Chapter 6

KAI

After dealing with the infuriating eel prince, who had demanded no less than three layers of packaging for the water-tight bottle of potion Kai gave him, Cirrina immediately reminded Kai of his missing hemocyanin order and sent him after Krill with strict instructions not to return empty-handed.

This time, Kai left the cavern without complaint. Between his concern for Krill’s absence, and an itching need to put as much distance between himself and that arrogant eel as possible, he welcomed the chance to escape.

It wasn’t the first time Krill had gone for ingredients alone, but with so many unfamiliar faces in their waters, and Archetuithis season making the outer ring unsafe at night, it was best to go out in pairs until the danger passed. Kai hoped that Krill had been wise, and had hidden himself somewhere. He wasn’t likely to get the blue crab blood that Cirrina needed, and there was no telling how far he’d wandered to find them.

Dragging his collection pouch, Kai drifted tiredly through the seaweed gardens that marked the trench dropoff. This sale day had been the culmination of a month’s work, and yet this one work day had felt like a month on its own. Kai was sorely tempted to fold himself in the kelp beds and sleep, if only for an hour, when he caught sight of a flash of red following him through the leaves.

“I can see you, Aya.”

The water rolled smoothly over her tail as she flipped through the last of the seaweed and joined him in his clearing.

“You don’t usually,” she didn’t meet his eyes, swimming just a bit above his head.

“Only when I’m looking for other things,” he rebutted, debating on pulling her down to a less dizzying angle. “What are you doing out past the borders in the middle of the night? Isn’t it ‘forbidden’ for you to—wait, where’s your guard?”

He only just kept his lip from curling when he brought up Adin, but Aya didn’t seem to mind—or notice.

“I’ve had the guard’s rotation memorized since I was three, Kai,” she said, by way of explanation. “I wanted to bring something to you without being watched. You’re always working like you think it will kill you to stop, and you—are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he said, gritting his teeth to wake himself up, suspicious that she was keeping such a distance. Aya was usually comfortable swimming right up to him—too comfortable for her own good. This flightiness felt…odd.

He inspected her face from the brief glimpses she gave him of it. Her cheeks were puffier than usual, and the veins in her eyes had run red, as though she hadn’t slept either. It wasn’t uncommon for her to slip out at night to head to the surface for charting; however she never looked like this. It took him a moment to realize that she must have been crying, but Aya… Aya didn’t cry. Not for pain. Not for insults. Not ever.

“I’m not blind Kai. Did Cirrina do something? Is there anything I can help you find?” Though she smiled at him, it felt forced. It was ridiculous. Just as he’d said to Krill, Aya was a princess with a veritable army of servants and guards to protect her. So, what was she doing turning to him? “I’m good at finding things, so let me help. Got a list?”

She’s looking for a distraction, something in him whispered.

She is a distraction. Find Krill, he argued back, but the idea of leaving her out here in the dark didn’t sit well with him either.

He reached out to her, and instead of taking the hand she offered, turned her face in his fingers to see her better. Her eyes were all the way dilated to the dark, reminding him that her vision, though keen, would never be much use past sunset. A small puff of bubbles left her lips when he touched her face.

“We both know you won’t be finding anything when it's this dark out,” he murmured as he searched. “I’m shocked you made it out this far as-is.”

He inspected her with a clinical eye—Kai wasn’t a mage for nothing. He could cure restlessness, itchiness, red-eye, dry scales—pretty much anything but hunger. But Aya didn’t seem to need any of those cures, and she certainly didn’t need cosmetic potions, either. Her skin, her hair, and her mouth. They were all perfect.

“I have a lamp, but I put it out before I could blind you,” she explained. “It’s just the glow-beetles, and they don’t mind…”

Babbling? Well, he supposed that wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary for her…

Stymied, he pulled back, earning himself the oddest expression rom her. Was it irritation? No. Disappointment? Odd.

“Princess, what’s wrong?”

She caught his hand before he could pull back fully.

“Only that you insist on calling me ‘Princess,’” she said, tucking her fingers beneath his palm.

“Aya, you are—”

“And that I would give so very, very much not to be one,” she added in a whisper.

He surprised them both with an incredulous snort. “Shall we trade, then? I’ll swim around waving and giggling, and you can find my ingredients and chop and powder things until your tiny little fingers fall off.”

