Sea Throne

Christopher Howard

1 - Kassandra

2 - The War-bard's Daughter

3 - New Sirens

4 - Alexandros

5 - Bachoris

6 - The Boot and the Vents

7 - Nikasia's Chain

8 - The Untrusting Book

9 - Nothing Left For Me

10 - Strange and Wonderful

11 - The Vents

12 - Connections

13 - Mortal

14 - Barenis

15 - Monsters

16 - The Book and the King's Trusted Eight

17 - Gifts from the Sea

18 - Mirrors

19 - Dining with the Sea

20 - A Morning Visit

21 - Dangerous Types

22 - King's Monster

23 - Sailing

24 - The End of the World

25 - Soul Stuff and Open Wounds

26 - Thursday Night

27 - World Without Water

28 - The War-bards

29 - Scissors

30 - The Old Sirens

31 - Storm Eating

32 - The New Dead Army

33 - Coronation

Epilogue

Chapter 1 - Kassandra

Anna Mallozzi knocked on the dark windows of Hovand's Hardware Store, knowing it wouldn't do any good, the glass hard on her knuckles, closed sign hanging at a slant. She cupped a hand against the window, peering into an inside world protected from the rainstorm rolling over coastal New Hampshire.

Her breath fogged the glass. "I'll get here, honey—tomorrow when the store opens. Cumberland's fine and dry."

She turned for a reaction, expected tears, but Shelly wasn't even listening.

A stab of panic, and Anna grabbed her daughter, pulling her close, away from three women walking without umbrellas in the pouring rain.

"Don't stare at them."  She shook her head.

Shelly couldn't help staring at them, a spine-straightening creep of daring that drove her to study the women, each of them in turn, not quite alike, but close enough to be sisters. They all had their hair tied in braids that hung down their backs, rings of gold and seashells bound in them. Their clothes were soaked, shorts and long-sleeved rashguards—surfer-girl wear, and they walked past, chatting casually as if they didn't notice the water on their faces, rolling off their chins, off the ends of gesturing fingers, rainwater sheen on their bare legs. And all three wore expensive watches, blocky steel timepieces, too big for their wrists.

One was barefoot, and Mrs. Mallozzi made a sour face, one side of her mouth tightening. She clutched her umbrella handle, shaking it, emphasizing that she had one, nylon-shiny black wings folding over her and her daughter, protecting them from the rain.

She lowered her voice to complain, "Even worse because they can afford to keep dry, but choose not to."

One of the sisters stopped, turning to Shelly and her mother—and the water drummed harder on Anna's umbrella.

"What did you say?"

All the courage puddled out of Shelly. She backed into the rain, under the clouds, against Hovand's dark windows. Her mother didn't follow her.

Anna Mallozzi's body stiffened, her shoes rooted to the ground. The umbrella slipped from her fingers, falling to the sidewalk, cartwheeling into the street, cars honking and metal spiny claws scratching for a hold on the asphalt.

A dark bloom of wet material spread along Anna's shoulders, down the back of her raincoat, and Shelly smelled her mother's perfume and fear, thistle sharp and deadly like insecticide.

"Mom?"  Shelly reached out a hand, fingers stiff, crying, a prey animal's shuddery bleat.

Her mother couldn't move.

"Don't, Kass. Come on," said one of the sisters, reaching for the other.

Kass pulled out of her grip. "Answer me!"

"I said you can...afford to...stay dry."  Anna's voice stopped and started between each word as if they were being tugged out of her mouth. "But you choose not to."

"And why is that worse, Annalisa Mallozzi?"

Shelley went cold, caught in freefall helplessness. Her arm dropped. How did this stranger know her mother's name?

Mrs. Mallozzi shook her head stiffly. "I—I don't know."

A smile touched Kass's lips. "A little rain on your skin will do you good."  A roll of thunder started at her stress of the word "rain" and slipped into the sound of her voice—and the rain poured harder, opaque sheets of silver, milk white splattering on the concrete, swirling an inch deep around her toes.

Shelley closed her eyes and tilted her neck back, sticking out her tongue to taste it. "It's bitter."  She made a face, and then panic hit her, as if it wasn't something she was supposed to say aloud. She blinked to clear her eyes, trying to see if anyone had heard.

Kass turned and looked right at her—really looked, locked eyes, and wouldn't let her go.

"Just like the sea, Shelly Mallozzi."

"Kassandra, stop it. She's a kid."  It was one of the sisters, but her voice was faint, miles away.

The hard shell of the world crumbled under Shelly's feet. She fell into a rush of surf, dead cold water on her skin, a burn of salt in her throat, darkness and pale fingers slipping over her hand, and somewhere a thousand miles away a man was drowning, sucking in seawater, wet choking, fighting the heavy pull of the ocean on his ankles—and oh, god, there's blood, I'm going to die. Shelly tried to pull away. The surface of the ocean was above her, ripples and bolts of trapped sunlight, the taste of ancient names in every roll of saltwater.

Is your name Kassandra?

Kassandra nodded. "Do not let go, Shelly. The Ocean obeys me and few others—as long as you hold on to me. I can show you things, cliffs of ice blue at the world's end, the Nine-cities on the Atlantic's floor, fire in the ocean's heart."

They were over the continental shelf in seconds, diving into pure black.

Kassandra wore a crown and interlocking plates of armor, knobby like a crab's carapace; segments of armor curled around her arms, across her hands, extending past her knuckles into claws of bone white.

A teardrop rolled thick like mercury along Kassandra's lower eyelid, trapped a moment in her lashes, a silvery bead that slipped away, released into the dark turbulence of her wake—and something like thunder kicked in the sea behind them, following them into the abyss. Speeding up, Kassandra glanced over her shoulder and laughed, "Ochleros, you slowpoke. I'm always waiting for you."

Straight down into the deepest channels in the Atlantic, bubbling plumes of black smoke and raw fiery wounds in the earth's crust splitting open, scabbing over in buckles of ocean-cooled rock.

Kassandra touched down, danced off the floor, and tossed a ball of pale blue light high over her head. It lit up walls of molten rock gone black cold and revealed a giant human-shaped thing with huge pointed teeth and eyes like infinity, rolling lumps of seawater hide, twisting thin fibers of ice, bundles of it spun into muscle and bone, and Kassandra, dancing in the abyss, came up to it's knee.

She laughed again. "What took you so long, Ochleros?"

She kicked higher, pulling Shelly by the hand, one foot bounding off Ochleros' arm, up to his shoulder where she set her feet down and leaned an elbow against the sea-demon's ear.

Then she said something in another language—and Shelly understood her, a precious question asked in jest, encased—perfume in a bottle—inside a laugh, "Old friend, how shall we go about setting things on fire?"

Kassandra didn't wait for a response, bent to her knees, and kissed the demon on the cheek. "Just visiting, Ochleros. See you around."

Kassandra shot straight up, her armored claw fingers twined with Shelly's. "Is there anything you wish to see?  Anything I can give you?"

Shelly squinted up at Kassandra's blinding white crown, and she wanted to ask what was going to happen to the drowning man, but sobbed instead, "I just want Cumberland."

A jolt ran through her body, knees bending, and Shelly felt the concrete hard and real under her shoes, the windows of Hovand's at her back. Cold fingers slid from her grip. Kassandra stood over her without her armor and crown, eyes like the abyss looking back into hers. The storm shifted, cutting them off from the rest of the world; silver curtains and rushing water on concrete, sparks of headlights shooting electric through walls of rain—so much like sunlight in the deep.

"Meow. Here he is, Shelly Mallozzi. Cumberland wants to go home."

Shelly flinched in surprise. Kassandra held out her orange tabby stuffed kitten with stiff fishing-line whiskers, and she took it, digging her fingers into its soft body, pulling it under her chin.

Then all the shifts in reality caught up to her, and she grabbed the last one sliding by, propping up a few bricks of defiance. She lifted her chin, jutting it at Kassandra.

"How did you do that?"  Shelly spun to look through the dark windows of Hovand's. The store had been closed for an hour, the lights out, doors locked; old Mr. Hovand had gone home for the night. She had left Cumberland on a stool next to the files and rasps, rows of red wooden handles along a wall of dark brown perfboard.

Cumberland the kitten had been locked inside the store a moment before. Stores had alarms. Doors had keys. Mr. Hovand wouldn't be back until tomorrow.

Kassandra smiled. "There is no door in this world that can keep me out."

The rain dropped to a steady splattering on their shoulders. The walls washed away, and Kassandra turned to the other two. "It's never too early to plant the seed, my sisters."

Shelly felt fear unfolding inside her, something with bones and tendons popping, fingers slippery on the walls of her stomach, blood thumping hard through the rest of her body.

Plant what seed?

Kassandra slid a hand along Shelly's shoulder, one cold finger touching the side of her throat, moving in circles, working a series of letters, and the fear drained out of her, into the street, away with the rain on the sidewalk.

"Shelly?  Your mother loves you, but that doesn't mean she always knows what's right for you. Sometimes mothers do interesting and awful things to their children—even in the name of caring for them. Mine did. And look what happened to me."  Kassandra fanned her fingers open under her chin. "What am I?"

Shelly stared up at her, felt a burn in her throat, something trying to stop her from speaking. Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper, "Someone who can afford to keep dry...but chooses not to?"

Kassandra waited for her to continue, and when she didn't, said, "Now, tell me what you really want to say. You have many things to fear, but not from me."

The words slipped into Shelly's mouth and they didn't entirely feel like her own, but a bitter gift from the sea: "Someone who can feel a man's final drowning breath a thousand miles away..."  Shelly stopped because her hands were shaking. Kassandra nodded at her encouragingly. "...but is powerless to do anything about it."

"Brave girl. Give your mother a paidarion from me—a kiss on the cheek, and she'll wake. See you around, Shelly Mallozzi."  Kassandra gave her shoulder a squeeze and walked away with her sisters.

And the rain followed her.

Chapter 2 - The War-bard's Daughter

Nikasia followed her mother's phosphor trace three thousand miles across the Atlantic's floor, over the deep mountains, up the steep rise of the continental shelf, into the shallows off the coast of the Americas.

She closed her eyes, planted her toes in the sand, and stood up...into the Thin, into the air above the surface, years since she had been above the waves. The last time she had been holding her mother's hand.

And she knew what would happen next.

The ocean inside her climbed into her throat. A spasm of nausea shoved her organs around. Something had her stomach squeezed in a fist. She threw her braids over one shoulder, bent forward, hands on her knees, and vomited everything out of her stomach and lungs, gushing seawater and her half digested lunch. Her eyes watered and then went burning dry in the wind.

"Air."  She whispered the word as reverently as she could with her mouth hanging open like a cave, all teeth and molars and her tongue pressed flat, saliva dribbling over her lips.

Cold sweat beaded up on her forehead, damming against her eyebrows, running down her nose.

She spit, wiped her face, and stood straight, her toes digging into sand. Then she sucked in her first breath above the sea.

Cold razorblade air caught in her throat, slicing flesh raw. She tilted her head to the sky, the sun bright enough to blind her through her tightly closed eyelids, and she sang a note. Then another, higher, that came out sour.

"Cut the balls off Kronos' daddy."  A wet rasp edged her voice, and she spit again. "I can scarcely hold a note. Won't do at all."

Nikasia walked out of the surf, black braids flying in the wind, her hands over her face to block out the day—the day coming through a sheer spread of skin between each of her fingers.

"Lamporos..."

Squinting at the strip of bright she let in under the palm of her hands, she watched her toes sink into the wet sand, and listened to the voices down the beach, the cries of birds, the sharp rush of the sea against the land.

"Beautiful and..."

Then she tasted it in the wind, something sweet and ancient allowed to develop, someone else from the sea, but untouched, lungs that had never taken the water inside. She licked her lips, and sang the softest of notes, threading the breeze in order to control it, directing it's currents to her so she could determine more about...him. She found him by the trace of his curse in the wind.

He walked out of the waves, stopping to look back at the Atlantic as if called, one hand shading his eyes.

"Yes...that's him."

She licked her lips, tasted a bitter edge. To herself she whispered, "Perhaps he has taken the sea inside once, but he is unaware of his curse?"

Nikasia blinked, took a slow deep breath, and sang against the brightness of Helios pure and burning in the heaven, that he would direct his rays elsewhere and allow her to see, and she felt the man with the seaborn curse look away from the Atlantic, and up at the gathering clouds.

Nikasia let her hands slide cautiously away from her face. Then she bent low and sprang into the air, startled by the quick pull of gravity, the jolt of her heels hitting the sand. She paced up and down the slope of the beach to get a feel for it in her legs, kicking dried strands of seaweed and gull-cracked mussel shells. She still felt water-dizzy; the thin air didn't hold her up like the sea. It forced her to spend some thought on keeping her balance. And then there was a creep of a headache starting in her temples.

She sang a short hopping string of notes, curled in her fingers one at a time, and then stretched them open as wide as they could go, a tight pull of webbing between each of them. The ache in her head drifted away along with the wobbliness in her knees.

Then she walked casually up the beach toward the man with the curse. He was about her own age with light reddish blond hair cut so short it stood up in spikes.

"What an obnoxious color for hair to be."

He held a flat elliptical board under one arm and he was wearing a tight blue and yellow suit that appealed to her.

Nikasia followed him along the beach, closing the distance between them, and when she was close enough, she sang to him, "Where is the murderer?"

Alexander Shoaler turned, startled, and grabbed his surfboard before he dropped it. He hadn't heard her approach.

He was already scowling, staring at her, mouth just starting to part with a question that seemed to just hang there in his mouth. Nikasia tilted her head to the side, slipped in a shade of mockery, and gave him back the same look. She was used to the staring; even in the Nine-cities she was an oddity, pale, a dusting of freckles over her nose and cheeks, and her orange eyes—gorgon-stare, fish-eyes, she'd heard them all. She had pulled her hair into three long braids, two draped over one shoulder and down her back, the other curled once around her throat, a choker of twined black and coral rings that coiled and rolled on its own like a tentacle.

Alex couldn't look away from her eyes, cold liquid orange, an impossibility like glacial fire.

"I...don't know what you're talking about."  Whatever he had been about to say, that wasn't it. He couldn't find the right words. He couldn't find the right anything.

He couldn't breathe. Saliva collected his mouth, slick against his teeth, and something was stealing the thoughts right out of his head. He felt them leave without a goodbye, fleeting chains of information—his name, where he lived, his mother, the tale told in his blood—it all skipped through his cortex and out the other end before he could seize them.

It was her. The blaze of sunset in her eyes unsnapped the links between thoughts and stole them, fiery light, orange and wet, and then he thought of Seph's stupid sunscreen lipstick, and that was enough to break the binding set on him by this orange-eyed beach freak.

Alex turned, pulling his surfboard around, and forced his feet to move. Walk. Just keep walking.

He didn't want to know if she was following him, just concentrated on setting one foot further along the beach than the other. He steered his feet toward three surfers, his friends lined up with their backs to The Wall facing the Atlantic.

Hampton Beach wasn't crowded, a handful of surfers taking in the iron gray waves, some storm's leftovers.

Halfway up the slope, Alex dropped his board in the sand without looking back, leaving the deadweight behind. Just keep moving.

He corrected his path over a line of sea-rounded gravel, straight toward Rude, Jadey and Seph in her tight as a corset black wetsuit, black gloves, dyed black hair, waterproof black eyeliner, and hot orange lipstick that allegedly did something to protect her lips from the sun. She held her board—midnight black—loose under one arm, pointed at the sand.

Seph did a slow practiced fluorescent pucker and snapped a kiss at Alex. "Who's your friend?"

Alex forced himself not to turn around.

"I am Nikasia, Theoxena's daughter of the Kirkêlatides."

Way too many consonants, and Seph shook her head, lips sharpening at the corners, a line of perfect white teeth, almost a laugh in her mouth, "Kirkela—what?"

Nikasia fixed her gaze on Seph, eyes like the sun coming through amber, something feral and murderous behind them. "Where am I?"

"Hampton, New Hampshire," said Rude—Rudolph, but he'd hit you hard if you called him that. He set his board down and stepped out of line to approach Nikasia, comfortable and tanned and still boyish friendly even into his thirties, with wavy dark hair a little too long and stiff with salt. He held out a hand. "Love your eyes. Where are you from, Nikasia?"

As soon as orange-eyes turned her gaze to Rude, Seph gasped for breath after twenty seconds of involuntarily holding it. Then dropped her board and fell to her knees.

Rude's smile faded.

Nikasia looked down at his outstretched hand a moment and then leaned back to study his face. "Rudolph Guilfoyle, son of Tiana and Ellis Guilfoyle. Is your father still alive?  I love your eyes."  She moved close, slipping one hand along his neck, fingers playing with the wetsuit's collar. "Love your...brown eyes."  She looked over her shoulder, pausing as if reconsidering, and he brought his arm in, wrapping her waist, a mechanical movement he was forced to perform.

She turned back to explore him, looked at his throat, the jump of his adam's apple, fingering the shiny steel tab below his chin. Her breathing quickened and she leaned away. "Is this a zipper?"  She pulled it down to his waist before he could answer, running her thumb along the thousand perfect steel teeth.

"Don't..."  He struggled to get the words out. "...call me Rudolph."

"I will call you what I like, my new surface friend with the brown eyes."  She felt the thrum in his body, tuned her senses to the sound, the frequency shifts, the music in his bones. She cleared her throat and sang softly, a lovely twist of notes, pretty and painful, and the arm he had swung around her waist twisted wrong, wrist snapping, something bulging under the neoprene, sharp and stabbing from the inside. His hand clawed feebly at the lacing running up the back of Nikasia's tunic, one finger hooking her braids, yanking her head back.

She laughed, her mouth open to the sky, and she sang louder. Rude's face went white, a scream gurgling in his throat, trapped and ripping at the walls of his throat. The bones in his forearm snapped, jagged fibrous ends poking through the sleeve of his wetsuit, blood pooling in the cup of his hand, dribbling through his fingers to the sand.

Nikasia stepped away, keeping her smile after the last note faded into the sea air. Rude dropped to his knees, holding his ruined arm, panting and sobbing, strings of snot across his gaping mouth, in his hair, slippery trails of it down his chin.

Seph crawled to Rude, her fingers moving tenderly over his back. Jadey slammed her phone against her ear, the volume at max, the dispatcher's voice clear, "...one, one. What's your emergency?"

Nikasia turned to Alex. "You are seaborn. Why should you hide up here on the surface?  Let me finish what I need to do, and I will take you home, Alex." Her smile vanished.

He rushed her, a fist already coming around for her face. She stepped into his swing, ducking under his arm, and drove one hand flat into his chest, a thud of bone and emptying lungs. She dug her nails into his throat and walked him backward down the beach into the surf, whispering softly to him.

"I've been trained to fight since I was a little little girl, Alex. I can kill a man with my hands as easily as sing the blood from his ears. I'm going to guess that the same is not true for you?"

The water hit him sharp behind the knees and he went down with Nikasia on top of him, foam and cold saltwater slap across his face. Panicking, he opened his eyes, but only saw her orange fire rage through the roll of the surf.

"Telkhines blood. I taste it on you, Alexander Shoaler, strong and sweet, lord's blood. How is it that you live while the Alkimides have the throne?  Is your father alive, Alexandros?"

And he heard her questions and the weird way she said his name with his ears completely under the water. She jumped on him, her knees on his shoulders, driving both her hands between her legs, pushed his head into the sand, fingers around his neck. The sea punched into the back of his throat, an ice cold rush into his lungs.

Nikasia got off him, staggered a little in the waves, and walked up the beach to Alex's friends.

Seph noticed the sheer web of skin between each of Nikasia's fingers and threw up. She heaved again.

"What the fuck are you?"

Jadey's lips started moving soundlessly, her breath locked in her lungs. The phone slipped from her hand, the dispatcher telling her, "...patrol car on its way. Stay with me."

As if suddenly remembering Rude's question, Nikasia kneeled, grabbed a handful of his hair, and brought up his tear and snot covered face to look at hers. "I come from the sea, Rudolph. My mother is Theoxena, war-bard to Tharsaleos, King of the Seaborn. I am seeking Gregor Lord Rexenor, the murderer of my father. And you are going to help me find him."

She stood, turning her back to them, made a gentle flaring gesture with one hand, and piped a few notes that finally allowed Rude to scream.

And he did.

Chapter 3 - New Sirens

The old Ford pickup swung into the angled yellow lines of Hampton Beach parking, ramming to a stop against the concrete tire barriers. The engine rumbled loudly and then sputtered out. The weather had not treated the truck well, sand caked along the windows, paint peeling and New England winter rust streaks like blood along a predator's flanks.

An old thin man with gray hair and arms like bones and stretched-over skin shoved the door open, limping around to the hood to dump out a black nylon bag of vials and syringes and injection darts. He pushed a handful of the glass and plastic cylinders back into the bag, selecting a vial of clear watery liquid, letting the rest roll off the hood to the street.

Holding one up to the sky, he shoved a syringe through the cap and pulled. He tossed the vial away along with half its contents, and it shattered against the curb. He picked up one of the injection darts between two fingers, loaded it with the syringe, and limped toward the opening in the concrete storm wall that ran the length of Hampton Beach, leaving the truck's door wide open and the black bag on the hood.

Nikasia heard the sirens long before she knew what they were. She turned to the only standing friend of Alexander Shoaler. "What makes that sound?"

Jadey shook her head, her short blond hair swinging over her ears, her earrings, clusters of gold stars on chains, making a soft metallic plinking.

She didn't want to answer, but Nikasia forced the words from her mouth, horrifying threatening words that sweet Jadey would never have spoken out loud no matter how bad things got. "They're going to get you. Shoot you for what you did to Rude and Seph and Alex. They're going to lock you up, sick fucking bitch."

Jadey's eyes went wide at the harshness in her voice.

Nikasia frowned, mildly perturbed, and answered with a song that made Jadey ram her hand into her own gaping mouth, teeth gouging grooves into her skin. Jadey choked, muffled screaming and wrestling with limbs she didn't control—and Nikasia made sure to work her jaw, molars crushing tendon and bone, a squeeze of blood at the corners of Jadey's mouth, thick coppery taste over her tongue and down her throat.

Nikasia lifted her arms and turned in circles that carried her closer to the ocean, singing softly, preparing for the new threat.

Blood and tears streaming down her arm, Jadey had two of her own fingers chewed off, choking on the knuckles. She didn't even look up when a team of Hampton Police came running down the beach, guns drawn.

"On the ground!"  Three officers in body armor circled Nikasia; a fourth holstered his gun to help Jadey.

"Why in all the deep blue sea would I want to get on the ground?"  Nikasia let her gaze stop on one officer, and then she was inside his head, tearing out secrets and killing warmth and giggling. "Lawrence Patteson. I'm going to call you Larry. You look like a very nice man, Larry. Too nice, really. Look what happened to your brother."  She paused to pout; a flick of webbed fingers and a few more notes trapped the voices in their throats, made sure she would not be interrupted by any more rude shouting or commands from law enforcement. "Jeremy betrayed you, and after everything you did for him. Don't you get tired of playing hero, Larry?  Jeremy's in trouble again, and who bails him out?  You. Poor tired, sleepy you."  Tears rolled from Nikasia's eyes, wet in her lashes, thin silvery lines on her skin, the pale sun catching each drop off her chin in quick bursts of pain. "Larry, he's using you, and you keep helping him. He's in prison. He let you down, and you write him letters, and you cry, Larry, you shed tears for a brother who owes you nothing, just takes and takes, and you know in your soul, you are so tired. So, so tired. How can you live with his betrayal?"  Her lips trembled, a child about to die, lost eternity in her eyes. "You wasted your life, Larry, threw it all away on a brother who betrayed you. You lost, Larry, a failure, and dying is such a release, Larry. Let it go. It's so easy to drop the hold you have on this world and slip away. I will let you, and you won't feel a thing."  She smiled, softly at first, and then dagger sharpness at the corners of her lips. "I promise."

And Larry brought his own gun to the side of his head, fingers twitching, sweat beading up on his face.

"Do it. Wouldn't it be so easy to end everything, Larry?  Go on," she whispered. "End the world, Larry. I won't watch if you don't want me to. Death should be private. I can make everyone turn around, give you a little peace at the end. Finally, Larry, some peace."  She put a finger across her lips. "Shhh. Don't try to speak. This is your time. Don't waste it with words. Quiet, darling."

Larry's lips shivered, stretched thin, trying to form words, and the pleading moved into his eyes.

"That's right," Nikasia nodded. "The time has come, Larry, dear. It's time to—"

She blinked. Something sharp poked her in the shoulder. She reached up and pulled out a funny little feathered stick with a needle on the end. She turned...and the dry surface world kept turning, a dizzy spin of the Thin, blur of clouds and a gush of black ink unconsciousness.

Her knees buckled. She hit the ground, and she tasted sand in her mouth, grit under her tongue. She tried to sing, tried to open her eyes; an ache like hollowed bones started in her neck and spread into her shoulders, down her spine.

There was a gust of wind and sand, a sharp thump like canon fire; a blue smoky blast ring expanded up the beach like a vaporized roll of the Atlantic. A battering ram of blurry moisture hit the officers, throwing them into the air, tossed like leaves, arms and legs twirling, bodies tumbling over each other, and the only one left standing was Jadey with her back to The Wall—far enough up the beach, sobbing and shaking and staring at what was left of her hand.

The skinny old man with gray hair stepped across the sand, a casual stride, over the police officers, to Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides. He crouched, lifted her into his arms, and carried her to the ocean.

Water bled dark blue up his jeans, the untucked tails of his shirt slapped wetly against his stomach and back, clinging to his ribcage. He was up to his elbows in seawater when seven seaborn, three of them in silvery-green scaly armor, stood up out of the Atlantic. Two of the soldiers waded forward to take Nikasia's limp body from him, bowing.

The third in armor, an old soldier with a braided gray beard, nodded. "Mr. Fenhals, the king wishes you well."

"Sympheres."  Fenhals acknowledged him, but let his gaze scan the others in the party. He jutted his chin at a balding seaborn in a black cape looking thing that—out of the water—clung to him like folded wings. He stood well back from the others, panic in his eyes, obviously uncomfortable in the Thin. "Who is he?"

Sympheres didn't turn, just let a sharp smile touch his lips. "Her lawyer."

"The king allows this?"

"She is a Kirkêlatides," he said resignedly, and then lifted his chin, fingers playing with the braids. "Was Lady Theoxena like this when she was young, I wonder?"

"Just the same," said Fenhals. "Right up to Lord Epandros' murder. That sobered her up."

"Sobered?"  It was a strange word.

"Her husband's death brought her soul around to serious things, protecting the king and throne."  Fenhals looked at the ripples, a slow circular flutter in the Atlantic's surface where Nikasia had been pulled under the waves. "It is a shame that she gets her mother's bleed, has so much of it already, and we will have to manage a new Kirkêlatides all over again. In some ways sad that their line has not died out."

"Truly," said Sympheres, pushing back in the waves but gazing up at the sky, looking for the proper farewell. "Good...day to you, Mr. Fenhals."

"The tides are yours, sir."  Fenhals waved and turned up the beach, the sea running out of his jeans and over his pale bare feet.

He glanced down at the bodies, dark uniforms like indigo smudges of ink against the sand. He pushed his old legs harder, the limp from an old wound throbbing. He didn't want to be here when the officers came around.

Mr. Fenhals ignored the blond girl standing against the seawall, sobbing and shivering, blind with fear. He walked right past and she didn't even see him.

The fog crept in fast, rolling over the gray sea, blanketing Hampton Beach, swallowing all sound, dulling the sun, gray mist twilight and the pulsing blue glow from the patrol cars on the other side of The Wall.

Jadey looked up, a tight pull on her skin, and the gnawing pain in her hand faded away with a cool rush of water up her arm. She smiled at a woman's face, a cold and serious face even for someone who was probably as young as she was. She recognized that face, but it was only a hint, and her memories still weren't coming in clearly.

"Your hand is fine, Jadey."  The voice grew insistent. "Look at your hand."

Jadey dropped her chin, smooth tan fingers, all five, still trembling, and a chill buzz in her skin. She flexed them, pulling them into her palm, straightening them out, but couldn't bend her elbow because the strange cold woman held her arm rigid with one hand like a vise around her wrist.

Jadey's breath caught in her throat when she noticed the lines of brown scar tissue between the woman's fingers.

There was dry soft laughter like sunlight and flower petals. "Yes, I come from the sea. I used to have webbing. My grandfather, the king, had it cut away when I was a baby."

Jadey's body shook, a burst of fresh tears, knees weakening, her toes digging into the sand. "On—only to hurt me again."

"Shhhhh. Calm, Jadey. I won't. You know who I am—we never hung out, but we went to school together. It's me, Kassandra."

Jadey pointed unsteadily at the ocean. "Sh—she...she..."

"She will never hurt you again. I will find her, and I will hurt her."

"Rude?"

"Rude is fine. His arm's fine. And Seph is taking care of him. See, they're right there, sitting on the steps."

"Alex?"

Kassandra released her and turned to the ocean, scanning the rest of Hampton Beach. "There are only three of you."  She looked down at the police officers, three of them out cold, one groaning, trying to rub the sand from his eyes. Her gaze swung back to Jadey. "Alex who?"

"Shoaler. She said Alex came from the sea, and then she stuck his head under the water...and then she drowned him."

Kassandra didn't look back to see if Jadey could stand on her own, striding toward the surf, whispering to herself. "That's what drew me to you. I felt your last breath of air, Alex Shoaler."

Jadey watched her glide toward the ocean, braids whipping in the wind.

At the sea's edge, Kassandra lifted out a tall spear of metal she'd planted deep in the sand, the top of it lost in the fog. It was only when she tugged it free and swung it around to rest over her shoulder, that Jadey noticed it was much taller than Kassandra—and it was capped with a crossbar and three sharp spines.

Kassandra walked into the waves and the Atlantic played around her ankles while she poked at the sand and turned lumps of rock with her trident, singing over the roar of the surf, "Where did you go Alex Shoaler. Come to me."

Chapter 4 - Alexandros

Alex breathed seawater, thick and cold in his mouth, heavy in his lungs.

He flipped around in the shallows, onto his stomach, struggling to get back to Jadey and Seph and Rude—Rude with his twisted shattered arm bones, but Nikasia had trapped him there, under the water.

Every time he lifted his body into the air, he went lightheaded, felt consciousness creeping away, a suffocating drag on his muscles. He kicked into deeper water to catch his breath, pulling more of the sea inside him before kicking back into Hampton Beach to try again.

He climbed to his knees, into the air with the Atlantic pushing at his back, the sand eroding under his legs. He couldn't breathe. His lungs were full of seawater and didn't seem to work in the air anymore.

Panicking, he went under, rolling on his back, kicking deeper.

Then he felt animal motion in the surf, other things in the water with him, human shaped smears of scaly green, and he kicked harder to get away from them, angling back half a mile up shore at the North Hampton Beach line.

The sand gave way to a bed of sea-rolled rocks and shells. He clawed through them, climbing above the tide line on his hands and knees. He blinked trying to focus, fog everywhere, the whole beach blanketed in thick cloudy gray.

Then he retched all over the rocks in front him, his body heaving, a burst of water from his lungs, his stomach, a sour burn up his throat, into his mouth.

The ocean ran off his body, cold on his neck, in his ears. He sucked in a breath, and then coughed up more water, saltwater tickle in his throat and a gurgling wheeze deep in his lungs.

He crawled away from the surf, fingers digging into the sand, a raw torrent of noise in his ears, a sensitivity to sound he had never experienced before. He felt the sound in his bones. There was a serrated cutting resonance in his jaw, teeth buzzing until he clamped them shut.

He looked up. He heard a girl in a flowery swimsuit halfway down the beach threatening her brother. The birds shrieked and squealed and cried sorrow on the wind, flutter and feather ripple of seagulls wheeling above him. He could hear every fibrous creak of wing tension, a stiff struggle against the battering gusts off the Atlantic.

