Page 28 of Waves (Tangled Crowns #6)

Avia

O utside the mayor’s abode, past the cave-like entrance, moonlight laced the water in delicate swoops as the sea bristled with anticipation. The oxygen in my lungs contracted from the cold but also from an eerie dread.

It felt wrong to start this event while there were still two missing men and a million unknowns. But it would also have been wrong to delay and condemn this town to an eruption.

I’d wanted to simply send the island man back north where he’d come from. Forget the entire thing. Cancel the tournament as I’d wanted to do after Julian’s death.

“We can’t let a few deserters derail the entire event. I know it hurts. It’s outrageous and disappointing that they simply left with no word. But we can’t control their actions any more than we can control the moon in the sky,” Sahar had argued.

And so, I was here, swimming toward the tournament.

The problem was she couldn’t prove to me they were deserters. No one could. And my misgivings might have been simply paranoia, but they lived and breathed inside my head as real as any of the fish wriggling through the water around me.

For a moment, I had a tiny bit of sympathy for my birth mother’s madness. Life with a crown would be a million times simpler if I stopped caring.

Had that been the start of her descent into cruelty?

Was that a normal path for monarchs?

Was it one I was destined to follow?

My mind meandered down a lonely road, one where my life was filled with suspicion and enemies.

Wasn’t it already?

A broken laugh bubbled up at my lips, but I swallowed it down because we were crossing a pebbled bridge, and the people were cheering. I warped my sad revelation into a smile for the children who waved and shouted, bellowing their excitement.

Fervor pinked their cheeks. But fear hollowed mine.

Because as much as I adored some of the men in my tournament, I was uncertain that any of them would ever understand the polluted nature of my mind. My soul.

Could Mateo handle the heartless things that floated through my head if I ever voiced them?

Could Felipe, who was loyal to a fault, handle my judgmental fear of some of the people of Okeanos?

Could Keelan and his light-hearted jesting handle the cruelty that my instincts sometimes wanted to hurl?

Could Stavros, who was so soft and sweet, handle my more bloodthirsty side?

Valdez had been one of the few morally gray men in the tournament. Now, he was gone.

Only Watkins remained, and my skin prickled at the very thought of him. I had no clue if the rebel I’d forcibly recruited was sincere or not in his desire to change. I’d been relying on Taft to tell me.

A sense of melancholy pervaded me then, brought on by the idea that I might be surrounded by love that was conditional.

It was unfair of me—I hadn’t spoken with Mateo or any of them. But emotions are rarely fair, and I had been wracked by too many feelings today to be able to sift the good from the bad.

Ominously, I also started imagining tragic endings to this event as we headed toward it. Why should it be any different from the prior events? Why should it go off without a hitch? Without an attack? Without more bloodshed?

A desperate pang of longing hit me then and I wished Bloss had come down with Ryan. I wished she’d been able to come and stay. I wanted her to hold my hand and make light of the situation. I wanted her ferocity and her spark. Her protection.

I wanted her reassurance that the men who were loyal to me were as good as her own kings.

Perhaps they were.

Maybe.

But depression has a way of leaching the color even from bright things, making them feel dull and lifeless.

And as we crossed the spiderweb of bridges toward the edge of Kremos and the island man hunching there like a giant black shadow, the love I had didn’t feel like enough.

The number of hearts I’d won versus those who still distrusted me seemed vast. Insurmountable.

Negative thoughts swarmed like crabs upon the shore.

No. No, Avia. Stop.

It took all my effort to draw in a huge breath and let it out slowly, releasing those notions one by one. Four more breaths before my lungs no longer functioned as if they were about to collapse.

The smile I plastered on my face as my guards and I reached the crowd was fake.

But I pushed it wider and forced myself to notice the little siren girl wearing a cloak of polar bear fur.

Her golden cheeks were bright with excitement as she bounced up and down on her pet sea lion, a good-natured fellow who only betrayed his discomfort with a twitch of his whiskers.

Tall squi-shifters raised their arms, waving at me. Tiny tentacles dangled on the undersides of their forearms like a fringe. I hardly mustered up enough enthusiasm to wave back.

