!”

“Help you?” Rupert asked, reaching for Sydney’s wrists and gently prying her grip free so that he might back away from her.

Sydney looked up at him with tear-stained eyes, expecting the same warm smile she had seen when the king had introduced them to one another. The same smile she witnessed each and every day he taught her to ride her seahorse, Roselani. Instead, there were questions aplenty in Rupert’s gaze. No small bit of hurt either.

Rupert’s brow furrowed. “I tried to help you several times before, Sydney. The last of those that I recall was right before you ran off with a Silkie and left me unconscious to wake up in an empty stable. Aye, say nothing of the fool I appeared to be afterward for my trying to speak some sense to you. Who was that Silkie stablehand to you, Sydney? One so precious as for you to trust and run away with, abandoning me to scorn and jeers from those who discovered me later?”

Yvla. Sydney thought her name, but would not say it. “A friend of my mother’s,” she answered his question. “She tried to help me escape the city.”

“She failed, then,” said Rupert quietly.

No. Sydney thought to herself. She showed me what I really am. Who I am.

Rupert cued on her silence. “Why would you need to escape, Sydney? It’s your mother the king wanted to embarrass. Not you.”

“Rupert, you don’t understand.”

“Help me in understanding, then,” he said. “Tell me what I am to take away from this entire situation, Sydney. Aye, why my friendship, our rides and time together . . . what am I to take away from your leaving me behind, other than I meant nothing to you?”

“Rupert—”

“Do you know what the people are saying, Sydney?” He interrupted. “The rumors flying across the whole of New Pearlaya and beyond?”

How could I? Sydney wondered. I’ve been locked away in an oubliette all this time.

“No . . .” she answered his question.

“They’re saying your mother is a traitor to not only the crown and the king, but to her father in the east and the whole of our collective people too. They say your mother has betrayed all Merrows, Sydney.” His lip curled in disgust. “They’re accusing her of betraying the king and their marriage in favor of fornicating with a Nomad. And not just any savage stalker, I don’t mind telling you. Worse, that your halfling, bastard brother is the true reason why the queen did not bring the supposed prince back to the Salt with you and her after having sworn to leave forever in favor of swallowing the anchor instead.”

Jun. Sydney thought of her brother then, wondering where in the world he might be in that moment. Thankful, at least, that she had received no news of his whereabouts. Oh, Jun, where are you? Sydney wondered. Is everything they’re saying true? Are you like me too? Half Merrow and half Nomad?

Rupert studied Sydney close. “Still others are saying worser things, Sydney. They claim that perhaps your mother birthed the king not one alone, but a pair of savage bastards . . . that their marriage has been meaningless all this time.”

Sydney stared back at him, hurt lingering in her eyes.

Rupert scoffed at her continued silence. “All those claims against your mother and you have nothing to say?”

“What would you have me say?” Sydney asked.

“Deny it, Sydney,” he cried. “Tell me it’s not true. That none of these cursed rumors are true!”

He doesn’t know. Sydney understood by the cracking in his voice. The pain with which he uttered the words. He doesn’t believe that I could be part Nomad.

Rupert blinked, his voice softer as he spoke to her again. “Deny it, Sydney.” He came to her, reaching for Sydney’s hand and taking it in his. “Please . . . tell me the rumors are not true.” Rupert squeezed. “Help me to understand why you ran away, or else why I should decry all these rumors for falsehoods. As your betrothed, I swear that I will believe you.”

Betrothed. Sydney cringed at the word and the secret that Yvla had revealed to her in the stables during she and Rupert’s last meeting. She looked up at him once more, meeting his questions with some of her own. “Why didn’t you tell me that we were arranged to be married? That I was to be given to you like . . . just like Roselani was given to me by the king?”

Rupert frowned. “Sydney, it’s not the same. A seahorse is not a princess.”

“It’s exactly the same,” she said, pulling away. “And you knew all along. Even before you met me. Just like you knew that my mom was going to be taken prisoner that night at the play too.”

Rupert’s face reddened. “Sydney, I didn’t know about your mother,” he said. “I told you as much in the stables before you fled and left me behind.”

Sydney shook her head. “You knew. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

Rupert had no answer for her, at first. Then, his shoulders sagged. Despite his glimmering armor, Sydney swore he had the expression of a shamed boy rather than the cocky façade he otherwise promoted in his daily dealings. “I didn’t know about your mother. Truly, I didn’t. As for the other bit concerning our engagement, I . . . I wanted to see if I could earn your love,” he said. “I’ve seen how arranged marriages go wrong from the start. My parents have fought with one another for as long as I can recall for just such a reason.” His gaze softened. “Much as you may doubt my intentions now and before, I have always hoped to make a better beginning for us.”

But there is no us. Sydney thought. And there never will be . . . especially not now.

Rupert sighed. “Tell me what to do, Sydney. Please? Tell me what I can do to make this right between us?” He took a knee that he might look up at her instead. “I see now that earning your love might well be beyond me, but tell me what I might do now to win back your trust, at least.”

“Why would you want my trust?”

“Can you truly not know?” He scoffed, a hint of his infamous, handsome smile dawning once more. “If I cannot have your love, Sydney, I would at least have your friendship again. A true friend, rather. Not the sort my father bought and paid to accompany me, or else those others budding up to me in the hopes of winning some title or favor from my parents, or even the king. Aye, for whatever you may think of me now, Sydney, you never looked to me with such things in your eyes as others have done all my life. In your gaze, I felt a true kinship from the start when we swam and rode together with Roselani and my Kampos. So, again, I say that if I cannot win your love, I would have your friendship again and your trust, at least.”

Sydney blushed at that, her eyes glazing over. Believing him even as a voice within urged her to doubt. But if I doubt everyone’s intentions, then what am I left with? Sydney thought to herself, again reflecting on her mother and Yvla too, wondering what they would do or argue in her stead. She looked on Rupert again, studying him and thinking back on all the times they shared, coming to her own conclusion without all the voices to plague her process. “You mean it, don’t you?”

“I do,” said Rupert, his easy smile earning one from her in return. “Tell me what to do, Sydney. If it’s within my power, I will help you.”

Rescue my mom and kill the Blackfin, maybe? Sydney snorted at the thought. Oh, and murder my dad too? She shook her head, reminding herself once more that the king was not a true father, nor had he ever been. Sydney looked around the tunnel, listening anew to the sounds of the crowd beyond the tunnel walls and ceiling. “What’s coming next?” she asked Rupert. “What are they going to do with me and my mom in this trial?”

Rupert’s forehead wrinkled. “You?” He asked. “Why would you think that you’re on trial, Sydney?”

He doesn’t know. Sydney thought again, staring into his eyes. How can he not know what they’ve done to me? Where they’ve been keeping me and what I am?

Sydney shook her head, feigning a show of embarrassment before Rupert could inquire on her further. “No, I know that I’m not on trial,” she lied. “I just wondered, you know . . . if maybe I was in trouble for running away.”

Rupert chuckled. “If they held a trial for every royal who had ever tried to run away from this cursed city, Sydney, there would be no royals left. Including me.”

Sydney forced a smile. “Right. I’m just . . . worried about my mom. You know?”

Rupert nodded. “I do.”

“So?” Sydney asked, wetting her lips with her tongue. “What do you think will happen? To my Mom?”

Rupert’s face tightened. “Hard to say with all the rumors flying around. The commoners thumb their noses at both king and queen by running with the story of your mother siring your brother as a bastard son. Meanwhile, many of the royals I’ve spoken with who know both king and queen believe that your father would never truly harm her, despite all he clamors to do in these trials.”

“Then why put her on trial?” Sydney asked. “Why humiliate her?”

Rupert shrugged. “If you believe the royals, they would argue even a king is still a politician,” He scoffed. “And a politician must play to his base when the people demand it. A grand lie, so to say. A show of equality for the people that no one is above the law. Truly though, I think your father means only to shame your mother into giving him any news of your brother’s whereabouts. It’s one thing to deny someone in private, but to deny a king on a royal stage in view of his subjects?” Rupert shook his head. “No . . . no, I think your mother will tell him the real truth now. Then, all of this can be done with and the rumors of her past put to rest for good and all after the people have had their show.”

Or not, Sydney thought then. Because we’ve already him the truth about Jun . . . and maybe Darius plans to use me as leverage against Mom. A shiver ran through her at the idea of the king putting her on display for Nattie and in front of all the people as he had done to her in the oubliette with only the Blackfin and his Orcs around to witness.

But then Darius would have no choice, Sydney argued with herself. If he showed everyone that I was part Nomad, then he could never take that back. He would be forced to convict Mom.

Sydney tried to banish such notions to the back of her mind by calling on the face of her brother instead. “And Jun?” she asked Rupert. “Do you know anything about him? Heard anything?”

“Nothing of note,” said Rupert. “Only that the king and the Blackfin have not rested in their search for the supposed prince.” He sighed. “Much as I am loathe to admit it, you and your Silkie guardian may have been wise indeed to have fled the castle when you did, Sydney. Your father has been manic in his efforts to secure any morsel of information on your brother ever since your escape. And the Blackfin’s reputation precedes him too, I fear. I trust it won’t be long until his seawolves find someone to give up a word of where your brother might be, either here in the Salt, or else ashore.”

“But they’ve not found him, then?” Sydney asked again, her voice breaking. “Jun is safe?”

“As best I know,” said Rupert.

Sydney breathed a momentary sigh of relief.

Then came a worser idea. All the more reason they’ve dressed me up like this. She thought, cementing the idea in her mind that the king meant to use her current safety as leverage against her mother to obtain information of Jun.

Sydney glanced down at her royal gown. A part of her wished to rip at the fabric, to claw at her hair and scrub off her makeup then, all to ruin whatever plans and role the king and the Blackfin held in store for her during the trials.

Rupert was watching her still. To judge the concern on his brow, Sydney gathered he may have even spoken to her.

“Did you say something?” she asked.

“Aye,” he said. “I asked you if any of the rumors are true?”

“What rumors?”

Rupert hesitated. “When you and your mother abandoned the shore and returned to the Salt . . . did you leave your brother behind because you knew that he was half Nomad all along?”

No. Sydney thought, cursing herself for ever having decided to leave the Indy Zoo with her friends in search of Garrett Weaver and the Selkies who had taken him. I left because I thought it was brave and the right thing to do. Her breath came rapid and quick as she looked into Rupert’s eyes and wondered what lie to give him, even as she thought of nothing but the truth. Mom only came back because she was looking for me . . . to save me.

Sydney glanced away from Rupert rather than allow him to see her fighting back more tears. Because she knew . . . She pictured her mother’s disappointment the night that Nattie Gao had found and rescued Sydney and her friends, Amelia and Owens. The same disappointment Sydney remembered hearing from her mother when they came to New Pearlaya too, and for every time thereafter when Sydney did not believe her mothers’ continued warnings about the king and his intentions. Mom came back to the Salt because she knew . . . Sydney closed her eyes, a single tear staining her cheeks. She knew what I was and what it would mean for our family if anyone else found out.

Rupert shuffled behind her. “Sydney? Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Her bottom lip quivered. “I-I don’t know whether Jun is a Merrow or part Nomad,” she said honestly. “I’ve never even swam with my brother. Mom never told him our family secret and where we come from. She never said anything to Jun about us being Merrows, or that we could shift a dolphin tail and swim beneath the waves.”

“But it was a dolphin tail she mentioned,” Rupert insisted. “Not a shark tail?”

Sydney barely heard the question. Her mind was racing with the notion that her mother might have kept still more secrets from her also. That perhaps the primary reason Nattie had never allowed Jun to swim with them at the Indy Zoo was due in part because he was half Nomad, like Sydney, and would shift a shark tail if the shifting were forced upon him.

And what if he is? Sydney shuddered. What if all the rumors are true? She turned back to Rupert then, hesitant to voice the question that had haunted her in the oubliette, yet needing an answer all the same. “What is his name?” She asked Rupert, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Whose name?”

“The Nomad,” she said. “The Nomad everyone says that my mother . . .” Sydney bit her tongue. “The one they claim my mom had an affair with.”

Rupert’s face darkened. “They claim he has many names, and all of them often whispered in fear. The one I hear most often is of the savages calling him No Boundaries.” He frowned. “Fitting too, I should say, if the rumors about his relationship with your mother are true. The commoners believe there is no place he cannot go. No rules or mercy to his savage madness. Aye, nowhere, or nothing beyond his reach . . . not even a queen’s heart, I’ve heard some romantics say. Most say worse.”

Sydney ignored the last comment. No Boundaries . . . She toyed with the name in her mind, not recalling whether she had heard the name before or no, wishing that she could ask Yvla or Quill for more information on her supposed father. While the thought of Yvla threatened to bring more tears to her eyes, the idea of Quill spurred on a different track. Sydney clutched at Rupert’s hands. “You said you would do anything to help me?”

“I would,” said Rupert. “If it’s within my power.”

“Could you send a message to someone?” she asked. “Or find out if they’re alive?”

“I-I suppose so,” said Rupert. “But who? I’ve searched the city for your Silkie friend, Ellie, in the hopes that she might have some knowledge of where you went. That she might lead me to you, but—”

“Not Ellie,” said Sydney quickly, not wanting to drag another friend into her mess. “His name is Quill.”

Rupert shied away. “Quill? A secret male companion of yours?”

“No,” said Sydney. “It’s not like that. He is Yvla’s brother.”

Or was. Sydney’s conscience reminded her of the last time she saw him, watching Quill fend off the Orcs as she and Yvla fled to the sewers.

Rupert shook his head. “Who is Yvla?”

“The stable-hand I escaped with before,” said Sydney. “But . . . she’s dead now. The Blackfin, he . . . he killed her in Catcher’s Corner right after his Orcs found us.”

Rupert nodded. “And this brother of hers . . . Quill? Where might I find him?”

“I don’t know,” said Sydney. “We were hiding in Catcher’s Corner for the longest time, but—”

“Catcher’s Corner is no more,” said Rupert. “It was burned down by the Blackfin and—”

The great doors behind them swung open suddenly, and the soldiers crossing the threshold did not bear the same shimmering armor as Rupert did. Those who joined them now came armored in plate black, save for their leader who bore a swirl of white to cut through the darkness of his armor.

Malik Blackfin smiled easily at finding Rupert and Sydney together. “Speak of the devil . . . and he shall appear.”

Sydney shuddered at the sight of him, Solomon, and a host of other seawolves as grim in face and demeanor as their two leaders.

Rupert moved in front of her. “What are you doing here, Blackfin?”

“I might ask the same of you, my young lordling,” Malik replied. “The crowd anxiously awaits the arrival of royalty. The king too longs impatiently to have the princess at his side. Call her pretty face a comforting presence for the awful times that lie ahead.”

No. Sydney thought. He wants to see me suffer too. To see it up close.

The Blackfin continued. “And that is to say nothing of the king’s ongoing concern for his daughter’s safety after her recent disappearance.” He cocked his head to the side, studying Rupert. “If memory serves, I heard a certain horse-lord was with the princess before she was taken, no? Aye . . . all before he was knocked unconscious in the stables by a Silkie slave, I believe. Does that story carry any note of truth with you, horse-lord?”

Rupert grimaced, neither agreeing or disagreeing to the claim.

Malik grinned wider. “Silence is an answer in and of itself, my friend. A word of warning though - with all these trials to come, it would be a shame if any further royal names were added among the list of traitors to king and crown, wouldn’t it, Master Bowrider?”

“It’s Lord Bowrider to you, vermin,” said Rupert. “And you would be unwise to name me traitor again.”

“I’ll name you as I like, boy,” Malik continued forward, even as Rupert reached for his sword. The Blackfin stopped within an inch of him, smiling down on Rupert and Sydney both. “And if you ever think to stand or swim in the way of my orders again, horse-lord, I assure you that a traitor’s trial will be the least of your concerns.”

Malik reached around Rupert, then, their stares never wavering from one another. He took hold of Sydney’s trembling arm and pulled her free of Rupert’s shadow. “Come, Princess,” he said gaily. “We mustn’t keep your father and the crowds waiting.”

What game is he playing at? Sydney wondered, even as the Blackfin’s thumb needled into her arm, warning her to obey or else. He knows the king is not my real dad.

Malik led her back to the threshold of the doors, but stopped before crossing over. He turned back to face Rupert once more, whipping Sydney around with him. “By the by, horse-lord, whatever where you two lovebirds singing about to one another in this cold, dark place? Hmm? No doubt the king will find it most curious you went out of your way to stop my seawolves from carrying out a royal command. I wonder . . . what answer would you have me give to the king for his daughter’s untimely arrival?”

Rupert’s response came without delay. “Before the princess was taken, the king gave his daughter a most special gift – a seahorse of royal stock.”

Malik laughed. “A seahorse?”

“Aye,” said Rupert. “A Tiger-Tail thoroughbred. With all the time the princess has been away, I thought she might wish to know how the seahorse fared in her absence.”

Malik snorted. “Quite well, I’d assume, considering the beast is a gift from the king himself and housed in the royal stables.”

“Indeed,” said Rupert. “Still, I knew the princess would wish to know. They’re quite close, as any true rider should be with their mount.” He looked to Sydney. “Is there anything you would wish for her, Princess?” Rupert’s eyes flashed. “A special ball of that shrimp-paste cocktail you often gave her for a treat, perhaps? A ride around the city to your favorite locales?”

The message, Sydney understood by Rupert’s tone and the way he looked on her. He wants to know what message to give Quill . . . where to look for him.

Sydney cleared her throat, her mind racing for what to say and not give herself away to Malik. “No special place,” she said in answer to Rupert’s question. “Just tell her that I miss her very much and I’m sorry that I’ve been away.” Sydney tried to buy herself more time with the non-descript response, all whilst trying to think of a truer message for Rupert to pass on if finding Quill. “Tell her . . . tell Roselani that I hope to see her again very soon.”

And please understand that when I say Roselani, I really mean Quill . . . she thought to herself.

Rupert nodded. “I will indeed pass along your message, Princess.”

Malik clucked his tongue. “Run along, then, horse-lord. You have your orders. I have my own,” he said in such a way that set Sydney to shivering all over again. “And the traitor trials await.”

Then, he was marching Sydney away once more, bound toward the clamoring crowd awaiting them at the tunnel’s end.

11

LENNY

Huddled in near darkness inside one of middle train cars, Lenny Dolan rocked back and forth with the train’s movement as it sped through the underground tunnel toward the station of Bouvetøya. Lined in a row with several other Selkies, Lenny and each of those with him had manacles placed around their wrists in blatant signal of their prisoner status.

But the locks of Lenny Dolan and his fellows were for show alone.

Not for the first time, Lenny toyed with the unlocked, broken ends of his manacles to ensure the lock catches of both remained free for the ambushing plan of attack awaiting them. His freedom reassured, Lenny’s hand drifted to the dual hidden blades in his Selkie pocket too, nudging the hilts of both with his fists.

In front of him, Tom Weaver’s little friend, Vasili, stood as tall as he was able, his shoulders back and Baikal Seal hood drawn in the event he needed to morph his Salted form.

Behind Lenny, the shadowed outline of the former tavern owner Jemmy T, lingered over him in protecting watch. Other than the few times Lenny had asked to be alone with his thoughts, his father’s friend had refused to leave Lenny’s side. Then, as now, Jemmy T gave Lenny a comforting nod when finding himself glanced back at. “Everything be fine, little brudda,” he whispered. “Jemmy T be your guardian angel, mon. Aye, him be watching over you always . . . but keep them blades handy, yeah?”

“Will do . . .” Lenny replied, feeling for the hilts of his hidden daggers once more.

The train wheels screeched beneath him, the cabin shuddering in tandem.

Lenny’s heart thundered against his chest as he turned back to face the bolted, wooden door in front of him. Where the wood slats had rattled with the train’s constant speed, the sound of it had lessened in the wake of the Sailfish train beginning to brake.

From the forefront of the train-car’s locked doors, a hulking shadow growled. “Steady, lads,” the brogue voice of Brutus commanded from beneath the visored guard of the Painted Guard helmet he wore. Brutus, along with Tom Weaver and several others of the largest Selkies, had taken on the Orc armor to wear for their own. Their identities and Selkie suits hidden by black metal plate, the brutish guard of Selkies kept naked blades in hand as they surrounded Lenny and the others, the entire train-car full of Selkies all playing out the roles assigned to them.

Beneath them all, the frost-covered floor shuddered as the train car eased into the slow stop that had begun a couple miles out. A rampant hiss came from somewhere outside the train car, with shouted voices and scattered movement alongside as the train came to a full stop. In the darkness around him, Lenny heard clinking chains as others gathered their courage to face whatever came for the Selkies next.

Patience, son. Lenny imagined his father preaching to calm his nerves. Patience.

Outside the train car, the clumping of heavy boots atop frozen boards approached the train car to unlock the catch keeping all the Selkies inside.

Lenny’s vision narrowed and focused on what little firelight filtered through the wooden slats. He counted several large and shadowed figures, each of them bearing torches to light the way for the one freeing open the door.

The lock removed, the latch lifted, Lenny winced as the heavy door slid open on its hinges.

Beyond, the wall of taller folk impeded his vision, yet Lenny estimated that it was Brutus to lead the group of supposed Painted Guard soldiers out of their car. The moment the train car door began to open, Brutus shouldered out in front to gain access to the platform and to keep the real Orc guards there from shutting the Selkies back inside the train-car once more.

Brutus shouted all the while, waving Lenny and the others to come out with their seeming Orc captors. “All right, move out with you, Selkie scum! Come on, then. Haven’t got all day, have we?”

Vasili started forward with Tom Weaver as his supposed captor.

Lenny tensed when another Selkie brute’s grip tightened on his arm to lead out onto the platform and join the others. Keeping his head down as he imagined any wise prisoner would, Lenny was at least able to peek beyond the lip of his Selkie hood and glimpse a little of what lay ahead as he marched out of the train car. His pulse thundered against his chest at finding his Selkie group outnumbered the Orcs who awaited upon the platform.

“Oi! Hold up!” One of the real Orcs was saying to Brutus. “What’s this, then? What are these Selkies doing here? Who are you?”

“Who am I?” Brutus growled back, then rapped the Orc with his armored fist. “I’m the one who’ll clap you and your friends in chains, boy, the same as I did for these Selkie fools here if you and yours don’t fall in line and clear this filth off my hands. Now, get these other doors opened up and all these prisoners out on my block for counting!”

The Orc guard rubbed the side of his head, but would not relent his position. “Your block?” he argued with Brutus. “What are you on about? You’re not from here. What’s your name?”

Brutus back-handed him hard enough to send the Orc reeling and then falling to a knee. “Speak to an officer like that, will you, boy? Our Lord Blackfin would have had your head for that. Say nothing of impeding my duties and keeping to his schedule!”

Lenny’s fingers closed around the hilts of his hidden daggers, waiting for the real Orcs to unsheathe their blades and the attack to begin.

Staggering to his feet again, the Orc guard muttered an apology at the conviction Brutus bellowed with. The other, true Orc soldiers followed suit, all backing away from Tom Weaver and the Selkie brutes whose identities remained shielded by the Painted Guard armor.

Brutus moved out in front of the Selkie pretenders, then pointed up the train’s length and shouted at the true Orc soldiers. “Now, I want all these cars opened up, you lot! Bring all the Selkie scum out where I can see them and start them counting off, see? And don’t you lot harm a one of them either! The Blackfin has special plans for these here. He’ll want his counts matched when we’ve landed too!”

“Beg pardon, sir,” said the Orc who had been back-handed. “But we’ve nowhere to put these prisoners, let alone the rest you got tucked away inside. We weren’t expecting no shipments from the South, sir. We’ve been full-up to bursting for weeks already with those the capital keeps sending down for us to manage.”

“Well, you best make room, haven’t you, boy?” Brutus shouted back. “Get on with it, soldier!”

“We can’t, sir,” the Orc blustered. “Honest. Commander Pohl would—”

Brutus swung and then raised the tip of his sword to point an inch away from the Orc guard’s eyes. “Run along back to him then, boy. Fetch your precious commander and bring him here to answer for this sordid mess.” He waved his sword away, then wheeled on the others. “The rest of you move along and get my Selkies out here! Double-time, now! Any of you ruins a single one of my slaves and it’ll be your hides I come for next! The Blackfin asked for these prisoners special, he did. Now, move! Move!”

His palms sweatier by the second, Lenny’s grip slipped upon his hidden blades as the Orcs obeyed, fanning out along the platform to open up the other train cars down the line. One by one, the doors were opened. For each car opened, Lenny saw most of the Orc soldiers freeing the doors were quickly taken unawares by the awaiting Selkies within. Most of the Orcs were brought down quietly and dragged into the accompanying train cars. A few, however, were struck down, their cries for help and attempts to warn the other Orcs dying as swiftly as their Selkie assassins put an end to them. All were yanked into darkness, their demise shielded by the noise and wave of seeming prisoners and their captors emptying onto the platform.

Breathe, Len, he urged himself to do, his body stiff, his gaze a constant swivel with the notion their ruse would end and more Orcs would come sweeping in for war. Just breathe.

From the corner of his eyes, Lenny caught sight of further movement from the rear of the train – Henry Boucher led a mixed group of Lepers and Selkie brutes to sneak off the platform, hiding and fanning out among the shadows and stalactites nearby the train platform’s end.

Again, Lenny wondered after the plan he and the others had concocted during the ride into Bouvetøya. With the platform Orcs either taken or killed, he fought the urge to begin the next phase of their plan; calling for Henry and the other Selkies to spread out and create havoc throughout the cavern while they had the opportunity to move unnoticed. His gut twisted with every passing second of waiting for more Orcs to come, his mind wondering how many there would be, or if Lenny and his fellow Selkies could truly take on the remaining soldiers and win.

To divert his mind, Lenny focused on the torches blazing further in and throughout the cavernous area. As best as he could tell from his vantage point, the Orc soldiers had packed the Selkie cages further inside the cavern to standing room only. The front lines of the trapped Selkie slaves had been pushed against the iron cars of their shared cages, their haggard faces pressed against the gaps in between iron bars, glowing with frost. Of the captives, Lenny didn’t know whether to feel sorry for the frostbite already darkening the prisoners’ cheeks, or whether they were thankful for the air. At least those against the bars can breathe, he thought, wondering how the prisoners in the middle of the cage fared since all were packed so tightly together.

Lenny redoubled his efforts to gain a better hold on his blades when catching sight of emaciated women and children among those inside the frost-covered cages. Who are all these? Lenny wondered, not remembering having witnessed any women and children prisoners from the first time he had been brought to Bouvetøya. Why would the Merrow king have Selkie women and children sent down here?

A combination of horror and fury rose within him at the moans and cracking of whips echoing further inside the cavern from hidden places that he could not see. His mind racing with the idea of the things being done further in, Lenny’s resolve for the Dolan family mantra to not leave anyone behind strengthened in his mind for each passing second.

Then came the marching of heavier boots from further inside the cavern.

In answer to those approaching, Brutus’s voice carried to all those like him and Lenny, playing at prisoners and their captors upon the platform. “Steady lads . . . wait till they’re lured in first.”

Lenny clung to the memories of his father’s voice too as a beastly Orc commander marched at the head of several soldier columns, all headed toward the train platform. Patience, Len . . . patience, son . . .

The Orc commander stopped some twenty yards away from the platform. With a nod, his soldiers obeyed a wordless command, each fanning out like a picket-line along the train platform to keep any already upon it from leaving. Safely positioned behind his wall of Orcs, the commander surveyed those upon the platform, his gaze settling on Brutus. “Right. Who are you, then?” he asked.

“Oh, just another loyal soldier in his majesty’s service, sir.” Brutus fired back. “You’re running this place, then, I take it? Commander Pohl, your soldier said?”

“Indeed,” said the Orc leader. “And I would prefer to have your name as well. Also, the truth as to the meaning of this . . . unscheduled and surprise shipment from the south?”

“Brutus is my name, sir,” he answered honestly. “And the Warden Zane in Røyrkval sent us, Commander. Gave orders we was to vacate these poor Selkies from the City of Song, so he did.”

Commander Pohl’s brow furrowed. “Vacate, you say? Zane was just sent down not two weeks ago to clean up the disorderly operation there and procure a lost item for the king. If he’s succeeded at both already, why then would he order this rabble sent here and not deal with the Selkies accordingly?”

He knows. Lenny clamped down on his daggers. This guy knows we’re lying, Brutus.

“Deal with them, sir?” Brutus asked the Orc leader.

Commander Pohl drew his sword. “Aye,” he said. “I would have thought Warden Zane’s directives were quite clear, soldier, especially as he and I discussed in private how best to expedite the king’s orders and meet the Blackfin’s likewise demands.”

Lenny startled at the immediate clanging of swords unsheathing, the Orcs all drawing their blades as one without any command given from their leader. Lenny’s throat parched when the Orcs formed ranks, creating a shield wall in preparation to advance. We have the high ground, Lenny’s throat parched, adrenaline racing at the escalation of unfolding events. And they still don’t care. He thought, judging the look in Commander Pohl’s steely gaze. They’re coming anyway . . .

Commander Pohl leered at Brutus and all the others standing with him. “I’ll ask you again, soldier,” he spat in the direction of Brutus. “Who are you really? And what is the meaning of this unscheduled southern shipment?”

Brutus unsheathed his blade also. “Gave you my name already, you dumb git. You might’ve heard of me in a time long past too . . . as for your Warden Zane and what we’re doing here? Well, we put ends to your beastly friends in Røyrkval with these swords here, so we did. Aye, same as we mean to do for you today, sir.” He pointed the tip of his blade at Commander Pohl. “You and all the filth like you.”

Commander Pohl smirked at that. “For Warden Zane, then . . .” He said, pointing his own weapon at Brutus. “And the torment I’ll give you and yours in his stead once this is over, Master Selkie.” Commander Pohl clapped his visor down with his free hand, shouting out orders. “Seawolves! Advance!”

The Orc shield wall came on then, marching in practiced fashion as they approached the platform steps in unified step.

With no point in pretending further, Lenny shirked off his handcuffs and drew his twin blades. Flanked by Vasili and Tom Weaver, Lenny held his ground and raised his daggers in a show of force.

Brutus retreated to join the Selkie lines, even as he taunted the Orcs to join them on the platform. “Come on then, you bastards! Come on and give us a go!”

Lenny grimaced when the Orcs marched up the steps and entered the Selkie lure he had helped to devise.

With the Orcs’ united focus holding on Brutus and the prisoners braced for the charge, what the oncoming soldiers did not see was the other group of Selkies led by Jemmy T who revealed themselves atop the train cars. Each carried bolt-action crossbows, harpoons, and spears they had procured from the fallen Orcs in Røyrkval.

“Fire!” Jemmy T bellowed to his crew, unleashing a flurried attack from above to rain down on the unwitting soldiers.

Caught off guard by the sudden aerial wave, the shield wall broke when the first line of Orcs stumbled upon the steps, or else fell off the platform altogether. In moments, holes were formed in the front and secondary lines. And where Commander Pohl rightly believed himself protected from the Selkies upon the platform, the confidence of he and those with him collapsed when Henry Boucher and his group of Lepers slipped quietly up among the Orcish rear guard to flank them unawares.

Caught in the design of the Selkie ambush, the Orc shield wall broke in full when Brutus led the charge for those upon the platform. Lenny followed him onward, running alongside Vasili, both little men hurtling themselves into the brink of battle. Both stuck close to their taller companions, working in tandem to bring down their enemies. While Brutus and Tom Weaver drew the Orcs’ focus at an eye-to-eye level, Lenny and Vasili swept in to swipe and stab at the larger foes’ legs and knees, each finding chinks in the Painted Guard armor to help wound and bring their enemies down for the taller folk to trample and finish.

Lenny added his screams and war cry to all the others in the battle for Bouvetøya, then. With every swipe against the Orcs, Lenny Dolan remembered his father’s fall in Røyrkval and moved to the memory of his father’s teachings.

Keep moving, Len . . . Hacking and clawing, Lenny Dolan never ceased to bob and weave as he advanced through the chaos. Move or die!

Lenny obeyed, over and again, not stopping in his advance. Breaking through the shattered Orc lines, he wheeled to a stop when the last of the soldiers collapsed in front of him, stabbed in the back by Henry Boucher. His former crewmate’s face and suit were stained with the blood of others, but Henry Boucher looked none the worse for his battling of the Orcs. And though Henry took a moment to catch his breath, Lenny saw only stillness in the Frenchman’s eyes as the ragtag army of Selkies brought down the last of their foes.

Near as suddenly as the onslaught began, Lenny Dolan saw no more Orc soldiers to stand against the Selkies. His heart thundering against his chest, his face covered in blood and sweat, Lenny relinquished his forward momentum. As Henry and Vasili moved on to stalk among the fallen victims and silence the Orcs who cried out for mercy, Lenny Dolan took a knee to catch his breath. His lips quivering, hands shaking, Lenny closed his eyes and imagined his father’s body lain upon the ice in the Lost City of Song. We did it, Pop. He thought to himself, strengthening his hold on the twin daggers he had used to avenge his father. We got them. These ones, at least.

These here didn’t know me, son . . . he imagined Declan Dolan might say in such a moment as Lenny found himself in now. And there will be more to come hunting you all after what happened here today.

Trembling, Lenny used the sleeve of his Selkie suit to wipe away the blood upon his face and out of the corner of his eyes. Blinking back the glazing in his eyes at the constant thought of his father gone, Lenny knew the Selkie victory for another hollow loss the moment he opened his eyes to the cold reality of Bouvetøya once more.

So many . . .

He blinked at the prisoner masses huddled some one hundred yards further into the cavern. Trapped inside the frost-covered cages, some of the Selkies prisoners were calling out for help from those who had claimed victory upon the train platform. In most of the Bouvetøya prisoners though, even from afar, Lenny recognized acceptance of defeat and hopelessness. A few yet held to spirit and life. His eyes stung at one in particular; a caged boy, perched atop his father’s shoulders – the only place for the son to sit and wave his arms for someone to notice and hopefully come to free them.

Lenny was off and running then, sprinting toward the boy’s cage without the thought there might be still more Orcs awaiting further into the cavern. Fortune favored him, for the moment, and Lenny Dolan found no sign of more soldiers before he reached the prisoner cages. Once there, he threw himself at the lock, driving the tip of his dagger into the key-hold, working it back and forth to free the pin inside. He scarcely heard the prisoners inside calling out to him in foreign languages, their voices a collective cry of tears and thanks. The ones nearest to him reached through the bars, clutching at his shoulders and hair, anything they could grab ahold of as Lenny continued prying at the lock. He ripped it off the moment the pin burst free, then flung open the door and waved them out.

“C’mon,” he cried, his voice hoarse and catching in his throat, his father’s continued mantra a constant in his mind. “C’mon. Hurry. You’re free.”

We’re Dolans . . . he thought when the first among them began to spill outside. We don’t leave others behind.

And I won’t, Pop. Lenny spied the Selkie boy still perched atop his father’s shoulders. I’m not leaving none of these here.

“C’mon!” Lenny cried louder, waving on all those hesitant to step out, almost as if they feared more Orc soldiers and retribution to come. For a moment, their fear struck the same in him also, the idea he had abandoned safety among his fellows for the sake of saving a single boy. Still, he would not turn from it. “C’mon! Get out!”

As the cage began to empty, Lenny glanced over his shoulder in search of another wave of Orcs.

What he saw was worse.

Further off, near two hundred yards away from the other prisoner cages, tucked away in a stony alcove, there were uncountable stacks made from bundles of varying colors, shades, and designs. Each bundle had been tied together by crisscrossed ropes, packing the contents together and maintaining the cube-like shape created. The bundles too had been grouped and stacked upon each other along a series of wooden, pallet-like sleds, all packed and placed along an icy field. Behind the stacks loomed an exterior wall of a frost-covered, brick building, three stories high and as long as a football field.

Despite the other caged prisoners clamoring for help and release, Lenny’s focus held not only upon the building and the bundles outside it, but that which emerged from inside the building. Lenny took a step toward the bundles and the building when he sighted a constant stream of pure-white smoke and seeming snow belching forth from the brick chimneystacks, its sides devoid of any tracing of ice that covered the lower tiered walls.

Careful . . . Lenny thought, even as morbid curiosity drew him toward the building and its bundles. Turn back. Now, before it’s too late.

Lenny Dolan could not. Not a hundred yards out, when the seeming snow landed against his cheeks and did not melt. Not fifty yards away, when he recognized and understood what the bundled tens of thousands stacked and strapped upon the pallets truly were. Despite all that his conscience warned to turn away, Lenny Dolan did not stop in his search for the dark truth of Bouvetøya and its prisoners. Not until he rounded the corner of the frozen building in search of its entry, finding a different answer altogether.

Lenny stopped in his tracks, no longer caring what lay beyond the ice-covered threshold of the brick doorway, his gaze fixated on that which seemed to stretch endlessly on to the furthest reach of the cavern. Buckets of blood . . . Lenny gasped, his mind having no answers for what he witnessed there. Tears brimming in his eyes, the cavern’s natural cold threatened to freeze and fuse them with his eyelashes by the time two of his Selkie companions found him.

Tom Weaver’s shadow enveloped Lenny as he came around the factory corner. “My God . . .” was all the elder Weaver could manage at the sight of the frost-covered fields of stone and their trenches filled with naked, frozen corpses.

More than a handful of Selkie prisoners had been left to manage the barrows, casting more corpses into the mass graves that showed no concern of body size or shape, age, gender or race. All were lined in rows and placed atop one another like stacked logs in preparation for a deep winter to come.

Another fleck landed upon Lenny’s cheek, the whispered touch tickling him as he attempted to brush it away, his fingers staining whitish-gray as he did. Much as Lenny attempted to convince himself that he knew what the inch of similar dusting that covered the trench bodies was, his mind warned that no true snow could fall and linger within a cavern, not even in the Antarctic cold.

What is this place, Pop? He wished that Declan Dolan was there to ask, or else to look too for some modicum of understanding for the hellish landscape before him.

Whether the stacked bundles of Selkie skins outside the factory, the constant churn of seeming snow pouring forth from its chimney, or the emaciated Selkie prisoners driving their wheelbarrows in endless rotation to collect and deliver more corpses to burn, Lenny Dolan recognized the answers to his question lay plainly in multiple forms right in front of him for all to see and know.

It’s a death camp. Lenny fell to his knees, gagging and vomiting until he had nothing left to spare. Bouvetøya is a Selkie death camp . . .

12

CHIDI

It’s almost done, Chidi thought, taking a deep breath, looking again on the nearly finished puzzle of translations before her. She had read several of the translated verses already, each as confusing as the next to her mind. Riddles upon riddles.

For all of Chidi’s confusion over their words, Marisa Bourgeois seemed to share none of it as her hands worked to maneuver the various pieces into a final alignment. All were neatly aligned next to individuals letters that Chidi had assigned them, each based on the portrait etchings Marisa had drawn. “What do they all mean though?” she asked. “What’s the point of them?”

“Does a compass not act as a guide, Chidi?”

“A compass needle shows the direction you’re going,” she replied. “That doesn’t mean it’s the right way to go.”

“As these words may prove for us also,” said Marisa, transcribing the alignments of symbolic cut-outs to match with the Common language letterings she and Chidi had worked out during their sea journey over the previous several days. “Still, the needle guides . . .” said Marisa, finishing the last of her writing and placing her pencil upon the table. Then, she offered Chidi the notebook she wrote upon. “And the choice of direction is left to us.”

Chidi trembled as she again looked upon the completed work. “It’s finished, then? You’ve worked it out?”

Marisa shrugged. “Who can say for certain? But, if our work together in translation is true . . . if these lyrics are to be believed . . . then, aye.” Her eyes shone in the pale light as she again offered Chidi the notebook to read. “I believe this puzzle of words will act as our map, at least . . . again, assuming we’ve placed them in the right order.”

A big if, Chidi took Marisa’s tone to mean. “But to where?” she asked. “Where do these pieces lead?”

“To the end, Chidi,” said Marisa. “To the truly completed work.”

Chidi’s throat ran dry at the ominous words. She glanced at the piece of paper once more, not daring to read the newest alignment Marisa had made. “What do they say?”

“You tell me.” Marisa gave over the notebook. “Read the message aloud, Chidi. Aye, that we might both hear the Ancients words as they were once given and intended.”

Chidi’s fingers shook, even as she accepted the notebook from Marisa. “Why me?” she asked. “Why can’t you read them?”

“Because my voice is not the one that I hear in the dreams given to me,” said Marisa, retreating back into her seat.

Chidi glanced upon the scrawlings Marisa had made. She shook her head. “I don’t know that I want to.”

“Why not?” Marisa asked with a sly grin. “You fear the power of words, Chidi?”

If they come from you, I do, Chidi thought but did not say. She only nodded in answer to Marisa’s question.

“Your wisdom is matched by your beauty then,” said Marisa. “But we need not fear these Ancient words, my friend. We ought to celebrate them for showing us the way and all that will be required of us. Now, please . . . read them.”

Chidi reached for the glass of water that Allambee had left for her before he had fallen asleep again. The remainder had less than a swallow inside. Chidi took it down all the same, her throat raw and aching, desperate for more. She glanced to the counter, searching for both the source of the drinking water and a reprieve from what Marisa asked of her. To reach the sink would mean waking Allambee, and Chidi held no desire for that.

Marisa leaned forward upon the table. “Read them, Chidi . . . read the words.”

Chidi looked upon the paper, then quietly obliged the mystic Silkie.

“Our doom draws nigh upon us, Children, and this our final song. Still, we would have thee sing it, and pray thee to be strong.” Chidi’s voice trembled as she moved onto the second verse. “We leave this world a harsh one, Children, a challenge not easily bested. And yet the Salt shall change for no one, for how else should thou be tested?”

Chidi set the first piece of paper down, her brow furrowing further at the words in the second piece as well. “Receive these mystic gifts, Children, and believe all these words we leave. For the shadows shall rise always, and the dark arts they will weave.”

“The Other . . .” Marisa interrupted, her voice quieter even than Chidi’s had been as she pointed to the Ancient word for shadows. “They speak of he and his kind there, I think. Aye, Chidi, all that we have seen thus far, no?” She glanced to the ladder leading up to the boat deck above. “Or perhaps the greater storm still to come . . .”

Chidi nodded, then looked back to read the second piece when she could no longer continue to meet the certainty in Marisa’s eyes. “But when all else grow to fear them, Children, and all the woe they bring, let you heed our song then, Children, and remember these words we sing.”

Despite the cabin cold, warmth spread through Chidi as she finished the words of the second puzzle piece.

“The open,” Marisa said of the piece as Chidi lightly placed the paper scrap back into its former place amidst the formation of others. She nodded toward the next scraps of symbols and their adjoining letter twins. “And now their challenge to us.”

Breathless, Chidi continued on with the third piece. “One for times rich, one for times poor. This gift to all sworn evermore. This blessing we leave to both above and below. This one for all who join and know.”

Chidi caught Marisa watching her, the elusive runner’s gaze drifting from the parchment and to look on Chidi’s fingers instead.

The ring . . . Chidi thought, looking upon the seemingly unremarkable gift that the old Merrow, Wilda, had given her back at the Indianapolis Zoo. “It’s a wedding ring . . .” she said to Marisa after reading the Ancient riddle again. “Wilda’s.”

“The Merrow gift, aye,” said Marisa. “Or so I believe.”

Chidi look down upon the pebbled stone that served as the ring’s lone adornment. But could it be the same ring this riddle is talking about? She wondered, doubting the momentary idea. She changed her mind once more when she again caught Marisa’s knowing eyes still watching her as she plucked up the fourth bit of paper to read.

“This one for those dealt in blood and death,” Chidi shivered at the words before forcing herself to read onward. “This one for warriors of Salted breath. We gift you this dagger, that it may add to your life, and when the time comes, to remove sibling strife.

Chidi looked to Marisa as she placed the piece of paper down with the others. “We have to find a dagger?”

“If the riddle proves true, perhaps,” Marisa replied. “And if you believe the weapon mentioned is truly a dagger.”

“You don’t?” Chidi asked.

Marisa chuckled. “It is a riddle, Chidi. And an Ancient one at that. Simple as the words may sound, who can say for certain what deeper meaning they may carry. Likely, we are not meant to know, lest it would be solved already and all the five pieces of two gathered.”

“But you’ve seen things . . .” said Chidi. “You have to know.”

The confidence in Marisa’s gaze darkened. “If only what you say were true,” she said quietly. “Again, for all you may think of me, Chidi, I am not all-knowing or seeing. I witness only so far as whoever gives me such dreams allows. The same as can be said for all who receive such visions.”

“Who is giving you these dreams, then?” Chidi asked. “How are they even doing it?”

Marisa smiled ruefully, her mouth opening as if meaning to speak further on the question. Another voice spoke up before she could.

“Bourgeois,” Bryant called down from the captain’s quarters above. “Chidi, get up here. Quick! We got company.”

Company? Chidi wondered. All the way out here?

She had little time to debate anything else, even in her own mind.

Marisa was leaving the table before Bryant had finished calling to them. The mystic Silkie flew up the ladder leading to the upper deck, and she vanished before Chidi could think to question her.

“Chidi!” Bryant called again. “Get up here!”

Chidi started to obey, but hesitated when Allambee began to rouse.

“What is it?” he asked, blinking away the drowse in his eyes. “What is wrong?”

“I don’t know,” said Chidi. “There’s someone—”

“Chidi! Up here. Now!”

The urgency in his voice commanded her to obey. Despite Bryant’s continued shouting after her, a coldness surged in Chidi as Allambee looked back at her with similar uncertainty and the question as to why they must hurry. Though her instincts compelled her to stay, curiosity and the need to make sure Allambee was safe won out. “Just stay here,” she said to her younger friend. “For now. I’ll come back once I find out what’s going on.”

“No, Chidi. Wait!”

She heard him call out to her as she ascended to the upper level. Chidi continued on anyway, hurrying into the captain’s quarters to join the others. Their coyote guide and Selkie captain, Girard, was at the wheel, his steely gaze focused on the open stretch of Salt that his ship continued speeding across. Marisa stood silently alongside him, not bothering to acknowledge Chidi as she stepped in to join them.

“Where is Bryant?” Chidi asked.

Girard motioned toward the ceiling. “Went topside,” he mumbled.

Chidi was about to ask why when a spotlight kicked on from above the cabin. The searchlight shot out among the darkness, illuminating the open, empty stretch of unending Salt. Chidi sighted no other sign of a boat in the vicinity. “Bryant yelled down that we had company,” she said.

“We do,” said Girard. “Left them in our wake . . . not that their kind can’t catch up.”

Their kind? Chidi wondered. She looked behind her, and found Allambee coming up from below to join them.

Then, some thirty yards off behind the boat, Chidi witnessed the first of several plumes of sea-spray. Orcs . . . she gulped as the pod exhaled one after the other.

Above them, the spotlight wheeled in the Orcs’ direction as Bryant homed on the incoming pod.

The hairs on Chidi’s arms raised at the pod’s relentless pursuit, their black dorsal fins rising above the surface like a slew of gathered submarines that moved in tandem to make their presence known, only to then vanish below once more a second later.

Allambee touched her on the arm, Chidi startling at the simple gesture. “Chidi . . .” he said. “Why are you frightened?”

Is it so obvious? She wondered, taking him by the arm and leading back to the steps that would take him below. “Allambee, you need to go back down below.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because if the Orcs are really after us, it might not be safe up here.”

Allambee frowned. “If someone means to attack us, then it will not be safe down there either,” he replied easily, standing his ground, despite Chidi’s continued insistence to push him toward the ladder.

“Allambee, please,” said Chidi, the exhales of the approaching pod resounding in her mind even above the roaring boat engines. “Please, just listen to me and go below.”

“No, Chidi,” he said. “If we are in danger, then I will stand with you. I will not leave your side again as I once did with Mr. Zymon when your master Henry came for us.”

“It isn’t Henry chasing us this time,” said Chidi, pointing to the continued, ongoing plumes as the Orc pod kept nearer to the surface in their relentless pace to catch up to the boat. “There’s more than one killer back there hunting us now.”

Allambee smiled. “In my village, I was well known to bring home fresh meat whenever I ranged.” He glanced back at the approaching pod as another wave of sea-spray shot into the air. “If those creatures are to come for us now, they will find a hunter among us also.” His teeth flashed as he patted her on the arm. “But a hunter will need a weapon.”

“A what?” Chidi asked when Allambee left her to descend into the lower cabin. She had the thought to follow him there when Girard’s voice rang out, distracting her.

“Cowboy!” the captain shouted at the ceiling and Bryant atop it. “Get the spotlight to starboard. There’s more out there!”

Chidi winced when Bryant swung the light to the left side instead. The shaft of light cut thought the night, scattering the darkness, illuminating the endless, choppy waves, but revealing little else beyond.

Girard mumbled a response. “Can’t hear us. Bloody fool.”

Or he doesn’t know what direction you were asking him to focus the light on. Chidi thought. She gathered Girard’s assessment correct a moment later when Bryant’s muffled voice shouted over the engine whir. With the Salt crashing around them, his words were dulled and lost to those inside the captain’s cabin.

The Orcs are still out there. Chidi knew, scouting the surrounding water. But where did they go? Squinting, she could see no sign of the pod, or their sea-spray either. Below, she heard Allambee rattling around in the lower cabin, scattering closet drawers and flinging the contents throughout in hurried search.

“Chidi!” Marisa called. “Come! Hurry!”

Chidi was turning to obey when she glimpsed someone waving for attention from the water, thirty yards off, their voice distant and near muted among the crashing waves. Too far out to clearly hear what the person yelled, Chidi squinted for a better look. “There . . .” she said, pointing in the direction of the castaway. “Someone’s over there.”

Girard barely looked off in the direction she pointed. “Can’t see nothing in this mess. If you can, girl, then go tell the cowboy to light them up, so I can see them too, will you?”

Chidi’s face flushed at his tone, but she ran out of the cabin to yell at Bryant all the same. The wind howled in her ears the moment she ventured outside. Chidi lost hold of the cabin door too, a strong gust slamming it against the cabin-side. She left the door open, reaching for the ladder that Bryant had climbed to reach the top of the cabin. “Bryant!” she tried shouting over the whistling wind. “Bryant, someone is out there! Swing to the right!”

Though Chidi could not say as to whether Bryant heard her or no, his spotlight swung around at the sound of her voice. The light fell upon one lost further asea, waving for aid. When the light struck the castaway’s face and torso, Chidi wished that Bryant had not bothered. It’s a trap . . . she thought, recognizing the castaway’s offsetting skin colors for what Salt race he represented. The Orc means to slow the boat, or stop it altogether by waving us down.

Squinting against the beaming spotlight, the Orc-man grinned before a Salt wave swept over him, and he vanishing beneath.

Chidi glanced over her shoulder then, cupping her hands to her mouth to act as a funnel and strengthen her voice as she called out to the Selkie captain inside the cabin. “Girard! Speed up! It’s a trap!”

The words had scarcely left her mouth when one of the Killers erupted from the Salt. He flew toward the boat in half-human form, bearing a spear. Tattered, soaking rags hung off of his torso, ending near his waistline where the Killer Whale’s gleaming black tail melded with his human skin. Reaching the zenith of his leap, the Orc-man aimed and flung the spear at Bryant and his spotlight.

“Bryant!” Chidi shouted to warn her partner, witnessing him leap off the top of the boat in an arching swan dive rather than be skewered. The flung weapon found a home instead in the spotlight that Bryant had manned. The glass shattered, raining its glittering shards across the boat deck. The light flickered and died, the air hissing with the electric current inside until the noise of it died or else was stolen by the whipping wind.

Before Chidi could think to cry out a warning to her other companions, the Salt spat still more of the Killers from its depths too. At scattered locations around the boat, the other Orcs timed their jumps to emerge as a single unit. Each burst free of the Salted shadows, each in their mammoth Leviathan-like forms, their speed matched with planned precision. As one, they transitioned in mid-air to their full human forms before landing upon the ship deck.

The first of them to land at the boat’s front was welcomed by a hail of bullets, all peppered into his chest and driving the would-be attacker backward.

Wincing at the thunderous echo that came from inside the captain’s cabin, Chidi fell to a knee and covered her ears as the flurry of gunfire continued.

The would-be Orc attacker flopped overboard, back into the Salt, his mortal wounds given to him by the boat’s Selkie captain.

Girard shouted defiance from inside his quarters, already reloading his sawed-off shotgun as the other Orcs ran for his cabin. Just as Girard finish reloading, another Orcish spear, expertly thrown, crashed through the window pane and skewered the Selkie boat captain, pinning him against his chair.

Chidi called out Girard’s name, her voice lost to the constant, stormy wind. She watched in horror as Girard collapsed into his seat, then slumped upon the spear and over his captain’s wheel, never to move of his own choosing again. Though her vision was limited, Chidi glimpsed the triumphant Orcs headed for the cabin to collect their prize and lost weapon. All were turned back when Marisa Bourgeois rose alongside the murdered Selkie captain, and she with Girard’s fallen shotgun to thwart the oncoming enemies. Marisa raised the weapon to her shoulder and fired off the double-chambered rounds through the port-side window to fend off the Orc attackers, then threw it aside to fetch up a pistol instead.

Chidi wasted no time in hurrying toward the stairwell leading below. “Allambee!” She cried down the steps at him. “Allambee, hide!”

Her Kenyan friend stepped into her line of sight, a harpoon clenched in one hand, a butcher’s knife in the other. His eyes rounded as they met with hers, and Chidi’s blood ran cold even before Allambee called her name with a warning of his own.

“Chidi, behind you!”

A vice-like grip clamped down upon her shoulder, grabbing hold of her Silkie suit with sausage-like fingers. The next Chidi knew, she was lifted off her feet and flung from the boat. She somersaulted end over end before striking the Salt on the flat of her back. Gasping, a wave thrashed over her, the Salt’s churn sucking her down. Chidi choked down the water and instinctually reached for her hood to adopt the Silkie changes of her Ribbon Seal form. She welcomed the warmth and protection from the frigid, Atlantic water, but then had to fight against her seal’s primal mind for all of the warnings it sensed and heard in the surrounding environment.

The clicks and whistles of Killer Whales encircled the area and the depths. Try as she might, Chidi could not see the Orcs through the darkened waters with her seal eyes. Bryant! She called in vain, spinning in search of the partner she had watched dive into the water before calling to those still upon the boat.

Chidi! Bryant’s scattered voice shouted after in reply. Chidi, where are you?

Before she could answer, a mammoth shadow sped past her. Its shrieking call screamed in arrival.

Chidi dodged at the last to avoid the fateful bite meant to swallow her seal body whole. The beast of black and white rocketed onward, the speed of its swim setting Chidi’s mind and seal body to spin in the Killer’s wake.

Chidi righted herself by seeking out the lighter stretch of water that signaled the surface and the air beyond. Finding it, she kicked with her hind flippers to race upward for a quick breath before the Killer came for her again.

Again, Bryant shouted in her mind from somewhere further off. They’re everywhere! Get to the boat! Where are you, Chidi? Which direction?

I don’t know! She replied, peeking above the surface, blinking her seal eyes as she stole a breath from the above. Nothing but more empty Salt lay before her. Where is the boat? She briefly wondered, surmising its location a moment later.

More peppered gunshots rang out behind her to signal Marisa’s ongoing battle for the captain’s quarters, at least. Exhaling, Chidi was turning toward the gunfire and feral screams when she caught sight of a rising, black dorsal fin closing on her position.

Diving, she glimpsed the overly large and seeming white eye patches of a Killer Whale racing in a direct path to claim her. Spinning away, Chidi swore she could feel the rubbered skin of the Killer Whale’s mouth on the tips of her hind flippers as she called upon all the speed she could muster. Rather than wait for further confirmation of the Killer coming for her again, Chidi commanded her seal body to dive for deeper water.

The Killer screamed as she did. Again, it missed her by inches to judge the speed of the mammoth creature’s self-made undertow that carried it onward and over Chidi.

The booming voice of the hunter reverberated in her mind not a second thereafter. Keep swimming all you like, Silkie. You’re nothing but meat when I catch you.

Glancing back, Chidi witnessed the Orc shifting from its Killer Whale body to adopt its half-human form instead. She continued her flight from the Killer, wheeling again when feeling his presence drawn near enough to reach her.

Unlike before, the Orc swiped at her with a human hand, his fingers closing around the end of her left hind flipper and pinching upon it.

Her momentum allowed her to slip free of his grasp. Bryant! Chidi called for his aid as she swam onward. Bryant, where are you? They’re on me!

Bryant did not answer, and Chidi had no time to call for him again.

The Orc had caught up to her once more. Learning from his failures, the hunter had waited to grab for a better hold of Chidi. His hand landed higher upon her seal body, near where her thigh would be, then slid down to grab a lower joint. Like a noose closing on its victim, the Orc twisted at the last to immediately turn and slow Chidi’s momentum.

Chidi yelped at the suddenness of her trapping. She attempted to wriggle free, but the Orc was already swinging her around to face him. No sooner than she witnessed the pleasure in his gaze, the Orc grunted in pain, his eyes rolling back. A plume of crimson water bubbled and rose around him, the Orc swallowed in a watery cloud of his own blood.

In death, the Orc’s grip released Chidi to swim free once more. She wasted no time in hurrying away, the clicks and whistles of other Orcs never far away. Despite the fear hastening her on, Chidi took a moment to look upon the face of her rescuer, expecting to find Bryant, or Marisa Bourgeois.

Instead, she met the youthful face of one wizened beyond his years.

Allambee Omondi stared back at her with a sterner look than any she had ever witnessed in her innocent, younger friend. In his gaze now, Chidi recognized the hardened stare of a hunter in his environment. More surprising still was the coldness in the Kenyan’s dark eyes.

As Allambee plucked one of Girard’s harpoons free of the dead Orc, the movement drew Chidi’s attention to how it was that her friend had come to swim so deep beneath the Salt and to slay one of the greater predators there also. Where his legs should have been, Allambee Omondi had a darkened, if silvery shark tail that stretched into the black water below.

He’s a Nomad? Chidi questioned herself, blinking with her seal eyes as if she could wish away the image.

Allambee remained in front of her, his shark tail waving back and forth like a slow pendulum to count the time. Flicking his tail to position himself in front of her, Allambee spoke to her mind with a quiet confidence. Chidi . . . swim away.

She understood why he gave the order when another pair of overly large, white eye patches gleamed at them both from the darkened waters ahead.

Go . . . Allambee commanded once more. Swim for the boat, Chidi. I will deal with these monsters.

Chidi gulped when two more Orcs appeared from the shadows around them like flanking parties on either side. I can’t. She said, idling closer to him as the Orcs closed in. I can’t leave you . . . and there’s no way for me to go without them catching me. No way I get past them.

Then, I will make you a way past them, said Allambee. Rather than wait for the Orcs to reach him, Allambee flung himself at the nearest of their attackers, lunging with his harpoon as the Orc came at him also. When the Orc used his sword to bat the harpoon away, Allambee swept his butcher’s knife upward in a killing stroke that caught his opponent beneath the chin and nearly cleaved off the Orc-man’s head.

The swift brutality of his blow stopped the other pair. For a moment, the closest Orc looked back at the other, almost as if waiting to see which would dare to attack the young Kenyan next.

Allambee used the momentary mishap to his advantage too. Bringing his harpoon to bear, he flung it across the Salt with the accuracy of a well-trained and experienced hunter. The harpoon’s end plunged through the chest of the closer Orc, spinning the hesitant killer dead in an instant, leaving only one remaining enemy where three had swum not moments ago.

Despite his slain fellows, Chidi had only to look at the remaining opponent to know he would not be driven off. Not bad for a savage, said the Orc, raising his sword in a spiteful dare for Allambee to come and claim him too. Where did you learn to fight like that, boy?

Come closer and I will tell you, Allambee growled in reply. Swim away now, and I will let you live.

The Orc raised his arms to the surrounding, empty water. ‘fraid there’s nowhere for me to go, is there? Sneering, he pointed the end of his blade at Allambee’s chest. ‘An Orc without his pod is nuthin’ as it were . . . but the day I swim away from a savage boy and his Silkie pet is the same as I meet my end, savage.

You might be nothing anyway, Chidi thought but did not say as the Orc flicked his tail and began to circle them.

Allambee matched the movement, keeping his back to Chidi, skillfully using his tail to keep himself between her and the remaining enemy.

The Orc grinned at their deadly dance. Aye, he taunted Allambee. ‘An Orc without his pod is nuthin’.’ That’s what the Blackfin said when first he took me in . . . and I’d been nuthin’ out here for far too long to doubt his claim. So, let’s have us a go then, eh, savage? The winner takes your pretty Silkie friend there. The Orc waved tip of his blade for Allambee to come on. Come and take ol’ Arsen, if you can. Only one of us swimming away from here today, and that I promise you.

Both hunters swam at each other then, clashing in a melee of steel and spite. Where Chidi had seen Allambee’s surprise and skill work against the fallen two, in this last enemy she recognized a more experienced opponent. In close quarters, the Orc named Arsen used a collection of advantages – height, weight, and reach the most important of all.

Without the use of his harpoon to deflect the longer blade of Arsen’s sword, Allambee’s movements signaled to Chidi that he too had quickly recognized the disparity between himself and the Orc. For every wide swipe that Arsen made with his sword, Allambee used the wider flat of his butcher’s knife to fend off the blow.

Allambee! Swim away! She cried out, maneuvering away from him with the hopeful thought to draw Arsen’s attention from him and grant Allambee an escape to more open waters.

The Orc cared nothing for Chidi, his gaze trained instead on the Nomad boy who had murdered his companions. Come on then, savage! Arsen crowed. That all you got, eh?

Allambee met the Orc’s taunts with quiet, watchful patience. Prepared when Arsen struck out with another one-handed swipe of his sword, Allambee again moved in mirrored tandem to deflect the blow.

The Orc was the faster learner though. With his free hand, Arsen grabbed hold of Allambee’s hair and yanked him forward, head-butting him at the last.

Allambee! Chidi shouted when the blow sent her friend reeling, the young Kenyan blinking at the surprising, ferocious attack.

Arsen’s eyes glinted in victory. With his opponent stunned, the Orc caught Allambee by the wrist, twisting it in a show of force that made the boy cry out and then release his hold over the butcher’s knife. Not so tough now, are you, savage? Arsen asked as Allambee’s weapon sank and disappeared into the Salted depths. And you called yourself a hunter . . .

Seeing an opening, Chidi shot through the water as Arsen raised his blade once more. Before he could swing the sword to kill Allambee, Chidi careened toward the Orc’s face.

The Orc sensed her oncoming attack; Arsen turned away at the last, backhanding her with a blow strong enough to send Chidi reeling. Her vision blurred as the force of it knocked her away. Allambee . . . she cried weakly. Swim . . . swim away . . .

The strength of Arsen’s hit had Chidi’s vision swirling red and black. As the black began to fall away, the red remained to offset the surrounding water. The color expanded too, a watery cloud to engulf the two nearby combatants, one locked in the stabbing embrace of the other.

Allambee! Chidi cried out when witnessing the Kenyan boy’s head rolling back, his body slumped in Arsen’s grip. Chidi’s face warmed, her body drawing upon reserves she did not know she had to cross the distance between them, biting and clawing anew, not caring what happened to her if only it meant that Allambee would be free of the Orc.

Arsen swiped blindly at her, his fists connecting with her seal ribs several times. Oi! Leave off me, you bloody beast!

Chidi fought against him anyway, her constant attack forcing Arsen to surrender his defeated foe and swim away.

The Orc did not swim far.

As Chidi swam beneath Allambee to prop up his wounded body, she too discovered what Arsen had already learned; they were no longer the only ones residing in the surrounding water.

Like a horde of phantom mer, Chidi estimated at least two dozen other Salt Children had surrounded them on all sides and beneath them too. Multi-colored tattoos adorned their faces, their bodies bearing similar markings. Long-stretched scars revealed that most should have long since met their end many times over. For all of those to swim on their outskirts, Chidi counted not a one of them with an Orcish tail.

Nomads . . . she thought, noting a similar fear dawning in Arsen’s eyes too when he turned back toward her, seeking and failing to find an escape in that direction also.

Arsen’s eyes rounded when one of the Nomads let fly a war-cried scream and swam directly at him. The war-cry was taken up by most of the other warriors too, all of them overtaking the Orc and leaving him no way of escape. For all the malice they seemed to bear Arsen, however, Chidi did not see any of them raise a weapon against him. Instead, the Nomads seemed to prefer taking the Orc alive rather than slaying him outright. Chidi’s heart thundered against her chest as the Nomads dragged Arsen screaming into the depths.

The remaining warriors came for Chidi next. They stopped short of reaching for her when a weak voice commanded them back.

No . . . Allambee uttered, flailing to place his hands upon Chidi’s seal body and embrace her. Please . . . he begged of the other Nomads. L-Leave her be . . .

Despite his call, the Nomads would not heed him.

Nor would Chidi leave her wounded friend behind as the Nomads came for them both. Leave us alone! She shouted at them, sinking under the added weight of Allambee slumped upon her. With her seal voice, she barked and hissed in warning as the Nomads swam nearer. She relaxed her stance when noting they reached for Allambee without a weapon to bear.

Despite their painted eyes, Chidi saw only concern and questions as they carefully teased Allambee from her. She studied the wounds given her friend by Arsen then too.

Blood trailed forth in wispy streams from several deep stabbings in Allambee’s belly and chest. Still more scratches adorned his hands and wrists from where he had attempt to fend off the blade meant to end him.

No . . . Chidi thought when she saw her own understanding of such wounds matched in the knowing eyes of the Nomad warriors too. Several of them shook their heads upon inspecting the wounds, the Salt already cleansing the watery cloud of blood, leaving only remnants of the crimson trails behind.

Chidi’s heart shattered as she swam toward Allambee, not stopped by the warriors that held him, nor caring if they tried to halt her for drawing near. Allambee . . . She called to his mind. Talk to me. She nipped at his hand, attempting to draw some little stirring from him. Please!

Allambee did not move, but the rise and fall of his chest signaled some little life remained within him.

One of the Nomads nearest him muttered a foreign word of his tribe then, a word not known to Chidi’s mind. She understood its meaning all the same by the actions of the others.

The other warriors drew their daggers, their postures stiffening like each prepared for a new threat to come against them. They relaxed when seeing what Chidi did also – a single seal, diving down to join them, unafraid and unrelenting in their pace.

The Cape Fur Seal swept around the warriors, glancing down upon Allambee’s body, then looking to Chidi too before halting in mid-swim. This boy is dying, the voice of Marisa Bourgeois spoke to all in the vicinity with the Common tongue. And we have a boat with supplies to tend him. It may be that he will live a while longer if you will bring him there for us to mend and care for.

One of the Nomads emerged from the grouping to speak for all the rest in the Common tongue. This boy is a brave one of our kind, Silkie, he replied to Marisa. If the Salt will claim him after his fight against the Orcs, we will sing his honor. He will not breathe your air.

He will, said Marisa. For this boy is born of two worlds. A child of Salt and Sand. And he may prefer to live awhile longer, rather than strangers sing his praises without they know his name.

The Nomad sneered at the claim. What is his name then, Silkie? And who are you to speak such commands to us? Be quick with your answers, else we take him anyway. Aye, and you two Silkies with him.

His name is Allambee Omondi, said Marisa. Let one of you dive down to your chieftains now, both to carry this boy’s name and deliver my arrival and message too. For my name is well known among one of your elders also. She looked to Chidi next. Aye, as my Silkie friend’s name is known and respected among Watawa the Open Shell and his brother, No Boundaries, too.

Watawa? Chidi saw her own recognition matched in the awe-struck expressions from the Nomads at the naming of her former owners. He’s here? And Quill too?

Come now. Marisa chirped to quiet the whispers among the Nomads. Bring the boy to our ship that we might try and save him. Aye, and let one of you go quickly now to find your elders and deliver my message of this boy’s name. Tell them that Marisa Bourgeois awaits them in the above . . . and that I have brought the ones I promised to deliver not so long ago.

13

GARRETT

With the Sancul over an hour gone, the Nomad tribal leaders had resorted to in-fighting again over the offer made by the Sancul leader, Kanaloa.

Time? Ishmael flung the word at Cursion White Shadow. The Deep Dwellers reveal themselves to us and extend an offer of alliance! Aye, to help us overcome our enemies and to shape the world, yet you request time from them to consider the offer?

Aye, said Cursion. As I would have us all consider and discuss the offer of an alliance fully.

Ishmael snorted. Make no mistake, high chieftain, it were not an offer made in earnest. The Sancul leader gave us a choice to live or die. That was all.

A grim choice, then, Cursion agreed. If you consider it one at all.

A better one than they mean to offer the Merrows and Orcs, said Ishmael. By my count, there were only five of the Sancul among us. And five were enough to end all of us in this council. How would you expect our people to swim against the legions of Deep Dwellers that Kanaloa spoke of?

I saw no legions this night, said Cursion.

Ishmael scoffed. That does not mean they are not lingering nearby, or even beneath. He opened his arms to the surrounding dark water, then made a show of sweeping his hand to both and below. Who is to say the Sancul do not listen to us argue even now?

Watawa shook his head as he swam closer. If so, then no doubt they would hear the same fear in the voice of Red Water as I do.

Ishmael glared across the water at the one-eyed Nomad. The Open Shell speaks bravely now, yet I did not hear a word from him when the Deep Dwellers swam among us. Tell me, coward, what lends you such bravery now in the presence of Red Water? Do you fear me less?

I fear that which I have seen in my dreams, said Watawa, casting his gaze on Cursion White Shadow and then upon Garrett too. Aye, his voice shook in mixed resolve and fright. And I fear greatly that the worst of them were made true this night in front of me.

Cursion nodded back. Speak on, Open Shell. The council would hear you.

Ishmael snorted. Why should the council listen to this self-proclaimed shaman? The coward before you is no leader, not even among his own unwanted tribe of misfits. It his brother’s voice this council craves. Not the feckless, ramblings from Watawa the Drunken Shell.

He is not drunk this night, said Cursion. And we shall hear Watawa all the same. For we are a council, no? Red Water does not speak for all the people here, nor all of the ones above that we here are meant to serve.

No, said Ishmael, sneering. I do not speak for all. No more than the White Shadow should do.

For a moment, Garrett thought his Nomad father meant to cross the distance between he and Ishmael, their debate moving on from words to war instead.

Another spoke up to save them from it. The White Shadow listens, said Atsidi Darksnout. Did he not say as much unto the Deep Dwellers and were lauded by their leader for it? He further silenced Ishmael with an angered look. Keep your tongue, Red Water. We all of us here know what your vote would be when it comes to aligning or no with the Deep Dwellers. Not all of us are so certain as you.

Aye, said Ishmael. I would ally with the monsters of old. He played to the other chieftains. Who among us would be so foolish to sacrifice our people by denying their invitation? Ishmael’s gaze flitted back to Atsidi. What say you to their offer, Silent Hammer?

Atsidi shook his head. Be it for this council or another, my answer has not changed. It will not waver either, not even for the Deep Dwellers. The Hammer chieftain’s head raised in proud response. My tribes will take no part in the coming war. We swim only as a sign of unity among the Nomads.

Unity? Ishmael snickered. I wonder, does that alliance extend even to the Sancul also?

That would depend on the outcome of this council, said Atsidi. For my allegiance is to the people first. The Nomad people, he clarified when Ishmael cocked an eyebrow in response. We hold no allegiance to the Deep Dwellers who have long since vanished from this world and left us Salt Children to war against one another for all the long years since. He turned toward Cursion again. Still, I would hear what the White Shadow decides. It seems to me his voice is the last of us that I have yet to hear. What think you of a Sancul alliance, high chieftain?

Garrett looked to his Nomad father with all the rest, the off-setting silver and white of Cursion’s Great White Shark tail gleaming in the glow of the pale and greenish bioluminescent lanterns to hold off the surrounding darkness. Among the others, Garrett noticed that all but Ishmael and Short-Shore appeared as curious as he and Atsidi Darksnout were also for the answer to come.

Despite their waiting, Cursion White Shadow took his time in choosing his words before speaking to the question asked of him. I will answer and speak my mind to such things, said he. But I would hear more from the Open Shell first. He has long spoken of his own dreams and of the shadows rising within them. It seems to me now this offer from the Deep Dwellers may be a sign of such dreams proved true and the storm to come. Aye, or mayhap their arrival signals the storm is upon us already. He looked to Watawa. What say you, Open Shell?

I say the Sancul’s coming this night is like the clap of thunder to announce the storm, Watawa’s voice shook. Aye, and that the end draws nigh for us to choose our fate. For of all our foes, who is the truest enemy? Those who swim beneath the Salt, or those who breathe the air and walk above? If my dreams prove true, we condemn ourselves and all other Salt Children and Selkies too with every lingered discussion here as to the intentions of the creatures from dark and deep who come among us cloaked in shadow.

You would fear them, then? Cursion asked. That their offer is truly not one made in earnest?

I would fear any offer from the Sancul, said Watawa. If it were left to me, high chieftain, I would send our fastest swimmers to the furthest reaches of the Salt. Aye, even unto the Merrow king and his Blackfin too in search of truer allies to swim against the Other.

Garrett’s stomach twisted at the jeers and outcry from the other chieftains then, and it again being Ishmael to lead their outcry.

Allies, you say? Ishmael laughed. The Sancul arise with the power of the Abyss behind them and offer us to share in their bounty to come, yet you would have us sacrifice our fastest warriors to the whims and tortures of a spoiled, Merrow king, and his wretched, pet seawolf. All with a warning of the tides to come? He scoffed. I wronged you before, Open Shell. Even a child might pity a coward, for they too know what it is to fear. What you speak of now is treason.

Is it treason to speak one’s mind? Watawa asked.

If the words betray their people, aye, said Ishmael. But then it seems our high chieftain would allow you to continue speaking for an unwanted tribe already. Perhaps the Merrow side in all of those like you cries out to save your blow-holed brethren in the pearl city, no?

Watawa shook his head. I seek life for any and all that I might spare, Red Water, he replied, his lone eye gleaming. It may even be one day that I speak to save your life also.

Ishmael laughed. Keep your pity and your words if that day should come, Open Shell. I should rather welcome my death than remain here knowing it were your merciful words to spare me. He looked down his nose at Watawa a final time, then turned back to Cursion White Shadow. Well, high chieftain? It seems you have your answer from the traitor whelp that speaks for the Unwanted cowards. What do you say now? What wisdom has the shadow heard and now brings before us that he might illuminate for those of us too dull to understand and recognize truth from lies?

Cursion shook his head. Like the voices in our council, I am of two minds. No small part of me cries out to accept the Sancul offer and to join our forces with theirs in sweeping victory. Aye, if only to lessen the losses that our people should sustain in fighting the Merrow king and his Orcs if we were to swim alone. He glanced at Garrett once more, his gaze lingering. And yet when I see my son before me, I am reminded this choice is not one made for this night alone. He hesitated the longer he stared on Garrett and his offsetting skin colors. Aye, nor even for our people alone, but for all those who swim beneath the Salt and live above it also.

Ishmael gave a swish of his tail to swim before Cursion. You speak with wisdom, high chieftain, and yet your words carry the same treason as the Open Shell spoke also.

Cursion snorted. Then you ought to hear such words for the truth they hold, Red Water, rather than add your own selfish wants to twist them.

Selfish? Ishmael asked. Is it selfish to think on the needs of our people and their children?

Red Water has no children, said Cursion, his voice rising in a seeming dare for Ishmael to challenge him. Or, say rather, none he means to claim and nurture in his own image.

Ishmael sneered. Odd then that it should be my voice to speak reason unto this council. A partnering of ours with the Sancul legions seems to me a swifter end for the Orcs and Merrows. Aye, and less losses for all to manage with a victory assured for the combined strength and numbers of a Salt alliance.

And yet what victory is ever truly assured? Cursion parsed his words. There are stories even among our people of witnessing Selkie slaves who toppled entire Orc pods. To believe a victory assured before the battle is to find oneself drowning in the same Red Waters you are so named for, young one.