Still on his hands and knees, mouth open to pull in air, he twisted to look over his shoulder.

He could hear the sea calling him. In English. Come to me, Alex. Then a tug in his body behind his naval, and he fell forward, curling up, pushing his hands over his ears to shut out her voice.

"No!"  The word was a strangled gasp, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Second time you've left your board somewhere, and then I have to track you down to return it to you, Alex Shoaler."

Alex opened his eyes, trying to focus on someone standing over him, a human shape in a bright pink shirt against a blinding solid whitewash of clouds. A woman's voice. He couldn't see her face, just her dark hair in three braids swinging in the sea wind. He threw one hand up defensively and kicked backward over the sand.

"Get away from me."

She flipped his surf board in the air, caught it with one hand, let out an annoyed breath. "Come on. You used to know me. It's Kassandra. I returned your skateboard when I was in the ninth grade. I live in the house at the end of Atlantic ave."  He stopped, fingers clawing at the sand, but he didn't answer. "Your friends are fine. Jadey, Rude, Seph, they're fine. I healed them. You're seaborn, Alex. And I know of the Kirkêlatides. She's not after you. She's after me."

He shook his head. "She's after her father's murderer. Someone named Gregor."

Kassandra sighed, crouched in the sand beside him, laying the surfboard behind her. Then she sat, crossed her legs and leaned her chin on her fist. "Bold bitch. Now, I'm going to have to kill her."

Alex blinked, trying to focus on Kassandra. He was breathing hard, his heart thudding recklessly in his chest, doubling when she unfolded her legs and climbed over him, one hand on his waist, her fingers digging into his wetsuit, a gentle pressure on his hipbone.

"Close them," she whispered, and ran a finger over his eyes. "That's better."

At her words, his whole body relaxed, and the pain of his friends and the fear of the sea in his lungs slipped under a loud rushing water noise, a dream-buzz that filled his mind. The world seemed to slow, every sharp sorrow draped in her softening presence like the waves wearing away the sand.

He blinked at her, trying to fit pieces of her together, trying to care about what had happened to his friends in the last ten minutes.

She helped him out. "Yeah, Alex, you can breathe underwater. Cool isn't it?  I know your mother, Elizabeth, and she isn't seaborn, so your father must be."

He stared back, nodding. She was the one who caused the water noise in his head, absorbed his pain, took on every burden in his soul, dark edged story lines of the tapestry blurring into patterns without meaning.

Because she was there, he simply did not care anymore.

Kassandra sat back, crossing her legs again, and then leaned back on her hands, fingers curling around Alex's surfboard.

"I know you," he said after twenty seconds of study. "I do remember. Five or six years ago. My skateboard."

She stared calmly back at him, raising her eyebrows when he admitted it. "Told you."  She gave him a softer smile and shrugged. "I had such a crush on you then. Used to watch you at the beach. Seaborn...it figures...you always did look good in the water."  She sighed over an old memory. "But you were madly in love with that hacker girl. You didn't even notice me."  Kassandra could see him flipping the word "then" around in his thoughts. "You're flattered?"

"Still madly in love with Kaffia. But you're one of the witches, so, yeah, I'm flattered."

"So, where are you now?"

He started to scowl, not sure what she meant, and annoyed at the way she didn't meet his eyes, but kept moving her gaze, focusing on the middle of his forehead or somewhere just over his shoulder. She had cleared his sight, did something with her fingers to make him see, but hadn't yet looked right at him.

"Um...MIT."  He thought that was the answer she was looking for, and then added his major, "Robotics. Autonomous biomechanics."

"And Kaffia Lang?"

"Princeton. Doing you know what—probably teaching them more than the other way around. She'll be here tomorrow night. I'm driving down to pick her up at South Station, and then she's home for the rest of the summer. I can't wait to see her, miss her so much."  Why was he telling her all of this?  "Sorry, I can't shut up about her."

Kassandra's gaze shifted to the Atlantic, and suddenly she looked fragile and about to cry. "No problem. It's that madly in love thing, I'm sure."  She sounded lost. "My love died in battle. Over one and a third billion cubic kilometers of ocean out there and I can still taste his blood in the water."

"What..."  He cleared his throat, uncomfortable with her pain standing out sharper than her bright pink t-shirt. "What about you?  You're still here?"

She gathered some inner strength and smiled, jutting her chin at his wetsuit. "Surf New Hampshire. I notice you haven't moved very far. What, do you drive to Cambridge every day?"

He grinned, nodding at her, certain that she would understand what he was about to say. "You know how it is. Grew up here. I couldn't leave this, even if I wanted to." He motioned to the Atlantic Ocean. "I need to feel the water on my skin. I love the sea more than anything on earth."

That seemed to please her. Smiling sadly, she leaned forward to doodle three interlocking hearts in the sand, poking her finger in the water pooling in the center. "Good to know."

She pushed herself forward, onto her knees and crawled closer to him. She reached out her hand, and using the same wet finger, drew something on his forehead. Then he knew why she had not looked directly into his eyes before, because she was looking into his eyes now, right into him, as deep as she wanted to go, and he couldn't move, couldn't ask her to stop. Cold black abyss of the Atlantic rising around them, and she showed him how she had helped Seph and Jadey and Rude, regenerating fingers, bones unwinding, setting, skin sealing without scars. She shuffled through his memories, playing his experiences back, studying the sequences he shared with the Kirkêlatides woman. Nikasia, daughter of Theoxena.

She took in Nikasia's mannerisms, the flow of her fingers, the words in her songs, stopped the motion to look at her face, her unusual eyes, the clothes she wore, and then flipped back to repeat the sequence, or skipped forward. Nikasia kneeled on top of him, a cruel smile. Telkhines blood. I taste it on you, Alexander Shoaler, strong and sweet, lord's blood. How is it that you live while the Alkimides have the throne?  Is your father alive, Alexandros?

Kassandra gasped, "It can't be."  She shoved him roughly to the sand, breaking her hold on him.

He got up on his elbows, scowling at her. "What?"

Kassandra stood, shivering, folded her arms, and turned to the Atlantic, scanning the horizon. "This changes a few things. What do you say to this, Eupheron?"

"Who are you talking to?  What's Telkhines blood?"  Alex climbed to his feet, brushing off the sand.

"Means we can gather the assembly for a full vote."  She laughed in response to someone only she could hear, but it was distant and even a little cruel.

"Kassandra?"

She didn't seem to hear Alex. "One thing to come after me. Another to go after my father. And now Alexandro, who's been here the whole time, right under my nose."

Kassandra held out one hand, and a glob of water flew from the ocean, wobbling and turning in the air, landing with a slap across her palm. She cupped it in both hands, squeezing it, rolling it up her fingers like clay, bending it into a thin loop of ice. Then she turned, stepped right up to Alex, and placed it on his head.

He felt the ring for a moment and then it melted away. He ran his fingers through his hair. Nothing there.

"Something to protect you from her."

He sounded doubtful. "There's nothing."

"Sure there is. I can see it. Others cannot."

"You..."  He looked at her hair, braided with thin rings of gold and sharp slivers of mother of pearl.     She looked...as she had always looked at school, wild, not from this world. He avoided her eyes. "Everyone called you and your sisters witches. You and Jillian and Nicole. Three witches, three sisters, but you don't really look alike. I never thought you were..."  He stopped, cleared his throat. "Don't tell me you are a witch?"

She smiled, but it was serious. "I can be."  She grabbed his arm, squeezing as she looked into his eyes, climbed into his soul, and her voice touched him on the inside, Call my name when you need me, and I will find you. I know, it sounds like a stupid song, but you will need my help because she knows what you are and she will return—or worse, her mother.

Kassandra let him go, and took one step back from him. She pulled her shirt tight by the hem, and brushed the sand off her shorts. Then she bowed to him.

Alex shook off a wave of confusion. "Hey...uh...Thank you."  It was difficult to think with her weird formal behavior. "Really. For Rude and for Seph."

"And Jadey. The Kirkêlatides made her chew off her own fingers. It was after she shoved you under the water."

Alex's lips pulled tight at the thought of Jadey in pain. "Thank you."

Kassandra didn't speak for a few seconds, just stared at him with scarily focused intensity. "I am an Alkimides. I—my family, my House—owes you much more than that. So much that cannot be repaid."

He waited for her to explain, but she bowed again and walked away, into the surf, up to her knees, her waist.

He said her name in his thoughts, Kassandra?

She turned, inviting his question.

He shouted over the surf, "What are you?"

"Something you lovemore than anything on earth."  He recognized his own words, and she smiled because she liked the stunned reaction on his face. "I am the Sea, Alex."  She made a swirling gesture with one hand and she was wearing a crown as bright as the sun, a tall trident in her other hand. Another flourish of fingers and they vanished.

Kassandra chewed her lip, about to say something, and then shook her head and dove under the waves.

Alex stared after her a minute, but when he bent to pick up his surfboard he fell to his knees, sobbing uncontrollably. His eyes burned with tears. All of the cares held off by her presence flooded back into his head—but too strong, a thunderous roll of them, sharp core-driving pain like puncture wounds and poison, and feelings he felt only by their absence, brittle honeycomb spaces of sorrow and soul-blight and peeled back scabs over failed hope. And the fresh memory pain bled into the eternal. Seph can't breathe and she's breaking all the bones in Rude's arm, Jadey's mouthful of fingers and blood...and my father went to sea when I was three and never from loss will I be free.

Chapter 5 - Bachoris

They met on neutral ground, at a wobbly table up front by the windows, right in the open at the Starbucks on 42nd and 8th in Manhattan. Three of them, sipping hot drinks, coffee and sweet chai, glaring at anyone who dared to stare at them.

One spoke softly, in long fluid self-indulgent assessments of the situation, "She is whorish unfit mortal waste who does not know what she possesses or to whom it most deservedly must go."

"Yes, my lady Akastê."

One of the three, a girl who looked no older than ten, only spoke to agree with her lady, and the last, a slender young man with hunger hollowed cheeks and white blond hair hanging to his shoulders, only spoke in song titles.

"What Are You Afraid Of."

Akastê frowned and admitted, "That she is not mortal, or as young as she appears. I never dreamed that something like this could happen."

"I Was Never Young."

Akastê sipped her coffee, soft pressure of her lips on the china, the corners of her mouth sharpening as she listened in on the thoughts of other patrons. She turned at a blur of yellow taxi, dark windows sliding by; the cabby hit the brakes hard right in front of Starbucks, and a tall dark-haired man in a blue suit slid out of the back, waving to the man behind the wheel, still laughing over something they had shared on the ride.

The blue-suited man stepped through the doorway and everyone in line for coffee, everyone behind the counter turned to stare at him. He smiled, and although every single one of them knew that he could have walked up to the counter, edged out the woman who was about to ask for a croissant and coffee, and order anything he wanted—and he would have got it—the man made a slight bowing gesture, a respectful nod, and strode to the back of the line. He waited without a hint of impatience, a calm smile on his face, ignoring the four college girls in line ahead of him, tanned and summery, blond highlights and sandals slapping the tiled floor. They kept turning around and too obviously trying to make eye-contact with him.

He faced the front of the store, watching the odd threesome at the corner window table—watching them, not staring.

The four girls of summer turned up the volume and shifted their conversation to sexual ventures. One had "done it" inside a moving van—while it was moving. The others offered fire escapes, elevators, but nothing the man in the blue suit hadn't experienced at one time or another.

"He's not wearing a ring," whispered one, pushing at her chewing gum with her tongue and snapping it. She had N.Y.P.D. in blue and white across the ass of her shorts. She dropped her wallet and bent over, but seemed to have trouble picking it up.

While they ordered coffees and little plates of apple strudel, Police Woman thought she heard Mr. Blue Suit whisper to her, the words slipping into her ears faster than they could have been spoken. "Deck of a sailboat in a hurricane off Bermuda...with another immortal. Wind moaning in the rigging, salt in the air, on our skin, nothing like on it earth."

But when she turned, he was browsing the menu board, and then dropped his gaze, smiling at an aproned man behind the counter. "Tallest cup, darkest roast you have, please. Leave no room for cream. I do not care for it."

Ignoring the young women lingering in line with their cups and dishes and the smell of hot cinnamon and apple, the man in the blue suit paid with a twenty, stuffed the change into the tip jar, and made his way through the cluster of tables to the wobbly table up front by the windows.

He paused, holding his cup an inch off the wooden surface, examining the giant circular Starbucks logo across the glass. He'd seen it a million times, but today it took on a special meaning. "Mermaid with a crown. Nice place to meet, Akastê. Much better than the Reflecting Pool and the Washington Monument in the rain."

He pulled out a chair, sat down and took a sip.

The woman in the center nodded to him, her long dark hair rolling along her shoulders like storm waves. "Bachoris. You're late."

"My lady, you have pulled me away from a busy trading day, and then you ask me to take two months off to get to know some woman in New Hampshire. Take her, you say, bend her. She's difficult. She's seaborn, granddaughter of their king. What about her could possibly be worth two months of my time?"

"Heaven Beside You," said the slender man with long blond hair.

Bachoris stopped, set his cup of coffee down. "So, which one of you really is Akastê?"

All three of them turned to look at him. The little girl on his left lifted her head, her face white and shiny with sharp painted red lips like a doll. The slender man pulled his hair behind his ear with one finger, and the tall woman in the middle with hair like the ocean licked her lips, and then ran her tongue over her small white teeth. All three had the same eyes, blue sea-glass irises and pure whites, but when he looked at them, the colors bled into opaque silver.

"All of us."

Bachoris swallowed and reached for his cup. "Who is this seaborn woman?"

"Her name is Kassandra."

"Dangerous Type."

"And why am I spending my valuable time—two months—with her?"

"You are not spending them. It is two months I am giving you, Bachoris. Kassandra must be forced to give up the Sea's crown to me."

That made him sit up and put his coffee down. He waited for more, grew impatient, and said, "So, I imagine you want me to take it from her."

"She's not simply going to hand it over."

"Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth ."

He let his gaze shift to 42nd Street and the race of yellow taxis.

The three that were Akastê waited for his response. The girl looked down into her chai as if reading something in the depths of her cup. Long blond hair examined a blank wall across the room. The dark haired woman folded her hands, rested her chin on them, and stared at Bachoris without blinking.

Like a fucking reptile.

Bachoris glanced at her and then back through the windows. At least her eyes had gone back to their original color. He didn't like the chrome eyes thing she did when she grew angry—and it was worse with the three of her working against him.

He closed his eyes, a shudder of pain running through his body, a jump in his perfect blue suit. He wiped the start of tears from his eyes, and bowed his head. "I will do it, my lady."

"Wonderful. Kill her?  It will not be easy, even for you."

"No," he whispered, shaking his head. "Even worse. I will make her fall in love with me."

"Love is the New Feel Awful."

With that, the three who were Akastê pushed back their chairs, stood at the same time, and snaked through the tables in single file. Bachoris stood. All three waved a hand, gave Bachoris a slight bow, and he stepped onto the sidewalk ahead of them, already looking for a taxi.

"Where will we meet next?  And when?"

Bachoris turned. "Anywhere but D.C. I hate Washington."

"Banned in D.C."

"You select the location, Bachoris. I will find you wherever you are. And when?"

Bachoris sighed and said, "When I am done—"

"Breaking the Girl."

He choked on the words he was about say, nodded, and flagged down a cab.

"Bachoris?"  The little girl part of Akastê called him as he swung open the door. "I will tell your sister then that her brother has earned her two months without pain. How she wilts like a waterless flower in the light of my lady. She will be so happy. Happier still when you return with the Sea's crown."

He slammed the door but looked back at the three as the cab sped away.

The tall ocean-haired Akastê spun in the doorway. The sun haloed her, wrapped her in warm radiance. She was a woman in a sunlit doorway, a sun goddess, and she waited until every gaze inside was on her. Then she walked along the glass and put her fist through the front windows with the giant Starbucks logo. "Damned mermaid with a crown."

Bachoris kicked off his sandals and tried to pick up a ribbon of dry seaweed with his toes. He curled in his big toe, then his little one, concentrating on squeezing the strip of plant against the ball of his foot. Almost had it, but the wind gliding over the sand picked it up like a kite, leafy and light and see-through as old parchment, and it was gone.

He pulled his knees up and leaned forward on them, disappointed. "Maddening," he said aloud, and the tight pull of muscle in his jaw and along his throat showed that he was bending all his thought on one activity, holding in the memories of his twin sister Agenika.

And as if it was something difficult he had to remember and relearn every time it happened, he let it all go, released the knot of his fists, closed his eyes, and fell into reminiscence. Tears rolled off his chin. He saw her running, black hair in the wind, a smooth sheet of it with the heaven's gleam, but not really reflecting, less like a mirror, almost as if she had trapped a band of blue sky inside. She laughed and ran along the path to the sea. He felt the guilt-weight in his chest, and he reached for her shoulder, but he could never catch her—only lead her to the snare. Someone was waiting for them, a tall woman with dark hair that moved like the ocean. He cried out to his sister. Agenika turned, startled by his pleading. What is wrong, brother?  Wasn't this the friend he was telling her about?

Agenika took Akastê's hand and they were gone. The last look on his sister's face, pale, dying inside, heaven gone from her hair, her smile like the dry seaweed—see-through as old parchment.

"Monkey toes."  He whispered the words and the strain smoothed off his face. He still couldn't find enough strength to smile.

Agenika would have been able to pick up the seaweed—probably tie it in knots using only her toes. It was a childhood nickname that she had been proud of. The dexterous manipulation of objects with her toes, one of many things she did far better than her brother.

She had also been good at keeping the two of them out of trouble, but still no match for Bachoris who had always been especially good at getting them into it.

Bachoris wiped the tears off his face and breathed, a deep pull of sea air. The sun was warm on his back, a hot white disk standing just above the summer rental roof lines on the other side of Ocean Boulevard.

He turned to his right, squinting one eye against the glare behind him. Half a day loafing on Hampton Beach and he had already found...not just her, but them. Three of them walking ankle-deep at the edge of the Atlantic, all seaborn with their braids and seashells, not even trying to hide the fact that they didn't come from this surface world.

"Wonder which one she is?"  He studied each of them, and thought that they might possibly be sisters. The one nearest the shore was blond, and a little shorter and thinner than the other two. The middle one had pure black hair, a small dance of sunlight along her braids that reminded him of Agenika. Her skin was also quite a bit darker than the other two—almost as dark as his own. The one on the ocean side was the tallest, brown braids swinging along her back. She walked fluidly, far more sure in the ocean than the other two.

"That's her."

Even as Bachoris said it, she stopped and turned to face him, one hand shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun. She looked right at him, and he looked right back, her eyes widening when she couldn't get inside. Then he smiled and looked down at the sand, almost shyly.

It didn't take long.

A few seconds later the three of them stood in front of him, and it was obvious which pair of feet belonged to Kassandra, pearl polish on the nails chipping, thin lines of brown scar tissue between each toe.

"That must have hurt."  He looked up at her.

"I was a year old. It was pain before I had memories. My hands, too."  She showed him, spreading her fingers, the webbing between them cut away.

He nodded, a sympathetic pull at the corners of his mouth, and then got to his feet. "Sorry. Left my manners at the office."  He bowed. "I am Bachoris."

The blond nodded back to him, tanned and smiling with seashells jingling in her hair, sky blue eyes sliding to her sisters. "I'm Jill."

Her thoughts were so open and so vivid that he couldn't help smiling. She practically broadcasted the fact that she was already in love, and there was more than a hint to her sisters to not let this guy go by without trying him out first.

"Nicole," said the second with a curt nod, not very pleased to meet him. When he looked her in the eye, he got a clear read:  you hurt Kassandra, and I'll break every fucking bone in your body multiple times and really really slowly—and stop smiling at me or I'll start on your teeth.

He blinked, shut his mouth, and nodded his head. This was going to be more difficult than he'd expected.

"And I am Kassandra."  She held his gaze, trying to break it, and then her focus softened and she wandered off inside her own head. She was back a moment later.

Bachoris could tell because she flinched against something painful surfacing in her thoughts. She swallowed, and her whole body went tense. "That must have hurt."

The breath caught in Bachoris' lungs, and he felt his heart thump unpredictably hard. "What?"  He didn't understand why she had repeated his words, but something about the way she said them shook his confidence. "What must have?"

Kassandra held his eyes openly, a dark spill of loneliness in hers, and then she whispered, "Losing your twin sister, Bachoris."

Chapter 6 - The Boot and the Vents

The Solenivara, a dry bulk carrier out of Louisiana turned into the Atlantic wind with twelve-thousand tons of cement in her holds, following the westward curve of the Keys from the Gulf of Mexico.

A fight broke out in the ship's cramped deck-crew quarters, but was over in seconds. The hatch manager's assistant huddled in the corner, his nose caved in. Warren Tukes from the engineer's crew leaned against the wall, his right fist bloody and cut to the bone along the knuckles. Who'd have thought someone's nose could do so much damage?

Tukes' left hand still worked. He grabbed the hatch assistant's brand new work boots, raced aft along the narrow painted steel halls, past a row of shipping containers.

He put the final touch on the fight by heaving the assistant's boots over the railing at the ship's stern, and then staggered off to see the medic.

The two shoes, laces tangled, orbited one another all the way down, sixty feet through the air from the railing to the water. They vanished in a smear of white foam, lost in the wide blue Atlantic Ocean.

The boots drifted into the depths where a strong current sucked one apart from its match.

One boot rode the stream across the ocean, dropped like a stone through nine thousand feet of water, and was found by Lord Gypselos, this year's judge who presided over cases of crimes against the king. The hatch assistant's boot fell freely through the Protection, into the open spaces between fortress walls, slamming into the top of Gypselos' head. His nose hit the ornately carved stone judging block, scattering sheets of eelskin and shattering an ink bulb.

And Phrastor had been about to have all charges against his client cleared—one as severe as treason—but through someone's random loss of footwear, the right currents, and the mischievous Atlantic, was then obliged to accept punishment for the war-bard's daughter.

Phrastor's arguments failed against the angry Lord Gypselos, and Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides was sentenced to the Vents for one day.

"I am not going to the Vents."  She wiggled a few fingers, sang a clipped note to make it clear that she was ready for a fight. "I can bend old Gypselos into a fucking knot."

The Vents would mark her for a long time with a sulfurous stench she couldn't wash off, darkness that she'd get used to, which then made it difficult to look at the deep in a normal light. It was the best Phrastor could plead from the judge after the boot incident.

He rubbed his eyes, and then kicked in a circle around Nikasia, gesturing at the central fortress floating in the gloom above them. "Do you not fear the king?  Opening a hole in the city wall—through the King's Protection, you put us all in peril."

"Good." Nikasia folded her arms, picking at her teeth with her tongue, glaring back with an I-am-not-at-all-pleased expression.

Phrastor's gestures grew wilder, but he went on as if he hadn't heard her. "Gone for three days. Broke the curfew, left the protective walls of Nine-cities, and then lied to the king's guards?"  Her motives were incomprehensible. "You drilled a hole through the rutting city wall!"  He brought his voice lower, a forceful whisper. "Then through the King's Protection. Do you have any idea what you have done?"

A slight smile sharpened the corners of her lips.

"Of course I do."  Her brows went innocently up. "I could even teach the king a thing or two about strengthening it. For one, I wouldn't allow someone's lost shoe from the surface through it."  She made an impatient twirling gesture with one hand. "I mean, I understand that it must let inanimate objects of a certain size through, and the ocean's currents, and smaller fish, but shoes?  That's sloppy. Seems like the king has plenty of time to correct this, since all he seems to be able to do is lose wars and not look for my father's murderer."

Phrastor's jaw swung open, gaping, the water stilled behind his teeth. He stuttered over his response, started and stopped another couple words, and finally went with, "Not getting through."  He caught the water in his mouth, and let it out before continuing in a very quiet whisper. "This is why I cannot let you speak to the judge. Lord Gypselos would have your throat cut for slighting the king—or trivializing your crime."

"Crime? What do you call being locked inside the Nine-cities for years, if not a crime?"

"Prudence."

"Prudence is a crime."

He grabbed her by the shoulder, begging her, "Take this punishment, milady."

Nikasia glared at him, and was about to swivel her eyes to the judge, when Phrastor snapped up her collar, tugging her face to his.

"Take it, Nikasia." He pushed the words through is teeth. "Gypselos is already in a foul mood with that rubbish from—" He looked up. "—up there hitting him on the head. Take it, please."  Phrastor's lip twitched. He didn't have the courage to tell her the other choices. It was the Vents, a finger severed, or an eardrum poked in—maybe the whole ear cut off if the honorable Lord Gypselos had to wait too long.

And what would her mother do to him if her daughter was mutilated like this?  A similar fate awaited him, he supposed. Was't that the way it always was—the lawyer for the powerful suffers the same penalty or reward as his client?

Theoxena possessed the most beautiful voice in all of the Nine-cities, but she could choke the life from a man with one carefully sung phrase, and Theoxena's youngest daughter was nearly her equal—but without the discipline or crown-loyalty.

Phrastor released Nikasia's collar, smoothed it out, and opened his hands in a forced friendly gesture. His voice sounded cheery, but his hands trembled, revealing his effort. "Come. Half of what you hear of the Vents, they—they're just stories to frighten children."

She didn't look the least frightened by the punishment. "Which one of the king's surface slaves had the nerve to poison me?  Who would use a needle with poison?  Was it Fenhals?  Tell me and I will go to the Vents."

Phrastor glanced around furtively, whispering, "Yes. Fenhals. Now do you agree?"

He shook her to get her attention back—she'd clearly gone off on a mind-swim that involved retribution and flowing blood, Mr. Fenhals' blood bubbling out of his old body, teeth rattling across the paving stones, fingers twisted, broken, stretched into knots or ripped completely off.

He shook her again. "Quick!  Or Gypselos will make the choice for you."

"Fine."  She straightened imperiously, and spun away, kicking so that her body flipped upside down, feet toward the faraway surface. She looked down at him. "Just one day?  When?"  She spun halfway through another cycle, turning her back to him, pulling all three of her dangling black braids into one thick cord.

"Any day he names. Don't play with your hair," Phrastor snapped. He had two daughters of his own and knew the kinds of things you had to tell them over and over. His gaze swung back to the judge. Anything, the slightest gesture, a downward tilt of your mouth could be taken as in insult by Lord Gypselos.

"Remain here. I will speak with him."

Phrastor approached the stone judging block after an impatient come-forward wave from Gypselos. He bent down, kicked a few times, and cleared the twelve-foot high stone in one fluid motion, his black robes billowing, pale underneath like a manta ray. Phrastor was short and balding with a soft round featured face—too soft for his profession.

Lord Gypselos eased out moray-like in the water above the block, his cold gaze following Phrastor. He was cadaverously thin, with long knuckly fingers that were very good at prodding wounds, fingering wrongdoers, pointing blame, expressing premature accusations, an occasional rude gesture, and clawing his way to the top.

Nikasia ignored the crowd in the judging square, an open area east of the king's fortress. She cartwheeled in place over the bench of the accused and watched her lawyer and the judge, bent together, speaking heatedly but in low tones that didn't carry over the other conversations in the area.

She kicked upright, her toes drifting over the tiles. Except for her fingers, her body was still, eyes focused angrily on the judge's back. Her fingers plucked and pulled at the imaginary strings of a lyre.

Nikasia dreamed of a song. Only a dream. She concentrated on not singing aloud when she felt anything like the hot metal lump of anger in her stomach. The rolling force of the ocean, the pressure on her skin, it could be hers to command if she wanted. Her eyes closed a little, lashes fluttering. She pulled her legs up, folded them against her chest, her body rolling back, cradled in the ocean's arms. All the energy building inside her floated to the surface in her mind, siphoning into her sense of hearing above all the others, even if it was only in her head that she heard her own voice.

". . .eh-kooos-ahn-tay-ssss. Keer-kays-ah-doooo-say-ssss."

She whispered the last of the song aloud.  Then choked and shut her mouth, tongue slamming into her teeth.

A noisy, rumbling chorus of grunting and snorting erupted in the crowded square, followed by an embarrassing silence, and then dozens of men's and women's voices saying, "pardon me" all at the same time.

Nikasia had been singing a story of her immortal ancestor turning men into pigs.

The murmured "excuse me's" and "don't mention it's" died down, and all the legal discussions at various depths in the square resumed.

Nikasia looked up at the block. Cruel Gypselos was wiping his nose with his cloak and gesturing apologetically to Phrastor, who wasn't paying any attention to him. Phrastor glared around the judge's back at Nikasia.

She swung her legs down, shrugged and smiled innocently, mouthing, "What was that all about?"

She didn't expect an answer. She closed her mouth and looked away, not wanting to make matters worse. She tried to keep her mind still, but images and songs filled any empty space she tried to create. On their own her fingers moved along imaginary strings.

Turning her thoughts to less dangerous things, she spent some time wondering what was going to happen next. She had always been in trouble, just not this much—treason!  Or if she had been, her mother quickly smoothed things over with the king and assembly.

Lady Theoxena was somewhere on the surface on a mission for the king.

Just me and balding old Phrastor, and...

A soldier from the courts, a big grim woman with her hair pulled back way too tight into braids, drifted in Phrastor's wake, carrying a long loop of finger-thick silver chain.

Nikasia looked up, scowling immediately. Phrastor back-kicked and put out his hands in a calm-down gesture. "It's just tomorrow. One day."  He pointed at the links of silver. "I know it is three or four sizes too large for you, but you must wear this. . .bracelet on one arm—it's meant for two while—"

"Bracelet?"

Phrastor flinched at the change he saw in her face. Caution was something Nikasia used once if she used it at all.

"It's big enough to wear as a belt."

"Belt it is then," said the guard with contempt, and untwisted the links from her fingers. The chain uncoiled like a stretching snake of metal, twitching and swaying on its own. She let it go. The links of silver shot at Nikasia, spiraled her waist, met the other end, and locked together snugly.

The guard spun without another word and kicked away. Nikasia's look of hate turned to horror, her gaze dropping to her waist, elbows up to her shoulders, as if something disgusting had oozed down the front of her tunic. Then she turned her look on Phrastor.

He held up a trembling finger in answer and scowled back, looked as if he wanted to yell something at her, but kept closing his mouth before he got started.

Finally he managed a harsh whisper, only getting one word out. "You!"

He swallowed more words. He sputtered curses and pointed up a couple times. He waved ambiguously around at the Nine-cities, and said ambiguous things like, "You could lose all of this if the king decides you are unfit for his service"

"Who?  All of what?"

"King Tharsaleos tolerates the Kirkêlatides only."

"I don't fear him," she said with a forced shrug. "I just felt confined. I needed fresh water—and air!"  She waved her hand at the city. "We live in a prison with the door left unlocked."  She sang the old lines, "Our term of punishment, thrice a thousand. . ."

Phrastor wilted in front of her eyes, his hands covering his face. "Please," he said softly. "Beg you not to sing."

She sniffed, and went on. "I also wanted to see him. . .wanted to look into the eyes of the murderer of my father. That is all."  She shrugged. "No one should get in trouble for a little curiosity."

"Tell that to Lord Gypselos," said Phrastor wearily. If not death at the mother's hands—or voice, perhaps the war-bard's daughter would finish him off.

As if on cue, Gypselos wheezed, "Nikasia Lady Kirkêlatides."  He drifted menacingly in the water over the judge's block.

She flinched and kicked around to face him. He pointed a bony finger at her.

"If I see you in court again, Nikasia daughter of Epandros and Theoxena, your punishment will be severe. The Vents wash away. Eventually. What if you were to lose something dearer to you?  Permanently. Irreplaceable. Closer to your family talents, in your blood?  An eardrum punctured?  One of your ears removed?  Cut off the side of your pretty head. I knew your father."  He made a sign to honor the dead. "You shame his memory. I don't care who your mother is."—although he made a sign to honor the living. "I don't want to see you again in front of this judge's block. Have I made myself clear?"