That’s when I tried to stop thinking, stop thinking at all, and simply soak in the joyful shouts around me.

The laughter and smiles gave the space the feeling of a carnival. Of a joust.

Two shark shifters linked their elbows and swam in a bobbing circle. A pair of sirens sold foaming cups of bubble. I saw a pennant with Mateo’s name on it and that brought the first true smile to my face.

Strolling people laughed and chatted all around as they entered a giant field set aside for the evening and paid for floating seats, which were long planks of wood tied to the seaweed at varying heights, all facing an island man who cast the space into shadow.

A huge, hulking relative to the giants, the stone figure was colossal.

He sat cross-legged in an open space where the ocean floor was merely a series of dunes.

His body filled every inch from the ocean floor to wave caps and beyond.

With skin the dark shade of lava rock and his side was dotted with barnacles, he was unlike any other magical race I’d met before.

Strangely, his feet were the bit of him I found most fascinating.

They were as long as two men laying prone and his toenails were as large as my face.

Glancing upward, I couldn’t even peer beyond his chest.

“Where are his eyes?” I wondered aloud in a faint voice.

Beside me, Sahar arrived, looking calm and confident as ever. “Near the cresting waves. His scalp serves as a small island home for a few elves who’ve managed to escape from Sedara. Hence the delay of the competition. He had to move slowly so they wouldn’t slide into the sea and drown.”

My lips pressed together at this revelation.

This kingdom was full of more oddities than Evaness.

Or perhaps it seemed odd because I hadn’t grown up here as I should have.

We arrived at a platform built out of giant clamshells and Ugo took my hand to help me climb up the stacked shells to stand in the center shell. Sahar ascended to my right.

Glancing over at my adviser, I found her eyes on the line of remaining contestants, which was much shorter than it had been last time.

I followed her gaze until I spotted her son, his turtle swimming about his head in a lazy halo.

Keelan swatted at Mr. Whelk’s fins before he turned, clapped Felipe on the back with his good hand, and took a few steps away as if he were going to stand and watch from the sidelines.

Mr. Whelk followed of course, but not before cuffing my former guard. Felipe didn’t even bother to relax.

Sahar gave an audible sigh of relief. “He argued with me this morning, wanting to represent himself again. Watching and waiting isn’t easy for him.”

“I’m sure it’s not. Your son likes to be in the thick of it.”

She nodded, her jaw sawing back and forth with something unsaid. I was tempted to pry, to let her unburden her troubles to me the way I so often did to her, but the mayor swam up just then and our opportunity for a private conversation disappeared.

Pale pink octopus tentacles preceding her, Didero arrived with an up do that was even more impressive than the one she’d worn to our first meeting, and utterly different from the one she’d had as she’d waited with me during the search today.

Her hair formed a white cone, and ribbons of red erupted from the middle of it.

The way they danced in the current and trailed over her hair made them look like sprays of lava, the style was in honor of our island visitor.

The people-pleasing side of me immediately wondered if I should have done something similar.

“Your Majesty.” She gave a respectful curtsy, and I responded with a head nod before reaching for her hand.

“Thank you for hosting. In the chaos that was today, I think I forgot to say thanks. But I know that this tournament is a major undertaking, and I want you to know I really appreciate the lengths you’ve gone to.”

She squeezed my hand and released it, shaking her head in a motherly fashion as she gestured at the crowd.

“No need to thank me. Their memories will be stamped with this event for years to come. It’s the most exciting thing our town has seen in a decade.

We’re thrilled to have you and to watch those men make us proud. ”

I tried to keep my expression light and airy, but my stomach muscles clenched. Though I hoped that Kremos would be talking about the Syzgos Tournament for the right reasons, I didn’t have a ton of faith that the rebellion would back down.

They hadn’t even bothered to come forward with a series of demands yet. The only thing I knew for certain that they wanted was to be rid of me. My sky breather status was enough to ensure their permanent hatred.

Before the spiraling darkness could drag my thoughts completely into its vortex, a conch shell sounded, the blast calling everyone to attention.

My eyes drifted to the line of men. And then… my stomach dropped.

