Page 6

The colors Autumn had previously admired flew past. They blurred together, tails of light trailing them as though the colors themselves were trying to keep up with the water collector.

Fish.

Autumn played with the word, tasting it on her tongue. It didn’t sit right, bitter and filled with an untruth she had no reason to believe.

“Go ahead and start scooping while we dive so we can meet our quota.” Marshall pointed at the second screen that Autumn had ignored since they’d started their dive.

“Is that safe?” She furrowed her brow and stared at it.

“Safer than sitting still and being attacked by fish.” Marshall let out a low chuckle, loud and full of amusement.

For a flicker, a blink of Autumn’s eyes, a face appeared and disappeared as Marshall kept their speed. Autumn hadn’t even had time to gasp or curse.

Another hallucination?

What the hell was happening on this planet?

Her fingers shook as she grabbed hold of the controls to collect the water. This was her job, from beginning to end. Get the water, bring it back to Earth, save the planet. Her own sanity didn’t matter. She was there to keep her people alive.

But what if the scans were wrong? What if there was life here? What if they had still been sent to drain this planet in the hopes of saving a people she doubted would ever learn to respect nature more than their own greed and selfishness?

What if everything was a lie?

3

Soulara sucked in a sharp breath of cold air as she breeched the surface of the water. She shuddered with pleasure as the sun touched her bare shoulders. Focusing on the irregular line of the trees, two hundred flukes from the edge of the water, she dug her hands into the sand. The pull of the muscles in her arms burned with a pleasant feeling she had come to enjoy as her fluke splashed unhelpfully.

Her smile widened as magic trickled down her navy blue tail, which tingled and split into two. Scales, dark and shining with lingering water, dropped into the sea-foam while her hair, silver and reflecting in the sun the way it never did in the kingdom beneath the sea, clung wet and heavy over her shoulders. Drips of water from the tips of the hair shocked sparks of electricity through her body as they landed on her peaked nipples. Such a strange sensation.

Flexing her newly formed toes and ankles, Soulara pulled herself upward to stand on her feet. She was so much better at this now than she used to be. Standing in the sand, Soulara closed her eyes and took several deep breaths through her mouth to acclimate to the world that surrounded her. Air slid down into her lungs instead of water, and it was cold, shockingly so. The first time she had breathed this way had been filled with screams and the fear of death. Now the sensation balanced on that line between pleasure and pain.

She opened her eyes and took her first step. It moved her entirely out of the water.

She looked down, confusion pulling together her eyebrows.

“This isn’t right,” she muttered to herself as she looked left and right and then scanned the scene in front of her.

The line of trees was too far away for her to be out of the water already. For a moment her head whirled around—right, left, straight ahead. None of this made sense.

Her shoulders tensed, taking away whatever calm coming here might have brought.

It didn’t make sense, unless…

Turning back into the water, Soulara couldn’t get submerged fast enough. The magic danced and trickled over her legs, stitching them back together. She didn’t wait for her fluke to return to its former glory. She thrashed around, legs proving ineffective in torpedoing her through the foam and into the open water. She had to get home.

They had to know.

They had to do something.

She’d never swum faster in between the land and Reine. And when she arrived, she didn’t stop until she reached the King.

“Father,” Soulara said as she pushed her way into his chambers. She swam directly to him, tail perfectly re-formed with no hint of the legs it had been earlier.

“Soulara!” Pregtox’s eyes snapped to her, his face hard and jaw pulsing from clenching and releasing his teeth over again. She knew the look well. Every time she had done something he didn’t approve of but couldn’t yell because others were near.

She flicked her head around to see Miarchi, one of her father’s advisors. He was in charge of keeping the King apprised about their defense forces. Now the words that were being spoken when she entered rocked through her brain, and it clicked.

Attack? When had there been another attack? Why hadn’t she been told? Had Zendalia been involved with this one? She shook her head and focused on why she had barged into her father’s space.