She laughed then—a real laugh, if a bit half-hearted. “Yes. Shall we have you fitted for dresses tomorrow? You can have mine.”

He rolled his eyes. “Not funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” she said, but at least now, she was smiling.

“What’s wrong, Aya? Why are you several hours’ swim away from the palace in the middle of the night—and, hang on, how did you find me?”

“You and Krill look for ingredients near the basin almost every night,” she said, giving his fingers a squeeze.

He jumped, pulling his hand back before he could think. He was so tired, he’d forgotten he was still holding her hand, and the jerky movement of him pulling away knocked her forward. His tentacles caught her before she touched his bare skin, thank goodness, but his attempts to subtly pull away from her had only put them closer.

Of course they did, he nearly groaned, but as tired as he was… he truly didn’t have the energy to care.

So, when Aya looked at him as though she might cry over who-knew-what, he let his tentacles nudge her forward enough to hug him, and he wrapped his arms around her, feeling warm for the first time since he’d left the boilers. The sensation of hugging her was cozy, and peaceful, if one didn’t mind the occasional faceful of hair. Kai wouldn’t have minded going to sleep like this—but then, as he was, he might not have minded sleeping on a pile of sharp rocks, as long as he got sleep.

“Nothing’s truly wrong,” Aya mumbled into his shoulder eventually. “I’m not in danger. I don’t have to worry about survival… For now, at least. It’s just… Whatever is back there is just not nearly as important as whatever you’re facing right now. And I’m just so useless at the palace, so let me help whatever you’re doing. Just for a while.”

Kai’s fingers slipped down the back of her blouse as he pulled away. Aya had confirmed his concerns. This wasn’t just another midnight star-gazing trip. She was running from something specific—which meant that her absence would be noticed.

“I’m just tired, Aya,” he said distantly, and suddenly the moment between them—a moment that he was hardly awake enough to register—was gone.

“Well then, I’ll let you get home…” Her smile wavered as she swam back a little, and a voice in his head warning him about propriety made him let her. “But before I go, I came to bring you these.” From the pouch at her waist, Aya produced two pearlescent papers, and brandished them before his nose with such regality that he was almost tempted to sneer. “These are invitations to the royal ball next week. One for you, and one for Krill. Each one has a plus-one, so you can ask Cirrina if you like—”

When she saw his expression, she laughed for real.

“—Or not. But even if you do bring someone, please save me a dance.”

He raised a silvery brow, but humored her all the same, examining the date on an invitation.

“That’s three days before the eclipse. I have a lot of work to finish before then, and Krill…Poseidon’s toes, Krill!”

He’d dallied long enough. It was time to resume his search for Krill.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Kai didn’t mind being cutting and sarcastic to Cirrina, or any of his customers, for that matter, but with Aya, he tried his best to preserve her feelings. But, this request…. from his experience in his travels, a royal ball full of condescending nobles was only an opportunity for abuse for a cecaelia as small as Krill. And, Krill was still missing.

“—I’m not sure how much he’d enjoy this sort of thing,” he finished lamely, suddenly aching to leave.

Her disappointment was immediate, and more severe than he’d expected, but for once she managed not to rant or argue.

“Please, Kai,” she pleaded instead, looking at him properly for the first time. “There are things happening at the palace, and I’m not sure if we’ll be able to do something like this again, so if you could come…even just for an hour…”

This was also suspiciously unlike her. Aya usually presented rational arguments, or tried to sway him with excessive reminders and reasons why he ‘might’ enjoy it, but for once, she didn’t seem to have the energy for any of those things. Her simple plea moved him more than any of those things would have, and again something was nagging at his overworked mind—the notion that something wasn’t right.

“I’ll try,” he said tiredly, watching puzzled as her brow furrowed, and then fell limp. She nodded, giving him another of those strained smiles.

“Aya, if something is wrong, you can tell me. There might be something I can do.”

“Nothing—nothing is wrong,” she said. Kai couldn’t help but feel there was some underlying not yet clause to this claim. “Just come if you can. I’ll wait.”

Whether it was the fatigue or an urge to get her home before the sun set and the city borders got much more risky, Kai heard himself agreeing:

“If it is at all possible for me to be there, I will,” he said hesitantly.

“Thank you.”

Aya pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. A spark of something more instinct than awareness tingled its way down his spine.

How did she…?

