“The Sylphaen. I–”
“Your brother is sending people out within the hour, Zeke. We’ve already settled this.”
“I know, but I’d like to request additional guards around the palace.”
He glanced up at me. “Why?”
I hesitated. I couldn’t bring up Jirral. Dad would dismiss any idea that came from him out of hand.
Not that I’d blame him. Ordinarily, anyway.
“As a precaution,” I said. “If the Sylphaen are back, there’s no guarantee they haven’t gotten inside the borders already. I want to make certain the capital is protected.”
Dad paused. “We will be safe here, Zeke. I know you and he have difficulties, but Ren is more attentive to our intelligence network than you give him credit for. Before you came home, he’d already put the palace guard on alert about potential Vetorian spies and taken measures to secure any leaks in the border. Those measures will serve against anyone, Sylphaen or not.”
“Father, I–”
“Zeke, it will be sufficient.” He sighed. “You should have listened to your brother and come home, especially in light of how you were attacked. I appreciate that you wish to help this girl, but no one is worth the safety of a member of the royal family. You and Niall both, I would have expected you to understand that.”
I worked hard to keep from scowling, and not just because of the way the words stung. What should I have done? I’d been the only one who knew what Chloe looked like, who’d recognize her friends, or who’d seen the bastards after her. The guards could have hunted forever to find her, only to have the Sylphaen get away with Chloe ¬in the meantime.
Dad set the reports aside. “Son, we will find the ones responsible, and regardless, they will not endanger us here. And whether they are trying to resurrect that dead cult or not, rest assured I will see them punished for what they did to you.”
I couldn’t stop the grimace this time. I knew what Dad’s version of ‘punished’ looked like. I’d rather it never happened again. And in the meantime, I didn’t want my request being dismissed as some trauma over being grabbed by the Sylphaen.
“It’s not about that. I’m fine. But these guys are–”
“Enough.” He shook his head, his brow furrowing as though something bothered him. “Increasing the guard further will only serve to frighten the populace and create an impression that we doubt Yvaria’s strength. I will not–”
His brow furrowed again. A cough escaped him and he tapped a fist to his chest, as though trying to dislodge something in his throat.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
Grimacing, he nodded. “Fine, I just–”
The cough came again, harder. His hand grasped the edge of the table as he doubled over.
I hesitated, nearly two decades worth of training that forbid me from touching the king holding me paralyzed. “Hey,” I called to the guards outside, not taking my eyes from him. I made myself swim closer. “Are you sure you–”
He choked, tumbling from the seat.
I rushed to him, weaving around the table fast. Grabbing his arms, I tried to help him up from the floor. His hands clamped down, digging hard into my forearms as he looked up at me.
His skin was splotchy. Blue and purple in turns from veins breaking inside. Blood vessels had burst in his eyes, staining them red, and his chest spasmed as he fought to breathe. His mouth was moving, forming words I couldn’t hear, and fear subsumed every other expression on his face.
“Help!” I yelled.
I looked to the door as the guards rushed in.
“Get a physician!”
Their eyes went wide and one of them spun fast, racing from the room.
Dad convulsed, his hands clenching on my arms, and I turned back to see his bloodied eyes go wide. He gasped, pain tightening his face as his gaze went past me to the ceiling with a look of terror.
Which faded. Melted away, becoming a sort of hideous confusion. He trembled, his brow drawing down, while something almost like sorrow drifted through his eyes.
And then it evaporated like smoke, leaving nothing.
“Dad?” I tried.
My fingers fumbled for his pulse. I couldn’t find it. Hurriedly, I lowered him to the floor and then braced my hands on his chest. My palms shoved down hard, over and over. I watched his face, hoping for any reaction.
None came.
Physicians appeared beside me. Guards pulled me away. Kyne and his assistants surrounded Dad till I couldn’t see anything but his tail anymore.
It didn’t move. Nothing changed. Kyne shouted orders, and I couldn’t hear the words over the rushing in my ears.
I stared, trembling. I couldn’t believe this. I just… It didn’t make sense.
