Breakwater Read online

  “Ayu, thank you for coming.”

  “You have to hurry if you’re going to save Finley and your sister.”

  “How much time before the coronation?” I let out a grunt as she poked at my foot.

  “Requiem decided he wasn’t going to wait for the full moon. He’s going to marry and get a child in one of his brides so he has an heir right away.”

  Her words stuttered through my brain. “Wait, brides?”

  Ayu’s hands were efficient and gentle as she stitched my wounds closed and pieced the bones back together. “Requiem is taking two brides, and if you were known to be alive, he would take you, too.”

  A whisper of premonition crept up my spine. Requiem’s words overheard in the barracks came back to me and I struggled to ask my question.

  “Who, who is he marrying?”

  Ayu lifted her head, her beaded hair clacking in the sea breeze. “His sister. And yours.”

  CHAPTER 16

  jerked to my feet and was moving before I thought better of it. Ash tackled me, his words hard. “We have to plan. You can’t just go running into the throne room and expect to get them both out alive. This is the patience you have to learn, the patience of an Ender.”

  My cheek pressed into the sand and I closed my eyes to get myself under control. Much as I hated it, Ash was right. And he was wrong, too. “You don’t even want to save Finley!”

  “Will you just wait to hear the rest of what the healer has to say first?”

  I nodded, the sand rough on my face. He let me go and I sat up. The twins stared at us with wide eyes and I remembered the necklace. I held it out to the boy. “Here, you did your part. Thank you.”

  He darted forward, tiny hands clutching at the tooth. Ayu saw it and frowned. “Why would you give him that? It is a powerful talisman.”

  The boy grinned and Ayu frowned at him at first, and then her expression softened. “Sting, that won’t save your mother from what she struggles with.”

  Defiance flashed across his face. “You don’t know that. She said”—he pointed at me—“it was magical, so did you.”

  “Sting, what ails your mother is nothing this necklace can heal. I am telling you the truth.”

  Ash stood and was on Sting in a flash, jerking the necklace from him with his good hand. “You can’t let him take this, Lark. It’s not meant for the Deep.” Sting reached for the necklace and Ash held it above his head, away from him.

  “Children, stop. I told him he could have it.” I stood, took the necklace from Ash and handed it back to Sting, ignoring his frown. “If nothing else, my word is important. I will keep my word.”

  Ayu beckoned to the girl. “Ray, come here. Why do you really want the necklace?”

  Ray shuffled forward, her eyes downcast. “Mama has been having bad dreams. She said the necklace with the big tooth would be the key to stopping Requiem. We saw the Terraling Ender wearing it and thought she could help. Mama is so unhappy when she doesn’t sleep.”

  Ayu sucked in a sharp breath. “Then perhaps we should pay your mother a visit.”

  Sting and Ray moved in tandem as they led the way, swinging their arms and singing a sea shanty. Above us the moon floated, three-quarters full and bright enough to easily light our way.

  “Where do the bodies float ashore?”

  “Beyond the horizon forever more.”

  “Where does the blood pool on the sand?”

  “Beyond all that touches land.”

  Not exactly an uplifting song, and certainly not a children’s song, at any rate. I sped up, placing myself beside Ayu. “I am trying to stop Requiem, but I need to know the rules he is bound by. You can tell me, can’t you?”

  Her eyes flicked to me and then back to the sand. “I don’t know.”

  I glanced at Ash and he shrugged. I stepped forward, blocking Ayu. “Are you so afraid that you can’t even help someone who is trying to help you? Someone trying to save your princess?”

  She bit at her lower lip. “You don’t understand. I am taking you to their mother, which is dangerous as it is. That will have to be enough.”

  I put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “Then explain it to me.”

  Ayu shuddered, making her beaded braids tinkle softly. “Requiem is stronger than anyone here. Stronger than maybe any other elemental this world has seen. No one has been able to stand against him.”

  I rubbed the spot between my eyes, speaking the words as I thought them. “Requiem’s a half-breed, so he should be weak, but he’s not. Is that why you’re so afraid of him?”