Kai always kept a distance from Aya, and not just for the sake of her reputation. The much bigger, and more important reason was that he could never say when Cirrina was using her scrying pearl to watch him. As Cirrina got more angry over how her business was being restricted by Titus’ laws, there was always a chance that Cirrina would think to use her against the high king—and order Kai to help her do so.

Because of Cirrina’s orders, Kai had few friends among the reef fish, the merchants, and even fewer in other kingdoms, but none were ever as constant, or provided as much novelty as Aya. Later, when Krill joined himself and Cirrina living in the cavern, she’d given Krill a connection free of disdain and danger, and the much-needed occasional lesson in manners. The princess and her bright smile had brought him connections, information, and books—each gift which inexplicably flashed through his fatigue-addled head.

It was because of those reasons, and all the years of careful distancing that the kiss took him so off-guard. In his tired, overworked state, he didn’t see it coming. Didn’t resist. Didn’t jump back. In his surprise, he could only stare dumbly after her when, just as suddenly as she’d appeared, Aya darted off in the direction of the palace.

It was too much. If his reaction time was so bad, he was clearly a danger to the reef, and himself. He’d simply pushed himself too long. As Aya disappeared, her glowing lamp in hand, Kai’s eyes refused to readjust to his surroundings. With a pang of frustration, he knew his attempts at finding ingredients, let alone Krill, would be useless. It took all of his willpower to move to a nearby crevice in one of the outer reefs to sleep, hoping nothing too dangerous found him in the night.

*

Kai awoke to voices, which was never a good sign. He froze, trying his best to blend into the shadow beneath the rock that concealed him, until he recognized that neither of the voices were Cirrina’s—then again, neither of them were Krill’s.

“It starts in three hours!”

“Why is it so early in the evening?”

“Who knows with those royals? The princes probably want to show off for the princesses. I heard they’ll be announcing engagements tonight.”

“Already? I didn’t think the princesses had even left Atlantis yet. How could they have met?”

“Don’t ask me the details, but I don’t envy the one who gets married off to the arctic.”

There was an ungainly snorting sound. “Will he even want her once she’s frozen her fins off?”

“Hah! No return policies on princesses, I hear. That eel was handsome, though! He’s bound for Titus’ youngest. She has all the luck…”

Kai didn’t care what the gossipers had to say, but he certainly wasn’t in the mood for a run-in with strangers out on the reef. The last thing he needed was some jumpy scrounger to call in the guards.

He waited until the voices passed to venture out of the coral enclave where he’d slept. It looked a lot different by daylight. At night, there was no telling what spiny, or venomous thing he’d be disturbing by crawling into the cramped space, but the rock he’d hidden under was so barren, not even polyps had deigned to make a home there. Two seaweed-green tails of the unnamed busybodies disappeared through the kelp, and by the sound of things, no more were coming.

Just kelp-bed weeders, then, he realized with some relief.

Kai shrunk into himself when he realized that everything around him was visible. Sunlight streamed through the leaves of the kelp forest that surrounded his hiding place. The currents were blowing warm around his ears. It was past noon. He’d been boiling the seaweed at both ends, and now this…He’d fallen asleep outside, unprotected, in the middle of a known tentacle-hunting season. It was breathtakingly stupid.

He couldn’t keep doing this. If he carried on with this schedule, it could quite literally kill him. Gritting his teeth, he made himself a grim promise. As soon as this eclipse was over, he would use the lull in customers to find himself a cave—something big enough for a shop. He would forge his own cauldrons if he had to. Once he’d saved enough, he would take Krill as an apprentice and get them as far from Atlantis as their tentacles could take them—somewhere warmer, with fewer guards and hungry teeth.

Peering around the kelp bed, he ran a hand over his head with a yawn, scrunching his face when it came away with two pieces of paper that had lodged in his hair. Eyes narrowed over the pearly script, Aya’s request the day before came bubbling back into his memory.

Please come, she’d said. I’ll wait.

He would have to make his apologies later.

Then, the date on the papers caught his eye. It had to be a misprint. If the gossiping kelp-weeders were swimming off to this event, meaning that the ball was today—the thought was frankly horrifying. He’d been asleep—defenseless—in this crevice, for two days!

He’d been asleep so long that Krill may have returned to the cavern already, but without the hemocyanin, he would have been turned right back out again. Either way, the time posted on the tickets was only three hours from now. There just wasn’t time to find Krill, complete Cirrina’s order, and then make it to the inner palace. Then, the issue of his merchant’s vest being allowed into a royal ball was too much of a headache to consider. Aya was forgiving, and there would be other balls.