Ishmael rolled his eyes. Let us say ‘a victory nearly assured’ then, high chieftain. We better the odds of our survival with an alliance between us and the Sancul rather than we swim against them and the might of New Pearlaya also, no?

Aye, it might well be, said Cursion. It might also be the Sancul lure us with promises of treaty. In the stories my father told me as a boy, the Deep Dwellers were known to be the great deceivers of old and used our people as pawns in the War of the Ancients. By my understanding, had it not been for the Ancients to put down the Deep Dwellers, we should likely be swimming under Sancul tyranny. Without the Ancient might and magic of old here to save us now, who else then to stop the Sancul from ascending for good and all? Who, if not the Children that the wise ones left behind to rule this world in Their stead?

You name the Ancient Ones as wise, said Ishmael. And yet there has been naught but further fighting and war amongst our people with the Merrows and Orcs since the Ancients left the Salt unto us, their Children.

Cursion nodded. It seems to me more and more of late then that children must mature and wizen for the failures of those who came before them. He looked on Garrett and smiled. All that they might shape a better world than was left to them by their forefathers and mothers both.

Garrett swore a knowing gleam lived in Ishmael’s eyes as he swam around Cursion to better look on the council too. Again, our high chieftain teaches with wisdom beyond my years. And I am not so foolish as to not heed my elders. Ishmael shrugged. Say we were to listen to the Open Shell’s plan and send word to the blow-holes in New Pearlaya. Even if the Merrow king and the Blackfin’s Orcs were to ally with us, what should happen if we lose? Who to look after the children of our people, or those of our enemies also, if the Sancul were to defeat us all?

Who is to say the Sancul should stop with the defeat of New Pearlaya? Cursion replied. Why should the Sancul cease their conquering with the Merrows and Orcs destroyed? Why not then turn upon us also, after our numbers too have been lessened for the shared fight? He shook his head. If the Sancul have legions of their own people still in hiding, then truly we bring nothing to their conquest to come. And if we bring nothing to add, then we are little more than servants and tools for them to use. Aye, and with our losses meaning nothing to their eventual victory.

So, you would ally us to the Open Shell’s plan, then? Ishmael asked. To warn the Orcs and Merrows? Ally ourselves with the supposed might of New Pearlaya?

I said nothing of agreement there either, said Cursion. It were time I requested of the Sancul, as I would request further time from this council now also. All that we may together decide the fate of our people, rather than surrender to impulse and fear-mongering.

We are precious short of time, high chieftain, said Ishmael. It will not be long until our people swim before the pearly gates of the Salt capital. What then awaits us and our people there but enemies on all sides, if you refuse the offer given to us?

I know not what lies in the future, said Cursion. No more than you either, Red Water. I would ask this council only to take this night for thought that we might rejoin on the morrow with our shared decision to lead our people forward.

The way forward is to war, high chieftain, said Ishmael. As it has ever been all this way in our journey unto the pearled city. He cocked an eyebrow, glancing at Garrett. Or perhaps you only seek to delay us with the same request you made of the Sancul?

Cursion flared. If you have something to speak to me, then let you say it outright, boy. Do not mince riddles with me.

Very well. Your lost love, Makeda, awaits in the pearl city, no? The mother of your Orc-son? Ishmael asked. Aye, the same city you murdered her father in, then fled from. All rather than continue the fight and to sack the city in full for the glory of our people.

Atsidi Darksnout sprang forward then, his sword drawn, tail firing him onward to arrive at the side of Cursion in an instant. Watch your tongue, boy. That is the high chieftain you speak with.

I’m not speaking with him, fool, I’m speaking to him, said Ishmael. And put your sword away, Silent Hammer, lest I take it from you and steal your tribe from beneath you too. You think the Hammers do not long to join the rest of us in the swim to war and blood-letting? Oh, but they do, old one. Ishmael said in such a way that Garrett’s blood warmed to its stirring call. We are all of us chieftains of our tribes only so long as the people allow, or else until a stronger hand comes to take them from us. We are not Orcs bound by foolish thoughts of honor, or, worse, their loathsome, Merrow cousins holding endlessly on to the dream of a royal and noble line stretching back to the beginning of time. No, he swam away from them, presenting himself to the council once more. We know strength when it swims before us. What it is to honor the old ways and the forms that even time itself has not dared to change from our first shaping. For we are Nomads! The true rulers of the five oceans. He glared at Cursion and Atsidi both. And if the pair of you have forgotten that truth, then perhaps you are not the sort to lead our tribes in the fight to come.

Cursion sneered. And you named the Open Shell a traitor.

Aye, said Ishmael. Just as I would name one who lay with a she-Orc and welcomed their bastard son into our fold.

Garrett could not hold his tongue any longer. He too swam into the mix. Welcoming me? He spat at Ishmael. You were the one who brought me to the Devil’s Triangle! I wouldn’t have even known to go there, or who White Shadow was, if it wasn’t for you!

Ishmael smirked. Aye, I returned you to our people, said he. And yet you scorned that gift too, Garrett Weaver. You abandoned our tribes and swam for the shore the moment such a choice was offered to you, boy. What led you to rethink that decision and rejoin us now, hmm? Did the notion finally settle within you that we were soon to fall upon the pearl city and kill both your kindred Orcs and your mother too?

Garrett grit his teeth. My mom is already dead.

Is she? Ishmael asked. Odd. I had not heard it sung among our people yet that the daughter of Orcin had been slain. How then did she die, boy?

I’m not talking about Makeda and you know it, said Garrett. Makeda killed my real mom. And the Orcs either murdered, or took, everyone else I loved away from me too. You and the Sancul can take them all down for all I care.

Brave words, said Ishmael. But words of themselves mean nothing, boy. It’s actions alone to win the trust of me and my people, Orc.

Garrett was about to speak against him further when a pair of seashell horns sounded in the above, their melody dark and bellowing over and again in signal of those below. For a moment, Garrett thought it were a pod of seawolves to fall upon them. Yet none of the other Nomads among the council seemed to share his concern. All had looked upward as the horns continued to sound, the divers rapidly descending.

Those aren’t Orc horns . . . Garrett realized a moment later when they sounded from the darkness again. So, what are they? Who is blowing the horns?

A few minutes later, the alarmists appeared – a pair of Mako sharks speeding into the depths, both bearing a white conch horn in one hand and a bioluminescent lantern in the other to light their way ahead. One broke off from the other to swim for the Mako chieftain. The other swam directly toward Cursion at the center.

High chieftain! The Mako cried, panting for his effort to reach them after so fast and deep of a dive. High chieftain! I bring . . . word from the above.

Breathe, boy, said Cursion first. What news do you bring?

An attack, sir, the Mako gasped. The Blackfin’s seawolves come again to harry our ranks. We drove most of them off and captured a few, but . . . we found some Selkies among them.

Selkies? Cursion asked. How would their kind survive a swim this far out in the open?

The Mako warrior’s gaze wandered toward Garrett and blinked rapidly as if he were soon to pass out for his efforts. They came with a boat, said the Mako, returning his focus to Cursion. The Selkies crossed the Salt upon a boat. They wait for you in the above, high chieftain.

For me? Cursion asked. What concern are a band of Selkies to me?

Not the Selkies alone, high chieftain, said the Mako. There was a Nomad among them . . . a child of Salt and Sand . . . a young brave to fend off the Orc pod and hold them at bay to keep the Selkies safe.

Cursion straightened at that. A young brave to swim alone against a pod of seawolves? He asked, his tone being that of one impressed by the relayed news.

The Mako nodded in reply. There is more also, high chieftain. He hesitated to speak further, his gaze flitting between Cursion and the other chieftains.

What else? Cursion asked. What news?

It’s one of the Silkies, high chieftain . . . said the Mako. She claims her name is known among us . . . and that the Nomad brave . . . The Mako averted his eyes from Cursion and found his target among one of the other chieftains. She claims the Nomad who saved the Selkies from the Orcs is the son of Silent Hammer.

* * *

Part III

The Mermaid Trials

14

SYDNEY

Sydney shivered as Malik Blackfin led her through one of the Nautilus’s main tunnels. There were cracks in the ceiling and walls, the cooler air whispering against her skin, the feel of the structure itself seeming to her as old as time itself.

Sydney’s face pained at the memory of her introduction into the ancient theatre. Then, she had been escorted by Rupert, curious to hear more of his stories about the Nautilus. How it was built in a time before time, to hear the Nomads tell it, when all was dark and cold and the Unspeakables swam its Salt-filled halls, performing their pagan rituals and weaving dark magic. Likewise, she had wondered what the night might hold. What new surprise her supposed father, the king, had in store for the audience and her mother.

Sydney held no such curiosity now. Not for what lay ahead, nor of the ghosts that Rupert Bowrider had once told her haunted the ancient halls, tunnels, and waters beneath them. Still, she recognized the tunnel that her Orc escort led down for the same as when she and Rupert had walked together on the same night her mother was taken captive after the play that Yvla had starred in.

At the tunnel’s end, Sydney glimpsed the beginnings of a stretching pool at the center of all. The pool seemed to elongate with every step, revealing more of the arena-like Nautilus and the awaiting crowds beyond. Like the dolphinarium Sydney had trained in at the Indianapolis Zoo, glass panes surrounded the entirety of the Nautilus’s vast pool. Her heart raced at the notion the glass panes were not constructed there without reason. Despite the torches surrounding it, the dark of the undisturbed water spoke to endless depth. Sydney thought of it as a black mirror, reflecting the glimmer of stalactites like starlight.

At the pool’s center was a floating stage - a royal barge, glimmering as if it were a magnificent, giant pearl. Sydney thought the stage beautiful and haunting at once, unlike any she had ever seen before. Then, she noticed what she assumed to be several freestanding boxes, each covered with violet curtains. Sydney trembled in wonder of what was kept hidden beneath them.

Malik stopped short of the tunnel’s end, his thumb digging in Sydney’s bicep. “Be sure to smile and wave, savage,” he grunted. “You would do well to continue this princess façade and do all in your power to distance yourself from your traitor mother during these trials. In the eyes of the people, I assure you that she is already lost. Wouldn’t want them to lose their precious princess too, now would we? Especially seeing as how you’re no real princess at all, eh?”

A number of retorts flew to Sydney’s mind, then. She held them all back rather than play to his mind-games.

Malik Blackfin smiled at her silence too. “There, there now, girl. Don’t be cross with me for giving you sage advice. Should you prove willing to play your part, it might well be that we find a way for you to survive these traitor trials.”

Sydney could not hold her tongue. “Whatever role you have in mind for me, I won’t do it.”

Malik’s grin widened further still. “We’ll see.” He ushered her forward then, continuing their shared march beyond the tunnel and revealing themselves to the crowd.

A smattering of applause took Sydney aback as she exited the tunnel and entered into plain sight. The whispers came next, but it was the silence thereafter to deaden all to a standstill that struck her more.

Is the silence for me, she wondered. Or the Blackfin?

Sydney fended off her tears as the Blackfin led her onward. She remembered the roar of the crowd the first time she had been introduced to the people of New Pearlaya. Countless strangers had filled the stands on the opposite side then, all dressed in an array of finery as if each were in a competition to garner the most intrigue. She recalled her gaze sweeping over the royals, their makeup and dyed hair in every shade of color imaginable – brilliant oranges and greens, sky-blues with streaks of neon pink, and furious reds. Some among them had spackled themselves with glitter, their faces and arms glimmering in the torchlight, entrancing Sydney with their every wave, all vying to gain her notice.

Now, there were more commoners than not, more grime and worse upon their faces and the tattered clothes they wore. In the scorn living upon many of their faces, Sydney estimated the Blackfin had spoken some truth to her, at least; her mother was doomed to the crowd’s pre-supposed judgement before even being brought on trial. Still, Sydney found some sympathy among the lot when she and the Blackfin neared the arena bottom and approached an ivory bridge.

Crossing over, Sydney glanced over the side at the pitch-black water beneath her and surrounding the whole of the barge. How deep does it go? She wondered, the darkness affording no clues as to whether the water were twenty feet deep, or else led all the way down into the Abyss.

Sydney winced at another pinch in her bicep – the Blackfin urging her to look ahead rather than off of his directed path. She relented to the pain he caused her, refocusing on what lay ahead.

A private, tented viewing box stood as the stage’s centerpiece and focal point of the Nautilus arena. Therein, the Merrow king, Darius, sat upon a plush and polished, high-backed chair of old oak.

The look Darius gave Sydney offered no hint of delight at her arrival. The king was slow to rise in greeting her too. When he did eventually stand to welcome her, it was to take Sydney by the hand and guide her to sit in the smaller, wood-carved throne beside his taller one.

Only when the crowd cheered and applauded at the reunited display between the supposed father and his princess did Darius brighten and wave, playing the role of a happy, charming king as Sydney now understood he had done for her also in private.

“Smile and wave, Sydney,” Darius said under his breath, even as he continued playing to the crowd. “Let them see you happy to be rescued and returned to my side.”

Sydney obeyed, her hand shaking as it rose. Obeying the king’s command, the mere gesture of Sydney waving sent the crowd into a fervor, her name and title shouted by many. Others whistled and cheered. But are their reactions real? Sydney wondered of the crowd. Or are they like me? All playing their part because of what will happen if they don’t?

Darius gave her no time to ponder such thoughts. At the crowd’s first sign of approval in Sydney, he made an even grander show at ushering her in front of him and then sweeping behind her like a gentleman bowing before his lady. The performance brought forth more applause. Whether genuine or forced, the audience did not cease in their appreciation as the king waved a final time. Then, he took Sydney by the hand and led her back toward the royal tent to still more cheers.

“What is this?” Sydney dared to ask Darius as they entered in and the king guided her to sit in the chair to his left. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Whatever this is,” said Sydney, sitting in the chair offered to her. “You throw me into a watery cell, then leave me in the oubliette. Now, you’re presenting me to the crowd like I’m still a princess. Like I’m your daughter and nothing has changed.”

“Nothing has,” said Darius. “Not in the eyes of the people, at least.” His lip curled. “Or not yet anyway, though I hope the reminders of the oubliette will serve you now. Let you think on all that has occurred thus far. Aye, and on the lives of your friends and mother too, Sydney, lest you think to disobey me now or anything that comes next.”

Sydney shivered as the king turned from her, motioning to another in their company instead.

“Blackfin,” said the king. “Let these traitor trials begin . . .”

Trials? Sydney wondered, again cuing on the word. Who else is being tried today, except Mom?

Malik wasted no time in obeying the order. “Painted Guard!” He barked at Solomon and the others in his company before leading them toward the covered cages.

Of those who had still been cheering in the crowd, Sydney saw them all silenced at the sight of Malik Blackfin and his Orcs. Where she hoped to hear some disagreement or disapproval from any in the audience, no other voice but his cut through the silent crowd as Malik Blackfin took center stage.

“People of New Pearlaya!” He bellowed for all to hear, as if he were born to such an act. “Today, you witness history unfolding! Aye, today, my people, you understand that no one is above the laws of our great city, nor the five oceans either. For today, my friends . . . today, you see justice weighed even upon a queen and her subjects in equal measure.”

Where Sydney had thought the crowd loud before, nothing from them compared to the sounds that echoed throughout the Nautilus when the Blackfin finished his speech.

They want this . . . Sydney understood then, her face warming when Malik nodded for Solomon and the other Orcs to approach one of the covered cages. Her eyes welled at the crowd’s hunger for the show to continue as Solomon ripped off the violet covering of the centermost cage.

Sydney gasped at the sight of the prisoner within. Oh, Mom. She thought, tears staining her cheeks. What have they done to you?

Sopping wet, dirty and disheveled, and with her head shorn, Nattie Gao looked nothing like the mother Sydney remembered. The queen still wore the same gown from the night Darius ordered her taken into custody, yet now the dress of Nattie Gao was mildewy and stained as if she were a true commoner plucked and dragged out of the Beam Ends. The disgraced queen’s body was pale and withered too. For all the seeming weakness of her physical form and dress, Sydney recognized a defiance in her mother’s eyes the like of which Sydney had never seen too. Despite her circumstance, the jeers and boos from the crowd, Nattie Gao stood resolute within her cage. She did not waver from it even as Malik Blackfin approached her.

“Look you to this fallen queen!” He barked to the crowd. “She stands accused of high treason for acts of adultery, sedition . . . and plotting to kill our beloved king.”

Kill him? Sydney’s immediate question and disavowing of such crimes were lost to the crowd’s deafening response.

The Blackfin allowed the masses their reaction, not continuing until the majority had quieted once more. “Still . . .” he silenced the last of them with a word. “His royal highness is ever just and fair, even unto his enemies.”

Bile rose in Sydney’s throat as she looked on the king’s stony face beside her.

Malik Blackfin went on. “In his infinite wisdom, the king has decreed his wife be given an honest trial. The chance to refute her supposed crimes and bring evidence to the contrary,” Malik turned to Nattie in her cage. “What say you to these charges, my queen? Are you guilty or no?”

Nattie met his question and the awaiting crowd with silence. In her steely eyes, the queen gave answer aplenty to Malik Blackfin and the Merrow king.

Why won’t you say anything, Mom? Sydney wondered, her heart breaking as the crowd booed and shouted further threat and dares for the queen to speak out against her captors and charges laid against her. Or do you keep quiet because all the charges are true? She shuddered. Because both me and Jun don’t belong to Darius . . . and you know what it will mean, if you admit it?

Malik Blackfin’s grin broadened at Nattie’s continued silence. “Very well, my queen,” he said. “We’ll look to those closest to you for the truth of your supposed crimes or no.” Malik turned his head. “Bring out the witnesses!”

Sydney’s eyes rounded when Malik’s second-in-command, Solomon, led the other Orc soldiers to remove the curtain from the other cages upon the barge. For every cage revealed, Sydney’s eyes stung with the sight of still more familiar faces.

Owens, her high school friend and traveling companion, stood tall inside one cage with a grouping of near twenty other Orcs and his father too. Each of them was as dirty and disheveled as the queen, each burdened by chains and fetters, each of them standing without room for any to sit.

Makeda, the former pod mother of the Painted Guard, stood beside Mr. Owens and at the head of the other caged Orcinians also. Stripped of her armor, Makeda too looked smaller now than Sydney remembered her being when surrounded by Painted Guard soldiers and with a sword at her side. Like with the queen, however, there was no denying the look in Makeda’s unbroken and condemning stare as she glared at her brother beyond the bars.

Other cages housed more friends and people known to Sydney also. Her chest tightened when finding Merrows from the Indianapolis zoo – the aerialist performer, Amelia, chained alongside her father, Jack Mayfield, the zoo’s longtime seal and sea lion trainer.

Sydney estimated roughly thirty yards between her vantage point and theirs, but she could tell that her friend was crying too. She watched helplessly as Amelia leaned into her father’s embrace to shield her from the taunting crowd. I’m sorry. Sydney wished that she could say. That her friend might truly understand how much Sydney wished that she could take every decision back. Every choice starting with the one that had led to she and Amelia convincing Owens to leave with them in the night. All with the hope of finding Garrett Weaver and the Selkies who had taken him.

Other prisoners were gathered inside the cages too. Sydney could not name them all, but she recognized more than not. Her heart sank for the knowledge of that favored place she had come to know and meet so many of those inside the cage in her life before coming into the Salt.

Home. Sydney choked. They’re almost all from home . . . the Indy Zoo . . .

Fear took her fully then, Sydney’s gaze sweeping over the prisoner faces in search of her brother, Jun, among them. She thought of her mother’s friend, Barb, and Wilda too, the eldest of them all and Amelia’s grandmother. For all the familiar faces gathered inside the cages, Sydney did not see any of those three.

She did recognize the last of them coming to the front of the cages though, a tiny and elderly woman she had seen nearly every day of school for the past six years. Ms. Morgan? Sydney’s brow furrowed at the sight of her school’s crotchety vice principal.

The old spinster’s glasses were gone and much of her face and body covered in bruises, but her one good eye was sharp in constant watch of the Blackfin and his Orcs beyond. Ms. Morgan gripped the iron bars of her cage to steady herself, she alone holding her ground as the Orcs came to unlock the gate.

How did you all get here? Sydney wondered of her friends and the other prisoners. Why are you all here?

As the gate was swung open, Solomon entered in and made his choice of which prisoner to bring out first.

Amelia’s face turned ashen as Solomon chose her from the lot, taking her roughly by the arm.

Jack Mayfield screamed obscenities and threats for the Orcs to release his daughter. He stopped shouting when another Orc came for him next, knocking Jack over the head for added measure before bringing him out of the cage to still more booing from the crowd.

Sydney winced at the crowd’s shouting calls of Amelia and her father being traitors and worse. Both were led to stand before the masses near the center of barge-like stage.

Malik Blackfin waved the crowd to silence. Then, he turned toward the prisoners, his voice booming for all to hear. “Your name, girl. What is it, and where are you from?”

Amelia whimpered a reply.

“Louder,” said Malik.

“M-My name is Amelia Mayfield,” she said. “I-I used to live at the Indianapolis Zoo.”

Malik’s head cocked to the side. “‘Used to’, you say?”

“Yessir.”

“You’ll have to forgive me, dear, but there are many among the king’s true and loyal subjects here who have never left this city, nor heard of such a place where refugees band together after they claim to swallow the anchor. Tell us, child . . . what is a zoo?”

Sydney’s eyes widened then, remembering the story he had told her of his own pilgrimage ashore to visit a zoo with his father and sister. From afar, she saw that Makeda too was shaking her head, she understanding better than most where her brother meant to lead the crowd.

As Amelia explained what a zoo was and of her life ashore, the crowd began to boo louder for her continued definition.

“So,” Malik interrupted Amelia. “These zoos . . . they are a prison for our people, yes? Cells to keep our people from our rightful heritage that we might instead be gawked at by mindless humans?”

“No,” said Amelia. “It . . . it was my home.”

“And were you happy there, child?” Malik asked. “Living out the life of a refugee among the Drybacks? No . . . for how could you be satisfied inside a small, watery tank when you could have had the whole Salt to swim in?”

Amelia blushed. “I was happy though . . .”

“Why leave, then?” Malik asked. “Why run away from the confinement you name as a home to venture into the Salt?”

Amelia’s mouth worked open and closed, her eyes darting toward Sydney. “I . . . I . . .”

“Speak, girl!” Malik barked. “Or did the Drybacks take your spirit, in addition to your freedom?”

“No,” said Amelia.

“Why, then?” Malik pressed her. “Why did you choose to leave your home and this zoo upon the shore?”

Amelia glanced at Sydney again. “I-I wanted to see the Salt,” she said finally.

For a moment, Sydney believed Malik meant to bring her into the conversation by way of Amelia’s answers.

But the Blackfin was not finished with his inquiry. “She wanted to see the Salt . . .” he said, his voice lighter in tone, drawing the crowd further in to ensure they heard his every word. “Only a child . . . and yet the waters of her true home called to her, bidding this girl to return and swim freely in search of her own destiny and her kindred too.” Malik turned back to Amelia. “But why now, child? Why after so many years abroad? What prompted this longing in you, girl? This desire to return to the Salt?”

Again, Amelia could not help but look in Sydney’s direction.

Don’t. Sydney thought. Don’t play his games . . .

Amelia’s father spoke up for her instead.

“The princess,” said Jack Mayfield. “The princess, Sydney, convinced my daughter to go. Begged her and the son of General Owens to leave our home and return to the Salt.”

When Malik’s grin widened, Sydney’s knuckles whitened in gripping the edge of her chair.

“And had any of this young trio been to the Salt before?” Malik asked.

Jack slumped, his chains rattling. “No, sir . . .”

Malik scratched his head. “I’m confused, sir. If the children had never been, how then would they know the way?”

Jack glared back at the Blackfin and the Orcs surrounding him and his daughter. “They freed a prisoner from the zoo, sir . . .”

Malik Blackfin raised his hand to quiet the immediate gasps and questions from the crowd. “A prisoner, you say?” He asked, delight lingering in his every word. “And this prisoner’s name . . . his race? Do you know it?”

“Aye, sir,” said Jack quietly. “He’s a Selkie, er, a Welkie, rather.”

Malik stepped closer to Amelia, resting his hand upon her shoulder in plain view of her father. “The name, sir,” Malik insisted of Jack. “Who was this prisoner taken and kept ashore?”

Jack shook at the visible threat upon his daughter. “Brutus,” he said, his voice simmering in reply. “Brutus the Butcher.”

Sydney’s face pale at the immediate scorn from the audience. We didn’t know he was a murderer. She thought, watching in horror as the Painted Guard fanned out around the barge in warning for any of those among the crowd to think twice about leaving the stands and coming to give action to their cries for vengeance and blood. We didn’t know who Brutus was, or what he had done in the Selkie Strife. We didn’t know he fought against the crown and led the Selkie rebellions. She looked from Amelia at the center and then to Owens in the cage beside his father. Neither would look at her, both staring at the floor in response of Jack’s truthful answers.

Sydney held to her weak defense. We didn’t know . . .

But you did, her subconscious argued with her. You did know some things . . . or you could have, if you had listened to Owens that night and stayed at the zoo.

Sydney too looked at the floor then, as if the barge beneath her might hold the answers. Why didn’t we stop? She wondered then. Why didn’t we think twice about it?

Garrett Weaver’s face came to the forefront of her mind then, and more tears to follow. Sydney realized, then, that she had not thought of either Garrett’s safety, or his whereabouts, in many a day. The last she had seen of Garrett, the two of them had been with Owens when they all entered New Pearlaya together. All to find Makeda awaiting within to collect Sydney’s two former classmates and force them into service of the Painted Guard.

Sydney looked over to the Orc cages then, studying their faces once more as if she might have missed seeing Garrett among them. A part of her craved seeing him there, if only because it would prove that he too was still alive for the moment.

But, as with her brother, Jun, her Silkie friend, Ellie, and so many others from home and those Sydney had come to know beneath the waves, Garrett Weaver was not among the prisoners.

Sydney clung to their absences as a sliver of hope when Malik Blackfin shouted the crowds to quite once more.

“So,” he continued his inquiry of Jack Mayfield and Amelia. “Your daughter traveled here with both the princess and the son of another traitor—”

“My dad’s not a traitor!” Owens interrupted, shouting from the cage that held him. “He’s as loyal a soldier as you’ll ever find! He’d take down any of you fools in a fair fight too!”

Sydney’s breath caught in her throat as Solomon rushed to the cage, his hand already reaching for his sword.

“Peace, Solomon,” Malik called him down. “The boy clearly does not understand the severity of his situation.”

Owens would not be silenced. “I know you’re the real traitor,” he said to Malik. “And your sister here, Makeda? She’s the real Orc leader! She’s only in chains because you and your Violovar betrayed her and everyone else in this city!”

A murmur went through the crowd, and was quickly silenced with a look from Malik Blackfin.

“Are you quite finished, boy?” he asked of Owens, then.

“Nah, man,” said Owens. “I got loads to say.”

“Good,” said Malik. “For your time will come. As will justice for the claims against my sister and your father too. Perhaps that justice will fall even sooner for all of you, if you dare to interrupt me again, boy. In truth, if it were left to my decision, justice would fall to each of you this very day. For as I look upon the faces here, I know most for oath-breakers. All pathetic souls who swore to leave the Salt and never return. That each of you still lives comes only from the king’s mercy.” He glared at Owens. “But this is still a royal trial. Whether innocent or guilty to the charged crimes, any who think to speak out of line again will pay the consequences for disruption.”

Just shut up, Owens. Sydney thought, her gaze pleading with him.

Another spoke up for all those quieted by the Blackfin’s threat.

Her haggard voice came from one of the other prisoner cages, but her tongue was sharp as ever. “Disruption . . .” Ms. Morgan steadied herself against the bars, then pointed a bony finger in the Blackfin’s direction. “That’s a funny word from the likes of you, boy.”

All hint of former amusement dropped from the face of Malik Blackfin then, his lip curling at the slight.

Sydney heard her mother speak for the first time too, Nattie Gao calling out to the Tiber High School vice principal. “Morgan . . .” the queen’s voice cracked. “Don’t. Please.”

“Aye.” Malik glared at the elderly prisoner. “Listen to your queen, hag. Perhaps whatever vision remains to you in that poor excuse for an eye clouds your judgement, but I will not tolerate—”

“No, you’ll not tolerate much, will you?” Ms. Morgan asked, barking a laugh. “You’re the Blackfin - feared by all throughout the five oceans and beyond.” She waved a shackled hand as if warding off a passing butterfly. “Aye, or so most of those here tell me.”

Malik snorted. “You would be wise to heed them, hag.”

“Might be I should.” Ms. Morgan looked on him squarely, just as Sydney had seen her do to thousands of students before him. “But I’ve been ashore too long now to care for fanciful Salt stories of little bullies like you.”

Malik Blackfin laughed at that, long and loud. He marched over to the cage that his shadow might envelope the smaller prisoner. “You call me little?”

“I did,” Ms. Morgan answered, staring up at him. “And it was you who mistook me, boy, if you thought by throwing me in these cages that I would be the one to keep my silence in such matters and lies as these.” She grunted. “So, perhaps it’s you that’s blind, Blackfin. Either that, or else you’ve not got the brains to recognize a simple truth when it’s staring you straight in the eyes.”

Malik clucked his tongue. “Admittedly, it’s difficult for me to tell where you are looking, crone.” He chuckled to himself before glancing away. “Solomon . . .”

“Aye, m’lord?”

“Bring her out,” he ordered. “It seems this . . . Merrow hag . . . is more than eager to testify.”

No. Sydney thought when Solomon quickly obeyed, waving forth an Orc to bring him keys to unlock the cage.

Again, Nattie Gao called out from her position. “Malik, please. She’s old and doesn’t know what she says.”

Ms. Morgan scoffed. “Many thanks, my queen,” she said as Solomon laid hands on her. “But I know well and good what I’m on about. Same as what these here are on about too. What this sham of a trial really is and means for you and our people.” Ms. Morgan jerked her chin toward the silent crowds. “High time the rest of these watching come to understand what’ll be their fates too, if they keep to such silence.”

Sydney’s pulse quickened as Solomon brought Ms. Morgan out and stood her before his leader.

Malik Blackfin looked upon her like an inquisitive dog determining whether something was food or a toy. “And what are you on about, hag? What is this truth you desire to speak?”

“Same as you claim to share,” said Ms. Morgan, her voice strengthening that all might hear her scorn of him. “But I want the real truth known to all.”

The Blackfin laughed. “Truth is a hard thing to discern, it seems,” he said. “Tell me, then. What is this one of yours?”

Ms. Morgan cackled, then, the first time Sydney had ever heard such a noise from her. “Don’t cast your pearls before Orcish swine is one,” she said to Malik. “And I hear you’re much like your father when it comes to looking on the world and those less fortunate than you, boy. I suppose it fitting that an Orc like you would rather see such things as only black and white. Ah, but I’ve been a Merrow all these long years, sonny,” her good eye flashed. “And I know the truth of people and both our worlds, above and below, well . . . they’re all more shades of gray than not.”

“A Merrow would believe that,” said Malik. “But when it comes to a queen’s crimes against the crown, hag, I’m afraid there is no in between. Either you are sided with the king, or you are against him.”

Ms. Morgan cackled again. “You speak as though it’s not known you’ve been banished all these years for treachery. Why then were you welcomed back with open arms by the same king who cast you out? Where does your truth lie there, boy?”

Sydney grinned at the terse reply, even as she feared it.

Malik placed his meaty hand on top of Ms. Morgan’s left shoulder. “Careful now, crone,” he said. “Let you mind your tongue before it lands you in more dangerous waters.”

“More dangerous?” she asked, barking a laugh in his face. “No . . . no, we both know how this ends today, boy.”

Malik sneered. “Stop calling me that.”

“I’ll call you as I like,” said Ms. Morgan. “Won’t matter soon for me anyway, will it? Ah, but you’ll remember me after I’m gone, won’t you, Blackfin? May I tell you a secret?” she asked, going on without receiving his permission, nodding toward the crowd. “Many of these here listening will remember me too. Aye, they’ll whisper on all that I’ve said today and happens here long after you and I are said and done, boy.”

Malik growled, already unsheathing his blade. “Aye, crone. I assure you they will remember well what comes next.”

Ms. Morgan snorted. “Best get on with it, then,” she said, cupping her hands and bringing them to her mouth like a megaphone to yell for all the crowd to hear. “Or don’t I get my confession first? This is a trial in search of truth and answers, no?”

Sydney scooted to the edge of her seat at the crowd’s applause and the cat-calls to allow Ms. Morgan speak. Sydney’s hopes lifted at the uneasy glance between Solomon and the Painted Guard, all of them looking to their leader for what to do, or how to act.

In the eyes of Malik Blackfin, there was only contempt. “Go on, then,” he said to Ms. Morgan. “Speak your truth.”

Ms. Morgan nodded. “Here it is, then, boy. Those zoos you speak of? The real zoos? Some are good. Some are bad. All depends on who is running the show, same as down here.” She raised a gnarled finger and pointed it at Sydney. “As for the princess and these others you’re on about, it’s true they ran away. Freed Brutus the Butcher too, or at least that’s the name some of our folk pinned on him during and after the Selkie Strife.” She shrugged. “But, let you ask the Selkies who survived and served alongside him. Ask them, and they’ll tell you such tales of Brutus the Brave what rose up against those meant to keep his kind in chains. Like all stories, boy, it all depends on who’s spinning the tale, don’t it? Aye, and what they hope to gain from the telling . . .”

“You’re spinning tales now,” said Malik. “And I grow weary of them.”

“That’s ‘cause I’m not yet at the end.”

“You’re very near it,” said Malik, raising his sword to rest against his shoulder, the glint of his glade shining in the surrounding torchlights. “Be done with it and quickly, lest you not finish your sad tale at all.”

Ms. Morgan huffed before going on. “You want to know why the princess left the zoo and ran away to the Salt? It’s no secret. It’s the same reason as all those who’ve ever left in the middle of the night when others wished to keep them tucked away and silent. And these two young ones here,” she pointed at Amelia, then Owens. “They followed their princess back to the Salt for the same reason as all us others did, long before, when choosing to follow her good mother ashore too.” Ms. Morgan’s voice shook with righteous thunder, a call that had tears brimming in Sydney’s eyes. “These children heard tale of a grievous wrong done to one of their friends! And these three here . . .” her finger shook as she wagged it for all to see, pointing at Sydney, Owens, and Amelia. “They defied the ones who love them most by stealing away with the hope that they set it right again! Aye, all to free an innocent friend from this harsh world we all know too well.”

Malik scoffed. “Perhaps the children should have put more thought into what their actions might cost them. They failed their friend . . . just as you are faltering in your poor attempts at twisting the truth of such matters now.”

Again, Ms. Morgan laughed in his face. “And you’re still failing to see the shades of gray, Blackfin. Then again, if you haven’t learned such things yet, boy, might be you never will.”

Malik snorted, then turned toward the king.

Sydney’s stomach dropped when Darius nodded. Before she could process what was happening, she glimpsed Solomon placing his hand upon Ms. Morgan’s left shoulder and then kicking the back of her leg to force her down.

Sydney stood up, then, the outcry of the crowd overwhelming.

Dropped to her knees, the elderly vice principal’s hands struck the ground before her.

In reply to the crowd, Malik Blackfin lowered his sword and rested its blade against the back of Ms. Morgan’s neck. “We have real truth to discern here today, hag . . . and I did warn you.”

“Aye, you did,” said Ms. Morgan. “Just as I warned you.”

“Scolded, rather,” said Malik. “Any last words before I send you to Fiddler’s Green?”

“Aye, boy. I have some final words left in me.” Ms. Morgan glanced up at her executioner with delight in her eyes. Then, before the killing blow fell, the vice principal of Tiber High School shouted her last with a purposed cry that Sydney knew would haunt her all the rest of her days. “Long . . . live . . . the queen!”

15

LENNY

Lenny Dolan stood outside the makeshift crematorium of Bouvetøya, numbed by more than the cavern’s Antarctic cold. So many dead. He thought to himself, glancing back at what remained of the crematorium’s shattered door, the jagged wooden pieces broken in by Jemmy T and Tom Weaver’s efforts to seek out further culprits of the Selkie massacre.

What they discovered within the mass-scale crematorium resembled much of what Lenny and the others had already seen outside – a collection of naked corpses, their bodies tinged blue and black from frostbite, their skin shrunk taut against their bones.

Of the living, the first that Lenny saw were a pair of starving walrus, their brownish skin clung tight against their ribs. Both were lashed together and crammed side-by-side in a ditch-like ring that had been carved out of the stone floor, now laced with ice and near filled with water. Like an old millhouse with a team of donkeys hitched to a wheel, left to walk in eternal cycle to grind wheat grains into flour, the walrus pairing swam in the only direction afforded them to turn their wheel of burden. The pulley that ran from their efforts acted as a crankshaft for a conveyor belt to creak and groan as it carried away the Selkie dead loaded upon it.

Lenny trembled as he watched the conveyor carry the frozen bodies up and away, all the way to the great urn at the crematorium’s center to feed the flames anew and keep them blazing.

There were also other slaves within – Selkie pairings in human form, tethered together in iron shackles. The chains between them both forced and handicapped the various slave pairings to act as a team in fetching corpses from the heaps and barrows to then place upon the conveyor belt.

A trio of Orc taskmasters kept their prisoners to the monotonous work. One had been in the midst of cracking his whip when Tom Weaver burst through the door with Jemmy T and Lenny close behind. Lenny could still hear the taskmaster’s gurgles as Tom Weaver strangled the Orc with his own whip.

Before reality settled in and Lenny had taken true stock of what he witnessed inside, Jemmy T had nocked one of his arrows. He set it loose to find its home in one of the other Orcs’ throats when the taskmaster dared to charge them.

The moment his fellows were dead, the lone remaining Orc cast his weapons aside and knelt to the floor with his arms raised in surrender.

Tom Weaver had the last of them slammed up against the wall in seconds. As his Orc prisoner squirmed, Tom looked to his nearest Selkie companion. “Jemmy?”

“Aye, brudda?”

“Search the place for any others,” said Tom. “Dolan, keep your eye on the door. Unless they’re one of us, make sure no one else comes in.”

Lenny nodded, but did not stir from his position. His gaze held on the shivering Orc in Tom Weaver’s grip.

“Pl-Please,” the Orc cried. “Don’t kill me. I surrendered, sir!”

“And what about all these here, hmm?” Tom asked him, jerking his head toward the dead and the Selkie living who attended them. “What did you do to them when they surrendered, I wonder?”

The Orc shivered. “I-I don’t know. I wasn’t there. They never sent me near the killing fields. I-I couldn’t do what the commander asked of us. Please, I’m a coward, sir.”

“Coward, eh?” Jemmy T put in from above, moving quickly down the catwalk of the second story, his bowstring drawn taut. “No, mon. Him be playing at one. Finish him, Tom.”

“Don’t!” The Orc screamed. “Please! I’ll tell you anything! Just don’t kill me.”

“Give me answers, then,” Tom growled. “What is this wretched place? Who are you?”

“My name is Yusuf,” said the Orc. “And this is the end of the world, sir.” Yusuf swallowed hard, his eyes dancing in search for aid, locking on Lenny. “The end for Selkies, at least. That’s what Commander Pohl said.”

Tom Weaver gave him a shake to draw his attention back. “Your commander lied to you, soldier. Us Selkies you see here? We’ve been to that true end of the world and back.” He glanced over his shoulders at the piles of Selkie dead before resettling on his captive. “And for all my years in that frozen hell, I’ve never seen anything like this. Not women and children cast into the fires.”

“Please, sir, I’m no soldier,” Yusuf wept. “I didn’t ask to be here, sir.”

Tom lifted his chin toward the pile of bodies and the slaves who stood wide-eyed and unmoving at the intruders. “Think they did?” he asked the trembling Orc.

No. Lenny knew, steeling himself against Yusuf’s continued whimpering with the horrors that surrounded him and those that remained in his mind, the loss of his father chief of all. None of us did . . . but I don’t see no Orcs in them piles of bodies.

“Please, sir,” Yusuf pled with Tom, his voice shaking nearly as hard as his hands were. “Mercy, please. I-I didn’t want to be here. I never wanted to be no Painted Guard, nor Violovar seawolf neither. They gave me no choice, sir! None of them. It was serve or die!”

Tom grunted. “Looks to me like your folks gave these Selkies here the same choice.” He glanced at the starving Selkie slaves who had been left to tend the dead. Then, he looked to Yusuf again. “Let’s give your prisoners the choice of what to do with you, then.”

Lenny tensed as Tom hauled Yusuf toward the conveyor belt and cast the Orc taskmaster stumbling on the floor in front of them. Where Lenny imagined he would see the starving Selkie slaves relish the thought of revenge and take it out in full, instead his gaze was met by hollowed looks not unlike the corpses the slave pairings carried to the conveyor belt.

Tom approached the slave closest to him, one that Lenny swore was a woman based on the slave’s size and frame. As he looked on the slave further, Lenny knew it for a man long-starved and hunched by unending hunger and laborious work.

The slave cowered in the looming Selkie’s shadow.

“It’s all right,” said Tom to the withered slave. “We’re not here to hurt you. You’re free now. We’ve taken over the cavern. We’re all Selkies here, like you.”

The slave dared to look up, his brow furrowed in disbelief at the giant Selkie dressed in the Orcish armor of the Painted Guard.

“We’re Selkies,” Tom reassured the slave. “What’s your name, friend?”

The hairs on the back of Lenny’s neck raised when the slave still refused to speak.

The unease had taken hold of Tom too, the crimson-haired giant looking to the other crematorium slaves as well. When none of them spoke up, Tom kicked at Yusuf. “Why aren’t they talking?” He nudged Yusuf further. “Hey! What did you do to them?”

Yusuf put his face to the floor, his body wracked with his sobbing. “It wasn’t me . . .” He wept. “Please, sir. I-I couldn’t stop them. They beat me too when I tried.”

“What are you talking about?” Tom demanded. “What did you Orcs do to these people?”

“It were Commander Pohl, sir,” said Yusuf. “And his captains. They gave orders to cut out these slaves’ tongues, so they couldn’t tell the others what was being done to the rest.”

Lenny’s eyes widened at the admission, his gaze flitting from each slave to the next as they looked on the fallen taskmaster. His thoughts turned to his own experiences with taskmasters back in Crayfish Cavern; of Oscar Collins, Tieran and others there who routinely sought out the weakest of slaves for wicked sport. Lenny reached into his hidden Selkie pocket, then. His fingers closing on the hilts of his daggers, he started toward the weeping Orc.

Tom Weaver beat him to the punch, delivering Yusuf a swift kick in the ribs along with a string of curses. Before he could land another, Tom was halted by the Selkie mute that he had questioned for a name.

With a light touch upon the arm, the waifish Selkie slave extinguished the fight.

Lenny stopped too when the Selkie slave knelt beside Yusuf and lay across the Orc’s body, shielding the fallen taskmaster as best as he could manage with his withered frame.

What’s he doing? Lenny wondered. He and Tom exchanged a confused look as the Selkie slave remained atop the Orc, shielding his captor whilst Yusuf whimpered beneath.

“Don’t know what you’re trying to say here, buddy,” Tom Weaver said to the slave. “But I’m guessing you don’t mean for me to kick him again. That about right?”

The slave looked up, his gaunt expression plain enough in confirmation.

He trying to tell us this Orc is one of the good guys? Lenny wondered. His grip relented from the hilts of his blades when the slave stood up and tapped Yusuf on the back to draw his attention.

The Orc sat up too, then, his eyes red-stained and wary of Tom Weaver.

“At ease, soldier,” said Tom, his lip curling. “If I was gonna hit you again, I’d have done it by now. What’s this Selkie friend of yours doing by stopping me from getting after you again? Hmm? If I’m to take it as you and this slave here being friendly, that is.”

“No,” said Yusuf, unable to meet the eye of the slave who had saved him. “Not friendly. I-I don’t even know his name.”

“No?” asked Tom. “Then, why’s he laying across you like he done?”

“I don’t know,” said Yusuf. “M-Maybe because I . . . I tried to stop Commander Pohl and the others from doing what they did. Or that I slipped these Selkies some bread when I could manage . . .”

The slave looked to Tom and nodded in silent confirmation.

“So, he’s telling the truth, then?” Tom asked the slave to further nodded replies. The Selkie giant frowned as he refocused on Yusuf. “So, what exactly is going on down here, Orc? Other than the obvious slaughter, what’s all this about? Why are you killing all of these Selkies?”

“Not me,” said Yusuf. “Never me, sir. And I-I don’t know for certain why the others did. Just rumors that I’ve heard.”

“Like what?”

“Some say King Darius has gone mad . . . that the Blackfin sits at his right hand, whispering all manner of things in the king’s ears. There are rumors beyond counting that come out of the capital with every shipment sent down.”

“Every Selkie shipment, you mean,” Tom clarified. “People, Orc. They’re not things.”

Yusuf nodded.

“How often?” Lenny piped up. “How often does the train come down here delivering Selkies?”

Yusuf’s face reddened. “Every day . . .” he said quietly.

“And the train cars?” Lenny asked, his fists clenching once more. “How many Selkies on board?”

Yusuf did not answer at first. Not until the slave began to scoot away, opening a line for Tom Weaver to attack the Orc taskmaster again.

“How many?” Lenny repeated the question, his thoughts turning to each and every bundle of Selkie skins he had seen packed and stacked together on wooden pallets outside the crematorium.

“I don’t know,” Yusuf muttered under his breath. “Commander Pohl told us to stop trying to count them months ago. Said it was time better spent taking them all to the killing fields and clearing out room in the cages for all the other shipments to come. He said it were mercy to give the Selkies quick deaths, rather than have them starve or suffer from the cold.”

Lenny took a step back at the Orc’s admission. And we could’ve been some of them trapped and killed here, Pop. Lenny thought to himself, remembering when he and his father had been brought down from the capital with Jemmy T, all of them packed to the point of suffocation.

“Why’d they send us down to the ice mines in Røyrkval, then?” Lenny asked the cowering Orc. “Why send some of us to the City of Song if the whole point was to kill as many Selkies as ya could?”

Yusuf shrugged. “Your group was stronger than the rest, perhaps? I don’t know. All the ones who land here are marked for death. Truly, there is nothing else for them to do here but die.”

“But why?” Tom asked. “Why kill them? The women and the children?”

“I-I only know what I heard,” said Yusuf. “They’re just rumors.”

Tom grabbed Yusuf by his hair, forcing him to look on the strewn, Selkie corpses as if the Orc had been blind to his previous work. “They’re not rumors, you fool! These people are dead! Can’t you see that? Hmm? Now, tell us why! Spit it out, before I decide to take your tongue out too and cast you screaming into the fire!”

Yusuf cringed at that. “Some . . . some of the other soldiers said that the Merrow king . . . that King Darius is superstitious, sir. He believes in the old stories of the Ancients warring with the Sancul. They say it’s why he sent the Selkies to work the mines in Røyrkval in the first place.”

Lenny cocked an eyebrow. “Superstitious?”

“Aye.” Yusuf nodded. “They said he thought there was some kind of mystic treasure hidden in the lost city . . . some kind of power tucked away, deep inside the ice.”

A lost key. Lenny thought, glancing in Tom’s direction. Like Pop said all along.

If the behemoth Selkie had any secret knowledge, however, Tom Weaver kept it hidden well. His face remained a mask of sternness in lieu of Yusuf’s answers.

“What’s this magic treasure supposed to do?” Lenny asked. “This power it’s supposed to have?”

Tom Weaver frowned at Lenny’s question, but he made no move to rebuff him as Yusuf continued shaking upon the floor. “Well?” Tom nudged their Orc prisoner. “What of it?”

“I don’t know,” said Yusuf. “No one does.”

Lenny cocked an eyebrow. “Someone does. If not, then why go all through this trouble?” His thoughts turned to all the Selkie dead outside and the one laid to rest in the Ancient City of Song. “Why keep searching?”

“I don’t know,” said Yusuf. “Please, believe me. I only know what I heard.”

Lenny started forward, bringing the tip of his blade to touch beneath Yusuf’s chin even as Tom Weaver kept his hold of the Orc’s hair. “Then, tell me,” Lenny shouted. “Tell me why!”

“Dolan . . .” said Tom.

Lenny ignored him. “Why?” He demanded of Yusuf, the tip of his blade digging into the Orc’s skin enough to bleed him. “Why are all these Selkies here? Why do you Orcs keep killing us, huh?”

Tom Weaver yanked him back easily enough, tossing Lenny aside to skitter across the floor. “Easy, Dolan.” He said when Lenny wheeled around as if meaning to come charging back once he regained his footing. “He can’t tell you anything if he’s dead.”

Yusuf fell shivering to the floor then. “Please . . .” he wept. “I-I don’t know much else. The others said there were too many rebellions lately. Too many runners . . .” Yusuf glanced between Lenny and Tom, pleading in his eyes. “The king didn’t want another Selkie Strife.”

“Yeah?” Tom snorted. “Well, the Merrow king is gonna get one. Especially when the rest of the group we busted outta Røyrkval finds out about this operation you have going here. Now that they’ve got another taste of victory in their mouths, you Orcs and your Merrow king are gonna have your hands chock full of Selkie rebellions.”

Yusuf shook his head. “My people don’t like the king either.” His voice shook. “I think it’s why they’re rallying to the Blackfin instead. He says we’ve been serving the Merrows too long and that Darius is weak. The Blackfin and his Violovar have been promising change for our people. To make the Salt safer and protect us from the Nomads. He says we’ll stop serving Merrows too, and that he would have us Orcs to rule the Salt.”

Lenny sneered. “The Blackfin to rule the Salt, you mean. For some reason, I don’t see him as the sort for sharing the crown, if you know what I mean. And if he’s such a big tough guy ready to take on the crown, why bother picking on slaves, huh?”

“I-I think he is afraid your kind, sir,” said Yusuf. “The Merrow king too.”

Tom and Lenny shared a look. “That don’t make no sense,” said Lenny. “What’s the Merrow king and the Blackfin got to fear from Selkies?”

“I don’t know,” said Yusuf. “But I heard some of our other soldiers arguing about it. They said all the Selkies they interrogated confessed to running and rebellion because they knew, sir . . . the Selkie runners knew something was wrong . . . that something is wrong, sir.”

The hairs on the back of Lenny’s neck raised at the conviction in Yusuf’s voice.

“The other soldiers claimed the Selkies knew something terrible was coming,” said Yusuf, trembling as he spoke. “Something awful . . . and that the Selkie runners feared whatever comes next more than they feared the threat of dying down here.”

16

KELLEN

Kellen had lost count of the days he and the other Sancul had swum since leaving Garrett Weaver and the Nomad horde behind. In the eternal dark and deep of the Abyss, time seemed of little consequence or reality. Throughout their swim to the Cavern of Somnus, Kellen saw little of note and had less conversation with any in his party.

Twice he had attempted to speak with Black Keerie again over the lie he had told; that he had slain Garrett Weaver in his life before. Both times she had rejected his advances, swimming off with nothing more than a disgusted and doubting look of his intent.

Erebus too would not allow him to swim nearer to Hypnos either. For every time that Kellen approached the sickly Sancul, the gaze and outstretched tentacles of Erebus warned Kellen to keep his distance.

For all the others’ guardianship of Kellen, even Nyx and Kanaloa had turned silent as they swam with relentless pursuit to return Hypnos to his wife and children. For all their haste, the Sancul were slowed by seizing fits that overtook Hypnos all along the way. To Kellen’s mind, each seizure lasted longer than the last for every time they halted in wait for the fits to end.

For every time they were brought to a halt, the sickly Sancul racked back and forth.

What’s going on in there, Hypnos? Kellen wondered when the eyes of Hypnos widened and blazed with light, his mouth opening and closing in repeated and muted succession like one tormented yet unable to give voice to his screams. What is Moros doing to you?

For a panicked moment, Kellen considered divulging the truth to Erebus and Kanaloa – that he had met and spoken with both Moros and Hypnos in the dream-like world that one, or either, of the Sancul brothers had pulled him into several times over.

The fit overtaking Hypnos ended near as quickly as it had come about. The sickly Sancul’s body faltered and slumped back into his father’s grasp in further, unconscious exhaustion.

Erebus used his tentacles to better position his son. He’s getting worse. Erebus frowned at Kanaloa. We’re going too fast. My son needs to rest.

Aye, that he does, said Kanaloa. But not here. We are near enough to the Cavern of Somnus now. We must press on. And faster still.

Erebus glared at Kellen like one faulting another for the decisions chose. When Kellen said nothing and did not glance away, however, Erebus turned back to Kanaloa. And what if my son does not reach the cavern, or his lady wife? He demanded. All our haste will be for naught.

It will be for naught if Hypnos dies here in the open too, said Kanaloa. For here we can truly do little and less to aid his suffering.

Nyx swam over to join her husband and their withered son. What would you endure to reach my side, husband? To see me again? She asked of him, attempting to cheer him further with a smile. What lengths would you go?

The love I bear you, wife, is not the same as that once shared between Hypnos and his own.

True, said Nyx. And yet I hold no doubt that Pasithee will aid us and him all the same. She cheered Erebus somewhat with a light touch upon his cheek. Hypnos will fight on, husband. Though I ever favored Moros more, I never doubted that Hypnos was given more of your stubborn strength than mine.

Kellen swam by in careful watch as Nyx touched the brow of Hypnos then, her features softening, if only for an instant. To his mind, the lady of darkness hardened herself against such expression for Hypnos no sooner than her fingers brushed against his skin. She pulled away as quickly as she had reached for him, questions living in her eyes.

What just happened? Kellen wondered when Nyx turned her studious gaze on him next. Fear flooded through him, the warmth he often saw in her eyes turning to icy doubt. But, as she had done with Hypnos, Nyx suppressed such emotion quickly.

Kellen’s brow furrowed. What did you see, Nyx? Did Hypnos show you something too? Despite the Salt flowing through him, Kellen’s throat parched as another, darker thought occurred to him. Or did Moros speak to you?

For all of the questions and doubts plaguing him, each were stolen and replaced with still more when Nyx looked up and past him, over his shoulder to the water behind. Kellen spun to see what she did, then cowered at the sight swimming toward them.

Despite all the creatures and the Sancul wizardry he had witnessed beneath the Salt, Kellen had yet to meet anything like the monstrous side-winder that burst through the shadowed and Salted depths with blazing speed. Like an eel of gargantuan proportion, its face appeared more reptilian and with appendages tapered held tight against its either side to not create any drag in the water.

Like a deer frozen by oncoming headlights, Kellen found himself unable to move either. What is that thing? He wondered, even as his mind produced an answer from his youth.

Dragon, a memory of childhood whispered. An underwater dragon.

Like the snakes he had discovered hiding in the wood piles of his family farm and chased off thereafter, Kellen’s gaze tracked with the side-winding creature’s body and tail maneuvering back and forth in S-shaped movements to propel it onward. The Salt dragon also had a fork-shaped tongue and slitted, greenish eyes that glowed with bioluminescent light.

Unlike when he was a child, Kellen had no shovel to lop off the head of the oncoming serpent. Not that a shovel would do for the mammoth beast. Nor any sword or axe either. As the underwater dragon came within a hundred yards of them, Kellen imagined that even the strength and size of Erebus would be tested against the mythic creature.

Kellen remained frozen at Nyx’s side, but Black Keerie and Kanaloa swam out to meet the oncoming beast.

Kanaloa raised a hand in welcome just as the creature came upon him with its jaws opened wide. Hail, Phobetor!

Kellen winced then, expecting to see both Black Keerie and the eldest of Sancul swallowed whole. Yet no sooner than the beast reached them, the visage of it fell away like a hooded, costumed mask to reveal the true wearer within for another of the Sancul race. The leathery, eel-like skin trailed behind the Sancul stranger like a mystic cloak of bluish dark to flutter in the speed of his wake.

Like the other Sancul that Kellen had come to know, his mind warned him to not be deceived by the appearance of the newcomer. Though the dragon-turned-Sancul wore the handsome face of a youth not much older than Kellen himself, no small part of him imagined that the stranger was as ancient as the other Sancul he had traveled alongside.

The newcomer’s skin was pale as snow, his face and body reminiscent of a lean-muscled warrior. His silver hair had been tied in a top knot, his bare arms and chest covered in tattooed runes and they intertwining with scars beyond counting.

Phobetor! Kanaloa named the Sancul stranger once more, opening his arms in welcome of the embrace to follow. How do you fare?

Better for your arrival, Great Grandfather, said Phobetor, flashing a smile that Kellen envied and loathed for the added handsomeness both afforded the newcomer to their party.

Aye, Phobetor continued, turning from Kanaloa to take up the left hand of the she-squid beside him. Phobetor brought her willing hand to his lips, kissing the back of it. And much better for seeing you again, Black Keerie. No doubt my sister will say the same.

Black Keerie grinned back at him. And where is your sweet sister? she asked. Where is Phantasos?

Gone to wake The Thousand Sons of Somnus, said he. Aye, and all the Sisters of Shadow too.

Black Keerie laughed. No doubt the thousand sons prefer your sister coming to them rather than you, eh?

Phobetor’s smile widened then, to the point Kellen wondered if it would break the Sancul stranger’s face and reveal another hidden one within. No doubt, he said to Black Keerie’s claim. My sister and I both set out to wake the others. Mother sent us to rally them all the moment she heard the Salt cry out with my father’s voice. It would seem she felt you all drawing near. Phobetor’s smile died as he turned away from Black Keerie and Kanaloa to look on Kellen once more. Uncle . . . his brow furrowed as if he were pained by the sight before him and the uttered title.

Before Kellen could react, Phobetor had swam the distance between them.

Kellen’s body clenched beneath the Sancul’s icy grip upon his arms and the marbled gaze Phobetor studied him with.

Uncle! He cried once more. Can it really be you?

Nyx came to join them, tapping her grandson on the shoulder, warding Phobetor away. Aye, your uncle has returned, Phobetor, she said, looking off and away toward Erebus instead as he and Hypnos were the last to join their party. You see, husband? Your grandson recognized his lost uncle at the very first sight. Phobetor holds no doubt.

Phobetor agreed, nodding for every lingering moment of looking upon Kellen. To speak elsewise would be a lie, for this is my uncle returned, true enough. His head cocked to the side, inspecting Kellen further. But why will you not speak to me? Has it been so long, Uncle, that you have forgotten your favorite nephew?

Kellen shuddered. No . . . he lied, even as he sought to give the Sancul the lie he requested. Hello . . . He wrestled with the name, not quite remembering the pronunciation. Kellen also did not wish to make an error with the Sancul expectations of him. Hello, nephew.

Phobetor’s smile came on again. Oh, Uncle, said he, taking him by the hand and kissing the back of it as he had done for Black Keerie also. Forgive me for doubting my brother’s claim. Aye, for not swimming to your side the moment that Morpheus felt your presence returned and strengthening.

Kanaloa swam over to join them. And where is Morpheus? Where is your brother, Phobetor? Gone with your sister to wake the others?

A shadow passed over the face of the younger Sancul. No, said Phobetor. I should have thought to find my good brother with you and yours. He frowned. Much as it pains me to say, Morpheus were the first of us to feel such stirrings of your spirit returned, Uncle. He looked to Kellen with questions in his eyes before searching the faces of the others also. Truly, Morpheus is not with you, then? You have not seen my brother?

Not for many years now, said Kanaloa. Did he not say to where he went?

Phobetor shook his silvered head. In truth, we did not think to ask. We thought that he had swam to you in seeking confirmation of our uncle’s return.

While Kellen thought the others seemed as puzzled as he with the news relayed, Erebus scoffed at such words. Ah, Phobetor, it would seem that you know your brother nearly as well as the one who sired you, then. Erebus used one of his mammoth tentacles to bring forth Hypnos at his side, then cast a disapproving look at his grandson, Phobetor. Aye, child, for I see that you do not rejoice half so much that we have brought your father with us as well.

Phobetor released his hold over Kellen then, bowing away like a scorned dog before darting over to swim under the stony stare of Erebus and the one huddled beneath his protection. Hello, Father. Phobetor sent one of his tentacles to reach for Hypnos and lure him closer. For whatever his intentions, however, Hypnos would not be stirred from clinging to his father’s side.

Frowning, Phobetor looked to Erebus. I see his mind is still maimed. The affliction still holds him.

You do have eyes, then, said Erebus. And I half hoped to convince myself that you children and your mother might be blind for all these years of ignoring your father’s infirmity. Now, I understand your estrangement from him for a worser lot of uncaring, spoiled whelps instead. No doubt your wiser brother, Morpheus, fled before you all attempted to riddle him with the same contempt as I see within you now.

Kellen cocked an eyebrow at the sight of Phobetor’s lip curling at the slight.

Erebus was no better, not bothering to hide the disdained look he showed his grandson in return.

Peace, Erebus, said Kanaloa. It has been too long since our family ties were ripped asunder and we were rejoined. Aye, much too long.

Not long enough, apparently, Kellen thought to himself when Black Keerie swam over to pull Phobetor away and out of striking distance of Erebus’s tentacles.

Kanaloa sighed. Hear me, my family, for all the circumstance and all that we have suffered, let us have peace between us now. He straightened as he motioned in Kellen’s direction. The wounds separating us and our kind must needs be healed over. With our favored one’s return, we have the chance to make all things new and right once more for our family and the world.

Phobetor cheered at that, his vocalness rewarded with another angered look from Erebus. Unlike before, Phobetor shook off the disapproval. Come, then. One and all. My mother awaits us and more. Even now, she labors at such a feast the like our folk have not seen since the last war. He nodded at Kellen. And all to celebrate your return, Uncle.

Kellen was about to thank him for the words when a flurried current shook him off balance; Nyx had whisked away from him. Kellen spread his tentacles wide to sustain him in the wake of her leaving, then turned his head to track her movement. He found the lady of darkness at her monstrous husband’s side, the pair of them tending to Hypnos again with their tentacles.

Thrashing and seizing against their combined strength, Hypnos’s mouth again opened and closed in what Kellen imagined as a muted show of the fit coursing through his withered frame. Hypnos vomited some smattered bits of white froth to float into the above. Still more clung to his lips as he trembled back and forth. Unlike the fits that Kellen had seen Hypnos endure before, the newest seizing lingered on with no signs of slowing.

Nyx’s head snapped toward Kanaloa. Father!

Phobetor too appeared riddled with questions. What is happening to my father?

The sickness, said Kanaloa. Whatever this affliction within him, I think it means to claim our Hypnos in full soon enough.

Donning the hood of his cloak, Phobetor swam forward to aid them. Grandfather! He shouted at Erebus. Come! Allow me carry my father and you all to my mother quickly. It may be that she has one of her potions to help soothe my father now, until we learn what further ailment weakens him.

Erebus looked to his sickly son, then to Nyx with concern living in his brow and gaze. After a moment’s deliberation, he nodded to his grandson, then gathered a still-convulsing Hypnos closer to him.

Phobetor drew the hood of his cloak then, the Sancul’s body morphing into that of the eel-like dragon once more. His form lengthened and widened in equal measure, stretching around the other Sancul like a constrictor with its prey. Where Kellen drew back at the surrounding wall of flesh, he witnessed the other Sancul latch onto the dragon with their tentacles.

Black Keerie shot him a disapproving look when Kellen hesitated to follow their example.

Do it. He told himself. Then, he reached out with his own tentacles to wrap around the water-dragon. Kellen stretched his tentacles to their limits as they encompassed Phobetor’s slippery form. For all of his attempts, Kellen could not maintain his grip without using the clawed tips of his tentacles.

The others held no such concerns, burying the ends of their tentacles deep in Phobetor’s flesh like someone driving sewing needles into a pin cushion.

Despite the Sancul travelers wounding him with their many claw-tipped touches, the dragon seemed not to notice the pain or his added burden. Its reptilian head snaked around in search of Kellen, its black eyes holding on him.

Phobetor’s voice filled Kellen’s mind. Latch on, Uncle. I will carry you . . .

I-I don’t want to hurt you though, said Kellen.

Phobetor chuckled in his mind. You could never harm me, Uncle. I should not be as I am now without you having aided in my shaping.

Though he did not understand the meaning of Phobetor’s words, Kellen latched on all the same when sighting the others waiting and watchful of him. As they had done, so too did Kellen bury the sharp points of his tentacles into the dragon’s flesh for the coming journey. The flesh seemed to absorb his claws, the dragon neither wincing nor offering up any wisp of blood for the wounding that Kellen gave. He understood then that their combined efforts pained the dragon no more than hatchets chipping at the near impenetrable, thick bark of a redwood tree.

The moment Kellen secured his grip, the dragon sped off through the darkened water in side-winding fashion. As Phobetor drove them against an underwater current, the sonic speed with which he carried them forced Kellen to duck his head like he remembered having done on roller coasters when g-forces pressed him against his seat.

And all the while, Phobetor drove them further in descent.

When Kellen dared to break his gaze away from staring at the dragon’s back, he saw them plunging toward the Abyssal plain – a shrouded and endless, bleak stretch of black rock. For a moment, he imagined the Salt dragon slamming them all into the mass like a nose-diving plane without the wherewithal to pull up at the last. Kellen fidgeted in attempting to pry his claws frees of Phobetor’s dragon flesh that he might fall away before the crash. Despite his attempts, the dragon flesh held him all the same, as if Phobetor were the one to truly hold claim over Kellen instead.

Wincing as the rocky face rushed to greet them, Kellen closed his eyes and braced for the impact. When the moment they should have hit came and passed, Kellen reopened his eyes and gasped in awe at the sight before him - a cavern unlike any other that Kellen had ever seen.

Where he recalled the birth of his Salted life appearing in the form of Crayfish Cavern’s glittering stalactites, the water-filled cavern that Phobetor carried him through now gleamed with greenish, bioluminescent shadows, all dancing against a crystallized backdrop of deep purple and ebony-make. Bioluminescent torchlight aligned the walls, and all of their lanterns spiraling downward to reveal a maze with innumerable staging points further in and below.

Kellen imagined the cavern like the inside of an amethyst geode he had once seen in the Indianapolis Children’s Museum back at home. The puncture-like holes in the stony walls also reminded him of a beehive – each hole dotting the cavern-sides like a honeycomb. Some of the cavern mouths held more greenish light deep within, promising life and secret denizens within, if one were so brave as to venture inside. The darker, emptier tunnels feared Kellen more. His gaze lingered on the empty black spots as they passed. Even as Phobetor sped the collected party onward in further descent, Kellen’s skin tingled with the notion that he remained watched over and looked upon from unseen eyes that remained hidden away within the tunnel mouths.

Phobetor did not stop their plunge, despite the cavern walls closing in around them. Like swimming through a funnel, Phobetor pressed on through a gap in the stony floor that Kellen imagined as being too small to accommodate the dragon’s size. As before, when out in the open Salt, the dragon’s head again began to melt away, its body shriveling and shortening in rapid succession. The thick flesh gave up its hold over Kellen then, he and the other Sancul falling off and away whilst the remainder of Phobetor’s body morphed and shrunk back into the leathery train of his cape. Then, it shrunk further until the cape became a hood and looked only as if he wore a plum-tinted cloak.

Though Kellen took the moment to calm the adrenaline racing through him, Erebus wasted no time. The Sancul father gathered Hypnos up with his tentacles and then swam away in descent through the darkened cavern mouth lain before them. Faster than any other could follow, Erebus outswam even Nyx and Kanaloa who sped off into the tunnel after him.

Kellen watched them go, wondering after Hypnos and his fits, and imagined himself trapped in the dream-like world that Hypnos kept Moros within, both prisoners of his own mind and body. You’re fighting with Moros, aren’t you, Hypnos? Kellen told himself of the fits that had taken hold of Hypnos. But why? Kellen wondered again. What is it you’re fighting with him about, Hypnos? Why do you keep Moros in there with you, rather than let your brother go?

A part of Kellen warned that he knew that answer too, though he refused to face it in favor of watching Black Keerie instead. Where the others had gone on, she had remained alongside Phobetor, the pair of them looking to one another in such a way that told Kellen they spoke in private.

But what are you talking about? Kellen wondered when Black Keerie gave him a look that forewarned he should never receive the answer. What did you tell him, Keerie?

Unlike the silence between them, Phobetor seemed the more eager to break the elsewise quiet water surrounding them. Uncle! He cried, swimming to join Kellen anew, grasping at his hand to pull him into the cavern mouth the others had already swam through. Come. Despite my father’s ailment, I know my mother will be most pleased to see you again too.

Black Keerie tittered. Why should your mother be pleased to see this creature before you? She cast her scorn on Kellen. It was his fault that her husband was stolen from her.

Phobetor’s face scrunched at the word. You name him Creature? He asked Black Keerie.

Aye, that I do, now, she said, in reference of Kellen. For that be the name Erebus first gave him. And I know not what else to call the pretender who swims before you wearing my lover’s face, Phobetor. Whatever his name, his lies spoke to me of his truth. She turned away from him, toward the other Sancul again. This one before us is neither my lover, Moros, nor your true uncle either, Phobetor.

Kellen warmed at the rightful accusation. I told you the truth a long time ago, Keerie, he kept the thought to himself. You just didn’t want to see it. None of you but Erebus would see it. He looked to Phobetor, wondering which camp the nephew of Moros and son of Hypnos would fall under – believer or no.

For his part, Phobetor laughed off the claims. I see my grandfather’s constant doubting has worn away at even your convictions, Keerie.

Aye, said she in hateful reply. I thought Erebus a fool at first for his doubting also. Now, I think him the only one to see and face things as they truly are.

Believe as you will, then, Phobetor waved her off, then reached for Kellen. I am content to swim at my uncle’s side once more, as I did so often in the days of old. Aye, to learn such things from the Other side as only my uncle could teach. He the only one to venture there and back again, as he foretold us all that he would do.

Again, Black Keerie barked a laugh. Do not look to the Creature before you for answers, Phobetor. You will receive none from him. Nothing but lies and excuses of ill memory for all that this one has suffered. Or claimed to have endured, rather.

But he has suffered, Keerie, said Phobetor. For just as my mother watched the fall of Orphan Knoll from afar, she saw his wounding in one of her scryings too. Aye, and shared such visions with my sister and I too. He looked to Kellen with some sadness in his gaze. You have endured much, Uncle. My sister, mother, and I have all seen the events which you have suffered through to reach us again.

Black Keerie jeered. No doubt the Mother of Masks will share the same visions with us disbelievers, then, once she has eased your father’s pain.

How will your mother help Hypnos? Kellen asked Phobetor, regretting the question the moment he heard Black Keerie snort.

Black Keerie laughed in screeching mockery. You see, Phobetor? Again, this Creature proves himself a liar, she pointed her finger at him. You think your uncle should not remember all of your mother’s power? Nothing of yours? Aye, nor the powers of your brother and sister too?

Phobetor shrugged. If he did not remember you, Keerie, I see no reason he should not recall my mother’s face either. At the moment, it matters not to me what he remembers or no. My mother will mix a remedy to help rejog his memory soon enough.

Kellen fended off a shiver running through him at Phobetor’s words. What happens, then? He wondered to himself as Phobetor and Black Keerie argued on. What happens when their remedy fails and all of them find out that I’m a liar like Erebus has called me all along?

Black Keerie drew Kellen from his silence when pointing directly at his chest. This one needs no jogging of the mind, she said to Phobetor. One cannot recall what they have not lived through to share the tale of.

When Phobetor glanced at Kellen, he understood that he must respond to Black Keerie’s continued accusations, or else strengthen her claims for his lingering silence.

Kellen forced a laugh and a wicked grin. You know, Keerie, I would’ve thought you’d like that I can’t remember everything, he said. Because if I remembered half of your nagging and your questions, I might not have bothered coming back from the Other side at all.

Phobetor laughed, then, his mockery combined with Kellen’s words enough to send Black Keerie sneering and swimming off in chase after the others already gone on into the nearest tunnel.

Phobetor swam over and clapped Kellen on the shoulder. Oh, Uncle, I have missed your presence so. I fear our lives have been quite dreary all these long years since you left us.

It’s . . . good to be back, said Kellen, careful to not divulge much else for fear of strengthening Keerie’s continued assertions.

I imagine so, said Phobetor. Good to have your body healed and form returned to you, I should think. But is it true what Black Keerie claims? That you cannot recall much of our people, or your life before?

Kellen debated on which answer to give, deciding to walk the blurry line between truth and the lie. It’s true, he said quietly. I remember some things, but the rest are . . .

Hazy? Phobetor supplied the word.

Yes, said Kellen.

Phobetor smiled in such a manner that made Kellen’s stomach twist. Fear not, Uncle. We have a remedy for that also.

Good. Kellen shirked away from the Sancul’s grip. I hoped for that when Kanaloa said we’d be coming here.

Recall the Cavern of Somnus, do you? Phobetor asked.

No, said Kellen. Just that Kanaloa and Nyx said that coming here should help me to remember.

Indeed, said Phobetor. For my mother has ways of helping one to recall all manner of things, he chuckled. Aye, and also to forget all else they would rather not remember.

I’ll have some of that last bit, Kellen thought to himself, dwelling on all the memories he would purge from his mind if given the chance. His skin prickled as he peered into the awaiting darkness inside the tunnel before him that all the others had already swum through. Hesitant to enter in, he searched for any excuse to forestall his following of the other Sancul and learning what awaited Hypnos within.

I-I don’t remember much about this place, he said, turning to Phobetor, then pointing to the purplish outcroppings that reminded him of amethyst stones. The cavern is so beautiful, I mean. Can you not show me around the rest of this cavern first?

Phobetor nodded. I could indeed, Uncle, he said, his easy grin dawning and then widening further. But I think that all of the Others dying to see you would rather greet you first.

Others? Kellen asked.

Phobotor pointed upward. Like me, our people have been long awaiting your return and the final ascent to come . . .

Kellen followed his gaze into the above. Then, his blood well and truly turned to ice.

Where they had swum through empty water in descent in arrival, passing by the other tunnel mouths without stopping, now Kellen came face to face with all the scarred and wizened folk who dwelt deep within the honeycomb-like tunnels that comprised the Cavern of Somnus.

Kellen’s mind had no words for the shadowy folk he witnessed in the above– a collected horde of Sancul. Crowded together, thousands of rounded, black eyes gleamed with eerie stillness in the bioluminescent lantern lights. Their tentacles and massive forms too came like a wall of thorny, moving briar, and all of them stretched in continuing reach for him.

Kellen’s head acted like a swivel in attempting to count their number, unable to determine where one Sancul began and the other ended.

All watching.

Waiting.

Kellen winced at the cold touch of Phobetor’s hand upon his bicep.

Come, Uncle . . . he said, tugging him to ascend toward the gathered legions above. Allow me to re-introduce you.

17

CHIDI

Allambee Omondi lay upon the decking of Girard’s boat, The Lady Cat. The young warrior’s wounds were bound and blood-stained, even as Chidi Etienne pressed against the worst of his injuries with all her strength to keep her friend from bleeding out.

Fighting against the stinging in her eyes, Chidi prayed to any higher power that would heed her call. Don’t let him die . . . her head ached as she thought the words, her eyes losing their bout to keep back the tears from cascading down her cheeks. Please, don’t let him die. He doesn’t deserve this. He’s just a boy.

Beside her, Bryant kept further pressure on still more of the stab wounds littering Allambee’s torso. The grimness in the Selkie marshals’ eyes communicated all that he dared not say.

Chidi read the message in all the same. He’s not gonna make it, she imagined Bryant saying.

When Chidi continued looking to Bryant for some measure of hope, the Selkie marshal glanced away and pretended to study the skillful, sewing work that Marisa Bourgeois threaded in Allambee’s skin, stitching what wounds she could.

Chidi’s gaze too canvassed the wounded warrior. There are too many wounds, she knew, pushing the thought away, even as the truth lay before her. Far too many . . .

Allambee’s hair still glistened with beads of Salt, his forehead soaked in feverish sweat, his eyes closed to the world as his body trembled in its continued clinging to life.

“Keep fighting, Allambee,” Chidi whispered, hoping he might hear and hold to her words. “We’re going to help you. Just keep fighting.”

To their credit, neither Bryant or Marisa spoke against Chidi’s hopeful claims.

