Cruel Tides (Queen of Tridents #2)
Page 24
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Kai
“G otcha!” The old mer gave my pawn a cockeyed look, his hand stroking through the wispy ends of his beard. “Now that’s how y’play a real game o’ whirlpool!”
“All right, all right.” I threw my hands up in defeat. “You got me. Consider my ship sunk.”
The youthful glint in the old mer’s good eye was a sight well worth throwing the game to see. After all the information he’d given me, Klester deserved the win and then some.
A tongue clicked over a half-rotted tooth as greed broadened my new friend’s grin. “Uhm-hm. Sunker than a flounderin’ schooner. Time t’pay up!”
Saliva dripped into his beard before I’d even slid the pouches of tuna out of my pocket. “My lunch rations, just like we wagered,” I said, and his wiry fingers snatched them straight away. Hands shaking, he clawed at the pouches, his teeth chattering with eagerness.
My smile faded as I watched Klester practically inhale the slabs of tuna. Although his cheeks were smooth and his beard still full of color, the folds draping under his eyes hinted at his true age. Did the Atlantic not give back to their elders? The way his tattered shirt hung off his ribs told me he’d been starving long before coming on land.
The appreciation I’d felt when one of the Atlantic guards insisted on handing me lunch rations all but vanished as Klester’s tongue scoured the inside of one pouch, searching for slivers of tuna he might have left behind. I’d watched the same guard provide the old mer with the crusty end of a bread loaf and nothing more. Yet the younger mers got tuna? Things were clearly not as virtuous in the Atlantic as King Eamon boasted. My father was far from the perfect king, but at least he had the honor to care for the mers who’d spent a lifetime supporting his father before him.
Grating laughter came from outside, and I leaned back, my head easily slipping through a tear in the sorry scrap of a door the Atlantic had set Klester up with for privacy.
Of course. Her again.
Down the hall, Leander’s butt flexed uncomfortably, his legs shifting to accommodate the weight of the wavy-haired blonde hanging off his shoulder. Shameless . It was probably the tenth time I’d seen her approach him today, though it was obvious Leander thought little of her presence. Not like that would ever stop a mermaid. Once a mermaid had her eyes set, that was it. Death would be a mercy for anyone who got in her way.
A shudder came over me at the thought of the creepiness my oldest brothers had to deal with, and I shook the icky feeling out with my arms. Sure, mermaids were pretty. Their shiny hair and soft faces were a delight to look at. But they were also scary. Extremely scary. Especially on nights when they mistook my bedroom for one of my older brother’s. I knew firsthand how quick those sweet smiles could turn nasty. One look at me on the other side of the door, and I might as well have been fish chum.
Popping my head back in, I swept the pawns off the floor to clear off the makeshift game board. “Thanks for the fun, Kles!” I said, and I meant it. He was the only one in the entire compound who’d been up for a game, though I never got to play him in checkers. His eagerness to get to playing had kept me from taking time to retrieve the box. At least it had saved me a walk to the aquatic center.
His face resurfaced from the folds of one pouch with a frown. “Y’leaving already?”
“Just for today, but I’ll come play you again, don’t worry.” I got to my feet and clapped a hand on his shoulder in farewell. “Gotta win back some of my honor, don’t I?” The sharpness of his bony arm was a surprise, and the startled look he shot at my hand made me think it had been a while since anyone had afforded him the respect of a proper parting. “If I get my hands on some pearls, I’ll teach you the real way to play skipjacks. It came from the Pacific, you know,” I added with a wink.
“We’ll see, we’ll see,” he tittered, the smug look returning to his face. He combed out his beard for a moment like he’d already begun planning his strategy. Wiry fingers found my shoulder, and Klester waited until his hand stopped shaking before letting go. “G’on now. Thanks for indulging an ol’ mossback like me.”
“It’s been fun, Kles. Really. See you soon.” Drawing back pieces of curtain, I headed for Leander and the disturbing suckerfish adhered to his arm.
I rounded in front of the both of them with my brightest smile equipped, chiming in over whatever soft, flirtatious drawl the mermaid was currently aiming at Leander’s ear. “Hey, man, what’s going on?”
The arms around Leander tightened. Looking me up and down, the wavy-haired suckerfish’s full lips pursed into a nasty scowl.
Now why did that seem familiar? Oh, right—wrong brother’s bedroom door.
“Kaius Corentine.” She spat out my name like I was a plague, ignoring the fact that I’d addressed Leander before her. “Spare of the Pacific.”