  Ayu’s head snapped up and her mouth dropped open. “He’s a . . . mother goddess, that explains so much. He’s half Sylph, isn’t he?”

  I nodded. “Yes. And he doesn’t want anyone knowing.”

  She covered her face with her hands, her shoulders trembling. “I must take you to Otco. There are things . . . things you must know only he can tell you.”

  Ayu would say nothing more as we walked along the beach, no matter how many questions I asked. She only shook her head and put a finger to her lips. So I followed her example and closed my mouth, but my mind raced as I tried to figure out what was going on.

  Requiem was a powerful half-breed who wanted to wed his own sister and mine. As disgusting as the thought of him trying to get a child from his own sister, it wasn’t unheard of in our past. To keep bloodlines pure, inbreeding had happened many years ago. But why Bella?

  That made no sense. She would give him a child with three elements, two from Requiem and one from Belladonna. A child who would be incredibly weak as the elements warred within it, none able to be first in his or her heart.

  Requiem’s reasoning made no sense that I could see.

  Ash caught my wrist and tugged me back. “Lark, this is not going to help us get Belladonna out.”

  I tensed and he dropped his hand. “But it will help us stop Requiem, which will make her and Finley safe.”

  “That isn’t why we’re here,” he said, his voice growing with intensity.

  A pure shot of certainty ripped through me, wiping away my doubts. “Maybe it isn’t why you’re here. But I think it’s why I am here. I have to help Finley. I can’t leave her to him anymore than I can leave Bella.”

  He stepped away, shaking his head. “Delusions of grandeur? Really, is that what this has come to? I didn’t take you for a prideful woman, Lark.”

  Those words hurt, most especially from him, and I lashed out. “Yet, I always knew you were an asshole.”

  Our conversation was cut off as Sting and Ray led us into the poor section of the Deep, where the homes barely remained standing, patched together with flotsam and jetsam. The homes were on the northern side of the open-air market, hidden behind a fifteen-foot retaining wall that hid the majority of the homes from view. Which explained why I hadn’t noticed the area before.

  The ground was clean though, and everything was tidy if in poor disrepair. Ray waved us forward, into a house that was at best twelve feet by twelve feet, with dried kelp draped over the roof.

  The main and only room was lit with candles highlighting the enormous woman on the bed in the middle. She was so large I couldn’t see the bed except at the foot where her remarkably tiny painted toes gripped the driftwood railing. Draped in a light blue cloth with patches all over it, she wore no clothes and seemed content to be bare from the waist up. She had the same pale creamy skin as Finley, but her dark green hair was frosted at the tips with silver that flowed down over her chest, barely covering the tops of her breasts. Dark violet eyes flicked over us. Another shape shifter. The Undines seemed inundated with them. “Who have you brought today to gawk at me? I hope you at least brought mama food this time. I told you not to come back without something to eat.”

  Ash curled up one side of his mouth. I knew it wasn’t how she looked; that wasn’t our way. It was her soul that shone through like a dark light that had him curling back in distaste. The way she spoke to her children was awful.

  Sting tugged at a pouch on his waist, opening it up and offering what he had to his mother. A single oyster. His mother reached over, snatching it from him. Unbelievably, she cracked it with her bare hands and slurped down the contents in a single gulp. “Not enough, Sting. Mama will die if you don’t bring her more food. And then where would you be? Alone, alone in this world, you dirty little brat.”

  Ray started to cry softly. “Mama, please, don’t say that. We don’t want you to die.”

  “Mama” sniffed loudly, a noise that reverberated the loose flesh on her body. Sting held out my necklace to her. “I brought you this, Mama. It will help. You won’t be hungry all the time.”

  Her eyes flicked to the necklace dangling in his hands and she tried to rear back from it. “Take it away! Take it away!”

  Sting stumbled back and I caught him against my legs. Ayu strode forward, hushing Mama. “Blue, that’s enough. You’re scaring the children.”

