My heart wants to jump and run and explode, and yet none of that will get us out of this cell.
17
AZUR
Soon I’ll have to find air in the water. The surface is full of it, minuscule bubbles carrying our precious fuel, but this deep down, they’re so rare. Finding them will take a lot of magic.
Still no sign of the Sea Court.
I was counting on their prince’s hurt pride, hoping he’d try to have his revenge, but perhaps he can’t sense me. While they always know when there’s a foreign fae in the sea, they might think I’m someone inconsequential, a ship passenger fallen overboard whose life matters too little for them.
Cruel and unpredictable, the Sea Court is a dangerous place for a land fae, but I need to find them.
Finally, I decide to yell into my air bubble.
“Royalty of the Sea! I request an audience with your king.”
I’m not sure if the sound is going to carry and if this is going to make any difference. I’m not sure of anything, in fact, only that I have to save Lidiane.
There’s still breathable air in the bubble I’m holding, but it’s not what it feels like, when my chest is squeezed so tight. Thecool water chills my skin, and I tremble as I look at the infinity of water above, below, and around me, the ocean dark like dusk even though the sun is still shining in the sky.
I yell again, but this time I try something different. “Prince Machiel! Come and find me! Didn’t you want to duel? I’m here.”
Silence is the only reply I get. So much silence down here, far from the sounds of birds and the wind.
A school of fish passes by, then a bigger fish—an enormous gray shark, gliding near enough that it makes my body go rigid. I’m hoping it’s one of the messengers of the Sea Court, and not a hungry shark who decided to taste fae meat.
When it leaves, my body finally uncoils, but then I feel something behind me. A trident poking me, and four guards with fish tails and unfriendly faces.
“Come with us,” one of them says.
Two guards swim in front of me, with the other two pushing me. I’m not a great swimmer and don’t have fins, so it’s quite hard to follow them. Eventually, the two guards in the front grab my arms and pull me. We advance fast in the water, and I focus my magic to keep the air around me, even if very little of it is breathable.
We come to an underwater rocky hill with several caves, and they push me into one of them while a guard takes a dagger and pulls part of my hair.
For a second, I’m again by the Crystal Castle, my hands pulled, a knife carving my head. Cold rushes through my body, and it has nothing to do with the cool water around me. I look again, and see that all that the guard took was a small piece of an already small hair strand. He can’t take my horns. Nobody can take them, when they’re long gone, and I focus on the here and now, focus on my need to save Lidiane.
The guards’ tails turn into legs, and they point to a cage made of huge fish bones. I could try to fight the guards, perhaps causea scene. That could work. Still, for now, all I need is for the Royalty of the Sea Court to know I’m here, and I don’t want to overuse my magic yet.
I step into the cage and let them lock it, then say, “I request an audience with His Majesty.”
The guards laugh, and two of them swim away.
I was expecting something like this, other than the odd hair cutting.
My only question now is how long it’s going to take until the king or his son finds me. Hopefully, the king will come first.
TARLIA
The queen’s guards have pushed us in a strange stall after tying our feet.
Ziven looks attentively around him, Mirella glares at Renel, and Renel is pale, livid.
My heart beats faster and faster, like some kind of alarm bell, warning me I’m in danger—as if I hadn’t noticed.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Before Renel answers, the wooden floor gives way, and even though I reach desperately for a place to hold, for the wall, my body falls through the opening, down a huge chasm.