Sure, I was used to it, but my worth being reduced to a number flared up an old ache in my chest. And Kaius? My mother was the only one who ever spoke my full name, and that was only on the rare occasion she thought to address me at all. Even if I hadn’t seen her trying to attack Claira this morning, this mermaid definitely was not friend material.
“Excuse me, but I believe I misspoke,” the suckerfish continued, and the bloody stain of her lips spread into a practiced simper. With a mouth like that, maybe she was more lumpsucker than suckerfish. “Spares can be useful, and you are what, eighth? Ninth in line? Correct?”
My smile deepened. “Hi. It’s just Kai.” I turned my full attention to Leander, boxing the charming little mermaid out with a shoulder. “So, who’s the old lady?”
The appalled gasp that question got felt almost too gratifying, but it didn’t make the statement any less true. Although her skin was pearly smooth, it was her eyes that gave her away. She must have been in her seventies, maybe eighties at the very least. Nowhere near ancient by merfolk standards, but Leander was barely old enough to be out from under his father’s tail.
What was he, twenty? Definitely less than thirty. Much too young to be messing around with a mermaid in the prime of her birthing years. Yeesh . Even my brothers knew better—though that didn’t stop mermaids from trying to glamour them into believing they were too young to be fertile.
Sometimes being the forgotten fish chum of the royal line wasn’t all bad.
The hint of a smirk pulled at Leander’s lips. He hadn’t warmed up to me yet, but I could tell that comment had gotten me at least a little spark of a flame in his heart. Soon, we were going to be great friends. I could feel it. “Aleena Turbula. Her and her sister have temporarily contracted their services to the Atlantic.”
“Well, I hope you’re not paying her,” I mumbled, eyeing her bandaged foot. Claira sure had got her good this morning. It was the first time I’d ever jumped out of a moving car, but the scrapes had been worth it. Sure, a giant bull shark had swept in to help Claira before I got the chance, but watching her spear a knife into the lumpsucker’s foot was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. My father’s annual stingray races—the most anticipated games in the entire Pacific—couldn’t compare to the thrill I got from watching Claira defend herself.
When I looked back up, irritation had set the old mermaid’s jaw. Oh, she knew I knew about her fight with Claira earlier. I cleared my throat and gestured between the two of them. “Because all she seems to do is stand around, hanging on your arm, like dude .”
One of Leander’s eyebrows lifted, totally oblivious. “What do you mean? Her and her sister work on surveillance.”
Oh — he genuinely didn’t know . Man, mermaids were some shady ladies.
“You’ll thank me for this,” I said and cracked my knuckles.
“What—?”
My hands clapped over Leander’s temples, and his eyes went wide. Before he could react, I whacked the flat of my palm straight into his nose.
“The—the fuck! ” His hands popped up to defend against another blow, but then he shook his head, blinking through misty eyes like he was suddenly realizing the weight on his arm. The rage he was going to put into wringing my neck shifted right to the lumpsucker beside him. “You glamoured me?” he growled, freeing his arm with a forceful jerk.
Now things were getting good . How many months had she been working on that glamour? All to be ruined by the spare of the Pacific—so tragic. If only I had some of the buttery jumping corn Barren made for Laverne and me on our first night at the hotel.
“No, my prince. I—” She grabbed his arm again, but he shrugged her away.
“Get the fuck away from me, Aleena.”
Leander pushed past me, and I caught the sight of something pink down the hall. Claira? She was already speeding back out of the warehouse, her hands pulling her fluffy hood up, concealing her hair. Shoulders hunched, it looked like she was trying to shrink into her jacket.
How much of that had she seen before she’d turned away? My foot caught on the side of the lumpsucker’s heel as I rushed to catch up to Claira. “Er, sorry!” I called back, wincing at the sizzling hiss of agony my foot had brought. Whoops.
“Hey, Claira, wait up!” I called, meeting her out in the gravel. Was she okay? Her face was a sickly color, a mixture of kelp and spume. Like she might turn down and lose her lunch over the rocks at any moment. “You guys made it back early. How’d swimming go?”
“Swimming,” she repeated, and her eyes glazed like a nightmare was playing back behind them. She slumped forward, dropping her shopping bags to the ground. I reached to help steady her, but she backed away, planting her palms on the side of the building. Was she actually going to lose her lunch?
“It’s fine—I’m fine.” She massaged at the front of her collarbone and panted in a few breaths. “ Everything is fine. ”
“You’re, uh, you’re not fine.” I hated calling her bluff, but she clearly wasn’t. “Where’s Barren?” Scratching at the back of my neck, I glanced around for the car, but the entire lot was empty. Now that was strange. “Where’s Laverne? She’s okay, isn’t she?” Panic had already started creeping in when Claira shook her head.
