Page 58

T he hawks were circling again, not dancing or singing as they’d been doing before, but flying in one miles-wide circle, all twelve of them in place like the numbers on an ancient clock.

Arden watched them for a minute as she stood in the line of candidates, but then the queue shuffled again, and she redirected her attention.

Jade should have stood between Arden and her cousin, but in her absence, Arden and Storm were the last two candidates.

Forcing down the sorrow of it, she watched him step up onto the dais, spine straight, shoulders back, chin held at that perfect angle that conveyed both strength and humility, even though he had to be missing Jade as acutely as Arden was.

He wore his centa uniform, and she could hear the murmur in those seated across the dais, those who no doubt wondered how anyone who had yet to go through his Ceremony could have become a Guardian already, and how he could have risen from a mere soldier to an officer besides.

Her stomach went tight. The moment her father read his name, the murmurs shifted.

She couldn’t actually make out precise words so much as impressions. “Oh, that’s how,” they’d be saying.

But was it with understanding that Papa had trained his nephew so thoroughly and so long already—or with resentment that the Bleus earned special favors from the king?

If the second, then she could only imagine how those people had been muttering when Seidon himself had shown her to her seat. The very thought made her neck burn.

She halted before the dais, ignoring everyone except her aunt, grinning from the front row across from her, and then Storm and Seidon.

Though the king’s back was to her, she could tell from his very posture that he was smiling.

And, too, she could see it in the way Storm smiled a bit in response as he offered his hand, his finger.

Seidon made his quick slice, and from where she stood, she could see the red bubble of blood swell on her cousin’s finger.

It fell into the bowl—though even on her tiptoes, she couldn’t see the water and blood.

Did it swirl and curl? Would her cousin have more to bring to his position than Papa’s training?

Apparently not—rather than lower his hand into the bowl, Si put one of the last squares of gauze onto it.

Then, rather than quietly ask Storm what his plans were as he had with everyone else, he said loudly, “No doubt you all see that Storm Bleu is in uniform already.

When he accompanied his cousin to the palace a month ago to report the kidnapping of Jade Calimore, he made known to me his desire to join my Guard, whether he was an Awakened or not.

He is one of many young men High Guardian Jericho Bleu has trained, and like any other applicant to the Guard, he was admitted into the training program and put through rigorous testing—physical, emotional, and mental.

“Thanks to the years of training he has already put in at his uncle’s side, he passed the exams and exercises with marks higher than most do upon exiting the program, much less entering.

And so, he was advanced according to his merits, as any in the ranks are.

It is therefore with great pride that I introduce to you your own Centa Storm Bleu, Guardian. ”

Storm turned toward the larger crowd of parents and neighbors, bowing at the waist at the thunderous applause. Arden grinned, especially when her aunt stood in her teary enthusiasm, and everyone else followed suit.

It wasn’t the first time one of Papa’s trainees had gotten to skip initial training. But it was certainly the first time one had become a centa so quickly, and all the islanders would feel the pride of that. She’d been silly to question whether they would resent him. How could they? He was theirs .

Seidon gripped Storm’s shoulders and said something into his ear, but Arden couldn’t make out what over the applause. It made her cousin grin, though, and nod. Then he shook Enoch’s hand and strode back off the dais toward the ocean and reentered their row of chairs.

Arden took her cue and stepped onto the little stage, even though no one was paying a bit of attention.

Which was fine by her. Papa met her gaze with a wide grin, a wink, and motioned with his head toward Seidon.

“Might as well take your spot, baby girl. I’ll announce you as soon as Storm’s fans calm down. ”

She laughed and would have told him not to bother, except that she knew very well he’d been looking forward to this moment for years. So she took her place facing Seidon, the bowl on its pedestal between them, and looked up at his familiar, handsome face.

He’d been the king these last two hours as she sat in her chair and listened to his words, both the ones loud enough for the audience and the words given quietly to each candidate, which she’d just been able to make out.