With a sigh, Marisa stitched her last of the smaller wounds and then placed the needle in a makeshift, bloodied tray beside her.

“Well?” Chidi asked of her, even as her mind told her that she would not like any answer given from Marisa Bourgeois. A seed of gnawing doubt within her warned that Marisa had foreseen their circumstance and let it occur anyway.

“He is not long for this world,” said Marisa quietly. “He has lost too much blood.”

“Give him some of mine, then.” Chidi offered up her arm in show for Marisa to pierce with the needle’s end and begin a transfusion between them.

Marisa grimaced as she glanced away, turning toward Bryant instead.

“What?” Chidi demanded of the famed runner. “Why are you looking to him for? Bryant’s not in pain. He’s not offering up his blood. Take some of mine!”

Bryant reached over to her, his voice barely above a whisper. “Chidi . . .”

“Don’t,” she replied, shaking as she did.

Bryant nodded, but refused to break his stare of her. “We don’t have the tools, Chidi. The supplies we need to fix him up. Not all the way out here.”

“Call someone, then,” she wept. “You’re a marshal. Go radio someone to fly in and save him.”

“It don’t work like in the movies, Chidi,” he replied. “Sometimes you can’t call in the cavalry on account of there is none.”

“You’re not trying,” she said. “You haven’t tried to call anyone.”

Bryant looked away from her, out across the empty Salt. “It won’t matter, sweetheart,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “We’re too far from anywhere . . . and Marisa is right. He’s lost too much blood.”

“Then give him some of mine,” Chidi repeated, insistent as she raised her arm further toward Marisa Bourgeois.

The famed, elusive runner did not budge from her former stance.

“Take it,” Chidi shouted at her. “Take my blood and give it to him.”

Bryant called her down with more soft words. “We don’t even know if you’re blood types match. If you’re not a match, it could kill him.”

Chidi glared at him. “If he’s going to die anyway, then what’s the harm in trying?”

Bryant’s expression wilted under her stare. “All right, partner.” He nodded at Marisa. “Do it, Bourgeois.”

Marisa did not budge.

“Do it,” Bryant said to her again, his voice carrying a firmer command. “Or I will.”

Marisa ignored him. “Brave boy,” she said, reaching for Allambee’s brow, stroking the sweat beads away. “The wise ones say there is no greater love than one who would lay down their life for another.” She looked up to Chidi with warmth and pity too. “He loves you deeply. As do we all of us here.”

“You’re not the ones bleeding out,” said Chidi through gritted teeth.

“No,” said Marisa. “But if death were to come for me, I should welcome such a noble sacrifice as the one your friend here offered up to save you.”

“And I would let you trade places with him,” said Chidi, new tears brimming in her eyes. “I would trade places with him now, if I could.” She glanced at Bryant as if he might have some answer for her, some word of reproach for her to fly against, or else a comforting word to provide some semblance of a reason for all that had befallen them. Instead, she found tears in the eyes of Bryant also. Chidi broke, then. “I’m tired of seeing everyone I care about die . . ..”

Marisa nodded. “And yet for all that you have lost, all that you will still lose, I tell you now that it will be your pain to drive you to save so many more, Chidi Etienne,” said Marisa. “All the tragedy you have endured, all the pain witnessed and experienced . . . all to make you who you are, so that when your moment arrives—”

“Stop,” Chidi spoke up, her body and voice both shaking. “Stop talking to me. This is your fault.”

Marisa sat back as if Chidi had slapped her, questions plain upon her face.

“You brought us out here,” Chidi condemned her. “You said that Allambee had to come with us. That he had a purpose for being here. The same as Girard had a purpose too.”

Chidi did not dare to look toward the cabin’s quarters, not wishing to see the former coyote guide’s corpse still impaled by one of the Orc spears, his body still pinned against the same captain’s chair he had steered from.

Marisa snorted. “You weep for Girard too?” She challenged Chidi. “He being one of those who profited on the backs of Selkie slavery, the same as any owner did? One who might even have sold us all, if the price were right.” Marisa frowned. “Aye, our Selkie boat captain had a purpose in life, Chidi. One that lined his own pockets, and prayed only that he one day might have what he imagined as a glorious, final last stand - a captain, lost at sea, going down with his ship. Do not ask me to weep for a loathsome creature such as he was.”

“And Allambee?” Chidi asked. “What did he ever pray for, except to meet his father?”

Marisa’s gaze flickered at the stinging implication Chidi made. “Is it not said even the wisest cannot see all ends, Chidi? Hmm? You lay the fate of this boy at my feet and yet were it not for his actions this night, if not for Allambee Omondi being among us to fend off the Orcs, you would likely be dead already.”

“I wish that I were, then,” said Chidi. “I would rather it finally be me the one to die, rather than I have to watch any more of the people that I love suffer in my place instead.”

Marisa nodded. “It may well be you receive your wish too, someday,” she said quietly. “But it will not be this night, Chidi.” She nodded toward Allambee too. “Nor would he trade places with you if given the same choice again here and now.”

Chidi’s cheeks warmed. “You don’t know that.”

“Do I not?” Marisa asked. “I think that I know more of this boy than you could begin to dream of, Chidi. More of his bravery, his dreams, aye, and all his choices and secret prayers too. For all that you feel for Allambee Omondi, do not think to lie to yourself and imagine that you alone are wounded and grieving at the sight of him laid low before us now. In time, it may well be you gain some little understanding of how such a noble sacrifice as this boy made tonight can echo across the whole of time.”

“Easy to say when you’re not the one dying,” said Chidi.

“Ask me on that fated day if ever you see me fallen beside you, then, Chidi Etienne,” said Marisa with such conviction in her voice as to make Chidi doubt herself. “Ask me on that dark day if I would change all my choices and my circumstance for a different outcome. For I tell you now, if my visions prove true, if my actions serve to save all those that I love from the foul things that I have seen and believe from my night terrors? Aye, then, Chidi. The answer I will give you on the day of my own death will be that all of my choices were worth every sacrifice and more.”

“How?” Chidi asked. “How can you say that when people die because of what you decide?”

“Because I have some understanding, Chidi. Little though it may be, I hold to some glimmer of choices gone wrong and what might be changed for good, if one were brave enough to face any outcome.” Marisa again reached down to stroke Allambee’s brow. “Anyone can and often do claim they would perform heroic acts,” her voice softened once more, devoid of the fiery knowing she had called down upon Chidi. “Such folk are rarer still that make noble words reality. It may well be that we weep for Allambee Omondi by the time this night is done, but I tell you now that the boy I came to with such an offer that he might aid the world and help his father too? That were a warrior who readily agreed to my words. Aye, and that he would do over and again, no matter the cost to himself. For that is the ultimate price of truest love, Chidi Etienne. When doom and darkness approach, there is but one question you need ask . . . one question to answer . . . one choice to make to save all that you hold dear.” She looked deep into Chidi’s eyes once more. “How far are you willing to go to protect and save the ones you love?”

As far as I need to go. Chidi thought to herself, her mind swarming with thoughts of all those lost before and taken from her. But I’m not the one paying the price right now.

She pictured her parents stolen away then, and little Sasha too. She thought of Racer and all the countless others slain at Henry’s hands. And when she gazed upon her injured friend, his face pinched in pain, Chidi understood that she would soon be to add Allambee Omondi’s name with all the rest who had gone before. All the names and faces of those she had loved and lost before. All the memories of their scattered fates that Chidi Etienne carried with her always.

Don’t let him die. She closed her eyes in begging prayer again. Please, whoever you are, whatever you want . . . don’t let him die because of me. Don’t let anyone else die because of me.

Bryant’s voice called her to look upon reality once more. “Chidi . . .”

She opened her eyes at the sound of grunting near the boat’s rear, of someone climbing the ladder to board. Chidi’s breath caught in her throat as the newcomer climbed the ladder to join them. When his face was revealed, Chidi found herself confronted with another ghost of her past. “Watawa . . .” She spoke his name in disbelief as the mystic Nomad joined them on the deck and knelt beside her. When their gazes met, shared grief lived in his one good eye at the sight lain before them all.

Watawa glanced away from Chidi, then placed his hands over Allambee’s body, keeping them an inch away from touching the injured boy’s skin and wounds. The shaman’s hands hovered over the boy in sweeping gesture, and Watawa’s good eye closed, his brow wrinkling as if he felt and absorbed some small part of Allambee’s pain. For a moment, Chidi swore that the burden of life in Allambee’s body was lifted, his wheezing breath turning to a sigh of contented peace as Watawa continued.

The boy’s face contorted once more, however, when the one-eyed Nomad ceased such movements.

Marisa stirred. “What do you see, Open Shell?”

Watawa met her question with one of his own. “You know me?”

“Aye,” said Marisa. “I have seen your face in my own dreams. Felt your eye searching . . . and heard you calling out with deeper questions to match my own.”

“Were you given answers?”

“Little more than you,” said Marisa. “But enough to know that you are favored among the light. A wounded one, broken by the horrors of this world . . . and yet still seeking for wholeness.”

“Are we not all of us seeking for such?” Watawa asked.

“One would hope so, would they not?” Marisa asked ruefully. “Have you brought the boy’s father?”

Watawa squirmed under her stare. “How am I to know who this boy’s father is? I have never seen his likeness before. Not even in my dreams.”

“No,” said Marisa. “But you know that my words are true. As does he.” She looked to the dark water just beyond the boat’s edge, the waves still choppy and shielding all that swam beneath.

“It seems to me that you are gifted greater sight than that granted unto me, Silkie,” said Watawa. “What need have you to bring me into this poor boy’s affair?”

“Because as broken as you deem yourself to be, Open Shell, you are still among the favored few to rise against the darkness.” Marisa smiled when Watawa sagged beneath her claim. “I wished to meet with you, if only for a scattered moment in time. Oft times the purest in heart are such disbelievers in themselves that they will not recognize the truth of their own light. Much as you sense the light in the others, I have found it helps to hear such goodness as those others see it in us also. Aye, if only that we might take the tender seed of encouragement and see it nurtured for all those other times of dark and doubt.”

His shoulders straightening, Watawa clenched a fist and held it against his breast. “You honor me . . . and yet I do not know your name to thank you for such kindness.”

“Nor do you need to know my name for your gratefulness to carry, Open Shell,” said Marisa. “Your actions in venturing above to serve all those beneath who cannot ascend speaks far greater to your worth than any humble words of thanks would do.”

Watawa nodded, then looked away from her and back to Allambee instead. “What then for this boy? If you mean for us to move him, I have my doubts it be in his interests.”

To Chidi’s mind, Allambee’s pain seemed to ease once more as Marisa stroked his brow over and again to remove the sweat beads.

“No,” Marisa continued in answer to Watawa. “What lies beneath the Salt is this boy’s greatest interest. Say rather, his meeting of the one who waits for him there.”

Watawa looked on Allambee once more. “From the tales I have already heard below of his stand against the Orcs, this is no mere boy. This one here is a born warrior.” He glanced at Chidi next. “An aumakua by all accounts. One who has shown great honor to his people and his father.”

“Then let us help them to finally meet,” said Marisa, moving to take hold of a tarp end they had lain Allambee upon. “Aye, that his father and his people might sing his praises and his name.”

As Watawa moved to take up another end, Allambee winced and groaned at the movement.

“Stop!” Chidi cried out. “You’re hurting him.”

“A little pain for a greater purpose,” said Marisa, continuing to keep her hold of the tarp end.

When Watawa also refused to drop his end, Chidi looked to Bryant for aid. With his sigh, she took it as a signal he was of two minds about the situation.

Marisa ended any debate by speaking to him before Chidi could. “What would you do, David Bryant? What offering made? What pain endured, if the chance were given you to meet the child you lost? To hold that child in your arms . . . aye, if you could but glimpse their face for a few precious moments?”

That’s not fair. Chidi thought when seeing Bryant’s mind made up even before he too reached for another of the tarp ends. You’re using his pain against him.

“Bryant,” she said. “You don’t have to do this . . .”

“I do, Chidi,” he said. “And you ought to as well, ‘specially with all the times you heard this boy talk about his destiny and meeting his daddy. If Allambee’s gonna die today, we can at least help him to see that one wish through.”

Chidi’s muscles tensed at that, her vision blurring even as she found herself reaching for the tarp end at her feet to help the others in sharing the load. Pulling the tarp taut, they acted as one to lift and then maneuver Allambee’s body as gently as could be allowed to the furthest reaches of the boat. When Chidi stepped to its edge, she looked upon the silvery, shadowed tails and forms of all those swimming below in wait.

Chidi gasped when their fingers broke the surface. A dozen hands slowly rose to accept the one offered to them. And when the transferring came, Allambee passed from those upon the boat to all those awaiting below, Chidi gazed upon the face of her fallen friend once more. She prepared herself to say goodbye, all of her experiences both ashore and beneath the Salt warning that she would never again see the face of Allambee Omondi in the above again.

The tarp teased away beneath her grip.

Chidi refused to let go.

Allambee’s eyes fluttered open at the last, finding her gaze among all the rest gathered on the boat. His hand reached for her, closing on her wrist. “Chidi . . .” he said, his voice barely audible among the Salted chop and the wind whistling off the watery surface. “Chidi . . .”

“I’m here,” Chidi wept, kneeling to kiss his hand. “I’m right here.”

Allambee’s grip relented his claim of her. “Stay . . .” he whispered. “Stay with me, Chidi . . .”

Tears streaming down her cheeks, Chidi felt the gentle hand of Watawa upon her shoulder, his soft voice in her ear. “Come with us, child. And quickly . . . for the green waters sing his name . . . and soon he must heed the call, like all the rest long gone before.”

Chidi wasted no time in donning her hood as the other Nomads took Allambee’s body fully into their charge. Not knowing what lay in store for her beneath the Salt among the Nomads, Chidi found herself glancing back at Marisa and Bryant too.

“Go with him, Chidi . . .” Bryant whispered. “We ain’t going anywhere without you.”

Nodding in reply, Chidi briefly locked eyes with Marisa Bourgeois. Then, Watawa was nudging her onward toward the Salt before he dove in.

Chidi followed the Nomad shaman into the water. The Silkie changes swept over her the moment she struck the surface. Chidi embraced her seal form, despite the warning from her primal mind to flee all that gathered around her. A lone Silkie among a slew of Nomads in half-human and a swarming school of Hammerhead sharks too, Chidi comforted herself with the presence of Watawa and the sight of another face that she well remembered from her time ashore.

The Silent Hammer from the zoo . . . Chidi thought when Atsidi Darksnout took his fallen son’s broken body into his arms.

The Hammer chieftain cast his harsh, if broken gaze upon her briefly. Then, Atsidi Darksnout bore his son away for darker waters. A host of other warriors flanked them, and all with tails matching both the father and the son.

Chidi watched them vanish into the depths, uncertain of whether to go with them.

Watawa swam alongside her, then stirred her to follow after the others once more.

Chidi did, trailing the one-eyed shaman into the darkened depths and the Nomad infested waters where no Silkie would dare to swim otherwise.

18

GARRETT

Garrett tread water alongside his Nomad father, Cursion White Shadow, their Great White Shark tails cutting their own currents as they swept back and forth in tandem like a pair of pendulums keeping time together. Peering through the blurry ceiling that was the surface of the Salt, Garrett watched Watawa aiding what he assumed to be several of the boat crew members above. Coupled with the blurry surface, the night sky shielded their identities from him, but he gathered that all were working as one to ease the injured, Nomad brave into the water and then into the awaiting arms of Atsidi Darksnout and his Hammer warriors.

To Garrett’s mind, the Nomad boy looked dead already. The makeshift wrappings around his wounds were dark-stained, devoid of any original color that the cloth may once have held before it was wrapped around the ill-fated warrior.

Atsidi Darksnout took hold of his son, clutching the boy’s broken and shattered body in his sinewy arms, his eyes gleaming as the warriors of his tribe swarmed around him in protecting watch. No sooner than they turned to descend as a single unit, the water churned with a pair of others diving in.

Watawa was the first of them to shift, his human legs replaced by a Mako shark tail the moment he struck the water. The other diver was a seal with a design unlike Garrett had ever seen – the animal’s skin cream-colored with a gorgeous pattern that reminded him of swirling ribbons. He assumed the seal to be one of the Selkie boat crewmembers, but, with their human face shielded by their Salted form, he had no way of knowing the Ribbon Seal’s true identity.

The mere sight of the animal had him reflecting on his Silkie mother, Cristina, again. For a moment, he thought to convince himself that his mother had survived her own encounter with the Orcs in New Pearlaya. That she would have then coming searching for him too. Reality begged him to suffer the truth once more; that his mother was neither alive, nor did the seal swimming in front of him now have the same coat, or color, that his mother had worn. Mom was a Gray Seal, Garrett recalled, his mother’s Silkie skin paling in compare to the Ribbon Seal’s multi-colored and beautifully swirled design.

The Ribbon Seal before him also took no notice of Garrett, nor those swimming with him and Cursion. To his mind, the seal had eyes only for the injured boy in the arms of Atsidi Darksnout. When the Hammer chieftain and his warriors left the remaining Nomads behind, the only non-Hammers to follow were Watawa the Open Shell and the Ribbon Seal that he motioned to swim alongside him.

Cursion stirred too, then, reaching his arm around Garrett’s shoulders to embrace the healthy, living son at his side.

Even as his mind wished it were Tom Weaver, or Cristina, to hold him, Garrett relished the squeeze his blood father, Cursion, gave him all the same. What will happen to the boy? He asked.

Who can say? The high chieftain replied, squeezing Garrett’s shoulder once more before releasing him. But if the boy is truly the son of Silent Hammer, then I will pray for them both that he makes a recovery in full.

Garrett looked to the blurry boat above.

Where there had been three crewmembers helping Watawa to move the boy into the water, now Garrett saw only one remaining. By the height and size, Garrett estimated the person above to be a man, but he could not be certain. For a moment, Garrett considered venturing up to speak with the crewmember to learn of all that had happened before he and the other Nomads had arrived.

Garrett . . . Cursion called his attention. Come, my son.

Where are we going? Garrett asked, even as he followed his father in descending in the opposite direction of where Atsidi Darksnout and his Hammer warriors had gone. Shouldn’t we talk to the Selkies from the boat and find out what they know?

We will find out soon enough what they know, Cursion motioned toward a ringed collection of Nomad warriors surrounding the boat’s perimeter. And the Selkie can wait, for now. I would rather hear from the Blackfin’s seawolves that were captured by our people first.

Violovar. Garrett thought, kicking his tail harder to keep up with his father’s fervent pace. Near half a mile before they reached the captives, Garrett’s primal mind scented Orc blood in the water, both sour and sweet, mixing with the taste of briny Salt. The scent urged him to hasten onward or else to risk losing a chance at an easy meal. Garrett fought against the primal urgings, but welcomed the adrenaline surging through him, gifting him further speed and endurance.

Ahead, a slew of Nomads had swarmed around still more at the center, all huddled around an Orc in raggedy, leather armor who swiped and raged, taunting those who waited to finish him. All the while, the Nomad warriors cheered at their champion in the center, Ishmael easily swimming aside from each blow the Orc meant to end him with.

The waters were red-stained around them all, the Nomads feeding on the intoxicating frenzy left to them by each additional wound that Ishmael gifted to the Orc. Of their enemy, Garrett witnessed several more former prisoners of black-and-white, and all of them slain. What remained of their bodies were slumped and floating beneath the Salt surface, left to move and spin by the underwater current, or else when Nomads in their full-on shark forms came to nip at the fleshy treasures that the Orc souls left behind.

Garrett glanced away from the horror and the rising memories within him of having witnessed such a thing before outside the gates of New Pearlaya. He focused instead on the cheers and cries from those surrounding Ishmael and the surviving Orc at the center of their makeshift fighting ring. Long scars were raked down the Orc’s black tail, some of them newly reopened and bleeding for the wounds gifted him by the continued fight. The tattered rags he wore clung to his upper body, the holes in the cloth revealing his arms and shoulders were adorned with strange tattoos and brands.

Cursion shouted them all down. Enough! He cried, speeding toward the center to break-up the ring and put an end to the ongoing circus.

Garrett followed the high chieftain to the circle’s middle. He thought to warn Ishmael when the Orc soldier shot forward with his blade raised in a renewed, hopeful attack of ending at least one of the Nomads harassing him. Before he could raise the alarm, Ishmael reacted with uncanny awareness and speed, dodging the attempted blow and catching the Orc by the wrist instead. He twisted the soldier’s arm at the last.

The Orc cried out at the sudden reversal, dropping his blade for the Salt to drown and keep for the whole of time. Before the Orc could react further, Ishmael craned the soldier’s arm behind his back and drove him forward through the water toward Cursion.

A gift for you, high chieftain, Ishmael practically sang as he lifted on the soldier’s arm, forcing him to wince and halt in their shared swim at the same time. Ishmael grinned at Cursion. Aye, a gift for you and your son, White Shadow, for we all know how much you both love the Orcs.

When Cursion said nothing of the taunt, Garrett too endured the titter of laughter and several whisperings from the gathered crowd of another potential fight to come. Rather than listen to the other Nomads, Garrett chose instead to study the Orc captive, a scraggly, if well-built, younger soldier. Still, Garrett could not be certain of the Orc’s age with the rusted helmet shielding the soldier’s true identity.

Cursion was looking over the Orc prisoner too. Where are the other captives? He asked of Ishmael. The Mako who brought such news to our council said there were several hostiles taken.

Ishmael grinned. Aye, there were more. He motioned to the slain Orcs nearby. Alas, the others among the pod would not heed me. They learned too late the difference between idle threat and certain death. This one here is the last of them, he patted the Orc soldier on the back. He, at least, thought to make a braver end than his fellows, didn’t you, boy?

The Orc grunted agreement beneath his helmet.

Cursion swam forward. Leave him be, Red Water. I would hear what tiding this Orc brings, or at least what commands were given to him.

Ishmael chuckled. If he be anything like his fellows, I fear your patience will give out before this one provides an answer, high chieftain.

My patience lasts longer than yours, Red Water, said Cursion. Remove his helmet. I would know this Orc better.

As you command. Ishmael smirked in eager reply before turning over the captive to a pair of warriors from Cursion’s tribe. When both had laid hands upon the Orc captive, Ishmael used his tail to drift upward and pluck the helmet off the Orc.

Garrett’s eyes widened in recognition of the face beneath. He had thought nothing of the long, fresh scars raked down the hostage’s black tail, but he well remembered his former pod-mate from the Painted Guard for the distinctive white patches encircling the captive’s eyes. Both made the Orc appear larger and menacing.

Garrett recalled having once feared the wild Orc captive too, their first meeting having been after the events in Crayfish Cavern when Makeda had thwarted the Blackfin’s seawolves. Their time training together in New Pearlaya had only furthered Garrett’s loathing of his former pod-mate.

Arsen . . . he thought of the captive’s name, glaring back at the traitorous prisoner when both locked eyes.

Cursion cued on the look between them. You know this Orc, my son?

I do, said Garrett. He’s one of those that tried to kill me. He thought of his mother, then; of Cristina Weaver, weeping in the sands before her own death. Glancing at his Nomad father and seeing the rage in Cursion’s eyes, Garrett thought to press the matter further. Arsen is one of those who betrayed Makeda too.

A dead traitor, then, said Cursion, his gaze narrowing on Arsen as he plucked a dagger off his belt. Though the manner in which your death comes will rely on your next choices, Orc. Sing for me now, and pray that I approve of your answers. What fool madness brought you to betray your pod mother and my son? Aye, and to attack my people too with so few of you in number?

Arsen’s voice shook, despite the calm in which he managed to maintain as the Nomads tightened their grip on him. Wanted to breathe a while longer, didn’t I? Not madness if you’re trying to live, is it?

Cursion frowned. It is madness to believe you would survive after making enemies on both sides. A betrayal of your people and then to attack mine as well.

Well, I didn’t have much choice in either, did I, sir? Arsen replied. Not had much choice at all in my poor, miserable life, I don’t mind telling you.

Garrett could not tolerate that, the face of another former pod-mate flashing in his mind, and begging words he muttered at his end. No choices, huh? He demanded of Arsen. Like when you killed Pieter? You didn’t have a choice there, Arsen? Because I remember it seemed like you enjoyed twisting the knife at Pieter’s end.

It were a favor I done that poor lad, so it was, said Arsen. Better the death I gave him, then one that the Blackfin would have given him. Aye, a better and swifter end by my hand than the one your people here would give ours too, for that matter. Her jerked his head toward the other Orc dead, their bodies still being nipped at by the ongoing, frenzied shark feast. If you offered me that same end, here and now, as the one I gave that whiny bleater from our pod, Recruit Weaver, truly I’d take the iron kiss I offered him in half a heartbeat.

Cursion nodded. You might just get your wish, boy. Answer my questions honestly and it might be I grant you a swift and easy end. Again, the choice lies with you, Orc. Now, what brought you here and led you to betray your pod mother, Makeda?

Arsen cringed as if fearing the blade fall to come. Meaning no offense, sir, but it’s not loyalty if I never swore the pod mother allegiance, is it?

My son says you were a pod-mate of his, both of you in service of the Painted Guard. . .

Aye, we were training to be, but neither of us chose to join, did we, Recruit Weaver? He looked to Garrett for validation. Receiving none, Arsen turned back to Cursion. It were the Blackfin I served all along, sir. Not that I made much choice in loyalty to him either. ‘An Orc without his pod is nothing’, sir. I didn’t have no pod, nor name either, ‘fore the Blackfin took me in. Named me hisself, he did. He takes in all what he finds alone, or the Painted Guard won’t keep, sir. All on account of he knows what it is to be cast out, the Blackfin does. Same as was done for him in favor of his sister after you murdered their father, sir. Arsen shook his head. But I didn’t never swear no allegiance to Makeda. When the Blackfin saw we would lose our fight against her outside of Crayfish Cavern, he chose me to swim off and be taken in by the Painted Guard. Knew his sister well enough that she and her lot would force me in recruitment for them, he did. In truth, he only sent me to keep eyes on that one there. He pointed at Garrett. Aye, wanted to learn if it were his nephew or not.

Why? Cursion asked. The Blackfin is as much a purist as they come. Why should he concern himself with a half-bred nephew, if not for his own ill wants?

I don’t know, sir, said Arsen. Honest, I don’t. The Blackfin don’t tell me much, and I don’t ask. Learned when I was young it’s better if you steer clear of him, sir. Just do as your told. Same as the rest like me that he brings in and makes for his Violovar.

Rapists, traitors, and murderers is what he brings in, said Garrett, reminded of finding the other Violovar spy, Xander, as he assaulted their female pod-mate, Vanya, after Pieter’s death.

Aye, Arsen agreed with Garrett’s assessment. But let you grow up as we did. See how you turn out, Recruit Weaver. It’s not all of us so lucky as you to have royal ties and live our days safe upon the shore. I tell you true, I’d have given up all my days below for a single one of happiness above.

Ishmael chuckled. Maybe you should’ve ran ashore when you had the chance, then, boy. He mussed Arsen’s hair, leaving it to flow in the underwater current.

Might be I should’ve, said Arsen. Or give me a chance now, sir, and I will. Aye, swim for shore this very day, I will. Swallow the anchor and never come back.

You could have done already, said Ishmael. I gave you that chance to live and carry the tale of crossing currents with Red Water when we met outside of New Pearlaya. The same as the day that your former pod-mate here swam away with me.

Beg pardon, sir, said Arsen. But you didn’t tell me to run for shore. Asked me to deliver your message to the Blackfin, and so I did. Not that it would have mattered if I hadn’t done. The Blackfin and my brother seawolves would’ve come ashore to hunt me down anyways if I had fled without reporting back. He’s a monster what don’t forget or forgive nothing. Anyway, it was a message you told me to deliver, sir. Not to run for me life.

Ishmael snorted. Such the loyal pet, aren’t you?

Cursion stirred. What was this message passed between you, then? He looked between Ishmael and Arsen. These words meant to reach the Blackfin?

The Orc was the first to give him a reply. He told me to say the whole of the Devil’s Triangle would rejoice with the prodigal son’s return, sir.

Cursion cocked an eyebrow as he looked on Ishmael. Prodigal son?

Ishmael shrugged in boyish answer. Admittedly, I have always shown a flair for the dramatic. He looked on Garrett. And I thought the Blackfin should like to know where his nephew would be delivered. Or, say rather, to whom his nephew should be delivered. Ishmael gave a mocking bow to Cursion. For your son is the prodigal one returned, no?

Garrett sneered. You weren’t talking about me, then, he thought to himself, his interactions and journeys with Ishmael leading him to know better now. You were only ever thinking about yourself.

The high chieftain too ignored Ishmael’s words in favor of Arsen instead. If your message were delivered to the Blackfin, why have you come here, Orc? Why do you attack my people?

Told you that the Blackfin sent me, sir, said Arsen. Sent me in punishment for not being brave enough to die when facing Red Water like my brothers-in-arms. He said that I were a bloody fool once to deliver him such a message. That I might as well be a dead fool to deliver an offer in reply.

An offer, you say? Cursion asked.

Aye, sir. The Blackfin said if you’ll send his nephew back to him, safe and whole, then he’ll set his sister free to swim back to you in fair return. A prisoner exchange, if you will.

Makeda? Cursion’s voice broke in naming her. She’s alive?

Aye, sir, said Arsen. Alive and well, for now. Last I seen anyway, even if she were in chains.

Garrett looked to his Nomad father, doubt creeping in his mind at what the high chieftain’s response would be. Don’t send me back. Garrett prayed, well remembering his encounter with the Blackfin outside of Crayfish Cavern. The mandate put to him of killing Lenny Dolan to prove his loyalty to the Orcs and the Violovar. He had no knowledge at the time that the Blackfin was his uncle, but the thought of being wanted by him now and in exchange for Makeda’s freedom set Garrett’s teeth to chattering. Why does the Blackfin want me so bad? Garrett wondered. What does he intend?

Cursion drew closer to Arsen, his hand reaching for the dagger at his belt. The Blackfin confuses me with his own desires. I believe you had it right from the start, Orc, he drew the dagger and raised it to Arsen’s throat. The Blackfin sent you here to die.

Arsen winced and cried out the moment the iron touched his skin. Please, sir! Don’t kill me. Please . . . let me swim for shore. I’ll swallow the anchor, sir. On my honor I will.

Garrett sneered at the pitiful act. You don’t have any honor, Arsen. He looked to Cursion when the high chieftain glanced over at him. I begged him to not kill our pod-mate, Pieter, outside of New Pearlaya. He chose to do it anyway. Garrett glared at Arsen. He enjoyed killing my friend.

I didn’t though, Arsen whined. Honest, I didn’t. He were a weakling, that one. Would’ve been killed anyway in the first battle he went to. Aye, and gotten others of our pod killed too, no doubt. Maybe even you, Weaver. All it takes is one weak link in a chain to break it. Pieter was ours.

Our pod was already broken, said Garrett. And you were one of those to break it.

Ishmael whistled lowly, drawing the attention of all. All of this talk of Orc pods and killing has set my blood to boiling . . . he played to the Nomads surrounding them before settling his gaze on Garrett, a wicked gleam in his eyes. Aye, and wondering where certain loyalties lie.

What do you mean? Garrett sneered back at him.

You and this hostage were once recruits of the Painted Guard, no? Ishmael posited. And you say this Orc here killed one of your friends, yes?

He did, said Garrett, even as his gut needled at him for every word uttered by the Nomad that he had crossed the Salt with.

Ishmael smiled. It seems to me then that Lady Fate has offered us all an opportunity this day. He drew his own dagger, then, spinning it easily around in the palm of his hand so that he might hold the blade’s end and offer the hilt for Garrett to take hold of instead. Aye, quite the opportunity. Vengeance for your slain friend and former pod-mate, his smirk widened. As well as the chance to show us all where your true loyalties lie, Garrett Half-Orc.

Garrett hesitated to reach out for the blade, even as Ishmael continued holding it out in offer. He glanced at Arsen, his face pale and eyes flitting back in forth in careful watch. Garrett looked back at Ishmael. You want me to kill him?

Who better? Ishmael challenged. You know this Orc hostage, and what murderous acts he has committed against his kindred. Also, both our wise leader and the Blackfin have already doomed him. Did this Orc not claim to wish for a swifter, cleaner death at our hands, rather than be returned to the Blackfin and face his tortures? Ishmael lifted the hilt again in further, urgent offer. Give this one the end he seeks, Garrett Half-Orc. Or make him suffer, if you would rather. Either way, let you prove where your loyalties truly lie now – to your proud father and us Nomads all, he glared at Arsen once more. Or refuse, and swear yourself to the Orcs that you abandoned and claim to loathe.

Shivering beneath the careful watch of all the surrounding warriors, Garrett took hold of the hilt, his fingers closing around it. Garrett lowered the dagger as soon as Ishmael released the full weight of the blade unto him. For all his wish to let go of the dagger, his mind released a flood of memories from his time among the Orcs. The whimpered cries of Pieter as Arsen and the others tortured him during their initial training, and then again before his slaying. Garrett heard his mother baying with her seal voice too, a similar choice presented to him before Makeda made the decision for him.

With a flick of his tail, Ishmael slowly rounded on Garrett. Do it, Half-Orc, he purred. Kill this traitor to your former pod. Avenger your friend and be done with it.

The corners of Garrett’s eyes stung as he understood the challenge put to him, similar in nature to the one that the seawolves had tried and failed to force him to make outside of Crayfish Cavern and then again in New Pearlaya too.

Garrett looked on Arsen, then, held in front of him by the burly warriors.

Unlike those earlier times before, however, when put to the choice of killing Lenny Dolan or his mother, Garrett could think of no reason as to why his former pod-mate should not die. How the world would not be better served without Arsen’s existence.

Do it. His primal minds urged him also, both feeling the collective tension in the water, the eyes of all those warriors awaiting to see what he would do. You know that Arsen would do the same to you.

He would. Garrett argued with himself the longer he looked into Arsen’s pitiful stare. His fingers clenched tighter upon the dagger hilt, his knuckles whitening as he further imagined what must needs be done next. Both for rightful vengeance over Pieter’s murder and in signal to the Nomads of his loyalty too.

Despite all his reasoning, and for every passing moment, Garrett knew that he could not bring himself to the cold-blooded act. The more he looked at Arsen and his predicament, Garrett imagined himself in the Orc hostage’s situation; one that Garrett had experienced numerous times already. He envisioned the panic Arsen would be feeling. The knowledge that pain and death was soon to come. The wondering of all that to come thereafter, or if there was any hereafter at all.

Please. Arsen begged of Garrett to draw him from his thoughts. Don’t kill me, Weaver. I’ll swim for the shore and never come back. I swear it.

Garrett’s jaw clenched. I asked the same mercy of you, once, he replied to Arsen, his blood warming at the request made and the result that had occurred thereafter outside the walls of New Pearlaya. Forcing himself to not break his stare of the condemned, Garrett’s thoughts turned from picturing himself in Arsen’s place to that of another, more familiar enemy from his past.

Please. Garrett pictured Arsen as if he were Kellen Winstel instead, his old classmate’s haunted gaze begging the same as Arsen did whilst in the grip of the burly Nomads. Don’t do it, Weaver . . . don’t do this.

And then all such thoughts and imaginations were gone, Kellen’s face replaced with the reality of Arsen’s instead. Garrett’s imagination ran with him, remembering when he had killed Arsen’s partner in crime, Xander, before. How the surrounding water had blossomed red and enveloped them both as the life in Xander’s eyes had faded away and then stilled in deathly embrace. Garrett pictured committing the same act again, picturing Arsen’s head lolling forward, his chin covering the bloody smile that Garrett would draw across his neck to feed the surrounding water with its color.

No . . . Garrett’s conscience rose within him to fend off the primal minds of his Orc and Nomad forms. If you kill Arsen now, then you’re no better than him, or Ishmael either.

Garrett blinked, then. He found Ishmael’s dagger still clutched in his hand and at his side, but the blade remained clean and unused.

In front of him, Arsen nodded in thanks for his life.

Garrett averted his gaze, the familiar hatred lingering with the thought of serving rightful vengeance against his former pod-mate. There was the look of Cursion White Shadow too, studying him all the while, and Garrett wondered then if he had failed yet another Salt test placed before him.

More than all, Ishmael’s smile broadened to the point that Garrett wondered if it would break the Nomad’s face in half. Ishmael shook his head, then spoke to Cursion. Pity your Orc-son could not bring himself to act, White Shadow. It would seem he is truly of two minds as to which people own his loyalty.

Garrett shuddered under the other, disappointed looks from the surrounding warriors. They doubt me now too, he understood from the Nomads that sneered and whispered as they swam off in search of darker waters, or others to share the news of his failing with. And now I’m like you, aren’t I, Arsen? He thought, turning back to the captive Orc. Distrusted on both sides of the war to come.

Cursion called him from such thoughts when he placed his hand upon Garrett’s shoulder and squeezed. Perhaps my son is sworn to peace and life, Red Water, he said. Whatever his decision today, I have little doubt you will see where his true loyalties lie when we reach the gates of New Pearlaya.

Ishmael nodded. In time, aye, he said. Glancing over his shoulder, Ishmael motioned toward Arsen before looking to Cursion once more. For now, what would you have us do with this lone Orc captive, high chieftain? If your Orc-son will not slay him, and you will not permit me or any of us here to do so, what then is to be his fate?

His focus narrowed on Arsen, Cursion parsed his words before speaking. This Orc was with those who attacked the Selkies and maimed the son of Atsidi Darksnout. Let the Silent Hammer decide what his fate shall be.

Arsen came alive then, fighting in vain against the Nomads dragging him away in the direction the Hammer tribes had swam. No, please, sir! Don’t give me to him! Set me free, sir, please! I’ll swim for the shore, honest I will. You have my word!

Your words mean nothing, Garrett thought, frowning as Ishmael grinned at him a final time, then swam off with the others to deliver Arsen to the Hammer tribe. I should have done it, he thought then, watching as several of the warriors with Ishmael looked back at him and sneered. If he’s going to die anyway, I should have killed him and proved myself to the Nomads before they do the same for me.

Cursion drew Garrett from his inner debate with a light touch. Come, my son. Swim below me with awhile and let us forget these troubles above.

How? Garrett wondered, even as he obeyed. How am I ever supposed to forget all of these things I’ve seen and done?

And though Garrett repeated the question to himself, praying for a response, neither his conscience or the Salt came back to offer him an answer as he followed the Nomad high chieftain into deeper waters for answers that no one could give.

19

LENNY

Trekking across the Bouvetøya cavern floor of ice and stone, Lenny led the column of Selkie prisoners he and Jemmy T had helped to rescue from the killing fields and crematorium work. At the rear of their train, Tom Weaver escorted a lone Orc prisoner – the crematorium guard, Yusuf, bound and gagged.

At the head of their column, Lenny was afforded the primary view of what awaited them back at the Sailfish train and loading platforms. Some of those who fought in Røyrkval had cracked open barrels of the Orc supplies and divvied up portions of bread and fish among the slew of newly freed Selkie prisoners, all huddled and sat together. For all the masses gathered there, the weeping and whispered chatter among them, it was those beyond the Selkie groupings that drew Lenny Dolan’s attention most.

Vasili and others far taller than he stood in a semi-circle on guarded watch over the wounded Orc leader, Commander Pohl, and near a dozen of his Orc soldiers. All were seated or lain upon the platform with their hands bound behind their backs and gags in their mouths. Their blood-streaked skin and armor bore the hallmarks of battle, their faces lined with defeat. Most appeared as though they had resigned themselves to their fate. A few wrestled and failed to free themselves of their bonds. Commander Pohl did not fight his Selkie captors, or his bonds. His eyes trained instead on a pair of his soldiers lynched bodies’, both swaying at the end of ropes that had been tied to a support beam railing above the platform steps.

Lenny’s gaze narrowed on those who presided over the Orc condemned – Henry Boucher and his gang of Lepers.

Brutus worked alongside them too. Man-handling the corpse of an executed Orc, he lifted the body free of the noose it swung from, all to make room for another soon to come. Brutus tossed the dead Orc soldier aside, then headed for the platform as if meaning to choose his next victim. He hesitated when catching sight of Lenny and those returning.

“Oi! Found another to dangle, have we, Dolan?” Brutus asked, then waved his hand toward the platform. “He’ll have to take a place in line. We’ve others here to go first that have been waiting too long already.” He pointed one of his brat-sized fingers at the prisoners there. “Aye, and their dear Commander Pohl there is to go last of all. Meant to run him through with my sword, so I did. When I saw the wee children and the women he put away to suffer and starve though . . .” Brutus stroked his red-faced cheeks, the veins in his neck popping for each word spoke. “Well, let’s just say a blade would be too quick for him and such crimes.”

You haven’t seen the worst of it. Lenny thought, stopping shy of the platform as the others in groups came to stand along with him. The Orc prisoner, Yusuf, was trembling in Tom Weaver’s grip as he was brought toward the fore.

“No,” Yusuf wept. “Please, not this. Don’t let them hang me.”

Brutus took the Orcs in his sights. “Want to live, do you, lad? Mayhap you should’ve thought of that before going around slaughtering innocent women and children, eh?”

“I didn’t,” said Yusuf. “I didn’t kill them. I couldn’t.”

“No?” Brutus asked. “Then, why are you still here? Your dear old commander over there don’t seem the sort to tolerate a good-hearted soldier, like the sort you claim to be.”

Yusuf turned to Tom Weaver, clinging to him. “Please, sir, don’t let him kill me. Please! You know that I couldn’t hurt the Selkies. That’s why they put me in the crematorium, sir. Commander Pohl knew that I couldn’t hurt the prisoners.”

You’re barking up the wrong tree, Orc. Lenny thought when Tom shook Yusuf hard enough to keep him from blathering on.

“Oi, Tommy,” Brutus called out. “What’s this about a crematorium, eh? Got one here, have they?”

“Aye,” said Tom. “They’re burning the bodies of all those they killed.”

Brutus sneered. “Burning the evidence, you mean. That way none can say elsewise as to how many they’ve killed, if it were ever found out what they’re doing here.”

“Don’t think they care about numbers,” said Lenny. “They got all the Selkie skins peeled off and stacked up back there too. Suppose someone could count them, if they wanted to.”

“Is that so?” Brutus asked, eyeing the Orc prisoners one by one. “Well, then, I reckon dangling at the end of a rope is a bit clean for these here too. Might be instead we ought to flay them first, then add some of their skins of black and white to that mess they’ve all got piled up.” He looked to Henry and his gang. “What say you, Leper? You and your boys suited to such a task as they served up for all those like us?”

Henry’s cold, dead eyes made his answer plain enough. The drawing of his blade and the others in his gang to follow cemented the idea.

Despite all that he had seen, Lenny cringed at the idea of leaving the Orcs to Henry’s whims. He reminded himself of all the Orcs had done in Bouvetøya. His father’s death in Røyrkval. The Selkie criminal back in New Pearlaya that Edmund had shown him for being one the Orcs had strung up in Lenny’s place too.

Serves the Orcs right. He told himself, even as Declan’s teachings and his own conscience warned that to kill in such a way was not justice, but cold-blooded murder. Still, Lenny made his peace with the torturing to come, turning away that he, at least, would not need to add those images to his memories.

Looking out across the crowd of Selkie freed, however, he spotted more than a few children watching the ongoing affair. He keyed on a standing, Selkie boy among the crowd, his face already burdened by darkness and harsh realities. For all that Lenny saw in the boy’s eyes, he took note when the Selkie boy winced at one of the Orc soldiers yelping at Henry’s cruel taunt with the point of his blade.

Lenny to action. “Wait,” he said, wheeling back to the ongoing affair upon the platform.

The Leper gang did not heed him, flipping the tussling Orc soldier onto his belly, then holding him fast. Henry came among them with his blade handy, his left knee needling into the crook of the Orc’s back. Though he stopped at Lenny’s calling out, the glint in Henry’s eye warned that he did so only out of curiosity for the little man speaking up on the Orc’s behalf.

Brutus too came to the fore. “What’re you on about, Dolan?” he asked. “You got a better idea for how to make these here suffer first?”

“Nah,” said Lenny, glancing to the Selkie boy in the crowd again that Brutus, at least, might take note. “But ya can’t kill them. Not here and now anyway. Not like this.”

Brutus snorted. “And who’s going to stop us, lad? You?”

“Not me,” said Lenny. “You’re gonna stop yourself. Henry and his gang too. Because it’s like ya said, Brutus – they’re burning the evidence. If ya kill these Orcs, then who’s to say otherwise? Who to believe us?”

“You see all these seated out here, Dolan?” Brutus swept the end of his blade in pointed direction over all the newly freed Selkie prisoners. “They’re evidence too. T’will be their voices to carry the truth of this day and all those before it, so they will. Aye, let their voices stand as witness for the horrors that happened here.”

“Won’t do no good, if they can’t speak.” Lenny nodded toward one of the Selkies who had prevented Tom from punishing Yusuf in the crematorium. “Those we found burning the bodies had their tongues cut out, all on orders from that Commander Pohl over there. That way they couldn’t tell the other slaves what was happening. None of these we freed from the crematorium can talk.” He looked out on the Selkie masses, wondering if they too had all received a similar punishment, or if they stayed silent throughout the exchange for fear of what would happen if speaking up.

Brutus shook his head as he marched down the steps of the platform and then slowly over toward Lenny. “You’re a Dolan, lad. Figured you to be a wiser sort than this.” His blade still clutched in hand, Brutus stopped in front of Lenny and looked down on the smaller man. “You think the Merrows and Nomads, the other Orcs, any of them at all will care what these Selkies have to say about what happened here, do you?”

“I don’t think it,” said Lenny, a single glance in Tom Weaver’s direction making him reflect on conversations had with a younger Weaver. Lenny’s jaw clenched with conviction at the memory of warning Garrett outside Crayfish Cavern on how the Painted Guard soldiers had planned to defile Ellie and other captive Silkies. How Lenny’s warning and Garrett’s passing the message on had led to their rescue by the Painted Guard pod mother, Makeda. How her judgement of the Orc intentions and assault had later led to the castration and banishment of her guilty soldiers for their crime.

Lenny furthered his belief by thinking back to his exchange with the Merrow queen, Nattie Gao, outside of New Pearlaya too. How she had promised the Selkies freedom in exchange for teaching her daughter about the Salt’s harshest realities and what they meant for slaves. Lenny cursed himself again for rejecting the offer in favor of making his own choices and way. How all the decisions he made thereafter had led him to the pain and loss and place he stood in now. “I don’t think just anyone will care,” he reiterated to Brutus. “I know the right people who will listen to what’s happened here and do something about it too.”

“Well, most of us don’t have your fancy friends, do we?” said Brutus. “And even if you did have someone from up on high who you think would listen, lad, it don’t mean they’d do nothing about all this to stop it from happening again.”

“They would,” said Lenny. “But they gotta know about it first. Gotta give them something to use to back our claims too.”

“Oh? Your word not enough for your fancy friends then, eh?” Brutus asked before poking him in the chest. “Tell you what I know, son. All the friends I have left are either here, or dead. All of them Selkies too. And most of them killed by this sort.” He jerked his head toward Commander Pohl. “Their kind will never stop trying to put an end to folk like us.” He sighed. “Oh, I been a long time Salting away in prisons of all sorts, Dolan. Now, that I’m free of them slave mines too and seen all these horrors here? Don’t seem like much has changed for our kind beneath the Salt . . . and that which has only turned for the worse.” Brutus headed for Tom Weaver and Yusuf, reaching to grab hold of the Orc prisoner’s arm. “So, keep your good intentions and your bleeding heart, lad,” he said to Lenny. “Wash your hands of the mess to come, if you need, but leave the dirtier sort to us who know what this world really is. Aye, say nothing of what needs be done to change it and to help the poorer sort like us.”

Lenny gathered that Brutus meant to pull Yusuf away then.

Tom Weaver kept hold of his prisoner.

Brutus’s brow furrowed. “What’re you doing there, Tommy?”

“I’m listening,” Tom growled, brushing Brutus away, pulling Yusuf closer toward him. Tom’s gaze slighted back to Lenny. “Keep talking, Dolan. If you got a better idea than Brutus of what to do with these Orc scum, then you best lay out your plan quick.”

Lenny’s throat ran dry at the pressure of Tom’s challenge. His skin tingled with the eyes of all those he had fought beside questioning his arguments and judgement of the others with murder plain in their words and actions. In Jemmy T, he saw a similar, curious intent that Tom Weaver allowed in him to speak further on. There was the pleading in Yusuf’s eyes too, a stark contrast to the cold betrayal steeped in the faces of the Selkie fighters surrounding him.

What would you say, Pop? Lenny wondered, praying for his father’s voice and mantras for guidance. For all the times he could recall Declan Dolan’s sage-like words, Lenny heard nothing from the ghost or memories of his father now. What do I say?

“Well?” Tom barked at him. “What’s it gonna be, Dolan?”

Lenny ignored the question, his thoughts and questions, his search for an answer, all went blank when he recognized the stillness that had taken hold over all in Bouvetøya. Turning, Lenny looked over all those seated before him, the emaciated prisoners, desperate for sustenance and hope. He saw the defeated Orc soldiers, the hate in their angered looks a mirror of the Selkie rebels standing guard over them. Most of all, he found himself coming back to the Selkie boy in the crowd, his dirty brow furrowed with the same hate and anger Lenny knew lived within him also.

It’s gonna keep going. Lenny thought then. It’s all just gonna keep going . . . keep happening. Just the way the world is . . . and ya can’t do nothing about it, Len.

But ya can, son. Declan’s teachings rose within him. The mantra that Lenny was his father’s son in every regard. Chief among them, what it meant to be a Dolan.

Lenny looked across the faces of those he had fought and bled with, and then to those he had rescued, along with all the others he had fought to overcome. I’m a Dolan. He told himself once more, his shoulders squaring as he met Tom Weaver’s harsh gaze. “They’re coming with us,” he said. “All of them. The Selkies and these Orcs. Their commander too. We’ll take them back to New Pearlaya and sort them there for the ones who will listen. The rest will stand and answer for what happened here.”

Brutus scoffed. “Made that decision for all of us, have you?”

“Nah,” said Lenny. “You made it too, Brutus. Said yourself before the fight that you was gonna run your sword through that Orc commander . . . but ya didn’t. He’s still here ‘cause you chose to spare him.”

Brutus spat at Lenny’s feet. “I spared him, so I could kill him slow, Dolan. To give him that same courtesy as his kind done for me and mine. All to show these Orcs what it means to lose those who fight for you, and then to watch them slaughtered right in front of you.”

“Maybe,” said Lenny. “Or might be it’s ‘cause ya know that this is all wrong and ya want that Orc commander to suffer by living instead. All of us here know there’s worse things than death. Number one being the suffering.” His voice broke, thoughts of Declan’s sacrifice forever living in Lenny Dolan’s mind. “This whole knowing you’re still alive while people better than you had to die instead.”

Brutus’s face tightened. “That’s where you’re wrong, lad. None of those we lost had to die. Not then. Not now. Not even your dear father, Dolan. Him and the rest we know from the mines, all these down here? They died on account of nasty Orcs like these.” His focus turned. “And I mean to keep the ones here from wrecking still more lives to come.”

“Yeah?” Lenny challenged him. “And then who will the other Orcs listen to? The ones in New Pearlaya and beyond?”

Brutus scoffed. “Whoever it is they’ve been listening to is what landed all of us down here. All the bodies we left behind, or those they’ve already burnt in their fires. Did you forget about them?” He pointed across the cavern. “Go on back and have another look at all them Selkie suits, then, Dolan, if you need to see it all again.”

“I don’t need any more reminders,” said Lenny, fighting against all the haunted memories in his mind. “Just saying there’s some good Orcs out there in the world too.” He casted a lingered look on Tom Weaver, praying he would think on his fostered son. “And those good Orcs are the ones who need to know what happened here. They’re the kind who will care what happened here. Same goes for the Merrows too.” Lenny turned his focus on Brutus. “And you know one of them who will.”

“Do I?”

“Nattie Gao,” said Lenny. “The queen? You was locked up in her zoo for all these years, weren’t ya, Brutus? Got to know her pretty well, I’d guess.”

“Aye, that I did,” said Brutus. “And your kindly Merrow is the same one who sent me down to Røyrkval when she found me helping her daughter, Dolan. So, don’t pretend like the traitor queen I know her for will care about what happens with Selkies like us. Might be she’d even have us all sent right back down in chains to work her husband’s mines again, so she would.”

Lenny was about to argue back when another spoke up instead.

“She wouldn’t,” said Tom Weaver. “Dolan is right. The Nattie Gao that I knew and remember won’t just care about what’s happening down here. She’ll do something about it.” He nodded at Lenny, his grip strengthening on Yusuf’s arm. “And having proof will help her convince the others who don’t want to believe.”

“People believe what they want, Tommy,” Brutus sneered. “You know that, same as me. And as for proof? Bah! Them stacked suits that you’re on about will be taken from us the moment we get back into the capital, so they will. Aye, taken and used again to enslave still more. As for these soldiers here, what you’ll have is a bunch of ninnies who will turn silent and forget everything they done the moment they’re brought before the royals and a crowd. Aye, all the while knowing their Lord Blackfin will come to their rescue, or else put an end to them before they can speak such monstrous things as happened down here at the end of the world.”

“Might be some of that is true,” said Tom. “And I reckon that Nattie might well show these Orcs the same rope you mean to show them now.” He turned to his prisoner. “But, better to speak up and have a chance at keeping your life, rather than know you’re facing a slow death or flaying here and now, am I right, Yusuf?”

The Orc prisoner quickly agreed. “I’ll tell them,” he said. “I’ll confess to all that I know. Everything I saw and heard—”

“And did,” Tom cut in.

“Aye, and did,” Yusuf whispered his agreement. “I’ll tell it all, sir. I swear. Just, please, don’t kill me.”

“No,” said Tom, giving Yusuf a slap across the cheek. “No, you’re not gonna die today, boy. Not if you keep quiet from here on out, that is. But, just so we’re clear, Orc - I don’t wanna hear another word, unless I ask it of you.”

Yusuf nodded, bowing his chin to his chest to keep from looking at Brutus and Henry.

Brutus snorted at the display. Sheathing his blade, he backed away from Lenny and Tom’s group. “Do what you will with your captive, then, Tommy,” he said, rejoining Henry and the Leper gang. “Don’t think to tell us what to do with ours.” Brutus reached for the nearest Orc soldier, yanking him to his feet.

“Brutus . . .” Tom Weaver’s voice was quiet, yet Lenny swore that it carried throughout the cavern. He did not speak again until Brutus turned back to face him once more. “Don’t.”

Brutus hesitated.

Another didn’t.

“Don’t what?” Henry Boucher asked. Taking his knee off his own prisoner’s back, Henry shooed his gang away, then tugged the Orc prisoner beneath him to sit up. “Don’t kill these soldiers because . . . why? Hmm? Because it goes against you and the nipperkin’s morale sensibilities?” Henry did not wait for answer, choosing instead to slit the prisoner’s throat in a swift and well-practiced movement.

Lenny’s gut twisted as Henry hugged the prisoner close against him, the body spasming as the Orc soldier gurgled his last breaths. As the murdered prisoner nodded off, Henry kicked the body away and let his bloodied weapon fall to his side. And all the while, Henry Boucher’s gaze never left Tom Weaver’s. “You are not in charge here, Monsieur Weaver,” said Henry, his gang huddling around him. “No more than Lenny Dolan, or his father before him.” He played to his gang of Lepers and the others upon the platform. “For what little we have, we are all still free men, no?” Henry asked to some agreement from the others. “Oui . . . we are free Selkies here,” his murderous gaze resettled on Tom. “We make our own choices.”

Tom Weaver stepped toward him. “You’re all free to keep making them too,” he said. “But you kill another one of these soldiers, Henry, you and all your Leper friends are gonna find out where my morale sensibilities really lie . . . and where my actions fall short of meeting my principles.”

Lenny tensed when Jemmy T nocked an arrow beside him, the direction pointed at the Leper nearest Henry. He noticed Vasili and some others among the guards too had encircled Henry and his gang without a command given from Tom.

Henry Boucher smiled, unphased and unafraid of all that occurred around him, his gaze unrelenting of its focus upon Tom Weaver.

“Brutus,” said Tom. “You and Henry wanna play judge, jury, and executioner, that’s fine by me. But you give these Orcs a choice – either they agree to come with us, knowing they’re gonna confess to all the crimes committed here . . . or else they refuse that offer and get on to the hanging part right now.”

Some peace offering, Lenny thought of the continued stare-down between the two alphas.

Henry chuckled. “You all want justice for your dead . . . and yet you are loathe to take it, or even allow others to serve the punishment for you.” His lip curled before spitting in Tom’s direction. “Mercy is a small kindness your enemies will not share, Monsieur Weaver. Say nothing of your pity.”

Henry’s gaze shifted to Lenny then, a shudder running down the smaller man’s back at the slight and easy threat. Snapping his fingers, Henry led his gang of Lepers away from the platform, all of them quickly venturing deeper into the cavern and disappearing around a rocky outcropping.

Lenny had the momentary thought to question why Henry and his followers were headed toward the crematorium and the killing fields, but was distracted by Tom Weaver instead.

“Brutus,” Tom called out, his shoulders relaxing with Henry and the Lepers gone. “You good with this . . . or you mean to storm off with Henry and his friends?”

“Can’t say that I’m good with any of it,” said Brutus. “If what you say about all them Selkie suits is true, then I’d rather skin these Orcs here and now in fair exchange.”

It wouldn’t be a fair exchange. Lenny thought, reflecting back on the tens of thousands of stacked sealskins outside the crematorium. Not by a long shot. There’s not near enough Orcs to match the Selkie dead.

“We’re not skinning nobody,” said Tom. “Whatever the Orcs and Merrows said of you in the past, Brutus, we’re not butchers.”

“Not you lot, maybe,” said Brutus, positioning himself in front of the Orc commander, Pohl. “But me . . . well, a man is what others say he is. Aye, say rather, he becomes it on account of such tales. That about right, Commander?”

The Orc leader mumbled a response through his gag.

Brutus removed it a moment later. “Got something to say there, sir?” he taunted. “Speak on, then. For all the good it’ll do you and yours.”

Commander Pohl worked the stiffness of his jaw back and forth before speaking. “Kind of you Selkies to give us a choice between death now or death later. For what it’s worth, I’ll take my hanging now.” He glanced toward his fellow prisoners and soldiers. “Better a quick drop here, I say. Far better to take the rope here, rather than to face the horrors our Lord Blackfin would put us and our families through for failure, I assure you.”

Brutus showed his blade. “You Orcs fear his wrath later more than mine now, do you?”

“Indeed, I do,” said Commander Pohl before addressing his fellows again. “As all of you should fear the Blackfin’s vengeance as well. Failure in one’s duty is a travesty, but treason . . .” he tsked. “Well, that’s another matter entirely.”

Lenny stepped forth. “It’s not treason if it’s truth.”

“And what is ‘truth’, little Selkie?” Commander Pohl demanded of him. “Hmm? And what righteous creature are they to deem themselves good and worthy above all others to judge? What higher virtue in them to decide the truths from falsehoods when it comes to the choices made by strangers?”

“I’d say murdering thousands of Selkies is about more truth than I can handle,” said Lenny.

Commander Pohl smirked. “Then, I’m afraid it would kill you to know the harsher truth . . .” The Orc leader cocked an eyebrow. “It’s many more Selkies dead than the number you imagine.”

Lenny’s brow furrowed at the Commander’s unabashed manner.

“There now, you see?” the commander asked. “That is how you know truth, boy – the strength of it stumbles all formerly content in the falsehoods of their own foolish, blind beliefs.”

“How many, then?” Tom asked. “How many have you killed?”

“Not I,” said Commander Pohl. “I was only the administrator.”

“A what?” Lenny asked.

“An administrator,” said Commander Pohl. “I passed along the orders, as they were given unto me also. My loyal soldiers here carried it out, just as I carried my burden before them. That one there though,” he nodded toward Yusuf, who dared not meet the eye-line of his commander. “Well, Yusuf proved himself quite worthless when it came to killing. Don’t let him fool you, however – he was given the choice to leave or no. The same as all the rest sent here and those others carrying on to meet their duty in Røyrkval with Warden Zane before.”

“What do you mean?” Tom demanded. “What choice?”

Commander Pohl shrugged. “The Lord Blackfin knew these southern posts to be among the harshest of assignments. That only the hardiest of mind and spirit could carry out such orders. Whatever you think of our Pod Father, one cannot say he does not share concern for those loyal to him and our cause.”

“Your cause is genocide,” said Tom.

Commander Pohl scoffed. His brow furrowed at the stupefied reaction from the Selkies surrounding him. “You think me heartless for these acts? I’m not. No more than my Lord Blackfin. The Merrow king sent all these here down to the ice mines in Røyrkval to suffer and starve for their breaking of his laws and attempts at rebellion. It was my Lord Blackfin who ordered us to instead give cleaner deaths to your fellow Selkies. Faster too. We spared them from unneeded suffering, you might say.”

Brutus glared at Lenny and his grouping. “You lads heard enough yet? Want to call Henry and his Leper boys back now?”

“We’re not calling them back,” said Tom. “The commander here is just trying to bait you into giving him a quick death, Brutus. That, and set us to arguing again.”

Commander Pohl smiled at that. “You believe yourself a good man, don’t you, Selkie? You and that self-righteous little nipperkin there beside you.”

Lenny’s face reddened at the taunt, but he made no move to voice his disagreement as Commander Pohl went on.

“But the real truth is that you’re afraid. Fearful of the shadows that lives within all of us. A constant fear even my people share with yours, I shudder to say.” Commander Pohl’s lip curled at the admission. “The realization that we all have darkness lurking within . . . a monster whose hunger cannot be sated . . . always begging for release . . . aye, and the worser truth being that all such stirrings in us linger not so deep as we might imagine.”

Lenny’s skin tingled.

Commander Pohl shook his head. “No, the real darkness is never far from any of us, Selkie . . . and yet not all of us are capable of calling upon its power in our times of need. My Lord Blackfin knew this. It’s why he insisted we all have the choice to come and attend this bloody work, or else to leave it for others to do that we might return home instead with our conscience clean of such sins.” Commander Pohl nodded when Lenny and the others had no retort, their words stolen by his account. “Well, go on. Ask him if I lie.” He again motioned toward Yusuf. “Ask your blubbering fool there to name me a liar and say that we were not all offered the same choice to stay or go.”

Lenny looked over at the prisoner, finding Yusuf silent on the matter.

Tom gave his prisoner another hard shake. “Well? Is he lying or no?”

“No . . .” said Yusuf quietly, his response barely registering above a whisper.

“Why?” Lenny paled. “Why would you agree to stay?”

When Yusuf would not, or could not, provide an answer, Command Pohl spoke up again. “Look around you, nipperkin. Could you abandon your comrades here?” he asked of Lenny. “Your brothers in war? Aye, would you leave knowing that others would then be pulled to do the bloody, killing work you could not bring yourself to manage?”

“I would,” said Tom.

Commander Pohl snorted. “Then you are truly one in ten thousand, Sir Selkie,” he said. “I have little doubt you believe in your moral convictions now, for most have easy answers for difficult questions. Actions are another matter entirely, I’m afraid. And we all of us here know that truth, like life, is not so simple. You wish to know how and why these good Orcs and I stayed to carry out the Lord Blackfin’s commands?” He leaned forward, like offering them a secret. “‘An Orc without his pod is nothing.’” Commander Pohl proudly raised his chin. “And what pod would welcome a coward who turned from his duty and left the guilty work to others to carry out in his stead?” The commander sneered. “Or perhaps such honor is a trifling thing that a miserable Selkie like you could never truly understand or aspire to.”

But I do, Lenny thought, reflecting on his family mantra to never leave someone behind to take his punishment. Remembering why he made the decisions he had, the sins he had committed, and all done to not abandon those he cared for or leave them to carry out the work in his place.

“It’s a simple thing to not go around killing people,” said Tom. “Especially the innocent.”

“Simple?” Commander Pohl challenged him. “No . . . there’s nothing simple about killing, nor determining innocence. You need look no further than us right now to know the truth of that, Sir Selkie. You offered me and my Orcs the choice between death now or later, but I gave you my answer already. Save for your vengeful friend here,”—he motioned with his head toward Brutus–“the rest of you waffle about, rather than carry out the act that you claim to be above. Why? Because cold-blooded killing is not simple. Only the bravest in heart and solid-minded few can confront that reality and move forward knowing that their actions and sacrifice served the betterment of their people.” His eyes flashed at Lenny and Tom. “You want to kill me and my Orcs for such duty? Punish me for these crimes you lay before me?” He leaned forward. “Get on with it . . . you’ll hear no groveling from me for atonement of my sins and choices made.”

Brutus snorted. “I’ve heard enough already,” he said, pocketing his blade, then gagging the commander all over again. “Others will too, much as they might not want to and wish I’d spared them from it.” Brutus signaled some of the other brutes to come forward. “Take this wretch and his lot with him. Lock them away in the darkest cabin you can find and let them rot all the way back to New Pearlaya. Aye,” he cast his angry gaze on Lenny. “Let them rot all the way back so that their bloody, traitor queen and her Orc pets can hear. If Dolan’s right and there be any good left among the Salt Children, I gather they’ll be sickened by what they hear from these too.” He looked to Tom and Yusuf with him. “So that’s them sorted, then. What do you want to do with your pet, Tommy? Throw him in with the rest?”

“Do what you want with him after I’m done,” said Tom, turning Yusuf to look him squarely in the eyes. “I got some questions first, chief one being how do we get out of this cavern, Orc?”

Yusuf trembled in his grip.

“Hey!” Tom growled. “You hear what I said?”

Yusuf nodded, but gave no further answer.

“Talk,” said Tom. “How do we—”

“Hey, Tommy,” said Lenny. “You told him earlier that ya didn’t want anything else out of him . . . remember?”

Tom cursed. “Well, I want something now.” He refocused on Yusuf. “So, speak up, or I’ll have Brutus lock you in with the rest, Orc. How do we reach the surface from here?”

Showing his palms, Yusuf raised his trembling, manacled hands in surrender. “Please, there is no way up to the surface from this place. Commander Pohl sent some of us out to map the area when first we arrived . . . sent us to look for ways that Selkie prisoners might try and escape.” He shook his head. “There is none. No passageways up to the surface. There are only these two tunnels.” He pointed toward the train and the tunnels on either end of it – one leading south to Røyrkval, the other northbound toward the Salt capital.

Lenny swallowed hard, knowing where the northern track led. So, it’s either back to the ice tunnels down south, or on to New Pearlaya . . .

Tom sneered against Yusuf’s fervent nodding. “Why should I believe you?”

“Ask them,” Yusuf pointed a trembling finger at the freed Selkies in the crowd. “Commander Pohl released some of the prisoners . . . he told the Selkies if anyone could find a way out of here, then they would be free to go and none would follow after them.”

“And?”

“None made it out alive,” said Yusuf. “Of those who didn’t come back, we found their bodies strewn throughout the cavern, sir. All of those had starved or frozen to death, rather than come back to their cages. Truly, there is no escape from this place, sir. Not living, at least.”

“There is,” said Lenny, drawing the attention of all as he pointed back toward the train tunnels. “‘Cause we escaped one such place already.”

Tom’s face darkened at Lenny’s reply.

“Well?” Brutus asked. “What’s the plan now, Tommy? If there’s really no way out and it’s on to New Pearlaya, or else back to Rorykval, what’re we to do with all these other Selkies here?”

“Don’t know,” said Tom. “Take them with us, I suppose. What do you think, Dolan? You and Jemmy were both brought down from the capital, no?”

“Yeah,” said Lenny, thinking back to all the prisoners lined and chained in the dungeon-like station beneath the city. “We could maybe run the same scheme there as we did in offloading here. Having more bodies might help us to catch the Orcs in the capital that are sure to be waiting there by surprise too, but then what? Even if we live through the first wave of getting back, there’ll be all kinds of Orc soldiers and catcher gangs too for the crown to call down and hunt us after.”

Brutus snorted. “Then, we’d best not wait for the second wave or any thereafter. Aye, it’ll be every man for himself once we get to the pearled city, that’s what. Having more bodies should help in that too. All of us scattering about throughout the city like rats coming up outta the sewers.” He laughed. “Ought to keep the Orcs and catcher gangs busy awhile, so it will. Confusion for all and every man a fair chance at searching out his own way. And us to seek out our own families too, eh, Tommy?”

The elder Weaver nodded, though his expression shared none of the hope or mirth that Brutus did.

Family . . . Lenny thought dourly, his mind turning to the question of where he might go or what to do. What if you don’t got one no more? He wondered as to his own path in the days ahead. His gaze turned to watching Jemmy T load Yusuf on board the train. For a moment, he considered the possibility of returning to the capital with his father’s friend and seeking out Edmund’s whereabouts in New Pearlaya. Lenny discounted the notion a moment later. Nah, he told himself. Can’t do that. Not when I’m the one who got Jemmy in this mess. Almost landed Edmund in it too.

Lenny looked back in Tom’s direction, debating whether or not he could help Tom to find Garrett. Whether their reconnecting could help Lenny to find Ellie. If she might still be with the princess, Sydney, and if he could take up the queen’s previous offer for protection too.

For all the scenarios running through Lenny’s mind, it was the constant mantra of Declan Dolan that stayed with him when his gaze turned toward the Selkie masses once more. “We can’t leave them . . .” he said quietly.

“Nobody’s leaving anybody behind, Dolan,” said Tom. “We just said they’re coming with us.”

“No,” said Lenny, remembering his single night of running alone on the streets of New Pearlaya. How it ended with him being caught by Orc catchers and thrown back in the slave stocks to be resold at auction, his saving grace that Edmund and Jemmy T came to his rescue. “I mean we can’t just take them all back to New Pearlaya and leave them to scatter on their own,” Lenny said to the others, an idea forming in his mind as he watched his father’s former friend coming back to rejoin their company. “If we don’t stick together, then the Orcs, the catcher gangs, the masters . . . they’ll just find and take these Selkies here as slaves all over again. Keep repeating the cycle.”

Tom Weaver shook his head. “You figure out a plan for what you want to do with them, then, Dolan. I’ll not be sticking around for it. We get back to the capital, I’m off to find my son and my wife the first chance I get.”

“Aye,” said Brutus. “And me to find my family too.”

“Even if it means quitting on fighting the Blackfin and the Merrow king?” Lenny asked.

Brutus squinted. “What’s that you say?”

Lenny took a deep breath. “Yusuf said the Merrow king and the Blackfin sent all these down here because there were too many Selkies running and rebelling, right? That the royals and the masters were worried about another Selkie Strife.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, let’s give them a reason to pay attention to us,” said Lenny, his blood warming at the immediate cheer he saw in Brutus, the knowing smirk and delight spreading across the face of Jemmy T also. “And let’s give our people some hope for a change. A reason to believe we might turn the tide for our people for good and all.”

Tom Weaver alone seemed dissenting of the idea. “Another rebellion won’t work,” he said. “Røyrkval was one thing because we had no choice, Dolan. It was either rise against the Orcs, or be killed down there. Same with fighting here in Bouvetøya. We’ve had real fighters with us in both places, but we’ve taken some losses on those scores too. Now, you’re talking about bringing a bunch of women and children on board. Old folks too.”

“There’s child gangs of Selkie cutpurses all over New Pearlaya, no? And the Silkies I know can handle their own, yeah?” Lenny asked, his thoughts turning to Ellie and Chidi who had fought beside him before. How Ellie at least would have had some of her own words to say at the slight, perceived or otherwise.

Tom chuckled at the argument too. “Aye, the Silkies I’ve known can handle a blade. My wife, at least.”

Brutus chuckled. “She might still when you turn up after all these years being gone and with that ugly mug of yours too, Tommy.”

Lenny nodded. “So, we’ll give all these here some blades, then,” he said, reflecting again on the Orc soldiers who had come for Ellie in the night after they were seemingly rescued from Crayfish Cavern. “That’ll catch some of the worser sort off guard when we reach the capital. If nothing else, we might give some of these we’re bringing with us a real shot at escape.”

“How so?” Tom asked. “Say we make it off the train and take control of the main station in New Pearlaya . . . then what? You’ll have near enough a thousand Selkie slaves tucked away right in the heart of the city, all of us nestled deep underground and with nowhere to go. Say nothing if one of the Orc soldiers there, or the Selkie taskmasters with them, gets way. All it’ll take is one of them running topside to alert the others throughout the city of a Selkie incursion.”

“Then, we better make sure none of that sort gets away,” said Lenny. “As for what to do with the older Selkies and the children after, methinks I know a guy who might be able to help us in that department . . .” Lenny’s gaze shifted to his father’s friend. “What do ya say, Jemmy? You got any ideas of how we smuggle these people topside?”

“Aye, brudda,” said the former tavern owner and Selkie conductor. “You talking about my city, mon. Jemmy T? Him be helping you and these here on their way to freedom always.” He smiled so wide that Lenny thought his face might break. “These Orcs worried about another Selkie Strife? Jemmy T gonna give them one, yeah?” He laughed. “Aye, just like in them good ol’ days when we be running and fighting with Declan Dolan.”

“I’ll cheers to that, then,” Brutus growled. “For if it’s hope and fighting and freedom you’re selling for our kind, Dolan, then I’ll fight with you the same as I did for your father before.”

Lenny and Tom Weaver shared a look, the elder Selkie nodding in agreement.

“All right then, Dolan,” said Tom. “Let’s get these people on board. Seems we all got us a north-bound train to catch.”

20

SYDNEY

When she had been imprisoned in the oubliette, Sydney longed for any hint of light.

Now, with the traitor trails ended for the day, Sydney had been placed back inside the glass cell that were housed in the royal dungeons. Rubbing her eyes, she wondered if the Orcs guarding her would ever allow the torchlights surrounding her tank to be put out. Every few hours, when the torches began to dim, the guards changed shifts. The old guards would leave and take the dimmed torches with them. The newer would replace the lanterns with fresh pitch to brighten the dungeon housing Sydney once more.

All the while, Sydney’s water-filled tank hung poised over the darkness of the oubliette in warning that the Orcs should again cast her into the pit if she gave them any objection, or fuss.

Sydney had neither the strength or will to defy her Orc captors. She lazed at the bottom of her tank as best as she could. Had she been in her full human form, her knees would have been tucked against her chest. Instead, Sydney lay her cheek against her rubbery dolphin tail.

When weariness attempted to take her, Sydney fought against the oncoming sleep. For each time she closed her eyes, the horrors she had witnessed the Blackfin commit returned to haunt her. From his breaking Yvla’s body, to executing Ms. Morgan at the traitor trials, the shade of the Blackfin swam with Sydney always in her dreams, he and his pod hunting her and all those she cared for.

Through the blur of her tired eyes and the surrounding water, Sydney thought she saw the Blackfin coming for her again when the dungeon doors leading into her outer cell were opened by the Orcish guards outside.

Rather than allow the Blackfin to see her defeated, Sydney straightened inside the tank, her lip curling as a pair of hooded figures walked into the dungeon. Based on the way the Orc guards stood to attention, Sydney estimated the first of the newcomers to be the king. Though her assessment proved correct when both of the newcomers dropped their hoods, Sydney’s brow furrowed at the one who stood alongside the king. Rupert?

Pressing her hand against the glass at the sight of him, Sydney retracted the gesture a moment later. No words between them were needed to understand the betrayed hurt in Rupert’s eyes. Where first she believed it pained Rupert to see her held prisoner, all such notions vanished the longer Sydney watched him stare at her shark tail.

Darius patted the young lordling upon the shoulder. “There,” the king pointed to Sydney’s tail. “You see now, my friend? Do you still doubt all that I have told you?”

Rupert’s reply came so quietly that Sydney scarcely heard him. “No, Your Grace.”

Rupert! Sydney called to him, hoping for a flicker of recognition in her friend. Her former riding trainer would not look at her, his gaze holding on her tail in disbelief. Rupert, look at me! Please!

The king intervened. “He is looking at you, Sydney,” said Darius. “And therein lies the issue. He sees you truly now. Both your savage origins . . . and the heart of all the wicked lies you and your mother have told.”