Dad was gone.
Chapter Eight
Chloe
“So what’s Kansas like?” Ina asked, hovering by a shelf near the ceiling of her spacious bedroom. She flipped open the lid to a stone box and glanced down to me curiously.
Sitting on the broad windowsill with plant leaves swaying behind me, I shrugged. “Flat, dry, though the western part is more like that than the eastern. My town is pretty small, so it’s mostly just farmers who live there.”
She returned her gaze to the box, and took out a pair of earrings. For a moment, she scrutinized them before finally raising them to her ear and studying her reflection in the mirror attached to the wall nearby. “What do you do for fun?”
I shrugged again. “Watch movies. Play video games. Hang out with friends.”
“Huh. That ever get boring?”
“Sometimes, I guess.”
She nodded thoughtfully and returned the earrings to the box.
My brow furrowed. It’d been a few minutes since we arrived at her enormous apartment, but Ina showed no sign of having further plans. Idly drifting near the ceiling, she seemed more interested in investigating her jewelry.
And asking me random questions about where I’d come from.
“Anything else you want to know?” I hazarded.
She glanced to me again. Her face twisted with consternation, and then she folded the latest earrings in her hand and sank through the water to take a seat at my side.
“I just… we don’t spend much time with them, you know? Humans. Oh, we hang out and have fun. But we don’t
live
like them. It’s just so odd to think about.”
She shook her head like she was trying to wrap her mind around it, and then she exhaled, refocusing. “So tell me this. You said you never knew about the dehaian stuff till recently, right? So what’s
that
like? Never changing like us? Always being in one form? How does that feel?”
I hesitated. “Normal.”
She waited.
I wasn’t sure how else to respond. “I mean, this isn’t really an option, so…”
“It just seems like it’d be so
strange
. Like, sometimes I wonder how humans stand it, not being able to move around the ocean. Being stuck on land like that.”
I shrugged.
She sighed. “Yeah. Normal.” She shook her head again. “And
so
weird.”
Drawing a breath, she turned her attention to the jewelry in her palm. Large emerald studs lay beside long ear cuffs of pale gold. Delicate chains looped down the length of the metal, with more emeralds in glistening settings running freely along them. Lifting one of the cuffs, she held it to my ear.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “You should definitely keep these. They’ll look incredible on you.”
I blinked. A smile twitched her lip as she put them in my hand.
“Up here, come on,” she said, swimming toward the mirror above us.
Still feeling shocked, I followed.
“So, these are totally protected from water pressure here in Nyciena,” Ina continued as I stopped in front of the mirror. “Just be careful not to take them outside the veil. They don’t have any treatments on them like our supplies do, and they’re too delicate for our natural magic to work on them either, so they–”
Her brow furrowed.
“What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, looking uncertain. Turning, she swam out of the room.
I hesitated, and then set the earrings on the shelf. I followed her through the apartment and out through the leaves of the front door.
“Hey guys?” she called to the guards. “Is everything alright?”
The soldiers glanced at each other. “I believe so, your highness,” one told her.
“Could you go make sure? I just–”
“Help!”
We froze, Zeke’s cry echoing from a level above us. Shouting followed, and immediately two of the guards by Ina’s apartment took off, racing for the upper floor.
I started after them, only to realize Ina wasn’t with me. Looking back, I spotted her by the doorway, her face immobile with shock. The other guards hovered beside her, clearly torn between watching me and protecting their princess. For a heartbeat, Ina didn’t move, and then suddenly she kicked hard in the water, shooting past me and up through the main corridor like a rocket.
Gasping, I chased her, the guards coming right behind.
The upper level of the palace was a zoo. Dehaians filled the hallway, and I could hear Zeke yelling at the end of it, his words lost in the din around me. At the archway, guards shouted orders to lock down the city, while servants cried out questions of what was going on.
I swam after the sound of Zeke’s voice. People buffeted me, pushing by me in both directions, while others raced past overhead, following instructions all their own.
