Page 31

She highly doubted that the one hard wooden chair shoved into a corner of the room would be comfortable , but her skin was pruning and her hands were shaking.

The pool wasn’t that cool, but usually when she spent a long time in the water, she was in a protective dive suit that helped keep her warm.

She conjured a smile. “No need to apologize. I realize I’m the odd one here, being a ‘sander’ and all. ”

“And a creature of the skies besides.” His expression turned serious, even concerned.

“We have no way of knowing how being underseas for a prolonged period will affect you. Perhaps, since the magic is still dormant, you will be like any other land-walker. But it could be worse for you than others. Please, if you begin to feel ill, let me know right away.”

And…what? He’d take her back to land? She stood, letting the water sluice off her borrowed clothing and using the towel to dry her skin and the ends of her hair.

Perhaps he would—but not home. She knew that.

He’d take her to the island they’d mentioned in that first meeting, the one they’d “prepared” for her, whatever that meant.

She offered a nod of agreement and moved toward the chair. By the time she’d settled herself onto it, Librus had powered up various crystals and was projecting their contents into the center of the room.

Did she dare risk a question? Might as well. “This island you all mentioned—that’s where you’d take me? Where is it?”

The quick glance he darted at her showed a flash of suspicion, quickly covered by an easy smile. “It’s about five hundred miles off the coast of Daryatla.”

Interesting—not the location of the island, but the fact that now, not in the water, she could read that suspicion, that quick cover-up, with ease. Maybe she really was a creature of air—maybe water hindered her abilities, even her non-magical ones. Was that possible?

She had no idea, so she focused on the information instead. “Out of King Seidon’s range, I assume?”

Another flicker of emotion—worry, unless she missed her guess. “We thought so. But he hadn’t been back to the Tidal Palace in so long, I fear we’ve underestimated how strong he’s grown in the last twenty years. He repulsed our forces last night far more easily than we thought he’d be able to do.”

“Your—what? Forces? Last night?” She sat up straighter, pulse thundering again.

The calm reassurance on Librus’s face struck her as forced.

“The Black Tail campaign has begun. Our first step was to sneak into the channel while the king was distracted with the ball and the royal family was on land too, and out of the way. Our goal was to disable the fleet, and we’d hoped to accomplish that without being noticed and then slip back out into open waters again. ”

He said it like their hope had been thwarted. “But?”

“But King Seidon sensed us the moment the troops gathered at Crystal Point. Alarms began sounding all up and down the coast. The House of Sael evacuated and returned to the sea, engaging our forces once they were out of Seidon’s territorial waters.”

Jade rested her feet on the rung of the chair. “What of Seidon’s forces? The people on the islands?” Her family? Papa? Storm? Arden?

“No casualties that I heard—we had no intention of angering Seidon, I assure you.”

Thank the Triada. “Then why—”

“To ensure he remained uninvolved.” Librus stood too, water streaming off him, his face hard as rock now. “He has a treaty—not with the mer in general but with the House of Sael in particular. When he hears there is revolution, he will be duty bound to help Ralia. We can’t have that.”

“And you don’t think he’ll view the destruction of his fleet as an act of war?”

His smile somehow looked more sad than victorious. “It won’t matter if he does. When our next defenses are launched, even he won’t be able to breach them.” He raised his hand, flexed his fingers, and light sparked from tip to tip.

Jade drew back, the electricity making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. “What…how…?”

His smile looked deceptively boyish. “It’s no secret that water can produce electricity, is it? Yet it’s something neither Seidon nor Ralia nor Mariana, nor any that came before them have explored.”

Because so far as she knew, only the force of moving water could be harnessed to generate electricity, not the water itself. Yet the sparking hand across the room said otherwise.

Jade draped the towel around her shoulders. “And once these ‘defenses’ are in place?”

He let his hand fall and go dark. “Then, my lady, we make our move beneath the waves too. We turn as many of Mariana’s forces as we can.

We kill the ones we can’t. And we pray that there are enough of us left to defeat them.

” He frowned. “It won’t be easy. They are strong—we didn’t dare make a move when they passed us in the close confines of the channel, not with so few of us gathered.

Seidon only pushed us back. They would have killed us.

” The frown deepened. “I am still bemused by his sensing us so quickly.”

This last he said more to himself than to her, it seemed. He stepped out of the pool, not bothering with the second towel, and moved to a different data player with a different crystal loaded. On this one, he entered something and sent it away again with fast movements.

Then he turned to the text still hovering in the air. A few taps on the reader, and the script shifted into familiar letters and words. He tossed the page into the center of the room, big enough for her to read from her seat, and set it to scrolling.