Her jaw was so tight she fought to open her mouth. Phrastor tensed up behind her. Her confidence returned when she felt the little waves of fear shivering off her lawyer.

Nikasia tilted her head back and said, "As water."  An elbow from Phrastor and she added, "Lord."

Chapter 7 - Nikasia's Chain

Nikasia's maid, Lamidion grabbed her wrist in one strong hand, hauled her through the lanes of the Nine-cities, higher in the water than the shoppers and strollers, between towers and battlement walls, through quieter estate districts, and didn't let go until they reached the gates to the property of the family Kirkêlatides.

"Let go of me. I'm not a child."

"Silence, Nika."  Lamidion put a finger to her lips. She was a short powerful woman in her forties who'd let her hair go gray—or bleached and dyed it as Nikasia thought—to help with the airs of maturity and authority she put on. Her calloused hands made a slow swirling gesture in the courtyard that brought her around to face her charge. "Your dear mother is handling this. Weeping Hera!  When she discovers your crime...that you've gone in front of Lord Gypselos, that you're to go to the Vents tomorrow...Oh, Lord!  Even I have some pity for you."

Nikasia looked down at the big links of silver chain that wrapped her waist, made a bitter face and sniffed. "Admirable of you to save a bit for me."

Lamidion's eyes widened at the slap in the face sarcasm. "Why do I bother?"

"I ask myself the same question."

Nikasia kicked away. She'd already forgotten everyone in her way, Lamidion, Lord Gypselos, her lawyer, and the rest of the world—everything but the hate, an entirely new world of her own making. She glided to the east side of the courtyard, elbowing through the forest of kelp to the clearing where a statue of her father stood.

The Kirkêlatides  household was one of the oldest walled estates in the city, with a yard open to the sea above, lit with it's own miniature version of Helios, the sun, that followed the tides' schedule in a hemispheric path twice a day, up and back. The burn of magic in the dark of the ocean's floor enabled them to grow the enormous green plants of shallower seas right in their courtyard, and earned the family the enduring respect of their neighbors whose gardens also benefited from the additional light. The larger twin of Helios, the fiery globe set in its arcing path over the entire city, drenched the fields and farm tracts east of the high walls with light for most of each day, but there were still many places inside the walls of Nine-cities where the abyss-dark prevailed, or at best received a dull glow that made deeper pockets of darkness of the shadows.

The funeral statue of Nikasia's father, Epandros, stood in the center of the courtyard.

Nikasia pulled more water past her and reached for the statue's armored shoulder, carved in stone and streaked with age. Epandros stared blankly at the green and brown columns of kelp, a slight smile bending up one side of his mouth. The artist had captured him so clearly that Theoxena still cried when seeing the likeness of her dead husband—and made sure the kelp grew tall so that she would not be reminded more than necessary.

"I am here, father."  Nikasia's tone made it sound as if she was the only one who remembered him. "Gregor Rexenor will not survive long."  Her voice went cold, almost inhumanly sharp. "Dead. Painfully dead. His bones broken, marrow dumped out for worms, blood thick in the water. His family, the lords of House Rexenor, I will track down what is left of them and kill them all. You have my word."

She leaned back in the water, and sang softly,

"Do not let him cross the river with Charon's help, but let the water sting his skin, and bite him with icy teeth. O Lord Hades, you know the one I mean, the man whose waking makes me die, Gregor Lord Rexenor, the murderer of my father. Let him swallow poison for every moment of my suffering, fill his mouth and lungs with sand, a hammer to his teeth. Make him see the dark I bring to his life and then cut out his eyes. Let him taste defeat bitter on his tongue before I rip it from his mouth."

Behind Nikasia, deep in the shadows of the courtyard kelp forest, a pair of large eyes cupped in overlapping folds of leathery skin watched her singing to her father's statue.

Nikasia touched the statue's face, her fingertips pushing against the smooth stone. A wreath of red leafy algae ringed his head, its stiff serrated edges scraping her knuckles as she slid her fingers over his forehead.

"Does the Rexenor have a child, tell me Lord of Hate?  Let him have one on whom he bestows all his love. Let him have a daughter as my father, Epandros, once had me. Let his strong hand rest on her hand. Let his fingers take hers and hold them with the promise that he will remain to the world's end. Let that promise grow true, take its roots deep in her heart, let it grow to the ocean's ceiling and beyond. And then take his life, drain his blood, shatter his spine. Let him hold his own beating heart with the last of his strength, and then break his fingers, Lord of Death."

She blinked and scanned the courtyard to see if her sisters or one of their loves had come in to watch her pain, and then turned back to her father's statue.

"Mother is looking. I don't know where. I fear she seeks your killer in the wrong places."  Her voice dropped lower but her tone grew more passionate. "The king does nothing!  More than five years the Rexenor lord has been free from his box of stone. What does the king do to find his prisoner?"

One of the kelp stalks shook against the thick flattened hemisphere of bone that protected the watcher's eyes like a soldier's armor. It paddled awkwardly from one column of green to another, continuing to track Nikasia.

She threw one arm over her father's shoulder, and followed his cold stare into the kelp. "Stupid king, losing wars and allowing armies of the dead to go to the other side."  Her voice softened to a whisper. "The Wreath of Poseidon has not gone out of the oceans as we had all thought. So many stories from the new war in the North. What is true?  Prisoners' stories. Who can say what is true—or what they were led to believe by the deceiving Rexenors. Kassandra showed them the Sea's trident, a crown. Over what does Kassandra rule?  Who is her father or mother?  She is the granddaughter of King Tharsaleos and Queen Pythias. Kassandra of the Alkimides is now heir to the throne. She plays with fire, she has her own dead army, she defeated the king's force in the north. If this stupid two-bleed king will not kill a murderer, perhaps Kassandra as queen will have the stomach for justice. But she sides with the enemy Rexenors."  Nikasia's thoughts had already moved beyond her latest surface foray and the punishment of the Vents the next day. "Another journey?  Perhaps I should find Kassandra?  I can persuade her."

Her gaze snapped to movement in the kelp forest. She froze at the edge of a rush of thoughts, her eyes fixed on a shadow in the thicket. Something moved there. A ring of pale flesh around a thick dark center. It was an eye, a large reptilian eye.

She drew in a deep pull of the sea, and sang of cold and the stilling of motion. The eye widened and a large old sea turtle fumbled out of the kelp stalks, paddling awkwardly in the net of her song.

Nikasia kicked forward with a hostile glare that only stayed a moment with the turtle, then darted through the forest to the far side of the courtyard, looking for her sister Melinna's boyfriend. It was his turtle.

"Didn't think he had enough going on to teach it to track and spy on me."

Like shadow over its shell, Nikasia used a fingernail to scrape off a tiny piece of the turtle's hide, rolled it between her fingers, and then jabbed the crumb of reptilian flesh into a pocket in her tunic.

She grabbed the turtle by its wide shell, kicking and steering it like a float-board into the house where Melinna and Erixenos chuckled from the shadows near the ceiling of the hall into the kitchens.

She shoved the old animal toward its master.

"One more time and I'll make a lyre out of your pet."

Erixenos, brushed his dark curly hair out of his eyes, and gave her a puzzled look. "Liar?"

Nikasia's gaze hit her sister's boyfriend, thinking he was playing stupid. She paused for him to figure out that it wasn't funny, and then said, "Oh, it's not an act. Musical instrument."

She shook her head. She wasn't getting through.

Erix was stunningly beautiful, tall and muscular with strong hands, and a brain the size of his big toe.

Nikasia smiled. "Good thing you have rather large big toes."

He glanced down at his feet and then back at her. "What?  You have something against turtles?"

Nikasia kept her voice slow as if she was speaking to a dull child. "Keep it away from me, or I will be turning it into something that needs to be tuned regularly."

She swam off.

Erixenos laughed at her back—an uncomfortable laugh that broke in the wrong places, an obvious effort to keep it going long after its futility was recognized.

Then Melinna, joined by the oldest Kirkêlatides sister, Airesis, shouted ineffective threats after Nikasia, hisses of disease songs and offensive gestures they had learned in dance lessons.

The Fates had chosen Nikasia the youngest to bleed off their mother, passing over the older sisters, and Melinna and Airesis now cursed themselves for not poisoning little Nika when they'd had the chance. She had already taken in half their mother's power, and could not now be stopped by anyone in the household except Theoxena.

Nikasia kicked harder, taking the tunnels deeper into the house, cutting the corners sharp, her fists in front of her, ready to break anything that got in her way. She swung her legs up in front of her bedroom door, and pressed her hands against the hard material, feeling for her spells. Her mouth tightened in satisfaction. She ducked her head and closed one eye against her own wake as it caught up and shouldered rudely past.

She paused a moment for the water to go still, and then glanced up and down the unlit hall, flattening her hand and running it along the top edge where the door met the frame. Her fingers plucked a single hair out of the seam, caught it with two more fingers, and slid the silky thread between them, stopping with a tightened grip at its end. Satisfied with the hair's length, Nikasia stuck one end in her mouth, catching it with her tongue and pushing it against the back of the top row of teeth, tasting it.

She stared absently at the ceiling, her mouth closed. It looked as if she were using her tongue to tug out a piece of meat lodged in her teeth. Satisfied, she stuck it out, pulled the hair up to her head, and sang it back into place.

She slid the latch aside, pushed the door in, and spent nearly as much time spelling it shut from the inside.

Trust is for the weak.

She kicked to her bed, a narrow platform halfway up the wall on the far side, grabbing the edge and spinning her feet toward the ceiling. She snapped her fingers with a short burst of song and her dark room blazed with light, a brilliant gold glow like a thousand candles.

She gave the water a sweep of her hand and brought her feet flat against the ceiling. Her braids swayed lazily below her as her fingers worked the links of silver chain at her waist. She curled forward to get a better look at the King's judgment bindings.

"Pitiful."

She had the chain off a moment later, swinging it below her, timed with the pendulum sweep of her braids.

She had already decided what to do with it. In the morning she would have to appear at the Vent train with the other condemned, wearing the chain, but tonight she had other plans for it, and she set to work on the modifications immediately, pushing her toes into the ceiling to give her enough forward motion to reach the stone floor of her room.

She set the chain down in a straight line, the links pulled tight, and then she kicked in short rapid strokes, circling the bright silver.

"Artemin agroteran...we are going hunting, you and I...drakôn kai sauras kai ta toiauta tôn herpetôn...of things that crawl and slither in the deep, of things that swim with leathery fins and paddles like wood. Things with teeth thick as my fingers and sharp as a dagger, things with beaks with cutting edges like the snap of sheers. Egg layers, venom seeping, webbing between their claws, dragons, serpents, turtles, lizards, all. These will be yours, I will make them yours, grant their wills to you, and you in turn will bind them to my will."  She touched the chain, and flicked her eyes to the top of her wardrobe, a towering black cabinet that held all of her clothing.

She tugged with her thoughts, and her lyre, a stout bow of gold and inlaid mother of pearl, slid off the cabinet into open water. She caught it by the base, tucked it into her arms and plucked a sharp chord that made the links in the chain vibrate in the halo of bright sound coming off the strings. She reached into her pocket. Her fingers came out pressed firmly together, the tiny scraping of reptile skin held between them. The sound washed over the links of silver and Nikasia opened her hand. The turtle's skin burned in the glow of her song and disintegrated, a line of flickering dust that danced in the waves, settling among the links, fusing to the silver.

She tugged three strings in quick succession, damping them, and then pulled a sharp attack of sound that cut into her skin and sprayed her blood in a lacy fan that stretched from one end of the chain to the other.

The music died. Her heartbeat racing, and dribbles of her life curled in the webbing between her fingers. She folded her legs and let her body drift to the floor, eyes closed, meditating, and the links of silver writhed on the stones in front of her like a serpent.

An hour later, Nikasia emerged from her room, sealed one hair in the door, set her locking spells, and kicked down the hall, hunting a turtle. She found it grazing near the floor in the courtyard, snapping feebly at a crab that bent it's carapace up defensively.

The silver chain helixed her arm like an overprotective Death Eel, links clicking and snapping expectantly, sensing prey in the water. Nikasia swept shark-like around the tail end of the old sea turtle, unwinding the chain.

The reptile lifted its head, spotting her, but only had time for one good thrust of its limbs before the coiling line of silver metal snapped around its scaly neck, leaving forty more links free to slide under its long fore flippers and bind them.

She whispered, "Come to me, sweet animal," and the chains slackened, allowed the turtle to pull itself around in the water and swim to its new master. "I won't hurt you. You and I will get along well. I will feed you and take care of you, but first there is one small thing you must do for me. You must earn my trust chelônos and then I will protect you."

Her fingers eased under the turtle's head and lifted it. She curled forward and pressed her lips to the hard leathery skin just above its eyes. "I am your master now. I will reward obedience."  She slipped her other hand affectionately along the shell.

She uncoiled the chain and released the sea turtle, which paddled away with determination. She paused mid-water at the entrance to the halls that led to the bedrooms, and then smiled at the scream of pain and cursing. A moment later, her new pet swam into view, Erixenos kicking angrily in its wake, bleeding from his arm and shouting abuse.

Nikasia swam into the open, arms folded, and the turtle paddled past her for protection. Erix back-kicked, his eyes opening from the rage that blinded them, startled to find himself alone in a room with Nikasia. He closed his mouth, just smart enough to know that speaking aloud any of the thoughts swimming through his mind could ruin him, take Melinna away forever, and sour any ambitions where the Kirkêlatides had influence.

How many determined social climbers had feigned love for Melinna or Airesis only to use them as stepping-stones to the real power in the family, the youngest sister?  Nikasia saw them coming a stade away, read their thoughts, and had even revealed their crooked ambitions to her sisters—thinking that this was one chance to do something warm and sisterly toward them, but instead it had aroused a deeper hatred. Melinna and Airesis twisted her honesty into an attempt to steal away their lovers.

Nikasia tilted her head to one side, turned the corners of her lips down, daring Erixenos to say a word.

He shook his head as if answering an unsaid question, clapped a hand to his bleeding arm and retreated.

His boldness returned in the company of others, and later, when Nikasia kicked into the hall where her sisters and several servants had gathered for dinner, Erixenos snapped off a few biting remarks about the soul-staining Vents. "They'll stay with you for the rest of your life, the darkness like ink in your soul."

Nikasia glanced over at him, thinking that it was a bit too poetic for someone with so little nous. She pushed her back against the corner of the room, reaching over the board to pick up a strip of fish, red and raw. She whispered an athanatêros a little too loudly, earning a reproachful glare from Mandris the chef—at the notion that he would allow anyone to poison his dishes.

At the other end of the room, Erix leaned casually against Melinna, stuffing his mouth with food from their table, nursing his bandaged arm, determined to see Nikasia react stupidly in front everyone in the room.

"Has our little Nika got all her fingers?"

She gave him a freezing stare at the word "our."  What, is he part of the family now?

"I've a cousin missing two."  Erix laughed as she tucked all of hers in. "Don't you worry, unless the judge's a nasty one. They start with the hand opposite your favored, and work their way in from the little finger. On a man it's bad enough."  His face brightened as if with good news. "On a girl...well, then it means marrying below her station, doubling her dowry, not nearly as fetching when a girl's missing a finger or two."

Nikasia looked right at her sister Melinna, tall and beautiful, her long black braids wound into loops and spirals. "Bold before others, he's a silent coward in a room alone with me."

She was just starting to smile at her sister's gasp of jealous rage, when her thoughts drifted into a dream of being alone in open water with her father's murderer. These people—her own family, their loves—didn't matter anymore. They never had mattered. The only thing that mattered in all the cold world was killing her father's killer.

That is how I will see the deed in the eyes of Gregor Rexenor. If he is silent when facing his death, then he is guilty, and he will die. I will give him the chance to plead, to tell me the story of my father's last moments in this sea. What did he see in my father's face?  What were my father's final words?  Did the Rexenor allow him to speak before taking his life?  Or did he just kill?

Chapter 8 - The Untrusting Book

Gregor Lord Rexenor, son of the late Lady Kallixene and Lord Nausikrates, spent the afternoon cleaning a two-hundred gallon aquarium in which he kept a very old book.

The book, hundreds of rolled and ragged-ended scroll cuttings bound into a codex, rested in the water on sea-worn boulders that lined the tank's floor, brown and red-crusted lumps of granite that jutted with higher algae, swaying fronds of deep red Porphyra, olive ruffles of Alaria, and other common benthic inhabitants of the New England rocky intertidal zone.

Gregor hoisted a bucket with a label that read "Pickles" as high as his shoulders, stepped around a fifteen-gallon plastic drum of fresh seawater, and headed into the kitchen, walking like a penguin with the silt and old aquarium water sloshing against the bucket's walls. He turned sideways to get by the kitchen island, a butcher-block topped cabinet fixed to the center of the kitchen's floor, set the bucket down on the edge of the sink, and tipped it in.

He stared out the window over the sink while he emptied the bucket, following a few cars passing along Ocean Boulevard where it curved around the edge of Little Boar's Head in North Hampton, New Hampshire, between his property and the Atlantic.

A moment later, he was back in his study, which contained many books—bookcases full of them, books on marine biology, oceanography, sailing and small craft handling, marine navigation and weather, advanced mathematics, encyclopedias, hundreds of paperbacks, and a whole shelf on parenting with titles like, A Single Dad's Guide to Raising Difficult Girls and Fathers and Daughters—How to raise them to be independent, teach them to drive, and get them out of your house.

Of all the books in the room, there was only one that required immersion in seawater.

Two three-gallon loads of water later, Gregor set the pickle bucket aside and placed a shallow plastic tray across the top of the aquarium. The pumps churned the water against the glass, splattering the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt as he reached in and lifted the large volume with thick end boards off its resting place in the center of the aquarium.

His gray-streaked black hair fell into his eyes as he lifted the book, heavy with water, into the tray. The ocean oozed from its pages, bubbling from pores in the binding, filling the tray to its rim. Its face exposed to the air, the book curled at the edges and swelled up, breathing in the seawater, leaving a few beads to run to the tray's corners when Gregor pulled it off the top of the aquarium.

He smiled grimly at what he took to be a sniff of discomfort from the book, shifting the load to make walking easier, his fingers hooking the tray's lip; brown seams of scar tissue ran along the insides of each where someone had done a messy job cutting the webbing away.

"Just take a moment. Can't have you sitting in old water."

Gregor set the tray down beside the kitchen sink and returned to the aquarium. A crease in the tray's corner allowed water to collect, an inch deep, and dribble steadily into the sink, down the drain, through the bend, coating the pipe, and eventually into the septic system. The book spent a little more energy, a driving surge that rode over the passive channel gravity created, strengthening it, punching out through the septic system's leach lines, into the earth. The network was tenuous for hundreds of feet, but the book had learned many things sitting in the water, listening to the conversations of Gregor's family and friends, enough to curse the Rexenor lord for buying such an enormous piece of the exposed surface of the earth—and right next to the Atlantic Ocean. The property taxes alone must be ghastly.

It cursed and it pushed the thread of water deeper into the cold earth, requiring more power, latching one handful of water molecules to the next at the thinnest points in the communications chain. It pushed the channel of water through near solid ground, driving through seams in the rock and cold compact dirt. Tree roots had to be avoided, as they drew water and could break the channel at its weakest points. The book pushed harder. The course broke through clay, seeped through a line of crumbling rock, inched into compressed sand, and...

The sea. It had found the sea. Thalassa!  The book rejoiced.

"What did you say?"  Gregor stumped into the kitchen, lifted the pickle bucket, and poured three more gallons of aquarium water into the sink.

I miss the sea, Lord Gregor. The book flipped one end-board up casually, ruffling a few pages as it pushed the words into Gregor, or what it could perceive of Gregor, a blur of soul-form, a foamy glow of animate mind and human structural silhouette.

Reminiscing. That is all.

It squeezed another pulse of energy along the channel to the sea, pulling it back into land, picking up the blood signature of one of its ancient masters, one of the Telkhines.

As Gregor reached the kitchen door with the empty bucket, the book flipped up an end board again, and because it could not help boasting of its abilities, said, By the way, I do not think it wise to pour seawater into your drain. Your septic system is not fond of it. The bacteria in the septic tank are not the sort that get along with the seaborn.

Gregor returned to the sink and placed one hand on the book's cover. "I miss the sea as well, and my home. Soon. Very soon, we will return forever."  He choked on the word, "home," and made a pinched face as if swallowing something sour.

He picked up the bucket, crossed the kitchen to the study, and dunked it into the aquarium for another three gallons, muttering to himself. "Landlubbers. Even the damn bacteria."

Beside the sink, the pages went rigid in fury, tasting the enemy in the air, and searching the house, finally found the blinding soul-form of the Alkimides, Kassandra.

Two of Gregor's three daughters sat at the dining room table, bent over a dozen open books, Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Aristotle's Politics, big maps of Napoleon's campaigns, a half-played game of chess between them.

Nicole ran her finger down a page, frowning when she reached the bottom without finding what she was looking for. With a thump, she threw the thick block of pages to one side to browse the index. She browsed the topics and page numbers and reached across the table to move a knight on the board.

Kassandra tapped her pencil on a text in ancient Greek, her bare feet hooked on the rungs of the chair. She spoke softly to herself in words that sounded like one side of a conversation, and she looked up occasionally with dark, deep-musing eyes that weren't always focused on the outside world. Without looking at the chessboard, she reached out and took one Nicole's bishops.

The book on the edge of the sink in the kitchen found the third daughter, Jill, outside the house, back to one of the lookout pines on the edge of the property, her fingers curling through the thick blond hair of Jordan Chandler. She pulled a kiss from somewhere deep inside him—deep enough to pull him off balance, and force him to push her against the rough bark.

With Gregor out of the room and one attentive thread on that Alkimides bitch, the book turned the remainder of its thought to its quarry, Alexander Shoaler, one of the Telkhines, the same blood line it had discovered years ago, moments after waking from a two-thousand year old sleep. The Telkhinos had been a baby then, stumbling around in the surf, dangling from his mother's hands.

The book sent its searching channel up the sand, fingering the lumps of granite, questing for the distant blood-son of twenty generations of Telkhines. The man was here, somewhere close in the waves. The book forked the path into two seeking threads, one going shallow, the other deep.

Nicole looked over at her sister.  "How long?"

Kassandra held her gaze for a minute.  "Not very long."

"Like we should start packing for the Nine-cities?"

Kassandra focused on something internally.  "Hundred and sixty three more events and connections need to happen, fall into place."  She shrugged.  "Give or take a hundred."

"No idea what that means. Give me an example of an event or connection?"

"Well, I've planned for as many as seventeen people dead before we can go home and get my asshole grandfather off the throne.  Could be hundreds depending how my grandfather reacts."

Nicole leaned away from her. "Who dies?  Those Kirkelatides?  What's their deal with dad?  Why do they want to kill him?"

Kassandra nodded, but no real commitment to who dies.  "I'll tell you the whole story sometime.   It starts right after I was born, like days after I came into this world, but here's the outline: the kings and queens of the seaborn have had appointed eight trusted soldiers as bodyguards for a long time, a thousand years or so.  They're called the oktoloi, the Eight, sometimes called the Trusted Eight.  They've sworn to defend the king or queen to the death, and in many cases they have—actually died in the line of duty.  Anyway, the only king who has ever lost all eight in one swoop is Tharsaleos—and very few know that he killed them himself.  He blamed their deaths on dad.  As far as the seaborn know, Gregor Lord Rexenor was the killer of the Eight."

Nicole nodded, staring down at the open pages of the book in front of her, but not reading them.  "And Phaidra?  Dad's really concerned about her.  I'm really concerned about her."

Kassandra went still for a minute.  "Yeah," she said quietly.  "I need to find a way to get into the king's prisons and bust out our favorite aunt without jeopardizing the rest of the strategy.  I had originally planned to release her when we took the Nine-cities, and that still may be the way this plays out.   I really wish it didn't have to be that way."

"Okay."

Kassandra let the silence slip by for another minute, tapping her pencil against the wood, then moved on. "Eleven of the conditions that have to be met have to do with you, Nicole.  And then there are new events and potentials inserting themselves all the time, new things I have to fit into the plan, schedule, deal with."

She dropped her pencil on the dining room table. "Jordan's gone."

Nicole looked over, sliding her chin in her palm, her fingers playing with the ropy knobs of her braids. "I heard him drive off, too."

"And the tide's coming in."  Kassandra untangled herself from the chair's rungs and motioned to the back of the house. "Let's see what's keeping her."

The two of them headed through the kitchen into the living room and out onto the back walk, stopping at the head of a set of mossy granite stairs that dropped to a sloping acre of grass. Giant old pines studded the property along the edge, pillars that held up the sky, and Jill danced in the grass among them.

Nicole pulled her bra strap over one muscular brown shoulder, straightening her sleeveless shirt, which had the words "I Hit Like A Girl" in big pink letters down the front. She jabbed Kassandra with her elbow. "Pirouettes."

"Yup."

They stood at the top of the stairs, barefoot on the damp stone, and watched Jill twirl for three long minutes, throwing her arms out, her face tilted to the sky, her white toes curling in a cumulus of soft green grass.

Nicole shook her head. "How many do you think she's going to do?"

"Enough to make herself dizzy."  Kassandra stared at Jill another minute and whispered without meaning to, "I have never been that happy."  Her eyes felt heavy, not with tears, but the swelling that accompanied them. She couldn't look away from her sister, spinning like a ballerina in the backyard, the wind off the Atlantic lifting her gold hair into a silk banner. She always let her braids unwind when Jordan came to see her.

Kassandra sighed. "I wish..."

Nicole smiled slowly and threw an arm over her shoulder. "What does the princess, summoner of sea-demons, possessor of every last seashell Poseidon used to own, wish for?"

Kassandra paused to ponder that, but Nicole didn't let her thoughts wander far.

"Tell me your wish."

"No."

"Come on."

"It's pathetic. All my wishes are. I was going to say, I wish I could cry."

"You're a freak. Get over it. Tell me what you really wish for?"

Kassandra kept her eyes on pirouetting Jill. "That everything can go back to the way it was."

Nicole let a few seconds go by. "And... you're going to tell me the way it was?"

"I don't know. Happy. Sun-eudaimoneô. The world has been pulled out from under us, and you won't cry. I can't. I don't think I can bear to see Jill cry."

"Look after your own. Jill's happiness isn't in your control."  Nicole shook her head. "Deep sea politics and armies from murdering grandfathers not keeping you busy enough?"

But Kassandra wasn't listening. She was grinning and waving at Jill, who had stopped, noticed her sisters, and laughed, stumbling to the grass because she was too dizzy to stay on her feet.

"Gods, she's more of a princess than I'll ever be. Fawning guys, shopping excursions. All she needs is that tiara. I don't know what I'd do in a clothing store with more than a hundred bucks."

Kassandra watched Jill, still somersaulting with an imaginary Jordan, and then glanced over at Nicole, noting how far apart they'd grown:  Jill competed on phone time with call-centers, smiled every time Jordan texted her a string of X's and O's, and spent way too much time dancing like an elf in the shade of the towering pines at the yard's edge. Nic climbed them, shook the branches forty feet off the ground, leaning dangerously out over Ocean Boulevard, and when she said anything at all, it was something important, like the fact that she could see Boon Island Light from her perch.

Jill flopped on her back and went still for a minute. She made a high-pitched "eeeeeee!" noise and rolled in the grass, kicking the air, part of some latent Jordan reverie—and in a hundred dollar silk tank and a knee length skirt riding up her thighs with a price tag three times that. She'd kicked her lime-green heels—another few hundred dollars—into opposite ends of the yard.

Kassandra and Nicole looked at each other, and that was all it took to pull their faces into snooty, nose-ratcheting knots. At the same time they both said—in perfect imitations of the trust fund supported, Porsche-driving, perfectly dressed and manicured girls they used to go to school with: "Dah-dy will buy me a boat."

They burst out laughing.

Jordan Chandler sailed in races off Nantucket and the Vineyard. He had shelves of trophies and ribbons. His family had a place on the Cape, and Jill had visited him every summer for the last three years. The first summer, she'd come home after two weeks "with her man," sun-tanned, gold highlights in her hair, obsessed with sailing and packing a heavy new vocabulary with words like transom and jibstay.

And daddy—Gregor, as part of his encourage their interests plan—had bought her a boat, Stormwind, a forty-two foot cutter berthed in Rye—along with eight pairs of deck shoes in a variety of colors, because, in Jill's mind, what was the point of having a deck without shoes to go with it?

"Oh, yeah."  Nicole sighed. "More of a princess than anyone I know—certainly you."

Kassandra gave her a scary intense glare, and Nicole looked away with a jump of fear.  Swallowing hard to get a grip on her thumping heart, she turned her thoughts to something that made her angry instead. Then jutted her chin down toward the beach. "What about Beach Guy?"

Kassandra followed her gaze. "Bachoris?"

"Speaking of never being as happy as Jill."

"I'm seeing him tonight."  She read the question in Nicole's expression, and shook her head. "Just me and him. Going out for coffee. Getting to know each other."

Nicole whispered, "There's something about him I don't like."

"You bet there is."

The book, sitting in the tray next to the kitchen sink, tracked Gregor's daughters' movement outside the house, and with mounting irritation squeezed another thread of seawater down the channel. Time was slipping by. The book's extended senses felt its way along the sand into a shallow beach where the Telkhinos was in the sea with a long board of some unknown pressed and shaped fibrous material.

Alex Shoaler ran his fingers through his spiky hair, throwing off a shower of water, and lurched forward to catch the sand with his toes. He steadied himself on the slope, and then leaned back against the roll of the surf. Then spun toward the horizon, sensing something moving in the milky gray waves. He blinked away seawater. It was just a feeling, not enough to push him into acting on it.

Then he felt a cold, insistent tap on his spine. It fingered up his back, under his wetsuit, a chill burn on his skin. His hands tightened on his surfboard, and he swung it around in the chest deep water like a shield between his position twenty meters out from North Hampton Beach and the rest of the Atlantic.

Alexandros?

A raspy voice called him with the same variation on his name that Nikasia had used, but it wasn't her. He looked over his shoulder, back toward the beach for some other nut from the sea who wanted to drown him. He wasn't even sure he'd heard the voice. It felt as if his name had just appeared in his head without coming in through his ears.

"Yes?"  Suspicion in his voice.

His gaze moved along the shore, halting on a big Victorian house that stooped over the Atlantic where Ocean Boulevard followed the shoreline around Little Boar's Head. He wanted to turn east. That was where the danger had to be, but something held his eyes on the house. It was one of his favorite old places along the coast, Kassandra's house, sort of weird and old and scary and exciting all at the same time.

His face relaxed, and the force that held his focus on the shore, released him. He spun in the water, back to the horizon, and then turned inward on an image planted right in the middle of his imagination: a thick brown book rested on seaweed covered boulders at the bottom of an aquarium.

The image vanished. The spidery fingers on his back dissolved, and Alex Shoaler scowled. He blinked, trying to bring the outside world into focus.

"What kind of idiot puts a book in an aquarium?"

And then he thought of someone who might, someone who lived in that house.

Kassandra?

He held his breath, rolling softly with the surge, waiting less than ten seconds before her voice filled his head—her concerned voice, not the same rasp that had called him a moment earlier.

What's wrong, Alex?

Nothing. Uh...just wanted to see if you're still there.

He felt her smile—which was creepy, and then a tickle in the sand under his toes.

Always.

Chapter 9 - Nothing Left For Me

Nikasia woke in pure darkness, snapped her fingers to start a light, but she was too tired to kick off her bed. She stared at the ceiling, singing through every muscle in her body, a quick tug on each, pulling them from sleep.  The water in her room tasted stale.

"It is time."

She sang the words, and they struck a chord inside, stirring memories that made restless, and got her off her bed.  She rolled toward the bolted door to her room, locked against her own family. Me against the world.

It is time.

Theoxena had sung the same words to her once.

"Now, I even sound like you, mother."