She’d marveled at how he remembered each name, how he knew exactly what to say to each person, though he’d never met most of them.

And yet the moment her eyes met his, she didn’t see the king. She saw Seidon, standing there with a smile on his lips just for her, his blue eyes settling on her face as if he’d been thirsting for a glimpse of her.

Her stomach went tight. She’d seen that expression on Papa’s face when he looked at Mama. On Storm’s when he looked at Jade. But how in the world had it happened that she saw it now on Seidon’s when he looked at her?

At last, the wild applause tapered off and everyone sat again. Papa cleared his throat, and Arden glanced away from Si toward her father, who waved the crystal’s projection away. “And our final candidate today is my own precious daughter, Lady Arden Bleu.”

Her throat went tight. Because, yes, she should have been the final one, that was never up for debate—but Jade should have been up here before her.

Seidon should have touched the Blade to her finger, read the magic in her blood.

Arden should have gotten to watch him lower her sister’s hand into the water.

But someone else had Awakened Jade—in some underwater city far from the friends and family that should have been there to celebrate with her.

She’d been alone for the Ceremony that was meant to be communal.

Arden could feel her sister’s loneliness, feel it weeping its way through the currents, lapping up onto the beach, and spraying into the air.

Overhead, Ora keened. Maybe she felt it too.

Seidon held out his left hand, and Arden blinked away the tears and placed her right one against his, palm up. She knew it wasn’t quite right—she should have reached out first, and then his hand should have hovered under hers, ready to brace her if she flinched away.

But it was Si. And her hand was so used to being in his. The heat from his palm seeped into her skin and helped her breathe through missing Jade.

His thumb stroked over the side of her hand. “Ready, love?”

He’d asked everyone the same question. But that extra word at the end made her blink again.

She nodded. “Ready.” She knew the Blade would bring no pain—knew it because not a single one of the hundred thirteen others had so much as gasped in surprise, and knew it too because she’d already been bitten by the mer version.

Even that one, which hadn’t been wielded by a careful hand, had startled more than it had hurt.

This one she scarcely felt slice through the pad of her finger.

She had no desire to watch her own blood rise though, so she kept her gaze on Seidon.

Wondered if he deemed the day a success, with its five Awakened, four of whom had sworn then and there that they intended to train with the other Awakened, one of whom had asked for time to decide, since her father was ill.

Was five enough to help? At least two of them had earned a strong reaction from him—or at least it had seemed so from where she sat.

Ryder from the farthest island in their chain, and a girl named Lira from the one to the south of them.

Would one of them be the help he needed? Help him dismantle that wall?

Seidon moved her hand to the bowl and flipped it over, so that the single drop fell into the water. She’d watched him do this so many times today, but she hadn’t been able to see his face. She expected the calm mask, the practiced interest as his gaze dropped to the water.

Did his brow always furrow as the blood spread? She was no royal, nor a priest, to know what to look for or how difficult it was to see. Perhaps it always required his concentration.

His gaze lifted back to hers, as she expected. He always looked the candidate in the eye as he made his pronouncement, letting them know they were more than their blood, whatever it said. And unlike them, she looked into his eyes every day.

But the expression in them now was something new. Something she didn’t know how to name. Disappointment? Resignation? No, something less settled than either of those. Something…

He lowered her hand into the water, and her eyes went wide.

What are you doing? She wanted to shout at him, to pull out her hand, but the water held her captive.

Frantically, she looked down at the basin, where her blood still curled through the water.

What had he seen in it? Something? Or was this some last-ditched effort to pretend she was special, that she deserved him?

One more silly prank meant to make people think she was worthy of his attention?

But she knew this was not something Seidon would taint with deception. Not this, the Ceremony at the heart of their society.

When he lifted the Blade in the air, the crowd fell silent—only then did she realize they’d been murmuring again about Storm, and in their impatience for the end of the Ceremony. A second later, he’d sliced his finger like he’d already done five times that day. He lowered it into the water.

And the world exploded.