Sahar reached over and clenched my hand so hard my bones ached. “Do you see?”

I nodded mutely.

Struggling, stumbling, dragging his leg, Taft appeared from behind an outcrop of rock. Hobbling forward, he joined the line of competitors, breathing hard by the time he arrived.

Holy shite.

All my attention focused on that lean blue shadow at the far end of the row, dark curiosity shoving forcefully through my head.

What had happened to Taft?

Clearly, he’d been hurt.

But by whom?

When?

Why?

How?

My stare focused on him with the intensity of lightning and I was shocked when his gaze didn’t immediately rise to meet mine.

If I had better control over the ocean, I would have had a tiny wave shove his shoulder, turn his head, and force him to look over.

But I was more likely to plow the entire lineup of competitors with ice balls than anything else.

Today, I was not feeling confident in my own abilities, I was too wrung out.

As he was.

My eyes narrowed and I wondered if Watkins would show a sliver of guilty conscience, something to prove his connection to Taft’s injury.

But as I looked over at the shark shifter and other men, all I noticed was Keelan drifting forward and exchanging a few words with the nixe. The shark shifter remained neutral.

“Keelan’s checking on him,” I murmured aloud.

“Of course he is,” Sahar stated, throat a little tight, voice more strained than I’d heard it before. She was proud of him, as she should be.

“After this…” I trailed off because a series of killer whales swam overhead then, casting shadows that drew our eyes upward to watch them.

In military formation, forming a wedge, they swam up to the island man, encircling him, each one clasping something massive in its mouth.

In unison, the creatures opened their mouths, dropping boulders all around his body, sending up plumes of golden sand.

“Of course,” Sahar answered, knowing I wanted to speak with Taft immediately after the event, apparently not quite as derailed by the whale display as I was.

The nixe’s appearance bolstered me, comforted a raw ache that had been pulsing this afternoon.

I understood Valdez abandoning the tournament because it wasn’t hard for me to imagine the pirate indulging a selfish whim and leaving.

But this man who’d befriended my Mateo and agreed to help me was another story. .. and I was glad he’d returned.

Suddenly, the day didn’t seem so dark, this event not quite so dour. Curiosity over what was going to happen finally hit me, because other than hearing that a volcano was involved, I’d been unconcerned about the rest of this event.

Eyebrows rising, I didn’t have to wait long to find out what exactly this competition entailed.

A selkie with his coat clasped like a cape upon his back, rode a seahorse up above the floating bleachers.

His bushy whiskers unfurled on either side of his face and swayed in the current like cattails did in the breeze on land.

With the mien of a traveling performer, the man certainly knew how to command a crowd.

He silenced them with merely a look. And then his shout echoed so perfectly off the icebergs and mountains around us so that he didn’t even need to use a conch shell to amplify his voice.

With a flourishing wave of his hand, he called out, “People of Kremos! Pick your favorite contestant!”

Everyone twisted in their seat to look at Mateo, who smiled weakly as his silver tail flicked back and forth.

When he caught my eye, I gave him a nod, and I thought it might have fortified him a little bit, made his spine stand a little straighter and a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. At least, I hoped it did.

Felipe looked as stoic as ever, as if he were still guarding the door outside my chambers. With his deep blue hair and scar, he might have looked a little intimidating rather than inspiring to those in the crowd. But I knew better.

Stavros gave a shy wave and earned a few cat calls from the ladies. Watkins and Taft both stared straight ahead, unmoving.

“These men are going to need lots of cheering on! Because each one has to roll a boulder up the back of Pity here, our wonderful island volunteer.” The island man lifted an arm slightly and waved at the crowd, creating an underwater current that sent kids somersaulting backward and giggling.

Even Sahar, the mayor, and I were lifted a few inches off our feet, feeling our stomachs lift and drop as we were made weightless.

Our announcer gave a grand smile before continuing, “Catch is, Pity can move whenever he wants. And if their rock rolls down, the competitors must start all over. Who has the most grit? Who can endure the longest? Who won’t quit when times get hard?

When the work gets exhausting, pointless, impossible?

We’re about to find out. Settle in for the battle of wills! ”