Saved by the Sea Lord (Lords of Atlantis Book 9) Page 9

  Lotar remained still.

  She tried to whisper-vibrate, “Is its vision based on movement?”

  “No.” He vibrated as normal.

  Oh. “So we’re not hiding?”

  “No,” he repeated, this time with dry amusement. “The sharpnose is shy.”

  The giant octopus emerged more fully. Its plus-shaped eyes fixed on her and Lotar.

  “It spotted us.”

  “We sense these animals. They sense us.”

  “So there’s no way to hide?”

  “Control your movements, your emotions, your heart.” He took her hand and hovered over the reef. “Slow your thoughts. These emit a current. Any shark can sense it for miles.”

  Ah. “So that triple shot I just finished probably means they can sense me in New York right now.”

  “Very far, yes.”

  Interesting.

  Hazel spent so much time with mermen that she ought to already know everything, but being here and experiencing it was totally different.

  And she’d never allowed herself to imagine. Becoming a mermaid, like starting a successful business, had felt as far out of reach as trying to become smart, articulate, and rich like Dannika.

  Four small sharks about the length of her forearm, with the same gray and cat-eye slits, floated out of the reef beneath Lotar.

  So cute. “Are those—”

  They zipped beneath the sheltering rock again.

  She tried to whisper-vibrate again. “Are those baby sharpnoses?”

  He nodded.

  “They’re so adorable.”

  The larger sharpnose veered toward them again, passing so close, Hazel reached out. Its skin brushed her fingers, rough like fine-grain sandpaper. It zoomed away and back, and Lotar kicked with it, matching its speed and direction effortlessly, like a sort of dance. He paced it to the open ocean. The shark disappeared into the deep.

  Lotar returned with a peaceful, yet playful expression, like a wolf that had run with his pack.

  So effortless. So free.

  “I want to do that,” she said spontaneously.

  He took her fingers. “I will train you.”

  Wonderful.

  She flexed her stubby human feet. The gills in her lower back were obviously working, and her eyes and vibration-thingy had shifted as well, but the fins and the finger webbing would take time.

  Overhead, the yacht’s engines started with a burr that scattered the wildlife.

  Holy cow. “Did a whole hour pass already? It feels like five minutes.”

  “Time dilation.” Lotar pulled her into his arms and kicked away from the atoll.

  She wasn’t ready.

  Please don’t let me screw up.

  Up at the surface, the bright disk of the moon reflected. He curved away from it and swam with powerful strokes into the deep blue following the route of the sharpnose.

  “Was that a mommy shark?” she asked randomly.

  “No. The shark was a male.”

  Oh, a daddy shark.

  Well, she felt better about the journey. There was so much to see and do. The ocean was the final safari, and the Steve Irwin of warriors would guide her. Less chatty, sure, but very competent.

  And how about those adorable baby sharks? Too bad she didn’t have her phone. She could just imagine Pia cooing. Hazel, what a cute baby shark!

  Baby shark. Baby shark. Baby shark…

  Unbidden, the music started in her head.

  Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo…

  Oh, God.

  Oh, no.

  No, no.

  “Uh-oh,” she vibrated aloud, trying to break the terribly iconic noise.

  He tilted his head at her in a silent question.

  No.

  No.

  Please, no?

  Hazel had somehow endured four days of “Sweet Home Alabama,” a great song that her brother’s sadistic mid-nineties CD player had converted into torture.

  How could she survive an entire year of “Baby Shark”?

  Ten

  I will train you.

  The promise echoed in Lotar’s mind with a strange resonance.

  It had popped out.

  And the strange thing was how intently he wished to train her.

  Even though he had no skill or patience. The wrong temperament.

  He kicked steadily into the currents that led him to the Sol Sud, one of the major ocean currents that would take him past their first destination city, Sireno.

  Hazel settled herself against his chest, noting and asking questions about the common wildlife. The disaster at the atoll seemed largely forgotten.

  It continued to plague him.

  Yes, he had done a quick tour beneath the yacht to ensure it was safe for her to enter. Sireno warriors did still sometimes surface here, and although King Jolan had never contributed troops to the All-Council armies to fight Atlantis, he also had not welcomed back any warriors who had left to seek their brides. His true loyalties were an enigma.

  One that Lotar and Hazel were about to discover…

  Having secured the area, Lotar had returned to the yacht to watch Hazel jump in, thrash, and descend with sharp determination toward the reef.

  Yes, he had sensed her panic.

  But she might recover by herself, and his intervention would lessen her accomplishment. He must not steal her glory and take improper credit for saving her when she did not need saving.

  And when he had stopped her—because scraping against the razor-sharp coral, while not dangerous, was certainly uncomfortable—she had been so angry that he hadn’t intervened, and his mistake glared even more obvious. Because of course, she was right, he had abandoned his bride in her moment of need, rendering him unfit as a warrior. How could he take her on the All-Cities Gyre when he couldn’t even safeguard her in the shallows?

  You don’t want me?

  He did want her.

  Against his will. Against his better judgment. Against the obvious unfitness that his inactions had shown.

  He still wanted her with him.

