Page 23

F eathers. Feathers where water should be. A golden head. A rapacious beak. Wings spread impossibly wide.

Arden yelled without knowing what words she used, hoping to scare the hawk out of her way. It had mirrored her dive but was edging up, and if it didn’t move—

The collision was less of an impact than interception, given that it had matched her speed and vector. It simply shifted, in effect scooping her up onto its back.

“No!” She buried her hands in the feathers, not sure if she meant to tug or get purchase enough to leap from its back. Before she could decide, it changed its trajectory, mighty wings beating against the air.

Up and up and up, instead of down and down and down. Even with the clifftop, then beyond it. She saw the king standing beside the Master of his Guardians, staring at her and looking ready to leap after her, but then they were too far gone. And what could he do anyway?

“Go!” she yelled at the top of her voice, having no idea if he’d hear her or not over the cries of the other hawks, the whip of the wind, and the increasing distance. He had far more to worry about right now than her.

Tailfeathers shifted behind her. Muscle contracted and released.

That was when it really hit her—she was riding this hawk. Jade’s hawk. As she’d once dreamed—fantastically, she’d thought—that she’d like to do. Fear should have filled her, fear that it meant to take her to its nest and make a supper of her.

But the only anxiety came from knowing the king was worrying about her, and of how Storm would also when she didn’t surface in whatever lagoon they’d been heading toward.

Maybe the bird would drop her somewhere out at sea.

Maybe it would eat her. Maybe it would let her fall to the rocks along another cliff.

But she didn’t think so, somehow. It flew smoothly, not at all concerned at having her on its back. It cut down the channel faster than even a mer could swim within it, a cry from its mouth piercing the air.

Her heartbeat doubled. Look , it seemed to be saying. Pay attention.

Her imagination, perhaps, but she would obey anyway. Because the closer they flew to Crystal Point, the more she could see through the distortion of the waters to the mer within them.

The mer with black tails on their legs. With tridents in their hands that sparked whenever they pointed them toward her father’s men.

And what was that? More movement, not disguised. But they flew over it too quickly. “Circle back.” She tugged on the feathers as she would on the mane of one of the wild horses that roamed the Banks.

Shockingly, the bird responded as she’d hoped.

Wind stirred around her, tugging at the intricate braid in her hair, grabbing her ridiculous skirt and sending it flying out behind her like a cape.

For a moment, just one, she let herself revel in this.

In being so much higher than she’d ever been before.

In the freedom that coursed through her.

The joy of feeling nothing but sky and air around her, the water beneath her.

Then they passed over the oddity again, and she focused.

Mer—but not the ones in black tails, and going the opposite direction.

The royals, she realized a second later, and their considerable guard.

They hugged the mainland’s coast, the scales of their green and blue tails shimmering in the setting sun.

Gone were the gowns and formal tunics. She rather envied them the opportunity to change.

They needed the tails to swim, though. Changing hadn’t been luxury, it had been necessity.

The hawk kept circling over them, giving her opportunity to view the scene from all angles.

And what she saw made her frown. She’d expected some sort of visible interaction between the two groups, some acknowledgment of each other.

There was none, though. Not for several long minutes.

The teal tails moved quickly toward open waters in the shore-side of the wide channel.

The black tails pushed northward, none of them so much as glancing toward the royals.

In fact, as the channel narrowed at the southern tip of the Banks, the black tails recoiled from the green, pressing tightly against the Banks side of the channel.

The royals halted, the queen and Crown Princess turning toward the Banks. She saw the ripples and surges in the water—not like the ones Seidon made, holding back the advancing forces, but something less certain. Exploratory.

In the next moment, a flurry of hand motions occurred between the royals, and then they fled toward open waters faster than Arden had ever seen anyone swim.

Something happened then in the water. A tidal push, a surge, something that reminded Arden of the accounts she’d read of hurricanes and tsunamis, though none had ever made it fully through the king’s defenses in her lifetime.

The king’s defenses . That was what she was seeing, it had to be. He must have reached his headquarters. Good.

The hawk flapped its wings, changing direction again. They soared over the barrier islands and out over the sea.