It was all pieces of Holy Writ, she saw that at a glance. From different ancient texts. One word in common in all of them.

I carried you on the wings of a hawk…

The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, swooping down like a hawk…

As a hawk stirs up its nest, he spread his wings, he caught them, he carried them on his pinions…

Your youth is renewed like the hawk…

They will mount up with wings like hawks, they will run and not grow weary, walk and not faint…

Behold, he goes up like clouds, like a whirlwind, swifter than a hawk…

He will mount up and swoop like a hawk…

There was more, but Jade shook her head rather than read on, looking to Librus rather than the words. “Hawks. But…these aren’t prophecies.”

“Aren’t they?” He paused the scroll on the longer passage she hadn’t bothered trying to read.

“The prophecy of the two hawks and the vine. I’ll summarize—a mighty hawk swoops down and plucks branches from a tree in a well-known kingdom.

He plants them beside many waters, and they flourish into a mighty vine with many branches, many roots, but all from that single plant.

Then another hawk comes, even greater than the first, and the roots and tendrils of the vine turn toward it.

But the One can destroy it all, if he wills it.

He sends the hawks, but he also controls the vine. ”

The eyes Librus turned to her blazed like his palm had done.

“Don’t you see? Our two kingdoms have sprung up from the ruins of the world that was before the Great Cataclysm—the vine.

A hawk—an angel—planted us. That is the origin of the mer, how mankind learned to live beneath the waves.

But there is another still to come before the great testing, when all hearts must either turn to the One or be ripped up.

Another great hawk, even greater than the first, to whom all the vines will reach.

You . You will be our mighty warrior, able to defend us and save us, to swoop down from the skies with strength. ”

Dread weighed her stomach like a rock. She shook her head. “I’m no warrior, I—”

“Perhaps it’s lain dormant thus far, but it’s in your blood.” Something blazed in his eyes as he spoke, easing closer. “You have the blood of one of the greatest Guardians your country has ever known flowing through your veins.”

Nausea threatened to rise into her throat.

And she remembered again him calling her Jade Bleu .

He thought she was Jericho’s daughter, not by adoption but by blood.

And what if she told him otherwise? Told him that while she’d been trained a bit, yes, she’d given it up years ago, the first moment he allowed her to?

A flutter somewhere inside bade her to keep her lips closed against that truth. Though she couldn’t resist asking, “You think my father’s prowess is genetic?”

“I think the One chose him as your father for a reason.”

She swallowed down the unease and, to make sure her expression told him what she needed it to, reminded herself that the Triada had forged their families together for a reason.

Papa was the only father she remembered, and even if she couldn’t have inherited any of his strength genetically, she had been raised by him. Taught by him.

Satisfied that her face wasn’t betraying her, she asked, “But what makes you think this is ‘sky magic’?”

His lips curved. “‘Your youth is renewed like the hawk.’ Tell me, Lady Jade. What gives humanity renewed youth? Your king just celebrated his two-hundred-seventy-fifth year. Ralia is nearing four hundred. Mariana is already two hundred. I myself am a hundred and ten. And are we old?” He held out his arms, showcasing taut muscles, smooth skin, vitality that made him look scarcely older than she was.

She wondered if she could blame the weakness in her legs on the black serum still. “Magic.”

“Magic. We already have a taste of it, and though its beginnings are a mystery to us, I have long believed it is tied to the magic of the hawk. Of the angels. It’s coming to us more fully.

And it will unite our nations again under true worship of the One…

and under the hawk who nurtures and saves us. You.”

Unite their nations? Daryatla and the Sunken Kingdom?

The last time a king had attempted to do that, it had ended in disaster, and she certainly had no intentions of attempting it, even if she did have this new magic.

“You can’t mean to overthrow King Seidon.

He’s too strong.” Too good. All the years he’d been reigning, no serious complaints had ever been lodged against him.

Oh, people might grumble now and then about half-demon kings needing to prove themselves, but she’d read the history.

The moment he stepped foot in a cathedral and the Mercy of Waters gushed up, the moment he held an Awakening Ceremony himself and showed his care for each young person, all grumbling stopped.

His people loved him, because he’d earned their respect.

“We hope that won’t be necessary. But if it is…

well, we’ll deal with him after we’ve dealt with our own problems. He may be strong, but so are we, my lady.

” Librus stepped closer. Was it the reflection of the projections that gave his eyes that strange glint?

Or something more? “And with you—we’ll be unstoppable. ”