Kai stuck to the shadows of the kelp farms as he headed toward the nearest blue crab nest. His path led him through a labyrinth of towering kelp forests, their long fronds swaying gently with the currents. Everyone had left, it seemed, for the ball. The quiet emptiness in the lush farms was calm and peaceful. The second ring contained farms of sargassum and creepvine, all carefully cultivated to contain the algae blooms that fed so many of Atlantis’ citizens. The dense strands gave him cover as he made his way back into the third ring, tracing the path Krill should have taken.

When he exited the foliage and made his way over the rougher portions of reef in the third ring, Kai found several horseshoe crabs skittering about the rocks. The odd thing was, these crabs were obviously undisturbed. His keen nose could find no hint of blue blood in the water, as there would have been from Krill’s sloppy attempts at bleeding crabs.

Yet, as he coasted over the shadowy stretch of reef, there began to be a horribly familiar scent in the water that sent prickles up his spine.

He hissed, peering sharply over the rocks and toward the source of the scent—a place where the rocky reefs dropped completely off into shadows.

“Where did you swim off to, Krill?” he growled. It was no wonder there were so many crabs active in this area. There was death in the water.

Moving far more silently than the chatty mermaids from earlier, Kai followed the scent over the reefs, and just past the outer dropoff, where something dark red flailing below the ledge caught his eye.

Thinking it was one of the squid nests, Kai quickly backed away, but the scent was far from what he remembered from shipwreck cove, and there was something disturbingly familiar about the dark shape drifting just below the ledge. Kai’s stomach threatened to twist itself in two.

“No, no, no!” he growled, picking up speed. Already knowing what he would find, Kai rushed over the lip of the drop-off.

There, stuffed into a crevice too small for his body, lay the shape of a small, pale cecaelian boy. His camouflage had long since failed him, and his natural brown coloring stained patches of his tentacles, as though he had tried so desperately to hide that it had permanently stained pieces of him. Except for his gills that flapped in the current drifting up from the abyss, Krill’s body wasn’t moving.

His face was covered in scratches, and sticky dark fluid oozed from a wound in his stomach, his sides, and—and Kai stopped breathing when he saw where three of Krill’s feet had been hacked from his body.

He had been so close to saving Krill from this place. A few more months. So close!

And then he thought:

This is my fault. Asleep two days? I should have been here.

Kai bit back anger and bile, and forced himself to breathe.

He reached two of his tentacles into the tiny space, and slowly coaxed Krill’s body out into the open water. The boy’s head lolled back as Kai pulled him close. Kai had seen more resistance from jellyfish. There were so many wounds and gashes along Krill’s tentacles that it was a miracle that there was so much of him left. Whatever had done this, Krill was not a fighter. He had clearly run away til his last breath. Other mer-folk died from less abuse, but all the same Kai was unwilling to accept that krill, that his only family in this world, might be gone. Trying not to shake, he gritted his teeth, he lowered an ear to Krill’s chest.

He held his breath, willing his ears to discern between the pounding of his own hearts, and the faint sound coming from under Krill’s ribs. It was faint—very faint—but it was there. Kai blew a relieved stream of bubbles over Krill’s body when the distinct thudding of at least two of Krill’s hearts met his ears. He was so relieved he could have shouted. Then, he was panicked. How much blood had Krill lost? How long had he been wedged into this rock? Then, as something on Krill’s body caught his eye, the blue waters around the field of his vision pulsed red. Like blood in the water, anger took over all of his other emotions.

The tip of a hunters’ spear, painted a gaudy orange, had broken and stuck in the bone of one of Krill’s ribs. Looking abysmally painful, the wound leaked a tiny trail of blood, just above his third heart. The boy was so tiny, that that slip of aim had saved his life. However, that wound was high enough that his attackers would have seen that Krill was cecaelian, and not a squid. He wasn’t even the right size. Kai bit down another growl. Whoever had done this, it had been intentional. If Krill didn't have three hearts, he’d be dead. The idiots didn’t even know how to kill him, and judging from the color of the weapon, Kai knew exactly which idiots had done this.

Gathering Krill into his arms, Kai felt every one of his years under Cirrina, like lead sinkers weighting his limbs as he rushed him back to Leviathan's Grotto. Krill still had a chance.