Sydney shook her head as Rupert finally looked up at her. There were questions aplenty in his gaze. The pain she saw in them wounded Sydney more. Rupert . . .

The king glared at her. “Quiet! We did not come to treat with you, girl.”

Why did you come, then? Sydney asked.

“The Blackfin did his duty,” said Darius. “He mentioned you and Lord Bowrider had a conversation in private earlier today, before the trials began. Indeed, it was said that your friend, Rupert, here was quite adamant to speak with you alone.” He shrugged. “Naturally, I was curious to hear what was so important that the pair of you needed to meet in private. I could have certainly arranged such a meeting between you both, had Rupert come to me with the request.” Darius clapped him on the shoulder, squeezing. “Isn’t that right, boy?”

Rupert bowed his head, staring at the stone floor. “Aye, Your Grace,” he answered quietly.

Again, Darius clapped the young lord on the shoulder, bucking him up. “Ah, but we understand each other better now, I believe. Don’t we, my young friend? After all, we both know what it is to love someone who clearly does not share our interest.” The king glared at Sydney, then. “Just as we both know what it is to be lied too by the very person we would have done anything for.” He turned back to the Merrow lordling. “Would you agree or no, Lord Bowrider?”

Rupert looked at Sydney, all the question and hurt in him gone. Anger and sternness had swept away any former weakness or tender feeling that Sydney had previously seen in his eyes.

“Well?” the king asked him. “Would you agree or no?”

“I do, my king,” said Rupert. “It seems you had the right of it all along, as I should have guessed and believed from the start. Forgive me, Your Grace.”

The king released his hold on Rupert, patting him on the back instead. “There is nothing to forgive, my boy. Love is a dangerous game. You and I rightfully followed our hearts’ desires, as anyone would. Unfortunately, we were both swindled by the beauty and false affections of these wicked sirens.”

Sydney swam to the wall of her tank. Rupert, I didn’t swindle you! I didn’t mean—

The king slapped the glass to silence her, roaring his response too. “Quiet, girl! Or else I’ll have you thrown back into the oubliette to waste away for the whole of time.”

Sydney sank in her tank at the sight of the king enraged. Though she knew he was not her true father, in her mind she still could not reconcile his hatred of her. She had the thought to call out to Darius too, to name him father as she had all her life, if only to play to the decency she remembered within him. But, as with Rupert, she saw in the king no hint of their former relationship. Even as she questioned what to say or do, she watched her Orc guards move to stand by the lever that would drop the base of her tank and cast her back down into the oubliette’s pit of darkness. None had given Sydney any shred of doubt that they would carry out the king’s threat.

With Sydney silent, Darius again turned toward the tank. “You wish to know why we’re here, girl? I brought Lord Bowrider to this pit of despair that he might know you truly. Aye, to save him the years of wasting away in service to a love that will never be. To spare him thoughts of one who would never appreciate his efforts and sacrifices in full. I brought him that he might see your lies made plain, Sydney, as I should have welcomed someone to do for me with your mother from the start.”

I didn’t lie. Sydney thought to herself as she looked on Rupert. I just didn’t know.

“So many lies, girl,” Darius said, more to himself than her she gathered by the tone of his voice. “And to what end?”

Again, Sydney kept quiet, not understanding if he wished her to answer or no.

The king sagged outside her tank as if his body were tethered by invisible weights, his face wearied with questions. “Where is your brother, Sydney?” he asked her quietly. “Where is Jun?”

I-I don’t know, she said. He was at home—

The king pounded his palm against the glass. “Stop lying to me!” He snarled. “Where is my son, you bloody savage! What have you and your whore mother done with him? Why did she not bring him here? Why do none of those from your cursed zoo know where my son is?!”

Because we told you the truth! Sydney yelled back, unable to contain her rage. Mom left Jun at home, so that she could come after me! How many people have to tell you the same story before you believe it!

The king snorted as he backed away. “Hold to your lies all you will, then.” He shook his head. “The Blackfin assures me that his Orcs will find Prince Jun soon enough. Then, we’ll know which of us holds the truth of that story as well, won’t we?”

Everything I said is true, said Sydney. I’m not lying.

Darius shrugged. “Sadly, I have no way of knowing the truth or lie of which you speak, do I? Not until your brother is found and brought here, that is. Rest assured, Sydney - the Blackfin will find Prince Jun. Aye, just as the Blackfin and his seawolves sniffed you out among the Selkies and brought all those traitors they discovered hiding at your mother’s refuge ashore back here to stand trial.”

The seawolves found me because of a stupid mistake I made in trying to get rid of any ties to you. Sydney thought to herself of the royal seal and clothing she had cast into the sewers, the lone clue to lead the Blackfin and his Orcs into Catcher’s Corner. That doesn’t mean they will find Jun.

When Sydney gave him no reply, the king smiled in such a way that set her to shivering anew. “Still . . .” he began. “I should rather find the prince without the seawolves to locate him first. And there might be another means to learn whether you speak true or no, Sydney. Would you care to hear it?”

Sydney shook her head. I don’t need to play your games. I’ve told you the truth all along.

“Then, you shouldn’t find it difficult to do so now either,” said the king, studying her closely. “Tell me, Sydney . . . what did you and Rupert speak about today in private?”

Sydney’s fingers twitched at her side. What does he know? She wondered of the king before her gaze instinctually turned to Rupert. What did you tell him?

The king’s smile broadened. “Why are you looking to him, Sydney? Might it be, perhaps, that you wonder which lie to spin for me even now?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Or perhaps you wonder to which of us does Rupert’s true loyalty align?”

Sydney looked to him for any kind of sign. Rupert . . .

The only thing she saw in him then was a stony-face, devoid of any sentiment for her predicament.

The king called her attention. “Sydney . . . answer me.”

Sydney took a deep breath of Salt, exhaling through her gills before speaking. Rupert was worried about me, she said. And he was curious about Jun too. The rumors that . . . She glanced at her shark tail. He wanted to know if the rumors might be true.

The king tsked. “And you lied to him . . .”

Sydney looked beyond the king, her cheeks flushing as she stared into Rupert’s eyes. I did, she admitted. Only because I didn’t know what to do, or say. I was just happy to see my friend.

Rupert diverted his attention when Sydney’s voice broke, but he gave her no verbal reply.

The king sighed. “Yes, I’m sure you were quite eager to see Rupert there to stand between you and the Orcs. Say rather, to stop them from bringing you to face the shame and lies as you and your mother have furthered.” He waltzed around the tank. “And yet the Blackfin tells me he was on hand to hear you make a request of Rupert before the end of your conversation. Tell me true, Sydney, what favor did you ask of your good friend in that final moment, earlier today?”

He knows. Sydney shuddered at the implying tone from the king. But how much?

Rupert stared back at her with emptiness in his eyes.

I asked him to check on Roselani, the seahorse you gave me . . ., Sydney answered the king, opting for a half-truth to shield the hidden message within. I wanted him to tell Roselani how much I missed her . . . and how I wished that I could see her again.

The king turned to look on Rupert too. “Well? Was that the way of it? Is Sydney telling us the truth?”

“In part, aye,” said Rupert flatly, his gaze never breaking from Sydney’s. Almost as if he needed to see the hurt in her eyes as he betrayed her secret. “What she is not saying, Your Grace, is that Sydney also asked me to find a friend of hers and pass along a message to him. I think she used the seahorse as a ploy of her intended message for the Blackfin to hear. What she really meant was for me to understand the truer message to pass onto her secret friend.”

Sydney’s eyes narrowed. What are you doing, Rupert? Why are you telling him?

The king chuckled at the obvious disjoint between them. “A friend, you say?” Darius asked Rupert. “And did she give you his name, Master Bowrider?”

“She did, Your Grace,” said Rupert, his face darkening. “The brother of her former guardian. His name is Quill.”

Sydney sank inside her tank. Why are you doing this, Rupert?

Darius was coming back round the tank to confront Rupert too. “And did you find him?” He asked. “Have you discovered where Quill and his motley gang of sycophants and thieves are hiding?”

“Not yet, Your Grace,” said Rupert. “But I will do. My soldiers scour the city for him and his allies even as we speak.”

Sydney found some hope there. You won’t find him. She thought. If Quill survived the attack on Catcher’s Corner, he won’t be so foolish as to fall for any tricks with a Merrow lordling.

“How, then?” The king asked Rupert. “What makes you so certain that you can find him?”

“Because I won’t go searching for him,” said Rupert, his lip curling the longer he looked on Sydney. “If the rumors concerning Quill and his character are true, Your Grace, then the people protect him. They hide him in plain sight, just as they did for his sister and Sydney too.”

Aye, they do, Sydney thought to herself. And you’ll never find him. The only reason the Blackfin found us before was because of my stupid mistake.

The king scratched at his cheeks. “How then do you hope to draw him out?” he asked of Rupert.

“By passing the message along through another of Sydney’s friends,” said Rupert. “The people may protect Quill, but I doubt many will share the same affection for a Silkie runner with a generous royal bounty placed upon her head.”

Fear and doubt clutched at Sydney’s heart, then, the icy touch of both squeezing in equal measure.

“Silkie?” the king asked.

“Aye, Your Grace,” said Rupert to the king, even as his glare lingered on Sydney in her tank. “I’ll seek out the queen’s loyal subject and Sydney’s former handmaiden . . . a Silkie who wears a Southern Elephant Seal coat to match her brutish size. Her name is Ellie.”

Sydney fought off the welling in her eyes. No. Not Ellie too . . .

The king scratched his head. “What makes you believe this Silkie will have ties to Quill, or that she will know where to find him?”

“I don’t know for certain,” said Rupert. “But the queen gave the Silkie her freedom and ensured that she was given a high place at Sydney’s side. I imagine the queen positioned this Silkie brute as a spy, more than like. One well placed to move about the castle of her own free will, Your Grace, and all to do your wife’s bidding. I might add that Ellie also miraculously disappeared less than a few hours before you ordered the queen taken into custody. And, the next morning, the queen had arranged for another loyalist of hers to kidnap Sydney inside the stables before secreting her away.” Rupert shook his head. “There is too much coincidence there for my liking, Your Grace. If I cannot locate the savage, Quill, then I will at least find the Silkie spy to ferret him out for us. That, or else to confess what she knows of other allies close to the queen who may know where the prince has been taken and hidden away.”

Sydney shivered in the tank. We were never friends, were we, Rupert? She wondered, the realization striking her all the more for the coldness and easy manner of his speech. You played me for a fool just as everyone else has down here, didn’t you?

Rupert never looked away from the betrayal in Sydney’s eyes.

The king sighed, then nodded at Rupert’s claim. “Do it, then,” he said in plain view of Sydney, his sneer a reminder of his promise to make her feel his own hurt. “Do whatever you must to fetch truth from this Silkie handmaiden about the prince’s whereabouts. Find me this Ellie, and any others who might know of Quill’s location too.”

“And the message to pass along, Your Grace?” Rupert asked. “What would you have them say to this Quill character to lure him out of hiding?”

The king smiled in such a way that made Sydney cringe all the more. “Have those fools tell Quill that he may have stolen my love and lady wife away from me . . .” the king leered at Sydney. “But I have their daughter now.” Darius continued, even as Sydney reeled at the king’s admission. “And if Quill wants to see his bastard daughter live, let my old nemesis know that I am more than willing to trade his life for hers if he will dare to come and face me.”

* * *

Part IV

The Merrow Lords

21

SYDNEY

Quill . . . Sydney clung to his name as a ray of hope among the darkness and the glass, cell-like quarters confining her. She thought of the lessons and conversations between them in their short time together, back when she had only known Quill as Yvla’s brother and someone with tender affections for her mother.

The last she had seen of Quill had been when he saved her life during the Orc attack on Catcher’s Corner. Sydney had watched him stand against a handful of the Blackfin’s Orcs. Her last image of Quill had been to see him alone and wounded, fighting on despite the desperate situation, all so that she and Yvla might garner a few more precious moments to escape. To Sydney’s mind, Yvla’s capture and death thereafter had been proof enough that no one could survive such odds as Quill had faced.

Sydney’s heart urged her to believe otherwise.

Recalling Quill’s face and expression, she looked through the glass bottom of her watery prison. The oubliette darkness lingered far below, taunting her with the notion she might be cast back into its depths at any moment by the Orcs who kept watch over her. For all the darkness beneath, Sydney held to the better memory of when Quill had come to her in a dream alongside Yvla, their twin voices offering some little advice and ray of hope.

Be brave, Sydney . . . Yvla had said.

Sydney remembered Quill’s voice too, her eyes stinging in acceptance of the truth that he had been her father all along, guiding her as Nattie would have done. His voice firm, his warnings consistent, each and every word preparing her, teaching her to open her eyes and see the world for good and ill. To face any number of harsh realities that the world would throw before her and to rise against them all the same.

Aye, Sydney, she clung to the memory of his voice and the message from the dream she’d had of Quill and his sister whilst trapped in the oubliette. And let you see light and no boundaries when others know only walls and darkness.

But how? She wished that she could ask him now. How am I see light or goodness in any of this?

She peered down into the darkness of the oubliette, praying the ghosts she had met with below might again come to her and offer some new answer.

The darkness was all consuming below. If any ghosts still resided there, none spoke to Sydney.

In her heart, Sydney guessed they never would again.

Fighting back her tears, she glimpsed movement beyond her tank cell. Sydney looked up in time to see the Orcs standing to attention as their commander, Solomon, led in. A moment later, he was barking orders for them to haul Sydney out of the tank and prepare her for another day of trials.

Sydney relented to the Orcs coming for her, knowing defiance for a lost cause when surrounded by so many larger and stronger than she. What am I supposed to do? Sydney wondered as the Orcs used a rope pulley system to maneuver her tank over and away from the oubliette darkness. How am I supposed to fight them?

Rather than wait for a ghost to speak, Sydney instead drew upon her memories of Quill, imagining his voice and lessons instead, reflecting back on the dream she’d had of he and Yvla speaking to her in the oubliette. You fight them by living. His phantom had said. And by learning to see. Sydney recalled him speaking softly. Seeing what could be, for good and for ill, lest you and those you love come to suffer for willful blindness.

But I am suffering now. Sydney argued with the memory of him as the Orcs drew near. And will suffer more soon enough, just like Mom and all my friends.

The Orcs leveraged the bottom of her tank to dump Sydney and the cell’s contents. The water cascaded out and took Sydney with it, flinging her into the waiting arms of her captors.

Solomon stood at the forefront of them, taking her roughly by the arm and pulling her up to stand. “Will you walk, girl, or must we carry you again?”

Sydney shouldered free of the soldiers, rising of her own accord.

Solomon gave a curt nod, then waved all to follow as he led out of the dungeon.

Sydney traipsed behind him, surrounded by the Orc pod on her journey through the maze of dungeon tunnels beneath the Nautilus. In monotonous routine, they carried on to another dungeon cell where the Silkie handmaidens again awaited to give Sydney her frigid bath and attend to her thereafter. Sydney endured the cold and harsh scrubbing they gave, telling herself that such momentary pain was nothing in compare to that which she knew her friends and family suffered.

Sydney forced herself to think of those same loved ones who had defied their captors despite their circumstance too. She would go to her grave remembering Yvla’s final stand. There was Owens too, inviting death for he and his father, all rather than give a singular lie that the Blackfin demanded. Much as Sydney had never imagined her former vice principal as being friendly, she drew strength from Ms. Morgan’s final proclamation too.

Long live the queen. Sydney thought then, gritting her teeth at the claw-like taunts of every brushstroke the Silkie handmaidens made to redden her skin. She made Ms. Morgan’s last words a constant in her mind as the handmaidens attended and finished their work of dressing and readying her for the continued act that she was the king’s favored daughter.

Long live the queen. Sydney repeated the defiant message on endless loop as Solomon and his Orcs led her through the maze of dungeon tunnels and then into the main arena of the Nautilus.

The king was waiting for her at the end of the tunnel, a violet curtain with the royal seal of New Pearlaya all that separated Darius and those with him from the clamoring crowd beyond. Sydney recognized the spite in Darius even from afar.

The two others waiting behind him held no such malice.

Rupert Bowrider frowned at Sydney’s approach, but he said nothing as Solomon and the other Orcs brought her forth.

Sydney did not bother to acknowledge her former friend and riding trainer either, her gaze drawn to the shackled and waifish prisoner that Rupert stood guard over. Mom. Sydney started forward and was then held back by the immediate pinch of Solomon’s tightening grip around her bicep. “Mom!” Sydney cried out when she could go no further.

“It’s all right, Sydney,” said Nattie. “You’re going to be all right.”

Sydney knew the truer answer when Solomon positioned her twenty feet from her mother’s arms.

The king gave a lazy wave in Sydney’s direction. “There she stands, my queen,” Darius spat the last. “Your daughter is alive and unharmed, as I promised you that she would be.”

Nattie’s face darkened. “Yes . . . yes, thank you for that.”

Thanking him? Sydney thought, repulsed by her mother’s words. Mom, what are you doing?

Darius nodded at Nattie’s acknowledgement. “Now, wife, for the final time, I beg you to give me the same peace of mind and end this madness . . . where is our son?” He quietly demanded. “Where is Jun?”

Nattie sagged. “Darius, I told you true already - I do not know where our son is. The last I saw of Jun was in the keeping of others I trust before I left our home upon the shore.”

All to come looking for me, Sydney sagged, her conscience noting the omission her mother made.

The king frowned at the queen’s answers. “And yet our son is not ashore,” he said to Nattie. “He is not in the home you made there either. Indeed, with credit to the Blackfin and his Violovar, our son is not at your self-proclaimed haven either. All of those other traitors to the crown you claim to have trusted at your precious zoo have all been delivered here.”

Not all of them, Sydney knew, remembering several notable absences from among those imprisoned during the trials. There was the elderly Wilda, the first Merrow outside of Sydney’s mother to reveal herself. She remembered her mother’s friend and fellow dolphin trainer, Barb, also. As Sydney reflected on all the faces that she had seen inside the Merrow cages, she breathed a momentary sigh of relief that she had seen neither of them among the others. They must have Jun with them, she thought. But where are they now? She wondered. If everyone else was brought here, what happened to Wilda, Barb, and Jun?

Sydney looked on her mother, then, watching the queen shake her head in answer of the king.

“If our son was not at our home, Darius,” said Nattie Gao, “If he was not at the zoo either, then I do not know where Jun is now. All as I have told you and the Blackfin over and again.”

Darius frowned. “Perhaps you did speak true in that regard, wife. But, while you may not know where Prince Jun is, let you search your mind further now and answer me true - where might Jun be going? Aye, where might these trusted and traitorous friends of yours be taking our sweet prince?”

“Far from here, I hope,” said Nattie, her chains clinking as she stood taller. “I would sooner have a stranger take both of my children to the moon if it kept them from you and all others like you.”

“Your children, aye, perhaps.” Darius stepped closer to her. “But one of them, at least, is not mine.” He glanced at Sydney before looking to the queen again. “Or will you maintain your denial of that lie also?”

“No,” said Nattie. “No, I have confessed to Sydney’s origins already.”

“In private, aye,” said the king. “But, will you confess to your treasonous guilt and the truth of Sydney’s father before the people? For I think it one thing to suffer the consequences for your own selfish actions, my queen. Quite another to watch a loved one suffer in your stead. So . . . which will it be? Confess to me now where my son is,” Darius sneered as he glanced in Sydney’s direction once more, “or else you force me to reveal the truth before the masses. Aye, to cast your daughter in front of all those loyal to the crown. All who will soon come to recognize her for the savage bastard that she is and see proof of your sin made flesh and bone.”

Sydney’s brow furrowed when Rupert moved away to pull back the violet curtain shielding them from the view of the people beyond. Her body warmed when catching sight of her friends and her mother’s followers beyond – all fettered and locked inside their cages upon the pearl-like barge.

Sydney turned numb, however, when noticing a newer construction upon the stage. Built as the trial centerpiece, there stood a freestanding tank, filled to the brim with crystal-clear Salt water. Though it held no prisoner now, Sydney estimated the tank as being large and deep enough to house a single victim. Each of the walls were crafted of glass to provide all in the Nautilus stands a perfect view of whatever poor soul were cast inside the tank.

Sydney understood the king’s threat in full, then. Both she and Nattie’s faces paled in tandem as they looked at one another with horror in their shared gaze.

The queen reached for the king’s arm. “Darius, please. Do not do this! My actions were mine alone, not Sydney’s!”

“True enough, my queen,” he said. “And yet she will suffer for your crimes all the same if you will not give me what I require. Now, where . . . is . . . Jun?”

“I don’t know.” Nattie wept. “I swear to you.”

“You swear?” Darius scoffed. “And what value do you believe your oaths still hold with me? Marriage? Loyalty? Love?” He spat at her feet. “You have broken every one of your vows to me. No, Nattie, such promises from you mean nothing to me now. Soon enough, they will hold little weight with the people either.”

Sydney cringed when Darius strode over to take charge of her from Solomon. Grabbing her by the arm, the king wheeled Sydney around to exit the tunnel’s end alongside him.

“Darius!” Nattie called to him. “Darius, please, don’t do this! Do not cast my daughter into the tank!”

The king stopped beyond the tunnel threshold. “Me?” he said, glancing back. “No . . . no, it will not be me to cast her there, my queen. Sydney’s fate depends on you, doesn’t it?”

My fate? Sydney froze, her eyes frantic in search of her mother’s face.

“Aye,” the king went on, all his hate spent on the queen. “Sydney’s guilt or innocence will be left to your decisions, Nattie. Let you think of your daughter in every answer you give today, lest she suffer the consequences for still more of your lies and actions.”

Sydney stared at her mother with tears in her eyes. Don’t let him do this to you, Mom, she thought. Don’t let him use me against you.

The queen’s jaw tightened as she looked on the king. “How, then?” Nattie asked. “How would you have me save her from the tank?”

Darius shrugged. “You need only speak true, my queen,” he said. “Your silence was not unnoticed during the trials yesterday . . . and the people did not come here to see their queen stand in quiet defiance of her crimes. Guilt or innocence, it is your story they wish to hear, Nattie. Let you sing it to the people of New Pearlaya today, my queen, lest the Blackfin and I tire of this game you play and decide to end it.”

The king’s grip instantly tightened on Sydney’s hand then, yanking her away though Nattie continued shouting for him to stop. Darius would not, however, his hold on Sydney unrelenting as he stepped free of the tunnel with her at his side. The moment they were visible, Darius raised his hand and Sydney’s too in triumphant show of their shared arrival.

The crowd roared approval and applause as Darius led on, waving to the crowd all the while.

For every step he dragged her onward, Sydney could not take her eyes off the tank upon the barge. Her pulse raced at the threat of being thrown inside in view of all in attendance, the change into her Nomad form being brought about by drowning as the Blackfin had done to her in the oubliette.

The king deviated from his path nearby the tank, however, taking Sydney into the royal tent instead. Guiding her to sit beside him, Darius did not release Sydney until she did as he bid her do. Then, with a final wave to the applauding crowd, the king took his seat. “Bring out the queen!” He clapped the moment all of the spectators turned silent.

The single command stirred the crowd anew, their applause turning to boos and hate-speech as the queen was led out by Rupert, Solomon, and a host of Painted Guard.

The hairs on the back of Sydney’s neck rose when noticing one of them still missing from the proceedings. Where is the Blackfin? She wondered, watching her mother continue onward with her escort. Sydney could not remember having seen him that morning, or during the guard change in the night either. That the Blackfin was missing when he had presided over her mother’s trial the previous day set Sydney’s mind to further questions of the Orc leader’s whereabouts.

Reaching the central cage, Solomon left the queen in the care of Rupert as he came forth to unlock the cage door. Rupert gently guided the queen to step inside, then left the Orcs to lock her away.

Sydney watched him leave the cage, Rupert taking up a central post among the prisoner cells as if he meant to preside over the queen’s trial in lieu of the Blackfin’s absence. But why, Rupert? Sydney wondered, watching him stand to attention, his steely eyes holding none of the warmth she had often seen in them when they rode their seahorses together.

Sydney squirmed in her chair when the Orcs finished with her mother, leaving the queen little room to maneuver about her cage. Off Rupert’s nod, Solomon ventured to the neighboring prisoners next, freeing the door of a larger pen that housed the Orcinian hostages.

The Blackfin’s burly, second-in-command went in without accompaniment, already working his keys to release another prisoner. A moment later, Solomon led the former pod mother out of the shared cage.

Sydney’s brow furrowed. Makeda? She thought. I thought this was a trial about Mom . . .

Makeda kept her head held high as Solomon escorted her to the main platform, standing her at the center of all, then binding her to a pair of pillars located there.

Sydney’s gaze tracked with Rupert as he rounded on the former leader of the Painted Guard. “Makeda,” he cried. “Disgraced pod mother, formerly of the Painted Guard—”

“Not formerly,” Makeda interrupted.

“What?” Rupert asked.

“Not formerly,” Makeda reiterated. “Name me disgraced. Remove my title. Do, or say, as you will. I will never renounce my allegiance to the true Painted Guard.” She glared at Rupert. “‘An Orc without her pod is nothing.’”

“Be that as it may,” Rupert continued. “You are no longer in command of any Orc, Makeda. Why is that?”

“Let you ask my traitorous brother,” she said. “It was his orders that led his Violovar spies to betray our people and land me in chains.”

“Spies?” Rupert scoffed to quiet the murmur among the crowds. “No, Makeda. I have it on good authority that the Blackfin was not even in the city at such time as you were taken into custody. It was your own soldiers who turned on you for what they deemed to be a lack of leadership.”

“They were never true soldiers of mine, then,” said Makeda. “And where is my brother anyway? Or is your claim of ‘good authority’ what we call Violovar scum now?”

Rupert’s face darkened. “The Blackfin is not—”

“Where is my brother?” she demanded of him. “Where is the turn-fin who stole my father’s armor and abandons his duty, his city, aye, and all its people too, whenever it suits him?”

Rupert shrugged. “The Blackfin’s absence is noted and expected. He was pardoned from today’s trial by the king himself for a mission of royal importance. Still . . . the Blackfin’s allegiance and his honor is not in question.”

“No more than mine should be,” she fired back. “Tell me of the crime for which I am accused, Bowrider, or set me free.”

“I would have thought it obvious,” said Rupert. “You are here as both witness to the queen’s guilt or innocence. You also stand accused for the same crimes of high treason.”

Makeda laughed. “Treason? And when does my brother pretend that I betrayed my vows to the king and people of New Pearlaya?”

“Arguably the moment you fled your rightful post here in the capital,” said Rupert. “Abandoning your king’s safety to lesser leadership that you might instead—”

“That I might what?” Makeda cut in. “Swim out at the king’s order to find and rescue both the queen and the princess?”

“More like to rescue your bastard son, rather,” said Rupert.

Sydney’s brow wrinkled at the accusation. She was not alone in her surprise.

Makeda’s head cocked to the side as whispers were taken up among the crowd. “I don’t have a son,” she proclaimed loud enough to quiet some of the spectator murmurs.

Rupert shrugged. “And yet there are many among your own Painted Guard to claim you do. Tell me, Makeda, who is the hunted traitor and former Painted Guard recruit, Garrett Weaver?”

Along with the thousands in the stands, Sydney leaned forward in her chair. What is Rupert talking about? She glanced at the king, as if his face might reveal the answer to her question. What does Garrett have to do with any of this?

Darius seemed not to notice Sydney’s interest in him. All the king’s focus remained on the trials playing out before him. Turning back, Sydney found Makeda glaring at her inquisitor.

“Garrett Weaver,” said Makeda, “was once a recruit, hoping to join the Painted Guard.”

“Was?” said Rupert. “But no longer?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Rupert asked. “Was he not fit enough to join your illustrious ranks?”

“He was,” said Makeda. “Or would have been. But, as I recall, the boy opted to consign himself with banishment instead. Of his own free will, he blew the horn of shame and were banished for it.”

Even from afar, Sydney could see Owens shaking his head inside the Orcinian prisoner cages, his mouth gagged to keep him from speaking out of turn during the trials again. Rupert is lying . . . Sydney understood from Owens’s reaction. But why? Where is Rupert going with this?

At the trial’s center stage, Rupert scratched his cheek and continued his questioning of Makeda. “Do you often find new recruits willing to consign themselves with banishment?”

“Many.” Makeda bristled with a wary look toward the Orc soldiers standing guard around the platform. “We in the Painted Guard are made of a hardier grit. Yet to become a soldier of the Painted Guard is of the highest orders to which many even among our own kind cannot meet the standard.”

The crowd booed at that.

Unfazed, Makeda cast her scorn upon Rupert and all in the watching crowd. “Judge us all you will for our ancient ways, but your opinions come with the blessing of our protection to afford you such judgements. This city and the lot of you would not have survived our enemies this long, were it not for the constant watch and safeguarding of the Painted Guard. You live and breathe under the umbrella of strength that our united pods provide to this city and its citizens, great and small.”

“None here would argue against you there,” said Rupert. “However, I find your claims of this traitor and former recruit, Garret Weaver, most curious indeed.” He continued in such a way that belied he believed the matter curious at all. “If Recruit Weaver were strong enough to meet your high and ancient standards, Makeda, why then would he wish to opt out of further training and be banished for it? Why not take his place of illustrious honor among the pod?”

“Let you ask Garrett Weaver that question, not me,” said Makeda.

“I would,” said Rupert. “But, unfortunately, we’ve been unable to locate him.”

Sydney sagged in her chair. Garrett is gone? She wondered. Like, really gone? She looked to Owens again in his cage for confirmation of her question. When her former classmate hung his head, she knew that it was true. But why? She fought against the welling in her eyes. Why would he leave us behind, Owens? Where would Garrett even go? She wondered, remembering their scattered talks on the swim to New Pearlaya after the attack on Crayfish Cavern and all that Garrett had encountered there at the hands of Selkie slavers. How different he had seemed. No longer the carefree, jokester she had known ashore, but a moodier and lonely shade of himself. Sydney rubbed her arms to warm them at the thought of Garrett swimming away from the city she had been so eager to see. He’d be alone all over again . . .

At the trial’s center, Rupert was rounding on Makeda. “We would, of course, love to speak more with this Recruit Weaver, and to determine the truth or no of this situation. Any idea where he might be now, pod mother?”

“No . . .”

“You will not hazard a simple guess?” Rupert asked. “No idea at all?”

“No.” Makeda growled. “I watched Recruit Weaver blow the horn, and two others in his pod after him. Then, a traitorous instructor and my brother’s spy, Sergeant Luther, led all three former recruits out with a pair of other Violovar scum in his charge. I’ve not seen any of them since.”

“Indeed,” said Rupert. “That is because Sergeant Luther and all those who ventured forth with him are dead. All of them murdered in a most gruesome fashion outside the gates of this city.”

Sydney gasped with the crowd, her chest tightening for every moment that Rupert allowed the whispers and outcries to continue. Garrett is dead? She choked, tears warming her cheeks as they fell. Th-they killed him?

Rupert raised his hand to quiet the crowd. “All dead . . . all murdered and accounted for,” he said quietly as he could for the others to still hear him speak. “All but Garrett Weaver.”

He’s alive! Sydney wept at the admission.

Her momentary joy was stolen when noticing Owens in his cage. Where life had returned to her at the announcement, all the fight in her other high school friend was vanquished. Where Sydney had been elated by the news of Garrett’s survival, she recognized those upon Owens’s cheeks for the type she had cried not moments ago. Who did you lose, Owens? She wondered then, her own grief giving rise to the realization why a moment a later, her thoughts turning to Yvla once more. Which other friend of yours did the Orcs take away from you?

Again, Sydney wished that she could reach out and speak to her former classmate. The gap lingered between them, Sydney knowing she could not provide Owens any sort of comfort as Rupert continued his questioning of Makeda.

“Aye, all our brave Orcinians and their shamed recruits accounted for. All, with the exception of Garrett Weaver,” Rupert was saying to the former pod mother and the crowd. “And, when Sergeant Luther and his other soldiers did not return from their escort of the banished recruits, a second patrol of Painted Guard was dispatched to learn the reason why . . . but this second group did not return either.” Again, Rupert allowed the crowd their momentary reaction before he quieted them once more. “Finally, a third and larger party of the Painted Guard was sent out to learn what befell the others,” he grimaced. “And what they discovered was a grislier sight than any common murder, or act of warfare.”

Common murder? Is that such a thing? Sydney scoffed at the notion and the fact that she had ever considered Rupert a friend. The idea she had spent so much time with him drew ire in her now, watching him enjoy the sport of dragging out his questioning, his playing with the crowd’s reactions as if he had no inclination of what they might do or think with the answers he led Makeda to give him.

“What they found,” Rupert went on. “Was a sight to make even the strongest stomach wrench. Butchery, my people,” he turned once more to play to the crowd. “Two patrols of good Orcs, loyal and true to the crown, and all of them slain. Aye, all of them butchered first . . . and then their remains feasted upon, I shudder to say, by the very same savage Nomads that slew them.”

Sydney’s eyebrows raised. Feasted? She thought, her face paling as she looked to the king beside her and found him steely-eyed and grim as a new outcry came from the people of New Pearlaya. Does he mean eaten? Like cannibals?

Rupert attempted to quell the crowd once more, but it took him several attempts before he was able to proceed again. “All of those fine soldiers from your pod butchered and defiled by savages, Makeda,” he said. “And all but the former recruit Garrett Weaver accounted for? Why?”

“How should I know?” Makeda asked. “You have admitted already that I was in chains at that moment. Aye, and put there by the very souls you claim to mourn over now. Do not come to me seeking pity for the lives of traitors. Let you weep instead for the brave recruits who made their stand against the injustice they saw being served out and then proved willing enough to endure the consequences.” She motioned toward the Orc cage holding Owens, his father, and still more former Painted Guard as well. “Aye, and let you weep for that which these true soldiers suffer even now in defiance of true tyranny and continued lies.”

Again, Rupert allowed the crowd their momentary boos and curses before waving them to silence once more. “But I do mourn, Pod Mother,” he said, low enough to showcase a small sign of empathy, yet loud enough to beg the crowd to listen once more. “Who among us in this great city would not mourn the loss of any noble soldier? Aye, let alone so many taken from us and slain by our shared enemies? But, tell me true, Makeda, do you not think it odd that a ranging group of Nomads were so close and timely as to be near the place of banishment?” Rupert posited. “Or that their numbers were enough to decimate not one, but two patrols of Painted Guard?”

“I think to be a Nomad is to be a ranger,” said Makeda. “Just as I think it odd that a foreigner with a family reputation for finning Nomads of all ages and genders now questions me on the habits of those his father has long named as our enemies.”

Sydney snorted at seeing Rupert silenced for the moment, even as a shadow crossed his face before he banished it away. She remembered Yvla claiming the same of Rupert and his family too. That Rupert had denied the accusation, citing it was his father who committed such acts and not him. Still, watching Rupert with Makeda now, doubt gnawed away at Sydney’s insides. Did you do it, Rupert? She wondered as the young, seahorse-lord raised his chin, seemingly readying himself for another verbal bout with Makeda. Did you kill innocent Nomads and take their fins?

Rupert took his time in answering Makeda’s claims. “It is true that Nomads are known for ranging in my home waters. Near all of them coming to attack our people too. In my experience and dealings with the savages, I have found their patterns difficult to time and understand, let alone to track. Which is yet another reason I found it so peculiar that a band of heathens knew the precise location and time to arrive that they might rescue this lowly, former Orc recruit you seemed to have been so fond of, pod mother.”

“Fond of?” Makeda frowned. “I treated Recruit Weaver no differently than any other.”

“No?” Rupert asked. “And yet I have it from a number of sources that you met with Recruit Weaver in private on several occasions. Why would you do such a thing if you did not favor him?”

“‘An Orc without her pod is nothing’,” said Makeda. “As pod mother, it’s my privilege and my duty to both encourage and discipline all who seek entry in joining my pod and serving all those who swim the five oceans. As for favoring Recruit Weaver in such instances of private meetings, I seem to remember disciplining him from the start. If you would have the truth of that,” she pointed to the Orcinian prisoner cages, “let you go and ask Recruit Owens of the time when I ordered he and Recruit Weaver to make the Coral Crawl with several others from their training pod.”

Rupert did not budge. “Did you take Recruit Owens and those others to a Selkie tavern with you too?” he asked Makeda. “A tavern owned and operated by the Selkie war criminal and rebel instigator, Jemmy Three-Strikes, I might add.”

Makeda snorted when another wave of whispers struck up among the crowd. “If that Selkie you named were truly guilty of the supposed crimes you would accuse him, why then would the king allow such a rebel and a monster to live and operate inside the city walls? Aye, say nothing of owning an establishment frequented by all in the Painted Guard. If this Selkie were in question, why not throw him in chains long ago as you have so readily done for all of us here?”

“That the king allowed any former enemy to live is evidence enough of his grace and forgiveness,” said Rupert. “To not forgive those who have wronged us, Makeda, is to make new enemies at every turn. By the king’s own laws, even the lowest of Salt races are to be offered a chance at redemption, if swearing fealty to our crown.”

Makeda scoffed at that, but she made no further remark as Rupert pressed on.

“The king would offer redemption to you also, Pod Mother Makeda. As the daughter of Orcin and brother of the Pod Father, Malik Blackfin, you may trust and believe that our wise and noble king, Darius, knows your family for a line that is brave and true.”

“Clearly.” Makeda snorted and raised her arms high enough to make her chains taut. “But if this is the reward for loyalty, Bowrider, what is the price for betrayal?”

“You tell me, Makeda,” said Rupert. “For your ties with this Recruit Weaver and your favoring of him are well documented by those with the king’s trust . . . and you were there that night at the tavern of Jemmy Three-Strikes,” Rupert insisted before his voice dropped, his eyes flashing. “Aye, the same night you were placed in chains along with both Recruit Weaver and the Selkie rebel, Jemmy Three-Strikes. The larger question I have is to wonder why were you there at all? What business would a pod mother and a feckless recruit have in visiting a known Selkie war criminal’s establishment?”

For a moment, the look in Makeda’s eyes made Sydney believe the former pod mother might snap her chains in half before going after Rupert. Before Makeda could answer, however, another spoke up for her instead.

“Makeda,” said Nattie Gao, shaking her head. “Please. No more.” She glanced at Rupert. “Let you ask your questions of me instead, Lord Bowrider.”

“Why should I question you in this respect, my queen?” Rupert asked. “It was not you taken unawares that night at the Selkie’s tavern with an Orc recruit.”

No, Sydney gripped the ends of her chair. No, you were taken unaware later that night here at the Nautilus, right, Mom?

Nattie took a deep breath before answering Rupert. “I was not at the tavern,” she said. “But I am the reason that Makeda went there. Aye, and why she took Garrett Weaver there with her too.”

“How then?” Rupert asked. “For what purpose, my queen?”

Sydney cringed when the king leaned forward beside her, Darius’s face puzzled in question as much as her own. She could feel the crowd hanging on Rupert’s questions and the queen’s every word also.

Nattie glanced at the empty tank of water the king had threatened to throw Sydney inside of, then the queen resumed her stare of Rupert. “My love for Selkies and all those deemed as outcasts is well known,” she offered a sad smile to those imprisoned in the cages. “Garrett Weaver was an outsider too. He was also a dear friend of my daughter’s during our life ashore. He came to the Salt world not by his own choosing, but at the hands of Selkie slave catchers who brought him here for their own gain.” Nattie played to the crowd. “Hear and believe me when I say that Garrett Weaver was an innocent, if ever there was one. Aye, a naïve boy caught in a raging tide in which he knew nothing of, nor how to escape.” The queen looked to Darius with truth gleaming in her eyes. “All that these others have said to you is true, my king.” She gave a weak motion to the other prisoners. “Garrett Weaver was at the heart of why the princess and I, along with so many others here all broke our shared vow to never return.”

Sydney cringed at the immediate frown made by the king when Nattie mentioned her royal title. Mom, what are you doing? Sydney wondered. Are you trying to make him mad?

The queen went on. “I confess that I did not dwell on what the consequences should be for my actions. Not when I chose to break my vows and return to the Salt. Nor when I decided to chase after my child and Garrett Weaver too,” said Nattie. “For what parent would waste a single moment when learning their child has went missing in the night? When they do not know where that child is, let alone the destination they are headed, or soon to arrive?”

Jun. Sydney thought then, biting her lip to keep it from quivering as her brother’s face flashed in her mind. She’s talking about Jun now. Glancing at the king, Sydney saw the king’s anger lessened too, Darius’s face a flood of emotion with every word that Nattie spoke.

“No,” the queen continued, nodding to the other prisoners too. “All of us imprisoned now did not think of ourselves in such moments. Nothing of our own safety or vows. We hoped only that we might find our children and see them safely home before the Salt stole them from us. Before the horrors within this watery world shaped our loved ones into shades of the innocent ones in our memory. That is why we all here returned to the Salt,” her voice broke. “Some of us for the love we bore our children. Others for the love they bore their friends.”

Rupert glanced toward the king, as if seeking direction. Receiving none, he continued on with his inquiry. “Noble gestures, all, my queen,” he said. “But your answers say nothing of the true reason why the daughter of Orcin took a lowly recruit to a Selkie criminal’s tavern.”

Nattie squinted at him. “How, then? I have told you already that Makeda took Garrett Weaver there under my orders,” she said.

“But why?” Rupert asked. “Why would you order her to take him there, my queen?”

The hairs on Sydney’s arms raised when her mother hesitated, the answer to come only after the queen locked eyes with her.

Nattie Gao straighted her shoulders. “I asked Makeda to bring Garrett Weaver to the Selkie’s tavern that he might see his mother again.”

His mother? Sydney wondered. How would Cristina have come down here? I never saw her with us . . .

“His mother, you say?” Rupert asked the queen. “And was she yet another shamed and banished Orc who followed you ashore?”

“No,” said Nattie. “His true, Orcinian mother died not long after her own banishment from the Painted Guard. She never told us her name before death claimed her, but she brought the boy ashore as an infant. The one he came to meet with at the Selkie’s tavern was a foster mother we paired him with. A Silkie sworn in service to me who had long wished to have a child.”

Rupert shifted. “And where is this Silkie now that we might verify your claims, my queen?”

Nattie recoiled. “You doubt me?”

“You are on trial for treason, my queen,” said Rupert, motioning to her manacles. “And lying would be among the least of your alleged crimes.” He tsked. “Or say rather, the heart of them.”

Makeda’s chains rankled before the queen could reply. “I can vouch for the queen’s story, for it is the same as the word I received of Recruit Weaver’s Silkie mother also. Sergeant Luther ordered her body hung in Selkie Square as a warning to those who would raise their hand against their Orcish masters.”

Sydney’s whole body shook at Makeda’s testament. Garrett is gone . . . and Cristina Weaver is dead? She used the end of her gown as a tissue, brushing away the snot running from her nose. She could feel the king’s eyes on her at the news, but Sydney no longer cared. What is this world? She wondered as the trial proceeded. Why is all of this happening?

Rupert approached the queen. “So, you will not deny it? This allegiance between you and the former pod mother, Makeda?”

Nattie’s brow wrinkled in question. “Makeda is sworn to serve the crown,” she said. “She has as much allegiance to me as to the king himself.”

“And yet she abandoned her king to bring her Orcs in search of you instead,” said Rupert.

“At the king’s own order,” Nattie replied. “You said so earlier yourself, Lord Bowrider.”

Rupert shrugged and turned toward Sydney and Darius in the royal pavilion. “Apologies, my king. It seems there is some question as to your commands. Do you recall giving such an order to Pod Mother Makeda?”

Sydney glanced at the king, a weight pressing in on upon her chest, even before he spoke.

“No . . .” said Darius.

Liar! Sydney thought, even as the same betrayed expression bloomed in the faces of her mother and Makeda too. Neither spoke against the king, however – Makeda stewing in her anger, whilst Nattie looked away from him and shook her head. Fuming, Sydney started to rise until Darius glanced her way.

“Sit down,” the king quietly commanded.

“Why?” Sydney asked him, even as she obeyed. “Or else you’ll have me thrown in the tank?”

Darius nodded. “Or worse,” he said.

Sydney sneered. “Do it, then,” she said. “I’m done with you using me as leverage against my mom.”

“As am I, child,” said the king. “As am I.”

“Stop doing it, then!” Sydney hissed at the king whilst Rupert’s questioning continued without them. “Stop all of this lying!”

Darius’s head snapped toward her then. “All that you’ve seen thus far, and still you believe that I am the liar here, Sydney?”

“I think you’ve been lying all my life,” she replied. “And for every lie that Mom told you, I understand now that there had to be a good reason for it!”

Darius cocked an eyebrow. “Careful now, girl,” he whispered. “Unless you would wound me further? Let you not forget – you are not my daughter. The only reason you still live is an act of kindness I would spare your mother from witnessing.”

“But not enough to threaten her with? Or to draw my real dad out of hiding, right?” Sydney glared at him. “Quill? You want to kill him too, don’t you?”

Darius sneered. “I want to face him,” said the king. “And for him to face me and answer for his crimes, if he were brave enough to do so.” He gave a lazy nod toward the crowd and then the tank of empty water. “And it would seem your true father is proving reluctant in both that regard and the message sent to him to come rescue you and your whore mother. Perhaps he’s not as brave you and she ever believed him to be.”

“Or he’s being smart and knows you’re laying a trap for him,” said Sydney. “In which case, you’re the one who should be careful, my king.” She spat the last. “Because when Quill finds you, he’s going to kill you and everyone else you sent to try and stop him from it.”

Darius chuckled. “Even if it were the Blackfin to seek him out?”

Doubt gnawed at Sydney then, her memory drawing on Yvla dying in Malik’s arms as he squeezed her to death. Gritting her teeth, she resolved to not reveal such fears to the king. “Especially the Blackfin,” said Sydney. “Quill will kill all of you when he gets the chance.”

Darius smirked. “Let’s give him that chance, then, shall we?” he asked, sneering. “Perhaps your savage father needs more encouragement to prove his supposed bravery . . . just as it seems you need further evidence of your mother’s lies.”

Further evidence? Sydney cowed as the king looked away from the trial proceedings and gave a curt nod to someone she could not see.

A chorus of silver horns sounded a moment later, calling the trial to halt. So too did the horn’s sounding draw the attention of Sydney and the crowd to a host of newcomers.

A scowling Malik Blackfin emerged at the head of two lines, at least twenty Painted Guard soldiers behind him in all. Their faces covered by jet-black visors, Sydney trembled at the weight of their armored footfalls as the Orc company crossed a bridge of gangplanks to reach the central barge.

What is this? Sydney’s blood ran cold when noticing the last of the soldiers bore a pair of covered litters between them on their shoulders. Long and rectangular, both litters were draped in black cloth with a white streak down the middle. Sydney thought the look of them like coffins with the Orc soldiers acting as their grim pall-bearers. She shivered at the disquiet shared amongst all inside the Nautilus, then. What’s inside those things? Sydney wondered of the bulky litters when the Blackfin gave his soldiers their orders to leave one of the litters in plain view of the queen and Makeda. He had the other, covered litter carried up the steps of the central, water-filled tank that Sydney had assumed was meant for her. Sydney’s throat ran dry when the Orcs reached the top of the platform and placed the litter down, but left the covering upon it. What’s inside those things? Her skin prickled in wondered question as the king resumed his place beside her, his face like a mask of stone for all that occurred before him.

With the Blackfin returned, Rupert relented his position as inquisitor back to its former host. Unlike all the times she had seen Malik Blackfin before, Sydney found him grim-faced and frowning as he turned toward the king.

“Apologies for my early absence, Your Grace,” he said. “But my Orcs and I have found further evidence to bring forward against the condemned, if you will hear it.”

The king nodded. “I will allow it,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Proceed, Blackfin.”

Sydney’s eyes darted back and forth between the pair of litters and her mother too.

Nattie’s gaze signaled that she recognized an apex predator when the Blackfin ignored his sister, Makeda, to approach the queen instead. Still, Sydney also saw a fierceness in her mother’s steely eyes that warned she would not be lured by whatever tricks were soon to be had in attempting to reign her in.

“My queen,” said the Blackfin, granting Nattie a solemn nod before continuing. “My Orcs and I have something for you to see and verify.”

“To judge the spectacle you made just now, you have proof enough already,” said Nattie, her voice shaking in such a way that stabbed an icy fear into Sydney with every word spoken. “But, if you mean to show me something, then do it now and cease your pretense.”

“In time,” the Blackfin toyed with her. “First, I would have you answer some of my own questions about this supposed allegiance you’ve denied having with my sister.”

Makeda stirred. “There is no allegiance between us,” she cried. “I swore myself to the crown and whoever wears it. The queen forsook her title the moment she made a vow to never return to the Salt and then stepped ashore.”

Malik tsked. “Interesting that you should claim allegiance to ‘whoever’ wears the crown, sister. I should think King Darius would be most offended by such a claim, especially since you bore no mention, or loyalty, in his name.”

“I have served the king long and loyally these many years in your absence, brother,” Makeda replied. “If King Darius were offended by my service, he has made no remark of it until now.”

“Perhaps because he only recently learned of your continued betrayal,” said Malik.

“What betrayal?” Makeda. “If you would make a claim against me, let you provide some proof, at least.”

“I have,” Malik gave a lazy wave to both covered litters his soldiers stood guard over. “Or, say rather, enough evidence to pass judgement on you and the queen.”

“Tricks, you mean,” said Makeda. “I say these litters of yours are nothing more than a ruse. A hope you maintain to pin your notions on and climb further in the people’s esteem.” She spat. “But I know your ways, brother. You will neither convince, nor fool me, into giving you a lie to strengthen yours.”

Malik sighed. “Regrettably, there are no lies hidden in these litters, sister. Only more harsh truths come to light for those bold enough to seek them out. All to strike at the heart of their meaning.”

“Strike away, then,” said Makeda. “I have no fear of your questions, or your lies.”

“Perhaps not,” said Malik. “The truth, however, as Lord Bowrider so explicitly detailed for us today, is that you did indeed have a special relationship with Recruit Garrett Weaver . . . and he is conveniently the only Orc unaccounted for among those who were sent out that night. I wonder, sister, is it possible that Recruit Weaver were taken hostage by the Nomads who killed these other Orcs?”

Makeda glowered at him. “Anything is possible.”

“Aye, it is,” said Malik, his grin widening. “I seem to remember a similar circumstance, albeit from a time long ago, when another Orc was taken captive by Nomads . . . and all others in her pod were left for slaughter. This once-captive Orc was later miraculously returned to us unharmed too. Aye, and delivered by the same savages who had murdered those loyal brother and sister seawolves from her pod. Tell me, sister . . . do you remember your own time as a prisoner among the Nomads, Makeda?”

“I remember you and your cowards fleeing that battle, brother,” said Makeda. “Just as you have continued fleeing from duty, sacrifice, and honor all your life.”

Malik continued on, unbothered. “So, you do recall spending time among the Nomads . . .”

“Aye,” Makeda squirmed at her post. “As any prisoner must do when held against their will.”

“And yet when you returned to this glorious city, one might think you would have received a hero’s welcome,” Malik played to the crowd. “One to not only risk the Nomad hostiles, but to survive them too!”

“One might think that,” Makeda acknowledged. “But they would be wrong, wouldn’t they?”

“They would indeed,” said Malik. “For instead of being paraded about the city and lauded for your bravery, you retreated from public life for a lengthy time thereafter. Why?”

Makeda’s cheeks tightened. “‘An Orc without her pod is nothing,’” she said finally. “I learned the true meaning of such words that day when the Nomads slew all others in my pod and took me captive. When I returned here to my home . . . I was ashamed for living when all others from my pod did not. Though I doubt shame is something you would know anything of, brother.”

“A tragic story, I grant you,” said Malik dryly. “And I do not doubt you mourned your fellows Orcs, sister.”

“But . . .” Makeda insisted, as if knowing her brother held some deeper intent.

Sydney thought that Malik proved the pod mother’s intuitions a moment later.

“But,” Malik smirked. “I think the likelier, truer story, sister, is that you were impregnated by a savage lover, and then you carried his bastard in your belly all the way back to the heart of our beloved city . . .”

Garrett . . . Sydney took Malik’s meaning to bear, along with all others in the crowd. The whispers were rampant now, even as Makeda voiced her disagreement, sticking with the defense of her shame at being a lone survivor.

Malik’s ever-widening grin signaled to Sydney that he recognized the tide of rumors and doubt, at least, had shifted toward him also. He turned toward the queen next. “My sister’s return from the hostiles was near enough to the time that you opted to swear your vows and go ashore also, was it not, my queen?”

Nattie gave him no answer.

“Most curious,” said Malik. “I believe you once said that your daughter, the princess, and Recruit Garrett Weaver were friends in your life ashore too, no? And that your daughter’s return to the Salt was to rescue him from Selkie slavers?”

“It was,” said Nattie quietly.

Malik shrugged. “And yet you then abandoned your only son. You left our sweet prince ashore to go out and search for your daughter instead. Tell us, my queen, why did you choose the safety of the Princess Sydney over safeguarding your son?”

“I did not abandon the prince,” Nattie argued. “I left him with others I trust to look after his protection.”

“And yet all those you claim to trust are here, yes?” Malik nodded toward those in the prisoner cells.

“Many are,” said Nattie. “Not all.”

“Who then to guard your son, my queen?” Malik asked. “My seawolves looked above and beneath the Salt for Prince Jun. We questioned all those we brought here too, yet none could say where the prince and his guardian might have gone. Care to tell us?”

“I don’t know where they might have gone,” said Nattie. “Only that if they left our home ashore, it was for a good reason.”

Malik smiled. “So, there were indeed guardians left behind with the prince, yes?”

Wilda, Sydney thought then, her chest tightening at the evident glee in the Blackfin’s voice, her gaze drawn to the covered litter his Orcs had placed before the queen. Oh, God . . . Sydney thought, her eyes already welling. Please, no. Please, God, not Wilda too.

Malik prodded further when the queen did not answer, her own gazed homed on the covered litter. “My queen,” he said. “Your people and your king are waiting . . . were there guardians to look after the prince?”

Again, Nattie would not answer.

Malik nodded at her continued silence, then wheeled toward the king’s pavilion.

Before Sydney understood what was happening, the soldiers behind her in the king’s pavilion approached her chair. What’s going on? She briefly wondered, looking up into the visors that shielded their identities. Her gaze flitted to the king next, finding Darius watched her also.

Sighing, the king motioned to the soldiers beside him and Sydney. “Take her, then.”

What?

The soldiers on either side of her clamped down on Sydney’s biceps, then, both lifting her free of the royal chair she had previously sat. “Wh-What are you doing?” she choked as the anonymous Orc soldiers carried her down the pavilion steps. “L-Let go of me!”

Her eyes widened when the Orcs would not. Sydney wrenched her neck around to look back at the king. Darius had not moved from his position, his gaze no longer focused on her, but looking out to the direction her captors carried her off toward.

No. Sydney thought, then, the whispers among the crowd catching as the Orcs carried her onto the main platform and delivered her to their leader at the center. Her knees turned weak when the Orcs forced her to stand in front of her mother and the first of the covered litters.

“Sydney,” the queen’s voice was frantic. “Sydney, look at me.”

The Blackfin prevented Sydney from doing so, stepping between her and the queen. “Princess Sydney,” he roared for all in attendance to hear, his white teeth and cruel smile a loathsome taunt to hang over her. “There can be no doubt amongst any here today that you are your mother’s favored child. Thankfully, it is not many a parent forced to choose between their children . . . yet our queen was put to the choice and made her decision.” Malik reached out and ran his fingers through Sydney’s hair before speaking again, a mocking laughter dancing in his eyes. “Would you care to enlighten us as to why to you are the queen’s favored one, child? Why would the queen choose to safeguard you over our sweet prince and holding to her sacred vows to never return beneath the waves?”

Sydney’s body quaked at the question, her knees knocking against one another in knowing she must respond or else be thrown into the tank and have the truth exposed. “I-I don’t know,” she muttered.

“No,” said Malik, playing to the crowd once more. “And why should our princess understand such things? Why would any child innocent to our world and the Salt’s cruelties have any inclination as to why the queen mother would favor her only daughter over the son and heir of a king?”

She didn’t favor me over Jun, Sydney willed herself to speak, but could not find her voice. Mom treated us both the same.

Again, Malik continued his playing for the crowd, luring them in with the slow rise and fall of his voice. “We know why, don’t we, my people? We who live within this greatest of Salt kingdoms are no strangers to the pervading rumors of a princess brought to our glorious city against her will. We remember that it was not so long ago that our shamed queen once came to this city as a blushing, Merrow princess herself. To believe most who would tell of her arrival, the Princess Natsuki did not come willingly either. A Merrow from the far, eastern waters, her marriage to our beloved king came with the hope that their uniting and their children to come would bind the two great Merrow nations as one for the whole of time. And yet . . .” Malik raised his hand in the direction of Darius. “When learning of our queen’s continued displeasure, our goodly king opted to show the queen both his mercy and his love.”

Mercy? Sydney blinked.

“Aye,” Malik went on, bellowing for all in the crowd to hear. “King Darius allowed his lady wife and love to abandon him and all his people. With a great war looming over us, he offered this ungrateful queen a chance to take their child and flee toward the ashore! To create a haven for all others too afraid to face the prospect of another long war to come. Some of those cowards have returned to stand before our judgement today.” He nodded toward Owens and his father, along with all the others from the zoo and Sydney’s town. “Others, however . . .” Malik looked down at the covered litter at his feet. “Others continued to try and escape the punishment for breaking their vows.”

At his nod, one of the Orc soldiers knelt beside the litter and removed the black covering.

Sydney’s eyes rounded as the covering was slowly pulled away, revealing a glass-walled rectangular tank - a similar, if smaller, water-filled version of the same, enclosed cell that Sydney had been held captive in.

As the covering pulled free of the litter’s base, the first thing that Sydney noticed was a cloud-like blur of red to stain the otherwise clear water. Then, she saw the stilled remains of a dolphin tail. Dead. Sydney knew in an instant when there was no movement at all from within. Whoever it is, they’re dead. She fought against the bile rising in her throat as the covering continued to pull away. Sydney lost her battle of control a moment when seeing the victim’s face.

Barb . . . Sydney collapsed in the grip of her captors as she retched upon the black armor of her captors. Even as she clenched her eyes shut, the face of her mother’s friend and former zoo employee swam to the forefront of Sydney’s mind. The Orcs had mercifully wrapped bits of cloth around the mortal wounds given to Barb, but they had not shut her eyes. Almost as if the Blackfin and his soldiers wished for the queen and Sydney to look at the milky stillness in Barb’s once brilliant blue eyes.

Malik cleared his throat. “I was going to ask if you recognized this Merrow, Princess,” he said to Sydney. “I’ll take your current state of response as a yes to my question.”

“N-No,” Sydney forced herself to open her eyes and speak, all the while knowing it was a lie. She refused to look at Barb’s body, however, trading her grief for anger as she glared on the Blackfin. “I-I don’t know her.”

That too Malik grinned at. “No?” he asked. “You don’t recognize this servant of the queen’s that also served at your beloved zoo for many a year? If not, then what caused such a reaction from you just now?”

“I don’t know her,” Sydney lied again. “I’m just not used to looking at dead bodies.”

Malik feigned a sad expression. “My sincerest apologies for the display, Princess,” he said, bowing in reverent show. “But we Orcs and lower born folk understand that we all must sometimes look upon the horrors of this world to better learn how to stop them from occurring again.”

No. Sydney thought. You did this on purpose. You killed Barb. She clenched a fist and planted her feet to stand on her own. We both know you did.

Malik chuckled at her rising toward him. “It would sadden me to think that my seawolves and I had made an error in identifying this traitor who attempted to flee the king’s justice. Still . . . you’re certain that you do not recognize this servant of your mother’s, then, Princess?”

“No,” Sydney insisted, loud enough for all in attendance to hear. “I don’t.”

“Pity,” Malik loomed over her, before turning his head toward the central tank and the other soldiers he had stationed there. “Perhaps you’ll recognize the one she was traveling with instead.”

Sydney froze at his mirthful tone. Time seemed to slow then, her body turned rigid, her gaze holding upon the tank as the only ability left to her. She was vaguely aware that her mother was shouting her name, Nattie begging Sydney to look away from the larger holding tank and look into the queen’s eyes instead.

Sydney could not bring herself to do so when the Orc soldiers ripped away the black covering of the other litter. Unlike with Barb, left to still and rot inside her tank with all her wounds covered, the Orcs had fixed cruel hooks into the tail fin of their other victim and tied off the opposite end of chains to a bar hung over the tank’s middle. As one, the Orcs dumped the body into the tank, the chain growing taut as the corpse splashed into the water, then swung free upside down like a prized trophy fish for all to witness. Though the corpse had been bled out, they left the wounds open and unbound in evident show of one who had not been taken easily.

A mixed uproar from the crowd surrounded Sydney on all sides, then. Most that she heard was shouting and hate-speech. Others were screaming at the horror swinging slowly back and forth in the tank like a pendulum . . . just like all the tails of Merrow enemies did in life.

As reality beckoned to Sydney, her senses returning to her in a blaze, she recognized her own voice for another among all those that were screaming. Sydney continued screaming too, long after she had been returned to her own cell, long after the trial had ended with a sentencing for the queen; she and all her treasonous followers to be executed on the following morning for crimes against the crown and Merrow people.

As the tank water swirled with bubbles around the body, Sydney had no doubts as to whose corpse it was swinging upside down by the end of his shark tail. Half of his face and head had been cleaved. The remaining half was marred with wounds, the corpses’ lone remaining swelled shut with black and purple bruises.

Though a part of her urged Sydney to hold some hope that the water and wounds blurred the corpse’s true identity, she could not withstand the tide of grief to come. All else she needed to see was the dead guardian, Barb, at her feet to realize who else the Blackfin and his Orcs had killed as evidence of the queen’s treason.

Jun . . . Sydney howled as strength and the will to live abandoned her, all while knowing it had been her choices to lead her brother and his guardian to their shared end.

22

LENNY

Lenny stood by as the line of recently freed Selkie slaves marched slowly forward to board the ice-covered Sailfish train. There were shouted orders from those helping to load the people in, while desperate others attempted to encourage their less eager companions to board also. Always the slow-moving line crept forward to pack the recently freed prisoners inside what few empty train cars remained.

So many . . . Lenny thought to himself. How are there still so many slaves here with all those Selkie skins we saw stacked up by the crematorium?

Lenny knelt to lift another bag of grain meal taken from the Orc soldier encampments. Heaving the bag atop his shoulder, Lenny bore the feed bag away to load for their journey to New Pearlaya. He hesitated when spotting a Selkie of similar size to him sprinting across the frozen field of ice and stone.

Lenny’s brow furrowed as Vasili nearly collapsed at the feet of Tom Weaver beside the train platform. What’s got him all bothered? Lenny wondered, quickening his pace toward his Selkie companions when Tom whistled for Brutus, Jemmy T, and several larger brutes to follow him. Something’s up. Lenny gathered when the other Selkies ventured away together and Vasili leaving with them. But what?

Dropping his bag of meal, Lenny angled across the cavern to reach the others as they approached the vacant slave cages. “What’s going on?” he asked, falling in beside them.

Tom Weaver frowned. “Vasili says we got a problem.”

“What is it?”

“More like who,” said Tom, his face reddening from the long strides he took and the pace he led with. “And I’ll give you one guess as to who it is.”

Lenny’s jaw clenched at Tom’s insinuating tone. Henry . . . he guessed. But what’s he up to now? Though he had seen some of the Leper gang near the train as they loaded the Selkie survivors on board, Lenny had not seen his former crew member since their earlier debate on what to do with the Orc prisoners.

The hairs on the back of Lenny’s neck raised. His skin tingled when he and the others turned a corner within view of the Bouvetøya crematorium and the icy killing fields beyond. With the remaining Selkies freed and the Orcs taskmasters inside either taken hostage, or left for dead, the chimney no longer spouted the combined mixture of smoke and human ash.

Outside the frozen factory, Henry Boucher stood among the stacks of Selkie skins. The alpha among his Leper gang, Henry directed those in human form to lash the stacked pallet-sleds to their animal counterparts. The lashings allowed the Leopard Seals to then pull the sleds across the cavern’s ice-spotted floor, the work slow, but steadier than having each man carry a bundle of stacks to the train and return for more.

Others among Henry’s gang attempted a similar sort of sled; each man had sacrificed a Selkie skin from the lot by cutting the suit down the middle, then laying the split pieces open to serve as another makeshift sled. Of those, the Lepers in human form were piling more stacks to their makeshift sleds.

All came to a stop, however, when the Lepers noticed another Selkie crew coming to stand between them and their path to reaching the train.

As the opposing groups halted within twenty yards of one another, Lenny slipped toward the front that he might stand alongside Jemmy T, Brutus, and Vasili. All stood in silent watch as Tom Weaver moved out in front of them.

“What’re you and your boys doing here, Henry?” Tom asked.

Henry shrugged. “Your people gave orders to load the train with supplies, no?” He asked, giving a lazy nod to his gang and the Selkie suits they claimed. “We Lepers are happy to obey.”

Sure you are, Lenny thought, his pulse quickening at the scarred up, former convicts gathering around Henry.

Tom Weaver scoffed at Henry’s claim. “Aye, we need supplies,” he said. “Food. Water. Weapons. Armor. Things like that.”

“A Selkie suit is not a weapon?” Henry asked. “And what of warmth, hmm?”

“Pretty sure us being Selkies is the reason we were all sent down in the first place,” said Tom. “We got warmth already, Henry. So, why don’t you tell your boys here to do something useful instead. Come back to help us load up what we do need.”

Henry did not budge from his position. “And what of our efforts here?” he asked. “You would leave these suits behind?”

Tom nodded. “Those people boarding the trains don’t need any more reminders of what they been through down here. No more than us that were sent down to the City of Song.”

Henry stroked his cheeks. “And what will they do when they reach the City of Pearls?” he asked. “How do you plan to help your new Selkie friends to survive there, hmm?” He reached out to the nearest stack, running his fingers over the ash-covered pattern of a Sea Lion suit. “Once we reach the capital, these suits could help them to pay for any number of things, no? Food . . . shelter . . . freedom for their families still trapped in chains?”

Lenny snorted. “Since when are you the sharing type, Henry? Or the kind to think about anyone but yourself for that matter?”

Henry’s cold gaze locked on Lenny. “You would not be here if I was selfish, nipperkin. Or do you forget what I did for you in Crayfish Cavern? Hmm? When you were locked away, condemned to die?” His lip curled. “You would be dead already if not for me, little man.”

Lenny bristled at the truth. “You’re doing this for you, pal,” he argued instead. “You don’t got none of us fooled here.”

Henry dismissed him with a wave. “And yet you are all fools to consider leaving these suits behind. Whatever plans you have for reaching New Pearlaya, they will not work. There are too many Orc soldiers in that city . . . and with our Selkie numbers far too few.” His gaze glinted with knowing certainty. “The Orcs will win, little Lenny, and then they will send you all back here to begin anew. And when that happens, all your efforts and your father’s death will be for naught. But these?” He again patted the stack of Selkie skins beside him. “These could be of service to some of those other Selkies that you pretend to care for, yes?” Henry’s gaze shifted to each of those standing with Lenny and Tom Weaver in turn. “Or, perhaps, you would use the money these suits will fetch at market for all manner of things. Bribes to pay off guards who will look the other way when smuggling people outside the city walls?” Henry focused on Jemmy T, then looked at Brutus. “Or to pay someone who might help them to find their family? Perhaps to find those who own their loved ones, hmm? Maybe even to buy them back?”

Lenny’s grip tightened on the hilts of his daggers for Henry’s every continued word.

“What of those who lucky few who will escape New Pearlaya to seek their fortune elsewhere?” Henry smiled as he turned on Vasili next. He pulled the Sea Lion suit free of the stack and binding that held it in place. Henry knelt and slid the folded suit across the ice. It came to rest at the feet of Tom Weaver. “You will need money for going ashore and traveling there also, Monsieur Weaver,” said Henry. “If you would leave all these skins behind, there will only be more Orcs to come and return them to New Pearlaya after your would-be Selkie rebellion fails again, as all have done before it. Why should we who have survived their cruelty thus far not profit for our losses?”

Tom Weaver scratched at his cheeks. “I wonder, Henry,” he began. “Would you be saying all this if it was your skin stacked and folded up here?”

Henry shrugged. “I would be dead, Monsieur Weaver. What would I care?” His gaze narrowed. “And I would rather know someone put my death to use, rather than leave it for Orcs to profit from.”

Fire burned through Lenny at Henry’s cold manner and ease of speaking. For all the arguments flying through Lenny’s mind in that moment, he verbalized one of them without thinking. “What if it were Chidi’s suit stacked there, Henry?”

Lenny tensed the moment he spat the words.

Henry’s face and colder eyes darkened like he was a Nomad preparing for attack. “Do not talk about my Chidi,” he growled.

“Why not?” Lenny doubled down. “That change things for ya when it comes to these suits here?”

Henry seemed to not deign the question worthy of a response.

Tom Weaver stepped between them. “Dunno who this Chidi is, but Dolan’s right – someone wore these suits once, Henry. They belonged to people.”

“And now they belong to me,” said Henry, looking out over the faces of all those gathered with Lenny and Tom Weaver, speaking to the others instead. “Say rather, they belong to us . . . and to anyone who would improve their fortune and help us to load the suits onto the train.”

You’re gonna help them, right, Lenny thought of his time ashore with Henry and what few stories Chidi had let slip along the way. And I’ll bet those some helpful people will end up dead before we all reach New Pearlaya.

Henry stalked along the front line of his Leper gang, continuing to speak to those gathered alongside Tom and Lenny. “Despite what others say, I am not a selfish man. Anyone here is welcome to share in the rewards with us, if they are willing to work for their share.”

Tom Weaver shook his head. “No one’s working for anything on this,” he insisted. “The suits are staying here, Henry. You take these suits back to New Pearlaya and sell them to some dealer, then it will just be more people who the slavers bring down and force to wear the coat. Just start the whole process over again. So, I’ll say it like this, for you and all those siding with you – either you all come back with us to the train right now to load up the food and supplies . . . or else you’re staying here to rot. Either way, these suits aren’t coming.”

“Or maybe it will be you left to rot in Bouvetøya, Tom Weaver,” said Henry, fingering the end of his own dagger.

Tom cracked his knuckles. “That a threat you and your boys here mean to make good on, Henry?”

“Oui, for I am no so foolish as to leave these riches behind,” Henry Boucher whispered, his stance straightening in defiance of Tom Weaver and all those standing with him. His eyes glinted when the Lepers with him stood taller also, each of them drawing their own blades. “Come then, Monsieur Weaver,” Henry motioned Tom and the rest of those with him forward. “Test us, if you dare . . . and I will make your Orc son an orphan again.”

Lenny tensed when Tom Weaver sprinted forward, and with Henry and his Lepers waiting to meet the charge. Lenny joined in the fray, then, focusing on the nearest Leper who raced to meet him as well. Nearing his opponent, Lenny had barely drawn his daggers when his foe fell back with one of Jemmy T’s cross-bolts embedded in his throat. The momentum of the bolt sent the Leper fumbling backward and off-balance, the larger man flopping to the cavern floor.

Carrying on to the next attacker, Lenny ducked the ensuing swipe meant to cleave off his head. He replied with a sweeping arc of his blade, slicing behind the knee of his new opponent and dropping him to be trampled by the others. Wheeling in search of a new enemy, Lenny saw Brutus driving his own dagger through the face of another Leper.

Grunting, Brutus kicked the dead man away. “Dolan!” he growled at Lenny. “Stand with me!”

Lenny did as he was bid. Where the larger man went, the little man did also, the pair of them working in deadly tandem to take on and end some of the other remaining fighters in the Leper gang.

Throughout the battle, Lenny glimpsed more than a few from his crew felled by the Lepers too. Like Nomads in a blood-induced frenzy, Henry and his Lepers constantly rallied and raged against their fellow Selkies. For a moment, Lenny feared their side was lost when Tom Weaver cried out in pain – caught off guard and nearly stabbed in the back by one of their foes. The blow fell short of its target, however, Tom Weaver’s life saved by Vasili.

The Russian Selkie dove at the fiercer, larger opponent, driving his shoulder into the other’s belly to thwart his aim of slaying Tom Weaver. Though Vasili succeeded in saving his ally, the opposing Leper shook off the newer, smaller opponent easily enough. Grabbing the back of Vasili’s Selkie coat, the Leper threw the little man away and sent him skidding across the ice.

Henry Boucher seized the moment, descending upon the little Russian before Vasili had come to a stop.

Too far away to stop the coming blow, Lenny shouted in vain. “Henry, don’t!”

If Henry Boucher heard him, he made no acknowledgement. In two moves, the Frenchman whirled his blade around, the tip of it pointed down at his smaller foe. Then, Henry drove both his knee and his dagger into Vasili’s chest to pin him to the icy floor.

Vasili’s arms and legs seized for a moment, then slumped against the ice with Henry still atop him. In an instant, the little Selkie’s face relented of the grimness that Vasili had carried in life. The Russian Selkie never moved again, but Henry Boucher plucked his dagger free and rose to continue his fight.

Lenny howled in equal parts rage and pain at the loss of another he had fought and bled with. Anger drove him on and away from Brutus’s side then, Lenny hurtling toward Henry Boucher with the thought to end his former crewmate. He called upon all the loathsome memories and encounters he’d had with Henry since they were assigned together. From Henry threatening him at the Indianapolis Zoo, to their fight outside the jail where Garrett Weaver was taken, and the bout in Crayfish Cavern. Lenny thought of Henry’s abandoning both he and Declan in Røyrkval too as he closed the distance between them.

But Henry Boucher’s life was not Lenny Dolan’s to claim.

At the loss of Vasili, Tom Weaver had come roaring back. Nearer to Henry’s position than Lenny, the elder Weaver ran at his friend’s killer too.

Henry swiped at the oncoming behemoth of a man, only for Tom Weaver to block and bat the attempt away. Grabbing hold of the Frenchman, the feral strength that Tom Weaver used was matched by the speed and cunning that Henry Boucher countered with. As Tom drove him back toward the crematorium wall, Henry allowed himself to fall, grabbing Tom in likewise fashion, using the larger man’s momentum to carry him over and dip him face-forward as well.

Henry used their shared speed and impact to his advantage too, flipping Tom Weaver on the flat of his back to steal the larger man’s wind away. The Frenchman arched over, then, rolling so that he landed atop his opponent’s chest. Snarling, he raised his dagger to plunge it into Tom Weaver’s heart, the same as he had done for Vasili.

Lenny struck Henry before he could. The young Dolan threw all his weight into a diving attack, driving his shoulder against his former crewmate, knocking Henry from his perch atop Tom Weaver.

Move! Move! Move! Lenny’s instincts and Declan’s teachings screamed at him as both he and Henry landed together on the cavern floor. Lenny rolled away the moment he could manage, the wind of Henry’s dagger strike to follow missing him by inches. Wheeling, Lenny lost his footing when trying to stand.

A vice-like grip snatched his ankle then, yanking him back.

Lenny angled around, determined to face Henry if only so that he might make as brave an end as Declan Dolan had done.

For a moment, time seemed to slow.

Lenny’s lip curled at the sight of Henry looking down on him, his gaze like a soulless demon, his weapon raised to deal the killing blow.

And then Tom Weaver returned, smashing a rock against the side of Henry’s face and knocking him off of Lenny.

The vice-like grip released, Lenny gasped for air over and again. He was helped to his feet by Brutus and Jemmy T, both of their faces blood-streaked and dripping with sweat despite the surrounding cold. Scouting the area, Lenny’s chest pained at the sight of all the newly dead, both sides near decimated. And for what? Lenny thought, looking out over the pallets of stacked Selkie skins that cared nothing for which side had won. Blinking blood and sweat and grime from his eyes, Lenny used the sleeve of his suit to wipe the remains away.