Nikasia let her thoughts slide into the past, dreaming of her mother teaching her to sing, and her soul being pulled in two directions, torn between the sorrow of her father's death and the envy and hate of her sisters—one feeding the other, the sorrow filling the spaces between her and the rest of the family,

How many younger siblings who get the bleeding are murdered by the older ones?  Many, I would guess. The best you can hope for is their scorn, their hatred, their curses; the worst, a knife in your back or your throat cut in your sleep.

Bleed...bleed to death.

And so she'd locked her bedroom door every night since her eighth year. How many times since then had she repeated the thoughts, asked the same question, and heard the same answers—always in her mother's voice.

Who would refuse the bleed?

The bleeding power from one of your parents, every child hopes for it and dreads it. You would think that anyone would kick in joy when they feel the invading drive of magic from a mother or father. It can only bleed into one child, and you are chosen by the Fates to receive it. Who would not be filled with joy?  Tell me?

Nikasia heard her father's voice, some old memory talking to her, telling her how power passed generation to generation among the seaborn.

When it decides to bleed from the parent it flows to only one child. That is how it works for all of us, great houses and lesser houses alike. When a child dies with half the father's or mother's magic, the power dies with them, which is why so many families in the Nine-cities have nothing but the strength in their arms and cleverness in their souls.

Only the old Telkhines could multiply their bleeds among all of their offspring, and it's said some ancient member of the Telkhines line paid a terrible price for this, but all his descendents were rewarded. This is also why the Alkimides, when they broke House Telkhines, hunted them down—because every new one of them was as powerful as the last one.

We know that hundreds of Telkhines escaped to live out their lives in isolation, exile, until their lines dwindled to nothing. Every House feared the Telkhines, and the Alkimides are heroes for bringing them down and destroying so many of their tools of power—their fire magic, their dragons, their demon slaves.

Nikasia wheeled her dream into the far cold north, the battle lost to House Rexenor, and the woman wearing the Wreath of Poseidon commanding their army.

Then there is the Wreath, the gift the Earth-encircler Poseidon gave the Alkimides family, a victory wreath, a crown for a new line of kings and queens when the old line abused their power. The Telkhines enslaved many of Poseidon's own kin. The Alkimides freed the slaves, took the throne, and have ruled the Nine-cities for two thousand years. The Wreath itself was thought to have gone out the oceans with King Tharsaleos' first wife, Pythias Alkimides—only to be found in a girl who grew up as far from the ocean as anyone could get, some place called Nebraska.

Nikasia's own voice barged into her dream, and everything shifted to the world seen from her eyes.

The Wreath-wearer Pythias was blessed and cursed, and died alone. I will most likely share her fate, killed by my sisters or the king for the weight that has landed on my shoulders.

Time blurred into the past.

"Nika."

"Yes, mother?"

My mother looks into my eyes, into my soul, and says, "It is time."

I know it is, mother.

The dream shifted, and Nikasia became the storyteller, the eyes of her audience pinned to her—audience, not friends. I have no friends.

When you have a mother like mine—Lady Theoxena—the bleed is an instant burden, weighing you down like a sack of stones about your neck. My mother has killed a hundred times—maybe a thousand times—for King Tharsaleos. Years ago she brought the walls of the Rexenor fortress crumbling to the sea floor after the Olethren departed.

She brought the walls down with one song.

My mother looks like a goddess, tall and commanding with long black braids hanging over one shoulder. Goddesses are never truly beautiful—or it is a terrible beauty. It is a beauty that has a high cost, not to my mother, but to those who look on her. Of my great ancestor, Kirke, they say that my mother has two parts out of ten of the great one's power. They say this, boasting of the magic that we Kirkêlatides have managed to keep in the bloodline. I can only think that if mother has two parts, then Kirke must have been terrible indeed. Men's eyes ought to have burned to pasty lumps in their sockets for one good look at her. My mother is deadly beautiful. What must Kirke have been like?

Nikasia's thoughts spun through a rolling series of images of her mother.

Everyone fears Theoxena. Armies fall before her... I think even the king fears her. They do not fear her beauty, but her voice, her fingers on a lyre and kithara—Theoxena the kitharista.

But you have failed when your own sovereign is afraid of you, never a good position, thin footing, fleeting trust.

Fear dilutes loyalty.

"When kings and queens fear you, your loyalty becomes like a ghost."  My mother tells me this as I float upside down against the high walls of the delphidrome. We are alone because she has pulled me away from my sisters, ordering them home after the races are over. I am eight years old and still think it funny to watch someone's lips move with words when their face is flipped in the opposite direction. I watch my mother's lips and grin.

"Nika, you are not listening to me."

Listening—so important to our family and the musical powers we possess. My mother grabs my shoulders, pushes me hard against the wall, pinning me there. The stones dig into my back.

"You are keeping a secret from me, Nika. Why did you not tell me?"

My mind goes numb; my whole body follows. She releases my shoulders and I can't move. My mother, the war-bard, never yells or curses like other mothers. Why bother when the right song can shatter your bones, can make the blood turn to sludge in your veins, can make your own hands claw open your own mouth and rip out your own tongue. I'd bet if she were in a particularly foul mood, she could sing you back a new tongue just to make you thank her for making you tear out your old one.

"Nika, my child."  She sings to me and every thought in my head but one lines up to be commanded by her. I use every drop of strength I can find to hold back that one path of will.

"Nikasia, why did you not tell me at once that you have been chosen to receive my gift?  We Kirkêlatides are slow bleeders, but I feel my power seeping from me."  She's disappointed in me, and that makes my skin go cold and prickly. "One mistake allowed and you have spent it already, and cheaply, my daughter. Why did you not tell me?"

She pleads, tears blurry around her face.

I can't speak for a moment because I have never seen her cry, and this surprises me. I use the one thought remaining to me to say, "Because I fear you, mother. All your loyalty is spent on the king. I fear that you will have none left for me."

Chapter 10 - Strange and Wonderful

"I am not weak."

Nikasia repeated the words all the way to her dawn lessons, kicking hard through the city's channels, wiping the sorrow off her face just before she entered Korthys' music studio. She wasn't due to appear—wearing her justice-binding chain—at the King's square until mid-day, but she couldn't keep her focus on her singing or her fingers on the strings.

She held out her practice lyre as if to some imaginary second musician, and then let it go, watching it seesaw in the water to the floor.

Jolly old Korthys, teacher of music, glided through the water toward his studio, eyes half-closed, pulling his senses inside and binding them to his soul, so that the one that mattered most reigned over all the others—as it should—the sense whose instruments were his ears. He lifted his arm high, bending his wrist with a flourish. He kicked gently. His voice reached the room before he did, a fluid baritone.

"Come, clear-voiced muse, begin your song. Give voice with your lyre."

He waited for the sweet notes, motionless, a poised smile, neck tilted back, webbing tight between the fingers fanned out over his head. He opened one eye to peer into his music studio. The smile soured on Korthys' face. Nikasia was gone, leaving her lyre behind on the floor next to her chair. There was nothing beautiful about it now.

Korthys shook his head in time with a soul-emptying exhale and the drop of his shoulders. Nikasia had the talent to rival her mother. She was fine and brilliant with a lyre, but only when you could get her to sit and play the damned thing.

He swam to the open windows and closed them, hesitating over the latch, and then locked them.

Nikasia kicked through the backstreets of the Nine-cities high in the water, skirting the squid vendors' stalls. Keeping her distance, she stared across the street at the squid butchers, grimy, cadaverously discolored men with huge muscular shoulders, their skin an ink-saturated grayish-purple. The butchers lurched over their blocks, swinging their cleavers through clouds of black, looking like lumbering vent-ghouls or belydria, blood-greedy denizens of unfathomed depths.

She looked up at the cluster of towers at the city's center, floating fortresses of the great houses, battlements with archers and abyss mages, and somewhere in the heart of it all swam the king—King Tharsaleos—ruler of all the seaborn.

"This is the city I know." She sang the words longingly as if—after the Vents—she wasn't going to be able to see the lanes and dark walls the same way.

There were villages in gulfs and seas around the world, outposts at different depths, but only one city, the great Nine-cities.

"Ruled by a king who does not have the courage to find my father's killer."

Nikasia kicked off at the end of the street of the squid-sellers' stalls and snaked through the crowd of shoppers at Deimis market. She slid low along the bedstones, a bright blue blur in the shadows of long dragon-like chains of Thalassogenêis, entire families with servants, tutors and children in tow.

A wave of anger swept through her body, and she kicked harder.

"The Rexenor Lord will die, father. I promise you."

Her thoughts were lost in hate, and she swam headfirst into Demarchos as he loaded his father's float-cart along the Lykaithos row. Demarchos staggered forward to his knees but kicked upright, still holding the boxes in his arms steady.

"Watch where you're—."

"Sorry, Dem," said Nikasia quickly, recognizing the son of the cook, Aristaion. She back-kicked, somersaulted in the middle of the street, and came around to face him.

"Dropped nothing. It's all right," said Demarchos, pulling the other knee up to regain his balance about three feet off the ground.

"A song from your mother?" Aristaion called from behind the cart. He was an old version of his son, tight black curly hair gone gray, with longer fuzzier eyebrows.

"Not a note. She has sent us nothing."

Aristaion tilted his head forward and Nikasia moved on with a nod, catching sight of a couple acquaintances among a larger market-going group, their arms linked, forming a ring halfway up the wall of one of the silk merchant's homes at the edge of Deimis.

Nikasia kicked, arched her back and swung straight up. Her hands shot out, rigid to slow down in the center of them, stopping a little higher in the water.

She picked up their conversation, and repeated someone's words. "The dead army will not return. Strange things happening."  She smiled. "Indeed."

The ring of seaborn, twelve of them, went silent, their eyes pinned to Nikasia—which was exactly where she wanted them. She spun, an even turn that carried her focus to each face, locking momentarily with each of their eyes. She didn't know all their names, and she wasn't on friendly terms with most of them. Her bright orange gaze stopped a little longer on the one's she knew well, and she whispered their names: "Kleariste, Adraios, Klodia, Herakon, Thares."

"Tell us of the Americas," said one excitedly.

"No."

"I heard you broke the King's Protection and you've been sent to the Vents."

She nodded. "I'm on my way to Justice now. Adventure waits for me."  She smiled and gave them a nod of her head. "So, I cannot tell the latest tale before it ends."

Nikasia pushed one hand above her, opening her fingers in a cupping gesture as if she held something in them. She sang softly at first, catching a rhythm, and then her voice captured them and would not let them go.

She picked up the tale where they had left it.

"The dead army lost?  Many strange and wonderful stories. The gates of the Nine-cities closed for years, and no one is allowed in or out without leave. The doors locked. The King's Protection strengthened. King Tharsaleos awakened the Olethren, the dread army of the dead, thousands of them, some say. Others say there are millions—that their home in the barren fortress in the mountains to the south is an open gate into death itself."

Nikasia spun slowly in that direction, pointing, conjuring an image of dark stone walls at the foot of sharp black peaks.

"With the army of the drowned dead awake, all that swims between us and death...is the King's Protection."

Friends and enemies followed her vision, enthralled. Klodia opened her mouth and sucked in one of her braids to chew on it nervously.

Nikasia snapped away the vision. "So many strange things have happened in the last three, four, five years, and no one has made a story of them all—out of fear. The storytellers are afraid."

She let that sink in.

"I have no fear. First, my father's murderer escapes from his prison in the abyss of the Lithotombs. Then my mother departs, vowing revenge. Then the king wakes the dead army and sends them. . .somewhere."

Nikasia spun west, casting a bright blue sky and Helios burning fiercely, blinding her audience. More seaborn gathered around, drifting in from the market channels, some of them much older than Nikasia and her friends, unable to resist the lure of a story.

"Some said it was back to the fortress in the north, the home of the exiled Rexenor, but soldiers in the king's army who had been on that campaign—the First North Campaign, said it wasn't Rexenor. They said you only lose once to the Olethren, because the army of the dead does not stop until it has slaughtered everything in its path. Even the king's own armies must wait for the Olethren to return before they can get to what is left of their enemies."

"What of Lady Theoxena?"  One of the older newcomers butted in, and got a cold orange glare back. "I heard—"

"Not my mother—she does not have to wait, but that is a different story. The dead warriors do not know good houses from renegade houses. They cannot see the men and women in different armor. The dead warriors have other means of detecting the living, a taste of their souls, smell of their shapes, the halo of their power. Their hunger is a curse, a mindless envy for life that is forever out of their reach. The dead hate it and destroy it."

Most of her audience was pulling nervously on their braids. Everyone else stared, leaning in toward Nikasia. She spun every listener into her net, holding them against their wills.

"The strangest of the strange events that have happened recently is that the gates of Nine-cities opened and King Tharsaleos' living armies—" she circled and pointed at each of them. "—some of you, or your fathers, your mothers, rode out, waiting for the return of the Olethren. They paraded and formed into ranks and practiced with long spears, ranks of orcas dashing, lances down for death. They chanted cries of war. They sang of the heroic deeds of past battles. They grew weary and returned to Nine-cities, closing the great gates and sealing the city inside the King's Protection. You have listened to the rumors?  King Tharsaleos shook in fear and rage when his army did not return."

Klodia spit out her braid and nodded, scowling over the last point in Nikasia's tale. "The strangest thing is that the king was afraid?"

"No," said Nikasia in a hushed voice. She waved a finger at them and looked around to see if all their eyes were on her, a tight pull on the net that held them. "The strangest thing is that the king sent the Olethren out to war. Years passed, and we lived in fear. We have been kept inside the city, our farmlands cost more to work because we must have watchers and swift carts to return to the city, and no one tells us anything. King Tharsaleos sent the Olethren to war. . .and they will not return. No, the strangest thing is that they now have a new master."

Nikasia whispered, "Kassandra," slipped lower in the water, and left them with their mouths hanging open—as all good bards should expect at the end of a tale—even a tale they had all heard before.

Chapter 11 - The Vents

Guards. Guards. Nikasia kept her head down, entered the square low, and swam into the crowd of vent-bound, the four loose spirals of thick silvery links down her forearm, hoping that no one would notice that she'd broken the binding on hers, turned it into a thing that enslaved Erix's sea-turtle.

Guards everywhere.

She counted the number of prisoners by their silver bracelets. She tasted the bindings in them, twenty-eight separate spikes of metallic and electric salt across her tongue, mostly men, one girl by herself, floating off to one side next to a hauberked guard, teeth clattering, friendless, probably no older than seventeen, so scared she'd already pissed. Three women in king's court couture—gauzy capes and laced leggings tight and shimmery—attacked a less than well-dressed fourth they blamed for their awful fortune, getting caught, sentenced to the Vents, shamed, gorgeous clothes ruined. What a fucking nightmare!

Scowling at the well-dressed women, Nikasia caught the traces of a few bleeds among them. She would have liked to shut them all up, but instead she drifted in a circle and grumbled, "You didn't get your hair done for the event?"

The train was an ancient rattling linked-together line of float platforms with benches and railings pulled by a six-orca team. The teamster, one-eyed and missing a few fingers, was difficult to read. He could have been a nice guy caught on the hard life current, or he could be a monster who slurped newborn's blood for breakfast. Nikasia gave him a few quick studies before he leveled his gaze back at her, and she closed her eyes and tasted what the sea sent her senses.

"Ungodly strong bleed in him," she whispered to herself, tilting her head, scraping his flavor off her tongue with her upper teeth. There were a couple others in the area with deep bleeds.

One was a tall slender man in a pale blue tunic and leggings almost identical to Nikasia's—and he was complaining to the guards about the judgment he'd received, unfair for a man of his line, a man of his intellect and power, a man...

Nikasia sucked in a shallow breath, loaded it with words and blew them out to the crowd. "Man?  A man would get through this without complaining."

Scattered laughing and Mr. Pale-blue-tunic turned a pale shade of red.

Then she felt it, someone watching her. Damn. Nikasia swallowed a sour surge from her stomach. The teamster was nodding and then gave her a wink with his good eye, his sense of humor—along with a few extra senses—intact.

Nikasia kicked aboard the last platform, taking the last bench against the outside rail, folding her arms and trying to appear unapproachable, which had no effect on the three high fashion courtiers. They drove the fourth woman to the back of the last platform, and she curled in painful fits in the water. She skidded to her knees, slammed her elbow against the floor, and then crawled into a knot on the bench across from Nikasia, her legs pulled up, braids tucked tight over one shoulder. She sobbed and buried her face in her circling arms.

Nikasia looked up, let her eyes go a little wide so that the orange wouldn't be difficult to miss. "Leave her alone."

All three twirled in the space between the benches, fingers spreading, graceful necks tilting back, lips pulled down, a synchronized, offended dance.

"And who are you?"

Nikasia stared calmly back, counting her heartbeats, the slow, calm thump in her chest.

One, two, three...

Then they started begging.

"I am sorry milady Kirkêlatides."

"We meant no offense."

They back kicked, curling in supplication, heads down. "Please forgive our intrusion on your thoughts."  Suddenly they looked foolish, all dressed up for the dirtiest broken-nailed work seaborn justice could offer.

Nikasia ignored them, looking over at the woman on the opposite bench.

"What is your name?"

Trying to be helpful, one of her three tormenters sputtered, "Pheronika. Her name is Pheronika."

Nikasia swung her gaze back to the three, sang under her breath, and forced each of them to look up, straight at her. "Do you think I do not already know that, Bitinna of the Alkimides?  Or you, Deinarete of Alkimides, or you, Isanoreia, Polemakles' daughter of Dosianax—" she raised an eyebrow, mildly impressed with the company. "—a child of the first of the King's Eight?"  She released them and waited for an answer. Nothing but head dropping and whispered "milady's," and the trembling exhale of the water that had been trapped in their lungs.

"I was..."  I was a child of the first of the King's Eight once—before that Rexenor animal killed my father. Nikasia waved at them. "I was being courteous. Now, get out of my sight."

The three noble ladies clutched each other consolingly and bolted through the water to the first platform, right behind the teamster's bench.

Nikasia watched them huddle and whisper, tasted their fear-sweet relief in the currents. "Yeah, frilled hagfishes, go sit with Mr. Not-playing-with-a-full-set-of-eyes-fingers-or-anything-else."

"Fine company for me, too," said the teamster right behind her, and Nikasia kicked in a spin, brought her hands up, one in a fist, a hiss of spiny defenses haloing her in the water, a stab of death poised on her tongue.

He laughed and held up both incomplete hands. "Mr. Not-playing-with-a-full-set-of-eyes-fingers-or-anything-else just needs to inspect the floats, milady. Justice will be done in the Downs. We don't want to lose any of you along the way."

Nikasia lowered her arms and put away her weapons, walls, secrets, instant death spells. She kept her cold look, studying him openly now. He allowed it, closing his eye.

"How did you lose that?  Or your fingers?  What wars were you in?"  She followed the lance scars along his arm and nodded, acknowledging his veteran status. "Sir."

He smiled faintly and wiggled the stubs of three fingers. "I was on the First North Campaign decades ago, many battles before that. But I was there in the First North with the Olethren killing all life. Ocean of blood red, thick flows of it, thousands of Rexenors dying, screams of children on the currents. And the dead crowding over the walls, eating, cutting, killing everyone. Lost these, bitten off by one that still had its teeth. Never would have got away. Your mother, great Lady Theoxena, saved my life."  He gave her the same nod back. "Emandes of the One-eye at your service, milady."

"Of what house?"

"Of a house of no importance."

"What about your eye?"

He touched the pearlescent shell that cupped his right eye socket. "This one is new. In the last year."  His lips twisted bitterly and he jabbed a finger down, indicating the Downs, the deep abyss, the Vents. "Dragon. Big, very old female, the color of blood right out of a wound. What a beautiful monster. She sweeps through every once in a while, following a trail of loss, looking for someone—probably her master."  He narrowed his one eye at the doubt in Nikasia's expression. "Tried to catch her."  He tapped the shell. "Once."

Nikasia's look soured even more. Dragons were something out of myth. The Telkhines, the old kings, had dragons because they could create them, they could become them. The Telkhines created most of the Nine-cities, the walls, the level growing fields, even Helios' Twin, the interminably burning sphere that traced its hemispheric path over the towers and fields twice a day.

"There aren't any dragons, not after the Alkimides purge. Rexenor lost the few they had in the First North."

The teamster didn't seem to hear her, looking off into the distance, over the walls of the Justice Square, squinting his good eye and tilting his head back to taste the currents. "Imagine you would love to see her."  He kicked off without looking back, and took up the reins of the orca team.

The train glided through the channels between fortress walls and long flat proving grounds, in the shadow of the floating walls of the oldest of the nine cities—the Telkhines city, closed by those ancients—unopenable—for two thousand years.

After a few guard checks and judicial formalities, the train pulled smoothly through the front gates and left the Nine-cities and bright Helios' Twin behind.

Long shadows rolled out in front of them, slithering hard darkness across barren rock, and then the train went into the abyss, pure and solid black with the winking lure of predators in the night.

The teamster tossed a few bulbs of glowing blue over his shoulder, just enough to make the surrounding dark darker.

Nikasia lit her own light, letting it trail behind the last float, and making her braids curl into eerie shapes, tentacles and snakes, and when the three noble ladies dared to glance over their shoulders, rude gestures.

A small afraid-of-the-night voice at her shoulder, "Do you believe him?"

Nikasia clenched her muscles, rammed her tongue into her teeth against killing whatever it was.

She brought her hands in, flexing her fingers, and whispered back, "Do not do that again, Pheronika."

The woman sobbed, face dropping into her hands. "I am sorry milady."

Nikasia waved away her apology. "Look at me."  She jutted her chin toward the front of the train. "This is going to be ugly. Why are you and your prettily-dressed friends on this little outing?"

A fresh wave of tears blurring the water in front of Pheronika's face, and she brushed them away. She swallowed hard. "We wanted to see the beauty of Euchaon, milady. He is the last of the oktoloi, the youngest, almost twenty."  She pointed to one of the women in the first row of benches. "Isanoreia is the daughter of Polemakles, the first of the trusted Eight."

"You don't go to the Vents for a good look at a man—even one of the King's Eight. What did you do, break into his home and abduct him?"

Pheronika looked down. "His mother's estate."

A slow smile started on Nikasia's lips. "Really?"  Then broadened when Pheronika smiled back.

"Not just a look, milady."

"I gathered."  Nikasia studied her for a moment. "You have the bleed, Pheronika—enough to get the four of you through whatever protections they've set up."  Her voice soured. "So, they used you, pretended friendship for your abilities, and you sink with them when they fail."  She stuffed her anger in, and waved Pheronika to continue.

"We took him from his bed."

Nikasia could see her face redden in the dark.

"He sleeps wearing nothing. I put a binding on his hands, together behind his back."

"En toisin aidoiois ton engkephalon echôn. Didn't put up much of a struggle, then."

"Not at all. He bowed to us, orthos, and asked of what service he could be to four fine ladies of the Thalassogeneis."

"Did he?  How were you caught?"

"His mother."

"Oh."

"Bitinna was kissing him—and not gently. Isanoreia was just getting a turn with beautiful Euchaon when his hideous Dosianax soldier mother kicked in with her sword drawn followed by half the estate guards."

Nikasia laughed sadly, slid down in her seat, and let her head drop back to the top of the bench, eyes unfocused, staring off into miles of dark above her. She imagined the scene, sharpening her smile, and then whispered, "Thank you for sharing your story with me, Pheronika. Friends or no friends, you had more fun than I had, it appears."   And then with acid edging her voice, "I have no friends, no family, only enemies. And a king who will hate me and use me when it is my time."

I must have close to half my mother's magic by now.

She heard Theoxena's voice in her head, It is time, Nikasia.

She looked over and found Pheronika staring back at her, caught the woman's soul and held on tight.

I would show you part of my story, Pheronika. Do not be afraid.

Nikasia reached over and took her hand.

I left my home between the Twin's light, spun on my back looking for any sign of movement above me. Pheronika gasped as the house battlements rose like black mountains in the gloom of her imagination. The rise of light was still a long way off, but there are always watchers on the towers.

I made a cloud of ink that followed me and kept me hidden all the way to the temple of Artemis of the Deep. I'd selected my favorite sanctuary long ago for this kind of excursion. It's out of the way, not well attended, and backs right against the northwestern outer city wall. I couldn't very well go up to the guards at the gates and ask to be let outside.

I did prepare for this, testing the walls, discovering that the King's Protection is far stronger above the walls than along them. Still, small, slow moving fish—and some surfacer's shoe—can go right through it. Armies and weapons have to find another way in.

Pheronika watched as Nikasia swung rapidly through the swim channels, slipped along walls in the shadows.

The temple of Artemis was empty at this hour, and I went straight to the deepest chamber—the deepest backs against the outer fortress wall of the Nine-cities. Damned convenient. I moved a long table, clearing a path to the tapestry covering the stone, one of Artemis hunting a squid in blue spirals of ink and dapples of surface light. I tore it down.

In the dream, Pheronika looked at Nikasia's hands as if they were her own, fingers curling in and out, stiffly at first, bending at different points, but there were unexpected steps in their movement as if Nikasia had joints in her fingers between the knuckles. She moved them faster, each of them in turn, the stepping motion breaking into so many points that her bones appeared to have turned to water.

She sang in tones as deep as her voice could push sound, a song of Gaia, the displacement of stone, and the unmaking of a very small part of the earth.

The motion of her hands became a blur of pale skin, and then one finger stopped, pointed stiffly away from her. She pressed the pad of her finger against the unyielding stone and drew a circle as wide as the span of her shoulders.

She repeated the song, drew the circle again, and let her eyes close. A stain spread from the center, seeping between the blocks, bleeding into them in crooked lines. Pheronika sang with Nikasia, her eyelids fluttering, and she closed her mouth around the last verse.

Nikasia's hands went still, pushed the water above her, so that she dropped and peered into the hole through the great fortress wall. It was a tunnel with glassy black sides many times her length.

Did you know the walls of the city were this thick?

Pheronika shook her head.

Neither did I.

Nikasia crouched and pushed her way into the hole she'd cut through the outside walls of the Nine-cities, and Pheronika shuddered when she heard the cold watery echo of Nikasia's voice through the dream, "One more wall, the King's Protection, to get through, and then I will be free. Then, father, I will hunt down your killer and tear his beating heart from his body, cut his soul from his form, burn the joy in his memories, kill forever his sense of touch, his capacity for love, make his pain last an eternity."

Nikasia eased her grip on Pheronika's hand, let her go, and leaned back on her bench, closing her eyes for the rest of the journey to the Vents.

Nikasia vomited up her early meal, cursed, brushed it away, globs of half digested food and bile slick in her fingers. She vowed to kill Mr. Fenhals slowly. Gregor Rexenor first, then that low-handed needle-using shit-eating Fenhals.

She drifted in the sour sulfide spew from the vents, wondering if there was a way to cut out Fenhals' tongue, force his vocal cords into early decomposition, somehow make the fucking old king's slave scream blood inside his own head while she worked him like a puppet, enjoyed his silence and the funny pain expressions into which his face would twist.

She looked around at the smoke black and chalk white world, heavy metals precipitating out of the billowing vent discharge and raining down on her. She was here because Fenhals had poisoned her, caught her, returned her to the king. "You will die in agony, old man—next, after the Rexenor lord.  Unless I catch you first."

She rolled her basket over one shoulder, cast a brighter glow overhead, and waded through fields of Riftia tubeworms, some of them twice her height, blood red retractable plumes sucking food out of the stinking water. The train had glided along a ridge of warm new ocean floor, throwing off prisoners in pairs with their collection baskets, moving on before anyone could jump back aboard.

The halfblind teamster laughed at their complaints, their sickness, shouting as he sped off, "Welcome to the Vents, ladies and gents!"

Nikasia kicked from the jungle of tubeworms into a plain of blackened rock and millions of stark white bivalves—clams the size of her fist. She glanced over at the idiot she'd been partnered with, a pointy nosed, longhaired man in his late-twenties, maybe a year or two older than her. He wore an expensive tunic and matching leggings with purple embroidered interlocking squares, some misfit member of one of the noble houses.

He swung his bright blue gaze at her and curled his lips into a defiantly bored snarl. She just stared back, showing none of her thoughts, flitting fire yellow schools of butterfly fish, death eels oozing venom, ambush predators, the usual stuff in her head. One thought broke from the rest, drifted to the front of her mind, and floated there a moment:  He might as well have words written across his forehead, "Used to getting my way" in big thick letters.

His scowl deepened as if he had managed to net a few of her thoughts.

"Change is good." Nikasia looked away, kept her blank expression as she scouted through the field of mollusks.

She set her basket down, used a chunk of rock to hold it in place, and kicked low along the field, tugging fat white clams from their homes, snapping anchor threads, and overhanding them into the basket.

Then she felt it, something in the water, something massive, a shiver in the deep. She could hear it, bands of muscle pulled tight, a creak of hard plates flexing, rubbing over each other, and with her other tuned senses, felt a shadow that could block the light of Helios' Twin.

She dropped the clams, let them fall, wobbling through the water. Her fingers were already dancing, a song in her mouth that would identify the monster.

The big silver chain—triple coiled and locked around her forearm—popped and snapped tight, went rigid, pinching her skin between the links. Her spell flew from her fingertips, lost in the hot chemical abyss. A burn shot up the bones in her forearm just before they splintered apart, her hand flipping back, metal links ripping meat and blood from the pad of muscle next to the thumb.

"Holy mother!" She twirled, the chain dragging her recklessly through the tubeworm forest. She spit blood from her mouth—a deep tongue-bite, numbed her left arm with a song, fingers of her right reaching for the free end of the chain.

The back of her head hit hard animal armor, scales as big as her face, dark red scales lined with age, spiked tips catching her braids, tearing through her tunic, a hot flood of blood down her back into her leggings. She felt ten separate streams of her life running down her thighs, calves, through the webbing between her toes.

Nikasia threw her good hand along the dragon's flank, hooked her fingers under a scale to keep her body stable. If she rolled over, the spikes would simply rip through her front, which contained some of her softer, prettier, necessary parts—parts she didn't want diced, cut, separated from the rest of her.

"Not that my ass isn't something worth keeping your eyes on."  She pushed the words through her teeth. It can always be tidied up after I get this thing under control.

She closed her eyes, sang a song of healing, felt the wounds along her back go hard, scabs crusting around the scale teeth embedded in her skin.

She caught the faint glow of the Nine-cities on the horizon when she opened them. Then it was gone.

"Fast. Dragon's are damn fast."

She clung to the side of the monster, just up from the base of its tail, riding through the deep ocean at an incredible speed. The chain pulled at her lifeless left arm, rattling and ringing over the scales, threatening to rip it—bones, tendons and all—from the rest of her body. She sang another song to turn down the pain, and then directed her thoughts to the new purpose she had given her justice chain, seek and enslave sea turtles, things with scales, reptiles...dragons.

My dragon.

She whispered, "Change is good," and inched up the dragon's back.

Chapter 12 - Connections

Kassandra felt the flash of a hundred memories shuddering through the path she'd stitched to Alex, a rush of waves, a dark room, a book resting on rocks in an aquarium. She kept her thoughts to herself. Thinking about the book? You are keeping a secret from me, Alex. She leaned against a pine tree at the edge of the property, looking toward North Hampton Beach. Mr. Telkhines lord.

Nicole sat cross-legged on the grass, watching her. "What is it?"

"Can't tell you."

"You're own sister?"

Kassandra unfolded her arms, locking eyes with Nicole. "You're more than that and you know it."

"I am to you what Zypheria was to your mother—her sister, her body guard. It's what I want to be. Zypheria marries Mr. Henderson, leaving you without one."  Before Kassandra could question her, Nicole asked, "Where does that leave Jill?"

Kassandra looked away, broke their connection, her gaze roaming through the trees, over the roofs of houses, inland. Jill had taken the van in town, getting ready for another week on the Cape with Jordan.

"Jill will remain up here when the time comes—but no less important in this world than you will be."

"More that you can't tell me?"

