Page 34

S eidon could feel the wall long before he could see it. The electricity Arden had described, yes. But more than that. He could sense the size of it. The long, unending chain all along his coastal lands.

He could sense the magic.

Now he stood in Rico’s quick-as-the-wind racing skiff, its solar sail drawn back in so that he could easily call the water to hold him still, a safe distance from the crackling, blue-lit line of destruction.

Arden circled overhead on Ora, low enough that he could hear her without difficulty as she told him of the mer family she’d seen, who looked every bit as surprised by the rising wall as she had been.

Of course they were. He had absolutely no doubt in his mind that mer were behind this wall—but not just any mer. Not all the mer.

The Black Tails. Only the Black Tails. This sizzling blue light sounded exactly like what had sparked between the tines of their tridents last night.

Experimentally, he lowered a hand into the water. No jolt, though he could certainly feel the power.

“What are you doing?” Arden called when he stepped up onto the pointed nose of the racer.

She obviously knew, or she wouldn’t be asking. “Diving down. I need to know if it goes all the way to the ocean floor.”

“Are you insa—”

The rest of her question was lost to the water as he dove into it, though he smiled as he cut his way into the depths. Geysers, that girl was like her father in all the best ways. Who knew that having the guts to question one’s king was a genetic trait?

But thoughts of Arden didn’t last long in the face of what he saw as he swam.

The wall itself—the physical part built of wrecks and ruins from all over the ocean floor—was only at the surface. But that net of blue light extended down and down and down, as far down as he could swim. All the way into the sandy bottom. How far into that it went he didn’t know.

And did it matter? No land-dweller could even operate at these depths for long, not without equipment that would probably be fried by the electricity.

He swam back up to the surface, letting the water lift him onto the turquoise skiff.

Arden still circled directly overhead. “You still have your eyebrows, I see.”

He laughed and slicked wet hair back from his face. “As I expected—it goes all the way to and into the ocean floor.”

“I don’t understand—the sheer size of this! All the ships, the debris, the ruins…I know there are many thousands of years of wrecks down there, but even so, the ocean floor is vast. How did they gather it all together?”

Seidon shook his head. “They did that a millennium ago. In the time of the first Sea King—as the mer evolved and built their cities, they had a generations-long clean-up effort. They cleared all the ‘sander rubbish’ from their territory and used it to mark the line between Daryatlean territory and their own. This,” he said, waving to the structures towering into the air, “is that wall of rubbish, lifted up. Buoyed. Connected.”

It would have taken massive effort—to lift it, and also to keep it all up, when none of this was exactly buoyant material at this point. To line it all with whatever this net was, too. It had to have taken years to accomplish.

Years. Years he hadn’t had any idea what they were doing.

Would he have, if he’d been here, closer to the ocean and this boundary line? If he hadn’t traveled so far inland? Could he have stopped this, all of this, if grief hadn’t kept him too long from the Tidal Palace?

His stomach went tight. Those were questions and regrets he’d have to examine later. They’d no doubt haunt him when he hoped to fall into a much-needed sleep after missa. For now, he had to focus on what had happened, and what he could do about it.

Time for Arden. He traced her flight, turning to keep her in view as they circled.

“It’s too high above the surface for any of our ships to get people over, even assuming we had any currently functional.

There’s no way I can send anyone through or under it from the water.

That leaves the sky. What do you think? Can you go over? ”

Arden sat up straighter. “I don’t know. Ora clearly doesn’t like it. She won’t get closer than this.”

“Not at that height, no. But she’s circling low to keep us close and let you see. What if she goes higher?”

In answer, Ora let out one of her piercing cries and took off.

Back to the west at first, but only so that she could make a wider circle and begin her climb at a gentle enough angle that she didn’t send Arden off into the sea.

They rose and rose, so that by the time they crossed over the line of electric wrecks, they were high enough that Ora looked like a normal-sized hawk and Arden was nothing but an out-of-place feather.

From his vantage point, it didn’t look as though they encountered any resistance. There was no wobble in the great wings, no jolt. And the next thing he heard was Arden’s whoop and laughter as they flew into mer territory.