The echo of constant knocking called him to turn and find the source, finding it in the form of a red-faced Tom Weaver battering a limp and defeated Henry Boucher into a meaty pulp. It took the strength of both Brutus and Jemmy T to haul Tom Weaver off and away from Lenny’s former crewmate. Even then, Henry Boucher did not rise.

Lenny had the thought, then, to wonder if the Frenchman had finally met his end.

Henry’s head lazed to the side, coughing and spitting blood. Still more poured forth from of his nostrils, the twisted angle of it leaving no doubt his nose was broken. His right eye was drenched in blood also. His left eye fluttered open, the iris searching in disbelief at Henry’s suffering loss. Like a newly-made zombie, Henry groaned in a weak attempt to roll over on his side and place his hands under him to rise and fight again.

Brutus met him before he could. With barely an ounce of his true strength, the larger Selkie nudged Henry in the ribs and rolled him to the flat of his back. “Tommy,” Brutus called out, even as he stepped clear of Henry’s reach in case the Frenchman feigned at a weakened state. “What do you want to do with him?”

Jemmy T spat, already fitting another bolt to his crossbow. “Let Jemmy T kill this one for you, eh, brudda? Aye, kill him and be done with it, yeah? Before him rally others to fight again.”

Aye, do it, Tommy, Lenny thought, his body aching with the hollow notion as Tom Weaver approached the fallen Leper. Kill him, so that none of us have to worry about Henry Boucher ever again.

His blade in hand, Tom stalked toward Henry. Kneeling without a word between them, he grabbed the hood of Henry’s Leper suit, then yanked up on it and dragged his defeated foe toward the crematorium.

For all the fight Henry had offered before, he showed little of it now – gasping for air, his hands weakly reaching to flail at Tom Weaver for release. The monstrous Selkie would not relent, however, dragging Henry around the building’s corner and out of sight.

Lenny looked to Brutus and Jemmy T then, wondering if they should follow.

Henry’s screams from inside the crematorium put an end to such thoughts. From pain to rage, and then on to senseless shouting. A minute later, Tom Weaver exited the crematorium alone . . . but the voice of Henry Boucher lingered on, the Frenchman howling and cursing with foreign words.

The red-haired giant’s face showed no sign of remorse or patience for questioning of his actions as he stalked toward the remaining few who had fought beside him.

When Henry continued to shout inside the crematorium, Brutus cleared his throat. “So, you’re not killing him, Tommy?”

“He’ll be dead soon enough,” said Tom, continuing past them. “He’s gonna suffer first.”

Lenny understood why when he saw where Tom was headed. Vasili . . . Lenny’s expression softened when the giant man knelt beside his fallen friend, gathering the slain little man up in his arms like a swaddling babe.

Tom Weaver carried his friend toward the nearest stack of Selkie skins. Then, laying Vasili’s body atop the pile, he added the little Selkie to the remnants of all those gone before. Though Tom Weaver’s broad back served to block the view of all those watching him, Lenny swore that he saw the larger man reaching into the front of Vasili’s suit.

What’s he doing? Lenny wondered, but did not say, the answer revealed a moment later when Tom Weaver removed his hand from the inside of his fallen friend’s Selkie suit. Lenny glimpsed the leathery thongs of a simple necklace then, the untied pieces spilling across the back of Tom Weaver’s hand before the larger man tucked all away in his own Selkie pocket.

None voiced any reproach for what the big man lifted from the body of his fallen friend. Nor did any raise a word against him when Tom Weaver fetched up one of the torches that Henry’s Lepers had used to light their way as they worked. Beginning with the stack he had placed Vasili upon, Tom lit the makeshift pyre on fire and lingered long enough to watch the flames catch.

For a moment, Lenny thought to step forward and stop Tom from burning the others; all to keep to their original plan of leaving evidence for others to come after. To see and know something of the same horrors as they had witnessed. In the end, neither Lenny Dolan or any of those alongside him did anything to say or sway Tom Weaver’s actions. As the fiery tendrils began to lick the stack, and then flame in full around Vasili’s body, Lenny’s chin quivered in remembrance of the one he had left upon a pyre of ice in the City of Song. So many . . . he thought over and again as Tom Weaver lumbered on to attend the other, fallen Selkie fighters who had bled with them in battling Henry’s Leper gang.

For each and every fallen comrade, Tom Weaver lifted and carried the bodies himself. He placed each of those onto a Selkie stack all their own, then lit each makeshift pyre in turn. The Selkie giant did not stop his efforts until all of the fallen Selkies were attended. Even for those who had fought among Henry’s group, Tom Weaver ensured that none of the Selkie dead were abandoned to rot.

A Dolan doesn’t leave others behind, Lenny thought of his father’s words and Tom Weaver’s work when the other flames began to take all the other piers too. All while Lenny’s gaze scanned the uncountable number of Selkie fallen whose remains had been stacked and tied together. How are there so many?

As the last of the pyres were lit, Lenny again thought to speak out against Tom’s actions. To save a few of the stacks and remind the elder Weaver of their earlier, shared decision that the Selkie skins should remain as evidence – a testament to all those slaughtered at the hands of the Blackfin’s Orcs and the Merrow king’s orders.

His mind suggested there would be proof enough for any willing to press further into the cavern and bear witness to the thousands of corpses still strewn among the ice-covered, stony fields and hollowed out, makeshift ditches.

It’s better this way, Lenny told himself then, his resolve and reason lessened for every stack lit in tribute by the crimson-haired giant. Listening to the crackle of flames overtaking the pyres, Lenny’s mind again turned to the unburnt one he had left to freeze in the Ancient City of Song. Forgive me, Pop. Lenny prayed, wincing at the singes and pops made by the flames, almost as if the various pyres sought to give all of the fallen Selkies a final, fiery song of sendoff from the element itself.

Beside him, Jemmy T bowed his head and whispered the same prayer he had offered at Declan’s funeral. “Go now, my bruddas. Aye, and all my sisters too. Swim off to Fiddler’s Green. Don’t dive below, to them depths unseen.”

When the last of the pyres were well and truly blazing, Tom Weaver cast his torch aside and returned to stand vigilant guard over the flaming one that he had rested Vasili upon. In his heart, Lenny knew that Tom would remain watchful until the pyre had burned to ash, a final show of respect to his little, fallen friend.

Among the remaining few survivors from their initial group, Brutus was the first to stir. “Come on, lads. He’ll be along shortly. Let’s get the rest sorted back at the train.” He said softly. “We’ll need to shove off soon.”

Jemmy T nodded, slinging his crossbow and adjusting the weight of it over his shoulder before heading out.

Curiosity held Lenny back. Though reason suggested he follow the others, Henry Boucher had continued his muffled, shouted threats all the while from inside the crematorium, his voice dampened somewhat by the fiery song and its billowing, smoky chorus outside. Turning back, Lenny ventured toward the factory. Cautiously, he dared to slip on inside.

With the massive kiln fires ceased, the cavern’s natural cold had already seeped through the factory walls to steal away the former warmth brought about by the fuel once offered from the Selkie barrows. The conveyor too had stopped, the walrus pairing that had served as its motor and pulley having been already freed of their yokes. In their place, Tom Weaver had offered another to the wheel of burden and the watery, circular ditch it lay within.

Where the walrus bodies had once been mostly submerged by the weighty harness placed about their necks, Henry stood in the neck-deep water, a frosty sheen already threatening to take hold over the surface and freeze it over without the kiln’s heat to keep it melted. The walrus slaves had been freed hours ago with Lenny’s first foray into the crematorium. Their harnesses had been cast nearby, their yokes too wide and large to truly fit over Henry and bind him. The chains they left behind had served to lash the Frenchman to the wheel, however, and Tom Weaver had doubled down on the imprisonment by strapping one manacle over Henry’s left hand. The manacle’s opposite end was staked into the upper floor, outside the ditch, and beyond the point where Henry might hope to pry it free of his own merit.

For all the bindings that held Henry, it was the last of the tortures Tom Weaver had left that raised Lenny’s eyebrows. So that’s what he was yelling about . . . Lenny understood, noting the frayed ends near Henry’s neckline, the place where his Selkie hood once hung. Instead, Lenny found the key to Henry’s Salt transformation newly carved free of his suit. The Leper hood he once wore was now staked just beyond his reach by the same dagger that Henry had used to kill Vasili.

With his one remaining good eye, Henry Boucher glared at Lenny from down in the watery ditch that would serve as both his prison and his death sentence. “Have you come to kill me, little Lenny? A final act of mercy?”

Lenny approached him slow, wary of Henry even despite his former crewmate’s predicament. “No. I’m not gonna kill ya, Henry.”

“To gloat, then?” Henry asked.

“No . . .”

“Then, why come?” Henry asked.

“To see what you was yelling about,” Lenny answered. “And to better understand the other man I gotta ride with all the way back to the capital.”

Henry chuckled, then, his teeth broken and bloody. “To learn what the monster is capable of, yes?” His good eye glinted up at Lenny. “Oui. You came to see what fate awaits you also when Monsieur Weaver passes judgement on you next, hmm? After all, it was you who took his son, Dolan. Your choice to bring Garrett Weaver into the Salt.”

“Think me and Tom have settled that between us,” said Lenny.

“Have you?” Henry challenged him, his grin widening. “Ah, but you are not free of him yet, nipperkin. Perhaps he still has need of you to find his son. And when Tom Weaver is done with you . . .”

Lenny fended off the seed of doubt that Henry sought to plant with his implied threat. “What’re you suggesting, Henry? That maybe I set ya free and you’ll watch over me or something? Protect me? Is that it?”

“No,” said Henry. “For we both know it would be a lie . . . and when have I ever lied to you, little capitaine?”

Lenny tried to think of an example, his memory failing him, despite all that they had been through. “Why warn me, then? If that is what you’re trying to do.”

“Because you came to see me,” said Henry, his chains rattling as he attempted to move and was held back. Frowning, he looked on Lenny again. “And because it seems possible that you are the last face I will ever see, little Lenny . . . the one person I might ask for a final favor.”

Lenny scoffed. “Favor, huh? After I watched ya kill Vasili and then ya tried to do the same for me too? Nah, I don’t think so, pal. Gimme one good reason why you think I’d ever do you a solid, Henry.”

“Because I spoke true to you,” said Henry. “If it were not for me, you would have been killed in Crayfish Cavern when your owner sentenced you to die. I saved you from that end, little capitaine . . . just as you now could save me from this fate in fair repayment.”

Lenny snorted. “You’re crazier than I thought, Henry. Especially if you think I’d ever go about setting you free after all you and me been through together. All the stuff I seen you pull,” Lenny glowered as he thought back on their forced journeys together. “Aye, the pain I seen you put others through.”

“My Chidi, you mean . . .” said Henry softly.

“And Vasili today . . .” Lenny’s chest tightened as he reflected on others he had known and lost along the journey of life. “Racer and his father, Ansel, too. Both of them would still be alive, if not for you. Who knows how many others I never even met too?” He clucked his tongue. “And let’s not pretend like ya wouldn’t have killed me too not even an hour ago if Tommy hadn’t come to stop you from it.”

Henry smiled. “And still you came here to see me off,” he toyed with him. “Why, little Lenny? For all that I have done to others . . . for all that I have done to you . . . why come?”

“I dunno,” said Lenny. “To see another monster meet his end, I guess. How about that?”

“No,” said Henry, his good eye flashing. “You came here because you are a Dolan . . . and, like your father, guilty or no, you would never leave another person behind.”

Lenny cringed at his father’s words used against him. “That’s where you’re wrong, Henry. Can’t say as I ever thought of you as a person. To my mind, you’re just one more monster in the Salt.” Lenny rose to leave. “Aye, and another one that I’ll be glad to put in my past and forget about.”

“And yet here you are,” Henry called him back. “Because you know the debt is not repaid . . . and, if you leave me now, you will never have another chance to repay what is owed.”

Lenny wheeled on him. “I don’t owe you nothing, Henry. I wouldn’t free you even if I did.”

“And I do not require my freedom,” said Henry. “I ask only a simple favor of you in repayment for saving your life before.”

Lenny glanced at the shattered door, a voice within him whispering he should have never come inside. That he should turn around and leave without hearing Henry’s final request of him. Lenny sighed when looking back to his former crewmate. “What is it?” he asked. “What favor?”

Henry’s face broke, then, his lip quivering in such a way that Lenny had never seen before. When the fallen Frenchman did speak again, his voice was broken and soft. “If you should ever see my Chidi again,” Henry hesitated. “Tell her for me . . . tell my Chidi that I love her without end.”

Is he being serious? Lenny thought, his brow furrowing at the sincerity and weakness in Henry’s voice. The same manner he had often heard Paulo wax on about when speaking of Ellie. Henry really thinks he loved her? That Chidi ever loved him?

His chains rattling from his shaking, Henry’s chin trembled too, tears staining his bloodied cheeks as he went on. “Tell my Chidi that I would have done anything to be with her again . . . and tell her . . . tell my Chidi that I will wait for her in the green waters. Aye, that we might be rejoined again forever more.” Henry sniffled as he looked up at Lenny. “Will you do that for me, little capitaine? Please, little Lenny? Promise me . . . swear to me that you will find my Chidi and tell her for me?”

The sincerity in Henry’s shattered voice and his hopeless position begged Lenny to consider the request. One he would have readily agreed to had it been near anyone else to ask it of him. Yet the longer Lenny stared at Henry’s broken and blood-stained face, all that he could think of was the others who had bled and died at the Frenchman’s hands.

“You’re not going to Fiddler’s Green, Henry,” Lenny whispered, the elation he once dreamed of having when telling Henry off now drowned in hollow reality. “And if I ever see Chidi again, there’s only two things about you that I’m gonna tell her – one being that ya got what was coming to ya . . . and the other being that she don’t have to look over her shoulder for you ever again.”

Henry snarled, then, his chains rattling as he tried and failed to fight against them. “Dolan!” He shouted when Lenny turned to walk away from him. “Dolan! You look at me, you nipperkin! Dolan!”

Lenny ignored him, focusing on the door and the ideas of what lay beyond the threshold.

Henry’s shouts, curses, and threats followed him all the way outside of the crematorium and then as he crossed the diminishing, burning field of Selkies pyres too.

Lenny Dolan kept Henry Boucher’s predicament in his mind, even as he rejoined the other Selkies at the train. And, when all the remaining former Selkie slaves and prisoners departed Bouvetøya several hours later, Lenny Dolan swore to himself that he would keep the memory of Henry Boucher’s final request alive and well in his mind, if only so that he could one day seek out Chidi Etienne and tell her how the monster from their shared past had finally met his end.

23

CHIDI

Far beneath the surface, Chidi tread water alongside the one-eyed, mystic Nomad, Watawa. Some twenty yards away from the other grouping, both had kept their distance from those among the Hammer tribe.

Surrounding their leader, the collective bodies of Hammerheads and their brethren in half-human form shielded any sight of Atsidi Darksnout and his fallen son.

Chidi turned toward Watawa. Will Allambee die? She asked, searching for truth in his one good eye, remembering how he seemed to see and know such things from their time spent together on the road to the Indianapolis Zoo.

Watawa sighed, exhaling a stream of bubbles to float into the above. If the Ancients will it, then, aye, he replied. How did you come to meet and travel with the boy, Chidi? He was not with you when last you parted ways with my brother and I at the zoo.

I met Allambee on land before I ever knew you and Quill, said Chidi, going on to explain to Watawa how she had come to meet Allambee through the events of the Shedd Aquarium in her initial pursuit of Marisa Bourgeois. A lifetime ago, she thought, remembering her admiration for Marisa’s defiance and boldness, and her later curiosity and concern for Allambee ever after.

Watawa nodded when Chidi had finished her tale. For all your encounters, you did not know this boy was the son of Atsidi Darksnout when we rescued his father from the Dryback zoo?

No, said Chidi. But Marisa did . . . she thought to herself, glancing back in the direction of the boat where the elusive runner awaited with Bryant. She’s seen all of this . . .

The notion tormented Chidi, recalling so far back even as to when Marisa had swapped places with Allambee at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago to thwart Lenny Dolan’s crew of Selkie catchers.

Then came a worser, pervading thought Chidi had long wondered over from the start of her encounters with the mystic and elusive Silkie runner.

What else has Marisa seen and not told any of us?

Chidi had little time ponder such thoughts.

Watawa gently touched upon her seal back, nudging her to swim forward. Go, child. He motioned ahead to the ring of Hammers and the warriors in half-human form. Atsidi Darksnout calls you to meet with him.

Why? Chidi wondered. She forced herself to swim onward, if only so that Allambee might see her and know she had not abandoned him. With a swish of her hind-flippers, she sped forward to cross the distance. She cringed under the scrutinous stares of the warrior wall that she approached. Without warning or signal, the Nomad warriors opened their ranks to allow her to meet with the ones they safeguarded within.

Beyond, Chidi glimpsed Allambee slumped in his father’s arms. At a momentary glance, she recognized her own pain and grief paled in compare to the hollowed look that lived in the mournful eyes of Atsidi Darksnout.

Safely within the warrior ring, Chidi shivered nonetheless when the Nomads closed ranks behind her. Even as she dared to glimpse below, she found still more Hammers lingering in the depths also, their long, silvery bodies patrolling back and forth to ensure their leader was not disturbed from anyone swimming below either. Chidi startled again when the voice of Atsidi Darksnout entered her mind.

Come, Silkie, Atsidi quietly commanded her. Swim nearer to us. My son would have you at his side . . .

Chidi obliged, coasting through the water that she might look on her fallen friend again, her heart and soul both bidding her to accept the fateful truth that all others had already recognized. Despite the eyes of the Hammer chieftain watching her all the while, Chidi could not break her stare of Allambee Omondi.

The Salt had cleaned his wounds, his face pale in the moonlit water. He looked almost asleep to Chidi’s mind, the same as she had found him not an hour before upon their boat. Why did you have to come with us, Allambee? Chidi wondered, her eyes stinging as she hovered nearby, willing him to open his eyes. She wished for him to be whole again, and to cheer her as he had always done since their first meeting upon the shore outside of Chicago too. Why didn’t you just listen to me and stay behind with Zymon and all the rest that we left ashore?

Why didn’t you make him? Chidi’s conscience debated with her. You knew what awaited him here in the Salt . . . knew it from the first moment you met him on the beach outside of Chicago . . . and still you did nothing to save him.

I tried . . . Chidi defended against her guilt. I didn’t want him to come. I tried to protect him.

You failed . . . the nagging voice whispered within her, the same voice Chidi had come to know and submit to in all the long years since serving under Henry Boucher’s harsh tutelage. Just as you always fail, Chidi . . . you can’t help anyone. How many more innocents need to die before you understand and accept that too?

I’m sorry . . . Chidi whispered, not understanding that she had given voice to her thoughts until Atsidi Darksnout answered her in turn.

You are sorry? The Hammer chieftain asked. For what reason? Did you cause this hurt upon my son?

In a way, yes, said Chidi, swept in the tidal wave of guilt taking over her, mind and body. He was wounded because he was trying to save me from the Orcs.

Succeeded, Atsidi gently chided. Not trying. It would seem my son proved successful in his sacrifice, else you would not swim here, my Silkie friend.

Aye, said Chidi, her seal head nodding agreement and submission of his claim. When she dared to look up once more, she found Atsidi no longer watching her, but focused on his son instead.

Watawa the Open Shell claims my son reached for you among all the others, said Atsidi. That he whispered your name at the last. Even in these, his final moments with me . . . aye, with death singing his name, and despite all such circumstance, it remains your name that I have heard my son whisper and call after . . . the Hammer chieftain looked to her in full. Your name is Chidi, yes?

It is, she answered.

Then, tell me, Chidi, said Atsidi Darksnout, his eyes gleaming as he gazed upon her, his voice breaking. How is it that in my son’s last moments in this world, why is it that I am to hear your name upon his lips? What special bond between you?

He . . . he’s my friend, said Chidi.

Atsidi nodded. Then, as his friend, tell me something of the son I have only now come to meet. The same as I must soon bid farewell too in the same breath. What fate led him to this brave end?

Marisa Bourgeois, Chidi thought, but did not say. The longer she searched her mind for an answer, she gathered there was more than a little truth there also. Allambee wanted to meet you, she said to Atsidi Darksnout, reflecting again to among the first conversations she and Allambee had together, and on all the conversations since as well. Meeting you is all he’s ever dreamed about. He’s traveled far and wide on the hope of meeting and helping you.

Helping me? Atsidi asked, even as he clutched Allambee closer. How?

I don’t know, said Chidi. He told me that his mother often said you were a great warrior. She hesitated when Atsidi’s eyes squinted in question of her. But that you had done some bad things and would need his help to find your way again.

His mother said such things? Atsidi asked, his brow wrinkling. Was she with you also?

No, said Chidi. I never met her.

Atsidi slumped before coming around again. And did my son say anything of knowing why I left? He swallowed another mouthful of Salt water, exhaling a steady stream through the gills on either side of his neck. Why I abandoned he and his mother?

Chidi hesitated. She told him that you went away because you were worried someone might come to hurt them in order to get to you.

And so my enemies have done anyway . . . Atsidi hugged Allambee closer to him. The Orcs found you all the same, my son. He said nothing for a moment, and so Chidi did not speak either. When the silence between them lingered on, Chidi had the thought to swim away.

Allambee’s withered voice called her back. He spoke in the Morokkoan tongue of his father’s people, a language Chidi knew well from her dealings with Henry and the Nomads in New Pearlaya. She did not know that her friend held any knowledge of the language.

Father . . . Allambee whispered, his voice thin and weak. Father?

I am here, my son, Atisidi answered, pulling away that they might see each other plainly. Your father swims at your side, as I should have done all these lost years between us.

Allambee smiled at that. There are voices, Father . . . he said. They call to me . . . they call me to swim . . . Allambee winced as he tried to sit up in his father’s arms. I-I can see them now . . . Though his pain forced him to ease back down again, Allambee craned his head around in Chidi’s direction as if he followed the direction of those no one else but he could see swimming in the water around them. His gaze was clouded, and Chidi thought that her friend seemed to both look through and over her at the same time. Allambee’s eyes widened in delight, his smile dawning as he gazed upon things that only he could see. They call me to swim the green waters, Father . . .

Not yet, Atsidi’s voice broke. Stay and swim with me awhile longer, my son. Beg them to wait for you and let you linger with me now.

They will not, said Allambee. Blinking, the fog over him seemed to lift for a moment, his face paining once more. And yet when the wave of hurt passed over him, his eyes found Chidi’s a final time. Chidi . . . he said, raising his arm and reaching out for her.

She darted toward him without thought, sweeping beneath his hand and rising that he might feel the dome of her seal head. I’m here, she said. I’m here, Allambee. I won’t—

I see you, Chidi, said Allambee, the fog in his eyes returned. I see you fear that man, Henry, like I would also . . . aye, if my mother had not told me to be brave for her . . .

Chidi blinked, recognizing the signs of her friend nearing his end, the same as she had witnessed in so many before him also. The last gasps of memories, all firing at random. She nuzzled closer to Allambee, then, praying the slippery feel of her sealskin might wake him back to the reality of the moment. That he might spend his final minutes in accomplishment of his goal to reach and meet his father, rather than be lost in his past before death took him. When she pulled away to meet his gaze again, she found Allambee smiling; just as he had done when uttering the same message to her on the lonely beach outside of Chicago, the same sunset evening they had first met.

Allambee coughed, then, his mouth opening and closing as if he were choking on the Salt breath that his Nomad body accepted as air.

Atsidi hugged his son close, raising his left arm under Allambee as a father might do for a choking, toddling child, all with the hope of clearing their airway.

Chidi could not say as to whether the attempt worked, or else Allambee regained control of himself, but, when the moment passed, Allambee found his father’s gaze a final time. I will be brave for you also, Father . . . his eyes fluttered as he spoke. Would that help you? To know that you do not need to swim from fear any longer . . .

Seeing your face has helped me already, said Atsidi Darksnout. Stay with me awhile longer, my son . . . stay, that you might teach and help me even more in the days and years to come.

Allambee’s smile broadened, his teeth glinting in the scattered rays of moonlight as he raised his hand toward the face of the Hammer chieftain. They are singing, Father . . . He looked off to the left of Chidi, again as if he saw others at her side that were not there. They sing me to swim . . . to come and join Them . . . aye, They are singing, Father . . .

Chidi’s heart burst at the sight of the stoic, Nomad chieftain bending his neck and lifting his son, their foreheads touching.

Swim away then, my son, Atsidi Darksnout forced the words. Swim to the green waters and the eternal hunts awaiting you there . . . his fingers clenched upon Allambee’s shoulders, holding him as close as he could. Aye, swim away in peace, brave one . . . and know your father will soon follow you there to teach you all the things in that next life that I could not show you in this one.

Chidi could not say when Allambee’s spirit left him, only that she knew her friend had left the watery world and his body behind long before Atsidi Darksnout pulled away from his son. Her chest tightened when recognizing the stillness that overtook his remains.

Allambee’s arm lazed in the underwater current, even as his father cradled his body close.

Chidi wished for her human eyes in that moment, if only that she might have some way of similar release to all that which surged within her. With no means of allowing her grief to escape, Chidi looked up to where the surface existed, some twenty feet above her. With a swift kick of her hindflippers, she abandoned Atsidi Darksnout and his warriors. Chidi sped toward the blurry world above, as if she hoped to sprout wings upon reaching the surface and fly off to wherever the spirit of Allambee Omondi had fled also.

Reality remained in the above; the Salt stretching in every direction but upward, and Chidi could sprout no wings. Trying all the same, Chidi shot free of the Salt and into the open air, screaming with her seal voice at the waves crashing about her and the wind whistling over all.

Gravity forced her to enter the watery world beneath once more.

Trembling, Chidi tucked and rolled her seal body, somersaulting below to aim her nose for the surface again. Later, she would not be able to say why she felt the need to break above the waves, for it was not the air that existed there that she required. In her heart, she knew only that she was not truly a creature of the Salt, and that she tired of all that she had ever witnessed since learning of the watery hell that Henry Boucher had dragged her into.

Meaning to burst free of the Salt once more, Chidi hesitated when spotting a silvery glimmer speeding up to join her. Watawa slowed as he came to swim not five feet away from her, the look in his one good eye softened with understanding.

He’s gone . . . Chidi blurted. Allambee is gone.

From this world, perhaps, said Watawa before glancing around the surrounding water and raising his left hand in a sprawling, panned signal for Chidi to look there also. Or it may well be he lingers among us even now . . .

Chidi followed his motion, but, save for the Nomad warriors beneath them, she saw only endless dark and empty water. He’s not here, she said. He’s dead.

Only so long as you allow, said Watawa. The memory of your friend lives within you, child. As do all those we keep safe and alive within us after they have left this world to swim onto the next. Weep if you will for his passing, Chidi, for all who come to know grief carry out the measure to their own choosing. But, while you grieve, know there are others who knew and loved him also that will celebrate. Not of his passing, but for having known him in this life.

Chidi shook her seal head. I would give all of those celebrations to have him here again, or else to go back in time and force Allambee to stay on land where it was safe.

Watawa frowned. My brother often reminds me there is no safety in this world. He glanced to the depths, his gaze holding on the darkness below. The more time passes, the more I think Quill may have had the right of it all along. Watawa looked to Chidi again, his face set in hopeful reprieve. And yet despite my brother’s claim, I would rather hold to all that I have told you about your fallen friend – that for all those bravely gone before, we keep the dead both safe and alive within us. Their stories and their lives unending, so long as we choose to sing their tales and utter their names.

I don’t want stories, said Chidi. I just want my friends back. Allambee and Racer and . . . little Sasha. I would bring them all back and far more too.

Then, let you continue to remember their faces and their names that they might visit you again in your dreams, said Watawa. But I speak of the future now, and the present would hear such stories as you have to offer about the brave and selfless, Nomad warrior named Allambee Omondi.

Chidi followed his nod below, back to the depths where she knew Atsidi Darksnout awaited her. She trembled at the thought of swimming back down and facing him, forced to see Allambee still dead in his arms. I don’t want to remember him that way, she whispered to Watawa. I want to remember him as he was.

As any friend would, said Watawa. But to ignore what is, Chidi, to blind one’s self to all that is? That leads one to forgetfulness and willful blindness. Watawa raised his left hand to his face, touching the shell covering over his eye. Take it from one who knows, child. Aye, one who would take such moments back and face those harder truths now, if I were able. Harsh though they may be, terrible as they were, I would go back and face them all knowing such regret as I do now.

Chidi looked toward the surface again, wishing that Watawa would leave her be and allow her to swim back to the boat with Bryant and Marisa. To warn Bryant that they should head for the nearest shore and forget all that they had ever witnessed below, and especially of Marisa Bourgeois’s visions and prophetic words.

Watawa was nudging at Chidi again. Go and see him, child, he urged her swim below. Honor your friend and his sacrifice by looking upon his broken body. Aye, let you burn the image of him into your memory that you might never forget the great love he offered up today on your behalf.

He died for you, Chidi took the Nomad shaman’s meaning. The least you can do is pay him tribute now.

Chidi relented then, fortifying her mind with memories of Allambee alive and well in the above as best she could for all that she knew awaited her below. The other ghosts of her past followed her there also, the images of Racer lain in the cornfield, forever staring up at the starry night sky. She remembered Sasha too, how her tiny hands fit neatly inside of Chidi’s grip when they fled from slavery and Henry Boucher. As Chidi descended alongside Watawa, she filled her mind with memories of her fallen companions in preparation of witnessing another lost far too early.

Below, Atsidi Darksnout still clung to the remnants of his son.

Chidi’s muscles stiffened as she forced herself to heed Watawa’s plea. Her gaze quickly swept over the mortal wounds that the Orcinian seawolf, Arsen, had given to Allambee. Like a rising, icy tide, the fear and grief within her threatened to overtake once more. Chidi might have given in then also, but she glimpsed Allambee’s face at the last. Though her mind warned that he wore no expression in death, Chidi imagined her friend carrying the same hint of a smile she remembered of him in life. That of a satisfied boy, unabashedly proud of his accomplishment and reveling in the notion of finally meeting his father.

As if sensing himself watched, Atsidi Darksnout looked away from his son and directly at Chidi instead. Though she remembered the sternness in his gaze at the zoo, Chidi saw none of it now, nor any sign of malice either. Chidi, he said, nodding. My son shared his life with you, it seems. Of his mother and all that she told him of me also. Tell me, Chidi, in all your time together, did my son say nothing of the love I bore him? The Hammer chieftain asked, his voice catching. Did his mother tell him nothing of the pain it caused me to leave them?

Chidi chose her words carefully. I can’t speak to that, she said. But Allambee did say his mother told him that you trusted no one . . . that it was no way to live . . .

No, said Atsidi, frowning as he looked upon his son’s broken body once more. And it seems to me now that there are many ways to die . . . far fewer to live. Allambee stroked his son’s face, even as he spoke to Chidi once more. How did my son and you come to this, Chidi? For all the whole of this watery world and the above, how did you come to be together in this place and with me so near?

Chidi nearly spoke the words she had come to parrot so often in her life with Henry. To utter such safe words of ignorance, or else pretending to not know. Yet the longer she looked on Allambee, the more she dwelt on the pain in Atsidi’s voice, Chidi recognized a twin soul in desperate search of truth and answers. Marisa . . . Chidi whispered. Marisa Bourgeois led us here. Her mind stumbled with the admission, even as she knew it for true. She thought back on all the interactions she’d had with infamous Silkie runner; from chasing her at the Shedd, to finding and traveling with Allambee thereafter, and all the times since leading to their reuniting in the depths of Orphan Knoll. Every one of Chidi’s answers ended with Marisa Bourgeois. She brought us out here . . . just like she brought us all together.

Atsidi’s gaze flickered. My people spoke her name when they came to me. She is near, then? This Silkie, Marisa Bourgeois?

Chidi hesitated. I didn’t say she was a Silkie.

No, said Atsidi. And yet I know her for one all the same. Aye, he said, petting Allambee’s face once again. Indeed, it seems that Marisa Bourgeois has seen much and more than I first credited her for. Atsidi’s expression gave nothing away as he looked up and beyond Chidi, toward Watawa instead. Open Shell, go and fetch the Silkie, Marisa Bourgeois, from their ship. I would speak with her again.

Again? Chidi wondered. They’ve met before?

No sooner than Watawa sped off, Atsidi refocused on Chidi, scoffing as he did. Your seal face hides much, child, yet I sense your questions all the same. Ask what you would of me. His shoulders slumped with the weight of his son and his grief. Ask, Chidi, and I will answer that which I can in honor of my son’s kinship with you.

Again, Chidi felt the old ways of silent obedience creeping upon her. The need to retreat from her questions and allow them linger on instead. But when Atsidi Darksnout would not break his stare of her, Chidi recalled another Nomad of similar stoic nature; Watawa’s brother, Quill, bidding her to speak out or forever suffer in silence. Forgive me, she started carefully. But, for one who lost his son, you don’t seem—

Overwhelmed with grief by the loss of him? Atsidi cut in. You think me heartless?

No, said Chidi quickly. Only that . . . well, I wouldn’t imagine you would want to speak with me any longer. Or Marisa either, knowing that your son died because of us.

For you, perhaps, said Atsidi. He did not die because of you, child.

He did though, said Chidi. He died protecting me.

No, said Atsidi. My son died because we are all of us trapped in whirling, tidal pools that the Salt and destiny sweep us in. Each of us funneling round and round until it becomes our turn to venture further in and dive below into the depths unseen that we might discover what awaits us on the other, darkened side, Beyond. Believe you me, child, I long spat in the face of such talk as destiny in my younger years. But, when I see you before me now, aye, and that I were allowed to hold my son in his final moments? I understand now there be at least some little truth to such fateful speech . . . and far greater things beyond my understanding. He looked on Allambee yet again. Like waves at war upon the sand, the Salt forever gives and takes in eternal ebb and flow.

All I’ve ever seen it do is take, said Chidi quietly.

So thought I, once, said Atsidi. And yet I see clearly now that the Salt and destiny both offered me this gift of reuniting with my son in his last moments. All that he would do as he dreamt and longed for. Aye, that my son returned to reveal the true fated way ahead for me and my people also.

Chidi shivered at the coldness in his voice, the similar, icy look in his eyes when Watawa returned with the Cape Fur Seal that was Marisa Bourgeois swimming alongside him.

Unlike Chidi, Marisa did not hesitate in approaching the Hammer chieftain. Atsidi Darksnout, she said, Marisa’s voice confident and clear as Chidi wished her own might sound when speaking. We meet again . . . much as I wish it were not so. Marisa cocked her seal head to the side in acknowledgment of Allambee in his father’s grasp.

Aye, said Atsidi. I admit now, as I did before, to doubting your claim that I would both see and hold my son again in this lifetime. Would that you had told me then it would be his last moments.

Marisa swam closer. Would that have changed things for you if I had?

Perhaps, said Atsidi. Had I known my son would die as a result, I would have begged you to keep him safe, rather than him ever come to know my face.

And yet, like me, you cannot see all ends, my friend, said Marisa.

Can you not? Atsidi asked.

Only so far as I am allowed, said Marisa. If your son had lived, it may be the whole of this world and above would die for it.

Atsidi scoffed. And yet a mystic witch such as I deem you to be would say these worlds are still doomed, no matter the fate of my son’s life. He shook his head. I would trade both worlds and all those in it for more time with him.

How much time, Atsidi Darksnout? Marisa replied. A minute? An hour? More?

Chidi’s face warmed at Marisa’s taunting, even as Atsidi’s face stiffened also.

You mock my grief? He asked.

I would illuminate your concept of time, said Marisa. For we have little and less, Darksnout. And though your time with Allambee Omondi was spare, it was still longer than some will ever receive.

A cruel gift, said the Hammer chieftain, glancing upon his son’s face.

No, said Marisa, swimming a circle about the Hammer chieftain before rising to face him at eye level. Your reunion was not a gift. It were a bargain struck. The same as any who would become a father or mother. In their hearts, each know they must someday bid farewell to their child also. Most do not consider the cost, however, for it is different for each and every tie. If some knew the price at the time of farewell, how many would still readily agree to take on the bargain?

Atsidi shook his head. This price is too great to bear.

Marisa nodded with her seal head. Aye, she said. As I warned you when first we met that you would not like the outcome of leaving your cell behind, even if it served a greater good.

Atsidi glared at her. You are an odd Silkie, girl. To mock my pain in such a moment as this.

Not mocking, said Marisa. Reminding. When I warned that you would meet your son for but a little while, we also spoke of how the Salt would have its due. Now, I have come for mine.

Here, then? Atsidi asked. You would choose this time to have me meet your blood price, here and now?

Not I, said Marisa. Let you give the repayment to Chidi instead. No doubt your son would approve.

No doubt, Atsidi answered, his tone simmering as he looked between the two Silkies. Is that all then, girl? All the price that you would have of me?

The Salt demanded this price of you, Darksnout, not I, said Marisa, nodding toward Allambee in his arms. But I would have you keep your son’s memory alive and safe within you. From this day, until your last day, Atsidi Darksnout. See that you keep the sacrifice of Allambee Omondi ever at the forefront of your memory.

That is but a little cost to me, said Atsidi. As for your blood price, I will see it done. Now, go. Leave me to my grief . . . and, if you value your life, do not ever let me see you again, Silkie.

Marisa nodded in silent reply, then turned her nose upward and ascended for the surface.

Chidi started after her. She had not risen two feet from her former position before Atsidi called her to stay.

Not you, he said. I have yet to repay my debt for this encounter with my son.

Chidi shivered at the implication and his dark eyes studying her, even as Atsidi Darksnout continued holding his son. She nearly took off for the surface again when his left hand left its purchase of Allambee. The Hammer chieftain reached for the lone adornment that floated near his heart; a shark tooth talisman that seemed to bat against Atsidi’s lean-muscled chest, caught in an invisible Salt stream of constant movement. Held by a piece of simple weave, crafted of seaweed rope that served as a necklace, the tooth seemed to float on the underwater current. Atsidi’s fingers clenched around the talisman, forming a fist, and the tooth the treasure inside.

Atsidi hesitated to release the talisman, continuing his study of Chidi. Why does she want you to receive this from me? He demanded of her.

Receive what? Chidi asked. The tooth?

What else?

I-I don’t know, she said. She’s never said anything to me about . . . any of this.

Atisid scoffed. She chose you wisely, child. For all my want to name you liar, I hear no falsehood in your voice. He sighed. And the thought of my son reaching for you . . . calling your name at the last . . . Atsidi shook his head, then ducked his head while lifting his arm, removing the simple necklace and talisman from around his neck. With a glint in his eye, he extended it in offer to Chidi. Come, child. It would seem this gift is meant for you.

Why me? Chidi asked.

I know not, said Atsidi. It is but a simple tooth from my own mouth. One lost among countless others that I have shed in my life. He opened his hand to reveal the tooth and seaweed string. And now this meaningless gift belongs to you.

It’s not meaningless though, Chidi knew, even as she swam toward him to accept. If it was just a simple tooth, then why would Marisa want it?

Chidi said nothing of her own questions, however, as the Hammer chieftain draped the necklace over her seal neck. For a moment, Chidi feared that the tooth, like Marisa, might have some mystical quality to it. A curse upon it, or else a further means of entrapment like the Silkie skin that Henry had both forced her to wear and used to enslave Chidi.

When the necklace fell against her skin, Chidi felt nothing of warmth or chill or curse. Nothing even of weight as Atsidi Darksnout drifted away from her with his son’s body still in his arms.

Chidi sagged in the water, not knowing what to do or say. Thank you, she said finally. For the gift.

And you, Chidi, said the Hammer chieftain. For befriending my son and bringing him here to meet with me.

Chidi stared at him awhile longer, his lingering silence urging her to leave. Still, she could not bring herself to swim away, knowing that to do so would mean to leave Allambee behind. Never to see him again.

Atsidi stirred. Why do you stay, child?

I-I don’t want to say goodbye to him, she replied, the hurt carrying in her voice. I’m tired of saying goodbye to people I care about.

Atsidi nodded, his face a mask of solemnity. The Salt gives and takes, child. A lesson I too have been loathe to learn and heed, despite my age. In truth, I never desired a child. In my youth, I thought a warrior’s way was to deal death, not nurture life. The Salt stole the honor of a warrior’s death from me too when my own people betrayed me to our enemies. I thought it yet another curse too when my enemies removed me from this world and placed me in their glass prisons. They carried me ashore, moving me from one of their cities to the next like a prized trophy for others to see and relish in their conquest. And yet for all my hate, all my loathing of them, I found the furthest opposite of their cruelty upon the shore also. He smiled in looking down upon Allambee’s face. Some precious moments of love and joy that I had never known before, all shown to me when this boy’s mother came to tend the many wounds blighting my mind and soul. Aye . . . some small moment of peace before the Salt and my enemies came to steal that life from me too.

You didn’t leave Allambee and his mother, then? Chidi dared to ask. You didn’t abandon them to protect them from your enemies?

Not by my own choices, no, said Atsidi. I think now it were a lie she gave him. A small kindness meant for an elsewise orphaned boy with no hope of ever meeting his father and learning of my true nature.

But she taught him your language, said Chidi, trying to offer him some bit of cheer among the darkness. Attempting to bring some light to herself as well. A few words, at least. And meeting you was all he ever talked about. ‘Helping you’, he always said.

Aye, helping me, Atsidi said bitterly. To see the continuing error of my ways, no doubt. The continued lies I cling to still. He looked up and away from Chidi as a slew of other Nomads swam toward them. Between them, the Nomads bore a bound, but writhing hostage, his skin two-toned in color, his face and body littered with wounds of his own. Each deep enough to hurt, yet not enough to kill, nor allow the Salt to suck his body dry of lifeblood.

Chidi’s seal lip curled at the sight of Allambee’s killer, Arsen.

The other Nomads brought the writhing Orc all the way to their leader, holding him steady in the face of Atsidi Darksnout. Where Chidi had feared the Nomad chieftain before, she recognized now that any notion of fright she once felt in his presence paled in compare to that which lived in the Orc hostage.

Arsen’s eyes rounded at the sight of Allambee in his father’s arms, the Orcinian made to look upon the death that he had caused. Worse, the one who would serve his fate also.

Chidi swore that Atsidi’s stare would bore two holes through Arsen’s person, the anger emanating off the Hammer chieftain enough to cow the Orc into weeping submission. Only then did Atsidi glance away, looking to Chidi instead. Is this the one? He asked of her. Is this the savage who slew my son?

The grim faces of the Nomad warriors around Chidi warned they would never allow the Orc to leave with his life. And when she met the stare of Atsidi Darksnout a final time, she understood the hurt in him would not allow the Hammer chieftain to grant such tender mercy either.

Is this Orc the one who killed my son? Atsidi asked of her again, his tone rising.

Yes, said Chidi quietly.

Atsidi grimaced. Then, I think it best you leave us now, child. I would spare you from such a sight as I mean to cause this wretched thing that swims before me.

Chidi nodded, her gaze falling on Allambee’s peaceful face once more. Without thought, she darted across the water between them, swimming near enough to look down upon her fallen friend. In keeping with Watawa’s message to her, Chidi burned the image of Allambee in her mind that she might never forget what his sacrifice had meant for her. Goodbye, she thought to herself, closing her seal eyes and dipping her cold nose to brush against his cheek. Forgive me for not making you stay behind . . . for not keeping you safe. Please, forgive me, Allambee, wherever you are now.

As she pulled away, Chidi’s mind drifted back to their first meeting, sitting with him upon the beach outside of Chicago. Her skin blazed with the memory of him placing pretzels in her hand, his fingers closing around hers.

‘I think you and your friends have to help me,’ she remembered him saying then. How she had wept thereafter at the innocence in his voice. What those in the Salt might do with such a noble, good soul as Allambee Omondi’s had been.

What the Salt did do to you, Chidi told herself, wilting when she glimpsed Atsidi and his warriors watching her mournful display. For all the Nomad faces watching her, she found herself drawn to the Orc hostage, Arsen, also.

His clothing torn, his hands bound behind him and tied to his tail also – Chidi thought that Arsen looked not nearly so frightening now as he had been when attacking her with his fellows. Though she had not meant to look on him again, now she studied the Orcinian in full, the terror of what awaited plain upon his trembling body and the whites of his eyes also.

Help me, Arsen spoke to her alone. Please, little Silkie. I’m so afraid . . . don’t let them kill me. Help me, please. I beg you.

For all his blathering on, Chidi cued on Arsen’s continual use of the word ‘help.’ Though not for his sake, she thought back to Allambee and of all the times he mentioned the need to find and help his father. I couldn’t keep you safe, she thought, turning back to look on her fallen friend again, trying and failing to swallow the lie she told herself; that Allambee was merely asleep in his father’s arms. I couldn’t keep you safe, my friend . . . but I can pass on your message.

Chidi ascended that she might swim in front of Atsidi Darksnout as bravely as Marisa had done. Before I go, she said, reminding herself to be strong and speak up as both Quill and Bryant, Lenny Dolan and so many others had asked of her since she had met them all. Allambee always said his mother told him that you ran away because you feared someone hurting them to get to you. That his mother told him that you trusted no one . . . that it was no way to live.

Aye, said Atsidi. You mentioned both already.

I did, said Chidi, forcing herself to continue. I think that’s why he came to find you. That he thought it might help you to hear those words and his mother’s other message too.

What message?

Chidi’s chest pained as she spoke the words, envisioning Allambee’s voice and manner as she did. He said that his mother told him that we must all learn to trust in others to find peace.

Atsidi frowned. It seems her notions of peace and forgiveness never changed, then. If my son were alive, Chidi, I would tell him such words did offer me some guidance and comfort in my time among the Merrows and those of your kind too when I was imprisoned upon the shore. In truth, with my return to the Salt, I had hoped to spread her message of peace among my own people also. His gaze flickered toward Arsen before returning to focus on Chidi. But here? Now? No, child, he said to her, lifting Allambee’s body in remorseful show. Here be the reminder and proof of what happens when one would turn away from truth in favor of such childish hopes and dreams. This, the reminder of what happens when one holds to ideals and nonsense from those who do not know better. He swam away from Chidi, offering Allambee’s body to a pair of his fellow warriors with Hammerhead tails. Then, he drew the naked blade at his side; one of its ends being a spike, the other a hammer.

Atsidi Darksnout allowed its sheen to dance in the moonlit water around him. Aye, he said, pointing the spiked end of his hammered blade at Arsen. And here be the harsh reality awaiting those who face what those of us swimming beneath the Salt already know full well; for there are truly monsters lurking in every depth of this world, child. He looked on Chidi again, the sadness in his voice belying the madness in his eyes. And from the moment that one chooses to become a monster, there is no turning back from what you are thereafter. Atsidi motioned toward the surface. I pray you never become one such as we are, Chidi. Go now in peace, if only for the memory of my son. Let you swim away and forget this cold and watery realm for the opposite world above. Let you return to the place where dreams and light and hope still exist, child. For it has only ever been a realm of monsters here beneath the Salt. I would not have you linger and become one of us.

Chidi obeyed then, swimming away for the surface world above, even as Arsen’s continued pleas and begging for his life followed her all the while.

Before she broke through the surface, the hostage Orc’s pitiful cries had turned to screams . . . and their echo chasing Chidi Etienne all the way back to the awaiting boat and her remaining companions.

24

GARRETT

After the decision to turn over the Orc hostage, Arsen, to the Hammer tribes and the justice of Atsidi Darksnout, Garrett Weaver had followed his Nomad father into the depths that they might speak and swim alone together.

Where are we going? Garrett asked as they descended further.

Away, my son, said Cursion White Shadow. In troubled times, my father taught me it oft helps to swim away and clear one’s mind.

You think I’m troubled by what just happened? Garrett asked. Seeing Arsen again?

I know that you wrestle with such thoughts and guilt, said Cursion. Just as I did when I were young. Just as many warriors do, and then attempt to hide from their choices.

Garrett hesitated to speak, toying with the thoughts running his mind, trying to figure out how best to speak them. I don’t care what you did with Arsen.

No, said Cursion. But you struggled with the decision when it was left to you, yes?

Garrett blushed at that. I guess so, he said. Maybe. I dunno.

Smiling, Cursion turned back to face him. And you think this inner conflict makes you weak, my son? That were you not quick to kill your former pod-mate, as Ishmael challenged you to do?

Garrett shrugged in silent reply.

Death is never easy, my son, said Cursion. Nor should it be decided quickly. For all that your former pod-mate did to you and others, I did not doubt his tale of hardship. Had our lives been traded, myself and others might do as Arsen did, if placed in similar circumstance.

Why did you decide to give him to the Hammers, then? Garrett asked.

It was not me to whom the hurt was caused, said Cursion. The Orcinian slew a friend of yours, yet you could not bring yourself to slay him in vengeful return. If you could not do so with the loss you sustained, how then could I give the order to execute him?

But, you did, said Garrett. By giving him to the Hammers, you know what will happen.

Do I? Cursion asked. Atsidi Darksnout has told us all he is sworn to peace now. It may be this test is meant for him to decide where his heart truly lies.

Isn’t that wrong to put your friend to such a test though? Garrett challenged. If you know that Atsidi wants peace for him and his people, why give him the Orc who killed his son and make things harder for him?

Ours is a hard world, my son, said Cursion. Were it truly my decision alone, I would have spared Atsidi Darksnout further pain and ended the Orcinian myself. As high chieftain, however, duty falls to me to think of the needs and wants of all.

Garrett’s brow furrowed. And you think that all of the Nomads will need Atsidi and his warriors in the coming war . . .

The Hammers are the largest in number of our tribes, said Cursion. Without them to join, aye, I believe it would be a lost cause to attack the Merrow king and all his Orcs. Say nothing of the newest threat either. The Sancul offer will spread more discord among us too before the end, I assure you.

You don’t trust the Sancul offer, then? Garrett asked, thinking back on Kellen Winstel and the deep dwellers he swam with.

Trust is our only way forward, my son, said Cursion. And yet even if we were to align with the Sancul to bring down the Merrows and the Orcs, I would not trust the deep dwellers to spare our people when all others were finished. In truth, I had hoped this night might lend me time to speak alone with the other chieftains. All that I might better hear their concerns without Ishmael to cloud our situation.

You should’ve just gotten rid of him, then, said Garrett. He would do the same for you.

Cursion chuckled. We are of two minds, my son. Still, however old he may seem to your eyes, Red Water is young enough among our people. And the elders who will not remember their younger days, nor listen to the passion of youth are like to lose their favor among the people also. A leader who would silence even the most outspoken member of their council is no true leader at all.

Maybe, said Garrett. But, if that person is like Ishmael and keeps spreading fear and doubt among the rest, then the first leader might lose their favor among the people anyway.

Cursion’s smile widened. You learn quickly, my son. He nodded. And see much already. In time, I have little doubt you will rise to be among our greatest of leaders.

I doubt it, said Garrett, his momentary cheer of the praise given to him doused at Cursion’s continued words of his potential ascendancy among the Nomad ranks. Ishmael and the others will never see me as one of them. All they see when they look at me is an Orcinian, just like Arsen.

Cursion swam forward, then, and placed his hands upon Garrett’s shoulders. You are nothing like the Orc I sent off to Atsidi Darksnout.

How do you know? Garrett asked.

Your eyes speak to your truth, my son, said Cursion. One need not look deeply into them to see the light within. In yours, I see the way ahead for all our people – Nomads, Orcs, Merrows. Aye, Selkies and even Sancul too.

Sancul?

Cursion nodded. When all others showed fear this night at the arrival of the deep dwellers, I saw my son alone prepared to swim out and extend an offer in response to theirs. Not of war, or hate, but peace and friendship.

Only because I knew Kellen, said Garrett. Remembered him from when we both lived ashore.

Cursion’s head cocked to the side, then, as if he could make no sense of Garrett’s meaning.

I don’t know how Kellen got down here, said Garrett. Only that he did. He’s . . . different . . . now too.

And in your life before, said Cursion. You were friendly with this Sancul?

No, said Garrett. Never. He . . . he picked on me all the time. Bullied me every chance he could. Garrett unwittingly glanced at his tail, watching it sway back and forth, remembering the first time he had witnessed it do so after awaking at the bottom of the deep end in the pool of Tiber High School. Kellen Winstel had lazed above him, then, and might have drowned also, had it not been for Owens to dive in and save him. All that Garrett could recall thereafter was swimming for the first time and the confusion to wonder as to why the change had occurred. What it all might mean. I thought Kellen was the one who did this to me, he admitted to Cursion. The one to make me change.

Cursion laughed at that. If you would seek to blame someone for your life, my son, I fear you are looking at him now.

His mirth made Garrett chuckle too, then.

Cursion studied him further. If I might ask, if you and this Sancul were rivals in your life before, why then did you reach out to him earlier this night?

I don’t know, said Garrett, even as he thought back on the encounter with his high school classmate, the lone true, familiar face from his shore life that he had seen since his mother was killed in New Pearlaya. Shrinking under the friendly, if still questioning stare of Cursion White Shadow, Garrett searched his mind for a better answer. You said that you see something in me when you look into my eyes, he replied. I guess that I went to Kellen tonight because I saw something in his too.

And what did you see there, my son?

Pain, said Garrett. And fear too . . . I saw that he was afraid. Garrett shook his head, trying to rid his memory of Kellen Winstel swimming off without answering the question he had asked. I’ve never seen Kellen afraid before.

Perhaps the Salt has taught him differently, said Cursion. Just as the Salt has done for you . . . just as the Salt continues to shape you still, my son.

How do you mean? Garrett asked.

When last you left me, you swam for the shore and your former life as any child seeking the past and familiar comforts would do, said Cursion. You returned with a different light in your eyes. An understanding that there is no way back. Only forward. I recognized the change in you when you returned to me this night with Atsidi Darksnout. You have proved yourself twice over now, too. Once with your outreach to the Sancul, Kellen. Then, again with your former podmate, Arsen, also. A craven will look at their foe and fear them for an enemy who comes to take all that they hold dear. A warrior seeks the reason and understanding as to why they must fight at all. Only when there is no other way will the warrior take up his blade in defense, or else to avenge their lost loved ones.

Garrett nodded. And that’s why you gave Arsen over to the Hammers? For them to avenge the boy’s murder . . . or because you saw something in Arsen too?

In the Orcinian’s eyes, I saw that he was long dead already, said Cursion. I do not doubt he will fear the end when it comes for him, but his choices led him to such a loathsome place over and again. If Silent Hammer will end his pain, it will be a release the Orcinian has long sought after.

You think Arsen wants to die? Garrett asked.

I think he does not know how to live, said Cursion. Not truly. Some would say we are all of us trapped by circumstance. Aye, caged by what we do not know, or rather, have no way of ever knowing if another will not show us the way. He shook his head. I do not doubt that most believe such things, your former pod-mate included. Still, one deceives themselves to hold to such blameful ways, rather than they take account of themselves and the actions that led them there and beyond. If one will not seek guidance from others, or else look inward and heed that which they hear within, they cannot hope to survive without. You need look no further than your former pod-mate for the truth in that.

I don’t understand, said Garrett.

Cursion nodded. For all that Arsen said, most of what I heard was blame. Whether the Blackfin for brutal guidance, Makeda for rightful discipline, or even you, for providing testimony in account of his actions. Arsen would lay excuse and blame upon others, rather than he look inward and choose a better way.

But sometimes there is no better choice, said Garrett, reflecting on all the harsh choices forced upon him since coming into the Salt. Whether in Crayfish Cavern with August Collins, or Sergeant Luther threatening his mother, Cristina, if Garrett would not serve the Painted Guard, even the Blackfin and Ishmael bidding him to kill a captive in signal of his loyalties, Garrett wrestled with the reality of all such outcomes.

Aye, Cursion agreed with his initial assessment. Oft times, one decision is no better than the other. And yet, in refusal to choose, you are deciding all the same by your inaction.

Garrett sagged at that. So, you’re saying I screwed up when I didn’t kill Arsen . . .

Cursion placed his fingers beneath Garrett’s chin, forcing him to look the high chieftain in the eye. No, my son. I am saying such choices should never have been put to you at all . . . and when hard decisions are forced upon you, you must then question the intent of the one who placed you there. Aye, and what outcome they hope to win for themselves.

Garrett’s brow furrowed. What do you mean?

My father once taught me that a creature snared is the most fearsome sort. If left without a choice to flee, they will fight to the bitter end. And why not? They have nothing but hate or fear of the one who trapped them. Nothing but death or the unknown awaiting them. Why then should a trapped creature not lash out against any and all approaching them? Aye, even if the hand that reaches for them comes in earnest to open the cage and set them free again.

Garrett frowned. Ishmael wasn’t doing that for me tonight.

No, said Cursion. He placed you in a cage with no right choice offered to you for release. Instead, like most wise creatures finding themselves ensnared, you rightfully accepted the freedom I offered you instead by my decision.

But Ishmael made the others doubt me . . . said Garrett. I saw them looking back at me and whispering as they left. Now, they either think I’m weak for not killing Arsen, or else they think I’m more loyal to the Orcs.

Or, perhaps, the wisest of them saw your mercy, said Cursion. Concern yourselves with how others see and judge you, my son, and soon you will find yourself trapped in a maddening tide, swirling endlessly around and around until the weight of such thoughts drowns you with the ever-changing weight and force of their judgements. A true leader will swim alone against all others for that which is right, if only in hopeful show that others will see and understand such truth laid bare.

The truth is that I’m like Arsen now though, said Garrett. With enemies on both sides.

Cursion chuckled. You will make still more if holding to such beliefs, my son. For no matter the choice you made tonight, Ishmael would have found a way of using your answer against you to suit his own needs. If you had killed Arsen, no doubt Ishmael would have argued that you truly have no allegiance to either people for your willingness to slay one of your own kind. That you would do the same to a Nomad hostage too, if you were among the Orcs and with a similar choice forced upon you. Cursion shook his head. While killing the Orc tonight would have earned you some fear among the people, it would be the least of them to honor you so. The wiser ones will laud you for patience and wisdom beyond your years for refusal of Ishmael’s taunts.

Garrett frowned. It didn’t seem that way with the others that swam off.

No, said Cursion. But I have often found those with the loudest voices among the people are most often the least of them too. With time comes wisdom, my son, and saner minds prevail more often than not. Just as yours did tonight.

What about the times when they don’t? Garrett glanced into the above where he knew the other Nomads swam.

Best to swim away then, my son. Cursion laughed. Aye, as we are doing together now.

Garrett took his answer to heart, refocusing on their silent swim and diving for still quieter waters. We’ll still have to go back, eventually, he knew, glancing upward to the lighter water, imagining the Nomad horde awaiting them and what whispered words Ishmael shared among them about Garrett’s refusing to kill Arsen.

Cursion cued on his silence. You are troubled still, my son?

Yes, said Garrett. I was just thinking that I wish we didn’t have to go back up. That we could just keep swimming down here alone, rather than keep going to the capital.

Another dream we share, said Cursion. In truth, I have long prayed for a day that we might swim away together and seek out your mother, Makeda, too.

Garrett sighed. Given that we’re swimming to war against the Merrows and the Orcs, I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Nor me either, said Cursion. But that is why one should always continue to dream, my son, for dreaming is but another means of escape too. A vision of better days gone by, or else to imagine all those days you hope to bring in the times to come.

Garrett thought on that a while before speaking again. You really think the day would ever come that you and Makeda could swim together again? That she would forgive you?

Much as I wish for it, no, said Cursion. Not in this lifetime, rather. But, once we both venture to the Other side, aye, perhaps there, swimming with both her father and me, perhaps then your mother and I might finally come to an understanding of that which drove us apart so long ago.

You were the one to kill her father though, said Garrett. And if you killed him, then why would he ever help you, even on the Other side?

Because even though we were enemies, your grandfather was a warrior, once, said Cursion. For all the hate dividing us, Orcin Blacktide was among the most fearsome sort . . . and all true warriors pray for a good death. Cursion shrugged. The wise ones say that in death all things are made new. All the old hurts and hatreds forgotten. All of us made as children are meant to see the world and others in it also. Free of judgement, worry, and concern. Nothing left to us but to swim and revel in the green waters with all those gone before. Perhaps there, with eternity on our side to speak and listen with the other, perhaps then Orcin Blacktide and I might settle the old disputes between us. Aye, if only so that his daughter and I might share the life we once craved here and live that dream in the green waters of hereafter instead.

Garrett thought of Makeda for a moment before he replaced her face with those of Tom and Cristina Weaver. He wondered if they too swam in the place that Cursion and other Salt folk spoke of. He pictured them just so, both swimming together through the crystal waters of Fiddler’s Green that Lenny Dolan had told him of. He was about to ask the high chieftain to tell him more of the Salted afterlife when another interrupted their shared swim.

A glimmer at first, Garrett thought the shark form looked like a ghost in the elsewise darkened water as it rapidly descended to join them. Nearing both, the Oceanic Whitetip form fell away, leaving only the tail to support the human torso and face of the Night-Stalker leader.

Cursion called out to the approaching Nomad. Short-Shore . . . what brings you to this depth, my friend?

More tidings from the above, high chieftain. Short-Shore panted. Our healers and Watawa the Open Shell say that the son of Silent Hammer is likely beyond their aid.

Cursion frowned. The boy will die, then?

It would seem so, said Short-Shore, his voice hesitant.

Something’s wrong, Garrett thought then. But, why is he afraid to tell us?

Cursion too cued upon the Night-Stalker’s hesitancy. Speak on, old friend. What troubles you?

Many things this night, high chieftain, but Red Water most of all, said Short-Shore. My warriors have heard him spreading word among the people that your Orc-son is a spy sent among us by the Blackfin. Aye, that Garrett Weaver were sent to cause civil war among our tribes and divide us before we ever could reach New Pearlaya. Also, that the Orc attack on the son of Silent Hammer were meant to distract us. All so that Garrett Weaver might swim away and rejoin his brethren seawolves before returning to his uncle with news of our plans.

Spy? Garrett cried out at the accusation. We’ve been through this already! Ishmael is the one who brought me here! If I was a spy—

Cursion quieted him with a motion of his hand. Patience, son. He glanced at the Night-Stalker leader. For I gather our friend has not yet told us all.

No, high chieftain, said Short-Shore. There is much and more, I fear. It were also heard that Red Water claimed we should all be better served if the son of Silent Hammer were to die from the wounds given him by the Orcs. Aye, that the death of his son might serve the purpose of all to light the fires long-cooled in the heart of Atsidi Darksnout and bid him to give up his cry for peace. All that he might call his warriors to war with our other tribes.

Cursion’s lip curled. He wished the boy to die?

Short-Shore nodded in silent reply.

Cursion frowned. And here I had hoped after all the long years of his banishment, Red Water would take up his father’s mantle and restore honor to his people and his name. Instead, it seems he would rather keep to a legacy of betrayal and cast its shadow further upon the Bull Nation.

Aye, high chieftain, said Short-Shore. Forgive me for bringing such ill tidings.

It was not you to stir them, my friend, said Cursion, clapping Short-Shore on the shoulder. Come. He turned to motion Garrett too. It seems our peaceful swim is over for now, my son. Much as I would rather remain with you, I must—

Garrett winced when the high chieftain cried out in pain.

Cursion’s tail stiffened, his arms flailing outward before reaching back to grab at what had struck him from behind. As the high chieftain wheeled around, Garrett saw a coral dagger driven nearly to its hilt, deep in Cursion’s back, just beneath his left shoulder. No sooner did the high chieftain turn to meet his assailant, Short-Shore offered him a second wound – driving another of the daggers that once lined his belt into the high-chieftain’s belly. And when Cursion grabbed hold of the Night-Stalker leader, Short-Shore plucked both of his daggers free and stabbed at the high chieftain over and again.

Father! Garrett shouted, using his tail to send him rocketing into the crimson-stained water that swirled around the Nomad pair.

Short-Shore continued to stab at Cursion, even as the high chieftain’s hand clamped around the throat of his assailant to strangle him.

Snarling, Garrett flung himself at Short-Shore, striking him in the middle of the chest and driving him backward and away from Cursion. For all his speed, the Night-Stalker leader then used the force of momentum against him.

Short-Shore grabbed hold of Garrett’s bicep with one hand, the other wrapping around his midsection. Garrett’s skin tingled with the brief, cold kiss of an iron blade upon his back. The next he knew, the frigid, flat of the blade was gone, Short-Shore opting instead to again use their shared momentum to throw Garrett away and off of him, into deeper water.

Garrett tumbled end over end. By the time he managed to right himself, Short-Shore had swum between him and Cursion.

The Night-Stalker leader’s lip curled, his blade at the ready in the event that Garrett chose to swim at him again.

Beyond the Night-Stalker assassin, Garrett saw the Nomad high chieftain bleeding out.

The cloud of crimson surrounded and tracked with Cursion as he swam a stilted, meandering path toward Short-Shore. His hand weakly reached out as if he meant to ambush his enemy in the same manner as he had been attacked. Before the high chieftain could reach his assailant, however, a trident came raining down from the water above. Skewered by the unseen attack, the blow spun Cursion around as the three, razor-tipped trident blades shot through his flesh. To judge the rasped sound of his immediate Salt breath thereafter, one of the trident blades had punctured the high chieftain’s left lung.

Garrett cried out when Cursion no longer swam upright, his body and tail lain out sideways in the water, the trident still embedded in his shoulder, its handle angled downward into the Abyss.

Cursion raised his hand toward him. G-Garrett . . . the high chieftain muttered. Sw-swim away . . . my son.

Garrett saw that he could not. Short-Shore’s gaze had yet to leave him since their initial tussle. Were Garrett to try and flee for the surface, a worser sort waited for him in the above.

Ishmael grinned as he descended. The Sancul were wrong - it seems the White Shadow does speak after all . . . Ishmael stopped just beyond the reach of Cursion. Then, as now, you speak up too late, high chieftain.

Cursion whispered defiance as the other assassin from above came to swim at his level. Traitor . . .

Traitor? Ishmael toyed with the word. No. I would argue my actions here prove the lengths that I will go to save my people from such ignorance.

Garrett started forward, then, attempting to swim around Short-Shore.

The Night-Stalker leader met him there too though, cutting off Garrett’s attempt to reach his Nomad father.

Ishmael laughed at Garrett, but his gaze remained on the fallen high chieftain. Your Orc-son wishes to join you in the green waters I think, White Shadow. Shall we send you both on together to await your lady love, Makeda, also? Aye, that you and your bastard son might both know a bit of that peace you prattle on about wanting to protect and shape for all the generations to come. He frowned. Pity you will not live to see the true future. I find that is the problem with dreams; one must always wake to face reality once more.

Cursion attempted a weak swipe in Ishmael’s direction, one easily dodged. Coward . . . he said.

You confuse me with yourself again, high chieftain, said Ishmael. You feared what the Sancul offered our people. Ever looking toward the future, you ought to have taken what lingered right in front of you. For what happens if one does not live to see that better tomorrow that they had hoped to shape, high chieftain? What if they spend all their life toiling for tomorrow, and yet never appreciate the gifts offered them today? Ishmael clucked his tongue. No, White Shadow, I am neither the coward, nor the great fool that you are. I know the way forward for our people and will not hesitate to lead them there. He whispered. Time and age have made you weak, forgetting that which the youth know well – that for all your wisdom and calculated moves in this dangerous game we play, there is no counter for when someone flips the board such games are played upon.

Garrett’s hands were shaking as he watched Ishmael taunt the fallen high chieftain. Do something, Garrett told himself all the while, but found he could not move with Short-Shore watching and waiting for him to do so.

Ishmael clucked his tongue again. Truly, high chieftain, I think it a pity your vision failed you here. In truth, I fear it were another fault of yours to not consider Short-Shore and his fearsome Night-Stalker clans as among the greatest of our tribes. Why would you dishonor them with border patrol, rather than grant them a place with the likes of the Bull Nation and the Hammer tribes? Arrogance, I name your decision there. A false leader who neglected those other tribes he deemed as lesser by his actions and his choices. Ishmael drew a dagger from his belt and showed it to Cursion. But, no matter. You may sleep well now and swim the green waters in peace, old friend . . . for unlike the shadow you were named for, I swear to you that I will lead our people to a greater legacy. Our enemies will rename the Salt as ‘Red Water’ by the time we and the Deep Dwellers are done. And then, like the fallen shadow beneath me now, I will see the Sancul vanquished too.

Garrett howled when Ishmael ended the life and rule of Cursion White Shadow with a swift and merciless twisting of his blade.

Cease your weeping, boy, said Ishmael quietly, using his free hand to close the eyes of the murdered high chieftain. Do your father honor now. Let you try and look upon us bravely, at least, as White Shadow did at his end.

Garrett trembled at the words, knowing he could not hope to defeat both of Cursion’s killers. As Ishmael plucked his dagger free of the murdered chieftain, Garrett forgot his grief. His mind raced for anything to use as a weapon, finding none. He looked to Shore-Shore in front of him, finding no pity in his eyes either, the crazed look he saw from the Night Stalker leader reminding him of several others that he and Ishmael had traveled across the Salt with. Short-Shore, said Garrett, his voice quivering. Ishmael killed some of your people too. Did you know that? He murdered three of them before we got to the Devil’s Triangle!

The Night-Stalker leader chuckled. Odd that you should only think to tell me now, boy. Not when me and my people found you both when entering the Devil’s Triangle.

I-I was afraid of you, then, said Garrett.

Not now though, eh? Short-Shore laughed louder still. Go on, then, Orc. He sneered. Tell me of my kin that Red Water slew and you kept quiet on. Remember those dead ones’ names, do you?

Garrett’s mind blanked as he tried to recall, his mind clouding with his Nomad father’s body so near. Uh . . . Maou was one of them. He shut his eyes in an attempt to dredge up their names, even as the memories of Ishmael killing all three of their fellow Nomads rose within him. Nigano was another. I can’t remember the last one.

Short-Shore’s lip puckered. Impressive, that, he said. Likely the last of them were named Long Hands. The three of them often swam together near the pearl city and had some ranged dealings there and beyond.

Not anymore. Garrett pointed as Ishmael swam toward them. He killed them . . . he killed all three of them, just like he did with my father now.

Ishmael sidled next to Short-Shore. Admittedly, the boy is right, he said. I did kill them all. And all to safeguard this ungrateful bastard’s secret. Can you believe that, brother?

Short-Shore shrugged. Can’t say as I blame you for killing that lot, he said Ishmael. I would have done myself if forced to cross the Salt with those three fools.

Ishmael smiled. Safety in numbers, my friend.

Fair enough, said Short-Shore in reply. Then, he jerked his head toward Garrett. How you want to do this Orc-bastard in, then? Gut him first, then cut him into pieces and send those on back to his Uncle Blackfin, maybe?

Garrett retched at the thought of his body being carved apart as he had witnessed done for the Painted Guard corpses outside of New Pearlaya after his banishment. His bile spewed forth in the water before him, then swirled about as he tried to swim away and escape it.

Poor boy, said Ishmael, chuckling. You really believe that I would allow my friend here to slaughter you now?

I-I don’t know what you’d do, said Garrett, his gaze trailing off to Cursion’s body.

Ishmael grinned wider still in answer of Garrett’s claim. No, you don’t have that much imagination, do you, little Orc. No more than your Uncle Blackfin knows what I will do . . . so, it seems that I must send you on with another message for him.

Garrett’s brow furrowed. What?

Do you not remember my earlier words when we swam together in The Devil’s Triangle? Of your being one of the only Orcs to ever escape me? Ishmael laughed. It seems you are indeed among the most fortunate of your kind, boy. Your uncle sent your former pod-mate, Arsen, here to deliver a message. I would send a reply to him in fair return. Ishmael drifted forward to within an inch of Garrett. Go and swim back to your uncle now, Orc. Tell the Blackfin that he need no longer be bothered with the White Shadow who slew his father, for I have stolen that vengeance from him. Next, I will take the city so precious to him and his fallen father . . . and when I have taken all else that remains dear to the Blackfin, only then will I come to take his life from him too. Ishmael pushed the dagger he had slain Cursion with against Garrett’s chest, the feel of it cold against his breast. Aye, boy, tell the Blackfin that he need no longer fear the shadow that came for his father. It is a raging tide of Red Water that comes to drown him and his cursed city now. He shoved Garrett away. Go. Be gone, boy, before I change my mind and send you back to your uncle as my Night-Stalker friend suggested.

Garrett wasted no time in obeying, fleeing from both in true knowledge that Ishmael would make good upon his threat. And yet even as he ascended, he could not help but look back into the below, his gaze lingering a final time on the sight of his fallen father before the shadows came to steal that from him too.

25

SYDNEY

The surrounding salt water that filled her glass cell had consumed all of Sydney’s tears, grief sapping her strength as well. Ever since the traitor trials had begun, Sydney could not help but think of all the others she knew that were likewise put in chains or worse for her decisions and actions. Yet for all their faces swirling in her mind and the horrid memories of watching others she knew like Yvla, Ms. Morgan, and Barb, all of them slain by the Blackfin, it was the marred face of another that Sydney knew would haunt her all the rest of her days.

Jun . . . Sydney imagined her brother as she remembered him in life. The last she had seen of her brother, Jun was playing videogames in his room down the hall from hers. Sydney had always hated the noise. Over the last few years, Jun’s face was either buried in his phone, or computer screen, more often than not.

Now, Sydney wished more than anything that she could see him lying on the couch in their home in Indiana, his face illuminated by the ever-changing glow of whatever game he happened to be playing. For every time she attempted to picture him safe in his room, Sydney saw only the cold, pale corpse of the nearly decapitated Nomad hostage that the Orcs had cast inside the holding tank of the traitor trials. The wounds upon the captive’s face had been beyond any clear recognition. Had it not been for the slain, Merrow guardian who the Orcs had also delivered, Sydney gathered she would not have recognized her brother at all. All the doubts that Sydney held were banished the moment that Malik Blackfin and his Orcs placed her mother’s friend, Barb, next to Jun’s body.

And it’s all my fault . . .

Sydney’s body spasmed, her strength hollowed at the continued realization that everyone she knew and loved had come to ruin or worse for her decisions. She endured the grieving pains coursing through her, the emptiness inside liken to the oubliette pit of darkness that her cell hung poised over. Though Sydney could not see them in the blackness below, she again imagined the bone litters of the oubliette’s former occupants at the watery bottom. How long? She wondered, placing her hand flat against the glass base as if she could reach into the oubliette below and pluck up the bones to ask them her question. How long until me and Mom, Owens, Amelia, and everyone else from home are nothing but bones and dust too?

Sydney startled when the heavy, old wooden doors leading into the prison she was held in slammed against the stone walls. Pushing off the glass bottom of her cell, she swung around to see which of her captors had come for her.

A single torch cast its fiery glow upon the two-toned face of Malik Blackfin as he ventured in alone, ordering all of the seawolves that he had left to guard her to leave the room.

Why did he send them out? Sydney wondered when the Blackfin closed the oaken door behind him, leaving he and her as the only two within the dungeon cell. What’s going on? Sydney cowered against the furthest reach of her glass cell. What’s he planning to do to me now?

Malik Blackfin smiled at Sydney’s movements as he approached her cell. “And how are we tonight, Princess?”

Sydney’s lip curled at his mocking her. She kept quiet, however, if only for the hope of dashing a bit of the glee that lived in Malik’s gaze.

Instead, her silence seemed to only fan the flame in him. “Angry with me for today’s events at the trial, are you?” Malik asked.

Not just today’s events. Sydney thought to herself as he placed his torch in one of the four lanterns standing outside her tank. And it’s more than anger . . . she furthered the thought when Malik stood in opposite of her outside the glass tank that held her. I’ll hate you forever, Blackfin.

Malik barked a laugh at her continuing to ignore him. “Yes, I suppose you are angry with me,” he said, stepping back from her cell, meeting Sydney’s stare a long while before choosing to speak once more. “Really, though, you ought to be thanking me.”

For what? Sydney spat, unable to help herself. For killing my brother? My godmother? Which murder should I be thanking you for?

“Quick deaths, I would imagine,” said Malik. “There are any number of ways to make such pain linger before the end.”

Sydney leered at him. “Yvla’s death wasn’t quick.”