Kassandra looked down at her. "You're the smart one. You'll figure it out. And if you don't, well, you also like surprises."

Both of them turned, hearing the back door slide open. Zypheria stepped out, waving. "Ladies, Michael has made lunch. Come join us."

Nicole waved back, standing up, and started toward the house with Kassandra. "She's happier than I've ever seen her."

"She deserves it. I don't think you know this. King Tharsaleos had her entire family put to death—right after he killed my mother. She's alone in this world without Michael Henderson."

"Or you."

"I have pushed her away as gently as I can. She has loyalty as deep as it comes."

"And guilt nearly as deep."

Kassandra looked over at Nicole, whispering, "Nearly. She was a slave, doing someone else's bidding. It's not her fault."

Gregor, Zypheria, and Michael Henderson stood as Kassandra stepped into the kitchen with Nicole, bowing, pulling out a chair for her.

"Stop it, will you?"  Kassandra shoved Nicole into the offered chair, and pulled her own out. "It's lunch—not the damn Assembly of the Great Houses."

"You are greater than all the Great Houses, milady," said Zypheria, her head down.

"I am Ampharete's daughter, Kassandra—and this looks like broiled fish cooked by a man who was at one time my eighth grade science teacher—and who happens to be a very good cook."  She picked up her fork, nodding to Henderson. "Thank you."

Zypheria's expression went cold. "Milady, you are the Sea, ruler of all the oceans, Poseidônis, the Earth-encircler—it is you."

"Something I never wished to be."  Kassandra put her fork down. "I'm not eating first."

Gregor stared at her, a look of pride on his face, thin over one of pain. When Kassandra turned her gaze to him, he looked down at his plate.

"I never wanted this," she whispered and pulled her hands off the table into her lap.

Henderson took the first bite, got a kick from Zypheria under the table, and grinned through the pain in his ankle.

Kassandra ate quickly and went to her room, telling them that she needed to be alone for a while. A fishing boat had capsized in a storm a hundred kilometers off Sokcho in Korea, and nine men drowned, fighting the currents, the pull of the sea, sunset and then night sky sharp with stars and ink dark water curling at their throats. One by one they drifted down, their despair flooding her soul.

She went to the bathroom to throw up, and then curled under every blanket on her bed, burying her head under her pillow. A stab of panic, shivering, teeth clattering, she felt the individual drownings all the time. They just didn't affect her like group anguish.

The house was quiet, empty, when she descended the stairs, one at a time, down to the kitchen, her bare feet silent on the warm wood as if she was trying not to disrupt a solemn mood. She circled the kitchen, glancing out at the ocean through the window over the sink, a sad smile up at the crossbow bolt in the ceiling, and headed into her father's study. She fell into the big brown leather armchair in the corner, pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, and with her chin resting on them, fixed a forceful glare on the book in the aquarium.

It was beautifully bound, a rich yellowy-brown cover with the Telkhines symbol, the downward crescent, in gold, like a mouth in a sad face.

"As if they had to shoulder some burden."  She whispered the words irritably, not expecting an answer from the book. It spoke to her father, but had never done anything but tighten into an angry knot when she was around.

What would you know of burdens, Alkimides bitch?  The book's voice rumbled from the aquarium, into her head. My masters were descendents of men who fought immortals, to whom the gods went for protection, who made gifts of devices beyond the skills of the immortals themselves. Do you know who made the trident for the Lord of the Seas, the Earthquaker, Poseidon?  My masters made it and many other useful things for immortals.

Kassandra dropped her legs off the chair, leaning forward, frowning. "The Telkhines made the trident?"

You ask as if you have the remotest idea what that gift was, you stupid kusthos.

She thought about calling up the trident—the trident, the very one the Lord of the Sea had left for her. The book wasn't up on the latest news, and she felt no need to enlighten him—especially since he already considered himself enlightened.

I have one question for you, Alkimides bitch.

"Will you not call me that or anything else rude?"

It is fitting, and I believe it was you who used the term while in a foul mood, referring to that other Alkimides bitch, Zypheria. I have merely adopted the word.

"Do you even know what it means?"

A female surface quadruped, which is why the word fits so well. You crawl around on all fours like an animal, hatching your little plans, when you know so little about the ocean and its ways.

Kassandra waved a hand, casually annoyed. "And I suppose you—a book—consider yourself wise?"

The book swelled up, breathed in the water, and paused as if rooting around for that final scrap of patience it had saved in order to deal with the abysmally stupid. Permit me to use one of your surface colloquialisms...Duh?  Has someone kicked out every last dribble of your brains and shit in your skull, Alkimides bitch?  Tell me, mightiest of cogitators, of what would you consider the book symbolic?

Her arm slipped off her knee. She looked defeated, but pulled herself together with a sharp fix of anger. "Book equals wisdom. Duly noted. What's your question?"

You destroyed your own army, the Olethren, using the clever freezing water inside their bones attack.

"It wasn't my army if it could be used against me. You think I'm clever?"

Not particularly. Even an imbecile will occasionally shout something meaningful. Probability demands it. Stop interrupting.

"Go ahead."

Moments after the battle in which you destroyed the Olethren, the new king of the Daimones Thalassai—

"Ochleros."

—said something very interesting. He said he knew eight of the dead and would honor them properly. Then he said he did not know the names of the countless thousands that made up the rest of the army, but he would instruct his brothers and sisters to return their bones to the sea where they belonged.

"What's your question?"

Who were the eight known to the mighty demon, Ochleros?

Kassandra stared at the aquarium, chewing her lip. Say something to make it angry. She heard the command in her head, and pulled as much doubt as she could stuff into her voice. "That's what you want to know?  That's your question?  You nearly had me convinced you were wise. "

Don't play with me, Alkimides bitch!

"I am simply assessing the level of your need...uh... What do I call you?"

Nastaros. And I am simply curious.

"Curious enough to trade a look at one of your pages?"

I would not give you a single letter, Alkimides bitch.

"The price just went to two pages. Let me know when you want to deal, Nastaros the book."  She got up and headed into the kitchen without looking back. Halfway through a glass of orange juice. No more.

She pulled the carton from the fridge, unscrewing the cap as she elbowed open the cupboard. She filled a glass, shoved the orange juice carton back in the fridge and leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping at a civilized pace. She pulled out her phone and dialed a number, tucking it between her ear and her shoulder.

Jill's voice chirped. "Kass?"

"I have a question for you."

"I have one for you. Go first."

"It's kind of crazy," she said, stalling. "Only you can answer."  Kassandra glanced at her watch and then at her glass of orange juice. Three minutes. Three quarters full. "Let's say," said Kassandra in a very tentative tone. "I wanted to cut my hair short."

"What's wrong?"  Jill's voice went into a panic dive.

"Nothing. I just want to know what I'd do. Speculating is all."

"You can't cut off your braids!  It's who you are. All seaborn have them."

"You've been wanting me to cut them off for years."

"Just me bitching, only because I know you'd never do it. It'd be like you dying your hair blue. Well, not dying—that's crude. Highlights, maybe."

"Could I do that?"

"No!  I mean, you can, but you won't."

"Let's say I totally went off the deep end—still speculating—and I came to you with a pair of scissors. Would you do the honors?"

"Me?  Cut off your braids?"

Kassandra took another sip of orange juice. "And take me to get my hair dyed—uh...highlighted. Would you do it?"

"If you promised I would live through it, I'd..."  Jill started, nudging the question around in her head, wondering if she possessed anything valuable enough to bargain for it. "I'd give you Stormwind for a day and take you anywhere you want to go if you would let me cut them off and take you for a cut and blue highlights."

Another sip. Kassandra glanced at her watch. "Would blue look good on me?"

"Don't be stupid. You're the Sea. I'm thinking a bob, with some layering underneath, straight bangs or maybe uneven. Let's talk hair tonight. Quick question, then I have to go. This guy's asking about you. You know Alex Shoaler?"

The new Mr. Popular. "Sure. I found his skateboard once, and returned it to him."

"Saw him in line buying a box of batteries for some project. He was in a hurry, but stopped to say hello, then asked me what you dream about. You specifically."

"Dream about?"

"Yeah. Why's he after you?"

"He's after me?"

"That's the vibe I got. Talk tonight!"

"Sure," said Kassandra, held up her glass. It looked right about half—

Alkimides? The book burbled from the next room.

"I'm no longer a bitch?"  Kassandra wandered into Gregor's study with her phone to her ear, tilting it down. "What's up, Nastaros?"

One page.

"Two."

What do you want to know?

"Storm eating."

I see. Jump right to the advanced section.

"I know what I want."

And you probably believe knowledge is power.

She shrugged. "Beats not knowing. Just give me fifteen minutes to look, and I'll answer your question."

Fifteen minutes?  Suspicion crept into its voice, but after a moment's pause, it said, Done.

Kassandra tilted her mouth into the phone, said, "Hang on, Jillie" and set the phone down on a shelf next to the aquarium. Jill had hung up before she'd left the kitchen.

The book oozed seawater into the tray and it poured over the rim and back into the aquarium. Kassandra flipped through the pages, hundreds of them, some torn scraps, half pages with tiny scrawls swirling over their faces, others were like long scrolls rolled at the end to fit inside the book's covers. None of the words were legible. Some of the pages were blank. Others swarmed with patterns of black ink. Nastaros did the bibliographic equivalent of sauntering, curling pages languidly, stopping on blank pages and snorting indignantly as if to say that she was missing the amazing stuff behind page number two hundred and twelve.

He stopped near the end and spread out flat in the tray so she could read for fifteen minutes. The two pages were covered in ink; someone's tiny hand filled the margins around four big blocks of text that curved around painted diagrams showing a man holding a ball of roiling grayish blue light. Kassandra scanned the tight rows of ancient Greek.

One minute remains. The book bubbled. Read quickly.

"Thank you for the warning."

Eating storms is dangerous business, Alkimides bitch.

"So is bargaining with the Sea."  She grabbed her phone off the bookshelf, held it up, thumbing the button on the side, and had four hi-res pictures taken of the open pages before Nastaros caught on and wiped them clean of ink. "Especially when she grew up like a surfacer with all this surface tech."

Enraged, it had trouble speaking, and managed only one gargled word, Y—you!

Kassandra raised an eyebrow, and then used a helpful tone to say, "Bitch?"

She shoved her phone into her back pocket and dropped the book into the aquarium. Tipping and rolling in the water, it continued to call her names that made it clear that it had been nothing but polite up to this point.

"Settle down. I'm simply holding you to your own words. You didn't ask me what I wanted to see or even read, but what I wanted to know. In order to know I'll need to spend more than fifteen minutes with the material, dear Nastaros the talking book."  She rapped on the glass. "Do you want your answer about the eight known to Ochleros?"  She backed up to the doorway, facing the tank. "Eight of my grandfather's royal guardsmen—oktoloi, wounded when they trapped my father—"

I was there...up to a point, and know some of the story. Nastaros sounded too tired to call her another name. But Gregor's attack proved too strong for him to control and nearly destroyed me minutes after he had bound me back together. My memory is not clear until King Tharsaleos tried to force me to reveal more pages, but this was many days after your father was captured.

"Why didn't you ask my father this question?  He was there."

To a point. He didn't know the answer. He remembered the name Epandros, but nothing more. He said you had the full story from Ochleros.

Kassandra nodded. "The eight were the first round of the king's most trusted guards, Epandros, Saggarios, Amphitimos, Chairedamos, Euktemon, Theokrines, Kerykides, Thanogenes. The men my father wounded when he lost control of his spell. These were the eight who led brigades of the Olethren."

And how did they find their way into the dead army if your father merely wounded them?

"You. You're the reason. Because they knew about you, the king could not allow them to live. The king took them to the Dosianax fortress to hide them, and then poisoned them. Killed them, and bound their flesh and bone to his will. Epandros—the first of the trusted Eight—was the husband of the Kirkêlatides. He even had Theoxena—"

His war-bard? The book tapped the glass impatiently. Go on...had the Kirkêlatides what?

"She made battle horns for the eight that hurt the living when blown by the dead. Their sound hurt the earth, the stones shuddered, the bones of the living came undone when it hit them. The eight were taller, more commanding, something new the king has created. Deadlier. Epandros—nothing left of him but a rotting rack of bones and hanging tendons—had fought honorably alongside Ochleros at one time—and since the king betrayed them all so thoroughly, Ochleros wanted to lay them to rest in a separate grave. Does that answer your question?"

It does, said the book thoughtfully.

As she turned to leave, the book spoke up again, using a condescending tone. Alkimides?  Say hello to Alexandros for me.

She spun in the doorway. "Alexander Shoaler?" Kassandra threw a scowl at the aquarium. "Sure thing. How did you meet our dear friend, Mr. Shoaler?"

It is fortunate there is nothing more I want from you, and do not feel the least obliged to answer, Alkimides bitch.

Kassandra leaned over the counter in the kitchen's center to read the note her father had left, all of them including Nicole had gone into the Atlantic for a swim, back in an hour.

She twitched at something urgent in the air, turned toward the stairwell leading to the basement, then through a tunnel and more stairs to the grotto deep under the house. She raised her hand and snapped her fingers around a drop of water hovering in the air. It splattered into her palm, and she dipped her head forward, sticking out her tongue to taste it.

Then she was jumping the flight of stairs in one bound, racing corners and ducking packing boxes to get to the grotto. Just managed to toss away her phone before she flew into the water, navigating the dark tunnels underwater into open sea, releasing all the air in her lungs in one burst.

She blinked against the shudder of light. Nicole, Mr. Henderson and Gregor stood on a boulder, the sun coming through the surface in bright flashes high over their heads.

She pulled up next to Ochleros, blending in among the seaweed covered rocks. He emerged from the seafloor of black lumps of encrusted granite, one blurry hand up in greeting. Kassandra nodded back, scowling at the rumble of anger he gave off.

"What is it?"

He pointed south. "A machine, Lady Kassandra."

She stopped, swinging Nicole around behind her. "Machine?  What kind of machine?"  She looked around. "Where's Zypheria?"

"Above the waves, scouting the shoreline. It came from the east, from the depths. It is white, shiny white, a long tube near this long."  He held his hands up with a four-foot gap between them.

Kassandra shook her head. "Like a submarine?  That small?  Where did it go?"

"I drove it that way."  He pointed south, further down the coast. "It did not appear to be intelligent. I sent a current to deflect its path and it bounced off the rocks, curved away from the surface, and then angled into the sandy beach."

"I'll look into it."  She nodded at Gregor, and then turned to Nicole. "Remain here with Ochleros."

Without looking back, Kassandra kicked into the gloom. She skimmed the boulders and then swung in where a point of rock jutted from the middle of North Hampton Beach.

Thirty feet down, a four-foot white tube shuddered and jerked, caught in the wiry embrace of a broken lobster trap. It had punched through one end and couldn't extract itself.

"What the hell is that?" She whispered to herself, approaching in a crawl over the boulders.

A voice in her head answered back. It looks extremely dangerous.

It was a plastic tube with dive planes that swiveled feebly and a little propeller that spun, stopped and reversed direction.

It's trying to back its way out.

"Smart for a machine."  She moved closer. It didn't look like something Tharsaleos would send—although he had been interested in surface technology for years. Who knew what the old bastard was capable of?  "Eupheron?  Strates?  Mother?"  She spoke to the others in her head. "Anyone got answers?"

Do not touch it, said Andromache.

"Why not?"  Kassandra reached out, held her fingers an inch away, feeling the machine's shudder in the water. It was trying to break free from the wire cage. She slid a hand under it and spun it clockwise, careful not to pull it from the trap. Seven letters stenciled in black came into view.

SHOALER

Kassandra tensed up and shoved her body backward, thrusting her arms out to get some momentum in the surge. "He's stalking me with little submarines?"  She kicked in a circle, expecting Alex Shoaler to sneak up on her.

Andromache's commanding voice rolled through her mind. The Telkhines are wicked. Be careful with him. Eupheron laughed wickedly.

She pulled in water, heavy in her mouth, gliding on her back into the shallows to see who was near the shoreline. She was in knee-deep water, her back pressed to the sand, half visible in the rippling surf when she saw him, standing at the foam's edge, barefoot, his eyes on the horizon, waiting...for his shiny machine.

She held down a needling urge to chat with him in his thoughts, and then opened it enough to ask, Alex, what are you looking for?  Through the tidal surface distortion she saw him shudder, then jump an inch off the sand, startled at her intrusion, her question—almost a command—rolling roughly over his concentration. When he came back to earth, he folded his arms, annoyed, and looked up and down the beach for her.

Kassandra laughed and sunk her fingers into the sand, pulled her body out to sea, gliding over the bottom until she was sure no one would see through the murky surf as she rose and kicked away.

She came ashore at the rocky north edge of the beach, coughing quietly, squeezing the sea from her lungs. She spit and pulled a crab from her the top of her shirt. "Oh, that's really attractive."

She pulled her braids around and wrung the water from them, her gaze fixed to Alex Shoaler, forty meters away.

He stood tall and straight, his orangey-red hair bending like a field of reeds against the wind off the Atlantic. He wore a dull black wetsuit, but his hands and feet were bare.

He's cute, said Eupheron cheerily, looking through her eyes.

Kassandra nodded absently. "His mother, Elizabeth Shoaler's a surfacer. The collector of heart-shaped stones."

That was the code we used to signal the porthmeus, said her mother, Ampharete. She worked for House Rexenor, helping them, an underground path to the surface against the king.

"How did a surfacer who married one of the seaborn—a Telkhines—come to work against Tharsaleos?"

Against the royal line, all the Alkimides—and those who marry into the line, not just who happens to be king or queen. Elizabeth wouldn't tell us who the father was—only that he went to sea and never returned. We had a difficult time persuading her to accept you, an Alkimides with a Rexenor father—

"Oh, shit."  Kassandra crouched lower and furiously shoved her fingers into a rhythm and whispered a song that made her blend into the surrounding rocks. "It's the Kirkêlatides—the mother—and she's watching Alex Shoaler."

King Tharsaleos' war-bard stood on the concrete walk above the beach, arms folded, her long coal-black hair falling most of the way down her back, unbraided, trying to fit in on the surface. She watched Alex with interest—a biology student about to dissect something.

Kassandra nearly lost her footing on the slimy boulders, sensing someone behind her. Her head jerked around. Zypheria crept up the rocks, coming out of the water crablike, the webbing between her finders wet and glinting red in the setting sun.

Zypheria took in the way Kassandra was balanced on the rocks and looked down the beach. "Who is he, milady?"

"Forget him."  Kassandra jutted her chin toward the concrete walkway above the sand. "Dark haired woman up on the walk. The king's war-bard."

"Kirkêlatides," Zypheria said in an awed whisper.

"She's watching that guy in the wetsuit. He's seaborn."

Zypheria's gaze roamed over the twenty adults and children scattered along the shore, combing, jogging, testing the cold surf, and finally stopped on the young man with the outlandish orange hair in the tight dull black suit. "Does not look like one."

Kassandra was nodding with a hint of a smile.

"Lady Nicole is guarding your father and Michael."  Zypheria's eyebrows jumped. "She went in to get her sword. I think she welcomes the chance to slip into her new role."

"Of course."  Kassandra looked over her shoulder, meeting Zypheria's eyes for a moment, but showed nothing on her face, and didn't respond to anything she picked up.

Zypheria looked to the ocean. "What is next, milady?"

Kassandra moved her feet for more balance on the weed-covered rocks and tilted her head to the Atlantic. "Go back. Don't wait for me. If something doesn't feel right in the house, take Michael, father and my sisters north, sleep aboard Stormwind tonight."

Zypheria nodded and backed off the rocks into the surf, disappearing without a word.

Nikasia's mother had not moved, arms folded obstinately, her eyes fixed on Alex.

Kassandra ran her fingers over the stones at her feet, and selected a smooth round one that felt good in her hand. She stood, brought her arm back, and hurled it in the war-bard's direction, whispering a command to direct it. Then she stepped into the air, one hand above her head like a conductor guiding an orchestra, steering the stone to its target.

The oblong piece of rounded granite went straight for the woman's head. She flinched at the last second, her left arm raising defensively, her mouth open with a single note of a song that deflected the stone an inch from her cheekbone.

It smacked the windshield of the car parked right behind her with a splintery crunch, setting off the alarm.

Squinting against pain, she held her hands over her ears, jogging in a very uncoordinated way.

Kassandra was halfway down the beach. She stepped out of the air right behind Alex Shoaler, touching his shoulder.

"Hey."

He jumped, spinning toward her. Kassandra grabbed his arm to help him remain on his feet, and he shook his head, smiling at his own clumsiness.

"Sneaking up on me?"

She looked straight into his eyes. "I hear you want to know what I dream about, Alex?"

He looked away when she said his name, curling his lips in to hide a guilty grin. He nodded, and then looked down at her fingers digging into the spongy wetsuit material on his forearm.

Eupheron made some lewd noises in her head. He is quite the catch.

Kassandra released Alex, and she felt the need to take a step back, but the war-bard wouldn't be able to get a good look at her with Alex facing her, and so Kassandra remained standing in the uncomfortably close zone. "Sorry," she whispered.

"No, I..."  He stared at the marks her fingers had made in his suit. "It sounds stupid."

She shook her head. You're a Telkhinos, Alexander Shoaler. Alexandros. She rolled the "r" in his name, liking it. You're an exile and you don't even know it. Who was your father?

Something deep in her mind shuddered—something inside her moved from some resting place, breaking free, raising dust, spiraling dizzily through her head. Eupheron laughed. I hope you do not mind one more voice—and a lot of singing—inside your head. Queen Anaxareta is awake.

"Look forward to meeting her," said Kassandra absently, and then mentally tested several lines to ask him out, get to know him better. Hi, Alex. My ancestors dethroned yours, and then hunted them right to the edge of extinction. You want to get some coffee and chat?

I say you get him into bed first, then grill him for answers. Eupheron's laugh bordered on sinister. It's not about what you could do—what wouldn't you do with a Telkhinos, Lady Kassandra?

"Are you okay?"

She focused on him. "Yes, I am. What about my dreams?"

"Not yours... I dream."  He shook his head, obviously embarrassed, but in the honest casual way of someone who normally doesn't find many things embarrassing. "It sounds so stupid. I dream of a book in an aquarium. For the last couple nights."  His eyebrows jumped to show that even he didn't take it seriously. "And I dream of you. I'm sorry. It sounds completely crazy."

Kassandra nodded, watching his hazel eyes change color, going from greenish brown to gray with a hint of blue. "What do I do in your dream?"

Alex started to laugh. "It's not like that. I knock on the door to your house in the middle of the night, and you let me in."

She watched his mouth as he spoke, her scowl taking its time to drop into place. "Doesn't that pretty much amount to the same thing?"

His ears went pink. "Oh...yeah, but I don't think...I mean I wake up before anything happens."

She did something unexpected—surprising herself. She punched him in the arm playfully. It was something Jill would have done. Then she gave him back his smile. "It's not me you're after, but my book."

Alex's mouth opened, waiting for words. It took a few seconds for them to show up. In a whisper, he asked, "So there is a book?"

"It's a tricky bastard, too."  She lifted her gaze to her house on the edge of the Atlantic and then to the war-bard, still standing on the concrete walk at the far end of the beach. "Don't turn. There's a woman up on the sidewalk, that's Nikasia's mother, the actual war-bard. Don't turn around. I distracted her with...the car alarm. We have to go."

"We?"  He jutted his chin to the surf. "But—"

"The white machine?  Like a little submarine?"

"My AUV?"  He pulled away from her. "How do you know?"

"I know where your..." Ei-you-vee?  AUV?  "...it is."

He watched her puzzle over the abbreviation. "Autonomous Underwater Vehicle."

Plans rolled into place in her mind, a dozen of them, some with goals twenty years out. "What does an AUV do?"

"Right now, it's programmed to cruise at the surface for sixty miles and then dive deep. The threshold's set at three hundred meters."

"Your goal?"

"The bottom is my goal. This is my second pressure hull test."

"So, you go to MIT, make weird robots, and you want to go to the bottom of the sea."  She didn't really ask him. "Let's get your AUV. Follow me."

She took his hand, her fingers feeling for webbing and found none. His hands were rough, calloused, and they started to curl around hers. She tightened her grip and pulled him into the water.

He looked down at her bare legs, shaking his head. "You'll freeze."

"I was a polar bear in another life," she said and pulled harder. "Come on. We have to get away from the Kirkêlatides. Let's pick up your AUV, and then..."   They splashed into the water, up to their knees. "Trust me."

Theoxena of the Kirkêlatides watched them running through the surf, casually raised a hand, and sang a note. Kassandra heard the force of her spell coming, shoved her feet into the sand, kicked, and danced into the air, tucking her knees up as far as she could. The water hit Alex behind the legs like a log rolling in the surf, flipping his feet out from under him, ripping his hand from Kassandra's.

He went under in an explosion of foam. His arms went wide for balance. He managed to shove his face above the surface to suck in a short breath. Kassandra came down, her legs straight, toes pointed, her arms over her head, and her body arched. She slid into the water with a faint ripple, catching Alex by one ankle as she went by. The air burst from her lungs and she pulled the ocean inside her. Her braids spiraled her throat and face, muffling some of her commands to the water around her.

Then she felt the Atlantic's cold grip on her body, pulling her deeper into its embrace. She glanced down at her own feet, and spun off one thread of water to the rocky headland to grab Alex's autonomous...thing.

Alex dug into the sand, panicking. Rows of silt bloomed in his wake. His fingers clawed at a slimy lump of granite sticking out of the sand and came away with mangled stems of rockweed. Air bubbled from his lips, whipping past his face. The water darkened and the floor of the beach drifted away below him. He rocketed out to sea feet first. He tried to kick, but something had his ankles locked together.

His body rolled and he stared up at the fading blue light of the surface. He tried to guess his depth, and then gave up. He wouldn't be able to make it to the surface with the breath that remained. The lock on his ankles loosened, and at the same moment, Kassandra came into view.

She swam into his arms, her braids like an octopus' tentacles around her head. There was fear in her face, but nothing like the terror in his. She grabbed his wrists and shoved them wide.

"Let it go!  Breathe!"

He shook his head, the words "help me" erupting from his mouth in floppy bubbles. His eyes bulged and he released the last of his air. A pleading look darkened his face.

"Breathe, damn you!"

Kassandra's hands slipped over his cheeks, fingers digging through his spiky hair. She bent forward and kissed him hard on the mouth. His eyelashes rasped against her cheek—his eyes, already wide, going wider.

"Will he remember any of this?"  Kassandra threw a look over her shoulder to Ochleros in his stealthy form as a twelve-foot tall wall of seawater with arms and huge claws.

Alex lay on his side in the sand, his arms tangled in front of him, his chest rising and falling with his breath. The face of his watch was gray, blank, and dribbled seawater from its cracked housing.

A pale moon sent knife-blade flickers across the water behind Kassandra, and gave Hampton Beach a blue glow. She didn't want to return him to North Hampton because the war-bard may be waiting there, and this was closer to Alex's house.

She dragged the four-foot AUV up the sand, letting it roll against his back, its propeller dead, the stenciled SHOALER standing straight up.

"That is unlikely, Lady Kassandra. I am very careful with manipulating memory. He will remember the war-bard—and properly fear her."

"Good."

"I shifted everything back to that point. He is, however, a Telkhinos, and knowing many of them in my years, it would not astonish me if, with time, he recalls the evening's events."

She gave him a sharp look. "Do not ever say that again. Not aloud. About what he is. This is not the time to tell him—or anyone else. Good night, Ochleros. I'll wait in the shallows for him to wake, and then I'll see you at home."

"I know how dangerous the Kirkêlatides can be. You are wise to be cautious."  Ochleros bowed back, drifting into the waves, heading north.

Kassandra stood in the waves up to her chin, boredom setting in, bouncing off the sand for two hours, waiting for Alex Shoaler to wake up.

"Come on," she whispered. "Wake up, Alexandros."

The moon dropped behind the row of beach houses, and a pale glow appeared in the east before something finally happened.

Alex flopped onto his stomach, groaning, went still for another ten minutes, and then lifted his head, spitting sand from his mouth. He tried to move onto his back but the AUV had rolled against him, wedged between his hip and the beach.

"What the...?"  He crawled to his knees, shoving the heels of his palms against the sand, and then in one motion, swung around into a sitting position.

Kassandra ducked under the waves, her braids floating around the top of her head.

Alex rubbed the sand from his hands and pressed them against the sides of his head, trying to stop the ache drumming through his skull. "That was...wild."  He said the words automatically, not knowing what "that" referred to, or why he considered it "wild."

Kassandra rose in the surf until her eyes were above it, watching Alex get to his feet. He stood yawning and then tucked the four-foot AUV under one arm. He threw a look over his shoulder before he climbed the concrete steps over the storm wall, his eyes scanning the horizon. Kassandra went under, waited a few minutes, and when she surfaced, Alex Shoaler was gone.

He walked home, stumbling over thick tufts of seagrass, stubbing his toes on the rounded boulders that lined the sandy walkway between the houses. He and his mother lived right on 1A—Ocean Boulevard—in a tiny two-bedroom winterized cottage. He pushed open the back gate, found the hidden key above the doorframe, and let himself in.

His mother had left a light on in the kitchen for him, and he grabbed a Coke from the fridge, before heading to his bedroom, where he shoved everything off his desk except his computer. Without bothering to change, he set down his miniature submersible, uncapped the interface, and jacked the AUV into the log transfer app he had written.

Kneeling on the chair, elbows on the desktop, he leaned into the screen, shaking his head, rolling the data up and down in the window.

"Now that's..."

He scrolled through the final rows of logged data, all of it from today, and going from sea level to well over two-thousand meters, and nearly halfway across the Atlantic Ocean. In a space of four hours, his autonomous underwater vehicle made of PVC piping with an oil-filled over-pressured interior had been halfway to England, traveling at depths greater than six thousand feet.

"...odd."

He rubbed his eyes, leaning against his thumb and forefinger in exhaustion, and the dream of the book came to him again. Kassandra with her long brown hair in braids opened the door, beckoning him inside. She smiled at him, but for the first time, out of all the times he'd dreamed of her, he felt afraid to enter.

Chapter 13 - Mortal

Bachoris, "Beach Guy," Mr. Sandman looked...nervous. Kassandra gave him a teasing smile, and slid enough water across her eyes to catch pink neon smears off the coffee shop's menu board.

She had squeezed into the tightest shirt she could find, sheer fuchsia, spaghetti straps, riding above her naval, low shorts, nothing else but the jingling of metal and seashells at her wrist and ankle.

Nicole had stopped her in alarm on the way out. "I can see your nipples."

She shrugged. "Only so many threads of thought to go around in anyone's head. I can keep a couple of Bachoris' busy."  She'd let her fingers glide over her breasts, down along her waist, to play with the top of her shorts.

Nicole had given her an angry stare, hand on her hip, breathing hard, cutting words piling up in her mouth, unsaid.

"What?  I'm going for coffee. I'm not going to pull them down and ride him in the middle of Christine's Beans."

"That's what it looks like."

"And that's the point."  She'd left with Nicole grinding her teeth and flexing her fists.

Bachoris stood as she approached—the gentleman, but Kassandra waved him back into his seat, pulling out her own chair, crossing her legs, kicking her foot to make her anklet ring.

He slid a full cup of black coffee aside as if he'd just noticed it, and it was in the way.

The coffee wasn't hot. Been waiting a while for me, then.

Bachoris didn't appear to notice her nipples. He leaned halfway across the table, locking eyes. "Kassandra. Tell me how you know about my sister, my dear Agenika."

She stared at him, took in his words, the spaces between them laced with sorrow, a raw humming current of betrayal.

She swallowed the lie she had prepared. "One of my ancestors, Strates Unwinder."  She pointed to her head and his eyes narrowed, shifted to focus on her fingertip pressed to her temple. "He knew her, two fellow prisoners of Akastê the Erratic One, and Agenika told him of her brother Bachoris, how much she missed him. How much she wanted to go home."