  I shot a look at Ash to see if he caught that. Not “your children” but “the children.” Blue trembled and shook her head. “They need to be afraid.” Her eyes flicked around the room and settled on me, narrowing. “You’ll be the end of our world. And it will start here. The ripple effects of your actions will cascade through time until there is no one left.”

  Little hands dug into my legs. “Make her stop,” Sting whispered against me. I stroked his head and scooped my necklace from him. I held it up. “Why are you afraid of this?”

  She tried to rear back again, but only succeeded in flipping herself off the bed. “No, I don’t want to go back into the water. Stay away from me!”

  Ayu crouched beside her. “Blue, what are you talking about? You haven’t been able to change forms for years.”

  Blue grabbed at her, dragging Ayu close enough that I was afraid she might try to eat her. “The necklace, I saw it in my dreams. The one who wears it will crush Requiem.”

  Ash stepped forward and helped Ayu roll Blue over. The massive woman lay on her back, heaving for air.

  “We have to get her into the water,” Ayu said and Blue let out a moan. “It’s the only way, you have to shift. Your creature is fighting to get out!”

  Blue cried softly. “He’ll kill me, told me if I came back he’d skin me alive, chop me into pieces.”

  “Enough,” I snapped. “Someone tell me what in the seven hells is going on.” I looked to Ayu, but she shook her head. Surprisingly, neither of the adults explained.

  It was Ray. She approached me, taking my hand that didn’t hold her trembling brother. “She is our mother, but she didn’t always look like this. She was a princess. She was married to Requiem.”

  Blue let out a hiccupping sob. “He did this to me. He spelled me to be like this so he could cast me aside.”

  I stared at the twins. “Requiem is your father?”

  They nodded in tandem. Sting looked up at me. “He said we were curs, useless because we could only reach the water and not the air.”

  The pieces slipped into place like droplets of water into the ocean. My hands tightened on the twins. “And if you go back, Blue? Requiem’s told everyone you’re dead?”

  She nodded. “He said he would skin me alive and feed me to his pets.”

  I didn’t have to ask if she believed he would do it. I’d only known him a short time and I knew he was capable of doing exactly as he threatened.

  “And the same for us,” whispered Ray.

  Blue snorted. “You can be replaced.”

  My whole body tensed with her words. “That is not true.” I didn’t know what would happen, and I didn’t care. I tossed the necklace to Ash. “Put it on her.” I hoped whatever it was would hurt like a son of a bitch.

  Ash dropped the necklace over Blue’s head and she shrieked, her cry turning into the high-pitched wail of a sea bird. The kids gripped me and I scooped them both to me, one in each arm. They buried their faces against my neck, crying out along with their mother.

  Ayu shouted something, but I couldn’t hear it over Blue’s screeching. The big woman’s body shivered, the flesh dancing with her tremors as her screeching turned into full-bodied screams. There was a moment, a single second, when the sound stopped and we all stared at Blue who stared back at us.

  The moment passed and a spurt of water shot out of her belly, like a spout under pressure finally unstopped. She clamped a hand over it, but another shot out beside it. More and more, water shot out of her, soaking the room and everyone in it. I stumbled back, holding the kids tightly. Maybe the whole necklace thing had been a bad idea.

  A bellow erupted out of Blue and with it, her body tore apart, water slamming into us like a tidal wave.

  The kids and I were swept out the door and sent tumbling down the street like a crocodile on a belly slide. We slid to a stop against a building across the way. With all the shrieking that had gone on, I’d expected Undines to come running. But there was nothing, just silence.

  “Is Mama . . . dead?” Sting gulped, his eyes a mixture of hope and fear.

  “I don’t know.” I stood and helped them to their feet. The door to their home flung open and a svelte, tall woman stood there, violet eyes flashing as she saw me. The necklace hung between her large breasts, bouncing between them as she stalked toward us.

  “You, you did this to me.”

  I pushed the kids behind me. “I did. And I’d do it again.”

  Maybe not the best choice of words, but it was the truth. And as I was learning, the truth was not to be trifled with.

