Fathoms of Forgiveness (Sacred Breath, Book 2) (38 page)

“Elandria? Are you going to respond to me?” Sionna asked again. “I’m really needed elsewhere, you know. This job has fallen into your hands—no one else can take over. My sister is too impulsive. Visola is governed by passion. We need you, Elandria—you are the most reasonable person among us. You have tact and decorum.”

Elandria looked over her shoulder at Sionna with fear in her eyes. Her expression was communicative even if she was silent—she could not do what was required of her. She could not handle these responsibilities. She had lost every remaining member of her blood family, and all she wanted to do was hide and sleep.

“Darling, I know it’s been difficult,” Sionna said, kneeling in the water at Elandria’s side. She took one of Elandria’s hands into her own. “If I could do it for you, I would—but my hands are full. We
need
you to speak at the press conference. Trevain’s going to be there, but he’s an American—we need a native representative of Adlivun. Someone who has the poise and elegance to answer every question diplomatically. We need
you
, Elandria.”

Had Sionna gone mad? Elandria did not have enough courage to speak to her closest family and friends. How could she speak to a nation which outnumbered hers by a vast proportion?

“Visola can’t lead. She’s too trigger-happy,” Sionna reiterated slowly. “We need someone who is careful and observant. Someone who thinks before she speaks. Someone who deliberates long and hard before she acts. You’re a brilliant pearl concealed in a fortress of shells. Layer after layer of calcium carbonate. You have to break out of it now, Elan. You have to do it for Aazuria.”

A glint of emotion flashed in Elandria’s pale blue eyes.

Sionna saw this glimmer of a reaction, and she continued pushing, with a small smile on her lips. “When we get Zuri back, and we
will
get Zuri back, what do you think she’s going to feel about the mess we made of her country?”

Elandria ripped her hand away from Sionna and quickly responded in sign language, while glaring at the other woman.
“We did not get Corallyn back. Not in one piece.”

Sionna looked stricken. “That may be true, but you can’t give up on Aazuria. She’s stronger than Coral was. She can…”

“There has not been a ransom note,”
Elandria signed with her hands.
“There has been no word of any kind. You called me reasonable, Sionna. If I am to be reasonable, I must accept that Aazuria is dead. You are an intelligent woman, and you know this to be true. Perhaps if I were stronger, I could do what is expected of me and fulfill my obligations. But my sister was my whole world, and I cannot go on without her.”

The two women stared at each other for a moment, neither of them speaking.

“I understand,” Sionna said finally.

“I am sorry,”
said Elandria with her hands.
“My heart is just not strong enough.”

“Excuse me!” Sionna snapped, her forehead furrowing. “As your heart surgeon, I can’t help but take that personally. Your heart is perfectly fine, if not stronger than before.”

This coaxed the shadow of a smile out of Elandria.
“I meant no offense. Of course, physically you patched me up perfectly. But there is something else in me that is weak; my spirit perhaps, or my
inua
. Whatever it is, you cannot reach it through any operation. It is my fault that I am weak, and not yours.”

“You are much stronger than you believe,” Sionna responded, “but I will respect your decision, and I will not bother you again. I will let you have your privacy and peace among the sea cows.”

“Thank you. Do not worry so. All of Adlivun loves Visola,”
Elandria signed.
“Oftentimes, she had more authority than Queen Aazuria. She already leads the military with ease, so it is not such a huge leap for her to lead the whole nation. If she gets too aggressive and out of control, you can temper her. She listens to you.”

Sionna frowned. “What in Sedna’s name makes you think that Visola would ever listen…”

The sound of a throat being cleared interrupted her, and both women turned to the cave entrance. The messenger, Naclana, had quietly entered the room. 

“Dr. Ramaris,” he said respectfully, with a bow. “You must come at once. There’s an emergency. It’s Alcyone.”

He had never imagined such splendor could exist in such frigid, godforsaken depths.

Trevain had been swimming for hours before he realized he was lost. He had to admit that he still did not know the bowels of the sea as well as he knew its skin. Or perhaps his despair had been blinding him and distorting his sense of direction and overall composure. He had been so focused on the furious forward motion that orientation had not mattered. Surely if he was swimming, and if all of his largest muscle groups were engaged in a disciplined, strenuous physical activity, he was making more progress than he was while lying on his back and being documented. At least it felt that way.