"This Strates Unwinder is inside you?  Are there others?"

"Several, including King Eupheron, two bleeds, half Telkhines half Alkimides. He's looking at you right now—the only one who can see through my eyes."  She didn't add that he was making cooing noises and telling her how beautiful Bachoris' eyes were.

She slid out of her chair, crossing the room before she said anything else. "We want coffee. You want another cup?"  She turned to order two before Bachoris could answer, and returned to the table with them, sliding his across the surface.

His fingers touched hers when he took it, and he jerked away, sloshing coffee over the lip, a dark pool in his saucer.

Kassandra froze. "What is it?"

Bachoris reached over and pushed her coffee aside. "May I see your hands?"

Not both, said Andromache in her thoughts. She placed her left flat on the table, and he let his fingers glide over the top, starting at her wrist. He whispered, "I wasn't expecting..."

"What?"

His fingers were cool, smooth, doctor's hands on her skin.

"What are doing?"

When he didn't answer, her right hand shot out and grabbed his wrist just as he was pulling it away. She yanked him across the table, turning his palm up, twisting his arm. His whole body followed. The first cup of coffee hit the floor, shattering, sharp wedges of china, cold splatter against her legs. People were staring.

She stood, legs braced apart and caught his throat in her other hand, her nails digging into soft skin and cartilage. She slammed his head against the wood surface, leaned in, her mouth almost touching his, her voice low cold. "What game are you playing, Bachoris. I know what you are. I can feel your heart, the blood in your veins, the fluid in every layer of tissue in your body, but not the heat, not the life. You aren't alive like the rest of us. You are deathless."

"Immortal," he whispered. "I didn't mean to anger you. Please let me up."

A man in an apron appeared next to Kassandra, and she released Bachoris. She grabbed the offered towel. "Thank you. He'll clean up his mess."

Bachoris leaned back in his chair, rubbing his throat. "It's just..."

Kassandra shifted around the table, wringing the towel, ready to attack, her voice knife sharp. "Just what?"

"You are not."

She threw the towel at him, folding her arms, while he kneeled to pick up the pieces of the cup, wiped the coffee off the tiles. The man in the apron took everything away, and they sat down again, elbows on the table, glaring at each other.

"No. I am not."

"But why aren't you?"

Kassandra closed her eyes, resting her forehead against her fist. "Why would I tell you, Bachoris?  You wouldn't understand."

They met in Hampton the following night, walked along the beach, Bachoris—with his old fashioned courting manners—asking to hold her hand, and she let him, only letting go to roll up her sleeves. Nicole had told her that she would stalk them, follow them, become a nuisance if Kassandra left the house wearing anything less than jeans and a sweatshirt.

Bachoris looked over at her. "You're tense, Kassandra."

She squeezed his hand. "So are you."

He let go, jogging ahead, turning to face her. He walked backward along the ocean wet sand. "Tell me."

"No."

He shrugged, smiling. "Come on. Let's walk along the street."

She tilted her head toward the Atlantic. "Let's get wet."

"I can't."

"Get wet?"

"I lost Agenika to Akastê."

"She is not the Sea. Never was. A pretender. You have nothing to fear when you are with me."  She twirled her fingers and her crown flashed into existence, a beacon like a lighthouse's beam.

Cars were slowing down along Ocean Boulevard; people strolling on Hampton Beach stopped to stare at her, holding their hands up to block the light.

He covered his eyes, turned away with something like pain in his expression, and jumped the low wall to the sidewalk. She glanced over her shoulder at the ocean, let her crown fade away, and then followed him, slapping his hand as she dashed by him.

Kassandra froze a few strides ahead, scanning the crowd along Ocean Boulevard, her gaze stopping on a tall woman with long black braids walking toward her.

Bachoris rested a hand on her shoulder. "What is it?"

"That's the king's war-bard, Theoxena of the Kirkêlatides."

"Really?  Wow." Thick sarcasm in his voice.

Kassandra shrugged him off. "Come on. Let's go."

"Why?"

"It's not the right time to confront her."

Bachoris grabbed her hand, twining his fingers with hers. "Forget about confronting. Let's just stare at her, make funny faces."  He stuck his tongue out and squinted one eye at Theoxena.

Kassandra caught the war-bard's gaze and then looked over at Bachoris. She had to hold in laughter. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Come on, stare at her and stick your finger up your nose, twirl it."

"I don't think so."

"Look. She's wondering what we're up to."

"No."  Kassandra turned to level her gaze at Theoxena. "She thinks you're a freak."

"She knows what I am. She can feel it from there. She knows what you are. I say we have a bit of fun with her."  Bachoris let go of her hand, stuck his thumbs in his mouth, pulled his lips wide and used his fingers to bend his ears forward, making them flop alternately. He jumped forward, stamping his foot and Theoxena twitched, backed up a step. "Wow. A descendent of the great Kirkê. Made her hop."

Theoxena looked over her shoulder, waited for a car to pass, and then hurried across the street.

"The Lords and Ladies aren't happy, Theoxena of the Kirkêlatides. No, we're not. The Sea and the Sand do not want you meddling where you do not belong."  Bachoris gave her a jolly goodbye wave. "Yeah, you better walk away. Keep walking, string strumming bitch of the sea."

Kassandra stared at Bachoris, corners of her mouth sharp, halfway to laughing. "Who are you?"

His stupid grin faded when he turned back to her, his expression going serious. He held her eyes; the dark skin around his crinkled a little with mirth. He bowed his head. "Your opposite, milady. As the sea is yours, so the dry sand, the waterless winds, the desert is mine—not all of them, but I have quite a large one all to myself. I am its lord. A minor rank compared to you, but a lord nonetheless."

Nicole accompanied them the next night, strolling along, doing an admirable job of concealing her desire to cut off Bachoris' head when he reached for Kassandra's hand, muttering, "If he kisses her I'll hit him."

They sipped coffee, ate sushi at Shizuko's, and walked along Hampton Beach, all the way to Great Boars Head and back. Bachoris talked about New York City, bond trading, some of the immortals he knew, their powers, their wishes.

Kassandra shoved him toward the Atlantic with her shoulder. "And how are you going to get your sister back from Akastê?  Why haven't you tried?"

He slowed his pace. "I have tried. And failed. Many times. Akastê is an ancient. I am young and no match for her—and she has Agenika, makes her suffer for my mistakes. I cannot win against the Erratic One."

Kassandra nodded, thoughtfully chewing the inside of her lip.

Bachoris looked over and stopped, and gave her a pleading look. He saw it in her eyes. She was going to offer to help him, and he could not allow it. Then he would not be able to return cruelty. Her lips opened. He cut her off. "I don't believe you can help me."  He was shaking. He looked her in the eyes, and there was doubt about her strength in them. "Because you aren't immort—"

A stiff jab from Kassandra just above the hip, a kick behind the knees, and Bachoris collapsed. She stood over him, enraged, breathing hard. "Do not say anything about that, not again."

Behind her the dry sand came up like ropes, coiling tight up her jeans to her thighs. Kassandra looked down, startled, and sang a note. The Atlantic roared. She turned to call for its help, then stopped the voice in her mouth when Nicole cartwheeled over her, above her head, out of hand's reach, a sword in her fist. Kassandra gestured to the ocean, but did not command it.

Both hands on the grip, the blade across Bachoris' throat, Nicole leaned her weight into a thrust-ready stance. "You have three seconds to call them back or I'll take your head and hang it in the backyard with the wind chimes. One. Two..."

The sand drifted off with the sea wind, slid loosely down Kassandra's legs, a mound gathering at her ankles.

Nicole let Bachoris up, but held her sword ready. Kassandra forgot about Bachoris, breathing deeply, staring wide-eyed. She grabbed Nicole by the shoulders, knocked the weapon aside, and hugged her sister tight. "You have it. Why didn't you tell me?"

Nicole pulled away, pointed her sword at Bachoris, her hand shaking in rage. "I didn't know. I just wanted to kill this suspicious fuck. And then I was swimming in the air with my sword."  She jumped at Bachoris and he stepped back. "That's right. You touch her and I'll cut your fucking balls off, sandy man."

"I'm so happy you have the bleeds and can use them, but now isn't the time."

Nicole looked stunned, shaking her head. "What are you talking about?"  She lowered the sword.

"Nicole, please. Go home."

Nicole didn't look away from Bachoris. "I'm not leaving without you, Kass."

"Yes. You are. Now go."  Kassandra pointed down the beach, a command like thunder in her voice. "Go."

Nicole's shoulders dropped. The sword vanished in her hand, and she backed up, stumbling to the sand. "Why?"

"This isn't your business, Nic. Just go."

"Your safety is my business."

"No it isn't, Lady Nikoletta.  I may have led you to believe that, but you are far more than someone's bodyguard, and I don't want you here right now."

Kassandra turned away so she wouldn't have to see her sister's shudder at the use of her formal noble name. She felt it in the sea air. "Please."

Nicole straightened and walked away, occasionally looking back to see if Kassandra was following. She didn't.

Bachoris waited for Nicole's figure to fade into the distance. "That was close."  He tried for a faint smile. It failed against Kassandra's anger. He bowed his head. "Your sister is more powerful than I would have thought."

"Both of them are."

Bachoris stared down the beach. "Whose bleed does she have?"

Kassandra made a growling noise, the low rumble of the ocean hollowing out the earth. "You and your damn questions. It's bad enough to ask it of me. Do not bring up your abnormality in front of my sisters."  She reached for Bachoris, her arm out straight, fingers hooked into a rigid claw. He flipped in the air, feet sticking straight up, and flew into her grasp. She pulled him close, his arms pinned to his sides. "Let me see if I can answer your question, Mr. Sandman."  She yanked him closer and sucked in a breath, emptying his lungs. "Your dear sister is in prison and you can wait a thousand years for her. What do you know of longing or sorrow or loss?  Nothing. You immortals wouldn't understand."  She dug her fingers in harder.  "My sisters have my bleeds. I would rather grow old and die with them than leave them behind. I gave up my immortality so that my sisters can share in my power. I have the crown of the ruler of all the oceans. I am the Sea. I have five bleeds. I am nothing without my sisters."

She gave him back his breath and dropped him in the sand.

Gasping for air, he held up one open hand. "I'm sorry, Kassandra."

"I don't want sorry—or nonsense about missing your sister. You would do anything to get her back if she really meant something to you. You would kill anyone, betray anyone, move the foundations of this world to get her back. I want you to try to understand what my sisters mean to me, Bachoris. Now get up and walk me home. If you ask me one more question tonight, you will never see me again."

Chapter 14 - Barenis

The dragon shot straight down to the Atlantic's floor, a sharp snap that ran from the middle of her back, along the length of her tail. It nearly catapulted Nikasia free. A blur of mountain shapes, a row of rocky teeth, and the dragon tilted on her side, shoveling mud and boulders over her back.

Nikasia closed her eyes and hung on, teeth rattling, fingers bleeding, curling tighter over ridges along the monster's back. A stone the size of her head slammed into the scales between her open legs. Another smaller chunk of rock hit her just above her left ankle, snapped the tibia.

Safe to say the dragon knows I'm here.

Nikasia squeezed another healing theme into her song, and felt tendons and tissue burn with regeneration; tears blurring her vision with the new growth. The splinters of bone in her lower leg fused with a dull ache at the core.  Pain accompanies all birth.  So they say.

She moved up the dragon's back, fingernails clawing for a new hold, the spikes in her back opening wounds, a hot wash down her body. Now she was getting angry, the weakness in her muscles, the shiver in her hands building toward an obvious all-for-nothing end.

"Not losing this."  She spit the words with a mouthful of blood.

She swung her legs up, pushed off the dragon's back, and slammed her heels down as hard as she could, her right harder, body lifting away in a twirl.

She reached up, caught the buckle of chain at her wrist, and held on as it dragged her through the sea, gaining on the dragon, the loose end sliding around the monster's thick neck.

Nikasia let go, grabbed the chain's other end coming around the column of thick muscle and scales. She tugged, spread her legs and pulled her body in to straddle the dragon's neck, digging in her heels to hold on. The regeneration of her left arm was nearly complete and she had a much safer hold on the situation.

She leaned in, hugging the monster's neck, her chin against the rigid plates. She touched the dragon with her tongue, tasting its power, its rage, and managed to put some respect into her hoarse voice. "You're mine, lovely."

The dragon slowed as if considering, and then shot straight up, doubling her speed. Nikasia closed her eyes and pulled the chain harder, unlocking it from her left arm to hold each end like reins. Rolling shafts of blue light, the glow from the surface moved over the dragon's back, sparks catching polished scales and spikes along the spinal ridge.

"Take that line, Tommy, the one for the anchor."

The boy looked through the square glass panes, to the boat's stern, at his father, giving the anchor rope a tug. "This one?"

Dane Maitland kneeled over the side to pull back the lid of the cooler with a bluefish flicking back and forth in the water, gave his son his New England quiet-dad nod, and pulled the whole thing aboard, saltwater running down his jeans. He shoved it in a corner, and hopped along the narrows to the bow to help bring up the anchor, moving surely around his son to get to the line, bending his knees with the surge, the deck jumping and dropping four feet with every roll of the waves.

"Why is the ocean angry?"

Maitland pulled the rope, hand over hand, saltwater splashing his face. Calm. stay calm. "Not sure. Checked the five-day this morning, clear out here for the next four."   He glanced up at the sky, a black watercolor smear at the horizon, heavy wet storm clouds moving fast, tops cutting through heaven; underneath they tumbled over each other, granite thundering into the Atlantic.

He looked down at his hands, stopped them in mid pull, and let the rope go, zipping over the side into the water. He grabbed Tommy by the shoulders, turning him toward the stern, running his fingers along the life-jacket's clips. "Good. Get in the back, hold on."

Maitland unsnapped the knife holster at his belt, pulled it out, flipped it open and cut through the anchor line. Not enough time to bring the anchor aboard and secure it. He had a vision of the heavy iron wedges swinging open, rusty metal squeal, butterfly flipping through the windshield, killing Tommy. Better to let it go. He'd buy another one.

The knife flew from his hand.

He turned instinctively and grabbed the frame across the top of the windows. The bow tipped vertical into a trough, like going over a cliff of seawater. His shoes slipped, came away into the air. He held on, and Tommy screamed. Cold water washed up Maitland's back, over his shoulders, slicing icy along his face..

"Tommy!"  He couldn't hear his voice, just the raw shudder of noise in his own head.  He said them anyway.  "Hold on."  The storm swallowed every sound in a choppy roar. He kicked forward, pulling his body over the windows, grabbed the wheel, swung his legs into a foot of sloshing water.

And Tommy held on, staring up at mountains of ocean, his mouth gaping, showing all his teeth. He shrieked something. There was pain of loss in his face—not the loss of his own life, but the loss of his father's.  Maitland heard his son's voice through a sharp space of silence, "Don't leave me!"

He shook his head, never.

Clark Gerdes held his coffee cup an inch from his lips, mouth open, staring at the roll of storm white across the video panel, the northeast Atlantic, a field of still blue, and a knot of clouds emerging in the middle of it. Fingers of turbulence drifted into the Gulf of Maine.

Gerdes closed his mouth, noticed the mug in his hand, and placed it on the console. "Yeah, but which world?"  He whispered the words, a hint of humor, dark and still madness in the depths. The coffee mug was blue, a planet's circle with a child's coloring of oceans and unrecognizable continents, islands and smears of white cloud high in the atmosphere. Big letters, "World's Greatest Dad" in purple and yellow cartoon letters wrapped the smooth surface. Clark Gerdes. He was the World's Greatest Dad. The picture on the mug was an earth-like world, blue oceans, green and brown land. Just not continents in shapes he'd ever seen. Sure, he was World's Greatest Dad. It just wasn't this world. That was the funny thing.

"Like some other world."  His whisper lost its way, stumbled by chance on mapped territory—his experience, and slid right into his normal management voice. "Carey, start analysis, northeast Atlantic, Gulf of Maine. Everything we can get."

Gerdes pointed at the giant wall panel, the ghost storm folding in on itself, fingers of cloud curling into a fist that punched the ocean.

"They're on."  Carey's fingers rolled lightly, efficiently over the keypad, his eyes fixed to the panel. "Coming up now. Feeds from all online northeast stations, land, sea, subsurface."

The control room—always humming—came alive, a dark room in a building on the University of Maryland grounds that contained NOAA's Satellite and Information Service, Air Resources Laboratory and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

"Clark, you want something in the air?"  It was Julie at the comm with a "you'd better" look on her face, her fingers already keying in numbers.

He nodded, picked up his coffee, sipped, and stared up at the wall-sized storm display.

Nikasia bit down hard, locking her teeth to avoid biting off her own tongue. The dragon fired from the sea into the Thin, flattened surface waves, tucked in her fins, skidding through heavy Atlantic swells, and dove straight down.

She kept the sea inside her, choking on it above the ocean, stirring anger under the surface. "Do not make me hurt you, dragon."

Nikasia reached one hand above her head, fingers twirling. Songs lined up in her soul, released one at a time, long cutting notes that joined into a rolling ocean surge, low and high, peaking with a heart rip of tones. She released a second song that mingled with the first, but much lower and choppier. Bolts of lightning followed them through the dark. Nikasia called them to her, pointing, directing violence with her free hand. Her voice fell, driving a slow undercurrent of sound, a sea-devil's dirge.

A punch of vaporized ocean drove like a fist out of the dark, into the dragon's side. Scales shattered, a fog of blood in the water, bone chips flipping like propellers, lost in their wake.

Nikasia called on the ocean, unbraiding its currents, tight winding slips of seawater twisted and released. The Atlantic answered, enraged, a boil of storm clouds over the surface. The ocean's jaws opened, spilling waves like mountains, black jagged ship-eating teeth.

The dragon surfaced, tired, rolling on her back, sliding clumsily into a deep trough. Foam rolled down the wave face over the paler belly scales, mottled purple with bright green threads. Nikasia climbed around to the softer side of the monster's throat, locking the chain with a song.

She let the sea spill from her mouth, emptied her lungs, spit a few times, and cleared her throat. "Dance is at an end, my dear giant scaly friend."

Nikasia staggered up the underside of the dragon's neck, between the fore fins, braced her legs apart at the highest point, and lifted her arms to the storm, singing a hymn of the conqueror. Her song carried through the clouds, the heavy spray, followed the swells in rings to her storm's edge, netting the shape of every soul in her range and returning to tell her of her destruction, her command of this part of the sea, her victory over a dragon.

Her skin went cold.

A stab of sorrow in her side; a piece of her own song came back flat and sharp like a knife through her ribs. She grunted, bent forward, blood slick and warm in her throat. Out there in the dark clouds, mountains of seawater, a father and his son were lost in the ocean, their boat tipped vertical into the waves, sucked into the deeps by her spells.

Killing someone's father.  I am no better than that Rexenor monster who killed mine.  Killing this boy's father, it's like I have set my own death in motion. She felt her drive for vengeance in another, the son, a boy. I am a monster to him, father killer. And only one path opens from patricide, never ending pain and kill rage.

Nikasia felt the shudder of purpose in the scales under her toes. The dragon shifted and Nikasia jumped for the chain, caught it and swung her legs open, locked them around the neck.

The dragon went deep, struggling against its wounds to soar through the water. Nikasia screamed curses, pulling the chain like an orca's reins, trying to steer the monster back to the surface.

"The father dies. It is my doom!"  Tears slipped along her cheeks, blurry tendrils in the sea as she screamed. "I cannot!"  She cried the words. "Please. I cannot do it."

But she did.

Her fingers shaking, she opened her fists, released the chain, the dragon, everything she had fought for, let it go, and kicked toward the surface. The dragon vanished in the dark below her, listing to the right with pain.

Nikasia rose out of the waves, weeping, sliding on her bare feet down a steep wave face. She sang the storm to a halt, locked it inside her, pulled every current into bundles of three and braided them, gathered the braids into threes until the currents of the northeast Atlantic were bound, slowed to one deep thundering roll, and released.

Then she turned to find the father and his son, stiff orange vests keeping them afloat, the son sobbing, pleading for his father to wake up—the father on his face in the water, his skin cold, drifting with embers of life so low in his soul.

Nikasia dove beneath them, spun a song into a web that caught and dragged the father and son miles over the calm Atlantic surface to shore.

"Clark, we've lost the whole northeast net. I have buoys drifting free, reporting garbage data. Coast Guard's on its way."

Julie leaned toward her console, her fingers following something on her close-prox videos. "We have WeatherSight out of NAS Brunswick, ETA four and a half minutes."

Too late. Clark Gerdes couldn't say the words aloud. He heard her, shook his head, and started to point at the large video panel.  Then his voice started up again.  "It's gone. The storm's not there anymore."

Nikasia dragged the boy onto the beach, then went back for his father, a tall sun and wind weathered man, a fisherman, someone who loved the sea. It gave her hope. She sang three songs, layered them, harmonies that opened the man's mouth and worked his lungs. She slipped a hand over the father's face, forefinger and thumb pushing into his temples. He coughed, rolling on his side, choking up more seawater.

She leaned back, rocking on her knees, tears running down her face. She breathed one word, "Alive."

"Who are you?"  A lost voice behind her. "Are you a monster?"

Nikasia spun, tried to stand, lost her balance, and fell to the beach. She turned it into a roll to her knees.

It was the boy, maybe eleven years old, his thick orange vest dripping, dark hair ropy in saltwater knots, sand sticking to his skin. He stared at her, wide blue eyes like the sky, survival shock in them. His knees were shaking with the adrenalin drive.

She invited his gaze, and stared right back, her will pushing into his soul. She eased back, a gentle look, like fingers slipping into the still cold of a tide pool to brush the tips of anemones—just there to touch, not enough to frighten anyone. There was a shadow, an ache in his soul heavy as lead. She felt his sense of loss—how close he had been to never seeing his father alive again, ripped from his life—and right in front of his eyes—by her storm.  It was like a hole opening under her, sucking her into the crushing earth. She grabbed his name before his pain swallowed her alive.

She blinked, had trouble fitting into an unfamiliar role. Her sincere smile was slow. "No, Tommy. No, not a monster."  She winked at him, hoped something joy on her face as she thought of something pleasant to say. "I'm a mermaid. I help children and their fathers when there's trouble in the sea. Your father will be well."

"You don't have a tail."  He pointed at her feet.

Nikasia smiled. "Whoever said mermaids have tails never met one."  She opened her fingers.

Tommy frowned at her, but turned his head, following her webbed hand moving past his face, her fingers gliding along his shoulder, up the back of his neck, his skin warm under the tips of her fingers.

She leaned in and kissed his cheek, her lips next to his ear. "Do not tell anyone about me, Tommy. Do you understand?  Or I will lose my powers and not be able to help anyone."  He nodded, and she gave his neck a playful squeeze, let him go. "Good."  She stood and walked into the surf, turning just before going under. "You promise?"

He nodded. She blew him a kiss, and then she was gone.

Nikasia kicked hard, a steep dive into the dark, and she found what she was looking for just off shore. She felt the rumble in the dragon's lungs, the sea-draw quick, uneven. The monster was injured, and the chain had worked, bound the monster to her will.

She approached cautiously, swung under the dragon, coming up in front, just out of teeth range. The chain around the monster's neck glittered, a pretty collar.

Nikasia looked at the dragon thoughtfully. "I am Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides. I shall name you..."

"Barenis," said the dragon in a soft wheezing voice.

"What?"

"I have a name. Bah-rhen-ees."  The dragon spoke slowly as if Nikasia would have trouble with it.

"I can hear you?"

"Do not make me repeat myself then."

"I mean...can others?"

"You have ears. They do not."

"None of them?"

"One other who lived in the oceans. At least one."

"Who is it?"

"My old tyrannos."

"That's the old word. You're a slave?"

"You are so young. What do you know of old?  Or slavery."

"I know that you said 'old' master. . .like you have a new one."

"And not very bright."  Barenis pushed rows of sharp bared teeth at Nikasia. "You are the new one, Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides."

Chapter 15 - Monsters

For one moment out of all the moments that made up her life, Nikasia forgot about killing Gregor Lord Rexenor. It passed quickly, but for that moment, she soared without care or purpose through the Atlantic on Barenis, a dragon of the sea. She drove the animal as deep as she wanted to go, then up to the cold surface, across ice sheets, into the still polar abyss, raising waves of silt, scattering silver shoals of fish, making sharks bolt in fear, laughing at the stories in the distant grunts and moans of whales.

The question had been gnawing at her thoughts for days, and Nikasia settled her insides, slowed her breath, and asked casually, "So, who was your former master?"

Barenis slowed, rolled halfway to twist her long neck around, eyeing her new master. "I do not remember. It was a man, a lord. Kindly. We soared through every ocean, far and deep, the top and bottom of the world, looking for...something."  Her voice trailed off. "Always searching. I remember an end to the journey—perhaps finding everything for which we had been searching. He was happy. And then I lost him. Or he lost me."

"How long ago was this?  Tell me what house he called his own?"

The dragon made a huffing noise, a snort with jets of water shooting between a pair of tusks at the sides of her mouth. "I do not—"

"Telkhines or Rexenor—no other has ever possessed splendid things like you."

Barenis dove, pulling north, her voice a surprised growl. "Rexenor. Yes, it was House Rexenor. I do remember."

"And a name?"

Barenis struggled with sounds, "Reh...so close. Rehg... Rexenor. I can only remember Rexenor."

Nikasia pulled tight on the dragon's collar, fury building. "You speak well, you have knowledge in your soul. You can remember your own name. How can you not remember another's—your master's?"

"I have powers, Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides, powers even beyond you, but I am an animal, with many of the limits of an animal. I cannot keep new memories of things, only ancient ones, or of words that can fit into the thought-flows I already possess—another language I can know. I remember my name, I was a Telkhinos so long ago. I know I have lost my humanity, I know that I have lost it—and want it desperately, but I don't remember what it was. I'm...lost. I dream of towers, floating towers, and looking down at other cities. I remember my father, the lines of worry on his face, betrayal. I betrayed him. I am one of the soul-empty, the forsaken."

Nikasia pursed her lips. "You are a dragon, something made by the Telkhines. Don't make it sound so dramatic."

"Quite the opposite—and not made out of nothing, but of someone. The soul-empty, forsaken, the dragons, the beasts we became in order to become immortal. I know the word death, but it has no meaning for me, I don't know if I even want it. Empty promises, empty rewards, empty of all meaning. I can speak in the languages I knew as a Telkhinos—and new ones I am taught, but so many of the words' meanings are lost to me.

"You're a..."  Nikasia slid one finger along Barenis' neck. "You chose to become...this?"

"Many of us did—for the deathless promise. Some became other things, depending on the strength of their bleeds. I had good bleeds off my mother and father, both pure. I changed into a dragon, became this form, lost my human form. Others became lesser things, the phantoms of the lower world, whispers of tissue and luminous glands and teeth, luring in prey without eyes, living without new memories, only the dreams of life before the change. The greatest became the most sorrowful of them all, the Ocean Blackeners, one of the lords of the dark, a Basilichalkainos—giant monsters of the deep. There is one now—the only one I have ever tasted in the water in all the years of my life. It guards a prison of floating stone boxes.  It was summoned by the seaborn king. I felt this monster, ancient, perhaps one of the original godly nine of the Telkhines turned into something not of this world, all his power concentrated in the soul of an animal, driven by an animal's urges, hunger like the oceans, hater of its own immortality."

Nikasia pulled on the chain, sliding her open hand up the side of Barenis' neck, urging her to slow down. "If dragons are...were..."

"Dragons are Telkhines sorcerers who gave up humanity to live forever...as animals. I just did not understand what I was forsaking. None of us did, and then it was too late to warn anyone else."

Nikasia kicked over the top of the dragon's head, grabbing one long curled horn, swinging under the jaw, in range of the thing's teeth and tusks. "But if you are human—even once human, then I can fit into your soul, Barenis."

Hands fanned out to hold her position in the sea, Nikasia caught Barenis' big cloudy white eyes, and not finding pupils, groped her way into the monster's soul by the flashes of memory, shifting her focus right into violent racing light and teeth, and darkness reaching miles, falling fast, sleek as a needle, soul depth like the ocean itself. "Like looking into the soul of a god. It's not because you're a dragon," she whispered, realizing what she had really found. "But because you are a Telkhinos."  An awed edge to her whisper, "Lords and Ladies of the sea, you really were so much more than we are."

Recent memories slipped by. Something lit up the dark, a bold yellow glow overhead, rolling back and forth, hanging from something. Nikasia saw it through Barenis' eyes, darker wedges between some massive structure, pale circles, discs with rings of teeth, thousands of them. And glossy red ellipses like bulbs of shiny fresh blood, ringing darkness like the ocean floor. Barenis' vision blurred sideways, a shudder of fear that sprang into her muscles, tail whipping forward to roll her body back, away from whatever it was. Then tentacles as round and thick as the dragon's middle, tapering, toothed cups and mouths swinging in on the their ends. The structure closed around the dragon, long bands of muscle and blood rings eeling over each other, an angry twirling forest of sores eager to feed.

Nikasia's thoughts screamed panic at Barenis, What in the Sea's name is that?

Basilichalkainos, the king of troublous waters itself, the only one I have ever come upon in all my soaring.

Her thoughts stumbled on the thought that there could be more than one. How did you escape?

It did not pursue, but remained with the seaborn king's prison, presumably to guard it.

Nikasia's training fired right to the front her soul. From what?  Escapees?  I think not.  Protect the prison from someone coming in to release a particular prisoner, a captive valuable enough to protect all the lithotombs with...that. What threat would require that as a defense?  One of the immortals, or the Wreath-wearer...Kassandra.

Nikasia shoved a sour fear aside, chasing another bright shape of memory in Barenis' soul, pale fractured shapes that felt worn.  Old memories.  A dark haired woman held her hand out to a man in blue scaled armor, letting go, swimming away from him. She turned to face Barenis, eyes that held abyss pressure and thunder, and the glow of a crown over her long braided hair. "The Wreath-wearer."  Nikasia pushed deeper into the memories, but they faded, breaking into shuddering bolts of light. "Which one?  Pythias?"  Who was that, Barenis?

The dragon paused, disappointed. I do not know. Someone of importance, I know.

Damn you. Importance!  How long ago? No Wreath-wearer in any of the histories ever possessed a dragon—not even the Liar King.

Kassandra?  Does that name mean anything to you?  Have you had a new master in the last five years?

Barenis' answer was immediate. No. Not in the last twenty years.

Then who was she?  Kassandra's mother?  Not Queen Pythias—but the child no one ever suspected her of having?  Who was she with?  She had been holding that man's hand.

That was my old master.

Of Rexenor?  His armor places him among them. Smaller scales. Different. Not the styles among the Houses in the Nine-cities. Murder edged Nikasia's voice. And you cannot remember his name?

A contrived friendship.

What?

I hated her, the Alkimides.

Nikasia shouted indignantly, The Wreath-wearer! —never easy to shake the ancient bias and awe of the Sea's chosen.

The conquerors. She loved my old master. I pretended to accept her to gain her confidence in order to... I cannot...

Remember?  Nikasia withdrew bitterly from Barenis' soul, kicking up over the horns, swinging back into her seat. "Let us go north, Barenis, to Rexenor."  She leaned against the dragon's neck, feeling the pull of muscles through her skin. "That memory was not in the distant past, but in the last twenty years. And no Wreath-wearer, no princess of the Alkimides, no Queen of the seaborn—whoever she was, would allow herself to be seen with a Rexenor—not a living Rexenor at any rate."  Thoughts churned in her mind. Who is Kassandra? She has sided with the Rexenors. Who is her mother, her father? Nikasia braced her mind against the shock.Have I just seen them?   "And these two were in love?"

With Barenis just as eager to recapture the past, they shot deep and north, rocketing through the Atlantic, following a black serrated range of mountains and broken foothills, Nikasia riding sleek, flattening her body along the dragon's neck. They climbed near the surface to feed, Barenis cutting through the bright sea in the shadows of a shoal of bluefin tuna, a crush of dragon teeth and blood, swallowing them, snapping another hundred pound fish out of the rocket flow of deep blue and gold and sword stabs of light, right angle beams of the sun.