There, the place where Jade had been taken. There, where they’d rendezvoused with Kav and Pash to avoid the sharks. There, more mer swarming.

Black. Green. But not together, not as one would expect. They were…fighting.

Hands gripping the golden feathers, Arden sucked in a breath. “Revolution? Civil war? But they’re attacking us too. And what does any of it have to do with Jade?”

The hawk cried at the mention of Jade, the baleful sound bringing tears to Arden’s eyes. She loosened her grip enough to stroke a hand over the giant bird’s head and neck. “I know. You miss her too. You tried to save her, but they went too deep too quickly.”

Another piercing cry. She swore she heard avian heartbreak in it. Her sister’s guardian wanted her back on land where she belonged as surely as Arden did.

Her pulse kicked up again. “Do you know where she is? Could you track where they took her?”

She half expected the bird to shoot toward open waters or let out another call. It didn’t. It kept soaring, circling the skirmishing armies beneath the waves until the gathering darkness plunged the world into shadows.

Only then did anxiety dig its talons in Arden’s shoulders. Now what? Could she somehow get the bird to deliver her home? Or to Storm and the king?

Them. She needed to get to them, to report what she’d seen. Papa might worry in general, given the alarm, but he wouldn’t be worrying specifically. He thought she was at the well-fortified palace. He didn’t know she’d jumped off a cliff and been caught by Jade’s hawk.

She stroked its feathers. “I need…” How idiotic was it to be talking to a bird and expecting it to understand her? But then, it had before, when she’d asked it to circle back. Had that been coincidence?

She was out nothing for trying. “I need to find the king. He mentioned a lagoon?”

In the next moment, the hawk circled and aimed for the mainland.

It could be a coincidence, of course. But she chose to believe it wasn’t.

She chose to believe that this magnificent creature was doing the impossible in order to find Jade.

She chose to believe that it meant to help her accomplish that goal, not return to its cliffside nest with her.

She didn’t realize how far out to sea they’d flown until the minutes flew by beneath her on the way back to the distant shore.

Miles beyond the Banks, miles more beyond the mainland.

Above her was only the unending stretch of blue-black, the first stars beginning to peek out.

Below her the whitecap-tipped ocean, whipped to a chop by the wind that soared along with them.

Then came the unfamiliar sight of the oh-so-familiar islands she’d never seen from this vantage point before. The channel again, its deep ribbon even darker than the other waters of the sound. Then the cliffs, the palace, and the place from which she’d jumped.

Would it put her down there? If so, she would have no choice but to return to the palace. Much as it galled her, Storm was right. She’d never be able to dive to the depths the king had described without someone pulling her down, not unless this dress was as heavy as she pretended it was.

She shouldn’t have misconstrued her abilities to keep the king from realizing her weaknesses, but her cousin would have done what he always did—waited for her, taken her hand, and acted as her weight.

The hawk bypassed the cliffside though, aiming for the rocky forest too dense and steep to be much explored by anything other than mountain goats.

And birds, obviously. They didn’t care how inhospitable those sheer faces and towering trees were to humans.

Was this where it made its nest? Was it taking her to its home instead of setting her down?

Uncertainty fluttered in her stomach, but she shoved it aside. If it did, then she would plan from there. Slip out. Climb—or fall—down the cliffs. Find her way, somehow or another, back to where people were, and pray with every step that she didn’t break her neck in the process.

She didn’t notice the clearing halfway up the mountainside until the hawk circled again, but as soon as it started its descent, she not only saw the break in the trees, she heard the crash of a waterfall—and saw light.

Light! Not a hawk’s nest, then, though had it been, she’d have had to compliment her mount on the beauty of its choice of home.

But no, those were man-made lights glowing from a cave behind the slender falls that illuminated more than a dozen figures moving along the edge of a dark, nearly-circular reflective surface.

Water. The lagoon. And there—Storm!

“You…listened.” That was beyond bizarre. It must be a miracle. She leaned forward, hanging on as the bird descended. “Thank you so much. We’ll find her. Maybe, with your help, we’ll find her.”