“No . . .” Malik admitted. “It wasn’t.”

Sydney screamed then, pounding her fists against the glass over and over to no avail.

Throughout it all, Malik Blackfin stood on the opposite side watching until Sydney could not keep up her fight or hatred. “Still,” he said when she had finished her pointless tirade. “I did grant merciful ends to both of your mother’s friends. The old hag, yesterday, and the other one from the trial this morning.”

“Barb,” Sydney said. “Her name was Barb. And the other you killed was Ms. Morgan.”

Malik shrugged. “Whatever their names, I gave them quick deaths. Much faster and cleaner than your beloved horse-lord and his father would have done for them anyway.”

Quick or no, it doesn’t matter, said Sydney. They’re still dead, the same as my brother and all the rest too. And for what? They had nothing to do with everything going on down here anyway!

“Aye, no more than you,” said Malik. “Did you ask your mother to breed with a savage and give birth to you? No . . . no, to that crime, at least, you are as innocent as those I slew.” Malik nodded. “And yet there are innocents who die worser deaths every day in the Salt, girl. Just ask your beloved horse-lord the next time you speak with him.”

I don’t love him. Sydney clenched her jaw. And you’re lying still. Rupert would never have killed them, she said, reconsidering a moment later. Not like you did anyway.

Malik barked a laugh. “Oh, come now. Do give the young Bowrider some credit, at least. In time, he might do.” He shrugged. “Then again, and for whatever your thoughts on the matter, killing often proves more troublesome than one might imagine. I find the difficulty rises when one’s heart is not quite up to the task.”

Is that why murdering them fell to you, then? Sydney asked. You’re always ready for a bit of torture and killing, aren’t you?

Malik sighed. “Say rather that I do not shrink from my duties.” He rested his hand upon the pommel of his sheathed sword. “When I was a boy, my father took my sister and I to witness the execution of a traitor. Unfortunately for the condemned, the executioner floundered at the task.”

I don’t want to hear your stories, said Sydney.

“He had failed to sharpen his blade, you see,” Malik pressed on, scratching at his cheek, lost in a memory. “And his aim was unwieldy with the weight of it from the start. In truth, I remember the executioner’s gaze grew ever more fearful when he understood the death that he was meant to dole out would not come easily, nor quick.” Malik’s eyes widened for every recollection. “Bloody fool. Believe me when I tell you, girl, that the original executioner would be there still, hacking endlessly away while his victim screamed and bled out. The crowd shouted right along with the poor traitor too, as I recall. All of them screaming for mercy on his behalf, if only to end the voice that would haunt us all forever after. ‘Mercy’, they cried.” The Blackfin’s brow furrowed at the word, even as he spoke it softly again. “‘Mercy.’”

Why does he sound so sad? Sydney wondered when the Blackfin took a moment, chewing on his lip, the shaking of his head subtle, but there.

Malik snorted. “All those merciful cries from those who had not moments before been whistling and cheering to see a stranger meet their end.” He shrugged. “Fortunately for all, my father was there to stay the executioner’s tired swings and to brush the foolish lad aside at the last.” Malik drew his sword from its sheathe, turning its blade in the firelight as if it were a mirror for him to look into the past. “In one fluid movement, my father put all to rest with a single swing and taught me the true meaning of mercy and justice.” Malik’s gaze flickered back to Sydney. “Care to know that original executioner’s name, girl?”

Sydney trembled. “I don’t care what his name was.”

“You should,” said Malik. “For whether it be the last gaze the condemned will ever see, aye, the one to swing the sword, or else to build the scaffold, anyone condemned to die should wish to know whose name it will be to give them their end.” Malik sheathed his sword once more. “My father taught my sister and I both that day the value in dealing death to others. Aye, and the kind of experienced killer that we should welcome to give us our own noble death one day as well.”

Sydney looked at the hilt of his sword, the pommel silvery and well kept. Give me your sword and I’ll give you that death now, Blackfin.

Malik laughed, long and loud. “I doubt you could even lift this sword, girl. You would try though, no doubt. And, like the lesson that the young Prince Darius was meant to learn when his father passed him the sword not so many years ago to swing upon the condemned, you too would learn what it is to fail. To wish for another, stronger hand to take over instead and bring a swifter end to silence such woeful cries. Aye, and especially if that hand were meant to be the one sending your soul off to swim the green waters.”

“The king?” Sydney cocked an eyebrow. “Darius was the executioner?”

“He was meant to be,” Malik snorted. “Until his repeated failures led my father to take over. The wisest say history often repeats itself. I’ve thought long on the wisdom of such words during these traitor trials. To my mind, it ought to be your father passed his judgement and justice both from the moment he questioned your mother’s fealty. But now, as then, he would rather me, or your feeble horse-lord, carry out the verdicts and the consequences for his judgement instead.”

Sydney’s pulse quickened as Malik grew still and quiet. Is that why you’ve come here tonight? Her tail swooped from side to side. To carry out his judgement?

“No. There is no true justice, nor trial, to be weighed on you, girl. No true justice upon the queen either,” Malik nodded toward her shark tail. “All the proof one needs concerning your mother’s guilt is there, as I could have easily shown to the crowds to condemn you and the queen whenever I chose during these past days.” He grinned again. “Let you ask yourself why I did not.”

So, you have come to kill me, then, Sydney stuttered. Just like you killed my brother and all the others?

“Quite the opposite,” Malik chuckled. “And I didn’t kill your brother.”

Yes, you did, said Sydney. I know it was you. I knew the second I saw my brother’s body.

“More proof of just how little you know, then, girl.” Malik approached the tank, delight dancing in his eyes. “For how do you claim to know it was truly your brother’s body I presented to the crowd? Why not some other doomed and nameless savage to take his place instead?”

Because you had Barb too. Sydney’s brow wrinkled. And . . . and I saw him. You had your Orcs put Jun’s body inside the tanks on display for all to see.

“You saw what I wanted you to see, girl,” said Malik. “Just as the king swallowed the same sad story my Orcs and I sold him and all those in the crowd today also. Truth be told, I believe I nearly had your mother sold on the lie as well. But then, she would be the only one to know the real truth of all those who bore witness today.”

Sydney choked. You . . . you’re saying Jun is alive?

“I think it likely,” said Malik. “My Orcs found his guardian, but, to her credit, the Merrow guardian proved more cunning than my Violovar thought of her. I gather she must have wizened to my seawolves tracking her somehow. Either way, your mother’s friend, Barb, cast herself upon the nearest sword, rather than she allow my Violovar to question her for the prince’s whereabouts. A brave Merrow, that one. No wonder your mother left the guardianship of the prince in her keeping.” He shrugged. “Then again, no doubt your mother warned all of those watching over your brother that someone should come to look for him, in time. Still, whether his guardian hid your brother, or sent him elsewhere with others loyal to your mother, I do not know yet. Either way, my Violovar continue to seek him out.” His face darkened. “And they will stop at nothing until they find Prince Jun, I assure you.”

Sydney shook her head. No. You’re lying. This is all just another one of your sick games. Why would you tell me all these things, if they weren’t just more lies to torment me?

Malik laughed. “Why would I wish to torment you, girl?” He asked. “What purpose would that serve for me to taunt an ignorant, spoiled whelp that I already own as my prisoner and have long known to be a fool already?”

Sydney ignored the slight. I don’t know, she said honestly. But I don’t know why you and the king dress me up as a princess and keep pretending that I’m still his daughter either. Or why you’re keeping me in this tank at all, if you already know that you’re going to kill me.

“Perhaps the king has not truly decided what to do with you yet,” said Malik. “Or, say rather, perhaps he’s waiting for me to tell him what to do.” The Blackfin chuckled. “Yet another sign of the king’s incompetence and cowardice. Make no mistake, child, if you were the daughter of my mortal enemy, you and your mother would already be long dead.” He patted the pommel of his sword. “Aye, and by my hand and blade too. Despite all that has been done to him, however, all the wounds given him by those he loved, King Darius the Sweet remains now as he was on the day that I saw him given a different traitor to execute. All these long years, and still he is weak and broken to such action and willful resolve.”

Sydney sneered, the image of Darius idly watching the trials and executions burned into her mind.

Malik cued on her silence. “You doubt me?” He scoffed. “That’s fine. That you still live is a testament to my words, girl. I did not come here to debate our thoughts on the king though. I came here with an offer in earnest for you. An escape from this prison, if you would like.”

You would want me to believe that, said Sydney. But you were the one to put me here. Why would ever help me to escape?

“For the same reason I placed you here to begin with,” said Malik. “It serves my needs, Princess.”

I’m not a princess, said Sydney.

Malik smirked. “The king says you are . . . and the people still believe it, despite all else they’ve seen today. You can thank your mother for that, at least. By bringing you here and leaving your brother behind, she lent some credence to the notion that it is you who are the king’s true heir and not your brother.” He studied her closer. “And, despite your situation now, you do look the part of a royal heir, once you’ve been attended to, that is.”

Sydney took up his meaning. My title? That’s what you came here about?

“In part,” said Malik. “Much as your supposed birthright continues to serve your father’s needs, I would have it serve me and my Orcs in the future also.”

The hairs on Sydney’s arms raised at the implication he made. I would never serve you, she said. I’d rather die.

“You might still do,” said Malik. “If you understood what disobedience might cost.”

Sydney shivered further at his tone.

Malik continued on. “You asked why the king continues this farce of you being his benevolent daughter? Why he dresses you up before crowd, yet scorns you in private? The answer exists in the same lie that I sold to him about your brother and his former guardian.”

Sydney shook her head. What do you mean? How is pretending that I’m the princess the same as showing everyone the bodies of someone you pretended to be my brother and Barb? She choked on the name of her mother’s dead friend.

“Because the best of lies contain a grain of truth, my dear,” said Malik. “For whether they be truth or lies in your words and actions, people see and hear what they want in others, girl. Again, it makes no difference whether it be truth or fantasy at the core of such arguments. When it comes to willful blindness in the hallowed halls of tragedy and love, kings are no more immune than the lowest born.” He nodded at Sydney. “Take you, for example. You were positioned at the king’s side since coming into our capital. Darius had his doubts then of your origins, I’m sure, but he ignored them in favor of his want to believe you as his rightful daughter with his beloved queen. Instead, he turned his questioning thoughts and doubt on your brother’s absence.” Malik chuckled. “For what it’s worth to you, I have never doubted the truth you and your mother gave the king in testifying as to why you came into the Salt. The same goes for the reason your brother was left behind. Ah, but doubt is a more fickle beast entirely. Truth cuts deep, but clean, girl. Doubt is like a dull blade, leaving one to hack endlessly away at their target and tire them for their efforts. All to never achieve the true end . . . all their time and efforts spent upon a phantom victim that eludes them in the end, for it were never truly there to begin with. So . . . which would you rather have, girl? Your father’s doubt, or my truth?”

Neither, said Sydney. I don’t trust either of you.

“You are as great a fool as Darius, then,” said Malik. “Here be my truth, savage, and recognize it as a just claim for the pain it causes you. I have no doubt that your brother is indeed alive . . . for now. From where his guardian was found, I gather she meant to take him to your grandfather and the royal seat of the eastern waters in Harpoon Ditch. My Orcs continue their pursuit and hunt for him there even as we speak. If they find Prince Jun, they will kill him on sight and dispose of the body that the crowd and king believe they have already seen delivered. Then, all that I said today at the trials is already made true and with none the wiser for it.”

Except me now, said Sydney, rising in her cage despite the needling cold within her. And what if Jun escapes your Orcs?

Malik shrugged. “Then, I find it fortunate I have another royal family member already in my grasp to bargain with.”

But I’m not royal, said Sydney. The king isn’t my father.

Malik smirked again. “And I should say that the people believe you are,” he replied. “Despite putting your mother on trial, the king has continued positioning you ever at his side at my insistence. There will be whispers about your legitimacy, of course, especially after I presented your brother’s supposed body with a Nomad tail. Those whispers will turn to a roar if unattended and left to your father’s machinations, but . . . in the hands of a stronger leader who claims elsewise? A leader who silences all who would speak against such rumors . . .” Malik let the idea hang, his eyes working over Sydney’s face.

No. Sydney thought, then, a swoop of her tail sending her to the back of her cell.

Malik laughed at the response. “Rest easy, girl. I have no lust for you. It’s your title alone that calls a stirring in me.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I can imagine many things, Princess,” said Malik, marching around her tank. “Already I have been welcomed back into this city as a potential savior with a Nomad horde aligning against us in the West. No doubt your grandfather already rallies his own armies and means to bring his Merrows from the East as well to stop this mummer’s farce of his daughter queen shamed and put on trial for the traitor that she is. For all I know, your grandfather might even mean to kill your mother himself for sleeping with a savage. Intentions make no difference to me, you understand. But, with all those outside forces descending upon us, who then to lead the defense of our once great city? Who would you have rise to swim against our enemies and lead us back into the glory days of old?” His grin widened. “That is why your father welcomed me and my Orcs back into the fold with open arms, savage. Why he agreed to any terms I asked of him too.”

“Terms?” Sydney asked.

“Aye,” said Malik. “Rest assured, it was not your father’s initial intentions to keep you at his side during these trials. Left to his passion and foolish whims, you would have been thrown inside the cage alongside your mother and the others loyal to her. No doubt he would have showcased your Nomad tail too before all the people of New Pearlaya for the bitter grief your mother has caused him.”

Sydney grimaced. Why did you save me from that, then? If that’s what you’re implying.

“Not implying. Truth, child,” said Malik. “And it were not my only demand of the quivering king either. Believe me when I tell you that your hand in marriage was not among my desires then, but your safety and your hand is now of chief import to me and my plans for this once great city.”

Sydney fought down the bile rising in her throat. I would never marry you.

“Not even if it I commanded my seawolves to spare your brother’s life when they find him?”

The ease in which he threw out the offer stunned Sydney into silence.

Malik Blackfin was happy to fill the void. “Whatever your decisions there, I find it fortunate for me, at least, that you’ve not been offered the choice of our marriage to come. Your father is to announce our engagement not long after the trials have ended and your mother executed.”

No . . . said Sydney. No, that can’t be.

“Aye, it is true,” said Malik. “Though I hold little doubt the king believes in his other, not-so-secretive plans to have young Bowrider and his Merrows dispatch me and my Orcs once I’ve saved his city from these outside forces soon to fall upon our city. Until then, our sweet king has great need of me and my seawolves. In truth, King Darius keeps you alive now at my request and on the misguided belief that your life will draw out your true father. Assuming that savage screamer, No Boundaries, still lives, that is. Between us, however, I think the truer reason is that Darius cannot bring himself to part with you. Not for all the memories you bring of fonder days that he once spent with the queen too. He will hold to that image to his demise, poor fool that he is. Again, I find it little wonder why your mother sought a stronger hand at her side.”

You’re lying, said Sydney. You’re lying about everything.

“Resist the truth all you will, then,” said Malik. “Reality remains, Princess. When all this is done, you will be my wife . . . and your brother’s life hanging on the choice of your decisions to be a good and loyal silent wife or no. Again, no matter your decision there, there will soon be a royal uniting between Merrows and Orcs to put all this other nonsense to rest. And if anything should happen to the king shortly thereafter, well . . .”

Sydney’s gaze flickered at the hunger she saw in his eyes. If you’re going to kill Darius, why would you tell me?

“Murder the king? Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Malik, his wicked grin ever-present. “And even if I did, you have the right of it. Why should I tell anyone, especially my blushing bride to be?” He winked. “No, I would never murder our sweet Darius. But an accident? Well, that could happen to anyone. A king? A lost prince? No doubt a foolish princess too, for that matter.”

She glanced at him with more questions in her eyes. Why are you telling me all this? If you really mean to kill Darius, why let me know?

Malik laughed. “Perhaps because you wish the king dead as much as I?” he asked. “Or that even if you tried to warn him, the king would never hear and believe you. And, if he did, it would drive him mad with still more questions of where my true loyalty lies. Choose an answer, girl, for all our valid options here. The true joy of holding a reputation such as I have is that one never knows what is to be believed and which are falsehoods. For there is the true power of chaos, child – one either stirs the pot, or else they are caught in the stirrings of someone else.” He tapped one of his fingers upon her tank. “Which do you judge yourself to be?”

A better person than you, said Sydney.

“A weaker one, rather,” said Malik. “Your continued belief in your own goodness is what landed you in this tank to begin with. Aye, just as your dead guardian and so many other corpses before her believed also. Had your friend, Yvla, kept her silence that day, I might have allowed her to live.”

No, you wouldn’t have, said Sydney. And Yvla didn’t just believe she was a better person. She was always better than you.

“For all the good it did her and you,” said Malik. “She, at least, had some fight in her. Even unto the end. Meanwhile, your supposed virtue continues to make you harmless.” He stepped away from the tank. “And, all the while, I offer to lend and teach you strength, girl.”

How? Sydney asked. How would you think to teach me anything but hate?

Malik chuckled. “I heard tale of your disdain for the horse-lord, Rupert, after you learned that he was to be your original betrothed. Now that you know my intent, I would rather grant you the choice to begin our royal partnership to come with truth rather than lies.”

The truth is that no matter what you say, I won’t believe you, said Sydney.

“And what if I might offer you some assurances of my honesty?” Malik asked. “Call it an early wedding gift to my betrothed from her future husband. A sign of all that lay in store for our partnership to come.”

You really think that I would trust anything you offer as proof you were honest with me?

“Ask it of me,” said Malik. “And we will see.”

Sydney thought to ask for her freedom, then. She wilted, however, when thinking of all those who had come to suffer for her earlier decisions. He’s just going to mess with me for whatever answer I give him, Sydney knew, Malik watching her all the while. The fire within her swelled at the notion of being his plaything to torment. You want to play games? She thought to herself, wondering what answer to give.

Malik stirred outside her tank. “I’m not a patient Orc, girl. If you would scorn my offer—”

“Let my brother live,” Sydney interrupted. “And free my mother.”

“Two favors, then?” Malik smirked. “The first is easily done. The second . . .”

“Too hard for you to accomplish, Blackfin?”

“There are games and then there are games, child,” he replied. “Which do you really wish to play with me?”

“Whichever one frees the most people that I really care about,” said Sydney. “And if you want me to trust you . . . you can make them all happen, no?”

“I could,” he admitted. “But why give you two gifts when I only offered one?”

“Because if you want me to believe you,” Sydney fed him the lie. “If you really want me to believe that everything you’ve told me is true, then you’ll let my brother live and save my mother too. Her and all the others who came back to the Salt with her too.” She hesitated. “Because if you can do all of that . . . if you can free them all to safely go back home . . . then, I’ll believe anything you say and do whatever you ask of me.”

Malik grinned. “I don’t need you to believe me, savage, but it’s nice to know your price.”

Then, he turned away, taking up his torch once more, and left Sydney without another word.

26

LENNY

After searching near the whole train for the crimson-haired giant, Lenny found Tom Weaver in the same place that both had retreated to when they sought escape from the cheering cries of those who had survived in Røyrkval. Seated alone at the furthest reach of the Sailfish train, no small part of Lenny wondered if he should leave the giant Selkie to his thoughts and grieving for his murdered friend, Vasili. Hesitant in the door’s threshold, Lenny was already turning back into the train car when Tom Weaver spoke up.

“It’s all right, Dolan,” he said softly, barely loud enough to be heard over the train wheel’s constant clacks moving over the railways beneath them. “You can come on out.”

“You sure?” Lenny asked, even as he obeyed. “I can leave you be . . .”

Tom shook his head and waved Lenny to sit with him.

Lenny did. They sat without speaking a long while, the pair of them seemingly content to let the silence between them stand in favor of the train’s hurtling on toward the Salt capital. As his thoughts often did since Declan’s demise, Lenny reminisced on his father; back to earlier days, when the Dolan father and son would sit together in Crayfish Cavern, all without a word between them. Lenny remembered hating such moments then, and with Declan often frustrated that his son could not tolerate the quiet.

Lenny found the silence oddly comforting now, no longer needing to fill the air with meaningless words. Instead, he allowed his mind to roam with thoughts of those olden days, back before Declan and all of Lenny’s other loved ones too were stolen away. Where do I go from here, Pop? He wondered now, as he had done countless times since losing Declan. The caboose gently rocked back and forth, near lulling him to sleep, the light from its lantern casting long, moving shadows along the cavern tunnel walls as the train sped by. What am I supposed to do next?

The tunnel darkness and its moving shadows held no answers for him.

And so Lenny Dolan allowed such questions and worries to pass through him, comforting himself instead with one of his father’s favorite standbys. Patience, son. He imagined Declan would say in such a moment as Lenny found himself in now. No point in worrying. Just be patient. It’ll all work itself out.

Experience led Lenny to doubt the latter bit, even as his conscience warned that he was alive and well, despite the losses he and others had suffered. That his family honor remained intact, so long as he stood to honor Declan’s legacy.

Lenny could not say how long he sat alongside Tom Weaver. Curiosity led him to wonder what thoughts plagued the bigger man also, or if he was plagued at all. If, perhaps, Tom Weaver held such keys of confidence and peace as only time and life and harsh lessons could teach.

When the elder man shifted from his seated position, Lenny imagined Tom Weaver meant to stand and leave him to his own grief and wonderings. But the Selkie leader did not stand, nor abandon him. Instead, Tom reached inside his suit’s middle pocket and took out the leather-thonged necklace that he had removed from Vasili before placing his friend upon the funeral pyre and set him to burn.

Tom offered the necklace to Lenny. “Take it, Dolan. It’s yours.”

“Mine?” Lenny asked, accepting the necklace and studying it – a simple string of leather with what looked to be a porous, broken shard of a white shell that had been crudely carved as a pendant. Smooth on some parts, jagged on the others, Lenny shuddered as he ran his fingers over the sides and noted a bit of near invisible markings adorning the pendant. “What kind of shell is this?”

“It’s not a shell,” said Tom. “It’s bone.”

“Bone?”

Tom Weaver nodded. “A tooth, rather,” he said. “Or at least I think it was before someone whittled it down and made some kind of etchings on it.”

Lenny’s eyebrows raised at the size and shape of it. “What kind of animal would have a tooth as big as—” He stopped short, the answer coming to him of a sudden. “A whale?”

“I tend to think so,” said Tom. “Short of a dinosaur, I reckon it would’ve been too big for anything else I could imagine. And considering I found it tucked away in the ice mines of Røyrkval . . .” He shrugged.

Lenny shivered once more, running his thumb over the bit of bone. “What are the markings?”

“Scrimshaw, would be my guess,” said Tom. “Don’t know what the markings mean. There was a time I hoped to one day figure it out, or find someone who could read it, but . . . well, now, can’t say as I care much.” He sighed. “I watched my last real friend die today, Dolan. A man only gets so many in his life. Once they’re all dead and gone, well . . . can’t say as I see how he ever opens up again to find new ones. All I want now is to find my boy, escape this cursed Salt world, and get us back to home to shore so I can hold my wife again too.”

Lenny nodded. “I understand.”

“I don’t doubt you believe that,” said Tom. “Thing is, I don’t guess that necklace and bone there are really some kinda gift. Not like I’ve done you a favor.”

“How do you mean?”

Tom pointed at the bit of bone. “I think that’s the key the Merrow king and his Orcs wanted . . . the same thing that caused all this mess in Røyrkval and led our kind to being sent down to work the mines to begin with.”

Lenny trembled. Pop was right – Tommy had it all along. Swallowing the lump in his throat, Lenny looked Tom Weaver square in the eye. “I don’t understand,” he said. “If you found this way back when and thought it was what the Orcs wanted, then why didn’t ya give it up? Maybe could’ve got yourself a ticket outta there and on your way back home.”

“Maybe so,” said Tom. “Or maybe the Orcs would’ve just killed me and then everyone else they had sent down to find it. Keep anyone from talking, or spreading the story of what we found, so to speak.” He shrugged. “I dunno. After what we seen in Bouvetøya, I’m betting the ones who are calling the shots would’ve went with the latter decision for all of us in the ice mines. All that to say, your father earned my respect for not leaving everyone else behind. Murderers, thieves, whatever they may be, they’re still people. Declan refusing to leave them helped to remind me of the man I was. Would like to think I would’ve done the same. Once, anyway.” His voice softened. “All that to say, he reminded me of the reason I stayed down there so long and wouldn’t give the Orcs what I found tucked away in the ice.”

“If you found this key, then why did Vasili have it?” Lenny asked.

“You were in Røyrkval,” said Tom. “You know the sort we’re traveling with, especially those that fell in with Henry.” The elder Weaver shook his head. “Everyone wants to be the top dog in our world, Dolan. If you’re gonna wear that crown and stand on the mountaintop, others are gonna take shots at you.” He shrugged. “Guess I figured it was only a matter of time before one of them other monsters took me down and found that pendant on my body after. Can’t say as most of those I met down in the City of Song would’ve held to the convictions me and Vasili shared with you Dolans either. Vasili though . . . I always knew that pendant there would be safe with my little friend. I reckon that I can say the same of you now too.”

Lenny nodded. “He was a good man, Tommy. Didn’t know Vasili well, but . . . he was good.”

“He was.” Tom Weaver agreed, then cleared his throat before nodding at the necklace Lenny held. “When we were back in the City of Song, I told Vasili to make sure your father got that pendant if anything ever happened to me. Now, that they’re both gone . . . after you saved my life with Henry today, why, guess I figure it oughta be you to wear the necklace now. Maybe you can find out what all those markings mean someday.” He scoffed. “That or toss the cursed thing away. Right on down these tracks, for all I care. That tooth has never done anything but bring me bad luck.”

Should I, Pop? Lenny wondered, rolling the bit of bone between his fingers, even as he looked at the tunnel darkness they left behind. Throw this stupid key over the railing right now to where no one will ever find it in all this darkness?

Much as he tried to convince himself, Lenny could not act out such thoughts. He kept the tooth, if only as a reminder for all the conviction his father had once held about who kept the Ancient item. Instead, Lenny took the leather stripping and placed the noose over his head, then tugged at the neckline of his Selkie suit to allow the bit of whale bone to rest against his chest. Shifting, he felt the bone knock against the other pendant he wore; that which Brother Zuriel had given him to wear before Lenny was taken from New Pearlaya and sent south.

With the twin pendants cold against his breast, Lenny thought of the old and kindly, Selkie monk’s last words to him. Senchis is with you, Lenny Dolan, he remembered Brother Zuriel having said inside the hallowed walls of his sanctuary.

Shivering at the memory, Lenny rubbed at his chest to warm himself again.

Tom sat back and clucked his tongue. “Now, that’s settled, I suppose you ought to know I’m leaving as soon as we land in New Pearlaya, Dolan. Already told Brutus and Jemmy T.”

“You’re leaving?” Lenny asked.

“That’s right,” said Tom. “Assuming we survive whatever’s waiting on us there, that is. If we do make it through the Orc lines, I mean to slip off and look for my boy. You said he was in the city, right?”

“I know he was headed there with the rest of us,” said Lenny. “Can’t say as I ever saw Garrett again after the Orcs separated our kind from him and the princess.”

Tom frowned, but nodded. “Well, it’s something to go on, at least.”

Lenny’s brow furrowed at the notion of Tom leaving them behind. “What about all these others we brought along with us? The ones we rescued in Bouvetøya? All that talk about holding onto this key, or whatever it is, to keep the Orcs from killing these others?”

“Don’t know what you plan to do,” said Tom. “But I’ll have no more part in it. Much as I admire your father and all he claimed about never leaving anyone behind, if Røyrkval taught me anything after all these years, it’s that you can’t save everyone, Dolan. Don’t matter how much you try. You wanna the argue the truth of that, why, I’d say you don’t have to look any further than what happened today with Vasili, or losing your father too.”

No, Lenny thought, understanding the heart of such truth, the faces of all those he had lost swirling in his mind. No, you can’t save everyone.

“As for the others from Røyrkval and those we picked up in Bouvetøya,” Tom continued. “Brutus will take most of the rowdier sort with him, no doubt. Try to stir up some trouble along the way. Jemmy T said he might be able to find some placement for the younger sort and orphans. As for the rest, well, I reckon they’re gonna have to find their own way through this hard ol’ world, just like all of us.”

Except not all of us know our way, Lenny thought, all of his former hopes and dreams of freedom near meaningless now without his father to share it with. Just like I didn’t know to do, or where to go, when the queen turned me loose after we got to the capital.

Tom fixed Lenny in his stare. “What about you, Dolan? You got a plan of where you’re headed next?”

“I’ll figure one out . . .” said Lenny.

“I have no doubt about that,” said Tom, turning silent for awhile before he spoke again. “I suppose you could come with me, if you want. Help me look for Garrett.”

Warmth spread through Lenny at the notion. It flamed further when he looked up at the crimson-haired giant and saw it for an offer in earnest. “You would want that?”

“Why not?” Tom shrugged. “Unless all you told me about helping him was a lie . . .”

“No,” said Lenny. “I told ya true, Tommy.”

“For what it’s worth, I believe you,” said Tom. “And because I believe it, I don’t see any reason you couldn’t come along and help me find my boy. Since you were with him from the beginning, might be you know some people that I don’t who might remember Garrett from along the way too. Maybe they could help us find him. Know where Garrett is, or where he might have gone since you last saw him.”

His girlfriend will know. Lenny thought back on his interactions with Garrett Weaver and those they traveled with. If I can find a way to get word to Ellie, then I can get to the princess too. And if we can get to Sydney, then she can talk to the queen about helping out the rest of those we’re bringing in.

The idea of seeing some friendly and familiar faces from his past cheered Lenny for a moment. He reflected on the time he and Edmund had went to rescue Garrett in Crayfish Cavern, all to right a wrong that he had done. How he might be able to atone again for his past mistakes, if helping to reunite the Weaver father and son. He also thought on what such a deed would mean to him, especially if Declan were alive and someone could do that for he and his father now.

For all such elated notions that toyed with him to explore them further, it was the twin pendants around his neck that gave Lenny Dolan pause. Though light in weight, the cold from the twin pendants reminded him of one who would never feel warmth again; of the sacrifice his father made, all so that Lenny and the other Selkies might have a chance at finding true life and warmth again.

“Thanks for the offer, Tommy,” said Lenny. “I can’t go with ya though.” He motioned toward the train car door. “I can’t leave all these others behind to look for their own way and get enslaved all over again because they don’t know what to do, or where to go.”

“I understand,” said Tom. “I’ve felt such things before too. A friendly word of advice I already gave you though?”

“You can’t save them all,” said Lenny, inferring the message.

Tom nodded. “And for every one you lose, it just gets harder, son. You think it would be the other way. That it gets easier because you already know that numb feeling. But, the more you lose, the more time goes by and you’re still here? Remembering all those times you shared before? All their faces and names . . .” he shook his head. “That’s when you finally understand the truth.”

“What’s that?” Lenny asked.

“That in the grand scheme of things, the whole of time, their lives, your life – none of it really matters much at all,” said Tom. “Not except to a lucky few that really got to know you, that is. Those precious few who it’d pain the most to lose you, or for you to lose them. That’s when you really understand the point of living though. The reason to keep going through all the mess and darkness thrown your way.” Tom clapped his meaty paw of a hand on Lenny’s shoulder, gently squeezing as he stood to go. “I’m tired of seeing those people taken me from, Dolan. All I want now is to see the few I got left taken care of and looked after.” Tom shook his head. “’Cause I’m awful tired of this watery world. All its death and hurt. I’m just ready to see the light again, Dolan. Feel the sun on my face and watch my boy grow into a man . . . aye, just like your father got to see for you.”

But he didn’t, Lenny thought, not saying anything as Tom Weaver headed back inside the train car, leaving him alone. If Pop saw me turn into a man, then why do I still feel like a boy?

He chuckled, then. Despite the grief and pain threatening to overtake him once more, Lenny knew full well what his father would say to such a question. When the emotions passed, leaving him hollow once more, Lenny spoke to the darkness, asking himself the same question that he imagined Declan Dolan would do for him if sharing the same stoop in that moment. “Who are ya, boy?” he asked himself aloud, picturing his father’s voice as the one to ask the question.

“I’m a Dolan, Pop . . .” he whispered back in answer.

Lenny Dolan grabbed hold of the railing, then. Pulling himself to stand, he turned back to the train car to follow Tom Weaver inside. Lenny entered in, the haunted faces of those who had suffered in Bouvetøya all around him.

Their shadow people, he thought of them all, none of the other Selkies daring to hold his gaze for longer than a heartbeat, none sharing the same mirth that his fellows in Røyrkval had done after their first victory over the Orcs. For every step he took, deeper into their midst, Lenny swore the pendants’ cold seeped deeper within him too, penetrating not just his flesh, but his soul. Maybe we’re all just a bunch of shadow people now . . .

He kept moving on, passing from one train car into the next, not stopping until he found Jemmy T. The former tavern owner was snoring, his head resting back against the wooden wall. Not knowing where else to go, or what to do, Lenny squeezed in beside his father’s friend. Following Jemmy T’s example, exhaustion overtook him the moment that Lenny rested his head against the wall, the shaking train car lulling him to sleep. For a moment, he fought against its call, not wanting to sleep or dream. Not wanting the reminders of all those stolen away from him.

Sleep took him anyway, and Lenny Dolan rested in dreamless slumber as the Sailfish train sped back toward New Pearlaya and all the other monsters awaiting him there.

27

KELLEN

Kellen’s heart thundered against his chest as Phobetor led him to meet with the gathered masses of Sancul in the Cavern of Somnus. As he passed into their midst, Kellen shuddered at the hollowed and hungered looks in their marbled, black eyes. Though some had adopted youthful and beautiful, if scarred, human faces, still others held to the old and withered looks as Erebus did.

Kellen took the older ones for the realist sort, the rest for the same bit of glamorous, magical trickery he had witnessed Nyx perform after their sacrificing offering of the Ancient sperm whale in Mnemosyne. Of clothing, most wore tattered rags or else none at all to shield the canvass of scars upon their pale bodies. Kellen squirmed at the sight of purplish veins that ran across their mammoth forms in tandem to the maze of scars each had earned in battles of old.

Many of them reached for Kellen by their hand or tentacle, as if they needed to touch him in reassurance that he was real. Kellen endured their frigid grazings and grippings of his body, even as he rejected the impulses surging through him to brush them away. He recalled having once felt the same in Crayfish Cavern when the Selkie taskmaster, Tieran, had led him and other slaves through the swarm of Merrow buyers to reach the auction block.

Here, Kellen recognized those touching him for a different sort. Not those of estimating his value or worth, but satiating their desires for reality over dreams. For every one of those who cried and wept at drawing near to him, Kellen swore that he saw still more lingering upon the outskirts, above and below, all with sneered and judging looks for the others that were desperate to reach him.

Throughout his parading of Kellen through the Sancul masses, Phobetor called out a host of names that Kellen forgot nearly as soon as his supposed nephew spoke them. Each new name sounded to him as strange and foreign as any other Sancul he had met, yet here he was afforded no time to truly meet or speak with any of them.

Ever he was led onward, his head acting as a swivel in acknowledgment, or else to seek out which of them had taken hold of him. In his youth and life ashore, Kellen had dreamt of being famous and becoming an athlete of the highest order, his face and name on display for all to see and marvel at. His prowess in the fighting pits of Orphan Knoll had taught him otherwise. The Sancul pawing at him now only furthered his want to escape such madness.

For all the hands and tentacles clawing after him to gain his attention, Kellen found himself constantly sighting one who trailed he and Phobetor upon the outskirts. Like the others who adopted beautiful faces, this newest of the Sancul strangers stood out among the rest as the fairest of them all. To Kellen’s mind, her snow-white skin seemed to glow, her demure violet eyes calling for his attention, even as the fiery red tint of her hair projected that she should be treated with caution. Where Kellen had always considered himself at the upper limits of all things defining a handsome physicality, now he understood the true definition of beauty.

The she-squid flitted in and out among the rest, ever evading Kellen’s searching for her among the rest. Yet just as soon he lost her in the crowd, he found her ahead of him again.

Who is she? He wondered, thinking to ask Phobetor amidst his constant introductions.

Kellen’s question was not to come, however, the gathered Sancul falling back as they neared the end of their lines. It was then Kellen understood whilst he had been acknowledging the other Sancul and searching for the crimson-haired she-squid among the crowd, Phobetor had led them down one of the tunnel entrances.

The end of it had opened into what resembled an overturned, bowl-like arena. At its center, a new host of Sancul had encircled a black, stone table in awaiting his arrival and the feast to follow.

Kellen stiffened at the sight of a Blue Whale carcass. Though the Ancient beast were only a calf, its corpse seemed to stretch to the furthest reaches of the confined cavern space. Kellen wondered how the Sancul had managed to bring down the gargantuan beast, let alone carry it inside the cavern without carving the body into sectioned pieces first.

The Sancul around the whale were already laboring at the feast to come too. Devoid of expression or voice, those attending to the main course used the claws of their tentacles to slice and dice at the whale flesh, each of them serving up bits of fatty, white meat.

Kellen’s stomach turned at the sight, even as his Sancul form craved the sustenance and taste.

Phobetor grinned as he swept his left hand in acknowledgement of the awaiting display before them. Behold, Uncle! All is prepared . . . a feast in honor of your glorious return.

Kellen nodded. Thank you . . . he whispered, even as he glanced at those swimming past him to descend upon the meal. But shouldn’t we check on Hypnos? See how he’s doing, I mean?

Rest easy, Uncle, said Phobetor, guiding him further in. My mother and Kanaloa will care for my father. Besides, this feast is for you.

Kellen sickened at the sight of the Sancul beneath him hurrying toward the feast, each of them being offered a bit of the blubbery, raw whale meat. Though their bodies were withered and each seemed to Kellen as eager as the next to consume their portions, not a single one of the Sancul fed themselves. Instead, Kellen watched with curious intrigue as the Sancul chose partners from among the masses, then fed their counterparts instead.

Why are they doing that? Kellen wondered. Again, he kept his questions to himself, not daring to ask Phobetor for fear of making his true self known. Instead, he followed the one who claimed him as uncle.

Phobetor led Kellen to the carcass. A true feast, isn’t it, Uncle? The Blues have always been my meal of choice, though it saddens me to say our capture of their kind has been far fewer of late.

Kellen recoiled as Phobetor plunged one of his tentacles into the whale flesh. His appendage and its attached claws twisted and circled like an auger, then. For a moment, Kellen wondered if Phobetor meant to delve a hole clean through to the opposite side of the Ancient beast. Instead, his claws and tentacle coiled and formed a self-made spoon to catch the hunk of newly carved flesh when it plopped away from the source. Kellen winced at the hole left behind, even as memories of his younger days ashore thought of the fatty, white flesh left behind like a drum of ice cream that Phobetor had scooped a bit from.

The Salt dragon raised his offering toward Kellen. For you, Uncle. In keeping the customs of old, it would honor me to feed this first bite to you.

Kellen was trying to think of an excuse to decline when another Sancul shouted the Salt dragon’s name from afar. Kellen looked for the source, but could not find the one who had called for his companion.

Relinquishing his offer, Phobetor backed away from the feast. Forgive me, Uncle, he said. I am a weak replacement for my mother’s hospitality, but it would seem I must serve the others in her stead. Let you wait for me though before you eat. He gave over the whale meat portion to Kellen. Here. I shall be back in due time.

Phobetor left him before Kellen could object.

Instinct urged him to follow and abandon the feast. Kellen ignored his inner grumblings when he again spotted the crimson-haired she-squid from before. She swam among another grouping, yet seemed unconcerned with their conversation. When her violet gaze locked with Kellen, she offered him a smile to make any other that Kellen had ever witnessed pale in comparison.

Who are you? He wondered of her as the she-squid gave her farewells to those she swam with. Kellen found himself unable to break his stare of her, his mind and body both mesmerized as she seemed to glide through the water in a path directly toward him.

The she-squid stopped inches away from Kellen. Hail, Kellen Shore-Walker, she said, smiling at him all the while. Welcome to the Cavern of Somnus. She laughed. Welcome home, rather.

You know me? Kellen asked.

Of course, said she. Though by your face and tone, I gather you do not remember me.

Kellen shook his head. I-I don’t remember much . . . from my life before, I mean.

Before? She asked, cocking an eyebrow. When you were the doom-bringer Moros?

Kellen hesitated. Yes, he said finally.

The she-squid’s grin quickened. You need not lie to me, she said. I know that you never lived that life, Kellen Winstel. You have only been pretending all this time for want of your own survival.

Kellen’s gaze narrowed upon her. Believe whatever you want, then. Who are you anyway?

Phantasos is my name, said she, chuckling. And I should almost be offended that you had forgotten me, if I did not know the truth about you. She leaned in like she meant to whisper a secret in his ear. For you may have fooled the others here, but I see you, Kellen Shore-Walker. Just as you are now, just as you have ever been.

Kellen pulled away. I don’t know what you mean.

Rest easy, said she, tittering again. I have no desire of divulging your secret to the others. Her eyes flashed. But I will do all the same if you will not meet my price for keeping your secret safe.

Price? Kellen squirmed. What do you want?

One of the she-squid’s tentacles slunk through the water toward him.

Kellen’s face flushed when her tentacle briefly intertwined with his. Then, he understood that she had done so only to pry the bit of whale meat from him. What are you doing? He asked her, giving up the prize that the Salt dragon, Phobetor, had left him.

Our people are starving, she said of the ongoing feasting around them. You must forgive them for their lack of courtesy and undisciplined nature. I fear all these long years in silent banishment have weakened their resolve. The she-squid used her tentacles to cut cleanly through the meat, portioning it in half. In the days of old, all those dining here today would have remembered an honored guest is afforded first rights to such a feast as this.

This isn’t a feast, Kellen thought of the slain main course before him. It’s a carcass.

For all his thoughts on the matter, the other Sancul did not share his sentiment. No longer bothering to feed one another after having delivered a first bite, the host of Sancul strangers had turned their ravenous hunger to attacking the remains and greedily fending off the others attempting to sup on it as well. Like hogs crowding around a slop bucket, the Sancul swarmed around their own meal, littering every inch of the slain Blue Whale calf.

To judge the number of deep dwellers joining in, Kellen deduced the whale would be reduced to its bones within the hour. For all the surrounding gluttony, Kellen continued to find himself drawn back to the she-squid before him.

As Kellen’s former companion had attempted to do before being called away, Phantasos too raised her offering to him. Here, she said, raising the smaller portion of meat toward his lips. You would me honor me to take the first bite.

Kellen recoiled. I don’t think I can.

Ah, but you will do, she said, motioning to the others around her. Or else I must carry through on my threat to reveal your secret to the others, Kellen Shore-Walker.

Kellen snorted and backed away from her. They wouldn’t believe you.

They might. Phantasos laughed. Far easier to admit defeat and relent to me, no? Or is taking a single bite from one of your hosts such a challenge for you?

No, said Kellen. I just don’t do well with ultimatums and being put in a corner.

Look around you, my friend, said she. There are no corners for monsters to hide in down here in the dark and deep.

Kellen frowned. You know what I meant.

Aye, she chuckled. That I do. Still, you will forgive my jest, won’t you, Kellen? I have spent far too many nights long hidden away down here without some new blood to see and spar with.

I’m not interested in sparring with anyone. Kellen glanced away from her, looking for Phobetor among the Sancul masses.

No. Phantasos called his attention back. You’re not done with sparring yet, Kellen Shore-Walker. The Salt has you in its sway now, its melody dark and deep.

Kellen cued on the message. What did you say?

Phantasos smirked. I believe you heard me well enough. I told you not moments ago that I see you, Kellen Shore-Walker. Just as your now, just as you have ever been. After all you have seen and endured thus far beneath the Salt, can it truly still surprise you so much to learn there are those of us with knowledge beyond your own understanding?

I understand that you’re playing games with me, he said.

And you do not wish to play further? She asked. No . . . for you only wish to make it back to your precious life ashore. To feel the sun on your face once more . . . to escape the Salt forever, yes?

Kellen gritted his teeth. I don’t wish for those things.

Oh, but you do, Kellen, said Phantasos. And I have an answer to those other questions you’ve been asking yourself all this time too . . . the seed of a hope that my father sowed in you, she smiled, the constant questions you ask yourself. ‘How am I to rise, Hypnos? What does that even mean?’

Kellen shuddered, then, her words resonating within him, if only because he had held true to what Hypnos had asked of him. Kellen had not told anyone about his mandate. You’re his daughter, then? Kellen asked her. The daughter of Hypnos? And the Salt dragon . . . Phobetor . . . he’s your brother?

Phantasos shrugged playfully. My brother and I are two of the Oneiroi Three, said she, smiling again. And if you would more answers to all of your many questions, she again raised the bit of whale meat before him, then I am afraid you must share in our bounty first, Kellen Shore-Walker.

Kellen did not immediately oblige her. It’s a test, he told himself, studying the meat before him, even as others continued in their feasting. Just another stupid Salt test.

Phantasos pouted when Kellen would not eat. You do not trust me?

Why should I? Kellen replied. I don’t know you at all, but you seem to think that you know plenty about me. And why is it so important to you that I eat something before you can give me answers, anyway?

I could give you answers now, said she, her lip curling. But it is our custom for all guests welcomed into the Cavern of Somnus to partake of our offerings first.

Kellen sneered at the mockery in her voice. You don’t care about customs.

No, she chuckled. But my mother does . . . and she would be most offended if you did not partake. The Mother of Masks does not take kindly to strangers who scorn her offerings.

Where is she, then? Kellen asked. Take me to her and I’ll explain my reasoning.

Soon enough, I will, said Phantasos. And you may not like the answer she gives you in turn. The Mother of Masks does not suffer fools.

Kellen hesitated at that. There was a time he would have continued playing her word games, tossing insults back and forth, but he cued on more than a little fear laced in the she-squid’s every word.

At his hesitation, Phantasos again offered up the portion of meat to him.

You have to choose, Kellen thought to himself, the weight of understanding heavy upon him when he recognized that some of the others at the feast had now turned away to focus on him too. You have to choose, he read the hidden message in their stony stares. But the end result will be the same.

Still, Kellen could not bring himself to relent. Again, he looked for Phobetor among the masses. Again, he failed to locate the former companion who had delivered him.

Well? Phantasos asked him. Will you partake . . . or must I tell the Mother of Masks you would reject her offerings?

I would rather you tell me why it’s so important to your mother that I take a bite first, said Kellen. If I were truly a guest of hers, then she wouldn’t care either way.

Phantasos scoffed. Do as you will, then. In the days of old, all were quick to take up an offering of guest rights provided by their host. For only once you had supped beneath their protection were your safety truly assured. Her gazed narrowed in study of him. Or perhaps you think we mean to poison you?

Kellen nodded at her reading his mind. What he did not expect was to see Phantasos take one of the halves that she had portioned and pop the meat into her mouth. Kellen watched with curious intrigue as she took her time in chewing. Finally, she opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue for him to see that she had well and truly swallowed the entire bite, rather than try and fool him by hiding a bit under her tongue.

Do you feel better of our intentions now? She asked him. Say rather, that our people have not waited all this time for you to be delivered here, only to murder you now?

Kellen did not know what to say, and so said nothing.

Phantasos chuckled at his reluctancy to speak. No, Kellen Shore-Walker, none of us here in the dark and deep have any want to see your death. She offered the remaining portion of meat for him to eat. Truly, it is only a good and better life we wish for you. Phantasos nodded toward the others still watching him.

The Salt dragon, Phobetor, had rejoined with the other Sancul too. When he and Kellen looked upon one another, Phobetor swam forward to join his sister. Aye, Uncle, he said to Kellen. My sister speaks true. We have no want that anything ill should come your way again. It is only a better life we wish for you and for all of us now that you have come to lead us in the ascendancy.

To rise, then? Kellen asked, reflecting back on Hypnos’s continued message to him.

The she-squid nodded in answer. Our father has been trying to teach you all along by bringing you into his shared dreams. Again, Phantasos offered up the remaining portion of whale meat that her brother had carved off the Ancient beast. But will you heed him and the gift of protection his children offer you?

Protection? Kellen thought. It’s just a hunk of whale meat.

Doubt led to him question otherwise.

It’s not poisoned, he reassured himself when the she-squid’s tentacle brought the meat closer to his lips. It can’t be. You watched all these others eat the whale and she did the same with the other half. All of them are fine, you idiot. Just eat it before they all stop believing in you.

Kellen shut his eyes and obliged the other Sancul, then, the pulpy whale meat both foul-tasting to his human tongue, yet welcomed by a deeper root within him. Cold and raw, he nearly gagged on the blubbery mass no matter much he attempted to chew through it. By the time he swallowed it down, the Salt dragon and his sister had come to swim alongside one another.

They’re twins, Kellen recognized of the Sancul pairing, the likeness in their sharpened features unmistakable with them side-by-side.

Then, their faces began to blur and the surrounding environment began to spin.

A cold tingle had taken root within his belly too. Kellen choked at the immediate frigidness spreading through him as if he had been dunked into an icy tank. His body tensed, wracked with the pain of frozen scorch.

Poison . . . his mind screamed in tandem with the pain. A trick. But how?

Kellen had no time to think on it. For a moment, he thought to make himself retch to rid his body of the poison. No sooner than he reached for his mouth, a tentacle shot forward and encircled his wrist, preventing him from the act. Kellen followed the source to its owner. Lunging forward, he reached for Phobetor. Help . . . he cried out to the Salt dragon. Help me . . .

Aye, Uncle, said the Salt dragon, using his other tentacles to catch and hold Kellen captive. Then, he looked toward Phantasos. Truly, we should help him, sister.

He will be helped soon enough, brother, Phantasos replied.

Let down your guard, at least, then, said Phobetor. Let this former mortal see the Cavern of Somnus as we do . . . aye, and all our guests too.

Phantasos chuckled, then, closing her eyes and raising her arms as if warding off a spell.

As Kellen’s body convulsed at the poison working through him, his captor maneuvered him around to better see. Kellen’s eyes widened upon seeing what he previously thought of as a true reality begin to melt away when Phantasos relinquished the environmental hallucination she had conjured.

Gone were the plates and whale carcass. The legion of Sancul vanished with the feasting too, each of them like ghosts banished by a sudden light. So too did the cavernous room that housed them all begin to fade away, revealing the truer one within. Like a massive, singular curtain being drawn, the illusion of the arena-like room changed and revealed the reality of the Cavern of Somnus.

At the room’s center, where the fictitious Blue Whale calf had been lain, now Kellen saw Hypnos stretched upon a bed of onyx stone. Surrounded by bioluminescent lanterns, bathed in an eerie and pale, greenish light, Hypnos trembled with the same continued seizures he had endured since leaving Orphan Knoll. The former, fiery glow in the mute Sancul’s eyes had lessened from what Kellen recalled in his dreams. But, when the Sancul twins hauled their stunned prize nearer toward the onyx bed, Kellen swore the blazing in Hypnos’s eyes grew stronger for each passing moment.

Kellen too began to seize, then, the whole of his body trembling in equal measure to that which Hypnos endured.

The Sancul twins bore him ever onward to a second bed of polished stone. An exact replica in shape and size to that which Hypnos lay upon, the empty bed was carved of gleaming white marble. The heading of it had been placed in opposite of Hypnos, all so that whoever lay upon the white marbled bed might be near enough for the pair to reach out and touch the other.

Dragged to hover at the side of Hypnos, Kellen saw one stranger among the rest; a she-squid who loomed over the heads of both beds. Tattooed runes and silver circlets adorned her forearms. A rubied pendant gleamed of darkish sorcery around her neck. The pendant stood out clearest of all in Kellen’s mind, the richness of its color and shimmering nature in stark contrast to the bone-white clippings that clung to the black and tattered garb worn by the she-squid witch. If she had any hair, it had all been gathered beneath a black hood that was shaped like a triangular shark fin. Mesh netting covered the entirety of her face, affording her full and total anonymity.

Kellen felt her hungry stare upon him all the same. Where he had once imagined Nyx as a dark sorceress during his healing ceremony, he imagined the one swimming before him now as a necromancer. The Mother of Masks . . . Kellen thought when the masked she-squid’s husky voice carried over all.

Here, my children, she motioned to the empty, white-marbled bed. Lay him here, beside your father.

Why? Kellen’s mind swam with the thought. Wh-what’s happening to me?

As the Sancul twins obeyed, Kellen’s body screamed at him to fight with what little strength remained to him. For all his attempts, he could summon nothing of his former strength, swearing the connection between his thoughts and body had been severed by the poison working through him. The world spun faster around him, and he blinking to maintain his hold on his environment as Phantasos and Phobetor lay him upon the empty bed to continue seizing.

The poison had removed Kellen’s control of his head too. His neck muscles no longer supported him either, the icy scorch continuing in its swift path to take over his extremities also.

Phantasos appeared behind him, her frigid hands touching the sides of Kellen’s head and forcing him to look upward. It seemed to Kellen that the world was turned upside down then, the view above him like staring up into a reverse funnel.

There were more Sancul looking down on him from the above too.

Perched atop an isolated crag, her tentacles sprawled over the rock face like living vines, Black Keerie sneered at him from afar. The Salt dragon, Phobetor, swam up to join her also. His elven-like face carried none of the malice that Keerie’s did, nor any real emotion at all for the ongoing proceedings.

Kellen knew better than to call out for either of their aid.

Above them, Kellen sighted a pair of centered doors that looked as though they were crafted into the stony, black ceiling. A hazy, greenish fog of biolumiscent light surrounded both doors too, as if someone meant to highlight them for Kellen to look upon. Where the doorway that Hypnos lay beneath glistened of bone-white, coral ivory, the door hung above Kellen was liken to a truss of what once may once have been a living reef with colorful sea-grass adornment.

All were long wilted now, the remains all dark and black and dead.

Kellen had little time to study the make of either door.

The Mother of Masks swam above him, creating a current of cold water to sweep over his face before she alighted down on the opposite side of him to better face her daughter too. While Phantasos held Kellen’s head in place, the Mother of Masks reached out with a pale and withered hand, running her skeletal fingers over his brow, muttering all the while.

Wh-what is this? Kellen dared to ask of her. Who are you?

The Mother of Masks gave him no answer, but her mutterings continued in a harsh, foreign tongue that Kellen held no knowledge of ever having heard before. When she touched him again, a seizing, cold fit wracked his body.

What’s happening to me?! He demanded to know.

Again, the Mother of Masks refused him.

The answer came from another in attendance; a descending demon from the above that Kellen had not previously seen watching him from the shadows between the doors.

Kanaloa, Kellen cried out as the elderly Sancul came to rest at his side. Help me.

We are, favored one, said Kanaloa. Soon the true Doom-Bringer shall finally awaken within you to lead us in the prophecied ascendency with body and mind both newly renewed and restored, the elderly Sancul patted him upon the shoulder. All thanks to your noble sacrifice, Kellen Shore-Walker.

Don’t . . . Kellen begged, understanding both the betrayal and the truth by the look in Kanaloa’s eyes; how the elder Sancul had known all along that Kellen had never been the Moros he pretended to be. Lost with the understanding that Kanaloa would no longer aid him, Kellen imagined his doom soon to come. His lip quivering, he reflected back on the last, weeping song of the Ancient beast that the Sancul had slain in Mnemosyne to heal his broken body. Please. He begged of Kanaloa, knowing it for a lost cause. Don’t do this.

We must, child, said Kanaloa, smiling. But fear not. Soon, all your pain shall be ended, the blight upon your memory banished forever as the pain of remembrance works through you in full.

Kanaloa dug his fingernails into Kellen’s shoulder, then. Each of them skewered his flesh as if they were nails meant to pin him against the stone.

The pain that came after was worse.

Kellen screamed with the wracking wave of it flooding through him. His back arched in aching agony upon the white-marbled bed, even as he held no control over the movement.

When Kanaloa’s hand struggled to keep Kellen pinned upon the stone bed, the elder Sancul used the full weight and strength of his tentacles to press and hold his captive down again.

Kellen’s mind swam once more, his vision alternating between stilted colors and darkness. Please . . . he begged to any that would listen, knowing none of the Sancul would. Help me. I-I don’t want to die.

No, child, said Kanaloa. Cease your worries and your fears . . . He motioned for Phantasos to reposition Kellen’s head once more, again forcing him to look up at the pair of opposing doors above. For death holds no power over those who have discovered its secrets, favored one, Kanaloa purred. Truly, it is a new and better life awaiting you now on the Other side.

Kellen’s eyes stung with warmth when the last of the poison overtook his face. In his last moments, Kellen’s gaze narrowed upon the doors and beyond them too.

The mated pair swam together atop the highest shadowed ledge, their expressions as opposite as the manner in which they conversed with Kellen since he came among the Sancul. Wrapped in her husband’s strong embrace, Kellen looked into the face of his earthly mother, losing himself in the concern laced in her emerald eyes. For all that he saw from Nyx, Kellen understood then that it was more curious intrigue she held for all that lay ahead, not the true worry he remembered from his mother ashore before she too had abandoned him.

You’re not her. Kellen understood the deeper truth, then. You were never her.

The Salt soaked up his tears as he submitted himself to the grief of abandonment he had long held and kept buried deep within. Through blurred eyes, he looked away from Nyx, not wanting to see his mother again in any form; neither the real one, nor the memory of her that Nyx pretended to be. Instead, Kellen Winstel found himself using his final moments to stare into the truer concern and apologetic gaze of another that he had always imagined as his enemy.

Erebus . . . Kellen wept. You were right! H-Help me. Please!

For all the wrinkling of his brow, the likewise suffering that Kellen witnessed living upon the face of Erebus, the mammoth Sancul would not budge from his position, or his wife.

It is too late for you now, Kellen read in the marbled gaze of Erebus. Far too late for you, Creature . . . and I did warn you.

The Sancul poison overtook his body and mind in full, then, casting him into true and utter darkness, and all that Kellen Winstel knew in life was stolen from him.

28

SYDNEY

Sydney trembled when Solomon and his Orcs led into her dungeon cell. This is it, isn’t it? Today is the day they’re going to execute Mom. She closed her eyes, then, imagining her mother’s face and that of another mentor too.

Be brave, Sydney . . . the quiet voice of her fallen godmother, Yvla, whispered from memory. Be brave.

Help me to be strong, Yvla. Sydney prayed, swallowing another breath of Salt water when Solomon ordered the others to remove her from the tank. Help me to be brave for Mom today.

She continued the mantra with every step taken on the same path that the Orcs had led her down all the previous days of her mother’s trial. For each and every dungeon door passed by, Sydney wondered if still more of her friends resided inside their walls, trapped in darkness, unknowing that she traipsed by their doors. Are you alive, Ellie? She wondered. Garrett? Where are you now? Her eye stung with the thought of their faces and names, the knowledge of all to come.

Sydney banished all thoughts of them with the idea of what Yvla, or her brother, Quill would say. Stop crying! She squinted her eyes closed to fend off the tears and weakness surging through her. Don’t let them see you weak and afraid. You have to be brave now. You have to be brave for Mom and Owens and Amelia too. They’ve all suffered far more than you.

Though she attempted to hold some bravery in the face of her captors and circumstances, Sydney could not hold off the flood behind her eyes. Drowning in grief for all that she knew to come, Sydney numbly walked the tunnel and ventured into the cell where the Silkie handmaidens awaited her. She scarcely felt the frigid water of her bath and the hard scrubbings from the handmaidens preparing her to again wear the role of a New Pearlaya princess. Be brave, Sydney, she repeated over and again, even as her body trembled with the cold and her fears. Be brave . . .

When all was done, Solomon and the other Orcs marched her onward through the Nautilus tunnels, Sydney again dressed in the royal part of a princess with an armed escort flanking her on either side. Unlike in the previous days, Sydney found no one waiting for her at the tunnel’s end. No more Rupert to stand between her and the Orcs. No sight of the king, or Blackfin, to torment her either. Solomon and the Orc guards continued in their escort of her across the threshold and remained with Sydney on her silent march through the Nautilus stands too.

The awaiting crowd rose and cheered at the sight of her, but Sydney gave them no acknowledgment, or reason to continue. Still, the audience applauded her arrival as Solomon and his Orcs brought Sydney to the king’s pavilion and entered in.

Rupert awaited her there. The mask of sternness he wore dropped when Solomon handed his charge of Sydney over.

For a moment, Sydney thought Rupert looked as she had remembered him from their shared days of training and riding in the royal stables. She banished those memories too, a moment later, flinching at his soft touch upon her arm. Still, she did not resist him, Rupert’s grip being far gentler than Solomon’s or any other Orcs’.

She allowed Rupert to lead her further in to take up her chair beside the king’s, but Sydney refused to look at her former friend again as they walked together. Instead, she chose to watch Solomon and the other Painted Guard carry on down the Nautilus rows, then cross over the makeshift bridge to join their fellow soldiers already waiting upon the barge. With Solomon’s arrival and their ranks swelling for his company added, the Painted Guard soldiers fanned out in ten-feet intervals to encircle the barge perimeter and stand watch over the prisoners.

In the Merrow cage, Amelia huddled close to her father, Jack. Both had gathered toward the middle of the cell to keep away from the bars and beyond the reach of the Painted Guard soldiers outside.

In opposite of the Merrows, those imprisoned inside the Orc cages were standing along the bars of their cages, each appearing as ready as the next if any Painted Guard thought to try and reach them. At the forefront of all, Owens and his father had gathered alongside Makeda and still others that Sydney did not recognize. Each had fanned out along the bars and jail door in shared defiance of the other Orcs who stood guard over them.

At the center of all loomed the glass tank that Sydney had originally feared was meant to reveal her Nomad secret to the awaiting crowd.

Sydney’s pulse quickened at the memory of the dead Nomad who had been cast inside in place of her to convict the queen. The anonymous corpse that the Orcs had placed there in lieu of Jun Gao was thankfully removed, the waters re-filled to the brim with clean water and stilled within.

Sydney shuddered in knowing who would inhabit the watery prison next.

The master of ceremony and executioner stood atop the tank, Malik Blackfin perched upon the surrounding scaffolding like a giant, armored crow in patient wait of the condemned queen’s arrival.

Be brave, Sydney. She reminded herself again when Rupert guided Sydney to her chair beside the king and forced her to sit. Though she did not mean to look on him, Sydney’s eyes widened at the momentary glimpse of the king.

Dark circles had swelled beneath Darius’s eyes and he sat slouched upon his makeshift throne, his violet cape covering him as if he were cold. The sharpness in his gaze softened when he noticed Sydney watching. For a moment, she feared Darius meant to engage her in conversation, but the king’s focus shifted when a series of horns sounded from the center of the barge.

Her attention called by the noise also, Sydney looked to the tunnel opposite her.

The crowd was rousing too. A company of Painted Guard marched free of the tunnel, their visors drawn to shield their identities as each surrounded Nattie Gao in armored escort. Despite the crowd’s cries against her, Nattie held her head high in quiet defiance of the slurs that were hurled against her as she walked.

Then, came more than words from the crowd.

Nattie Gao staggered when a rotten melon, expertly thrown, struck the side of her head and burst upon the landing.

Sydney yelped at the blow to her mother, bits of the smashed melon and its juicier insides running down her mother’s brow and cheeks. A wave of further expired produce, fish, and worse came raining down in succession thereafter. Sydney turned toward the king. “Stop this!” She reached for him and was quickly yanked back by Rupert. “Please!” She begged of Darius. “Stop them!”

The king ignored her cries, even as Sydney continued to wrest against Rupert’s control.

Collapsing against Rupert’s strength, Sydney’s body shook at the continued onslaught against the queen. Be brave, Sydney . . . she told herself, weeping at her mother’s continued attempts to rise against the filth heaped upon her. Be brave like Mom.

At Nattie’s continued struggling against the wave of garbage, the Orcs raised their shields and then converged around her. Creating a shield wall to fend off the onslaught rained upon them and the convicted queen, the Painted Guard carried through in their escort. They did not remove their protection of the queen until crossing over the makeshift bridge, beyond the reach and throws of the booing crowd.

The Painted Guard paused a moment, one among their number roughly wiping the filth from Nattie’s eyes so that the condemned queen might see where to walk of her own accord.

Her face and garb besmirched, Nattie Gao carried on toward the water-filled tank and ascended the scaffolding steps without the aid of any Orc. The queen’s face carried a sternness that Sydney had come to recognize when Nattie scolded both her and Jun too. Despite the brave showing, however, Sydney could not help but notice her mother’s trembling, shackled hands and the white-knuckled grip the queen held upon her chains as she lifted the ends of her gown to climb the scaffolding steps. Reaching the top, facing the Blackfin and watery cell, the queen’s shoulders began shaking too. Nattie’s chin dipped to her chest also when the Blackfin guided her to step out onto a single wooden plank lain across either tank end. Like an over-sized dunking tank with its victim positioned several feet over the water, Sydney saw there was nothing for her mother to grab hold of. Nothing to keep her from falling inside if, or when, she was pushed off the beam.

Nattie hesitated to walk the plank.

The Blackfin nudged the queen to traverse it anyway.

Sydney choked in watching her mother’s trembling hands as the queen stood at the end of the plank, awaiting the drop to come.

The Blackfin reiterated the queen’s crimes, conviction, and final sentencing to the crowd. That the penalty for high treason was death and the judgement would be carried out immediately, unless the king saw fit to give his queen a merciful stay of the execution.

Sydney turned to Darius, pleading in her eyes, even as she knew it all for naught with every moment passed. “Please,” Sydney found her voice, reaching for the king, grabbing hold of his hand and squeezing with all the strength in her. “Please, don’t do this. You can stop this all right now.”

His eyes already glazing, Darius shook his head. “Would that I could, child,” he said softly. “Aye, if only I could.”

“But you can,” Sydney cried. “You’re the king.”

“Aye,” said he. “And the people require justice.”

Sydney released him then. “This isn’t justice. It’s payback for how Mom hurt you, just like you’re hurting us both now.”

Darius looked away, ignoring Sydney’s continued pleas, giving a nod to the Blackfin instead.

Sydney startled at the sound of her mother’s immediate yelp and the splash that came after. Wheeling toward the tank, she saw Nattie thrashing underwater, her momentum and chains carrying her to the tank bottom amid a swirled churn of bubbles.

Even as she descended, Nattie’s feet and legs began shifting into a dolphin tail. The queen stopped her morphing efforts when the fetters around her ankles cut off her attempt. In failure, Nattie coughed up a stream of bubbles, her gaze looking toward the surface and kicking with human legs in another failed attempt to reach her goal of escape.

The Blackfin stole those hopes away too, ordering his Orcs to pull on a pair of heavy chins that then slid a weighted, stone lid over the top of the tank and locked it down.

Sydney flew to her feet at the sight of Nattie flailing away, her fists banging away at the glass walls of the tank as if the Blackfin and his Orcs might rethink their royal orders. “Stop!” Sydney screamed, turning her hate and fear on the king, striking at him several times before Rupert pulled her away. “Please . . .” Sydney cried through her tears. “Please! Stop this and save her!”

Then, Sydney heard the overwhelming gasps from the crowd.

Rupert’s grip too had relented for the moment.

Sydney shrugged free of him, only to feel the seahorse-lord taking hold of her again before she had taken two steps forward. “Let go of me!” She fought against his pulling her close once more, stopping when she saw that which had drawn the outcry from the crowd.

Nattie was no longer flailing inside the tank . . . and the water inside had been reduced by half.

Sydney’s brow furrowed at where the water could have gone and vanished so suddenly too. What the . . .

Atop the scaffolding, the Blackfin was raging at his soldiers. “Get this lid off!” he yelled at those sharing the landing with him. “Under!” he cried to all those guarding the barge. “Dive! Dive! They’re underneath, you bloody fools!”

Underneath? Sydney wondered, looking to the water that surrounded the barge, finding the water choppy with the movement of all those scrambling to obey.

Most did not reach the barge’s end.

In keeping with the Blackfin’s orders, one among the Painted Guard ran to dive off the edge and swim below. He was stopped when another of his Orcish fellows armored in black plate caught him by the wrist. The glint of silver came near faster than Sydney’s eye could follow, and she swore that the second of the Painted Guard soldiers had run the other through.

The reality of what she saw cemented in her mind when several of the other soldiers upon the barge also began to fall. Blood spewed forth from the mortal wounds given the Orc soldiers by others who had stood beside them as brothers-in-arms not moments before.

Anarchy ensued upon the barge as the Painted Guard turned on one another, each warier than the next at who was truly friend or foe, and all with their visors down to shield their true identities and intentions of the others.

The Unwanted! Sydney thought when a war broke out among them, remembering back to her time with Quill and Yvla. How her mentor’s lover, an Orc named Fulcrum, had once smuggled Sydney and Yvla away from Anchor Alley and then come to them again disguised in soldier’s armor on the night she was taken by the Blackfin.

One among the Painted Guard confirmed her suspicions a moment later. Stumbling in an attempt to reach the prisoner cages, the supposed soldier’s helmet fell off and skittered across the barge. The soldier within was no Orc, nor even Merrow, but a Silkie face that was far more familiar and welcomed by Sydney Gao. Ellie?!

Though burdened by the weight of Orcish armor and the blood-slicked footing upon the barge, Ellie climbed to her feet again. Ignoring the ongoing fight all around her, Ellie carried onward across the chaotic barge. She lumbered toward the prisoner cages as the other Painted Guard pretenders fought on against the Blackfin’s soldiers.

Sydney pounded the railing in front of her, watching her Silkie friend run toward the Orc prisoner cages. Come on, Ellie! Come on!

Makeda, Owens, and their fellows in the Orcinian cell were clamoring for release that they too might join the battle against the Blackfin and his seawolves.

At first, it seemed to Sydney that Ellie was determined to reach them.

Ellie pivoted a moment later, however, her route blocked when the soldier battles spilled closer to the Orc cages.

Those inside the Orcinian cell proved their mettle too, then; Mr. Owens had caught a passing soldier and held him fast against the bars, strangling him with his other, burly arm. Makeda had stolen the suffocating soldier’s dagger too. The Pod Mother carried over toward the cell door and worked at picking the lock with the dagger. The younger Owens stood by her side, his head on a swivel in protecting watch of any seawolf who might try and stop Makeda from working to free them all.

Sydney saw too that Ellie had moved on from her initial path.

Changing course, Ellie ran toward the clearer route that led to the Merrow cages instead. Drawing her sword as she ran, Ellie hacked at the lock over and again until breaking it free. Then, the brutish Silkie ripped open the door and motioned the Merrows inside to come out.

“Ellie!” Sydney shouted and waved from the king’s pavilion. “Ellie, hurry!”

Her voice was lost to the crowd and battle. Those in the stands were screaming too, the Nautilus filled with the deafening noise of the many, all scattering and fleeing for escape.

Rupert was grabbing at Sydney again too, trying to pry her grip free of the railing and drag her back into the pavilion. “My king!” he cried, shouting all the while. “We need to leave, now! It’s an attack!”

Sydney refused to be yanked away, fighting and clawing to keep hold of the pavilion railing and witness all that unfolded upon the barge. “Ellie! Over here!”

Sydney recognized such hopes for a lost cause when Malik Blackfin came thundering down the scaffolding steps, bellowing commands. His sword rose and fell, slaying any who came to test their skills against his. Throughout it all, Malik called any in the Painted Guard who drew near him to remove their helmets and reveal themselves as friend or foe, lest he run them through without a second thought.

Sydney’s fear overtook her hope, then. “Ellie, run!” She cried to her friend when Rupert succeeded in ripping her away from the rail. “Run, Ellie! Run!”

Rupert shouted over her. “Stop fighting me, Sydney!” He tried and failed to carry her off. “We need to go!”

You need to! She thought, fighting to no avail to buck against Rupert’s attempts.

Sneering, Rupert threw his arm around Sydney and dragged her off toward the Nautilus tunnels.

For all her continued struggle, Sydney kept her gaze upon the battle for the barge and those seeking to flee from the chaos there.

Amelia and her father, Jack Mayfield, were fleeing alongside Ellie, all three of them diving off the barge end. Others too dove into the thrashing white water where another battle raged.

Triangular shark fins had encircled the barge, rising and falling as they sliced through the water. The Nomads below targeted the wounded Painted Guard that were either cast off the barge, or else had abandoned the bloodbath above in search of their own safety. Yet for all the screams and cries for help from the Blackfin’s Orcs, the Nomads in the water left Ellie and the Merrows all unharmed. Each of the newly freed prisoners and their allies dove below, disappearing from those still watching from the stands, or else fighting upon the barge.

A handful of Merrows in half-human form had joined the fight alongside the Nomads in the water too. They flew up and free of the surface with harpoons in hand, flinging them toward their enemies. One nearly found a home in the Blackfin’s throat, the massive Orc dodging it at the last as the harpoon carried on and buried its tip in the shoulder of a Painted Guard lackey behind him.

Like a field general with the presence of mind to adapt amidst the conflict, Malik rallied his forces behind him and then divided his company. The first of those he sent into the water to fend off the Nomad and Merrows there. The rest he bellowed to follow him and stop Makeda from freeing those loyal to her inside the Orcinian prisoner cell.

Even as the Blackfin’s soldiers swarmed their cage, the Orcinian prisoners roared back in defiance.

They’re not going to get away, Sydney recognized when the Blackfin’s soldiers began to retake control of the barge and rallied around those inside the Orcinian cell. Even from afar, Sydney could see the cell door had yet to swing open, and the single dagger Makeda clung to would be meaningless against her brother’s surrounding forces.

Sydney’s thoughts turned to the newly freed and others still fighting in the water, then. Swim away, Ellie. Sydney kept the thought, though she could no longer spot her Silkie friend, nor the Merrows from home that all fled with Ellie beneath the thrashing waves. Swim away and don’t look back!

Even as she continued her prayers for Ellie, Amelia, and the other Merrows to escape, Sydney’s eyes rounded when a slew of towering black dorsal fins emerged in the water, all swimming in perfect formation, rising and falling together.

The Orc pod’s collective screams of echolocation carried over all as the Blackfin’s seawolves swam against the Nomad and Merrow attackers in the water.

Sydney could not see where Ellie and those escaping with her had gone, but the remaining rebels in the water were being swiftly trapped between two sides – the oncoming pod of seawolves in the water, and the Blackfin with his soldiers expanding their perimeter upon the barge.

Despite the odds against them, those loyal to the queen who had remained upon the barge continued to fight. Each showed no signs of retreat, consigning themselves to their deaths in a final stand against the Blackfin and his minions, if only to grant the others like Ellie some precious further seconds to escape below.

Where is Mom?! Sydney’s mind screamed at her to look for Nattie in the tank.

The queen was long gone, however, the water inside the tank where she had been now reduced to a quarter full and already growing still once more. How did she get away? Where did she go?

Rupert’s voice cut through the din. “My king! We need to leave!”

You need to, Sydney thought again, then took a risk by swinging at his face and catching him in the jaw. I need to know where Mom went!

Rupert grunted at the blow, but his grip upon her tightened. Unfazed by her attempt, he yanked Sydney toward him with his full strength. In one fluid move, Rupert knelt and cast her over his shoulder. Rising quickly, he bore Sydney aloft and upended her. His right hand clamped upon her back to steady Sydney too. Then, with his free hand, Rupert drew his sword. “Merrows, with me!” He cried before lunging free of the pavilion. “Protect the king!”

The Merrow soldiers obeyed, all of them swarming around Darius to fend off the crowd as Rupert led them running for the safety of the Nautilus tunnel.

“You three with me!” Rupert called out to several of the Merrow soldiers nearest to him. “The rest stay back to defend the rear and close off the tunnel!”

Fight, Sydney! Her mind screamed at her, adrenaline coursing through her with every step Rupert took. You won’t get another chance!

Sydney wasted her strength in continued fight against Rupert’s grip, kicking as best she could, pounding her fists against his silver armor, and all to no avail.

Just as Sydney did not tire in her fight for freedom, nor did Rupert stop his own efforts to lead her and the king further into the tunnel and away from the threats outside. The Merrow lord did not stop until he, Sydney, and the king were all deep inside the tunnel with the trio of soldiers to protect them.

“Put me down!” Sydney shouted at Rupert. “Let me walk!”

Rupert didn’t listen, heading further into the tunnel. One of his soldiers started ahead of him to lead further in, the others flanking the king.