And Nikasia laughed and held on, dodging the snapped-off tails of bluefins flipping out of the dragon's teeth, spitting fish blood from her mouth, shaking it out of her hair.

They slid into the north two days later, rested, fed, ready for Rexenor. Even with their cautious approach, Nikasia felt the patrols in the open water, orcas with the curse, and riding them, soldiers of the exiled Great House. She smiled, leaning in to pass directions to Barenis when she felt them in her wake, long smooth gliding killer whales and their riders, nine of them, some outsea team of guards.

The Rexenors hunted her into the mountains, and Nikasia tried a few tricks to lose them—not trying that hard, liking this contest even more when she couldn't shake her pursuers through speed dives into canyons with Barenis' fins scraping the narrow rock walls, then through vertical climbs into the sun.

They followed her steady zigzagging course north, cold predators, and tiring of the game, Nikasia sped into open water and pulled Barenis around to face them.

They approached warily, three on young sleek orcas, then another two bigger, older angrier looking ones on their flanks. Two more circled, lances down, ready to charge, but unsure about their chances against a dragon of the sea. Two of the nine slipped into the deeps like lightning, north to pass on the word. Nikasia thought about turning and running, but it made no difference. If not this group of border scouts then some other. She was here for answers, information, and an old thought rolling in the back of her mind, somehow the chance to meet with the King's nemesis, Kassandra—not that she expected the Wreath-wearer—an obvious friend of Rexenor—to give up a lord of Rexenor for the revenge of someone she had little reason to trust.

Perhaps a chance to trade something, information, how to break through the King's Protection and city wall?

Nikasia looked up as the orcas and riders eased forward, lances leveled at her. She tasted their uncertainty in the water, choppy waves of it rolling off them, but there was something solid underneath, not the blank fear she would have expected in an encounter with an outsea troop from the Nine-cities. Rexenor had had dragons in the past, not that distant, perhaps in the memories of some of these soldiers.

Nikasia nodded her head as if to say, well, here we are, what happens next?

It was unnerving that the Rexenors didn't speak, demand to know her business, instead passing silent signals to each other. They just watched her and the dragon, waiting for her to state her business apparently. Some of them slid dark shields over their eyes as if they knew something of her nature and powers and didn't want her intruding on their souls.

Nikasia let out a long release of the sea in her lungs, rolling her shoulders up and down, the muscles stiff after the long journey. She released her hold on the dragon, stood up stretching, uncurling like an octopus. She let her gaze drift along the line of orcas and riders. Gods, they're so young.

She stopped on one, a man much too young to be out here with responsibilities. Then she laughed. "Who commands here?  What are you like seventeen?  So desperate for defense, the mighty House Rexenor sends its children out on patrol. Pathetic, really. It's a shame what has become of Rexenor."

Off on her right, a woman in scaly blue armor—who couldn't have been that much older than seventeen—scowled, swung her helmet off, hanging it on her saddle. She stood up, urged her orca forward, and brought up her a lance, three times her length, green shiny with a deadly yellow spiked tip. "I fought your half-a-soul two-bleed king, and sent his army home crying—or dead.   That was me!  My father fought the Olethren and survived. More than you can say, you ill-mannered song-hag. You're the Kirkêlatides' spawn. We can feel your bleed from here."  She pointed south. "Go sing sour somewhere else."

Nikasia took in a sharp pull of the sea, folded her arms, still smiling, and nodded approvingly at the woman. "Nothing can kill your spirit apparently."

"A deathless spirit kills a deathless ancestor any time. And if you think we can't kill a dragon..."

Nikasia lost her smile, gave the woman a cold nod. "What is your name?"

"What is yours?"

"I am Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides, daughter of Theoxena."

The woman squatted in the saddle, whispering something to her killer whale. Then she straightened and her voice came back proud and sharp. "I am Euxenê daughter of Thallides of Rexenor, sworn loyal to the Sea, commander of the krystalleidês far-watch."

"The Sea..."  Nikasia let half a smile come to her lips, the corners sharpening. "How old are you, Euxenê daughter of Thallides of Rexenor?"

"Twenty-two years. Old enough to have all of my mother's bleed because your king sent the Olethren and they killed her. How much of your song hag mother's bleed do you have, Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides?"

Nikasia clamped her mouth shut, holding in her rage, sparks of plans that could start another war. "I did not come north to shout at fools or children—nor as an agent for King Tharsaleos. I came on my own, for answers."

"So, not just an ill-mannered song-hag, but a spy?"

Nikasia curled in her fingers, about to kill the woman when Barenis tensed up, bent her head to one side, and in a low voice said, "Lady Nikasia. Others approach, as many as twenty orcas double-ridden."

Nikasia slid her hand up and down the dragon's neck. "Lancers and archers, I feel them, too. You have nothing to fear while you are with me, dear Barenis."  She straightened and folded her arms to hide the dance she stepped through with her fingers. She held her arms tight against the shudder of energy coursing through them, glanced over at Euxenê. "Sworn loyal to the Sea?"

Euxenê bowed her head, whispered a hymn, lifting her gaze to Nikasia, unafraid. "I am Lady Kassandra's soldier."

"Kassandra?"  The name came out burning from her mouth, and then a magnetic click, connecting to the hymn from Euxenê. Nikasia twitched against the anger rush, her spells winding at the rim, too late to slow them down, twirling ropes of power deadly with spines, a spiral of knife blades—and she couldn't hold off the dull rhythmic thud of three sea currents unraveling, picking up more of the quiet thread of Euxenê's sea hymn, joining with it, a helix of ice and poison, slippery with someone else's power.  Nikasia just managed to add a finish of vanishing ink—like having the last word in an argument.

Then she blinked, confused, so focused on controlling the song—enough to kill them all—that she didn't know her eyes were closed until she needed to open them, and twenty new orcas and riders were circling, predatory motion, archers loading and pointing their weapons.

That had been too close.  Something that Euxene had done with her hymn.

Nikasia held in the rage tight, but ready to release it.

One of the new group slowed beside Euxenê's orca, a man with long graying braids and blue scaled armor decorated in spiraled gold at the throat. More hand signals, and both looked over at Nikasia, then the second team commander leaned back in his saddle, glancing over his shoulder to talk with his archer squatting in the stirrups behind the killer whale's dorsal fin.

Nodding, he pointed at Nikasia, "That is Barenis, Lord Gregor's dragon."

Nikasia blinked, her mouth dropping open, a shudder of understanding, and then she was clawing at her song to keep it under control again, rich fluting notes forming on their own in her throat, spilling from her mouth. A cold splash of blue light slipped oily through her fingers, and she screamed a song of rage to pull it in.

Euxenê laughed, "So, not just ill-mannered song-hag and spy, but also dragon thief, too."  Her laugh died, and she dropped into the saddle, raising her lance, chasing new motion in the water.

Barenis jerked her neck around. Orcas closed defensively, sliding into each other, surprising their riders. A burst of light below them, ribboning bands of it, a folding nest of shadows closed over itself then vanished as the blinding glow broke over the circle of Rexenors.

A woman with a trident and crown like the sun kicked up from the depths followed by six demons, Ochleros among them. Kassandra swung the trident in her fist, pointing at Nikasia with the end, throwing off a splatter of light, the cold metal reflecting the light of her crown .

The demons, massive human shapes of water and claws and ice teeth, arranged themselves on the points of a hexagon outside the circling Rexenor orcas and lancers.

Kassandra nodded, "Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides, my father did not kill yours.  This is a mistake, nothing but the lies of a murdering king."

Nikasia stared, open mouthed, the water still in her mouth.

Then she released her song, unable to hold onto it longer—forgetting to hold onto it. The bolts broke into six glowing cords tumbling with jagged edges; one thin spark spun out of her hands seeking a target and curled under to hit Barenis, who shuddered beneath her feet. The six pieces of her song fired in straight lines at the demons, smears of fire passing over orcas and Rexenors. All of the demons caught the bolts from Nikasia's song, five absorbed them, but the last allowed a shaft of it to slip through her claws, taking three fingers with it, driving through her shoulder and throat, and shooting past into the gloom.

Nikasia jumped out of her paralysis, slapped Barenis, reaching for her horns. Suddenly she understood what that clever Rexenor bitch Euxenê had done. Her hymn had summoned the Sea herself, and the weave with Nikasia's song had included some kind of immunity to Rexenor—anything of the right blood or belonging to Rexenor, which left Barenis and the deathless ones.

Nikasia stared at Kassandra's crown, her gaze dropping to the trident of the ruler of all the oceans, the Sea.   She was just the Wreath-wearer.  Kassandra was the fucking Sea herself! And the rumors from the last battle with Rexenor broke from hiding in her soul, shells of doubt cracking and disintegrating. "I didn't believe them. No one did. Shock of battle. Rexenor the tricksters playing with their sight."  Her voice went into a high pitched whisper. "But it is true."

She looked lost for a moment longer, then gathered the stray thoughts in her soul, snapped up the loose reins of her thoughts and kicked Barenis. The dragon shot straight down, a speed dive to the floor, leveling out to run the canyons along the deep mountains.

Kassandra raised her hand to halt the Rexenors. She focused on Ochleros, hiding her crown and trident, pointing down. "Follow her." Then she turned to the injured demon, singing softly.

Chapter 16 - The Book and the King's Trusted Eight

Lady Ampharete, dead Queen Pythias' only daughter, winced at the baby's kick inside her and waved a hand at Zypheria to let Gregor son of Nausikrates into the bedchamber.

He was the father, after all.

Gregor slid sideways into the room, a set of flat decorated boards under one arm. He straightened a few kicks in, tugging at the sleeve of his armor, a hauberk of glossy near-transparent plates. His black hair hung loose, unbraided, drifting in tangles around his neck. Even in the ocean's dark, his eyes were lamp-bright, a perfect mixture of blue and green like coastal shallows, a color not seen far off the earth's equator nor in depths greater than ten meters. He had an honest, boyish face, without the hunger, the gauntness that marked most of his relatives, but his eyes showed the hidden sorrow of exile, the pain of treachery. His full family name was stamped into a thick gilt plate that hung at his wrist at the edge of the armor's sleeve, held there by fine links of chain.

"Milady."  He bowed his head to Princess Ampharete, and she gave him one back. "I have just returned from Rhodes, speaking with an old Telkhinos there, and have wonderful news. I may only have two pieces of the scrolls to recover, and I am nearly certain where those lie. One in the southern continent buried in ice, and the final in the Nine-cities itself among the archives."

"Welcome news indeed, Lord Gregor," said Ampharete softly, her voice weak with the strain of a hard pregnancy. Her eyes remained on his for a suspiciously long time, and Zypheria cleared her throat. Ampharete blinked away tears.

"Let my husband pass, sister."

Gregor smiled at Zypheria. She scared him more than some of his father's ten-battle soldiers. She had a bleed off somebody, nothing obvious, but enough to be able to communicate complex statements—mostly threats—with a single arrangement of the muscles of her face.

She tapped the grip of her sword sticking out over her left hip, and gave him a hostile look that—clear as water—told him: you swim out of turn Rexenor and I'll bugger you so deep with my sword, you will be able to pick your teeth with the tip.

Gregor's eyes widened, and he covered his shock by returning a short bow.  Holy Ocean, these Alkimides are insufferably haughty.  Even their maids and bodyguards think they rule the world—not just the seaborn.

"I have wonderful news as well, Gregor."  Ampharete kicked into a sitting position. "One of my past Wreath-wearers, Eupheron, has examined her from the inside, and tells me she is strong. Not that I needed to hear this from him. She kicks me constantly."

Gregor stared at her, a smile sharpening his mouth at the corners even as it sagged open. "A girl?"

"I'm going to name her Kassandra after Rexenor's greatest lord."

"I am...so happy, Ampharete."

"Don't just float there."  Ampharete waved him over, wincing. "Help me with these."  She grabbed her breasts. "They're so heavy, I'm going to burst. I need you to loosen the bands."  She paddled, turning her back to him, letting the folds of a brocaded coverlet fall to her waist.

He swam up, jaw tightening as his eyes roamed up her bare neck into her rich brown hair. He sucked in water, stuck the book boards under one arm, and slid his hands along her shoulders, his fingers working one of the knots in the bands of cloth.

"Let me hold those. You will need two hands."  She showed him a hint of a smile through her braids, hidden from Zypheria's view.

He nodded distractedly, said, "Yes, milady," and handed the decorated boards over her shoulder.

She recognized them as the covers for the book he was assembling from the scraps of original spell scrolls of the Telkhines. There was nothing but roaming smears of ink on the pages now, but he promised that when all of the scraps came together, they would form into the letters intended by their scribes. He'd disregarded his teacher's advice to give up the search—and even his teacher's teacher—Old Strates Unwinder, a hundred years ago, had thought it foolish to pursue.

A more than accomplished sorcerer, Gregor had known nothing about bookbindery, but learned to sew and had special thread made. He traveled to far off places, ocean corners, to the floors of abysses, unlocking the caves and chambers containing the pages. He fought the guards and two-thousand-year traps placed on the vaults by the Alkimides. He untied complex knots that bound the pages in chambers of ice. The task consumed nearly every hour of his life—the life he poured into the book. They were dead pages, broken leaves rotting in their own magic, waiting for Gregor Rexenor to bind them into something whole and new.

Ampharete wanted to hear his voice, excited about the Telkhines scrolls, the wonder contained in their words, the recipes for power, the processes for creating things no man had seen since the Telkhines reigned over two-thousand years ago.

She glanced at Zypheria and assumed a feigned snobbish ignorance. "What are these?"

"Later."  He leaned close as if one of the knots was giving him trouble, and breathed, "My love."  He straightened, with a worried glance at Zypheria. "Tell me more about our daughter."

He let the bands of silk slide loose a finger's width at a time. "How does that feel?"

"Fine. A little more."

Zypheria kicked in circles like shark, watching every bend of his fingers on Ampharete's skin. He rewrapped the bands and tied them, wishing he had had the forethought to work up a magic knot that only he could untie. Then they would have to invite him back.

Ampharete lifted a hand, gestured to the ancients in her head.  "Anaxareta tells me I ought to name her something else, that Kassandra is an inauspicious name."

He had heard Ampharete speak of this Wreath-wearer before. "Anaxareta, the music teacher?"

Her face tightened, and with a look at Zypheria, she said, "Queen Anaxareta of Alkimides, and a Wreath-wearer. Yes, she taught the lyre and kithara and song, and she ruled the Great City and all the seaborn for eighty years."

"Do not listen to her."  He shrugged off her rudeness.  He knew she was acting this part for Zypheria.  "I love the name Kassandra."

"It pleases me that you approve," she said, making it sound as if the decision was his. "Eupheron tells me that by the position of my uterus and the growth of the child, it will be at most a month and Kassandra will be ready to come into the sea."

"Kassandra," he breathed. "That is a beautiful name, and she will be as beautiful as her mother."

Zypheria frowned and Ampharete handed him back the end boards to the book with a small smile, thinking that her lover had the most brilliant bluish-green eyes she had ever seen, the color of island shallows in the south, which led her to wonder if her daughter would have the same eyes.

Gregor showed her the binding he had made, end boards of thick woody gorgonia woven, pressed and covered. He traced the reverse crescent shape in the cover's center, symbol of the Telkhines royal house in gold with the points down.

At the first pause in his demonstration of the book's binding and the power he had embedded to hold the different lengths of the original scrolls, Zypheria interrupted and ushered him out of the room.

Gregor summoned enough courage at the door to say, "My love, I will return before Kassandra's birth with the means to protect you forever from your father's murdering hands. The throne is yours, Lady Ampharete."

"No. Please, Lord Gregor. You cannot leave until Kassandra is born. Then pursue the book."

He looked hurt, torn between two forces that would tear him apart. He bowed his head. "Very well, milady. I will wait for Kassandra's birth to pursue the book—your book."  He paused, and had to push against the door to keep Zypheria from closing it.  "I long to see what the pages will contain—as do my mother and father, but you know I am building the Telkhines book for you."  Gregor bowed low to her. He gave her one more smile before he slipped away, and Ampharete cupped it in her memories like a delicate coral bloom.

She whispered bitterly, "I know you are, my love."

A month later, hours after Kassandra's birth, Gregor Lord Rexenor left his home with the end boards and all of the pages he had accumulated, heading south on Barenis, soaring in the deep welling off the western slopes of the Atlantic range.

Elizabeth Shoaler brushed the hair from her eyes and smiled down into her baby boy's face, saying in a soothing voice, "There's a whole big exciting world under the waves, Alexander."

She bent lower, their noses touching, her voice going childish and musical.

"Yes there is."

He giggled, squinting against the feeling's intensity, her hair tickling his throat and ears. He twirled away from his mother.

She let go of his waist and Alexander, two years old, baggy blue swimming shorts whipping in the wind off the ocean, stumbled forward. He jabbed his hands into the sky and eagerly grabbed her fingers. He didn't need to look up. He knew she would always be there. He pressed his feet into shifting lumps of sand, uncertainly at first, lifting them one by one, nearly dancing, and then he settled into a wider, solid stance that shaped his little body into an X, feet apart, arms over his head, his fists clenched, his left one around his mother's thumb, right circling two of her fingers.

Alexander made a happy cooing noise, ending in a squeaky edge of a laugh that he swallowed along with a gust of cold salt air off the Atlantic Ocean. His whole body shivered, delighted at the wind's pressure against his face, stunned by the thump of cold breath in his lungs. He heard the rhythmic crashing of the waves, watched bits of dried seaweed skipping along the sand and then lifted his eyes to the hard dark line at the edge of the world.

Elizabeth Shoaler looked up at the ocean. While her son faced away, toward the Atlantic, she let the tears flow from her eyes, dam up against the inside of her glasses, and run down her cheeks. Her long hair shuddered over her face, but she kept any noises of her pain inside.

Alexander had his father's hazel eyes, and they caught the sun with shifting hints of other colors. The thick red hair and freckles were from his mother's side of the family.

Elizabeth cried and watched the waves folding over the sand, whispering words while Alexander, face into the sea wind, with his mother's fingers tight in his own, felt a two-year-old's invincibility.

By a dim light he dared to conjure, Gregor Rexenor sewed the final page into the book. His fingers trembled as they released the unmarked, papery skin. The page jumped forward on its own and snapped into the binding like iron to a magnet.

The book, now complete, returned to life.

The dull glowing point over Gregor's head, an inch from the cave's rough ceiling, flared and went out, leaving him alone with the book in the lightless depths of the ocean. His seadragon, Barenis, liked open water. He had soared to the massif's height on her back, and she had gone off for prey as soon as Gregor was comfortable with the safety of the cave.

The book of unevenly cut pages, about as thick, knuckle to knuckle, as the edge of his fist, was alive, bound in the end-boards he had created.

The pages seemed to know what he had been attempting. They had guided him for months, in dreams and hints of whispers, telling him where it thought the other pages were hidden.  There was life—at least one—bound into the book with the pages.  He didn't know it was part of the book, part of a single page he happened to have gathered, or if it lived in all of the pages at once, pieces of it scattered over the world.

The dark of the cave made the open ocean slightly less dark.  Gregor's gaze darted to a shadow that crossed the edge of his vision, and drew him warily from the book.

He kicked beyond the cave's mouth, trying to focus on anything moving. There was little. He felt the ocean's current on his skin. A blacker smudge of motion far enough to be blocked out by a finger's width, drifted down in the fluid space that was not quite as black, and could have been anything, Barenis returning, a whale diving, a sinking bundle of debris from a ship's passing, the giant many-fingered fist of a kelp holdfast wrenched free by a storm's surge. He stared at it, noting the direction, south toward the Nine-cities. He also noted that the great city was far enough south that the glow of its cycling lights did not add the slightest edge of contrast to the horizon.

He still didn't feel safe here.

Gregor had just come from the Nine-cities on Barenis' back, clutching her shoulders between her two massive wing-like fins.   Dragons were fast, and very few among the seaborn even knew how to treat them.  The chances of someone following him weren't high.

He returned to the book.

It had been ripped apart two thousand years ago by the Alkimides and scattered secretly in various prisons and chambers and grottos, and at various depths and temperatures throughout the world's oceans. The final page had been guarded in the king's archives, but Gregor had managed to steal it from under Tharsaleos' murdering nose.

Where he floated at the cave's mouth, the ocean was only a thousand fathoms. The Nauson Massif towered over the seismically unsteady sea floor. From his distance and with the sea's darkness, the bottom looked like fertile fields deeply ploughed at odd angles surrounded by hundreds of giant slumping dark-cloaked hunchbacks.

Suspicious and only slightly comforted by distance, Gregor turned back to his book. Before he passed into the blacker wedge of the tunnel in the side of the Nauson Massif, he looked back at the small dark shape one more time.

Gregor drifted a foot off the floor, pulling the book upright against the rock wall, nestling it in the corrugations of a deepsea sponge cluster. He curled one hand into a claw, held over his head almost to the cave's ceiling, and then poked and bent his fingers in small whirling motions. Where his fingers drew patterns, a green light flared, brighter and more daring than the last, coiling and combining into a pulsing ball of light, enough to read by.

The spot of motion against the ocean's steady background worried him again, enough to draw his gaze back twice, but not quite enough for a full sweep of apprehension. "Focus," he said to himself. He forced himself to look at the book.

Gregor's fingertips glided over the cover, curled around the top edge and pulled it open. It swung freely and the pages fanned out, pale and dead under the green glow, but he could feel life in them. The edges seemed to swell with the surrounding water, expectantly, urging him to flip through them. He pulled the first page over, looking for any sign of letters or pictures. Nothing appeared. He flipped more pages, one at a time, and then picked through ten or twenty in a clump. Nothing. Every one was blank, even though writing had appeared on them, still and bold, when he had found some of them.

What is your name? The voice came from the binding, slow and bubbling, with the demanding tone of the tides.

Gregor's hands shot away from the book. He kicked away, backing into the cave's opposite wall, scraping his head. He hadn't expected the book to speak to him directly. All he'd heard from it so far were whispers that died when he tried to listen for more, and dreams, long wearying dreams of faraway places and strange depths.

He did not answer at once and the book continued asking questions and making assertions, like a man emerging from a long sleep into a strange world.

What is this place?  The book answered its own question before Gregor could. We are in the sea. You are seaborn. I can feel the curse on you from here. Move closer. Place your hand on the open page.

Gregor cleared his throat, straightened his spine, and moved toward the book. "I am Lord Gregor of House—"

A Rexenor. I might have known. House Rexenor, disreputable, unworthy, but powerful and clever in your own right. The tone of its voice turned milder. Only one of House Telkhines may discover everything on these pages. But you are the re-maker. I will give you a chance to learn something.

With that, the pages flipped to the center of the book and letters spiraled over the flat surface, flowing into adjoining pages like patterned black shapes on the surface of floodwaters. Letters he recognized, Hellene, in an ancient hand with a few unusual abbreviations and elisions. He bent closer to read it.

Patience, said the book. I must find a Telkhinos, the nearest, and most pure.

It had been more than two thousand years since the book had been whole and it had trouble remembering exactly how the correct forms went. There had always been a Telkhinos present and nearby, very close. This was new. The reader wasn't from the proper bloodline. It sensed no close member of House Telkhines, the masters who had created the book in the first place. The re-maker was a Rexenor. At least he wasn't an Alkimedes, the usurpers. Nothing for them. The book snorted in contempt and got down to business.

It sent out its thought, first like the octopus, in eight directions, then dividing each segment in two, then again, the sensing tendrils reached far and deep, seeking the nearest man or woman with Telkhines blood.

Elizabeth Shoaler stood and walked Alexander toward the waves. He bounced over the cold shiny flats, his freckly skin coated with wet sand.

"Let's go feel the water."  Said Elizabeth excitedly. "Do you want to get your feet wet?"

His hands in hers, Alexander stepped into the cold folds at the ocean's edge. He went in further, up to his knees, and stopped.

He shivered, not yet understanding the source of the sensation of cold. He looked down at the foam rushing around his legs, his toes and heels sinking deeper into the sand as the ocean sucked the wave back and elliptic motes formed around his feet. The water felt cold and reassuring. Like his mother's hands, Alexander could reach out for the sea and it would always be there to accept him.

The book sent more of its power down sixteen of the sense paths toward the northwest. It felt something, faint and unusual. The tendrils lengthening into the east had met land, a few small spikes rising from the floor, the Azores, then they were past, but soon slammed up against the coast of Portugal, north Africa, parts of Spain, just fingering their way through the straits between the two continents. Directly south the book touched the pentagonal walls of the Great City, but found only traces of the bloodline it sought, so diluted that it would rather trust the Rexenor lord—and there were too many from the dreaded House Alkimedes.

West and south the tendrils struck more land, Brazil, islands in the Caribbean Sea, and further up, the American coast. It was through the sixteen in the American northeast that the book directed most of its power, pulling all the others back in, except for the few that still tried to reach home, the isle of Rhodes.

The book found a child first, along the coast of the western continent, a direct descendent of the Telkhines royal house. The forms had been met, even if the process had been lengthy and unusual. As long as there was a Telkhinos lord in the ocean, it could proceed.

Until I learn more about you and your motives, Lord Gregor, I will only allow you to see two pages, this one and its face. Nothing more.

"That is well."  Gregor scanned the first page with a title that puzzled him, oikouria, a long list of what looked like attacks using a novel combining of light and sound, a form he had never before seen. He slid his finger down the page, picking one at random, read and memorized the song that fused the two forces and the gesture that triggered it. He sang the words aloud and felt a shiver in the water around him. Then he turned the book off—pulled a cord that loosened the binding enough to separate the sheets. He didn't know what it was capable of, and certainly wasn't going to leave it alone while he tested the attack.

He had never felt more fragile, never before carried around this much force.  It frightened him.  A thin squeak like escaping pressure burned in his ears. He paused, hoping that the power of the spell had been contained, and then he concentrated on holding the trigger gesture in the front of his mind.

Afraid to release it in the cave, he turned and nearly impaled himself on the tip of a spear.

"Do not move or make a noise, Rexenor. I'll cut your throat in one motion, and the rest of your head in another."

Gregor held his hands out, fingers spread. He clamped his mouth shut, and the soldier motioned him to swim forward from the cave. Seven other soldiers kicked up, three with swords, the rest with short black spears with curved blades for heads.

The first soldier signaled and two swords replaced his spear at Gregor's throat, and then he entered the cave and returned with the book, closed, under one arm.

"I am Epandros of Dosianax, one of the King's Oktoloi. You are a Rexenor thief."

Gregor smiled sadly, but kept his head and throat still against the sword blades. "Better than a Dosianax butcher."

He snapped the fingers on his right hand in a popping rhythm and pointed with three fingers toward Epandros, sweeping his hand around to include the other seven.

A blast of heat and light, the instant appearance of a volcano's core, hit them all, throwing them like seaweed in the surge, legs snapping, arms whipping in the current like ribbons. One of the sword blades at Gregor's throat, not under the control of the soldier who held it, snapped up, cutting into his jaw and ear. The blast caught Gregor in the chest and tossed him against the mountainside. He slid down past the cave entrance and landed headfirst, then hard on his back. Blood oozed from the wound along his jaw, ribboning past his face. He struggled to keep his eyes open.

The Oktoloi crawled into formation, approaching the Rexenor cautiously, most of them badly wounded, legs broken, arms dislocated. Only two of them managed to retrieve a weapon, one spear and one sword.

Breathing hard, Epandros, held up a hand. "I must know your name. Your knowledge of song and the fire astounds me. If I am to be defeated, you must tell me your name, and if you care, the means by which you will ruin us."

A chuckle broke from Gregor's lips, blood oozed between his teeth, and he spat. "That, my Dosianax friend, was the slightest of tricks."  It suddenly struck him that the page's title, oikouria, referred to toys—things to play with in the house.

Gregor's voice halted, and then came in hoarse gasps. His eyes closed, but he smiled. "A Telkhinos sorcerer..."  He coughed, his throat burning. "Of eleven years would have known how to throw it safely. A child!"  He laughed weakly. "They truly were the lords of the sea, those damn Telkhines."  Gregor's voice drifted off and he sagged against the stone lip of the cave entrance.

Epandros waited for another attack, counting the seconds, and then dragged his body, one leg broken, through the water to a high ledge where the blast had tossed the book.

At a command from Epandros, the rest of the Eight, the king's most loyal guard, crawled or were dragged to a safer position on the ridge before the cave. They helped each other splint broken arms and bandage open wounds. Two of them had slipped into unconsciousness after Gregor.

Minutes later, King Tharsaleos swung over the saddle of a killer whale and kicked up to his guards, a sword in one hand. The demon, Ochleros, soared up after Tharsaleos and stalked the ledge looking for fresh attackers.

Tharsaleos pulled the book from Epandros' hands, kicked upright, and flipped through the blank pages, stopping on the two that he could read. His eyes widened and a slow smile appeared on his face.

"It is unfortunate that you witnessed this, Epandros, and all of my loyal guards," he said and ordered Ochleros to bring them into the City secretly, directly to his guest chambers.

In two days, the Eight were dead, poisoned by King Tharsaleos, and Ochleros, trusting the seaborn ruler, followed him into a tunnel where Tharsaleos used the last of the remaining Telkhines slavery bindings for the Diamones Thalassoi, clamping it around the demon's muscular arm, and forcing him to the king's will.

Chapter 17 - Gifts from the Sea

A cold white moon over coastal New Hampshire, over the house at the edge of Little Boars Head. Light like a thin coating of silvery ash, except in the shadows of tall pines across the yard—fingers and splatters of dark staining the grass, soft wet black against the old stone foundation, a paler night-wash up the clapboard walls.

The curtains in the house were all drawn, dim light coming from two of the upstairs rooms; all of the windows along the ground floor were cool and moon pale, catching the glow off the Atlantic.

A brush of ocean wind against the clapboards, a loose pane click in an attic window, and a feather sweep of air and deep sleep breathing down dark halls of plaster and hardwood, long silent minutes broken by creaking timber, the bones of the house restless behind the walls.

"Kassandra!" Jill shrieked from her bedroom, repeating her name, panic building in her voice, and then a long choppy scream.

Jill's door came off its hinges, splinters of wood flying, twisting squeal of metal, popping woodscrews, and Kassandra stood in the doorway, breathing hard, the air blurring wet around her, a sword in her hand. She took in the room, bed unmade, blankets on the floor, windows shut tight, too much pale pink for any room—or any sensible person—the walls, the curtains, the furniture, all shades of pink. And Jill floating seven feet in the air, screaming, her hands flat against the ceiling, her toes curled, kicking the plaster.

Kassandra dropped the sword, jumped, caught the edge of the bed with one foot and kicked to the ceiling to grab Jill. "Shhh. I am here. There's nothing to fear."  Standing on empty air—air moist with the Atlantic that came in with her, Kassandra took Jill's hands, gripping them tight, and led her down to the floor. "You okay?"

Jill nodded, wiping tears on her arm, shuddering as she looked down at her feet planted on the rug. "I don't know what happened."

Kassandra moved Jill's hair off her face, guiding it over her shoulder, a few loose strands of blond behind her ear. "You have my bleeds. You need a teacher is what happened."

Gregor stepped into the room behind them, his voice accusing, and at the same time sad. "What have you done?"

Kassandra spun, her expression souring. She sighed. "Not you, too?"

He looked at her silently for a moment. "Who else is asking?"

She folded her arms, glanced over at Nicole, Zypheria and Michael now standing in the doorway, and then let her gaze settle on her father, caught his eyes, and wouldn't let him go. She felt the tug of his will, sharpened one corner of her mouth to show him that it was futile.

She nodded to Nicole. "We're fine. Just a little misunderstanding. Go back to bed."