“Praise you, Triada,” he whispered. Because he had one person, at least, who could tell him what was happening beyond this line, yes.

But mostly because she was all right. Uninjured.

His request hadn’t broken his promise to her father to keep her safe.

Louder, he called, “Come back now! It’s enough to know you can, for today. ”

They’d circled lower on the mer side of the line, low enough that he could see the crease in her brow. “Are you sure? We could look for a while.”

“I’m sure. Not today. Ora hasn’t had time to hunt yet and will need to, if she’s going to be carrying you around—and we need to get back to the palace and check in before missa. Your cousin will be anxious.”

Arden’s head bobbed. “All right. Coming up and over.”

They repeated the circle-and-rise maneuver as he turned the skiff toward land and deployed the sail. By the time he had the boat moving, Arden and Ora were skimming along beside him, low enough to the water that he could send the occasional wave up to splash them, just to hear Arden laugh.

Geysers, but watching her fly along took his breath away. Seeing anyone do it would have, he knew. When in all of history had a human ever taken to wing quite like this? On the back of a bird?

Never, not that he’d ever read. In the age before the Cataclysm, birds had been small.

Or if large enough to carry a person, then lacking flight.

But there were myths from the more ancient days, weren’t there?

Stories of firebirds and winged reptiles big enough for this.

Yet never had he read an account of anyone doing what Arden now did. Ride the wind with the bird.

And she looked more than a little amazing as she did it, too. Skin, clothes, and hair all coordinating with the golden and white feathers, her braid and skirt whipping out behind her. The look on her face was one that combined wonder with joy with determination.

Better than beautiful. Far, far better.

A new knot tied itself tight in his stomach. He had this handy and valid reason for keeping her close right now, yes—she was quite literally the only one in the whole empire who could help him ascertain what the mer were doing beyond that magical barrier.

But he knew himself too well. It wasn’t only that.

Even if Ora hadn’t come back this morning—even if she hadn’t caught Arden last night—he’d have still found an excuse to keep her at the palace.

Perhaps he would have said that she knew Jade better than anyone, and that knowledge could prove helpful in the search for her—also true.

But it only would have been a convenient cover story.

The truth was that she was the first woman in twenty-one years to make his pulse race.

And on top of that, she made him laugh. She challenged him.

She made him plot when and how he could convince her to kiss him.

And for all that, she was entirely oblivious to herself, beyond what she could offer for her sister’s rescue.

Humility and allure and a personality he could easily imagine spending the next six or seven decades with.

And yet, skies above, Enoch was right. Perfect as she would have been for him in a normal world, in a normal time, this was far from normal. There was someone else out there for him. For his empire. For their future.

He couldn’t imagine that someone being any more compelling than Arden Bleu.

Thoughts he stored safely away inside before they reached shore again.

Because while Arden couldn’t seem to fathom that he had any such interest, Rico knew him too well.

And Seidon had no desire to explain to his old friend that, yes, he found Rico’s daughter more attractive than he’d found anyone since Kerina, but that couldn’t mean anything, because his friend’s step daughter likely held the keys to his future.

He winced at the thought. At the tangled reality.

Enoch was definitely right. He needed to bank these coals and focus on finding Jade. The one whose blood sang to his—it must be her and not one of the mer, given that the mer had gone to the trouble of kidnapping her. Focusing on her was the only way forward that wouldn’t hurt everyone in the end.

Well, no. Even that would hurt someone. Clearly there was something going on between Jade and Storm. But he couldn’t judge that fully until he’d seen them together.

The beach was empty as they neared, at least at this northern end of town where the High Guardian’s house stood sentinel.

It meant that Arden and Ora could land without worry of being spotted, which was good.

Seidon pulled the skiff out of reach of the waves, stowed the sail, and turned toward the house as Ora flew off again, unburdened this time.

Arden fell in beside him, a note of anxiety on her face as they walked toward the house. “I think you’re right about her needing to hunt. If you need me back at the palace, can I ride with you? Or I could take—”