From a room at my side, Ren emerged into the chaos, and immediately I could tell something was wrong. His face was ashen, his eyes vacant, and he clutched his stomach like it pained him.
“Hey!” I yelled to the dehaians around me. “Hey, he needs help!”
I grabbed Ren’s arms. His face tight, he looked at me, his hands still pressed to his middle.
“You…” he wheezed. “You did this…”
I stared as he doubled over and collapsed against the doorframe.
Guards appeared, shoving me aside as they tried to help him.
Ina screamed at the end of the hall.
I took off, pushing past people and trying to follow the sound. I could hear Physician Kyne ordering people back, and as I came closer, I saw Zeke, his arms wrapped around Ina as they both looked through a large doorway on the other side of the hall.
A guard blocked my path. “Stay back,” he ordered.
“What happened?”
The man ignored me, his attention taken by others trying to get past. I turned back to Zeke.
He looked like he’d been hit with a two-by-four. One hand rubbing Ina’s shoulder, he stared into the other room, his brow twitching down as though he was trying to make sense of what he saw.
Physician Kyne came through the door.
Silence fell and even the guards turned. I could feel the tension rise in the hall, like a collective breath suddenly being held.
“Is Prince Renekialen here?” he asked, his voice tightly controlled.
“H-he is ill too, sir,” one of the guards answered. “Physicians are with him.”
Kyne paused. He motioned the guard closer, and then whispered something to the man.
The guard’s head shook in a jerky motion, and Kyne blinked. His gaze went to Zeke and Ina.
“I would speak with you both,” he said.
A murmur ran through the hall as the two of them hesitated and then followed him into the room. The leaves of the door became like wood.
The murmuring grew louder. I heard Niall’s name carried on the sound.
I looked around, realizing I hadn’t seen him since the doctor had taken my blood a while ago. And he really should have been here.
Unless…
Heart pounding, I slipped past a group of servants whispering intently together and swam closer to the room, coming to a stop at the line of guards blocking the corridor.
Moments passed.
The leaves swayed as Kyne pushed by them and returned to the hallway.
“Their royal highnesses have retired to their chambers, pending further evaluation of the events today,” he announced. “Please return to your duties. We will provide additional information as it becomes available.”
“What happened?” someone at the back of the crowd called. Shushing noises followed the sound.
Kyne’s face tightened. “You have your orders.”
He disappeared back through the leaves, which solidified like wood again the moment after he passed them.
The crowd began moving, meandering toward the arched exit at the end of the hallway and talking as they went. I hovered by the wall, forgotten for the moment.
I didn’t know Zeke or Ina well, but it didn’t take that to read their faces. Something horrible had happened. Truly, truly horrible.
And given where we were and how everyone was acting, I couldn’t think of many scenarios beyond the most obvious.
Their father had been hurt.
Or worse.
I trailed the crowd back to the archway, and then swam downward, heading for my room. I wanted to find Zeke. To learn for certain what had occurred. But I didn’t know where he stayed and I could guess at the odds of the guards letting me through to see him anyway.
Pushing past the leaves, I returned to my room. It couldn’t be the Sylphaen. Regardless of what had happened, they couldn’t have gotten past the guards to hurt the king this easily.
I hoped.
Instinctively, my hand went to the lighter patch on the stone doorframe, sealing up the leaves behind me. Swimming for the windows, I did the same to the plants there, turning to face the empty stillness of the room once I was done.
The Sylphaen couldn’t be here. They just couldn’t.
Unless there really
were
spies.
I shivered, eyeing the door and windows again. I hoped Zeke’s dad was okay. That this was just some kind of mistake.
Though it’d have to be a mistake that had made Ren sick too. And that had kept Niall from coming when everyone else had.
I hovered in the middle of the room, uncertain what to do.
A knock at the door sent me jumping in the water. Heart pounding, I sank back down and then swam cautiously toward the noise. “Yes?”
“His highness wishes to speak with you,” came a gruff voice.
I hesitated. “Which one?”
“Prince Zekerian.”
My hand hit the patch on the doorframe. I pushed past the leaves. “What does he–”