“She’s fine. Everyone is fine .”
“Claira, please—”
“She’s with Barren,” she shot back, then dabbed the back of a palm over her forehead. “I had them drop me off because… because I…” She paused mid-sentence, her eyes totally spacing.
“Because you’re feeling so fine?” I leaned forward, crouching on a knee so I could get a better look at her face. Something bad had happened, without a doubt. “Swimming didn’t go well, did it?”
Gravel crunched as she crumpled down into the rocks beside me, withering in the way bubbles of sea-foam did in the sunlight. “I just want to go somewhere. Anywhere.” Her hands opened and shut, like she was physically trying to grasp for the right words to say. “I—I thought I wanted to be here at first, but then I saw…”
I tucked a strand of hair back into the cozy white fur of her hood. “If you’re upset about what you saw back there, don’t be.”
Lips pursing, she shot me a severe look. “Really? And why shouldn’t I be upset?” She paused, and her eyes swelled with a strange sadness. Her head turned down to the gravel. “And why should I be? It’s not like I own him. We aren’t even dating. He’s a… a merman , and I’m…” Tufts of hair escaped her hood as she shook her head. “I’m an idiot.”
She pulled herself up to her feet like she’d already gotten over it. Whatever it was. She was upset about the lumpsucker, right? But how much had she actually seen?
“That mermaid, the one who attacked you this morning, she had Leander glamoured. So, if that’s why you’re upset, seriously, don’t be. He couldn’t help how she was hanging all over him.”
Claira shook the dirt from her pants and scoffed. “Yeah, okay.”
“It’s true,” I nodded, trying to look convincing, and tapped at the tip of my nose. “He had no idea she was even touching him until I smashed his nose and broke her spell.”
“You what? ” she gasped. “Is his nose okay?”
“Yeah, I think it’ll survive,” I said with a smile. “Well, I mean, he did look a bit teary, but I don’t think I broke it or anything.”
She drew her bottom lip in, looking equal parts worried and skeptical. “He was under a spell? For real?”
“Yeah.” I gave a quick shrug and straightened up on my feet. “Neat little trick, eh? Normal mortals are easy, but they say it takes a lot of time for us to slip under that kind of magic! His nose wasn’t the first one I’ve had to smack some sense back into.” I chuckled, thinking about my brothers back home. One good whack while the glamour was actively being worked on was usually enough to do the trick. Sometimes two if the mermaid was particularly ancient or powerful. “I bet she was working on him for a while. Way before you even got here.”
Claira worried at her lip, her head bobbing slowly in thought. My own lip drifted between my teeth as I watched her. This was good, right? She was obviously very close with Leander, and well, who could blame her? He was tall, had shiny hair, and knew how to move his butt in ways that could attract a mermaid’s attention. Plus, he was first in line for the throne, and that counted for a lot.
“Do… you still want to go somewhere?” It took Claira’s head perking up for me to realize I’d asked the thought out loud.
The strand of hair I’d tucked in fell back out from under her hood as her head cocked in interest. “Like where?”
I fought the urge to toe at the rocks, my limbs feeling suddenly fidgety, as if there was a consortium of crabs shuffling diagonals under my skin. Talking to friends never felt this difficult. Was it because she was upset? That must have been it. “I don’t know. Um, I had a lot of fun at the aquatic center last time.”
That got a small laugh, and she leaned back on the side of the building, her chin tilting like she was considering taking me up on my offer. “It’s not your day, you know, and I don’t think my brain can handle checkers right now.”
“Oh.” I paused, wondering what else there was to do. “Well, we don’t have to use our brains to have fun. We could… swim, maybe?”
“You know there isn’t any salt in that pool, Kai.” She sighed heavily and pushed off the building. “Plus, I’ve had enough of pretending to be a mermaid for one day,” she mumbled, her tone deflating. “It, uh, didn’t go well. In case you couldn’t tell.”
I could tell, but I was glad she felt comfortable enough with me to admit it without me prying too deep.
“How about we hang out as humans, then?” I offered, not really knowing what humans did together other than sitting. They sat at the beach, at tables when they ate, in cars when they traveled. But sitting around while Claira taught me how to play checkers had been some of the most fun I’d ever had, so maybe humans were on to something there.
“As humans?” She laughed in such a carefree way that it was hard to recall how upset she’d just looked. “And what do humans do, Kai?”
“They swim too, don’t they? You know, by flapping their feet and junk,” I said, paddling my hands like they were flippers to illustrate the technique. “Seems kinda hard to do, actually.”