He noticed a shadowy configuration in the distance, and believed it to be part of Adlivun. Trevain adjusted his course, but when he drew nearer to the edifice he was perturbed to recognize that the darkness was not a dwelling, nor an island. It was a forest of swaying seaweed. It was denser than a rainforest and far more colorful. As Trevain felt himself drawn into the thicket of kelp, he felt as though he were weaving between the rows of a colossal cornfield.

Enormous featherlike structures swayed back and forth around Trevain, and he could not shake the feeling that the dark undersea forest was alive. He sensed that the sea was trying to comfort him, trying to envelop him in a soft seaweed embrace. The waters seemed to know what they had taken from him. He had learned the hard way that forgiving the sea only gave it the creative license to boil him alive again. This time, he would not relent to its offerings.

It was too late to make reparations.

Trevain reached out and grasped large handfuls of the soft pillars of kelp, digging his fingers into the innocent plants and tearing them apart. He attacked the fragments, and ripped them into lesser forms, channeling all of his fury into his arms as he hacked and slashed, vengefully destroying this child of the deep.

The sea had taken his child. He would never get the chance to behold his unborn son or daughter, who was lost along with his new wife. Aazuria had been his soulmate.

Once, he had been able to look at a plant and discover wisdom. He had contemplated a bonsai tree until he realized that he felt just as constricted and inhibited as the poor thing. Through staring at the plight of the ceramic pot, he had recognized that he did not feel at home on the land, long before he had known anything else was a possibility. Once, he had looked at a mushroom growing in an undersea cavern, far away from sunlight, and his unborn child had come to the forefront of his mind. He had known then that he must stop mourning the lives which had been lost; the deaths of Corallyn and his crew members. He had seen that he must embrace the new life which he had created, and focus on the new beauty he had found in the world, for life must go on.

Now, as he beheld the surreal kelp forest, he realized that he had been foolish and romantic. Life was random. The sea was just water—cold, inhuman, merciless waves. 

It gave and it took arbitrarily. It was indiscriminate and erratic. Nothing meant anything, and he was disappointed that this realization was coming to him so late. The truth was that he had worshipped life with a passion, he had celebrated the existence of every little creature as magical. He had become close to Aazuria because she had seen the same qualities in the world. She had treasured all within her realm so much that she had been willing to lay down her own life to protect her friends. Her friends knew this, and they had done the same for her; seeing the way his grandmother had gone to the greatest lengths imaginable to protect Aazuria had inspired and warmed his heart like no feat he had ever witnessed.

Then Aazuria had been taken. He knew he should restrict his thoughts to productively brainstorming how to get her back, but he had been searching for months to no avail. He had been combing through every possible lead on land and sea. It was appearing more and more futile. He did not know who to blame. Was he to blame his grandfather for not killing their enemy thoroughly enough? Was he to blame Lieutenant Namaka and Major Mardöll for not guarding Aazuria closely enough? Or was he to blame this enemy, Prince Zalcan, whom he had never seen? Everyone had screwed up. He had screwed up even more than they had, because he should never have allowed Aazuria out of his sight. Traditional week of reflection? It was a load of horse dung. Ceremonial bullshit. He should have been with his wife when she needed him. Now, there was nothing that anyone could do.

I blame the fucking seaweed,
he finally decided.
Trevain reached down to withdraw the sword he had begun keeping at his belt, and he began to viciously slash. His arms were already tired from hours of swimming when he began, but he was fuelled forth on fury alone. His muscles seemed to pulsate with some divine second wind as he destroyed the glorious undersea ecosystem. He made sure that none of the little glowing fish, richly colored sea urchins, or jeweled top snails were safe from his swinging blade. Why should they be?

He cursed out loud and recoiled in disgust when a massive eel swam out at him, frightened from the destruction of its foliage habitat. Trevain really hated eels. He considered them slimy, repulsive creatures. An immediate vendetta was activated in his body as he chased after the invertebrate with his sword, intending to chop it to bits. Its motions were swift, and the water was harder to fight in than air. He spent several minutes chasing after the eel, until suddenly a man was standing where the eel had been.

Trevain’s sword swung out at the man, but he stopped it from colliding with him at the last second. He glared at his wife’s cousin. The tip of his blade hovered in the water an inch from Naclana’s nose, wavering in Trevain’s exhausted grip.

“King Trevain, Sionna sent me to collect you,”
Naclana indicated in sign language. The man’s face was expressionless.