“Rupert!” Sydney screamed. “Put me down!”

When Rupert stopped, however, Sydney quickly surmised it was not because of her order for him to do so.

Both of the other soldiers who flanked the king had tensed. With their shared focus on a target that Sydney could not see, both Merrows drew their blades without awaiting an order to do so.

Darius too had stopped, his lip curling. “Bring him to me,” the king spat.

Rupert raised his hand to halt the soldiers, even as the other Merrows sprang forward. “No, wait!”

Sydney heard the clashing of blades second later, the grunts and whimpers of a short, but furious fight. Then, there was only silence. What’s going on? What happened?

Rupert slid her free of his shoulder and settled her to ground. Turning, Sydney discovered all three Merrow soldiers laid low. A hooded figure stood over them. Garbed in the stained, raggedy attire of a Selkie slave, the warrior’s blade gleamed of spackled crimson in the torchlight. Though Sydney could barely see the hint of his blazing eyes beneath the lip of his Selkie hood, she felt the fury of one who not be denied his quarry. When the hooded figure looked up that she might recognize him, a voice within Sydney whispered his name as one that she had known would come to save her all along if there were but a single breath left within him.

Quill . . .

* * *

Part V

The Salt Tempest

29

SYDNEY

As his sister, Yvla, had done in the royal stables when coming to rescue Sydney, Quill had draped himself in the simple, hooded garb of a Selkie slave. Had she not known better, Sydney may have even mistaken the deep brown hue of his cowl and robes for a monk from ancient times, a piece of history come alive in the haunted tunnels of the Nautilus. There was no mistaking the bloodied sword in his hand, however, the dead Merrow soldiers at his feet, nor the blazing in his eyes as her true father looked defiantly on those holding Sydney captive.

“Quill!” Sydney called out his name. She attempted to run for him too, but was again caught by the wrist and held back by Rupert.

Quill shook off his hood that the others might better recognize him too. “Let her go, lad,” he growled to Rupert. “She’s not the one your king wants . . .”

Darius stepped forth that he might stand between them. “No . . . she’s not. Still, it seems to me now that I shall never have what I truly desired ever again.”

“As Nattie warned you from the start, if you will remember rightly,” Quill replied to the king. “Do not fault her now for telling you the truth all those years ago and holding to it ever since, Darius. Whatever pity she held for you then is wasted now. You wrong yourself to have ever believed you might come between she and I.”

“Ah, but I have.” Darius spat, yanking Sydney away from Rupert and bringing a dagger to her throat. “I have that shared love between you and Nattie both right here and now, don’t I, savage?” He trailed the dagger’s tip to hover over Sydney’s chest. “Shall I carve out the part of her heart that is half yours first, or the bit that is my traitorous wife’s?”

Quill’s face darkened when Sydney flinched.

Rupert’s armor clanked as he shifted. “My king . . . you said you would let Sydney live if I delivered him here.”

“Quiet, Bowrider!” Darius shouted him down. “I’ll not have you ruin this moment I have long dreamt of.”

Sydney’s gaze flitted toward Rupert, questions in her eyes and seeing the same in his also. You were trying to save me? She wondered when Rupert stepped back, though the knuckles of his armor flexed in strengthening his grip upon the sword at his side. You were going to save me by delivering Quill instead?

Sydney had no chance to wonder further, the king’s blade pressing deeper against her neck. Not enough to pierce the skin, but holding no pretense it should cut deep if she attempted to pull away.

Quill showed the palm of his right hand to the king. “Release her, Darius . . . we both know you won’t harm Sydney.”

“Do we?” Darius asked, his voice breaking. “You don’t think I’ll kill her? Is that it? You don’t think I’ll kill your daughter?”

“Much as you may wish to believe otherwise, I think those hands of yours have never killed anything in your life,” said Quill.

“How, then?” Darius sneered. “How is it you of all people think to know me so well.”

“Because I have hated you nearly all my life, Darius. My hands have slain more enemies than I can count,” said Quill. “And for all of my hatred, for all these old and lingered wounds between us, still I could not bring myself to end your son’s life when the opportunity fell to me.”

Jun? Sydney thought, his face flashing in her mind at the notion of Quill having met her brother. What does he mean?

The king scoffed at Quill’s claim. “You think me for a fool, don’t you? That you would not slay any child of mine? Or that I should ever again believe I fathered any with Nattie, let alone a son.”

Quill sighed. “Indeed, I admit that I struggled to believe you capable of seeding a child too,” he said to the king. “Then again, I suppose even a blunt instrument will serve when given endless time and opportunity. Who else but you to father the precious, Merrow prince with Nattie after you had me locked away in darkness and convinced the world that I were long dead and gone? Or had you not thought of the time I was away and measured those years against the count of your son’s age?” Quill continued when the king did not answer straightaway. “No, then. It seems the only one to play you for a fool was the Blackfin, Your Grace.”

Darius hesitated. “I saw the boy’s body . . .”

“You saw what your pet seawolf wanted you to see,” said Quill. “But today, Your Grace . . . today, I have little doubt the cost of your blindness comes to be paid in full.”

“The only cost of today will be your life, savage,” said Darius. “You didn’t actually believe I would ever harm my love and wife, did you? You think I did not allow your people to venture safely inside that they may save her life?”

“Aye, I believe it,” said Quill. “And said as much to Sydney, once . . . but it was not the queen’s life that I came to save today, Darius.” His eyes shone on Sydney before glinting back at the king. “I want my daughter back.”

Daughter . . . Sydney cued on the word, her eyes welling at the admission from Quill. So, it really is true. Her face warmed at the notion.

Darius stole any happy thoughts away, hugging Sydney closer to him.

She winced when the dagger delved into her skin, producing a trickle of blood down her neck.

“You want your daughter,” the king said to Quill. “And I want my son. If what you say is true and the Blackfin lied to me, then where is your proof? Where is Jun now? Hmm? Where!?”

“In truth, I would not tell you if I knew,” said Quill. “But I have seen with my own eyes that he had a Merrow tail to match your own. I tell you too, Darius, your sweet prince would not last in the realm beneath the waves. Nattie has shielded him to his detriment, I’m afraid, just as your father did for you. The boy is not made for this world you claim to rule over.”

“Ah, but Nattie did not shield Sydney, eh?” Darius flung back. “Your daughter is so different from my son?”

“She is,” said Quill. “And no doubt stronger now from the pain and experience she has endured at your hands. Aye, along with the Blackfin’s torments too.”

“A pair of fools then, you and your savage daughter,” said Darius. “I always knew you should willingly trade your life for hers if given the chance.”

“It seems you have some sense after all, then, Darius,” said Quill, his face tightening as he lowered his blade and then cast it aside. “My life for hers . . . as your Merrow lordling arranged.”

Sydney shuddered in looking at Rupert, her former friend not daring to meet her gaze with the confirmation of Quill’s claim.

“As was arranged,” Darius agreed, even as he kept a firm hold on Sydney. “And if my ears serve me well, I do believe your death comes swiftly, Quill. What better way for a savage to meet his end, then I leave you to the wolves?”

Goose-pimples prickled up Sydney’s arms upon hearing the marched echo of armored footsteps from afar, all leading in from the Nautilus pavilion. As the footsteps drew nearer, Sydney turned all her focus on Quill instead, studying his face and the scarred over wounds he had sustained when fighting the Orcs in Catcher’s Corner, all so that she and Yvla could escape.

“Don’t,” she said quietly to him. “Please. Pick up your sword! Or run away, now! Don’t do this. Don’t throw your life away for me.”

Quill’s face softened. “It is already done, child. Soon, you will have no more to fear.”

“Careful, Quill,” said Darius. “Wouldn’t want the last words your daughter hears from you to be a lie, now would we? Not from a beloved father who would claim only to ever speak truth to her.”

Quill kept silent as the approaching party arrived.

Tears stung the corners of Sydney’s eyes when Malik Blackfin came to stand alongside the king with his second-in-command, Solomon, and a slew of other Orcs. Blood stained their blackened armor, their faces sweaty and many among them bearing fresh wounds. But, in the Blackfin’s eyes, all that Sydney saw was glee as Malik strode forward.

“My, my, my, what have we here?” he asked. “Could it be the master schemer of today’s events opted to save me and my Orc brethren the time of tracking him down? Decided to surrender himself instead, eh, Your Grace? A rare, noble act from a feral savage?”

“So it would seem,” said Darius. “And he claims you have some crimes of your own to answer for, Blackfin.”

“Well, any lying beast would do, wouldn’t he?” Malik replied. “A Nomad will say anything to win some benefit, or else to create discord when finding himself cornered. Then again, this one is only half-savage, so . . . perhaps some of what he said is true, Your Grace. Depending on the tale he told, of course.”

Darius perked. “My son is alive, then?”

“The pretender prince is most surely dead, my king,” said Malik. “You saw the boy’s body when I laid him before you.”

Quill laughed in haughty reply. “Pretender prince, indeed. That one you cast into the tank and showed before the masses was no trueborn son of Nattie’s, nor the king’s either. He were a pretender for you though, I grant you that.”

Darius looked to Malik. “What say you to this, Blackfin?”

Malik’s lip curled. “You think to doubt me over this savage who sired a bastard with your wife? I say your most hated enemy spits more lies at you.”

Quill sneered at that. “I sired no bastard,” he claimed. “The love that Nattie and I shared was true, Blackfin. And I’ll warrant my soul that the king’s son, Prince Jun, still lives. If his guardians heeded my advice after I found them ashore, the boy was no doubt secreted away to whatever place Nattie’s people deemed him safely tucked away from the likes of your ilk and his father too.”

“Who then to secret him away, savage?” Malik laughed. “All the queen’s people are here.”

Quill smirked. “Not all of them,” he said. “From those I saw that were locked in your cages, Blackfin, I counted two, at least, from Nattie’s zoo not among your prisoners. For all the speed and strength of your seawolves, it would seem to me you were all outsmarted by an older, wiser Merrow.”

Wilda! Sydney thought then, the elderly Merrow the only friendly face she could not remember seeing among the prisoners from home. Could Jun be with Wilda?! Both of them alive and safe?

The Blackfin was unmoved by Quill’s claim. “I presented both the boy and his guardian’s remains as the proof of my claim. If the prince is alive as you swear him to be, then let you produce him before us now, savage.”

Quill smiled, his gaze flickering from the Blackfin to the king instead. “I Salted your son myself, Darius. Hear me when I tell you that the dolphin tail produced by that act was a Longbeak in twin match of yours. In truth, I meant to kill your son then and there at the proof of his lineage. Fortunately for all, a wiser mind rightfully swayed me from it and stayed my hand.” Quill shook his head. “Still, I know what it is to suffer with the same knowledge. The wound you burden yourself with now – that your lady and love was shared by another. Unlike you, however, I have made my peace with it for the true love that I will always bear Nattie.”

“And my love for her is lesser in your eyes, is it?” Darius chirped. “You think my affections pale in compare to yours?”

“I think you have known that since the day you laid eyes on her and wanted,” said Quill. “Aye, and for every time that you took her anyway, despite what was forbidden to you.”

“And yet it was my actions that both saved the queen today and kept your daughter safe,” said Darius.

“One cannot claim victory and righteousness when it was their actions and choices to place the ones they saved in harm’s way, Darius,” said Quill. “Had I any love for you, I would name it a shame that you cannot see those same choices have led you to your end today.”

Darius laughed. “Even now, you remain the fool I always knew you for, Quill. The arrogance of youth and the desire to witness your lingering torment led me to err when having you thrown into the oubliette to suffer for such folly before. I won’t make that same mistake again.” He glanced at the one beside him. “Blackfin . . . bring me his head.”

Sydney paled at the command, her gaze flitting between them both . . . but the Orc leader did not move.

“Blackfin?” Darius asked. “Did you not hear me? I said bring me his head!”

Again, Malik did not stir. “I heard you the first time, Your Grace.” He shrugged. “Shouting it over and again won’t change my actions now.”

Sydney’s eyes widened when Darius’s grip upon her lessened.

The king cleared his throat, then looked to the Orcinian’s second-in-command. “Solomon,” he said sternly. “Kill these traitors for me . . . kill them, and I shall name you the Pod Father in the Blackfin’s stead.”

Sydney’s throat ran dry when neither Solomon or any other Orc dared to heed the king. What is this? She wondered as the king turned from them, looking to the lone other living Merrow inside the tunnel.

“Bowrider?” The king’s voice was soft in question.

Sydney looked to the Merrow lord and her former friend too, finding that Rupert stood resolute in likewise denial.

The Blackfin started forward, his armor clanking. “It would seem you are beset by enemies on all sides, Your Grace.” He bent over to pick up a sword from one of Rupert’s fallen soldiers. “Then again, a true king needs no subjects to carry out his orders. No,” he said, returning to face Darius. “A true king knows his worth, through and through. It does not matter to him what those beneath him think or do. A true king does more than act the part.” Malik offered up the sword. “He lives it . . . even to his last breath.”

Darius refused acceptance of the sword. “You expect me to fight him?” he squeaked.

Malik glanced over his shoulder at Quill, already kneeling to take up his sword anew. “If you would have the savage’s head, Your Grace,” said Malik, turning back to the king. “I see no other way but you go and take it from him.”

Even in the king’s grip, Sydney felt Darius tremble.

“I am no fighter though,” the king quietly admitted.

“No,” said Malik. “But then you’ve never been a true king either . . .” He cast the blade at Darius’s feet. “So, let us see if you are at least capable of playing at one, Your Grace. Pick up your sword and give this savage a fight, at least . . . or stand there and be killed for cowardice.”

Sydney startled when Malik’s left hand shot forward to clamp hold of the king’s wrist.

Malik twisted then, tugging away at the grip Darius held over Sydney and then twisting to the point that the king dropped the dagger he held hovered over her throat. With his free hand, Malik guided Sydney away from the king. “Come away with me, Princess,” he purred, taking her to stand among the other Orcs. “It would seem all the fireworks have not yet ended today.”

Sydney looked on the king with little pity in her eyes.

Darius rubbed the back of his wrist, then knelt to pitch up the blade cast at his feet.

“Come on then, Your Grace,” Malik crowed, backing away with Sydney to give more room between the king and Quill awaiting him. “Make a fight of it, will you? Show this savage what a real, Merrow king is made of!”

It won’t be a fight. Sydney knew when Quill closed the space between himself and Darius. Her true father’s blade was raised, but did not fall, however, not even once Quill was within striking distance. It’ll be a slaughter.

Darius nearly tripped over himself when attempting to circle around Quill. “C-Come on, then,” the king stuttered, whipping his blade to bear and swinging at his opponent’s head.

Quill easily parried each move and step from the king, maneuvering away, but not so as to turn his back on Rupert, the Blackfin, or any of the Orcs who stood further off. For every try the king made, Quill’s movements both kept his enemies in front of him and forced Darius to rethink his next step.

Darius roared then, his movements signaling an attack that even Sydney saw coming from far. “Come on and fight me, you coward!”

Again, Quill dodged the blow. Then, in a single, fluid movement, Quill drew near enough to the king to grab him by the nape. He sent Darius flailing and stuttering backward to trip over his cape. The sword clattered on the ground as Darius fell, momentum carrying his legs up and over his head, as if he had meant to perform a failed, backward somersault.

Sydney understood the fight was ended, if ever it had truly begun, when Darius reached for the fallen sword beyond his grasp and Quill stepped upon the king’s hand.

Darius cried out at the pain, his face a blustery red as he relented beneath Quill’s boot. “Do it,” he said. “Kill me and done with it.”

“There was a time I would have done so gladly,” said Quill. “But it would seem all those years trapped in your oubliette taught me some smallest of pities for such weak creatures as you are. I think offering you the same amount of time down there to reflect on your choices might do you some good also, Your Grace.”

Sydney winced when Quill pulled the king to his feet then, turning him about to face the Blackfin and his Painted Guard.

“You wanted the king, Orc,” said Quill. “I want my daughter.”

“And you shall have her . . .” said Malik, his grip still firm upon Sydney’s bicep. “But my requirement in our arrangement was for the king’s life, I’m afraid. He still looks very much alive to me.”

Quill’s gaze flitted toward Sydney before looking to the Blackfin again. “Did you not claim a king lives his role, Orc?” He shoved Darius toward their shared enemies. “If you would have the king’s mantle, then let you take it yourself, Blackfin. For whatever Sydney may think of him now, she named Darius her father once. I will not kill him in front of her.”

I called him father many times. Sydney thought, unable to comprehend how she had done so after all Darius had subjected her to along with those she truly loved. But no more. She thought, looking from the frightened and whimpering king who had played at fatherhood, and then to the one who her heart warned she had should have recognized for such all along. You’re my dad . . . Sydney thought, her eyes shining as she looked on the stoic gaze of Quill. My real dad.

The Blackfin interrupted her realization by handing the charge of Sydney over to Rupert instead. Then, he drew his broadsword. “What times we live, eh, Your Grace?” He mocked both Darius and Quill, even as he approached the king and looked down on him instead. “A baseborn, savage bastard who refuses to kill a Merrow king when granted the opportunity? I should’ve never thought to see the day.”

To Sydney’s surprise, the king had not moved from his position at the center of all. Yet the longer she watched Darius lingering there, trembling, she understood there was also nowhere for the weakling king to go. The Blackfin and his Orcs blocked one end of the tunnel, and with Quill retreated back to stand guard at the other.

Darius’s eyes were red-stained with tears as Malik knelt beside him, his sword resting upon his shoulder, its sheen glinting in the surrounding torchlight.

Malik chortled as he lay his brawny hand upon the king’s left shoulder. “Any last words, Your Grace? Surely you can manage something better than that loyal servant of the queen’s, the old and loyal crone who shouted her defiance to the end, eh?”

“Is . . . is my son alive?” Darius asked. “Is Jun really alive?”

“I suspect so,” said Malik. “My seawolves have yet to find any trace of your sweetling prince. Then again, I wouldn’t worry, Your Grace. We’ll find the boy soon enough and send him off to meet you in Fiddler’s Green.”

Darius choked at the admission. “Why?” he asked. “Why are you doing this, Blackfin? I welcomed you back into this city with open arms and raised you to your father’s place.”

“My father served you and yours long and well, it’s true,” said Malik. “And yet it’s little secret among my people that Orcin Blacktide often dreamt of climbing that last rung upon the ladder. Of raising our kind to take up the mantled rule of the Ancients as They always meant for us to do.” He chuckled. “No doubt my father smiles upon us even now from Fiddler’s Green, Your Grace. Aye, just as the people will no doubt welcome the reign of Orcs when learning of their weakling king’s demise at the hands of a Nomad assassin.”

Orcish rule . . . and a Nomad assassin? Sydney thought, looking to Quill and finding him silent on the matter. Oh, my God . . . she recognized the deeper meaning of the Blackfin’s words. They’re going to frame you for this, aren’t they, Quill? The Blackfin and his Orcs are going to pin everything from today on you and the Nomads!

Malik released the king a moment, if only to clap Darius upon the shoulder and cause him to yelp. “Rest easy and go to the green waters in peace, Your Grace. The people will never know of the weakness you displayed here today. In truth, I think the greater tragedy is that Lord Bowrider and his Merrows could not protect you from the savage assassin.”

Couldn’t save him? Sydney glanced to Rupert beside her in wonder of the Blackfin’s words.

The puzzled question on Rupert’s face vanished a second later when Sydney heard a quarrel whizzing through the air. Her mouth rounded in silent horror when the loosed quarrel found its new home in Rupert’s unprotected throat. The velocity sent the gurgling Merrow lord stumbling back, his grip bringing Sydney along with him as he tripped over his own feet before collapsing.

Sydney caught herself upon the bloody stones. Her eyes widened at the sight of Rupert strewn beneath her, betrayal and fear in his eyes, his mouth working open and closed in choked attempt to breathe through the fountain of blood gushing free of his wound and pooling around him. As suddenly as he fell, the Merrow lord ceased moving, his eyes growing still and dull.

Sydney moaned and wheeled around to find Malik’s second-in-command, Solomon, lowering his crossbow. She thought to rage against him too, and might have done too, had she not also seen the Blackfin motion to his fellow Orcs. Sydney estimated the other seawolves would come to restrain her again, then. Before any could, she fled across the tunnel toward Quill.

Sydney careened into her true father, drinking in the scent of his leather jerkin and the safety of his sinewy arms. When his hand brushed against her skin, she thought he meant to take her and leave.

Quill did not flee, however, his right hand guiding Sydney to move behind him whilst his left was already bringing his sword to bear once more for any who might come against them.

None did, the focus of each and every Orc upon their leader at the center and the trembling Merrow king still within his grasp.

“Foolish lad, that Bowrider boy,” Malik said to Darius. “But, one can always trust the young to follow their heart, rather than their head. Who knows that better than you though, my king, eh?” He laughed. “Still, I hope young Bowrider would have taken some solace in knowing there will be songs to sing about him. A handsome, tragic hero taken far too early from us, and all thanks to the noble sacrifice he made to protect his king and realm. No doubt the people and his father will mourn him for a valiant, final stand. A true warrior, loyal to his king unto the bitter end.” Malik smiled as he glanced in Quill and Sydney’s direction. “And with a family reputation for finning Nomads, I shudder to think what young Rupert’s famous father will do when receiving word that his son was slain by a Nomad assassin.”

Sydney seethed for every word the Blackfin spoke. Again, she looked up to see Quill’s steely gaze suggesting he too well understood the Blackfin’s implications. In her true father’s eyes though, she recognized that Quill would accept the consequences all the same.

Malik turned back to the king. “You will pass along my condolences to young Master Bowrider when you meet him in Fiddler’s Green, won’t you, Your Grace? That is, if the green waters truly exist.” He drew a dagger from his belt. “Then again, there is that other place you might be sent. The dark and deepest of hells from which there is no escape, nor hope of light.”

Sydney gasped when the Blackfin sheathed the blade in Darius’s ribs. Despite herself and all that she had been through at the king’s orders, Sydney could not stop the tears from falling upon her cheeks at witnessing the fear and hurt in the one she had so often named father before learning the truth of him.

The Blackfin endured the king’s pawing at his armor and neck. “Peace, my king,” he said, shushing his victim as Darius’s strength waned. “Sleep well and know that your kingdoms will live on, safe in the hands of a stronger ruler who will stop at nothing to raise this once valiant city to its former glory.”

In his final moments, the king seemed to have little regard for the Blackfin and his betrayal. As the light in Darius’s once bright and shimmering eyes began to dim, his gaze turned from his killer, finding Sydney instead. “N-Nattie . . .” he wept, gasping his final breaths. “F-Forgive . . . forgive me.”

How could she? Sydney wondered. Still, she wept when the king breathed his last, his blue eyes holding on hers until the light in them too was gone.

The Blackfin removed his dagger from Darius’s side, then cleaned the bloodied blade with the king’s own robe. Standing, Malik kept the weapon handy as he faced Sydney and her true father. “You’re still here,” he said, grinning once more. “I would have thought you should’ve tucked tail and run off with your daughter by now, savage.”

“It appears you thought wrongly of me, at least, then,” said Quill.

Malik chuckled. “Afraid me and my seawolves will chase after you, eh?” He shrugged and sheathed his blade in his belt. “You’re not wrong. In fact, I’d say you could expect us to begin our hunt for you and the princess by nightfall. Think that would be enough time for you to at least give us a chance at recapturing you? I’d rather you make a fair run of it, you understand. No real glory to be had without a worthy opponent.”

Quill ushered Sydney step behind him, then drew his sword. “Or we could end this now.”

Malik smirked at the challenge. He glanced over his shoulder at Solomon and the other Orcs with him. “It would seem you are outnumbered, my friend,” he said. “And you’ve only just got your daughter back. It would be a shame to have me throw Sydney back into the cells once more without the king to safeguard her. Besides her title, I have little, true need of her now. Are you so keen to meet the same end as I gave your father and sister too?”

“I have faced worse odds and lived,” said Quill. “And I’ll be damned if I turn my back to the likes of you.”

Malik sneered. “You are damned no matter what you do, savage. The same as both your sister and father learned when they dared to take arms against me.”

“And yet here I stand,” said Quill.

Malik chuckled. “Keep your vengeful thoughts awhile longer, then. Let them stew, for now, and save your daughter instead. I swear that you will not receive such a grant from me again.”

“Why make the offer now, then?” Quill replied. “If you mean to hunt and kill us anyway, then let you come and try it now.”

“But why?” said Malik. “Why in this damp, cold tunnel of all places? No . . . I think not. I assure you, savage, if and when your death falls to me, it will not come in such a dark place as this with no one to witness your end. I’ll not have rumored tales of my victory thereafter, nor ruin this historic moment by dragging your body through the streets and naming you as the king’s assassin now. For whatever Darius may have thought of you, I know you for a savage well loved by your people and feared by all in this city. A would-be king in your own right, if savages held to such titles.” His smirk broadened. “And you don’t kill a true king without an audience to witness.”

Sydney swallowed the lump in her throat the resolve in his words, even as the Blackfin went on cleaning his blade.

“Besides, savage,” Malik went on. “This day will have stories enough to carry among the people for some time, I imagine. Soon enough, word will spread to every depth and furthest reach of the five oceans. A traitor queen and her subjects rescued and fled? The princess taken too, and with none to know where she might have gone? And now their weakling king and a handsome, noble lord murdered also? Aye . . . and all thanks to the monstrous plots and whispered success of the Unwanted leader, No Boundaries, who tried and failed at such attempts before.” Malik pretended to shudder. “Ooh, no doubt he was a savage slayer too! Sent to slip in among our ranks with his fellows of half-bred ilk to stir chaos among the good and trueborn people of New Pearlaya. Aye, a precursor of the greater storm to come, even as his fellow screamers in the heathen armies approach to attack our great city too.” Malik smiled. “No, Quill, you savage fool, I have no want of your life, or of your ingrate daughter’s today. I would much rather allow the threat of you and your kind to settle in and take hold of my city and people first. All before my loyal seawolves and I rescue them from their fears, that is. Aye, and return their beautiful princess too after rescuing her from your savage ways.” Malik glanced at his Orcs. “Gather up the king and the other bodies. Lord Bowrider and his Merrows too. It seems our city has a greater tragedy to mourn over than just the traitor queen and lost princess today, my brothers . . . aye, and the people will need to learn of it all, if they’re to rally to our cause and raise arms against our enemies to come.”

Solomon and the others in Painted Guard armor came slowly forward, their swords drawn and at the ready for any sign of attack from Quill.

Sydney’s eyes were drawn to Rupert’s body, even as she backed away with Quill’s guidance. She bit her lip to keep it from quivering as the Orcs collected the murdered, young lord. They came for the king’s body next, bearing them both and the slain Merrow soldiers away, all headed back up the Nautilus tunnel with the bodies upon their shoulders.

Quill remained, holding to his promise to not turn his back to the Orcs.

Malik too had yet to abandon his watch of a fellow enemy either.

For a moment, Sydney wondered if Quill and the Blackfin were to remain locked in a standoff until the other Orcs returned. When the last of his seawolves had gone, Malik glanced at Sydney and winked. “Farewell for now, my princess,” he said, already turning to leave their company. “I’ll come for you and your title again soon enough . . .”

30

GARRETT

Garrett ascended as fast as he was able, his Great White Shark tail powering him into the above. Frequently, he glanced over his shoulder, expecting to find both of Cursion’s killers following him toward the surface. For every time he looked back into the Salted depths for Ishmael and the Night-Stalker chieftain, Short-Shore, however, Garrett found darkness and no hint of anyone lingering there, or tracking him either.

What do I do? He gasped for a Salted breath as he swam. A part of him warned to heed Ishmael’s commands and to swim away while he was still able. To flee the gathered horde of Nomads and swim for the shore, or else move on toward New Pearlaya, alone. Yet for every time he considered such thoughts, his Nomad father’s face flashed in his mind also, the last moments of Cursion White Shadow being struck down by his assassins.

Garrett knew only red then, both of his primal minds, Nomad and Orc, united in shared anger and hatred for such betrayal. I have to tell someone, he thought as he approached the Nomad horde. If I don’t, then it will be left to Ishmael to spin whatever story he wants.

Each passing tail stroke drew him closer to the gathered tribes, yet Garrett slowed his speed before any might see him. Glancing over his shoulder, Garrett’s gaze drifted toward the east and more open waters. All promised empty miles ahead too, a journey that would ultimately end with his return to the Salt capital city.

Then what? Garrett wondered as he stared across the open water. The Blackfin takes me in? Or I end up facing another pod like Arsen’s? He looked back to the Nomads and the warriors who paid no mind to his swimming among their outskirts, his Great White Shark tail signaling Garrett belonged among them. And if the Orcs take me to the Blackfin, then what? What will he do to me?

Garrett swore he heard his Nomad father’s voice then, a reflection of Cursion White Shadow’s words to him about the difficulties of choice and what one must do when faced with hard decisions.

Angling away from the empty water, Garrett steered himself at the heart of the Horde, driving into their midst. His skin tingled with the notion that he should turn back and flee.

Atsidi, he distracted his mind from the detracting looks of other warriors as he swam through the mixed tribal lines in search of the Hammer chieftain. I have to find him. He’ll know what to do.

For all the Nomads in half-human form and their shark companions too, Garrett could find no trace of a Hammerhead Shark, or even a warrior with a Hammer tail among all the rest.

Garrett’s heart fluttered. Where is he? Where are all of his people? His gaze scoured the Nomad masses for any sight of a familiar face.

He found one in the navy-striped and tattooed form of the Tigress chieftain. Her body straightened when they locked eyes on one another. Even from afar, Garrett could see the furrow of her brow as she saw him swimming without Cursion.

The Tigress signaled to a pair of warriors nearby to follow her in a direct path toward Garrett.

She knows something is off! Garrett told himself. Again, he sped away, swimming a zig-zag through the other sharks, his gaze and mind both scattered in scouring all those he swam among. For each and every one, he recognized none of their faces or names.

In one direction, there were more of the Tiger clans with their stripe-adorned bodies and faces. The next, he witnessed a swarm of the Blue Shark tribes with their blue-tinted skin. Everywhere Garrett went, he felt their eyes looking toward him as he swam alone through their ranks. And for every time he looked over his shoulder, Garrett found the Tigress chieftain and her warriors still following him too.

They know . . . Garrett’s mind toyed with him. She was with Ishmael and Short-Shore in wanting to join the Sancul before. Maybe they had the Tigress waiting in the above for me in case I escaped when they came to kill Cursion.

The fearful thought sparked new adrenaline in him, Garrett pushing himself to exhaustion to escape the Tigress and her warriors. His skin prickled when the Tigress called out after him. Orc! She cried, alerting more than a few Garrett saw directly in his path ahead. Orc!

No . . . Garrett continued on, despite the added looks he saw in others around him, their hungry gazes lingering on the off-setting markings of his skin. No, no, no!

Stop him! The Tigress shouted.

Garrett dared to look back when she did, discovering that she had called more than a few warriors to her side. All of them swam after him.

Garrett whipped around to face forward once more. He nearly rammed into the Nomad in his path. Garrett veered away at last second, knocking shoulders with the one he meant to avoid. The blow spun them both sideways, slowing Garrett’s speed in an instant.

The Tigress and her warriors were upon him before he could regain his momentum.

Let me go! He shouted at them when the warriors laid hands on him, pulling him to an upright position once more. The Nomads refused to release him as their chieftain drifted toward Garrett. Let me go, he glowered at her.

Where is your father, Orc? The Tigress demanded of him, her face beautiful and terrible at once. Where is White Shadow?

Gathering his thoughts for the next council, Garrett forced the lie. He’s trying to figure out what to do next.

The Tigress scoffed. Our high chieftain ought to have decided already. Her lip curled as she studied his body, lingering on the two-toned patches of his skin before she looked him in the eyes again. And I have yet to see you ever swim alone without his company, or a Nomad escort . . . so, I must ask you again, Orc – she spat the word—where is White Shadow?

Garrett shuddered under the grip of her warriors, recognizing he held no chance of escape. He was readying another lie to give her when a familiar voice spoke up from among the crowd.

Stop! Watawa called as he swam into their midst with warriors of his own, a motley collection of those whose tails held no singular allegiance to any given tribe or people like the Tiger warriors did. With his one good eye, Watawa seemed to take stock of the situation quickly. Why do your kindred hold this boy?

Boy? The Tigress snarled. No, Open Shell. This is no mere boy. The son of White Shadow he may well be, but does that not also make him the grandson of our greatest enemy too?

The enemy you speak of is long dead, said Watawa. Orcin Blacktide was slain long ago by the White Shadow.

I do not speak of the Blacktide now, said the Tigress. It is the Blacktide’s son that holds my concern. She pointed at Garrett’s chest. This boy is both nephew to the Blackfin and the Orc pod mother, Makeda.

He is kin to them and the son of White Shadow too, Watawa reminded her and the stirring others around her. Release him now, before his father learns you bore his son ill will.

The Tigress was unmoved. Where is our high chieftain, then? She asked of Watawa. Or can your one eye not find him in your cryptic dreams, Open Shell?

Watawa squinted back at her. My one eye sees more than your two, Tigress. And I would not spoil the end for you should your warriors and you pursue this further. He drifted forward in added confrontation. Now, let him go.

For half a heartbeat, Garrett did not believe she would. The Tigress maintained her steady stare against Watawa’s one eye for longer than Garrett cared to stand. Upon a cluck of her tongue, the warriors holding Garrett released him to swim free beside Watawa.

The Tigress was not done. I find it odd indeed this boy swims without his father, or a Nomad guardian, Open Shell. Let you both pray that my warriors and I do not find evidence to back my suspicion . . .

Let you go and seek your evidence, then, said Watawa. Suspicion and doubt are among the worst and weakest of foes. I should hate for White Shadow to learn you cast accusation upon his son without merit.

The Tigress sneered. You would do better to hope we do not find our merit, then. If I do, the Orc in your protection will not the be lone one to suffer, shaman.

Garrett struggled against the trembling within himself as the Tigress and her warriors left them to swim away. He shuddered further when she and her people dove into the depths, swallowed in the darkness not moments later.

Watawa’s hand pressed against Garrett’s back. Come, my friend, he said quietly, urging Garrett to swim away from the gathered masses. Aye, come with me now. And quickly!

Even as Garrett obeyed, he spoke quickly to Watawa’s mind. My father is dead, he held to Watawa’s arm for strength at the admission. Cursion White Shadow is dead. Ishmael and Short-Shore killed him below when we were swimming together alone. For all that Garrett had seen from Watawa, he recognized the surprise in the Nomad shaman’s one good eye. You didn’t see it? Garrett asked. You didn’t know?

No. Watawa’s voice was breathless in response. How did this happen?

For every detail as Garrett relayed the story of Cursion’s assassination, he noticed Watawa’s face turn more and more ashen. When Watawa finally spoke, his voice was as grave as the look in his eye. The Tigress will indeed find the merit to her suspicions, then . . . his gaze trailed off to the deeper water Garrett had mentioned in retelling of the high chieftain’s assassination. And she will find it sooner, rather than later, no doubt. He looked up again. As will the others also . . .

I know! Garrett cried. And when they do, then what happens?

Watawa’s gaze said all even before he gave his answer. If White Shadow is truly dead, then I fear you are no longer safe here, my friend.

But what about Cursion’s people? The White Deaths? Won’t they listen to you?

No, said Watawa. For all the loyal warriors among them, I fear your safety was only assured by your father’s grace. With White Shadow gone, the others will look to who might lead them next. Though they would all recognize you as his son when White Shadow lived, some will sense opportunity now with him gone and your mother an Orcish enemy. There will be in-fighting among the White Deaths in the short-term. No doubt their presumed leader to-be is already in league with Ishmael too. He would not have dared to raise his hand against your father at the risk of losing the White Deaths for the coming war against the Merrows and Orcs.

What do you mean? Garrett asked. How would the next leader already be chosen?

To kill a high chieftain is neither a simple act, nor a choice made without careful thought of what comes after, said Watawa. If Ishmael has already called some of the other tribes to his side, no doubt he will have still more in mind that we do not know. Indeed, already I have heard such traitorous stirrings among the people when their tribal leaders spread word of a Sancul alliance and your father requesting time to ponder such a joining. With White Shadow gone now, I see only two ways ahead; either all will soon be cleared for Ishmael’s ascendancy to lead our people in war . . . or else we shall again fall to in-fighting and civil war among our tribes. He looked on Garrett sadly. Either way is unsafe for you, my friend.

What about you? Garrett asked. You could speak out against Ishmael.

Watawa shook his head.

Why not? Garrett asked. The people listen to you! Your dreams, they—

No, said Watawa. My situation is not much unlike your own, Garrett Weaver. The people listen to me only so long as others in higher positions allow. Just as they feared and respected White Shadows’s protection of you, the true warriors here do not worry over me so much as they concern themselves with what would quickly become my brother’s wrath if anything were to happen to me. And, if it is Ishmael to assume leadership next . . . His one eye widened. Then, I fear none of those with us now will ever hear my continued warnings, Garrett Weaver. Not without my brother here to back my words.

Atsidi Darksnout will, said Garrett. He agreed with you and White Shadow about the Sancul. And you once told me that his tribe has the largest numbers too. If we can just get through to the Hammers, then I know Atsidi will listen to us.

Watawa sagged for every continued word spoken.

What? Garrett asked. What’s wrong?

I fear Atsidi Darksnout is lost to us now also, he said quietly. His son is dead. Killed at the hands of the Blackfin’s Orcs. Watawa looked upon Garrett with sorrow in his gaze. When I found you among the Tigers, it was your father I sought to find. Aye, to tell him of Atsidi’s mourning . . . and of his call-to-arms. Even now, the other tribes who have heard such news rejoice with the rallying cry of vengeance for the murdered boy, Allambee Omondi.

Garrett blinked. The boy died, then?

Aye, said Watawa. As so many others will suffer for it now. For when we reach the gates of New Pearlaya, I fear the Hammers will indeed rain vengeance upon the pearl city and against all those who murdered their chieftain’s son in honor of his memory.

Garrett shook his head. But, Atsidi swore that he was done with fighting. That the Hammers would only swim to New Pearlaya as a show of Nomad unity and strength!

Aye, he did, once, said Watawa. But that were before his son were murdered by a similar ilk as those who slew many others of Atsidi Darksnout’s family in a time long past. I assure you, my friend, the Hammers now swim to war with all the rest . . . and I have it heard from Atsidi Darksnout himself that he will lead his warriors on the front lines.

Garrett paled, his skin prickling as he searched the surrounding water. What do we do now, then?

Would that I knew, child, said Watawa. What did Ishmael say to you after? How is it that he allowed you to live after witnessing your father’s murder?

He told me swim away, said Garrett. To deliver a message to the Blackfin.

Aye, a message. Watawa’s face twisted. And for you to carry the blame of White Shadow’s death with your absence here, no doubt.

What do you mean?

It would seem to me already Ishmael has planned his actions in full, said Watawa. With the Tigress to await you in the above, already she has cast doubt upon you. It will not be long till Ishmael or Short-Shore returns with news of your father’s death and you long gone from his side. He sighed. And with the people’s blood and anger already stirred with Silent Hammer’s son slain at the hands of Orcs, Ishmael will see his rallying cry further received. Watawa placed his hand upon Garrett’s shoulder. And then these waters will be no place for anyone with Orcish ties, especially for one that others will soon claim murdered our high chieftain.

I didn’t do it though, said Garrett. I’m part Nomad too. Why would I want to kill him?

I fear neither truth will matter to most, my friend, said Watawa. A person alone might hear and believe you, but the masses were crying out for vengeance with the loss of Silent Hammer’s son. To add the death of White Shadow this night too? Watawa shook his head. Soon, they shall all be raging to create victims of their own, rather than to stop and question such plots as have been made and carried out already.

What do I do, then? Garrett asked, seeing no way of exit when surrounded by all the other Nomads. Where do I go?

Watawa took his time in answering, his one eye gleaming before he spoke. As your father said before . . . aye, and Ishmael too. The shaman’s words came as a whisper, but Garrett heard them like a thunderclap when the one-eyed mystic squeezed his shoulders with all the sinewy strength within him. You must go to the pearled city, Garrett Weaver. Fly there with all the speed you can muster to deliver word of all that you have witnessed this night. Of your father’s death at Ishmael’s hands . . . aye, and of the Sancul offer for a Salt alliance with our people too.

I can’t, Garrett said without thinking. How? I-I don’t know how to get into the city alone. Or where the city even is from all the way out here! How would I—

Watawa quieted him with another squeeze. You must find a way, Garrett Weaver, he said, his voice strengthening, his lone eye blazing. You have the blood of both worlds, Salt and Sand, in your veins, my young friend. Aye, the twin product of both our collective peoples too, a child born of shared love between enemies with the hope of a better tomorrow. Not for one race alone, but for all who swim beneath the Salt. If not your voice, Garret Weaver, who else to deliver such words?

I can’t, said Garrett, his eyes stinging at the thought of such a task, his mind searching for any excuse. Even if I could reach the city, the Orcs won’t listen to me anymore than the Tigress and these other Nomads would.

They will, my friend, said Watawa. They must. Aye, you must make the Merrow king and your fellow Orcinians hear you, Garrett Weaver. For I understand clearly now that the worst of my dreams is soon to be made true – that the Sancul are the monstrous shadow of my dreams. They come to cover this world in eternal dark. And as your father warned our council, I have no doubt the Deep Dwellers will not stop until they bring all Salt Children and the world itself to heel.

Garrett blinked away the blurry stain upon his eyes. I don’t know how to do this though. Why would any of the Orcs or the Merrow king listen to me?

Because you are your father’s son, said Watawa. The noble, brave son of the Pod Mother also. The grandson of Orcin Blacktide and nephew to the fearsome Blackfin too. Tell any and all the Orcinians you meet in the City of Pearls about Ishmael’s betrayal and know that they will believe you, Garrett Weaver. And when you win the trust of Orcs and Merrows with such a message, then let you tell them of those greater monsters you have witnessed lurking beneath the Salt also. Watawa’s thumbs needled into Garrett’s shoulder blades, his voice tinging with pain. You must make them believe, Garrett Weaver. For as I swim here now, I tell you the fate of all Salt Children lies with you to convince all that you can to join in turning back the dark tide to come. For if we Salt Children do not join and rise together now, then I fear that all shall fall forever more.

But how? Garrett wept under the thought of such a charge assigned to him. Even if I agree to tell the Orcs, what if the Tigers come after me? Or Ishmael too? How am I supposed to find my way alone, Watawa?

Watawa’s cheeks twitched. As anyone does when they are lost, Garrett Weaver. You must follow others who know the way until you can find yourself again. The shaman released his hold over Garrett’s shoulders. And first, you will follow me. He took hold of Garrett’s hand. Now come, my friend. For I fear we have little time to hasten you away from here and onto your harder journey ahead.

31

CHIDI

Chidi swam toward the boat where Bryant and Marisa Bourgeois awaited her. Breaching for air, she discovered Bryant using a bucket to wash the boat clean of that which formerly stained its deck. Is that your blood, Allambee? She wondered. Or one of the Orcs who came for us? Girard’s, maybe?

Chidi’s mind tormented her with questions of the dead as she swam around the runoff. Her heart warned the answers did not matter, not now that all those she wondered after were dead anyway. So many gone, she glanced to the darkened water behind her.

She no longer heard the screams of Allambee’s killer, the Orc named Arsen, but the torture he no doubt endured beneath the waves haunted her memory.

Upon the boat, Bryant had noticed her arrival and ceased cleaning the deck.

With the bloodied runoff halted, Chidi used the opportunity to gather her speed in the water, then leapt on board. She slid for a moment, then stuck her flippers hard upon the deck to slow her momentum before running into Bryant and knocking him over.

The Selkie marshal came for her slowly, reaching for her mouth and nostrils to free Chidi of her seal form. When her changes had reversed, the wind whistling about her human ears, Chidi cowered upon the dock. As Bryant knelt at her side, the tears Chidi could not formerly cry in her seal body now brimmed in her eyes and then spilt down her cheeks.

Bryant said nothing of her arrival, nor did he question what she had seen below. Quietly, he sat beside her and welcomed Chidi into his arms, hugging her close.

Chidi lost all manner of resolve then, sowing all her grief and fears into his shoulder. Long after she had no more tears to cry, Bryant remained with her.

“He’s gone,” Chidi managed to whisper. “Allambee is gone.”

“I know,” said Bryant. “Just us and Marisa now, kid.”

Chidi pulled away then, her face warming at his mention of the mystic Silkie. “Where is she?”

Bryant’s reply was not to come, his voice lost to the echoed footsteps of one padding free of the captain’s cabin.

Marisa Bourgeois stepped out to join them. “I am here, my friend . . .”

Chidi felt the need to rise and fly at Marisa then, to claw and tear at her face. For Allambee’s fate, and for subjecting Atsidi Darksnout to reunite with his son for only a moment before watching him die in his arms too. “You knew!” Chidi condemned her. “You saw that Allambee would die all along . . .”

Marisa would not deny it.

“Why?” Chidi’s voice broke. “Why did you lead us out here if you knew that all of this would happen.”

“Because I hold to some glimpse of what may occur hereafter, Chidi,” said Marisa. “Why such sacrifices must be made.”

Chidi’s face broke into a new wave of tears at the soft and quiet manner with which Marisa of sacrifice. “Stop,” Chidi said to her reply. “Just stop . . . I don’t want to hear anymore from you. Not ever again.”

“Not even if it helps to save your own family?” Marisa asked.

Chidi rose then, standing even as Bryant attempted to keep her from it.

“Chidi, wait . . .”

“No,” she replied, leaving him behind, striding across the deck to stand within striking distance of Marisa Bourgeois. “You talk about my family as if I’ll see ever them again, but you said the same to Allambee and . . . I-I loved him too.” She pointed toward the water and Allambee’s final resting place. “I loved him like he was my family. Just like Sasha and Racer, and so many others before them too . . .”

Marisa frowned. “You speak to me as if I do not mourn the loss of them also.”

“Do you?” Chidi threatened her. “I don’t see you weeping for them, or the things you’ve done.”

“We all of us mourn in different ways, Chidi Etienne,” said Marisa. “For some, they put their grief on display for all to see and gawk over. Their tears rain as bountiful as the Salt, falling as frequently as waves upon the shore. Do you judge their tears worth more than yours? Aye, or others like you that shield themselves against such pain by running, hiding, or burying it altogether?” Marisa looked past Chidi then, her gaze flickering toward Bryant. “And what of those others who gladly swap their sorrow for anger instead? Those trapped by their pain, or the guilt of surviving when others did not? All to instead use such grief to seek out their own cause, even if the pursuit means chasing such ends to their own detriment. Whatever the reason, all such measures are meant to numb, or else delay, the true root of their pain,” Marisa offered Bryant some little nod before refocusing on Chidi. “Do not judge me harshly because you have not found me weeping over those taken from this world, Chidi. I too have suffered such losses as you have endured. I too have made my own sacrifices and will make still more to see this effort through. Or shall I show you some of them too? Some of my own ghosts?” Marisa raised her hand in offer for Chidi to take hold. “Would you like to hear as I do? More voices of the dead and others soon to be? Aye, the voice of all those that linger within me, so that you might add them to your memory also?”

Chidi recoiled, remembering the minor glimpses of visions Marisa had shown her in Orphan’s Knoll and upon the beach shortly thereafter. “No . . .” said Chidi. “I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. I don’t care what you’ve seen, or what you say will come. You brought Allambee out here knowing he would die for it.”

“And what would you have done if in my position, Chidi?” Marisa asked. “If you were given a vision of death for one, aye, but all whilst knowing there was the glimmered hope of salvation for many others as a result of the sacrifice made?”

Chidi’s face twisted. “I would have kept him safe,” she said. “Told Allambee to stay behind if I had known he would die.”

Marisa cocked an eyebrow. “And yet you knew your friend, Racer, would die if he ran with you. That your owner, Henry, would make good on his promise to hunt you always and kill anyone that he found running with you.”

Chidi stepped back as if Marisa had struck her. “I didn’t know that Racer would die . . .”

“No?” Marisa asked. “What of Henry’s murdering the little Silkie girl, Sasha, when first you came into his service? Was his murder of her not enough to convince you of his threat? Or what of those others you ran with after the loss of Sasha also? Shall I name all of them too?”

Chidi clutched at her chest as a flood of still more faces and names rose from the recesses of her mind, even as she fought to bury them anew. “How?” she asked Marisa Bourgeois. “How do you know these things?”

“Much and more is what I know, Chidi Etienne,” said Marisa. “Just as you had some little knowledge of what would occur all those nights you ran from Henry Boucher with those others at your side. All with the hope you and they might find your way to true freedom again.”

“I-I didn’t know he would find us,” said Chidi, her voice weakening at Marisa’s claims, her anger doused in lieu of the mystic Silkie’s accusations. “I just wanted to get away from Henry. We all just wanted to be free and get away from him.”

“Aye, you did,” said Marisa. “And you were willing enough to risk condemning others with the thought you might earn your freedom even after you had escaped Henry’s reach.”

Bryant became a shadow at Chidi’s side. “Hey!” He barked at Marisa. “Leave it alone now. That’s enough, Bourgeois.”

“Is it?” Marisa flung back, more in acknowledgement of Chidi than a reply to Bryant. “By your face, Chidi, you act as though you have no understanding of what I mean.”

“What do you mean?” Chidi asked.

“The naïve, Merrow prince . . . Jun Gao,” said Marisa, looking to Bryant too. “The pair of you stood in that innocent child’s home knowing that you had not been led there for good intent by the Nomad brothers, Quill and Watawa. Yet still you stayed and helped the ones who took you there to accomplish their further goals of reaching the zoo. Of taking the boy inside to test his origins and bloodline.” Marisa settled on Chidi once more. “How many died that night in the attack upon the zoo, Chidi? How many lives lost for your continued pursuit of freedom?”

Chidi fought against the stinging in her eyes. “It wasn’t supposed to happen that way,” she argued, fending off the memories of holding a dying Selkie in her arms after the battle for the zoo had ended. She remembered Bryant too as he called the Nomad brothers to relay their victory and to bring the boy, Jun, inside the zoo premises. “We didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt,” Chidi argued, more to herself than Marisa. And yet when she dared to look in the mystic Silkie’s eyes, she found them gleaming too. “Quill and Watawa made us go. W-We didn’t choose to be there.”

“Da’ar is altyd n’ kuese, Chidi,” said Marisa.

Chidi bit her lip to keep it from quivering. “What was I supposed to do?” she asked, her chin drooping to her chest, unable to meet Marisa’s gaze any longer. “What would you have done?”

Marisa reached out to her, bidding Chidi to look up again. “As with all these former choices made, I would have begged the Ancients to make me as brave you were and are, Chidi Etienne,” she said, the sternness in her breaking for the moment. “I would pray that They would use me to continue bettering the lives of others along my journey. Aye, to ease their suffering, if only for my being there to walk and swim among those as desperate for aid and hope as we all of us have been and continue striving for now.”

Chidi sniffed. “You’re not making any sense . . . I don’t understand.”

Marisa smiled. “For all the trials you have endured, you still believe all that you have endured was meant to cause you pain, Chidi. That this world, its obstacles, and players; that all have been set against you. The odds stacked in the favor of others, and you the mindless pawn moved across the board without thought for your life and choices. What you fail to understand is that all of these things are meant to help you see.”

“See what?” Chidi asked.

“How you matter,” said Marisa. “Your choices, Chidi . . . your kindness . . . your words . . . aye, your heart.” The mystic Silkie beamed, even as she pressed the flat of her palm against Chidi’s breast. “Are you so blind still as to not see how your life affects so many others? How for all the guilt you keep within, Chidi . . . all the choices you would undo for their seeming failure . . . how is it that you still fail to see all the good and light you have produced also?”

“I haven’t though,” said Chidi, pulling away. “Allambee, Racer, Sasha . . . they’re all dead.”

“And still I say their lives were made better by your actions, Chidi,” said Marisa. “It was your willful acts and choices that led Lenny Dolan to rise against his owner, freeing you and others the night your Selkie crew took Garrett Weaver instead. Even thereafter, your later sacrifice that night reignited Zymon Gorski’s desire and his passion to carry on his noble work of helping to free others from likewise bondage also. Who can say many countless others will be influenced by those actions now?”

“Zymon was doing his work long before I came around,” said Chidi, motioning to the companion at her side. “Ask Bryant . . . he’ll tell you that Zymon was already doing the work.”

“Perhaps, he could,” Marisa said, then turned to smile at Bryant. “And what could you tell me that I have not long seen already in my dreams of you too, David? That you have preached to Zymon Gorski for all these many years now that he should show his face to the people and give them further hope?”

Bryant shook his head. “How do you know all these things, Bourgeois?”

Marisa would not answer him, her gaze refocused on Chidi instead. “And what of your standing against the Nomad brothers, Chidi? Hmm?” she asked. “For though you helped the Selkies to reach and take the zoo for your owners that night, you also defied one of the Salt’s most feared warriors too. When your master, Quill, thought to murder the Merrow king’s son, aye, an innocent boy, it was you that rose to defend the sweetling prince. You, a single seal to stand against the fearsome leader of the Unwanted tribe.”

“I didn’t,” said Chidi. “Wilda stopped Quill that night, not me.”

“And yet the old Merrow could not have arrived in time to save the boy had it not been for your choices to delay your master’s hand, Chidi,” said Marisa. “It were the same brave act that led Wilda to offer you that prized gift you now wear upon your finger.”

Chidi’s skin tingled, then. She looked down upon the simple ring and stone that Wilda had given her at the Indianapolis Zoo, wondering again what power, if any, it truly held.

“Aye,” Marisa went on. “Wilda offered it to you for the same goodness and light that even a proud and noble warrior as Atsidi Darksnout recognized in you this night also. Consumed by his grief and darker thoughts of vengeance, all his old wounds laid bare and opened anew,” Marisa pointed at the necklace and shark tooth Atsidi Darksnout had given Chidi to wear, “even the Hammer chieftain could not help but acknowledge the goodness he saw within you, my friend.”

Chidi instinctively clutched at the tooth when she found Marisa’s gaze holding upon it. “What do you mean?” she asked the mystic Silkie. “What is this tooth really?”

“Another of the Ancient gifts we were meant to seek out,” said Marisa.

“One of the five pieces of two?” Chidi asked.

Marisa nodded. “I once wore the necklace and tooth that you do now. The mother of Allambee Omondi gave it to me as a sign to her great love that all that I told the Silent Hammer about his son was true. Ah, but that tooth did not then hold the power that resides within it now.”

“What do you mean?” Bryant asked. “How can something have power one day and not the next?”

“Ask the Creator of such things, David Bryant, not me,” said Marisa. “From my limited understanding of the Ancient riddles, the five pieces of two cannot be bought. Not forcibly taken, nor stolen. They must be freely given else they are no true gift at all. No real sacrifice made from one owner to the next.”

“I don’t understand,” said Chidi. “You gave this tooth and necklace to Allambee’s father before, then?”

“It was never mine to give,” said Marisa. “I was merely the messenger. The tooth by rights belonged to Atsidi Darksnout all along. A token reminder of the love he shared with the mother of Allambee Omondi. She had kept it close to her all these many years with the hope of returning it to her lover one day when he returned to meet his son.”

Bryant shifted. “How did you come across it, then? How did you find them?”

“I saw the light of Mother Africa upon her and the boy, Allambee Omondi, in my dreams,” said Marisa. “And so I went to her and spoke as I speak to you now – told her of my dreams, the past and future too. Of all the choices made that led she and Atsidi Darksnout together, as with all the forces aligned against them to keep the pair apart also.”

“Why would you take the tooth from her, then, if that’s all the reminder she had of him?” Chidi asked.

“Because I told her what she already knew of her great love – that Atsidi Darksnout had never truly trusted anyone in this world but her. That I could help the boy to meet his father, but the Hammer chieftain would not believe my words alone of the son he had sired. The brooding and distrustful Hammer chieftain would require proof.” Her gaze fell upon the tooth and necklace. “Proof of a time he relinquished all his doubts and fears that he might know the deeper power of love, if for a scattered moment in time.”

Chidi clenched the tooth tighter. She winced when feeling the razored bite of its jagged sides scratching at her skin. Not enough to wound for the force of her grip alone, but a reminder of the lost deadly force the tooth once could wield. “You lied to her too, then,” Chidi accused Marisa. “You lied to Allambee’s mother.”

“How did I lie?” Marisa asked. “I promised that I would share her message with Atsidi Darksnout, just as I would reunite their son with his father.”

“What message of hers did you share?” Bryant asked.

Marisa smirked. “You know better than to ask of the private, whispered words shared between lovers, David Bryant. I would not betray their secrets to you, not even if you held the remaining three keys we require.”

“What did Atsidi say when you first showed him the tooth and necklace, then?” Chidi asked, her blood warming again. “When you promised to reunite him with Allambee?”

Marisa shrugged. “His long-suffering doubts led him to disbelieve me there also, despite the gift I brought him from his lost love. It was then that I struck the bargain with him - that he would know my words for true when our currents crossed again, the same night as Atsidi Darksnout would both finally meet his son . . . aye, and lose him to the green waters also.”

Thoughts of Allambee swimming in her mind, Chidi’s fingernails dug into the palm of her hands at Marisa’s words.

Bryant interrupted before Chidi could speak. “Bourgeois, you said these keys, or gifts, you’re looking for couldn’t be taken, but it sounds to me like you put this Nomad leader in a corner . . . forced him to return that tooth to you, or else to break his word.”

“Perhaps you are right,” said Marisa. “But, had I required the gift from Atsidi Darksnout, had it not been freely given over, then no doubt it would lose such power as I believe it holds within it now.”

Chidi spoke up. “You told him to though,” she said. “You reminded him of the bargain made.”

“Aye,” said Marisa. “But you were the necklace and his tooth not for the bargain struck between he and I, but for the kindness and friendship you shared with his son, Chidi. Say rather a testament to the sacrifice his son laid down to save your life.”

“You used me too, then,” Chidi sputtered the words. “The same as you used Allambee and his family.”

Marisa’s face pained. “Is that how you see all that I have told you, Chidi? Again, that you are merely a pawn upon a board? Aye, and me the player to choose where you are moved or not?”

“How else should I see it?” she asked.

Marisa took her time in parsing her words. “I know not who the true players are in this game we live out. Nor do I know if there be but one Creator, or several, to move us all upon the board. I understand well, however, that I am not their favored piece, Chidi. Why else would they torment with such terrible visions of all that to come, unless I carry out the actions that They would have from me?”

“But you don’t have to,” said Chidi. “You tell me ‘There is always a choice’ and yet you act like you don’t have any.”

“I have choices, Chidi,” said Marisa. “And yet I am to wise enough somewhat to understand there are things I am meant to see and do, as well as many other things that I will never be deemed worthy of seeing or doing.”

“How’s that, then?” Bryant challenged her. “Seems you got examples all the while when it comes us and the decisions we’ve been made. How ‘bout you turn that all-seeing eye on back yourself there, girlie, and give us an example.”

Marisa’s face tightened at his rebuking tone. “When I ventured ashore into your country with Allambee Omondi at my side, I chose to seek out Zymon Gorski with the hope that I was wrong about all the things to come. I hoped that Zymon might hide and protect the boy for me until I could free his father and bring them both to meet in safer circumstances. Instead, I found myself hunted by others I have long seen and fled from in my dreams.” Marisa’s gaze turned away from him, and upon Chidi once more. “Aye, instead of reuniting the boy with his father, I was surrounded by your Selkie catcher crew instead, Chidi. Trapped and forced to either give up myself . . . or sacrifice the boy in my place. For when I saw Lenny Dolan’s face and recognized him from my dreams, I knew then that I was soon to meet you thereafter also. Aye, and that the boy would be safe with you until such time as I would meet with him again.”

Chidi’s mind raced with the memory of chasing Marisa through the Shedd Aquarium, how the elusive runner had swapped positions with Allambee and sent him out as a decoy to be caught instead. “Why didn’t you come with us at the Shedd, then?” Chidi asked. “If you saw that we would all come to be here later, why did you run at all?”

“For the same reason as the treasured gifts you wear now,” said Marisa, again pointing to the ring and necklace Chidi wore. She smiled ruefully. “I had long dreamt of meeting Grandmother Wilda. Longed to spend time at her side and hear of all the stories about her time in the War of the Ancients. Yet each time I tried to visit her, I found myself again thwarted at every turn for your crew’s continued hunting of me at the zoo also. Time and again, I attempted to seek the elderly Merrow out and speak to Wilda of the precious ring that you wear now. Both to meet and warn her that the Tide-Turner would soon come for the Ancient key that she had once been given also.”

“Why didn’t you reach her, then?” Chidi asked. “What happened to you at the zoo to keep you from it?”

Marisa snorted and looked to Bryant. “Will you tell her what happened at the Silent Hammer’s exhibit, David Bryant, or should I?”

When Bryant stumbled over a response, Chidi inferred Marisa’s inquiry of him. “You caught her there?” Chidi asked, remembering how she and Lenny Dolan had found Marisa in handcuffs in Bryant’s charge on the same night they took Garrett Weaver too.

Bryant shrugged like a little boy scolded by his mother. “Didn’t exactly know we’d all end up here, did I? Hell, if I’d have known we’d all end up this way, I might’ve just turned her loose.”

“No,” said Marisa. “And it would not matter if you had, David Bryant. For like both of you, I had kept myself blinded to truths I did not want to accept, then. But I understand now that I was never meant to meet Wilda. The final result has occurred all the same, as was always meant to be.”

“How’s that?” Bryant asked.

Marisa chuckled. “Destiny is a fickle thing, my friend, and one not easily understood upon its face. Cast a rock into a stilled pool and you may watch the ripples as they grow for your decision and the action made. But, in time, the pool will grow still again. For the next to chance that way, they may look upon the pool’s stilled surface and believe they are the first to ever pass that way. Yet beneath the surface, David Bryant, and for however deep the pool may go, the rock you threw will still remain as a testament that you once were there and made your decision. Both to stop at the time and place, the choice of which rock to pick up, and then to cast it from you also. Who is to say you were not meant to do so all along?”

Bryant scoffed. “Still don’t see how chucking rocks into a pond, or pool, has anything to do with destiny.”

“In regards to time, David Bryant, a few precious seconds can mean life or death,” said Marisa, looking on Chidi again. “But even I cannot see all ends. The results of all the decisions made, or how they come to pass. There is always a choice, but it does not mean there will not be others making their own decisions to thwart our own.”

Bryant grunted. “That may be, but if we all end up where we’re supposed to, then what’s the point?”

“You speak as one who believes we are now where we are supposed to be,” said Marisa.

“Are we not?” Bryant challenged her.

“No, David Bryant,” said Marisa Bourgeois. “We still have some way left to go before our shared journey ends . . .” she looked away from him and Chidi, toward the rear of the boat instead. “And we will not be alone in venturing there before this storm unleashes its fury in full. Say rather, before the old Salt returns to lay claim over the new.”

Chidi startled when a pair of Nomads breached the surface, not five yards away from the end of the boat. Though the waters and sky were still dark, the moonlight shone off the leader’s seashell eye-patch as he swam toward the boat.

Chidi shared a surprised look with Bryant as ran for the back of the boat. Her chest tightened when Watawa and a shadowed companion drew nearer to the boat. As both came into focus, she noted not only the two-toned skin patterns of Watawa’s companion, but recognized the teen by face and name as well. Garrett Weaver? She thought to herself, her mouth running dry when Watawa ushered Garrett to climb the ladder and join them on the deck.

Bryant reached down to help Garrett aboard. “C’mon, son,” he said, yanking the teen up the ladder and onto the deck. “There you go.”

Shivering, Garrett reached for the boat side to steady himself before taking a seat. His gaze met Chidi’s for a moment, his eyes narrowing like one swearing recognition of an old acquaintance, but unable to put a name to the person’s face.

Chidi glanced away before he could place her from when they had crossed paths ashore, inside his school after the events of the Indianapolis Zoo. She opted to find Marisa instead.

The mystic Silkie was smiling again, and not in a way that gave Chidi any comfort.

What is he doing all the way out here? She wondered of Garrett Weaver, along with a host of other questions. For all of those plaguing her mind, one came to the forefront the longer she studied the face of the elusive runner. What have you seen for him, Marisa? What awaits us and Garrett Weaver next?

Bryant distracted her from such thoughts, whistling off the back end of the boat at Watawa instead. “C’mon! Take my hand!” he called out. “I’ll help you on board.”

“Not this time, my friend,” Watawa replied, then looked up at the night sky before turning to those on board again. His face paled, beset with the grim manner in which he spoke. “For though it would seem see the storm here in the above has passed for now, I assure you the Salt is churning beneath.”

“Why?” Bryant asked. “What’s going on down here?”

Watawa nodded toward Garrett’s position. “Let you ask our mutual friend. Or say rather, when he is ready to speak of such ill tides as he has witnessed in the depths.” The Nomad shaman pushed off from the boat ladder and drifted backward. “For now, I must go and attempt to talk some reason into my people, lest others hold their sway.” Watawa nodded in Garrett’s direction. “Farewell, my friend. I pray that you see our message delivered in time for the benefit of all.”

What message? Chidi wondered, looking between them for any clue she had missed.

Watawa waved goodbye, then looked to Chidi and gave a final nod before vanishing beneath the waves once more.

She watched the waters where he disappeared, waiting for him to return with a reply to the question she had not voiced. Chidi wondered after the answer all the same.

Behind her, Bryant stomped away toward the captain’s cabin. He returned a second later with a woolen blanket for Garrett Weaver. “Here,” he draped the blanket over the teen’s trembling shoulders. “Get you warmed up in a minute, kid. Not that you need it, I guess. Salt blood keeps you warm, I reckon.”

Garrett muttered something under his breath that Chidi could not hear. She assumed it was a thank you, but when Garrett’s gaze drifted to look off the back of the boat to where Watawa had vanished, she debated whether the teen had been trying to speak something of the message that the one-eyed Nomad had meant for him to relay.

Bryant reached for him anyway, whether he understood Garrett’s intentions or no. “You okay, kid?”

The manner in which Garrett yanked away, his breath quickening and face paling, told Chidi the teen must truly have witnessed something sinister beneath the waves. What’s happened to you, Garrett? She wondered of him, even as Bryant showed the teen his hands in a peaceful show he meant no harm. What all has happened to you since Lenny and the others brought you to the Salt, like Henry once did for me? What happened to you after we last saw each other in Crayfish Cavern?

Chidi’s conscience warned she would not like the answer as Garrett relented to Bryant’s reaching for him again. The Selkie marshal helped Garrett to stand, then guided him away from the water and toward what remained of the sheltered captain’s cabin. Chidi watched them go, noting that Garrett eyed the broken windows and blood stains upon the walls that Bryant had not yet cleaned. Only once both were safely inside, the door closing behind them, did Marisa speak up again.

“The past returns in many forms, no, Chidi?” she asked.

Chidi ignored the question. “Why is he here?” she asked.

Marisa shrugged. “You heard Watawa the Open Shell as clear as I did. It would seem that Garrett Weaver has a similar message to deliver, for he too has witnessed the Other and the greater Salt storm to come.”

The Sancul, Chidi thought, but did not say.

Marisa nodded anyway, as if she had read Chidi’s mind. “I told you once before, Chidi, just as I remind you now – the dark tides mean to fall upon us all. You need look no further than those of us upon the boat to see that it be so. Selkies, Orcs,” she nodded toward Garrett in the cabin with Bryant, then looked back out across the open Salt as well. “Even the Nomads who breathe the same Salt as the Other and his minions. The Other would see us all ended if allowed to achieve His ends.”

Chidi wet her lips with her tongue. “If that’s true,” she began. “If the Sancul mean to kill us all, how are we supposed to stop them?”

Marisa sighed. “There is but one way that I see before us,” the mystic Silkie looked away from Chidi and toward the cabin once more. “And that is by continuing. Pressing ever onward, despite all such things as would seek to drown us in our grief, misery, aye, and such unimaginable pain to come. We chosen few must continue, Chidi. For make no mistake, the Other will not tire in His efforts to seek the end of us and the whole of this world, above and below.” She motioned to the captain’s cabin and those within. “Garrett Weaver has seen much since coming into our world, Chidi. The pair of you much alike, yet very different also.”

“You’ve seen Garrett Weaver in your dreams too?”

“Seen and heard him, aye,” said Marisa, her eyes narrowing on the cabin door as if she could peer beyond it. “Another pained voice, crying out in the darkness.”

Chidi hesitated. “What did he say?” she asked. “If you heard him calling out?”

“The same as I heard from you,” the mystic Silkie’s smile dawned once more when she turned back to face Chidi. “He called out for help, my friend. Some tender morsel of hope and light to guide him from his pain and the darkness cast upon him.”

“And you’re going to help him, are you?” Chidi asked, even as her thoughts turned back to another instead. “Just like you helped Allambee?”

“It was not my aid he called for, Chidi,” said Marisa quietly. “As to whether another has heard, or ever will hear the prayers of Garrett Weaver? I cannot say for certain. Alas, the darkness blinds me there also.” Marisa’s shoulders slumped. She closed her eyes, inhaling deep of the Salty, sea-air. “But the future does not hold its sway over me yet,” The mystic Silkie opened her eyes and offered Chidi her brilliant smile once more. “And it might be that I may yet offer Garrett Weaver some small gift of hope to comfort against the pain and darkness raging in him now.”

Marisa turned to leave her alone, then.

Chidi called out to her as Marisa reached for the cabin door. “And what of Allambee?” she asked, hesitating when Marisa glanced back in study of her question. Chidi stammered on. “What of the things you saw for me? How can you expect me to continue on with you after all I have seen?”

Marisa nodded. “I know that you will, Chidi Etienne. If only to honor to the sacrifice offered by so many of those who have followed your lead and given up their lives that you might survive. As I have told you since our time together in Crayfish Cavern,” said Marisa. “I saw tears for you then, Chidi Etienne. Some you have already wept . . . and far more for you still to weep.”

Chidi swallowed that, her mind warning to no longer doubt the prophetic words of Marisa Bourgeois. As the faces of those she had already lost again rose to haunt her mind, Chidi buried them all by looking through the cabin glass to someone she cared for that yet remained.

Beyond, she saw Bryant and Garrett Weaver conversing as the man she once named Silkstealer piloted their boat eastward across the Salt and away from the reach of the Nomad armies she had seen below. For all her focus of the Selkie marshal at the captain’s wheel, Chidi could not help but focus on the face of Garrett Weaver too, remembering how she had seen him lain unconscious outside the police station in his hometown. His unwitting enslavement at the center of Lenny Dolan’s plan to free far more for a singular sacrifice. And those plans failed us too, she thought then, looking back to Marisa Bourgeois, dwelling on all that the mystic Silkie had told her of for those attempting to swim against the currents of fate. All to lead us here . . .

Marisa’s eyes narrowed when Chidi remained silent. “What is it, Chidi? What question on your tongue? The one you hesitate to speak . . . the answer you crave all the same?”

“I have two . . .” said Chidi.

Marisa nodded. “Let you ask them of me . . . unless you would rather not hear the answer?”

No, Chidi thought to herself, unable to hide her uneasy glance toward Bryant in the cabin, thinking back to all the lesson he had taught her as well. I’m not running from truth anymore. Not even the kind that I know will hurt me. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Chidi squared her shoulders and looked into the steady gaze of Marisa Bourgeois as the boat skipped across the water. “You say that you keep you hearing my voice in your dreams . . .”

“I do.”

“What do I say to you? What do I ask?”

Marisa smiled. “Nothing, my friend.”

Chidi’s brow furrowed. “Then, how do you hear my voice?”

“As with many things in this life – words, feelings?” Marisa shook her head. “The most important and dearest moments of all are not things heard, or voiced, Chidi. They are felt.” The elusive runner’s head cocked to the side, as if she saw her answer proved unsettling and unsatisfying to Chidi. “You dislike my answer?”

“I do,” said Chidi. “It’s just more riddles. The same as you’ve told me before when you knew that I didn’t understand then either.”

“Ask your second question, then,” said Marisa. “The one that plagues you most. The same one you have been avoiding asking of me. The same question you’ve wondered on since you first began to doubt my words and actions when they led to the passing of Allambee Omondi from this world and sent him on to Fiddler’s Green.”

Chidi took a deep breath before speaking, even as her mind warned again to cease her questions. “If you’ve seen all these things,” she began. “Of us and Garrett Weaver being here together, of the Nomads drowning Jun Gao to test him . . . of Allambee—” Chidi choked on his name, tears brimming anew in her eyes at the loss of him. Unlike before, Chidi refused to let the new ones fall. Clenching the sides of her Silkie suit that Henry Boucher had forced her into, Chidi reminded herself of all that Marisa Bourgeois had promised her still lay ahead as she asked her final question. “If you saw all of those things, all of that pain, all the sacrifices . . . how do I know you’re not leading me onward to more sacrifices too?”

Marisa blinked. “You don’t.”

Chidi recoiled at the flat answer, Marisa’s voice like a knife stabbing into her ribs for the cold manner of her speech and the delivery too.

Marisa Bourgeois was not done in her reply. “For such is the twin power and the curse of dreams, Chidi,” she said, reaching for the doorknob to allow herself to enter the cabin with Bryant and Garrett Weaver. “Again, I remind you that for all you think of me as all-seeing and all-knowing, in trifling times such as these, I am sometimes as truly lost as you feel now – both of us hurtling onward to make such plans and choices as we will. Aye, and with the doubtful thought that Fate mocks us all the while.”

Chidi blurted another question before Marisa could open the door. “If you cannot see all ends, then you don’t know what will happen to us. How it all ends?”

“No . . .” Marisa quietly admitted.

Chidi shuddered at the admission, even as Allambee’s face and his final moments flashed in the forefront of her mind. She banished the ghost of him away for the moment, forcing herself to ask a deeper question arising in her mind as she forced herself to look on Marisa Bourgeois. “And what will you do, Marisa . . .” Chidi hesitated to finish her question, pressing on all the same. “Wherever you see us going, whatever it is we’re supposed to do . . . what if when we reach the end of this journey together . . . what if we find out you were wrong?” Chidi licked her lips. “What if you were supposed to sacrifice me all along, rather than let all of the others die?”

Marisa grimaced. “Chidi . . .”

“Answer me,” Chidi demanded, her voice quavering.

Marisa folded her arms across her chest. “If I am wrong . . . if I have been wrong,” she shook her head as if wrestling with the idea. When she looked on Chidi again, the knowing certainty again blazed in her eyes. “No,” said Marisa. “I am not wrong, Chidi. And if I were, then all the deaths you and I have seen, all the losses endured, they would still pale in compare to which comes for those of us who yet live and fight. I should rather die trying to thwart the Other still, rather then live on knowing I might have stopped them and did not for fear of the losses left in the wake of my indecision.”

“And if your choices meant sacrificing me?” Chidi asked, unable to meet Marisa’s eyes, focusing instead on the faces of David Bryant and Garrett Weaver through the cabin window. Blinking back her tears, she refocused on Marisa once more. “Would you, Marisa?” her voice cracked with the question. “Would you sacrifice my life to thwart the Sancul and all that you see in your dreams?”

Marisa’s brow wrinkled. “Is that a true question you ask of me, Chidi? Or a favor?”

“Both,” Chidi broke, even as she craved the answer. “I’m so tired, Marisa.” She wept, the faces and guilt of all those she had left behind rising in her mind to offer her some small bit of comfort also. “Please . . . I’m so tired of seeing everyone I care about taken from me.” Her lower lip trembled as she spoke the words, looking to Marisa Bourgeois again for some semblance of her answer. “So, if it comes to a decision . . .” Chidi continued. “If you have to make the choice between me, or someone else to die for the all of these dark things you claim to see, Marisa . . . let it be me to go next. Please?”

Marisa sighed, studying Chidi before answering. “You ask of me now the same question I have long pondered over since the first time I heard your sweet voice in my dreams.”

“And?” Chidi asked.

Marisa soured. “And on that fateful day, Chidi Etienne, I fear that decision will come to be the hardest choice I will ever make.”