  Blue raised her hands, deep lines of magic running from her fingers to her elbows. I saw her intent and I stood there, slack-jawed in shock. She couldn’t possibly mean what I thought she did. Did she?

  The magic slammed into me. Apparently she did.

  CHAPTER 17

  lue’s power dropped me to my knees. There was nothing gentle about the magic, yet it healed me, the bones in my foot knitting together, the wounds from the hooks closing over. Shivering, I stared up at her. “I thought you were going to kill me.”

  “My magic can do both. I can heal a wound or rip it open. But Ayu said that bastard of a husband of mine is going to marry two women. Starving us all is one thing, but this?” She flipped her hair back, exposing her breasts further. “Completely unacceptable. If anyone is going to rule, it will be me. So I will help you stop him.” She yanked the necklace off and tossed it to me. “You are the only one with a chance of killing him, Larkspur, small though that chance might be, it is there.”

  Well, that was comforting. “Any idea how I might make it happen?”

  She waved at me. “Enders. So useless when it comes to manipulation and planning. I will go to Requiem and request to be re-instated at his side. Of course, he will take me and then you will come to the throne room and challenge him to a duel.”

  Ash cleared his throat. “That seems too easy. What aren’t you telling us?”

  She put a hand to her chest, splaying her fingers as her eyes widened. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “He means you have something up the proverbial sleeve,” I pointed out.

  Perhaps we would have had more of a discussion, but a sudden shout up the street startled us all. Blue reached for the twins, dragging them close. “Come, children, we are going to visit your father.”

  We ducked behind a house as Blue dragged Sting and Ray toward the voices. Castle guards swept around the corner, lowering their tridents upon seeing them. “Drop your weapons. Do you not recognize your queen when you see her?” Blue spit the words at them and I had to admit, she sounded queenly. Or at least, like the only queen I’d ever known.

  The guards surrounded them and escorted them up the road, Blue snapping at them every few feet.

  Sting and Ray both glanced back and the look in their eyes sliced me open. Hollow, empty, as if they knew what was coming for them.

  Ash grabbed me and held me back. “No, you can’t. We can’t help any of them if we’re caught now. We have to figure out what the hell is going on with Requiem before we face him.”

  I turned, surprise filtering through me. “So you’re with me now?”

  “Do I have a choice? The only way to get us all out of here is to convince Requiem to let us go. And that isn’t going to happen, is it? So we have to kill him.”

  Ayu shook her head. “You speak true. There is no way he will let you go. Come, quickly.”

  The three of us scuttled through the lower levels of the Deep until we reached the dividing line between the rich and the poor. Not a lot more activity, but it was still busier than the poor section.

  Ayu dragged us into a side ally. “You are too recognizable. Wait here, I will come back with Octo.”

  Before we could protest, she was gone.

  “I hope you are trusting the right people,” Ash said softly. I leaned against the wall, the sandstone rough against my skin. I looked down at my clothes, what was left of them. My vest had been torn in the middle, exposing my belly to the cool night air. He reached over and touched me, his fingers light across my sensitive skin. A shiver trembled through me and I looked up at him.

  “So do I.”

  His jaw ticked and he backed a few steps.

  I let out a slow breath. “The pipe system runs through the whole city. It’s how the kids were breaking into the kitchen to snatch food. Maybe we could utilize the pipes, swim through them to get to the throne room without being stopped.”

  “And do you know the layout of the pipes? I know you can breathe the water with that hook in your ear, but I can’t. You would have to go in alone.”

  “I know.” But already I knew that wouldn’t work. There was no way I could learn the ins and outs of the pipe system in the time we had.

  He stared hard at me, as if he would say something else. But he finally shook his head and looked away. “Someone’s coming.”

  I crouched low, and Ash did the same as we waited. There was no way of knowing who was coming, or if we would have to fight. Relief flowed through me as Ayu’s voice floated down to us. “Please, you spoke with the Terralings’ ambassador. Will you at least advise me on this?”