  She was his.

  And in that moment of truth, she’d calmed.

  Now here they were.

  May the Life Tree save them.

  He swerved out of the fast current.

  Hazel straightened. “We got off the highway. Where are we?”

  “An echo point.”

  Although it took days and weeks for messages to circulate, the echo points were still the most-used method of communication. Only Atlantis stretched a human wire from the surface down to a “submersible” air bubble, and so only they could pass a message above water in hours.

  Once the other cities knew the convenience…well, accepting an electric wire would require breaking the ancient covenant of secrecy.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked. “Listening?”

  “And announcing our start on the All-Cities Gyre.”

  “Didn’t Atlantis already announce it?”

  “As a traveler, I must declare it myself.”

  Lotar released Hazel to scout. Raiders sometimes used echo points to ambush vulnerable warriors. Alone, he would not consider himself vulnerable, but with Hazel…

  A silent thresher shark hovered in the water beneath them.

  Ah.

  He pulled her into his arms again. Never mind. This echo point was safe.

  She stiffened in his arms. “A shark!”

  The thresher descended, pushed away by her uncontrolled impulses.

  “Ah. It’s going away.”

  “You must be very still. Threshers are the shyest sharks in the ocean.”

  “So when I befriend it, I’ve made it.” But the shark continued to descend. “Can you show me?”

  He released her and lowered into its path, drifting, his senses attuned to its narrow body and long tail fin.

  The thresher stopped and rotated toward him. Although shy, it was curious about his presence. Few warriors had shark sense, and he had honed his wi
th years of observation and practice. He floated eye to eye. The thresher stared, eyes dark pits, but much of its senses came from hearing and scent. It descended into the deep, returning to safe waters.

  “Bye-bye.” She paddled her little human feet toward him. “Do you think I could do that? Commune with sharks? They look so calm floating with you.”

  “In time.” He entwined her again.

  “Oh, no. And just when I’d gotten it out of my head again.” She squinched up her nose and rubbed her forehead. “Quick. Sing me a song.”

  “Sing?”

  “It’s an emergency. You don’t even know. A melody, a tune. Hum.”

  The mer did not sing as the humans did.

  But then again…

  He vibrated a soft tune as he swam up on the echo point. His father had sung it to him long ago, in a gentler time, when Lotar had fumbled simple ties and cried over broken play-daggers.

  “Thank you.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “That’s haunting yet soothing. Like a mer lullaby.”

  “It was from my mother.”

  They floated into the echo point.

  In the oddly still water, voices from distant cities echoed.

  “…the kraken. She floats along the Sol Nord. Beware…”

  “…seen any? The migrations are late…”

  “…to the shore. The All-Council will execute any warriors who refuse. The ancient covenant must be…”

  He floated into the center. His heart thudded. The announcements of the cities flooded over him. He had spent so much time working alone and silently that it was strange now to announce himself to the undersea world. Hard to find the words.

  Hazel vibrated softly, “Did you want me to?”

  How thoughtful. But he would do it.

  “Hazel and Lotar of Atlantis embark on the All-Cities Gyre.” He vibrated crisply, his body stiff with the importance and nerves. “Our destination is Sireno. We journey in peace.”

  And it was done.

  Hazel grinned, lifting her shoulders to her ears, and wiggled with excitement.

  As he kicked to leave, his name echoed. He stopped.

  “…The warrior Lotar has no honor. Unsatisfied with dishonoring Syrenka, he seeks to ruin your cities. He is a spy. Turn him away, give him no quarter, he is not welcome…”

  His heart thudded harder. Blood beat in his ears.

  “They’re talking about you,” Hazel said.

  He kicked free of the echo point and continued on to the Sol Sud.

  His stomach churned.

  “That’s all a lie. Why say that? Your All-Council guys are as bad as the Sons of Hercules.”

  He choked. “No.”

  “Huh?”

  “Those words were not from the All-Council. They were from Syrenka.”

  “Your old home city?” She traced the iridescent gray tattoo on his chest. “Why?”

  “They are angry.”

  “Because you left? Well—”

  “Because it is the truth.” The vibrations made him ache, but he could not lie to Hazel. “I did as they said. I dishonored Syrenka.”

  She pulled back and looked at him, interfering with their aerodynamic shape. She touched his jaw. Her fingers trembled. No, his jaw trembled from clenching so hard. He forced himself to relax, but his body hid pockets of tension.

  “You dishonored Syrenka?” Hazel asked. “Why?”

  By accident. It had been an accident.

  But it had not.

  “My pride.”

  “Sorry, not why. I mean, what does that mean? Did you commit a crime? What crime?”

  The vibrations rasped in his chest. “I shamed my family.”

  “Okay.” She clamped his shoulders with a little shake. “By…what? Did you kill someone? Maim, hurt? Live in your parents’ basement and make your mom wash your clothes until you were thirty-five? Seriously, tell me. I dated a guy like that once. He wanted to move in so I’d wash his clothes. Never again. Oh, wait. You don’t wear clothes.”

  She was trying to distract him from the very real complications of this message.