Then, without another word between them, Marisa opened the cabin door and entered within, leaving Chidi alone to ponder over her cryptic words.

32

GARRETT

Huddled in a woolen blanket in the co-captain’s chair, Garrett Weaver hugged his knees close to his chest as the boat sped onward beneath him. The broken front window before him was a collection of glassy, shattered shards and some of them blood-stained. Beyond, however, a hint of dawn lay upon the horizon, the darkness breaking before the hints of light at the furthest reaches that Garrett could see.

Beside him, captaining the boat, his hands firmly upon the wheel, Bryant snorted as he too looked out at their approaching daylight. “Well, look at that,” he said quietly. “Now, that’s something, isn’t it?”

Garrett could only stare, willing the light to come faster and help him to forget the darkness and all he left behind.

Bryant clucked his tongue. “Yeah, that’s something all right. ‘Course, I’ve always been partial to sunrises more than sunsets.”

The sincerity in his voice drew Garrett from his own thoughts. “Why?” he asked.

“Reckon it’s on account of not everyone takes the time to appreciate sunrises,” Bryant smiled. “Most everybody likes to watch the sunset ‘cause they’ve already been up and at it all day. Get to see the close of another day and hope for a better tomorrow. Sunrises though, well, you got to get up earlier than most to see them. Get a chance to understand all that’s waiting on you while the rest of the world’s still sleeping. Yeah, to my mind, there’s nothing like a good sunrise, ‘specially if you had a rough night.” He nodded at Garrett. “I reckon you’ve seen some of them rougher things since we last saw each other, huh?”

Is it so obvious? Garrett wondered, fighting against the stinging in his eyes. He glanced away from Bryant, rather than allow the cowboy marshal to suggest anything further.

Bryant spoke on anyway. “Whatever it is that’s happened to you since, son? I’m gonna go out there on a limb and say it weren’t your fault,” he said quietly. “And, for whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry for it. If my calling you in for questioning at the jail that night had anything to do with what’s happened to you since, that is.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered if you hadn’t called me in,” Garrett said, more to himself than Bryant, thinking back on all that had occurred since the two of them had met in his hometown. “Lenny Dolan and his Selkies would’ve come for me either way.”

“Might be that’s true,” said Bryant. “Still don’t change what I said.”

Garrett looked at him again, the once hard-natured marshal he remembered questioning him ashore now nothing in compare to the one wearing a Selkie hood and speaking kindness to him. “What brought you out here, marshal? You come looking for me?”

Bryant barked a laugh. “Wish I could say I’m that dedicated,” he replied, not unkindly. “Truth is that same Selkie crew of Lenny Dolan’s took you and me both that night. Shot me with some kind of a tranquilizer, soon as I opened the door to them. Loaded me up and hauled me back with a few others from your town too.”

Kellen . . . Garrett thought then, not understanding how else his old nemesis could have arrived in the Salt and came to be a Sancul far beneath the Salt. How many others from my town did you take, Lenny? He wondered after the little Selkie who had both kidnapped him and then also came to his rescue after. And where are you now? Garrett squinted as the sunlight broke in brighter rays of yellow and orange to ward off the black of night. Did you ever make it to New Pearlaya with Ellie and Edmund? Garrett grimaced, tempering his hopeful want with all the other experiences he had come to learn beneath the Salt. Or are all of you dead like everyone I else know and ever cared about?

Bryant cued on his silence. “Yeah, them Selkies took us both down into Crayfish Cavern. My new partner, Chidi, back there?” He jerked his head back toward the cabin door. “She used to be part of Dolan’s crew too, before she got away.”

Garrett’s brow furrowed. “I remember seeing her in Crayfish Cavern,” he reflected back on the beautiful girl’s arrival during his dinner with Oscar Collins and his father, August. Moreso, the fascination that both of the Nomad brothers, Quill and Watawa, had held for Chidi the moment she entered the room. Garrett glanced over his shoulder, peering out the cabin door at Chidi and Marisa Bourgeois conversing at the furthest reaches of the boat. “I don’t remember her being in Lenny’s crew though. Not with those who came to take you and me from the jail anyway.”

“No, ‘cause she ran off before then,” said Bryant. “Or during, rather. To hear Chidi tell it, Dolan planned an escape for her and a bunch of others that him and rest of their crew didn’t sign on to kidnap. Chidi and most of them took off while Dolan and the rest of his crew came inside looking for you and Marisa.”

“Me and Marisa?” Garrett’s brow furrowed. “But didn’t the Selkies came for you too . . .”

Bryant chuckled. “Well, apparently I’m the red-headed stepchild in all this mess. Don’t think anybody came looking for me. Not specifically, anyway. Suppose I was just an added bonus.” He shrugged. “Then again, I reckon it’s better than knowing they could’ve just killed me outright and saved themselves the trouble. ‘Course then, I wouldn’t have had to go through all this watery hell to get here with you and share this beautiful sunrise now, would I?”

Garrett’s eyes welled at that, thoughts of all the others he had seen die in his company swarming in his mind. And of all the faces to haunt him there, he pictured both Cristina Weaver and his Nomad father, Cursion White Shadow too.

Bryant shifted his stance and grip upon the wheel, his tone lowering as if he had picked up on Garrett’s disquiet. “Anyway, I’m glad to see you made it through, son. Both to be here with us now and to whatever comes next for us all too.”

“Do you know what comes next?” Garrett asked, if only to distract himself and rid the faces and haunts in his mind.

“Can’t say for certain as I do,” said Bryant. “But, if you believe Bourgeois back there, she seems to have an idea.” He frowned. “Much as I don’t like to think of what that entails for the rest of us.”

“You don’t trust her?”

Bryant scoffed. “Can’t say as I ever did, no. Not that my thoughts on her seem to matter. For every time I think to doubt her, Miss Bourgeois ends up proving me wrong. A man can only take so much of that before he has to admit he’s the common denominator. Just lay over and go with the flow, if you take my meaning.”

“That’s what you’re doing now?”

“Aye,” said Bryant. “That’s what I’m doing now, Weaver. Keep my mouth shut and do as I’m told. Listen to these women awhile. Let them call the shots for a change.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Or let them think that for a bit anyway.”

The insinuation and his easy manner made Garrett smile.

“Yeah,” Bryant drawled on. “I’ll just sit back and listen awhile, Weaver. Least until these lady friends of ours find out that calling the shots and bearing all that comes after ain’t nearly the dream job they might’ve imagined it was. Still . . .” Bryant went on, his grip tightening upon the wheel. “Much as I hate to admit it, if Bourgeois and them dreams of hers prove true by the end, I reckon following her on awhile longer will be worth it. In my case, anyway.”

“Why?” Garrett asked, the mention of dreams making him think back on Watawa and all he claimed to see in his visions too. The same as Cursion and Ishmael had cited before Kellen arrived with the other Sancul to prove a portion of Ishmael’s true. “What did Marisa see in her dreams?”

“Which one?” Bryant snorted. “By my count, she seems to have a lot of them. Most to do with Chidi too.”

“Not you?”

“Oh, I got a part to play,” said Bryant. “Least that what she’s telling me, anyway. That’s the bit that tends to worry me more, if I’m being up front with myself. I agreed to come along because of who she promised me is waiting at the end of the line.”

“Who’s that?”

“Henry Boucher,” said Bryant. “Chidi’s former owner. Same man that killed my wife and baby.”

Garrett’s eyes widened. “She’s taking you to meet him?”

“Taking me to end him, son,” said Bryant. “And that’s just what I mean to do too. Me and Chidi both. Though judging by my dealings with Bourgeois in the past, I’ll warrant there’s far more that Miss Marisa ain’t telling us.”

“Like what?”

“Like just how lucky we were to find you out here all in this mess, for one,” said Bryant. “Can’t say as I see much luck in that. Finding one person out in the middle of the ocean and plucking them up out of the water to whisk them off to God knows where, right in the middle of one helluva storm gathering? Yeaaaaah,” Bryant drawled. “Can’t say as I see like them odds, partner. Whatever it is Miss Bourgeois has planned for me and Chidi, I reckon she’s seen something in them dreams of hers for you too.”

Garrett’s skin prickled at the knowing in Bryant’s voice. “What do you think she saw?” he asked, not realizing they were no longer alone inside the cabin until Marisa spoke up behind him.

“A great reunion, Garrett Weaver . . .” she said, approaching him with Chidi in tow. “A chance to see your family and friends again.”

Garrett rose from his chair to face her, leaving his blanket to fall free of his shoulders. He trembled at the sudden cold swooping in to replace the warmth that he gave up. And when he looked into the eyes of Marisa Bourgeois, Garrett felt colder still. “All of my family and friends are dead, taken, or else forgot about me . . .”

Marisa smiled. “Are you so certain your family is dead?”

“Since I remember everything that happened? I’d say yeah, I’m pretty certain,” Garrett sneered. “And if you’re talking about Makeda, I don’t care if she is alive or no. Not after what she did to my real mom.”

“The daughter of Orcin is alive and well, Garrett Weaver. Makeda prays for your safety now, just as she has done since giving the charge of you over to your adopted Selkie parents,” said Marisa. “But I spoke not of Makeda just now . . . I spoke of the family that you have known for such all your life.”

Garrett paled at the sincerity in her voice, the hopeful want to believe her rising within him as she spoke further.

“Aye, Garrett Weaver, son of Cursion White Shadow,” said Marisa Bourgeois, her dark eyes blazing. “Your blood father may have gone from this world now, but your other kin remain. For it is not only your blood mother, Makeda, lingering in the City of Pearls . . . it is Tom Weaver awaiting you too.”

33

LENNY

By the time Jemmy T woke him, Lenny Dolan could not say how much time had passed, only that his body warned no amount of sleep would be enough to rest him fully.

Jemmy T extended his hand in offer to help Lenny stand. “Come, little brudda. We be getting close, yeah? Tom Weaver and Brutus be wanting us on de front lines.”

Lenny accepted the offer, yanked to his feet and swaying with the combined upward movement and the rocking train car as he regained his footing. Yawning and wiping sleep from his eyes, Lenny followed Jemmy T through the shadowed masses in search of those who would fight against the Orcs when they reached the city.

They found Tom Weaver and Brutus three train cars up from theirs. Both of the giant men and others near as bulky as they had again adopted the stolen armor of Painted Guard soldiers that the Selkies had slain in Røyrkval. Despite their visors being up, Lenny shuddered at the dark gleam of their black-plated armor.

Lenny braced himself against Jemmy T when the train wheels began to screech, the car shuddering around him.

“That’s the signal,” Brutus muttered, clapping his visor down. “All right, lads,” he called to those sharing the car with him. “Same tricks as we ran before. There’ll be more Orcs waiting on us here, no doubt. Show them no mercy, for they’ll show us none. Better to die fighting them now, rather then let ‘em throw us back in chains again, eh?”

The others hooted and roared agreement.

Lenny took a deep breath as an armored Selkie walked among them with a crate full of broken manacles to choose from. Lenny took a pair from the heap, checking first to ensure the lock was well and truly fixed to not latch. Assured, he placed the metal bracelets over his wrists as he and the others had done in Bouvetøya in a show of prisoner status. He again placed his hands inside his Selkie pocket, comforting himself with the cold feel of his twin, hidden daggers as he shuffled through the Selkie masses to find his closest allies. With Vasili dead and gone, Lenny took the former little man’s position in guarding Tom Weaver’s flank.

As Brutus continued barking orders, Jemmy T and his group of archers abandoned the rest. Their grouping headed instead for the train car hitching points. The ladders attached to their wooden sides would again allow the Selkies to climb the cars and afford them better vantage points for firing lines.

But we got no Henry now, Lenny thought, the hairs on his arms raising at what the loss of his former crewmate and the majority loss of Henry’s Leper gang might mean for the remaining Selkie survivors when they landed in New Pearlaya. So, who’s to flank the Orcs if our show don’t work this time?

When the train car brakes squealed louder, Lenny was forced to shift his weight in counteraction of the train’s sudden slow. Had it not been for the cramped quarters, Lenny gathered his larger companions would not have been so fortunate to keep their balance. Aside from Tom Weaver and Brutus, many of the others dressed in Orc armor were pressed against their fellows, dependent on one another to keep them on their feet.

“Oi!” Brutus shouted over the continued wheel screech and the other Selkies’ confusion. “Pipe down, all of you! We’re near the end, now. Steady on!”

Lenny swallowed the lump in his throat when the train finally eased in. Coming to a complete stop, the engine hissed and spat its last breath of steam. Lenny tensed when heavy footsteps scraped along the wooden platform beyond the gate of his train car. Fear tightened its stranglehold upon him for each passing second that the door remained latched. His eyes widened at the thought that the Orcs in New Pearlaya might have somehow discovered their earlier ruse. That the soldiers did not need to release the Selkie prisoners at all, and might instead put the whole wooden car to the torch. Lenny fought against the rising panic in him, the thought of being trapped inside and burning alive. He was already starting forward when the train car door slid open, revealing the face of a single Orc upon the platform.

Dressed in simple, leather garb, the Orc guard paled when the weight of the cabin door escaped his grip and slammed at the end of its rail. By his surprise and youthful face, Lenny judged the Orc as being no older than fifteen in age.

A recruit? Lenny wondered. I don’t remember the Orcs having anyone so young down here back when they loaded me and Jemmy before . . .

As he had done in Bouvetøya, Brutus wasted no time in brushing the young Orc aside to allow those inside the train car to exit. Among the first of those to reach the platform, Lenny scouted what little he could see beyond the lip of his Selkie hood.

Unlike before in New Pearlaya, when he had been brought down among a chain gang of other Selkie prisoners, Lenny heard no cracking whips, nor saw any other chain gangs now. Of Selkies, he estimated there were near a thousand locked in cages to await their own boarding of the Sailfish train and with their shipment south to follow. But of Orc soldiers and taskmasters, Lenny counted less than a dozen. All of them appeared as young and curious as the recruit who had let the Selkies out of the train too.

Though he could barely hear it, the cavernous train station being so far beneath the city, Lenny’s ears pricked at the constant, distant stream of echoed trumpets sounding too from somewhere in the above.

Something’s wrong here, Lenny thought, the hairs on his neck rising at the dim echoes beyond the underground station.

The remaining curious Orc recruits left their charges of the Selkie cages to come and meet with the seeming soldiers of the Painted Guard that exited the train with prisoners of their own.

Brutus met them all with the same brazen act he had performed for the real soldiers in Bouvetøya. “Oi! Who’s in charge here?”

“If you please, sir,” said the recruit who had let them out. “W-We don’t know, sir.”

Brutus grabbed the boy by the tunic and pulled him close. “What do you mean you don’t know?” he growled. “You’re a soldier, aren’t you?”

“No, sir,” said the Orc boy. “We’ve not even been taken in to train for the Painted Guard yet, sir.”

“What are you doing here guarding these prisoners, then, lad?” Brutus asked, keeping the collective attention of the confused recruits as Tom Weaver and the other Selkies dressed in Painted Guard armor surrounded the young Orcs. “Where’s the real soldiers, eh? Why aren’t they here to keep on with the king’s command to sort this rabble and send them on south?”

The young Orc shrunk under his questioning. “They’re out searching the city with all the rest of the Painted Guard and Violovar, sir.”

“Searching?” Brutus asked. “For what?”

“Assassins, sir,” said the Orc. “The ones who killed the king and took the princess too.”

Brutus grabbed the boy by the arm and shook him. “Say that again . . .”

“The king, sir. He’s been killed, or so the rumors say. The queen and the princess taken too. The whole city is searching for the ones stolen away and the king’s assassins too.”

The Merrow king is dead? Lenny thought, glancing to his companions at the shuffled sound of their armor clanking as they looked to one another in shared disbelief. And Sydney and the queen taken too?

Brutus held his grip steady upon the Orc teen. “If the king is dead, who’re these assassins what killed him then, lad? What do the others say to that?”

“It were a half-breed that done him in, most say. Or a number of them, rather. The Blackfin called all the soldiers in the city to search out the killers and bring them to justice, sir. They called us young ones here to watch over these whilst the rest of the real soldiers are out.” He jerked his thumb toward those in the cages lining the walls. “They told us these caged Selkies can’t go nowhere, so they’re no trouble for us to watch over, sir. We’re just meant to keep the watch and hold them here.”

“Aye,” said Brutus, his tone laced with anger. “You’re right about that, my lad. Them Selkies aren’t going nowhere . . .” He pulled the Orc boy close. “But then neither are you lot now.”

Lenny pounced forward with all the other free Selkies when Brutus gave a nodding signal to those already surrounding the young Orcs.

The Selkies had each of the bewildered Orc teens brought to their knees in a matter of seconds. Some of the rougher Selkie sort were already bringing their blades to the young Orcs’ throats when Tom Weaver called them off.

“Spare them,” he shouted them down with words and a disarming glare. “They’re too young to know what they’re doing and just following orders, besides.” When the others listened, Tom jerked his head toward the empty train car they had abandoned. “Lock these Orcs in with the rest of those we brought with us until we figure out what to do with them.”

Lenny eased his grip upon his hidden blades as his Selkie allies in Painted Guard armor led the bewildered Orc recruits away to lock them inside the hostage train car with the other Orcs they had brought up from Bouvetøya.

Brutus snorted. “Might be young, but those Orcs know well enough what they’re up to, Tommy,” he argued. “Enough to know what fate awaits all those who board the train and are sent south.”

“Argue that later,” Lenny piped up. “Sounds like we got bigger problems to figure out now. If what the Orc said is true, then how are we supposed to help all these on board and all the rest over there in cages to get up and out of here with the city swarming with soldiers?”

“Could just let them all out,” said Brutus. “Every man for himself. As I said before, all of us fly out of here like rats coming up out of the sewers. We’ve enough numbers to give them and their catcher gangs fits for weeks now, especially if they’re all on about finding the king’s assassin and looking for the lost queen and princess too.”

“Maybe,” said Tom. “Or maybe with the king dead, then the Blackfin just orders all Selkie runners killed in the streets to save him time and effort. From the stories I’ve heard of him, he’ll slay our kind outright now and sort the rest later.”

Brutus scoffed. “Mayhap that’s what we should do with his kind now then, Tommy.” He gave a nod toward the train cars holding the hostage Orc soldiers from Bouvetøya. “Them recruits might be young, but they’ll be soldiers in the Blackfin’s armies one day. Mark my words. And the rest of those we brought back with us will kill us slow if their brothers-in-arms find us now.”

“We’re not killing them in cold-blood,” said Tom. “Not yet, anyway. If the true Painted Guard come down here, you can kill those hostage soldiers then, Brutus. Until that happens, we wait.”

“For what?” Brutus asked. “We’re back in the capital now, Tommy. Trapped right in the belly of the beast, so we are. I say we cut bait and run while we can. All of us take to the streets and every man for himself from here on out.”

“No . . .” said Lenny, his father’s teachings and his own experiences on the streets of New Pearlaya warning against such talk. “It’ll just lead me more slaughter for our kind and most of us ending up as slaves again.”

“Then what, Dolan? Eh?” Brutus asked. “You got a plan for these thousands we brung with us and the rest waiting on release here now?”

Lenny did not have an immediate answer for him. Instead, he searched his memory for the teachings of his father, a hallmark mantra of Declan Dolan coming to the forefront of his mind.

Move, Len . . . Declan’s whispered teachings called within him. Move or die.

Lenny snorted at the memory. Yeah, Pop, he wished he could argue with his father then. But you also always taught me that a catcher watches . . . waits in the shadows. So, which is it? Move, or wait?

The ghost of Declan Dolan had no answer for him there.

Lenny sighed, his mind frantic for an answer, his gaze scouting the faces of all those looking to him for an answer of Brutus’s question. He stared at the prisoners in their cages, their dirtied faces lined with more questions too at those who seemed of their kind and yet not. Hearing movement behind him, Lenny glanced back to see Jemmy T and his archers climbing down from atop the train car with no further threat in sight to thwart the Selkie cause.

Lenny grimaced then, the shadows of an idea formulating in his mind as he turned back to Brutus. “You’re right, pal. We’re right in the belly of the beast down here,” Lenny motioned to the cavernous, open area around them as he stepped forward to look up at Brutus. “And, for now, us Selkies own it.” He knocked his knuckles against Brutus’s armor. “Aye, and all of us watched over by the Painted Guard.”

Brutus frowned. “Don’t suppose that’ll last very long if the real Painted Guard come down, Dolan.”

“No,” said Lenny. “But, with the king dead, the Blackfin and his Orcs got bigger fish to catch. A place like this station might last the rest of us long enough to get by and help us to sneak out as many as we can.”

“Out, you say?” Brutus asked.

“Aye,” said Lenny. “Out. Above. Take your pick.”

Brutus snorted. “Mean to smuggle them all the way to the surface, then?”

Lenny nodded.

Brutus chuckled. “And how do you figure that tall order, little man? Them streets be crawling with Orcs, or so the boy said.”

Lenny glanced back at one of his father’s oldest friends. “Jemmy, you said this is your city, right?”

“Aye, little brudda,” he answered, his smile dawning in eager show. “And She be waiting on Jemmy T, mon. Aye, waiting to welcome Jemmy T back with open arms, yeah?”

Lenny nodded. “Think you and your friends around the city could figure out what to do with all of these we brought back? Where we could hide them if need be and get them out?”

“Some, but not all, little brudda.” Jemmy T clucked his tongue. “Aye, and Jemmy T can’t be helping them all the way from down here, yeah? We got to be going up, mon . . . aye, seeing what friends Jemmy T and my little brudda still have, eh?”

Lenny’s brow furrowed. “You want me to go topside with ya?”

“Aye, brudda,” said Jemmy T. “Who else but Lenny Dolan, mon? Ya been going out with Edmund on all them deliveries for Jemmy T before, yeah? Knowing all de stops, little brudda. We cover more ground and save time by splitting up to see what friends we still got hiding ‘round the city, yeah?”

Brutus bristled at the plan. “And what happens to the rest of us down here if you lads get nicked, eh?”

“Or what if we were already caught?” Lenny said, casting his eyes on Tom Weaver and his Painted Guard armor. “It’d make it easier to get around the city with an Orc escort, eh, Tommy?”

Tom Weaver sighed. “Told you before, Dolan. I mean to slip off and find my boy.”

“I know ya did, but what about all these here?” Lenny motioned toward those in cages, some of them families gathered together at the bars to look out on the other Selkie proceedings. “You just gonna leave them behind to slaughter?”

Tom frowned. “You can’t save them all, Dolan.”

I can try. Lenny thought to himself. For a moment, he considered voicing his argument too. The look in Tom Weaver’s eyes warned against it. “Just get me topside into the city, then,” said Lenny, continuing even as Tom gave him a disgruntled look. “You’re going up either way, Tommy. At least help me get back to one of Jemmy T’s safehouses and see what his friends can do to find a place for as many of these down here as we can before the Blackfin and his Orcs catch on. Might be Jemmy’s friends can tell you the best way to get outta the city right now too.”

Tom Weaver’s cheeks pinched in consideration of the offer. “All right, then,” he said finally. “But only to get us to a safe-house. Then, I’m gone and you’re all on your own again.”

“Fair enough,” said Lenny, remembering how he had once voiced something similar to Edmund when he was first brought into the city.

“Well, it’s fair enough for me, lads,” said Brutus. “Just what’re the rest of us to do whilst you lot run around the city searching for answers? Wait here on the slaughter to come to us, is it?”

Lenny shook his head. “If any Orcs come down here to check on slaves, it’ll be more like them coming into your slaughterhouse, Brutus . . . and who better to handle them, huh?”

Brutus grinned at that. “Fair enough, then,” he said, waving a beefy finger in Lenny’s direction. “Just see as you boys don’t be taking too long and forget about us down here, Dolan. ‘Cause if them Orcs up there are tracking for some half-breed assassins, then it means they’re not out on the lookout for our sort.” His eyes flashed. “And all that means ol’ Brutus the Brave and his lads can go hunting for those what put us in chains in the first place.”

“All right, then,” said Lenny, looking to Jemmy T and Tom Weaver too. “You guys ready or what?”

Tom Weaver nodded. “Ready when you are, Dolan.”

“Aye, let’s be going, little brudda,” said Jemmy T, casting his crossbow aside and starting for the rickety wooden platforms leading away from the train and then up and out of the cavern. “The city be calling, mon. Aye, She be missing and singing Jemmy T home to be back with Her again, yeah!”

Lenny shared a look with Tom Weaver, then both headed out in following the former tavern owner beyond the train station misery. With Tom walking between them in a seeming show of a Painted Guard escorting Selkie prisoners, the trio climbed the rickety, slick wooden platforms. For every step taken, Lenny’s ears rang with the increasing noise of shouted orders, screams, and sounding trumpets. When they reached the streets of New Pearlaya, Lenny started to second-guess his plan. Scanning the smokestack trails burning throughout the city, the echoed march of armored footfalls, the defiant screams of those being questioned and whose homes were searched, all that lay before Lenny Dolan was chaos and confusion.

All the while, he remembered the lessons that Edmund and Henry Boucher had both taught him when chaos reigned in Crayfish Cavern during the Blackfin’s initial attack. Moreso, what the confusion and chaos had allowed him to do and who it helped him save. Where there’s chaos, there’s opportunity too. Lenny thought as he emerged out the hole leading toward Selkie doom.

No sooner than they were up and out of the tunnel, Jemmy T quickly parted from their company to venture on alone, vanishing down an ensuing darkened alley.

Lenny too stepped free of the train tunnel’s enveloping shadow and with Tom Weaver at his side.

Tom’s grip tightened on Lenny’s arm, but remained loose enough to allow Lenny guide him. “All right, Dolan,” the elder Weaver’s voice was broken through the visor that masked his identity and Selkie nature. “Where do we go from here?”

“Follow me, Tommy,” said Lenny, leading in the opposition direction of Jemmy T, bound for Anchor Alley and the Merrow section of the city. “I’ll show ya the way.”

34

SYDNEY

Sydney followed Quill through the meandering maze of Nautilus tunnels. The pace he led her on had Sydney clutching at her sides, the feel of it like a dagger in her ribs. “St-Stop,” she said, her head swooning as she stumbled with exhaustion and lack of nourishment. “I have to stop.”

“We cannot, child,” he said, kneeling beside her. “Despite the Blackfin’s words, his seawolves will soon follow and hunt for us. We must be long gone from this city before they scent us out.”

Sydney nodded, his words reminding her of when his sister had once warned her of the same. Tears brimmed in her eyes at the memory of all that came after. “Yvla . . .” she wept. “She’s dead.”

Quill’s jaw clenched. After a deep sigh, he nodded. “She and your mother both would be glad to know you survived. That you have been strong and brave all this time in the face of your enemies.”

“I haven’t been,” said Sydney. “I’ve just been afraid . . . I’ve been so afraid.”

“Because you are learning to see and know,” he replied. “True strength and bravery cannot exist without first one knows what it is to be vulnerable, Sydney. Any who claim elsewise reveal their ignorance and having lived without knowing true pain and loss. For while all creatures come to know and live in the shadows of fear and doubt, child, it is precious few who would embrace the shadow within. Aye, and then turn back to face the rest with the hope they’ve discovered residing inside themselves all along.”

Sydney nodded, then quoted the words he had spoken to her in what felt a lifetime ago. “‘To see light and no boundaries when others know only walls and darkness . . .’”

Quill smiled in such a way as to banish all the fear within her. “Aye, child. Just so.”

“Not child,” said Sydney then, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Your child.” Her voice broke at the admission. “Your daughter?”

Quill’s expression softened then, his hand reaching out to cup her cheek, his thumb brushing away the tears falling from Sydney’s eyes, even as she his own fell unattended. “Daughter, aye.” He smiled in such a way that the dimples on either side of his cheeks might fight off whatever remainder of darkness and doubt that Sydney kept within her. “You are mine, Sydney. I have waited all my life to see and know you for such. For you to know me better too. Whatever awaits us in the times to come, I shall never leave you again.”

Sydney threw herself into his embrace then, seeding all the grief for Yvla and those lost, all the joy she felt at his strong and welcoming arms around her, all the tormented fear she knew would linger within her forever. “Where is Mom?” she asked, sobbing as her father held her close.

“Far outside the city by now, I hope,” said Quill, pulling away that she might see the resolve in his eyes matched that of the words he spoke. “And us soon to follow, once you are ready to run again.”

“I’m ready now,” said Sydney, already rallying.

“Then, let us escape this wretched place,” said Quill, standing and helping her to rise beside him. “For I gather the Salt storm is soon to unleash upon this city, both from forces within and without . . . and I would have us leave them all behind to see your mother again. Now, come, daughter of mine.” He extended his hand that Sydney might accept. When she did, Quill smiled at her again, cheering her all the more. “Let us go and find her together that we might all finally be rejoined and live some happier days than all these we have suffered through to reach one another.”

“Okay,” said Sydney, squeezing his hand and the return of it showed to her also.

Quill nodded in silent reply, then led her running down the tunnels again, delving ever deeper into the haunted halls and tunnels of the ancient Nautilus.

35

KELLEN

Is this hell? Kellen wondered when he heard his mother’s screams in the darkness. For a moment, he dared not open his eyes to see, recalling all the times he had awakened to hear such things as a child and beyond. All until the night she fled and abandoned him. Then, as now, he forced himself to face his fears.

Kellen found himself in the bedroom he had known all his life back in Lavere, Indiana. Cocooned in a patch-worked blanket, crafted of his old, Tiber High athletic t-shirts, the comforts of his blanket and pillows smelt of the same freshly laundered detergent his mother used.

For half a heartbeat, he almost convinced himself that all he had endured and remembered of his Selkie and Sancul lives beneath the waves had been the nightmares. That he was merely awakening from them to find himself in a different, if far better known, reality.

As they had done in life, his parent’s argued voices echoed through the floorboards and the closed door of his room, his father’s booming threats overpowering his mother’s shrill replies. Then came that which Kellen knew was sure to follow when his mother argued further against her husband. Any words she had tried to speak out in continued rebuttal were suddenly swallowed by a smack and a sharp thud, then the thump of her crashing into the wall as his father bellowed and cursed at his wife all the louder.

Kellen had thrown off his blankets before his father’s voice returned with still more shouted threats and his mother’s pleas for the long-suffering violence to end. Unlike the Sancul tentacles of his Salt body, Kellen gasped at the sight of his legs, both returned and healed as they had been in that former life ashore.

So, I am dreaming, then . . .

His mother’s yelp called him from his momentary halt at the sight of his lower limbs returned. Kellen leapt from the bed to bound toward the closed door of his room.

When his bare feet landed, he felt no carpet beneath him. No rug, or even dirtied laundry he often left littered there. In place of all, Kellen found himself knee deep in frigid, black water.

His pulse raced as he retreated back to the bed, glancing toward the window. Outside, he saw the same view of cornfields outside that he had known all his life when peering out the second-story room. For all the seeming memory of his room and beyond its window panes, the reality of pooled water inside bid him to consider his situation. It’s not possible. He knew, again reverting to the surrounding water he waded through. Where did this all come from?

His mother’s scream and his father’s shouting again bid Kellen to forget his questions and rush to her aid instead, as he had done so many times in life. For no matter the beatings given him, Kellen had always preferred the pain of his father’s fists and the lashings of his belt, rather than witness, or listen to, either being struck against his mother. Her screams for help ringing in his ears, Kellen reached for the doorknob and found it locked.

Again, his mother cried from downstairs, her voice muffled as the echoed thuds and smacks of further beating occurred. “Please, Martin!” she cried. “Stop! Don’t!”

Kellen looked for the lock upon his doorknob, but found it no longer there; the door had been locked from the outside. He pulled at the doorknob with one hand and pounded against the wood with his other, both to no effect. “Hey!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, his adrenaline surging, the murderous, fighter’s spirit he had adopted in the depths of Orphan Knoll rising anew with the hopeful challenge that his father might hear and come for him instead. “Leave her alone, you bastard!”

The door splintered against the onslaught of Kellen ramming it with his shoulder.

“Come for me!” Kellen again pounded at the door to further the self-created opening, the skin upon his knuckles laid open and bleeding for his efforts. “I’ll kill you, if you touch her again! You hear me! I’ll kill you!”

When the door still refused to budge, Kellen backed away, preparing to run as best as he could, slogging through the water to ram the door with all the might that he could muster.

He halted at the realization that his mother had stopped screaming . . . and his father was no longer yelling either.

Instead, their voices had been replaced by a gap of momentary silence from beyond the threshold of his room. Kellen swallowed the lump in his throat, the deathly quiet beyond more disconcerting than the violence formerly plaguing his ears and memory.

Then came the sound of heavy footsteps, lumbering up the stairs.

Kellen found both his voice and his anger stolen then, all thoughts of rescuing his mother taken from him too when came the sound of panted, labored breathing from outside his room.

The door knob jiggled.

The hinges tested, even as the lock held.

Then, like a gleaming, onyx stone, a single, marbled eye appeared in the splintered gap that Kellen had created with his previous, shouldered attempts to break free.

Beneath the stare of the monster beyond, Kellen backed to the furthest reaches of his room, his soul warning that no movement or direction would suffice. That it would not matter to where he tried to escape. The eye peering back at him through the door saw.

Kellen’s soul warned that the monster outside would never relent its gaze of him, even as the whispered, taunting voice of the Sancul, Moros, whispered in his mind.

Why dost thou flee, child? Dost thou still fear us?

No, said Kellen when the walls cracked around the door framing like half a dozen hammers attacking it at once. Shadowed tentacles emerged from the holes, widening the gaps as they came. Still more slipped ascended from the water line in front of the door, each slinking beneath the gap separating the door and floor. Rising, each of the shadowy tentacles hastened toward their target.

You’re not real . . . Kellen claimed of Moros as he abandoned the corner of the room, splashing back to stand on his bed rather than be taken in the knee-deep water. This is just another of Hypnos’s dreams!

The voice of Moros echoed throughout the room, resounding off the walls as if he were on a loudspeaker at one of Kellen’s athletic events. No, favored one, said he, his tentacles slicing toward the bed and climbing the posts like fast-growing, trained ivy. My brother’s dreams have ended. I would welcome you home now.

Kellen kicked at the first of the tentacles, but his foot went through as if the seeming tentacle were smoke.

Another was reaching for his wrist, then twining up his arm, encircling and tightening for every continued second upon his flesh. Kellen slapped it away, another cloud of smoke that held no true substance. Despite his combative attempts, the other tentacles warned that it would not be long before their owner overpowered Kellen in full.

Come unto me, child, Moros urged Kellen in continued pursuit. Align thy burden and thy hatred with mine. Join with the darkness and the deep that we both might be renewed and strengthened.

The door burst open on its hinge then, shattering with the force of movement and strength when it crashed into the wall and broke the drywall too.

Kellen dared to face the creature that came for him.

Darkness lay beyond the threshold, but an army of wisp-like tentacles slithered free from the shadows in search of Kellen. The tentacles latched onto the door framing and other objects throughout the room, leveraging their combined holds to pull a larger, shaded mass from beyond. The monster emerged like an ominous storm cloud of moving shadows, all threatening to thunder. Like a fouled, dark batter forming inside a mold, the shadows aligned themselves and strengthened their combined image as they entered further into the room. Upon materializing, however, the shadowed creature there was not the scarred and withered Sancul that Kellen remembered having met before in the dream-like world of Hypnos’s mind. Instead, Kellen’s mouth opened in silent horror at witnessing the Sancul version of himself; a shaded, pretender version, liken to one he might see in a mirror. When the pretender smiled at him, Kellen knew the name of the true master to wear his mirrored face and form.

Aye, spoke the pretender version of Kellen’s own self, raising his left hand in open invitation for Kellen to grasp hold of. Come to us now and rest, child. Aye, join with the darkness and the deep. Align thyself of your own choosing, rather than we take you for my own.

With the pretender blocking the door, Kellen saw only one alternative to his escape. With the pretender’s tentacles continuing their attempts to latch hold of him, Kellen batted them away once more, then lunged for the window above his bed. He crashed through the glass, the shards embedding in the palms of his hands and forearms. Falling, Kellen tucked his chin to his chest as the shards rained around him in twin descent with his body. Vertigo overpowered him as he fell, the voice of the pretender howling in his ears. Kellen shut his eyes then, bracing for the impact of landing.

He struck the ground on his left side, wincing at the dislocation of his shoulder from the fall. Where he knew the firmness of the ground should feel of the shapely and cold, concrete patio outside his home, instead his skin met cobbled stone instead. His cheek was sticky and warm, despite the slick coating of the stony floor around him. Touching the stickiness with his good right hand, recognizing it for fresh blood, Kellen reopened his eyes and discovered he was no longer outside, nor even at his childhood home.

His face paled as he scurried to his bare feet, trapped in the dungeons of Orphan Knoll. The water he had helped to flood and drown the slaver’s den with as a Sancul had been emptied now. The air stank of familiar cold and damp, reeking of death and decay.

Kellen stood in the middle of the slave cage that once held him, its door conveniently unlocked and open. A lone torch flickered just beyond the threshold, and it illuminating the surrounding slave cages.

All were filled; packed tight with the corpses of drowned Selkie fighters, some of them near the age of children to Kellen’s mind. Their glazed, milky eyes were opened, lidless, and forever staring as they lay slumped atop one another in death. Seals and sea lions lay among their human counterparts also, a collection of bloated bodies, all stiff and unrelenting. Like a painted portrait of gothic horror, all were held motionless in death’s final, cold embrace.

Until they weren’t.

The dead began to move – a twitching from one of the drowned boys at first, something that Kellen told himself could not be.

The ghostly movement grew, spreading like wildfire among the rest, the seals and sea lions catching too. The corpses of man and beast all began to rise, their bones cracking as they did with some semblance of necromantic life returned to their frozen joints.

Kellen’s breath caught in his throat when some of the dead began to notice him in opposite of their cage. More even than their hollowed looks, the silence with which they stood and stared at him needled the fear in him deeper still. He screamed when the first of the rising dead began to press against the bars, their voices hoarse and moaning, their arms extending out in reach as if they might cross the gap between the cages and welcome him into theirs.

Kellen sprinted from his cage before the masses could follow the others’ example to block his escape. He snatched up the torch from its holding upon the wall, fleeing up the row.

The moaning from the dead grew louder in the darkness he left behind.

Their voices followed him as he went, his side paining as he searched for an escape, traversing the labyrinth of tunnels and staircases. For each time Kellen deemed that he recognized his location amidst the maze, the dungeons mocked his scattered memory all the same. Each turn and new room looked as unfamiliar as the last, and all filled with more cages of the Selkie dead, all reaching for him through the bars that held them back.

When Kellen glanced over his shoulder at a sudden, nearby moan, one of the dead succeeded in grabbing his left arm. The corpse’s long, sharp nails dug into his flesh.

Kellen reacted, slapping at the claw-like hand, pulling away and howling as the corpse’s fingernails rent his skin.

The fresh blood streaking down his bicep seemed to whet the appetite of the other undead.

Behind him, a Southern Elephant Seal with stab wounds littering its carcass leveraged its massive weight against the bars. The force of its massive form, along with the combined might and wall of the Selkie dead broke one of the cage doors from its hinges. The iron clanged against the cobbled stone, the corpses falling over one another to empty out in continued pursuit of Kellen. Unlike the zombie films he had watched in his life on land, those featuring the slow-walking dead easily pushed aside and with little true danger to afflict the living, the Selkie dead hunting Kellen now arose and ran with speed to match his own.

Don’t look back, you idiot! Run! Kellen screamed at himself, relenting his gaze of the dead, searching for any means of escape ahead. He bounded toward a spiraled staircase of stone, then flew up the steps, two at a time. Always ahead of him up the stairs, a pale, greenish light strengthened for each spiraled turn he made. His side ached as he continued in the ascent, his ribs paining with the feeling as though someone stabbed at them over and again.

The scurried footsteps echoing up the stairs below pressed him onward.

Come on, come on! Kellen powered through the pain, the muscles in his thighs throbbing at the never-ending climb. I’ll fight for air. Kellen swore, continuing his climbing for escape, repeating the mantra he had once heard from a fellow slave. I’m Salted. I’ll make it back!

Coming around another spiral, Kellen reached the top of the staircase.

An open door lay before him with a pair of lanterns attached to either side, both filled with blazing, greenish light. Darkness lay within, the lantern lights and even the shadows they cast all consumed by that which lived across the threshold.

Goose-pimples prickling over his body, the hairs on Kellen’s arms raised at the notion of entering into the next room.

The voices and movement of the chasing dead below grew louder still for every passing moment.

With his dislocated shoulder continuing to throb in echo of that which he felt in his sides and legs too, Kellen abandoned his instincts to turn and fight. He barreled across the open door’s threshold, his torch illuminating a larger room within. Kellen wasted no time in discernment. He whipped around the dungeon door, using all his momentum to close it before the dead could follow. His speed and weight helped to slam the heavy, oaken door to close.

A pale and withered hand shot forward to halt him from the movement.

Kellen’s attempt carried his actions through, slicing off the corpse’s arm when the dungeon door slammed home. The creature’s arm fell unmoving at Kellen’s feet. He grappled with the vertical wood beam attached to the door next, yanking it down to fall in place and brace the door closed. Had he done so a second later, the dead should have succeeded in knocking him free of the door. Instead, Kellen breathed a momentary sigh of relief when the masses thumped and slammed against the opposite side, the door continuing to hold, despite their added attempts and loathsome moans.

Kellen moved away from it, catching his breath, his torch held steady in front of him in the event that the dead broke down this newest of doors too. For each renewed attempt from the opposite side, Kellen convinced himself that he had escaped the ghoulish Selkies.

Then, as suddenly as they had followed, the thumping from the dead on the other side ceased their noise entirely.

Kellen’s breath caught in his throat as he awaited the return of the noise, swearing he could hear his heart thumping in the deathly quiet. And if I can hear it, the catching fear within him whispered. The dead can too.

Waiting . . . watching . . . Kellen’s gaze narrowed on the door and the wood beam bracing.

Nothing came against the dungeon door, nor sounded from the other side; the whole world gone silent with exception of the flickering torch that Kellen held.

Don’t stop. He told himself then, his hands trembling. Kellen summoned the courage to look away from the door and turn to inspect the chamber he stood within. Find a new way out.

His eyes rounded at what he found – not any chamber of Orphan Knoll he had ever seen, nor even one that resembled the slaver’s den.

The ceiling was domed and marbled, black as the night sky he often looked upon from the loft of his barn at home when he went there to escape his father’s drunken wroth and beatings. Then, as now, Kellen saw no stars in the above, nor even a hint of light that his torchlight did not offer up. As the torchlight flames danced over the domed ceiling in mirrored movement, the combined, twin illumination of his torches above and below revealed to Kellen that he was yet to be alone.

A kindly, thin voice Kellen remembered from his dreams called out to him. “Hello, child.”

Kellen met the gaze of the withered and sickly one he had only ever spoken with in the dream-like worlds of the Sancul’s own making. The same monster that Kellen had called to and begged for answers ever since his maiming and coming into the Sancul world of abyssal darkness. “Hypnos . . .” Kellen thrust his torch toward the voice in the darkness, illuminating the one who had called to him, even as the Sancul winced under the light cast upon him. “Is that really you?”

Hypnos managed a weak nod. His eyes held barely an ounce of the blazing Kellen remembered witnessing in them before, both during his healing ceremony and then again when Hypnos fended off his brother, Moros, from reaching for Kellen in yet another dream the two had shared. Unlike those other times, Hypnos appeared far more diminished than Kellen had last seen the sickly Sancul during their journey toward the Cavern of Somnus and their subsequent arrival. Then, as now, Hypnos lay upon his bed of ebony make, his tentacles flat and lifeless as they hung over the edge like wilted plants in desperate need of watering.

Hypnos raised his trembling left hand, motioning Kellen over. “Come to me,” he urged. “Please.”

Kellen held his ground. “No,” he said, refusing to move an inch closer, despite the seeming appearance of weakened creature before him. “Not until I get some answers.”

“K-Kellen . . . please . . . listen.”

“No,” Kellen interrupted. “For all the times I’ve called out to you . . . you never listened to me. Never answered my questions. Why should I hear you now?”

Kellen jumped when a loud knock banged against the door and bracing behind him.

Hypnos looked past Kellen, toward the locked door instead. “M-Moros,” Hypnos called out when the bracing clanged louder still in its ancient holds. “Stop this, brother. Please. Let you stop this, Moros . . .”

Kellen’s head acted like a swivel, looking between the door and Hypnos, not knowing which was more deserving of his attention as the wood beam clattered in its bracing for every renewed pounding from the opposite side. From the corner of his eye, Kellen noticed a pair of twin lights in the darkness. Their origin came from Hypnos upon the bed of ebony make, the dimness in his gaze flickering to life as Kellen had witnessed them do before. As the flickering in them began to catch and strengthen, Kellen noted the clanging of the door relented until all were silenced once more. And when the quiet returned in full, the brightness in Hypnos’s gaze had diminished too, his head lolling to the side. The slow rise and fall of his chest signaled the mystic Sancul yet lived, but the labored, wheezing breath gave Kellen little doubt that Hypnos would do so for much longer.

Kellen inched closer, yet kept his distance all the same.

Hypnos blinked as Kellen approached and then held off. “Forgive me,” Hypnos whispered, a single tear streaking down his withered cheeks. “His strength outmatches my own . . . I cannot hold my brother any longer, child.”

“What do you mean?” Kellen asked. “What does he want, Hypnos? What does Moros want?”

“Everything,” said Hypnos, his voice quivering with the admission. “Y-You must help me, child. You must save us . . . save us all from him.”

“How?” Kellen asked. “How can I?”

Hypnos smiled weakly. “R-Rise,” said he. “You . . . you must rise, Kellen. Or . . . or . . .”

“Or all shall fall,” Kellen interrupted. “I know that part already. I remember what you said, but tell me how, Hypnos! How am I supposed to rise when I’m trapped in here? What does that even mean? How am I supposed to rise!?”

Hypnos’s eyelids fluttered, the light behind them dying as he let out a deep sigh.

“Hypnos!” Kellen shouted, running forward then to grab hold of the Sancul and shake him awake lest Hypnos never speak again. “Tell me what to do!”

Hypnos blinked like one lost in a stupor. “Choose, Kellen . . . you must choose.”

The banging from the dead resounded from the opposite side again.

Kellen tensed at the noise, glancing back toward the door when the bracing splintered under the continued pounding that grew louder for each and every ramming thereafter. “Choose what?” Kellen demanded of Hypnos. “What am I choosing from?”

The voice of another ghost answered him from afar. “Life or death now, iddn’t it, special boy?”

Kellen shuddered in recognition of the dead, Selkie taskmaster that appeared some thirty-odd yards deeper into the chamber. Kellen swung his torch away from Hypnos, pointing its fiery end at the darkness where the voice had come from. “Tieran . . .” said Kellen, naming the ghost from his past, as if needing further confirmation of the one he had killed in the depths of Orphan Knoll.

The dead Selkie taskmaster grinned back at him easily enough. “Aye, special boy,” said Tieran, his eyes as milky and lidless as the dead who had chased Kellen out of the dungeons and up the spiral stairs. “Bet you didn’t think to see me again, eh? Nor any of them others we done in together down in the Knoll.”

Others? Kellen thought, a cold breeze whispering across the back of his neck like a lover might do. Kellen trembled at its phantom kiss, then summoned his courage to make a quick glance over his shoulder. He nearly dropped his torch at what stood behind him.

A wall of the Selkie dead stood between him and what remained of the broken, oaken door. Its bracing was splintered and cast aside, the darkness having overtaken all existing beyond the open door’s threshold. For all their hunting of Kellen, the dead no longer gave him chase. Their milky eyes stared at him in soulless emptiness, the lot of them like an army of freestanding mannequins and robots awaiting commands.

“I’m dreaming,” Kellen said, his voice broken and quiet. “This is all a dream. Just another nightmare that I’ll wake up from soon.”

“Aye, a nightmare true enough, special boy,” Tieran called out to Kellen, reminding him of the added threat before him also. “But not one for you to wake from this time, eh?” He chuckled hoarsely as he had done in life.

When the corpse of Tieran coughed and choked on the seeming phlegm, however, Kellen noticed the purple-bruised rash of scarring around the dead taskmaster’s neck. The deep marks stood out among the elsewise pale flesh, the circular rashes a reminder of where Kellen had strangled Tieran with the same whip that the Selkie taskmaster had attempted to murder Kellen with also.

Tieran smirked at Kellen’s stare homing on his throat. “Ready to make your choice, then, special boy?”

“What choice?” Kellen asked, glancing over his shoulder again at the army of Selkie dead when he heard the scuffs of shuffling feet scraping over the cobbled stones.

The dead were marching as one, an oncoming wall of slow-moving flesh to push Kellen deeper into the chamber.

Kellen retreated from them. “Stay back . . .” He swung his torch around, waving it as if to try and fear them.

The dead gave him no more response than they had done before, continuing their slow march to push him further in.

“Wouldn’t go that way, if I was you,” Tieran crowed behind him. “Nah, special boy, never that way.”

Kellen wheeled around, whipping his torch with him to illuminate Tieran also. He screamed when finding the dead man had silently crossed the distance between them; Tieran’s milky gaze and eager grin an inch from Kellen’s face.

With one hand, Tieran clapped his icy hand upon Kellen’s dislocated shoulder, squeezing another scream from him. When Kellen tried to swing the torch against Tieran, the dead Selkie taskmaster caught that too.

“No need for the torch, special boy,” Tieran laughed, wrenching the torch away and then casting it ahead of them. “Won’t need no light where you’re headed, though you’ll be wanting it all the same.”

Kellen’s heart thundered against his chest as the torch clattered and rolled ahead of him, the light from it revealing the same pair of freestanding doors he had seen in the Cavern of Somnus.

With a swift kick against the back of his legs, Tieran dropped Kellen to his knees and then kept him off balance by dragging him quickly toward the doors.

The doors stood in opposite contrast as he remembered seeing them in the Cavern of Somnus and one of them with additions Kellen did not remember from his lone memory of them. The door to his right was liken to a truss of what once may once have been greenish reef and sea-grass, but all were long wilted and dead now. On his left, the other that Kellen recalled having once seen glistening like bone-white coral ivory was different too; now holding streaks of crimson stain from that which adorned it also.

Kellen’s throat parched at the sight of severed appendages posted to the four corners of the door frame. He screamed all the louder when staring into the milky eyes of the Nomad slaver who had assaulted him in life too. Roland . . . Like a decapitated head upon a pike, what remained of the slaver had been positioned like a door knocker upon the blood-stained, ivory door.

Choose, boy, Roland’s voice echoed in Kellen’s mind, his words heard even over the continued screams. This door, or the other . . .

Tieran hauled Kellen to his feet, then shoved him forward to stand between the pair of doors. “Aye, make your choice, special boy,” he shouted. “Else the master makes it for you.”

The master? Kellen wondered briefly. He averted his gaze from the ivory door and the constant, accusing stare of Roland. He remembered the fear in the Nomad’s begging cries for Kellen to stop the torture of him in Orphan Knoll, all before Kellen had gleefully used his newfound Sancul power, strength, and hate to rend the weakling slaver apart.

Choose . . . Roland’s voice boomed in Kellen’s mind. Or allow us to do so for thee.

The army of Selkie dead hissed at Kellen with a singular voice then, hastening him along.

Without daring to look upon Roland again, Kellen took off for the opposite door. He reached for the coral-encrusted knob of the door littered and crafted with dead sea-grass, revealing still more darkness within. Kellen hesitated upon the threshold.

The hiss of the Selkie dead broke their unified voice then, all shrieking at him before they raced to cross the distance between them.

Closing his eyes, Kellen barreled over the threshold with Roland and Tieran’s combined laughter to follow him on into the darkness.

When their voices turned mute, however, Kellen dared to reopen his eyes, expecting blindness for the surrounding dark he had witnessed beyond.

Instead, he found himself in yet another familiar setting from his life before.

A blue, swim locker with slatted gaps in the metal framing stood before him. Inside it, Kellen recognized a magnet featuring his high school logo and swim mascot – a Tiger Shark bearing the blue and crimson colors of Tiber High School. His backpack, swim goggles, and Speedo hung from the hooks too. Kellen’s brow furrowed as he backed away from the swim locker that he had been assigned in his Freshman year.

He nearly tripped over the wood bench behind him.

Catching his balance before falling, Kellen’s pulse quickened in wonderment of the continued dream. What is this? Why haven’t I woke up yet, like all the times before? He swallowed the lump in his throat, his gaze searching when he heard the echoed heavy slamming of the main doorway into the Tiber High boy’s locker room and the fast-moving footsteps to follow. Trapped inside the swim team’s personal area with only a single doorway in or out, Kellen immediately looked for and failed to find anything of note that he might use as a weapon.

Clenching his fists, Kellen put his back to the rear cinderblock wall, then stood as tall as he was able, awaiting whoever chose to come against him.

“Hey, Freshman! Where you at?”

The tenseness in him relaxed for a moment, but only just. Kellen swore that he recognized yet another voice from his past, but was unable to put a face to the memory.

“Winstel! You in here?”

The answer came to Kellen before his old teammate revealed himself. Campbell? Kellen wondered, the assessment proving true when the once senior captain of the swim team appeared just outside the doorway.

No. Kellen thought, the Campbell he remembered from his freshman year no longer the pimple-faced and gleeful bruiser, nor even wearing his swimsuit attire. The Campbell blocking the doorway now was as Kellen had last seen him at the Tiber County Jail before Lenny Dolan’s Selkie slave catcher crew had overtaken it and took Kellen away with them too.

Campbell wore his police officer uniform, the front of it caked with dried blood from the pool that Kellen had last seen his old teammate lying in. Then, as now, Campbell’s throat had been ripped apart by the savage teeth of Henry Boucher in his Leopard Seal form.

He was also not alone.

Where Kellen remembered the true-life high school memory differently – he choosing to confront Campbell and his other teammates to perform the swim team hazing they called ‘twelving’ – now, Kellen found himself on the opposite end of a different memory that he had witnessed involving another freshman. The time he had been changing out of his speedo and the seniors had come to trap and haze another of their youngest teammates instead.

Where Kellen could recall each of the senior’s faces in his mind, there were none of them standing with Campbell now. In their place, Kellen saw others even more familiar and friendlier to him in his life before when he had lived ashore.

There was his closest friend from childhood, Eddie Bennett, his neck broken and at an awkward angle. Bennett too looked on Kellen with the same accusing, milky eyes as all the other ghosts that hounded Kellen in his continued nightmare.

Bryce Tardiff stood with them also, his face bloated and blue from drowning when he and Kellen were taken down the Gasping Hole and into the Salted world by Tieran and his Selkie cronies. Kellen’s eyes stung at the sight of Tardiff’s clothes, skin, and hair all still sopping wet, just as he remembered them being when he held his drowned friend in the depths of Crayfish Cavern.

His father’s friend, Sheriff Hullinger, stood among the reanimated too, as did Kellen’s former cellmate and the town drunk, Boone Merchant, also.

All looked on Kellen with the same glee that he had witnessed from Tieran also.

Campbell stepped into the locker room. “You remember what comes next, Winstel?”

Kellen did, clenching his fists again. “I remember.”

Campbell nodded. “Well, what’ll it be this time? Will you go willingly again . . . or no?”

I went willing once, Kellen thought back on his life, the memory of confronting the seniors among his proudest of moments for the fear he saw that his choice instilled in them; that of one to challenge their authority and brave the hazing none before Kellen Winstel had willingly accepted. For all his memory of the confused and fearful look in the eyes of his teammates before, Kellen understood he would find nothing of confusion or fear in the ghostly faces of the reanimated dead that stood before him now. No mercy or pity either.

I’m a captain . . . Kellen told himself, even as he trembled. An alpha. He took his stance when Campbell’s phantom grin widened. And I’m not going down without a fight.

The dead came for him then, and Kellen rushing to meet them rather run from them in fear any longer. For every blow he landed, the dead felt nothing of his attack, nor tired from their combined efforts as Kellen suffered under theirs. Kellen fought and screamed and kicked as they bore him to the ground, their frozen fingers scratching and clawing at his skin for added purchase, all whilst he continued to fight.

Wake up, Winstel! Kellen shouted at himself when the dead subdued him in full, then lifted him from the floor and moved to bear him out of the locker room.

Still, Kellen fought on, bucking and writhing like a worm upon a hook as they carried through the shower area and then onto the same door he had once dragged Garrett Weaver through. In his mind, Kellen knew the door had been painted blue in life. In his ongoing nightmare, the door now gleamed of the bone-white and blood-stained ivory he had witnessed before.

Kellen did not see which of his former companions opened the door, only that the others carried him across the threshold and spilled out onto the Tiber High School pool deck. Unlike the heat he had always felt when crossing over in life, now Kellen knew only freezing cold.

“Let me go!” Kellen shouted all the while, cursing and screaming, then begging them each by name for his release. “Let me go!”

None produced any effect, the dead carrying out their muted task and bearing him to the pool’s edge. As one, they flung Kellen toward the middle of the pool, the momentary flight turning his stomach as if he had performed a somersault off the diving board.

Spinning as he flew, Kellen glimpsed the army of Selkie dead. Reanimated seals and sea lions too had all surrounded every inch of the pool’s edge.

All watching . . . all waiting . . .

Kellen struck the icy water on his back. The last he saw of the blurry above came from looking toward the same central point in the second-storied, bleacher stands where his mother had often sat to watch him race. Though the one who sat there now bore his mother’s face and emerald eyes, Kellen understood then it had only ever been the lady of darkness herself, the pretender, Nyx, to wear his mother’s face and form in the watery Salt world beneath.

Erebus too sat alongside her, his tentacles sprawling across the bleachers in twining match of hers, concern lining both of their faces as they looked down on all that occurred below.

Kellen opened his mouth to call for Erebus and rescue, just as he had done when trapped in another of the nightmares that Moros had inflicted upon him. Before the name could leave his lips, however, what felt like a lassoed noose latched around his ankle and yanked Kellen below with insurmountable force and speed.

In an instant, Kellen was dragged beyond where the tiled floor should have been, the depth no longer the twelve feet he remembered at the Tiber High pool, but now far deeper and darker. Kellen doubted the anchor carrying him into the abyssal depths would ever stop its pull as he continued to claw for purchase among the water, failing all the while.

I’ll fight for air. His eyes stung at the continued, rapid descent. I’ll make it back.

The laughter in the surrounding darkness suggested elsewise. And when the marbled eyes of Moros opened from the abyssal deep to look on Kellen in full, he understood then that all his efforts and continued fight to combat the prophetic words of Marisa Bourgeois had all been the foolish hopes of a naïve and arrogant boy.

More of the monster’s tentacles emerged from the shadows to seek out Kellen’s wrists and bind his other ankle. We admire the fight in you, favored one, said Moros. But even one such as you are cannot resist us forever . . .

Despite his squirming, continued attempts to breakaway, Kellen saw no true escape in the surrounding darkness and deep. He cringed when the icy tentacles of Moros slithered around his legs and worked up his thigh, their touch lengthening and growing in both number and strength as still others clamped upon his wrists and then flew up his arms also, all working in tandem movement to envelope the full of his body.

Kellen screamed all the louder when the frigid feel worked up to his neck. The Salt flooded into his mouth, its force and supply unending as Kellen swallowed down each new burning, watered breath. His vision began to swim also, alternating black and red with popping white spots. And all the while, the voice of Moros called to him from all around, booming one moment from afar, then whispering to him the next.

Look unto us now, child, said Moros, even as Kellen shut his eyes to the monster before him. Look and see . . .

Still, Kellen refused the call as the icy and shadowed tentacles of Moros poked at his ears and nostrils, prodding him at first, then slithering inside. Kellen howled as the tentacled tips flattened and delved deeper still, burrowing inside his skull, then spreading across his brain. Each ran in search of the others, the feel of them like a rush of icy water dumped into a jar and quickly filling to the brim.

Kellen fought on, his struggle lessening with each passing second. His legs no longer answered his call, as if both had again been taken from him with only the phantom feel where they had once existed to haunt him. Wh-What’s happening to me? Kellen wondered.

Moros purred in answer of Kellen’s private question. Look and see . . .

Kellen’s arms numbed, the strength in his back removed from his control too. No. Kellen refused to obey, the icy touch of Moros climbing in him all the faster, racing up his neck and then into his face as well. Kellen tried to scream against the overtaking coldness within him, yet found his voice strangely stolen too, his mouth no longer working, nor even the grunted sound of one trying to give voice to his pain either.

Aye, look and see, favored one, said Moros, even as the cold consumed Kellen in full. For I am thee . . . and thou art me.

Kellen Winstel opened his eyes, then . . . but not of his own choosing.

Though the darkness and watery deep surrounded him still, Kellen saw no sign of Moros, nor felt the tentacles holding him captive either. Rather than wait for Moros to reappear, Kellen attempted to ascend.

His efforts did not serve though, and his body would no longer heed him.

Swim! Kellen thought to himself, commanding his limbs over and again to kick or claw against the surrounding water, each continued failing as woeful and worthless as the last.

When Kellen did finally begin to rise, he understood it was not through the power of his own choosing.

Test thy will against us all you like, child, said Moros, his voice as loud and clear in Kellen’s mind as the primal seal voice he remembered hearing and lording over in his Selkie life before. For we be now not one part of thee alone . . .

No . . . it’s not possible! Kellen told himself, cursing for his continued failings and fight when his ascent turned faster still with him to control nothing of the swim and his limbs, not even the tilt of his head. His gaze turned toward the hints of light and the surface beyond as the ascent came faster still, leaving the Abyss behind in favor of the clearer, chlorine-laced pool water he recalled from Tiber High.

Nearing the mirrored surface separating the above from the below, Kellen glimpsed the blurred visions of all those still awaiting them upon the pool deck and in the bleacher stands.

Aye, we be not one part of thee alone now, favored one, Moros continued, his voice louder even than Kellen’s screams. WE . . . ARE . . . THEE!

As the crown of Kellen’s head broke through the watery surface and into the above, he understood that the nightmares he had endured thus far beneath the Salt had only been the beginnings of a worser torment to come.

36

MOROS

The lids of his newfound eyes fluttered open, awakening from the nightmarish dream of bondage and darkened captivity that his brother, Hypnos, had held him trapped inside for over an age. Hovering high in the underwater cavern ceiling above, Moros glimpsed the pair of doors that were both his brother’s portals and windows into the world of dreams.

Buried in the recess of his mind, Moros could hear the voice of his newest prize still screaming at the realization of that which had occurred; the powerless position and prison the one naming himself as Kellen Winstel now lay trapped within. The former owner of his new body watched through eyes that had once belonged to him, now opening and closing at the choice of another.

In time, he will come to be as still and quiet as my Selkies learned, Moros comforted himself with the thought, just as he had done with the first of his creation when giving them a second life.

Drawing on his memories of the life before and inhabiting his creations, Moros swept the boy’s continued threats and curses aside with his power, silencing the nagging voice, if only for a moment. Aye, Kellen Winstel, Moros told the favored one whose body he now shared and held sway over. Soon, you will see. Soon, you will understand our new life together.

Moros winced at the minor itch that teased the corners of his mouth, he scarcely recalling the muscled movements it took to smile. The feel of it broadened when he cast his gaze to the mated pair descending from their lofty perch upon the ledge, near his brother’s twin set of portal doors. There was the sight of questioned wonder in his mother’s eyes, the hope she had long nursed too.

Moros understood the look in his mother’s gaze for the same questions and hopes of rebirth he had long held when trapped and locked away inside his brother’s mind in order to survive. I am returned to you, Mother, Moros thought to himself. Aye, finally returned to you and this world still ripe for the taking.

His gaze shifted from her then, preferring to look upon the one beside the lady of dark and deep. And when he saw the concernment and question that blossomed upon the face of his father, Erebus, then Moros’s glee transformed further still, his smile turning to a chuckle, and it to a far reaching, cackled laughter the likes of which made the other awaiting Sancul draw back in fear.

Only one dared to swim closer to him.

His former lover, Black Keerie, was at his side before he even arose upon the bed of ebony make. Moros . . . she cried, the corners of her eyes twinging in hopeful want. Is it you, lover? Truly?

Moros ignored her for the moment, casting his gaze on all those surrounding him instead. His brother’s wife, Pasithee, the masked mother who kept her face shielded still. There was Kanaloa too. The twins, Phobetor and Phantasos, also.

All waiting.

All watching to learn what further plans he had long held in store for them and all other deep dwellers too.

Of all the familiar faces he had longed to look upon of his own choosing again, however, Moros delighted in none of them moreso than the doomed realization he witnessed in his father’s eyes.

Aye, Moros said in answer to Black Keerie’s question, though his hateful gaze never abandoned his stare of Erebus. I am reborn, lover. Moros chuckled. The old Salt finally returned to lay claim over the new.

* * *

Thank you for reading this episode of The Salted Series.

The adventure will continue in Season 8: THE OLD SALT.

A Note From The Author

Did you like these episodes?

I’d love it if you took the time to leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Reader feedback is very important to me — I read every review, so now is your chance to let me know what you thought.

Reviews are the best way you can help authors (and especially indies like me) to reach other readers searching for their next favorite book or series. A review does not have to be detailed or long — seriously, even one line is greatly appreciated.

Either way, thank you again for reading this story. I appreciate you choosing my book when you have so many options. I hope you enjoyed this one and that you are looking forward to more adventures beneath the Salt!

Cheers,

Aaron

Appendix

- Humans -

ALLAMBEE OMONDI, a Kenyan teenager with mysterious ties to Marisa Bourgeois

TARDIFF, deceased, former student at Tiber High School, friend of Kellen Winstel, drowned when being taken down the Gasping Hole in Crayfish Cavern

- Merrows -

AMELIA, a gifted, aerialist performer in the Indianapolis Zoo’s dolphin show, Wilda’s granddaughter, friend of Sydney Gao and Ross Owens, Common Dolphin

BARB, an employee at the Indianapolis Zoo and friend of the Gao family, Bottlenose Dolphin

DARIUS LONGBEAK, king of New Pearlaya, father of Jun Gao, husband of Nattie Gao, Long-Beaked Dolphin

JACK MAYFIELD, a seal and sea lion trainer at the Indianapolis Zoo, friend of the Gao family, and father of Amelia, Common Dolphin

JUN GAO, prince of New Pearlaya, a high school freshman, friends with Kellen Winstel, brother of Sydney Gao, last seen at the Indianapolis Zoo, Long-Beaked Dolphin

MS. MORGAN, the haggard, crotchety vice principal of Tiber High School, friendly ties to the Gao family and Merrows at the Indianapolis Zoo

NATSUKI ‘NATTIE’ GAO, queen of New Pearlaya, mother of Sydney Gao and Jun Gao, Striped Dolphin

RUPERT BOWRIDER, firstborn son of the Duke of the Garland Isles and Keeper of the Indian Ocean, seahorse riding trainer, and betrothed to Sydney Gao

SYDNEY GAO, princess of New Pearlaya, friends with Garrett Weaver, Striped Dolphin

WILDA, a kind and elderly Merrow who lives in the Indianapolis Zoo dolphinarium, Common Dolphin

- Nomads -

ATSIDI DARKSNOUT, also known as ‘SILENT HAMMER’, chieftain of the Hammer tribes, former prisoner of the Indianapolis Zoo, Great Hammerhead Shark

CURSION, also known as ‘WHITE SHADOW’, Nomad high chieftain, blood father of Garrett Weaver, estranged former lover of Makeda, Great White Shark

GARRETT WEAVER, a student from Tiber High School, former Selkie captive and Painted Guard recruit, recently discovered he is a Nomad-Orc hybrid, and the son of Cursion White Shadow, Great White Shark

ISHMAEL, also known as ‘RED WATER’, a pit fighter champion, Bull Shark

QUILL, also known as NO BOUNDARIES, leader of the Unwanted tribe, brother of Watawa, Shortfin Mako Shark

ROLAND, deceased, a former pit fight organizer in Orphan Knoll, brothel owner, and friend of Ishmael, slain by Kellen Winstel, Bull Shark

SHORT-SHORE, the Night-Stalker tribe leader, Oceanic Whitetip Shark

WATAWA, also called ‘THE OPEN SHELL’ by Nomads, a mystical, one-eyed shaman and emissary of the Unwanted tribe, brother of Quill, Shortfin Mako Shark

YVLA, deceased, a gifted actress, loyalist of Nattie Gao, godmother of Sydney Gao, murdered by Malik Blackfin, Shortfin Mako Shark

- Orcinians -

ARSEN, a former pod-mate of Garrett Weavers, a Violovar loyalist of Malik Blackfin, and traitor of the Painted Guard

COMMANDER POHL, a Violovar loyalist of Malik Blackfin’s, and appointed leader of the Orcinians in Bouvetøya

MAKEDA, former pod mother of the Painted Guard, birth mother of Garrett Weaver, sister of Malik Blackfin

MALIK BLACKFIN, also known as ‘THE BLACKFIN’, leader of the Violovar, a rogue band of Orcinian outlaws, brother of Makeda, uncle of Garrett Weaver

MR. (REGINALD) OWENS, custodian at Tiber High School, father of Ross Owens, former general of the Painted Guard, and guardian of Queen Nattie Gao

ORCIN BLACKTIDE, deceased, father of Makeda and Malik Blackfin, grandfather of Garrett Weaver, slain by Cursion White Shadow

OWENS, a student from Tiber High School, former recruit of the Painted Guard, and a friend of Garrett Weaver, Sydney Gao, and Kellen Winstel

PIETER, deceased, a cowardly former recruit in the Painted Guard and pod-mate of Garrett Weaver’s, killed by his fellow Orcinian recruit, Arsen

SERGEANT LUTHER, deceased, a former traitorous soldier in the Painted Guard and Violovar loyalist, slain by Garrett Weaver

SOLOMON, a Violovar loyalist and Malik Blackfin’s second-in-command

VANYA, a sharp-minded former Painted Guard recruit and friend of Garrett Weaver, last seen outside of New Pearlaya

WARDEN ZANE, deceased, a Violovar loyalist and former warden of Røyrkval, slain during the Selkie uprising of Røyrkval

XANDER, deceased, a former Painted Guard traitor and Violovar loyalist, killed by Garrett Weaver

YUSUF, a cowardly Violovar soldier forced into service in Bouvetøya

- Sancul -

BLACK KEERIE, a sea-witch and former lover of Moros

EREBUS, the largest and strongest of the Sancul, husband of Nyx, father of Hypnos and Moros

HYPNOS, a seemingly simple-minded mute with sleep manipulation powers, son of Erebus and Nyx, brother of Moros, father of the Oneiroi Three

KANALOA, Sancul leader and high priest, father of Nyx

KELLEN WINSTEL, a wounded former convict, Selkie slave and pit fighter, and the presumed resurrected Sancul leader, Moros

MOROS, a presumed defeated and deceased former Sancul leader with dark powers, son of Nyx and Erebus, brother of Hypnos, lover of Black Keerie

MORPHEUS, one of the Oneiroi Three, son of Hypnos and Pasithee

NYX, a high priestess with the power of darkness, daughter of Kanaloa, mother of Hypnos and Moros, wife of Erebus, and claimed mother of Kellen Winstel

PHANTASOS, a sorceress with environmental manipulation powers, one of the Oneiroi Three, son of Hypnos and Pasithee, sister of Phobetor and Morpheus

PHOBETOR, a shapeshifter also known as ‘The Salt Dragon’, one of the Oneiroi Three, son of Hypnos and Pasithee

THE MOTHER OF MASKS, estranged wife of Hypnos, mother of the Oneiroi Three

- Selkies -

ANSEL, deceased, a former field slave belonging to August ‘Crayfish’ Collins, father of Racer

AUGUST ‘CRAYFISH’ COLLINS, deceased, a former slave trader and owner of Crayfish Cavern, Harp Seal

BROTHER ZURIEL, a servant of Senchis and the Ancients in New Pearlaya who has friendly ties with Lenny Dolan, Leopard Seal

BRUTUS, a former prisoner of the Indianapolis Zoo with a shadowy past linked to Declan Dolan and The Selkie Strife, Walrus

BRYANT, a U.S. marshal and rumored Silkstealer, former captive of Lenny Dolan’s crew, California Sea Lion

CHIDI ETIENNE, a linguist, former property of Henry Boucher and member of Lenny Dolan’s crew, Ribbon Seal

CRISTINA WEAVER, deceased, mother of Garrett Weaver, wife of Tom Weaver, friendly ties with the Gao family and Pod Mother Makeda, Gray Seal

DECLAN DOLAN, deceased, a renowned former slave catcher captain, father of Lenny Dolan, Ringed Seal

EDMUND CASPAR, a U.S. Marshal and former slave with friendly ties to David Bryant, Declan Dolan, and Jemmy T, California Sea Lion

ELLIE BRICEÑO, a former guardian of Sydney Gao, and slave catcher brute for Lenny Dolan’s crew, last seen in New Pearlaya, Southern Elephant Seal

GIRARD, a boat captain and smuggler employed by Zymon Gorksi, Common Seal

HENRY BOUCHER, a murderous slave owner and freelance slave catcher, Leopard Seal

JEMMY T, a former slave and current owner of the Spotted Drum tavern in New Pearlaya, friendly ties with Edmund Caspar and Declan Dolan, Hooded Seal

LENNY DOLAN, a slave catcher captain and son of Declan Dolan, Ringed Seal

MARISA BOURGEOIS, a mysterious, wanted runaway slave with prophetic visions, Cape Fur Seal

PAULO VARELA, deceased, a former slave catcher brute in Lenny Dolan’s crew, killed by Malik Blackfin, Southern Elephant Seal

RACER, deceased, a former slave catcher speedster in Lenny Dolan’s crew, murdered by Henry Boucher, California Sea Lion

SASHA, deceased, a former runaway slave who attempted escape with Chidi Etienne, killed by Henry Boucher, Seal type unknown

SUSIE, deceased, former wife of David Bryant, killed by Henry Boucher, Seal type unknown

TOM WEAVER, also known as ‘RED TOM’, father of Garrett Weaver and husband of Cristina Weaver, Southern Elephant Seal

VASILI, a Russian former prisoner in Røyrkval, friendly with Tom Weaver, Baikal Seal

ZYMON GORSKI, a safe haven organizer for runaway Selkies who has mysterious ties to Marisa Bourgeois, Common Seal

About the Author

Author. Actor. Rascal.

Aaron Galvin is an indie publisher and creator releasing his books into the Amazonian wild, as well as pursuing his dream to see his stories on the silver screen.

The author of two YA series, (The Vengeance Trilogy and the ongoing Salted Series), Aaron is also an accomplished screenwriter: he has twice been named a Top 50 semi-finalist in the Academy of Motion Pictures Nicholl Fellowship competition with the screenplay adaptation of his middle grade novel, The Grave of Lainey Grace. As an actor, Aaron has worked in everything from Hollywood blockbusters to starring in dozens of indie films and commercials.

A native Hoosier and a graduate of Ball State University, he currently lives in Southern California with his family.

For more information
aarongalvin.com
aaron@aarongalvin.com

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Book Discounts & Savings

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Like what you read?

Don’t miss out on new content from Aaron Galvin. Whether it’s new releases, discounts, or exclusive content, there’s always something to be found in Aaron’s Reader Group.

For more information (and to find the latest offerings), visit his website to sign up today.

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In addition, you can also save money by purchasing Aaron’s books in extra-value box sets. Grab your discounted box sets on Amazon today and save!

Vengeance Trilogy Box Set

Book 1: Salem’s Vengeance

Book 2: Salem’s Fury

Book 3: Salem’s Legacy

Salted Series Box Sets

Season 1: Salted (Episodes #1-5)

Season 2: Taken With A Grain of Salt

(Episodes #6-10)

Season 3: Above The Salt (Episodes #11-15)

Season 4: Salt Away (Episodes #16-20)

Season 5: Salt In An Open Wound (Episodes #21-25)

Season 6: Beneath The Salt (Episodes #26-30)

Season 7: Salt Storm (Episodes #31-35)

Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold” or destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

The Salted Series is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2021 by Aaron Galvin.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover Artist: Dmitry Yakhovsky
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