I thought back to the beaches in California, at how happy the little groups looked splashing and kicking around the waves, and gave Claira a hopeful look. The same big-eyed baby sea lion look I always gave Laverne when she was about to dig into the last herring without offering to share. “Maybe you could teach me?”
“And what good would it do you, learning to swim with your feet?” she asked, a scarlet eyebrow raising in question. A stray ray of sunshine hit her hood, turning her blaze of red hair into a brilliant sunset that circled her face.
“Pretty,” I breathed out.
Her head tilted, and I found myself following the shimmer of sunlight reflecting from her deep-set eyes as her chin turned. “Pretty?”
I choked out a cough. “Pr-pretty sure it’ll be fun.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t look convinced. “I did go to swimming pools sometimes when I was younger. I guess it was kinda fun.”
Bending over, I picked up her bags from the gravel. “You still have your swim clothes, right?”
Her eyes rolled, and she snatched the heavier of the two bags from my hands. “Yeah, I guess. They’re all salty and wet, though, but I guess I could rinse them.”
A rush of excitement ran through me. “So we’re doing this, then? You and me? I didn’t have time to go get the checkers box earlier and—” A thought suddenly hit me, and I stopped to snap my fingers. “I still need the key.”
“What happened to the one you had earlier?” she asked, and I rubbed at the back of my neck as I thought about how silly I’d been not to ask if I could keep it.
“We were borrowing it from one of the captains, but wait a minute.” Kles had told me so many useful things about the Atlantic during our games, one of the most important being the location of a captain’s room that was almost always unoccupied.
“Wait here. I think I know where I can get us another one.”
I spun around to leave, but a small hand came around my elbow. “Wait, I’ll go, too,” she said, and her voice went soft. “I don’t really like staying put where people tell me.”
Threading her hand around my elbow, I gave her a smile. “Noted! Thanks for letting me know.” I dropped my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “So, my friend Kles told me where he goes to get keys whenever he needs them.” I led the way back into the warehouse and started counting down the rows. “Says that sometimes he sneaks into homes to study the whosits and whatsits. Whatever that means.”
Second row, eighteenth down, was it? A smooth-headed mer that I recognized from lunch took a step out from one opening, and my free arm flew up in a greeting. “Hey, man—” Like a stressed anemone, he shrank right back into the curtain like he was never there to begin with. Weird. I counted in my mind as the curtains passed until I found the one with the crazy swirls near the end of the row. “Ah-ha!”
I peeked in to make sure the room was as abandoned as Kles claimed. “Oh, wow , it’s kinda gross inside,” I whispered. Throwing the curtain back, I poked the end of a collection of bottles at the entrance with my foot. “Actually, maybe you shouldn’t—”
But Claira dove into the opening before I could finish. She must have been eager to get the key and get to swimming! I followed behind her, dragging my feet so I wouldn’t trip on anything, a lesson I’d learned back at the gas station. A smell hit me, one that brought back the memory of bonfires on the beach. Not the smoke or the fire, no, but another smell. Pungent and earthy. Kind of like the bottles I’d used to play Top Lobber.
“Just under th’bedroll,” I said, repeating Klester’s instructions and shaking a finger just like he’d done when he’d said it. I passed Claira and sank down to feel between the coverings and the floor. Something cold hit my fingers, and I slipped out a ring filled with dozens of keys. Dude —how many buildings were even in their territory?
Thumbing through them one by one, I started reading the little pieces of parchment connected to each end. Just as I got down to the a’s, a soft gasp took my attention away from the ring of keys.
Claira stood behind me, staring intensely at an ornament laying in her palm. “Oh, wow. That’s really pretty,” I said, admiring the different sizes and colors of the pearls adorning it. It looked like some sort of decoration, with comb-like coral teeth at one end. Maybe for clothes or for hair? I knew little about fashion in the Atlantic. Or the Pacific, honestly. I kinda just put whatever Freechia asked me to fashion into her hair, but none of her hairpins were as intricate as this.
Her palm suddenly dropped, slamming the ornament down on top of a neatly folded pile of… were those ocean silks? They looked old—dried out—and were a darker color than the ones worn in the Pacific.
Claira’s breathing seemed to stop as she stared down at them. “Are you—?” I started to ask when she swiped an arm over the setup, sending both the ornament and the pile of silks down to the mess of trash and bottles on the floor.
“I’ll meet you outside,” she said curtly and stormed out with the force of a deadly typhoon.
“Claira, wait!” I called after her as I fumbled with the keyring. I disconnected the one for the aquatic center, pocketed it, and shoved the rest back under the bedroll.
Before I got up, I took one last look at the ocean silks unraveling over the floor and blinked.
That was strange. They looked small enough to fit a merfry.