  “Did you insult the prince’s prize-winning radishes?”

  It was better for her to know now.

  He had announced their journey. They must travel together to Sireno. After Sireno was the city of Aiycaya, a city with an established route to the mainland. If she wished to leave him, she could do so.

  It was better this way. Before they had united their bodies.

  “One day, my brother will rule Syrenka, but I was born larger and faster and…” He was going to say better, but that was his pride again. “Quieter. More observant. In any test of skill, I outperformed him. My constant undermining cast doubt on his selection, the future of the city, and his ability to one day rule.”

  “That’s it? I thought mermen barely even had brothers. Because of the lack of brides, you were like under an unintentional one-child-only policy.”

  “In Syrenka, we are the only brothers. It makes my decisions more unfortunate.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know. I have a brother too, and we competed for everything our whole lives. I moved to New York. He had to one-up me by moving to Alaska. See? We’re still competing.”

  Her brother did not carry the burden of ruling a city.

  “I guess he’s not a prince.” She settled against him again and their speed increased with the water flow. Then she poked him. “Hey. If your brother’s a prince, does that mean your dad’s a king?”

  “He is.”

  “Wait. Doesn’t that make you a prince too?” She poked him in the abdomen. “Am I swimming with royalty?”

  “No.”

  “Are you kidding? Does everybody know? Am I the only one who just found out?”

  He shook his head. “In Atlantis, your former city’s rank no longer matters.”

  “Yeah, but still.” She rubbed the spot she’d poked. “If your dad’s a king, why aren’t you a prince?”

  “In Syrenka, there is only one.”

  “But you weren’t raised to take over? What if your brother died?”

  “Then the elders of the city would choose the next prince. Their choice would not be me.”

  “I don’t see why not. You’d think they’d want the most competent warrior for their king. But what do I know?” She melted against him. “I’m sorry.”

  His chest ached.

  He held her small body to his. She did not want to leave him. Perhaps it was because she did not fully understand what it meant, and the longer she spent among the mer learning their ways, the more her mind would change.

  But perhaps it was because she also found it desperately unfair.

  He’d swum his hardest to win a race, returned to his father with his chest high, and been rewarded with a dark gathering of brows because…because why? Lotar should not have won. He’d acted wrongly. Yet his trainer always told the warriors to do their best. When others won through talent or luck, his father had clasped their arms and congratulated them. Only when the winner was Lotar did his smile falter.

  “Well, whatever the case, they sound like jerks to bring up old grudges now,” Hazel said. “We’re not going to spy. We’re inviting people to a party. Why would they say that?”

  Yes, she must learn much. “Syrenka is known for silent reconnaissance.”

  “Oh. You’re a city of spies?”

  “We have more exceptional control over our impulses. Thoughts, heartbeats.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  “Depending on how the cities receive this announcement, they may bar my entry.” He tightened his grip on his precious Hazel. “You will not only invite them to the party. You will have to convince them to let us into the city at all.”

  Eleven

  Oh, man.

  Oh, jeez.

  Oh, boy.

  Hazel didn’t totally get the thinking behind banishing a guy because he was good—you don’t bench your star player for being a star—but she knew plenty of people th
roughout history who were idiots, and so she gave them the benefit of the doubt. Like how in ancient kingdoms nobody could be taller or better dressed than the king. And here was Lotar, both pretty tall, and he looked amazing even undressed.

  “If I have to go into a city alone, teach me everything you know about mer culture as fast as possible,” she said.

  “You will never have to enter alone.”

  “Okay.” Thank God. He was bristling with weapons, competence, everything, but she wasn’t helpless either. “I should try to develop my queen powers.”

  He softened another fraction from the icicle he’d been since leaving the echo point to now, almost back to normal hard-bodied firmness. “That will always be welcome.”

  “Okay, cool. I do want to know about the rest of it. Like, how do you know which current to take, and how do you use this dagger to hunt, and what are those weird see-through pool noodles?”

  He identified her “pool noodles” as a giant fire salp, a colony of see-through jelly planktons that had banded together into a worm. Somehow.

  Well, life was a big mystery, but at least Lotar was a patient teacher.

  He navigated the currents by taste. A chalky taste meant they were in a current near land, while a metallic taste meant they were heading into the sea. An audible rumble meant there was an earthquake or surface storm that had churned the water and interrupted currents—although not the Sol Sud, which snaked through regardless of such interruptions.

  Certain predators and prey moved together, creating underwater islands. A whole ecosystem developed around slower-moving migrations.

  But the most fascinating was his skill in understanding sharks.

  He’d point them out by magic, and she’d see them out of the dots of other distant fish from much farther away than she was used to seeing on land. Like, the horizon of New York was pretty broken up by buildings, but she still wouldn’t expect to pick out strands of hair on the Statue of Liberty from the top of the Empire State Building, and that was really what it felt like.

  And there were tons more sharks than she knew. Yes, great whites and makos and hammerheads, but also the blue, lemon, angel, sand, blacktip, bluntnose, and sleeper. It was like taking a walk with an expert birder. She didn’t see half of what they saw, but her world was richer for knowing they were there.