Trevain snarled and shoved his sword back into its sheath at his belt.
“You are despicable,”
he responded. He had hated the long-haired man since the moment he had first laid eyes on him.
“Why does Aunt Sio want me?”

“It’s your mother,”
Naclana informed him, ignoring his insult.
“She is unwell.”

Trevain glared at him before responding.
“Do you see? Do you see why I can’t stand you?”

“I am just the messenger,”
Naclana responded.
“The same way you are just a fisherman who happened to marry my cousin, King Trevain.”

Naclana was only using his hands, but Trevain could very well see that if he had been speaking, the word ‘king’ would have been spoken with sarcastic emphasis. He swam close to Naclana, until he was hovering directly in front of the man. His heavy breaths from rigorous exercise amongst the kelp huffed water into Naclana’s face.

Trevain had learned during his time in Adlivun that sea-dwellers were excellent at reading lips. This is why he did not use sign language, but instead spoke the words he wished to say. The water washed away the specific details of their sound, but Naclana could read their meaning visually.

“If I ever find that you were concealing information about my wife’s whereabouts, I will not wait for a trial. I will kill you.”

“I am not your enemy,”
Naclana responded with his hands, assuming that Trevain could not read lips.
“You are losing your sanity—assuming you had some to begin with.”

“Don’t underestimate me, Naclana. It’s not what you say that bothers me, but how you say it. You garner some sick kind of enjoyment from watching our suffering, don’t you?”

“I have just been doing this for a really long time
,” Naclana answered, expressionlessly.
“I have to be stoic. I can’t go around attacking plants with gusto like a menstruating schoolgirl, or where would this country be?”

Trevain fought the urge to hit the man, and instead reached out and patted Naclana’s green Kevlar armor in a menacing fashion. “Your cousin Aazuria chose to marry me for a reason. I am the grandson of General Ramaris. I wouldn’t forget that if I were you.”

“I couldn’t forget it. It’s the only reason anyone tolerates you.”

Trevain lifted his hands to form a quick retort.
“And the only reason anyone tolerates you is because you’re Aazuria’s cousin.”

The two men stared at each other for an intense, testosterone-fueled minute.

Naclana was the first to break.
“We’re going to get her back, you know.”

“I know.”

Trevain walked briskly through the halls of the infirmary. When he rounded a corner, he saw the distant silhouette of a muscular man with a dark ponytail leaning against a wall. As he approached, he recognized that it was his grandfather. He noted that the long scar running along the side of Vachlan’s face was healing, but still a prominent reminder of Aazuria’s wrath. It was still startling to Trevain that a man who was over four hundred years old could look like he was in his early thirties. The sea had been kind to his ancestor in preserving his body. Trevain could not prevent a small feeling of jealousy as he reached up to run his hand through his own grey hair.

“Vachlan,” he spoke in a gruff greeting.

The older man glanced up at him, and nodded in acknowledgement.

“How is she?” Trevain asked. “Have you seen my mother?”

“She’s going to be fine,” Vachlan answered, crossing his arms and frowning, “but she still won’t speak a word to me. I don’t know how much more apologizing I can do. She’s my daughter. They won’t even let me in the room.”

“I’ll talk to her for you,” Trevain offered. “It’s just… well, my mother is very sensitive.”

“Maybe I don’t deserve being spoken to,” Vachlan said, turning to his grandson with serious regret in his eyes. “Her illness is putting things in perspective for me. I could have missed it all. I could have never met her, and I could have never met you. What if she never speaks to me?”

“She will,” Trevain said, feeling empathy for the man.

“Sionna says she suffered a minor heart attack. She could have died. I never would have gotten to know her. I never would have spoken to my daughter.”

Trevain’s brow creased, as all concern for Vachlan flew out of his mind. “Died! How dare you say that?” He pushed Vachlan out of his way roughly before making his way to the hospital room, and forcing the door open.

Alcyone looked up in surprise. She was partly submerged in a healing pod, while Trevain’s younger brother, Callder, sat very close to her. His wife, Brynne sat on the rocks nearby with a book on her lap. Trevain swallowed as he looked at the domestic scene. Before Aazuria had gone missing, they had intended to have to have a double-wedding with Callder and Brynne. They had ended up going through with the wedding of the younger couple, but on a much smaller scale than they had initially intended.