Then turning back to her father, Everyone in my head—they believe I've made a terrible mistake in sharing my bleeds with my sisters. Not a mistake in the reproduction of who I am among Jill and Nicole, but that the price was too high.

Was?  What price?

Was. It is done. You don't want to know the price. There is no going back, done the day my sisters took the sea inside them. You were there, father, and now you know what I did. They will need it. They deserve it.

Gregor stared at her, thoughtful, tension in the muscles around his mouth. You couldn't have just left them out of this?  Out of our struggles?

They are my sisters.

I am their father.

A twitch in Kassandra's face at the surprise of being left out. And mine.

They need one more than you do.

She shook her head, lost, whispered, No more than I do. She clenched her teeth. She was shaking and hated herself for it. And they can handle it. It is you I worry about. Your life that I cannot allow to be broken...any more than it already is.

There were tears suddenly running down his cheeks, rolling along his jaw line, off the end of his chin. Not the king's prison, madness of the lithotombs, not the torture, not the slavery. I broke the day your mother died. I just didn't know.

Ampharete... Kassandra shook her head. She will tell you that story herself. I promise. She reached out and caught a tear falling off his chin. It floated through the air, captured in the space between her open hands. The air hardened, flickered with mirror light, and Kassandra closed her fingers around a solid block of crystal, the tear frozen in its core.

She looked deeper into his broken soul, and it was as if she could get through the front door, into the lobby, but no further. There were walls around nearly everything in him, and where there were doors, there were vault doors—something King Tharsaleos had done so many years ago when the seaborn ruler had a young Rexenor lord in his prisons. She tried the locks, tried her fists on the walls. Nothing got through, not even a dull booming that would tell her there was something—even empty space—on the other side. It sounded as if he—or the king—had cemented in the rooms of his soul.

Kassandra backed up, and caught his attention.

Maybe it's time you knew something of my plans, father. My army of the dead—three thousand strong—is at this moment digging, tunneling through the sand across the plain before the Nine-Cities. They will emerge when I call them. I will break the King's Protection and take the city when I have the opportunity, I will form the full assembly. The seaborn need a new ruler. You are part of my plans. You are Lord of Rexenor. I guard this house—my servants, my ocean, my sea air and spray, my storm in the trees. I protect you from the king's lies, long lies. Tharsaleos has spread them ocean-wide, telling our world—and in particular—the Kirkêlatides that it was you who killed the King's eight so long ago, that you killed the war-bard Theoxena's husband, Epandros. The descendants of the great Kirkê seek you, to break you all the way, take your life, take away everything you hold dear.

Resignation dropped into his eyes. And she—Theoxena—wants me dead.

They. The mother and her daughter, Nikasia, are between bleeds.

I am already lost Kassandra. Better to spend your energy trying to rescue mysister.

Her shoulders dropped. I have tried to bring Phaidra home. And twice failed. Even I am afraid of some things in the sea. Tharsaleos has summoned something, set it to guard Phaidra's lithotomb. She gave him a curt nod. I will find a way, father.

More promises?  All plans cannot succeed, daughter, even for you.

Her breath caught behind her teeth—teeth that felt sharp in her mouth, a warm metal taste on her tongue. Rage hurling through her insides, lancing down her legs, up her arms, a pit of chaos and destruction that wanted to swallow her whole.

She kept her expression blank, dropped the crystal with his tear, and it shattered on the floor. It took her a moment to get it under control, and then she nodded. Even for me, dad, you're right. Plans change. She glanced over her shoulder at Jill, sitting on the edge of her bed, staring up at her, and then back to Gregor. This new turn with my sisters coming into my—their bleeds has forced me to move sooner than I'd planned. She leaned into him with her will, stopped the breath in his lungs. His feet came off the floor, rising in the air, his arms stiff at his sides. I am the Sea, father—Gregor Lord Rexenor. I do not accept the promises of men without security, without something in return. But you are my father, my blood, soul-sharer. I love you, and I count on you. You will promise your loyalty to me, your vote against Tharsaleos, your steady rule of House Rexenor, and in turn I will grant you a wish sooner than I had planned—the one thing you desire more than your own life.  Do you understand me?  Choose well. My gifts are bitter as they are sweet, but you will have your wish.

She released him, dropped him to his feet, and he gasped, "Yes. I understand."  Rubbing his throat. "I promise."

Very good.

Morning light shot through the blinds above the stairs, and a woman's voice came down the hall from Kassandra's dark bedroom. It even sounded like Kassandra.

"Jillian?  Nicole?"

"What's up?"  Nicole climbed the stairs from the kitchen with a glass of orange juice. Jill came straight from her room.

"Come in," said the voice. "And lock the door behind you."

Jill shrugged, looking at Nicole who paused to scowl, suspicion creeping into her expression. She whispered, "I'll go first."  She put a finger to her lips, set the glass down, and mouthed the words, "Watch this."

Nicole's eyelids fluttered closed. She held out her fist, loose, curling around a thick column of air. A moment later, she held her sword, summoned from her room. With a nod to Jill, Nicole turned the knob and shoved the door in, jumping into the dim space, sword ready.

A blur of people in motion, Nicole threw her left fist out, felt her wrist connect, bend painfully, blocked by someone. Then her feet whipped out from under her, the sword flying from her hand, the tip punching into the ceiling, driving six inches, thrumming in the stiff plaster. Nicole was on her back, a bony forearm against her throat, and looming over her, a woman with three long gray braids and ice-blue eyes glaring back.

"Get off her, Andromache," said a woman who sounded—and even looked a little like Kassandra.

Queen Andromache gave Nicole a competitor's grin, leaned back on her heels and stood, holding out one hand to help her to her feet. Nicole took it, staring at the great warrior queen who had passed the Wreath of Poseidon on to her son hundreds of years before, passed into it, and then her body had died.

And she stood, alive, real, in the middle of Kassandra's bedroom along with King Praxinos and a shadowy young man in the corner.

Jill moved against Nicole, back to back, uneasy in the presence of the seaborn rulers—especially ones who had died a long time ago. She stared at the woman who had called them to Kassandra's dark bedroom. "Lady Ampharete?"

The woman bowed slightly and waved a hand around the room. "Ladies, let me introduce you to Queen Andromache, King Praxinos, King Eupheron..."  Her voice broke before she finished saying his name.

Praxinos reached out a finger and poked Eupheron in the shoulder as if testing the possibility that he was an illusion. Eupheron stood in the shadows, a young dark-haired man, death-pale, eyes a vivid metallic greenish gold, rows of armor-like fish scales up one of his arms.

Praxinos shook his head. "Why are you so young?  You look no older than twenty."

"Isn't it obvious?"  Eupheron shrugged, raised an eyebrow, an amused smile as he stared down at his own body. "I'm her favorite, old man. Always have been."

"And I was the first to wake."

Andromache curled one hand into a fist. "And I can kill both of you with my bare hands, even at my death-age, seventy-eight years."

There was a moment of silent thought over that, the others studying Andromache, and then they nodded, no dispute there—and at the fact that it wouldn't make a bit of difference in any of their ages.

"She has her reasons," said Ampharete.

The past Wreath-wearers turned to look at the other side of the room. Jill and Nicole followed their gazes.

Tremors running through her body, skin cloud white, Kassandra sat on the floor in her bedroom, legs crossed, back against the wall to prop her up. Her eyes were closed, arms heavy, limp in her lap. She took in long shuddery breaths—almost sobbing, her neck twitching with some inner strain; the back of head thumped against the wall.

Three thin gold circlets lay on the floor between her knees.

Nicole pointed at Ampharete and commanded, "What is Kassandra doing?"

"My daughter has brought four of us out of the Wreath, back into the real world for a short time."  Ampharete paused with a hard swallow. "We are gifts from the Sea."

"What kind of gifts?"  Jill and Nicole both scowled.

Ampharete picked up the gold circlets, three of them, looping two through her arm, and placed the first on Nicole's head. Jill's circlet was a little more ornate than Nicole's simple ring, more like a crown of sunny gold points every few inches. The third, Ampharete held up, kissed gently as she unlocked the door, and walked out of the room.

When Nicole and Jill turned, they were alone with Kassandra on the floor, cross-legged, deep in her state of concentration, sobbing. Both of them flinched, eyes going wide.

"Oh, shit," said Nicole, turning to Jill. "I have Queen Andromache and King Praxinos in my head."  She reached through her hair. The ring of gold had vanished, leaving its weight, a sense that it was still there, but without being seen.

Jill squeezed her eyes closed, rubbed them as if they stung, and opened them. Then she laughed suddenly. "I have dear rude, funny, shameless Eupheron inside mine."

They followed Ampharete a minute later, leaving Kassandra behind. Michael was helping Gregor to his feet in the kitchen, a shattered glass and water across the floor. "Don't worry about it, Greg. I'll clean up. You have more important things to do."

Ampharete pulled from a hug with Zypheria, and turned to see Nicole and Jill coming downstairs. She stepped carefully to face them, bowed her head, pressed her hands palm to palm, and then spread them. "To the future of House Alkimides."

"Kill the old kings," said Jill with a strange smile on her face, part amused, part cold power and hate.  That was Eupheron's influence, laughing the last line of the Alkimides war cry, which referred to killing the Telkhines—the old kings, and the fact that Eupheron was half Telkhines made it all so funny to him.

Nicole glanced at Jill, but merely nodded her head gravely at Ampharete and the others.

Gregor couldn't find his voice, staring at his wife, the woman he had lost over twenty years before, looking no older than the day he had swept out of the Rexenor fortress on the dragon, Barenis. She smiled, nodded nobly, and held out her hand.

"Walk with me Gregor. I want to see the sun set and rise. The Sea has given me a final night and morning with you in a world I have never seen with my own eyes."  She looked through the big glass backdoor and took his hand, pulling him. "The surface."

Chapter 18 - Mirrors

The pale woman climbed out of the pool in the grotto under Kassandra's house, coughing up water. She bent to her knees, all the way forward, her three long white braids falling in loops across the floor. She let the last of the ocean spill over her lips, and sat up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, a smear of silver running from her wrist along her thumb. Then she straightened, looked over her shoulder, and waved for a boy about twelve years old to follow her.

The boy pulled off his helmet, pearlescent blue with a smooth center ridge—like a roll of the sea. His hair was abyss black, forty small tight braids looped and woven together so that they all met and fell down the center of his back. His hand went to his throat, pulled on the first three clips of his armor, a short hauberk of scaly blue plates. He stood up, water running off him, and unfastened a sword held by rings in the armor along his back. He stepped and hopped across stone floor, and leaned his sword against the wall, stood on tiptoes, and dropped heavily on his heels, then squatted, trying to get used to moving in the Thin.

The pale woman wore black, tight longsleeves and leggings, her hands and bare feet glowing, dark veins standing out, a web of tree roots running through the world of her cold white skin. Her eyes were nearly colorless, the softest gray irises, her gaze roaming the grotto for something, and widened with pleasure when they found it: a small brown card taped to a sea-swirl of gold framed oval mirror.

It was an invitation to the party with her name in a stylized girl's handwriting, blood red ink, the "i" dotted with a dripping gothy "X" and a very polite—bordering on formal—request to bring any guest she desired.

She stared into the mirror, swung her braids over her shoulders so that the seawater ran down her back. Then pulled out a lip pencil, smooth metallic white, and drew a row of jagged teeth along her lower lip, puckered to see how they looked.

"I am twenty-four years old, and I am dead."

The boy looked up at her, one side of his mouth lifting, his tone making it clear that he was amused. "You look positively frightening, Aunt Corina."

She smiled, her mouth a scary stretch of penciled triangular shark teeth. "All set then. This way, Thennas. The Sea has invited us to the party."

The world of cool clean fresh water was without light.

"When's dinner time?" said a scratchy woman's voice with a laugh that thinned and staccatoed into a cackle. She knew it would annoy her sisters, even enjoyed knowing it.

"Shut up, Olivia."

"She can ask, Lim," said a third voice with infinite patience—a woman's voice that came from the water spilling from the shower pipe in the upstairs bathroom, a thumb-thick pipe sticking out of the tiles, threads of flaking chrome and the white remains of plumber's tape at the end. The shower head had been unscrewed and sat on the ledge next to the bathtub.

"Once, twice, but eleven times?"

"Well, you're counting, so that shows—"

"I'm counting so I know how many bones to break."

"Doesn't mean you need to answer."

"Doesn't mean I need to be civil. Let's get out of here."

The three naiads landed on their feet in the bathtub with a splash and a roll of heel stomping thuds.

Limnoria stepped out first, almost slipped off her feet on the tiles, but caught herself with the towel rack, snapping it off the wall when she put too much weight on it. A row of turquoise hand towels slid to the floor in a stiff folded heap.

"Carp shit."

Helodes stepped out next to her sister, sighed, and smoothed the water out of her long black gown, shimmery obsidian folds that swirled around her, hiding her feet. She was tall, pale arms bare to her shoulders, her black hair like marsh reeds planted and growing in ink, fell in knotty bundles past her shoulders.

Olivia leaned against the back wall of tiles, folded her arms, taking in the soft blues and greens of the bathroom. She opened her mouth, smiled with rows of pointed white teeth. "Hey, there's something taped to the mirror. Is it the menu?"

Limnoria raised the towel rack like a club.

Helodes caught Limnoria's wrist, and leaned over the sink to peel the card off the mirror, their names written in long flowing rivers of letters that bled green off the bottom edge. "It's our invitation. Let's go downstairs. Haven't seen the girls in ages."

Limnoria picked up the hand towels. "They're not girls. Haven't been for a while."

Helodes nodded sadly.

Olivia ran her tongue over her teeth. "What about that delightful man, tall, tasty, with glasses, Henderson?  He's still here?"

Helodes turned with a stern look. "He's marrying Zypheria—and you don't want to cross an Alkimides—not without a deathwish."  She reached out, slid her fingers under Olivia's chin, and closed her mouth for her. "They grant them."

Alex Shoaler squeezed Kaffia's hand, her slender brown fingers looped through his, playing the Marche au supplice bass lines, fingertips rolling through a comfortable rhythmic pressure in his palm.   That she'd dug up Berlioz to play in her head meant she was nervous.  He looked through the trees at the second floor windows of Kassandra's house.   She had plenty to be nervous about.  He'll, he was nervous, too.  "This place has always creeped my out. Love it. It's beautiful and scary at the same time. Like something out of a Beksinski painting."

Kaffia laughed, but it was serious. "You were afraid of me before we met."

"Yeah."  He turned to look into her eyes. "But you're from this world—and I have met them."

Kaffia thought about that, reached out and ran her hand through his hair, gliding over the stubble at the back, and then down his neck, her skin a soft electric warmth against his. He was always cold. "Why does that matter?"

"They're from the sea."

She shook her head. "Nebraska."

They reached the front door, and she grabbed his hand before he rang the bell, leaned in, kissed him, and with her nose touching his, fingers still dancing in the palm of his hand, she whispered, "I checked them out. They're fine. Snagged Kassandra's medical records from a hospital in Nebraska. She's a total freak—I always thought so in school. Her mother's dead, father vanished before she was a year old, and then reappeared—out of nowhere—over a decade later. Jillian Crosse, born in Lincoln, Nebraska, her family died in a house fire. She was at a friend's, a sleepover, orphaned at seven years old. Nicole Garcia, originally from California, parents were journalists, both dead—possibly murdered, but unsolved. Grew up...guess where?"

"Nebraska?"

She leaned away. "We have a winner."

Her breath caught in her throat and her fingers went still. A rectangular mirror in a swirling-of-storm-waves iron frame floated in the air over Alex's shoulder. He tensed and spun to see what had distracted Kaffia, reached out, slipped his hands around the mirror, gently at first as if he wasn't certain it was real, as if expecting his fingers to ghost right through it. Then a tight grip as it came loose from whatever had been holding it in mid-air.

He tilted it back. "It's heavy. I don't think it's glass. Maybe polished metal."

Kaffia peeled off a small brown card taped to the center of the mirror, frowning at a line of handwritten letters and numbers,

V2VsY29tZSBLYWZmaWEgYW5kIEFsZXgh

Alex leaned in. "What's it say?"

"Encoded."  Kaffia laughed again, lighter this time, pleasantly surprised. "It's base 64. Not very long. Give me a sec."  She stared at it, moving left to right, making little nodding motions every few seconds. "It reads, 'Welcome Kaffia and Alex' with an exclamation point at the end."

Alex tucked the mirror under his arm. "Interesting."

Kaffia rang the doorbell. "Okay, I'm starting to warm to the sea witches from Nebraska."

The kitchen was busy, mounds of flour and butter, armies of lobsters, walls of boxed foods, a castle of party preparations. Along the far counter, an armory of flatware, neat turrets of stacked china, wine glasses, and in the center of it all, steam from an open oven and two women in ball gowns fighting over a large baking pan with forty dinner rolls.

One pulled out the pan, shoved in the rack. "I already have the hot pads."

"Agatha, I'm wearing oven mitts."  Parresia held up her hands, kitchen surgeon fashion, mitted in a pattern of orange sea stars. She wiggled her thumbs, and then curled her right into a fist, pulled it back to throw it.

"No matter," said the first, sliding the pan onto the stove top. "It's easier done without you, dear sister. You're a menace in the kitchen."

"You're a menace in the world."

"Lamprey."

"Toad."

A white-haired man in a button down shirt and a bright gold bowtie stood off to one side, completely absorbed in the job of getting every smear of cream cheese off its foil wrapper, whispering to himself, "infuriating. What possessed them to package it like this?"  He had an array of tools on the counter in front of him, a butter knife, toothpicks, neat squares of wax paper. He held up the foil casing in the light, and even looked as if he was considering licking it clean.

The pale woman and the young man in his dripping armor reached the top of the stairs that led under the house to the grotto, paused and looked around as if expecting someone to greet them. Corina cleared her throat, waited for a reaction, and turned to pass a questioning look to Thennas. He shrugged, a crinkle of scales, and they returned to watching the three in the kitchen, especially the two naiads pummeling each other with kitchenwear in front of a hot stove. One reached for a ladle. The other rolled up a wet dish towel.

Kassandra jumped the last six stairs from the second floor, landing in a crouch and straightening like a gymnast at the edge of the kitchen. "Corina Lairsey and Thennas Lord Ostologos, welcome to New Hampshire."  She grinned at Corina's lip teeth treatment, and for some reason it made her think of the state's motto. "Live free or die."

"Both," said Corina and hugged Kassandra.

Thennas bowed low. "A pleasure and an honor, milady."

Kassandra nodded in return. Then she glanced around to see if the three of them could slip away for a moment, but stopped and pointed at Parresia and Agatha in the kitchen where the mitts had come off and they had found the drawer with the extra-long barbecue tools, skewers and spatulas with heavy wooden grips.

"Don't make me come over there!"

Startled, Agatha and Parresia spun toward Kassandra, and the fracas died with a clatter of metal on the tiles.

"Theupheides!  Enough with the cream cheese. Move on to shelling the lobsters, and can you keep some order in there?"

Kassandra motioned Corina and Thennas through the dining room, through a pantry with glass fronted cabinets to the ceiling, and into a mudroom that looked out to the driveway. She pointed at a chair for Thennas, and grabbed Corina by the shoulders, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Okay, how did it work?  Can you do it for me now?"

The two women stared at each other, lines of struggle in Corina's face, a tight pull around her mouth. Kassandra blinked and they sprang apart, both of them nodding to the other.

Corina pulled around a shoulder bag, unlacing the top, opening a lightless hole in the world. Vapor and cold seawater spilled out of it, splattering across the floor.

"I don't want to...but for you and no other."

Corina reached in, closed her eyes, and pulled out a long knife of bone, its handle wrapped in bright blue silk cord. She flexed her fingers around it, holding it with her thumb against the palm of her hand, then spun it, made a fist starting with her pinky, knuckles going white, and without one word or ceremony, she stabbed the knife right to the grip...into air.

The blade vanished, and fire bubbled around the grip, dripped from the wound. A metal sour smell like ozone filled the room. Thennas sprang to his feet in time to catch Kassandra, her arms folded tight around her middle. Her full weight leaned into him, but no matter how much he pulled, how deep his fingers clawed into her arms, he stumbled to his knees, and couldn't hold her up, lowering her to the floor as gently as he could.

He looked up, panic in his voice. "Corina?"

Kassandra's eyes flew open, genocide in them. She sprang from the floor to her feet, her arms snapping wide, throwing Thennas over his chair, skidding on his back across the mudroom floor. She made fists with her shaking hands, her teeth tight against anger that wanted to uproot continents, sink them under the waves. Her voice came out raw and hoarse. "That hurts me Corina. I feel that blade inside."

Her braids uncoiled, gold and seashells clattering on the hardwood around her feet, rolling away. Her long brown hair gathered into a wave that sloshed along her back, over her shoulders, the color draining out of it in streaks of foamy white. She made a grunting noise, and then a deep growl in the back of her throat like the surf caught in hollow tidal-zone rocks. Without looking at Corina, Kassandra slid her fingers into the fire around the bone knife, and pulled open the wound in reality, opening a hole into another world, a dark underwater world, a dance of light across a sandy floor and a throne made of shells, the bones of whales, the horns of narwhals.

Kassandra turned to Corina, nodding. "That is the throne room of the Sea—the ruler of all the seas. That is my throne. You have made a hole through the wall into another world. Many of the immortals have their own—their very own worlds. She let go of the fire and her trident appeared, sliding through her fingers. It hit the floor with a thud that shook the house.

Jill cleared her throat at the door from the pantry, standing there with Alex Shoaler and Kaffia Lang, both with their mouths open.

There was a second of stunned silence, and Corina jerked the knife from the wound. The fire zipped up and vanished. Kassandra squeezed her eyes closed, and when she opened them the ocean let her go—or she let it go. She opened her hand and the trident faded away, leaving a sledge hammer dent in the wood floor. She stepped right and held out a hand for Thennas. "I'm sorry."

Jill didn't seem the least surprised by anything going on in the mudroom, only a little worried about the changes she saw in her sister. Kassandra wasn't Kassandra without her braids. "What happened to your hair?"

The Sea gave her the briefest chilly look, and then turned her gaze hard on Alex and Kaffia. "How much of that did you see or hear?"

Kaffia opened her mouth wider to say something. Nothing came out. Alex shrugged, nodding, grinning nervously.  He found his voice. "Enough to know where the party is."  He held out the iron-framed mirror. "Here you go. Found this hanging around out front."

Kassandra didn't move, her expression blank, a lot going on internally. She blinked, focusing on the mirror. "That is a gift for Kaffia."  She bowed to the woman with her arm around Alex's waist, her fingers gripping him tight. "A gift from the Sea."  Then she cleared her throat and stepped toward them. "I'm so glad you could make it, Kaffia Lang."  To Alex she said, "Alexander Shoaler. Your mother called. She will be here in half an hour."

She extended an arm behind her. "May I introduce you to Corina Lairsey, a friend of mine from California. And Thennas Lord Ostologos."

Thennas bowed to Kaffia. "I am honored, Kaffia Lang."  And then found himself staring at her. He had never seen anyone with skin so brown. He met her eyes, made his brows jump, when hers dropped to take in what he was wearing, blue scaled armor. He bowed again, then turned to Alex, staring once more because he had never seen anyone with orange hair. "Alexander Shoaler. A pleasure to meet both of you."

Corina stepped forward and shook their hands with a bow of her head. "Nice to meet someone so...alive, so normal," she said to Kaffia, and after taking Alex's hand, "And someone who has had the chance to live normally for his years, but will soon find all that slipping away."  She smiled and showed Alex more of the drawn shark teeth on her lower lip. "I was once from the surface, so I know your world. I was once a student at a university, I can hear the lessons in your soul. I was once alive, I can feel the desire in your heart. I was once anchored to this living world, and now that I am not, I find it...helpful to occasionally glimpse what is over the horizon. Your path leads deep, Alex Shoaler, but I can see that you have taken many steps, even in the dark, even beneath the waves, your direction true without ever being told that there was a path. As someone who has gone before you, you have my sympathy."

Corina Lairsey bowed to Alex, her solemnity killing several moments, threatening more. The air itself died around her, and everyone in the room found it difficult to breathe.

Helodes, Limnoria, and Olivia appeared like fresh air in the doorway behind Jill, smiling practical witches of rivers.

Limnoria jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "A lot more chairs in the living room. There's even a couch."

Olivia showed her real pointed teeth. "And there was a god at the front door, ringing the bell. I told him we weren't interested in whatever he was selling.  But he had a little brown card with his name on it—and he brought food, so I let him in."

All the way in the back, Bachoris smiled hesitantly, waved, holding up a glass casserole dish. "Hello, Kassandra. I brought couscous, a family recipe."

Then he noticed her hair moving like waves over her shoulders, rolling waves of silky brown with thin white streaks like sea foam, reminding him too much of the way Akastê's hair moved. And the way she looked at him, the hunger of an ocean in her eyes, cold and unfeeling and relentless as any tide.

Bachoris dropped the dish.

Chapter 19 - Dining with the Sea

The doorbell rang. Gregor was in the middle of a conversation with Olivia—she'd been banned from dinner preparations by Agatha. He excused himself, set his glass down and made his way to the foyer. Kassandra came bounding over a chair and couch, gazelle-like, crossing the living room in a blur, shoving her father out of the way, and slamming her hand against the front door.

"I'll get it, dad. Please don't answer the door. Please?  For me?"

He backed away, gave her a disappointed look.

Kassandra closed her eyes, then opened them, a blink that lasted a moment too long, testing something in the air. She swung the front door in, bowing her head to a woman with shoulder-length red hair going a little gray. She wore glasses with thin purple frames, and a long gown that started out pale blue at the shoulders, darkening to indigo at her waist, sliding into pure black at the knees.

"Welcome to our home, Elizabeth Shoaler. An honor to have you here. Your son and Kaffia Lang have already arrived."  Kassandra backed away from the doorway after a quick glance up the path to Atlantic Avenue to see if it felt and tasted clear. "Please come in. You know my father, of course."

Gregor held out a box that had appeared in his open hand a second before, bowed his head. "Good to see you again, Elizabeth. Open it."

Elizabeth hesitated, looking up at him for a moment, trying to read his expression, nodded, smiled, and took the box—and inside, a flash of heavy gold, three heart-shaped blocks with wire hooks to bind them together. "A trilithon?  But I can't...Is this...gold?"

Gregor smiled, a genuine response to her surprise and joy. "You can make them of bronze and other types of stone and metal, but gold is the finest."

Elizabeth shook her head, stunned. "I mean. This must have cost a fortune. I cannot take this, Gregor. I'm not seaborn. I can't even use it."

"That's only my half of the gift."  Gregor surprised Kassandra by throwing his arm over her shoulder, pulling her close. She had a feeling that Ampharete had put him up to it, now that she was free of the others and inside her husband's soul. "The girl you waited thirteen years to save from the king?"  He paused for effect, and then released his daughter. "Show Elizabeth who you really are."

Kassandra bowed her head again to Elizabeth, running with her father's—and mother's—impromptu generosity. "We never properly thanked you for risking everything to save many seaborn from a tyrant—and in particular, one girl with a Rexenor father and an Alkimides mother from her own grandfather. I was the Wreath-wearer, if that means anything to you."

Elizabeth nodded. "A little."  Scowling now because she wasn't sure about the past tense.

"I am no longer...just that. When you agreed to take in a seaborn girl, when you heard my mother's call, you saved more than someone with Alkimides blood, more than an heir to the throne you hate."  Kassandra pointed east. "The oceans, all of them?  They are mine, Elizabeth Shoaler. I rule every drop. I rule every shoreline, every molecule of water in the air, the pressure, the depths—every square inch of it."  With that, she twirled the fingers on her left hand and held out her right to grab the shaft of the trident as it slid to the floor with a thud. Her crown flashed lightning, a piece of the sun opened indoors. There were several gasps behind her; she felt Olivia's muscles go tight in fear, and when Kassandra spoke, there was a current like thunder in her voice. "I am the Sea, Elizabeth Shoaler, and I thank you. If you wish to see the world under the waves, I can take you."

Kassandra reached out and took Elizabeth's hand, and then she was inside her soul. Elizabeth tried to pull away, but Kassandra held on, pulled her closer. I want to give you the seaborn curse. I believe your husband is alive, in the lithotombs, a prisoner of the king. I know what house your husband calls his own. I know the secrets you keep. They are safe with me.

Elizabeth wanted to scream, panic clawing through her mind. Her voice came out soft. "Believe?"

Kassandra nodded, let go of Elizabeth's hand to wipe away the woman's tears. We will speak more of this later—of your husband, your son, Alex. Sit by me at the table. I just wanted you to know what you saved when you heard the plea from Lady Ampharete. You saved more than a seaborn girl. You saved the Sea. Kassandra willed her crown and trident away, and then bowed deeply. "I am grateful, Elizabeth Shoaler. Please take the trilithon—even if you don't ever plan to use it."

She walked away, didn't look back, went through the dining room to check the seating arrangements. Bachoris was setting places, a stack of china in one open hand, forks, knives, spoons in the other, a thick folded group of dark blue napkins tucked under his chin.

He nodded when Kassandra glided past the chairs blocking the doorway, lifting his chin enough to drop the napkins neatly on the table. "Dearest?"

She smiled slowly, pulled her long loose waving hair into one thick bundle, held it tight, rolling and shifting slippery in her fists, more like water. "Sorry about this."  She tugged it. "I'm changing, Bachoris."

He looked worried. "Into what...exactly?"

Kassandra shrugged, but he could see the effort she spent on staying calm about it. "Don't know. I thought I was getting the whole ocean goddess thing down, trident, crown, blood flowing like the tides, feeling the torment of every soul lost at sea. Now, I'm sort of getting...I don't know how to describe it. Richer?  Deeper?  Wild, like I don't belong among civilized humans?  This world is getting thinner, and I feel others crowding in on me. I feel expanded, like...I can think in several worlds at once—not sure if that makes any sense. I thought my head was busy when I had three, four, five old Wreath-wearers in here. I went inside this afternoon, and on a whim, woke everyone else up. All of them. A hundred and more. Polemakles on up. Every past king and queen. And you know what?  They aren't half the crowd in my head that the first four were."

She picked up his place card—the little brown card now folded into a tent, and moved it to the other end of the table, smiling over her shoulder at his stunned look. "Gods and goddesses at the heads of the table, Bach. Besides, I want Elizabeth Shoaler to sit on my left. The ladies need to talk. Nicole goes on my right, then Jill next to her."  She straightened Nicole's deep ocean blue card and Jill's sunny yellow card, and then swept around the table, moving guests' little brown cards to suit her mood.

"I love to see you helping out. Sorry about the couscous."

Bachoris gave her a warm smile, setting down the flatware, grabbing the dishes with both hands. "You just surprised me. I'll make it for you again sometime."

She tensed up at the regret she felt in his voice, tasted sour at the doubt in his use of "sometime," as if it was inevitable that their relationship would be short-lived, that he would never have the opportunity to cook for her. She would just have to show him that they could fall in love, and it could last.

She relaxed, let her hair go. "I'd love that."

Coming around the other side of the table, she slid her hands along his arms, her fingers running over the lines of his muscles, down to his wrists, encircling them, squeezing enough to hurt. He set the plates down roughly, dropped them an inch off the table.

Her nails dug into his skin. "I love you."  She let go of him, ducked under his elbow, and came up inside his arms, pulled him into a kiss. "You know that?"

"Certainly." He let out a breath, blinking, returning to this world—or at least to his, with his manners and old fashioned perspective. "Kassandra, I...uh."

She didn't wait for him finish. "Now, I have to be the good party hostess."  And she was gone, dashing off commands in the kitchen before catching Jill and leading her outside along the back walk. Jill had been a little jumpy after Eupheron had moved in.  Lately she seemed distracted, preferring to be alone, hanging out in the study, talking to the king.

Jill gave Kassandra half a weary smile. The other half went to Eupheron in her head.

Jill blinked at he sister.  "How am I going to explain this to Jordan?"

Kassandra opened her mouth to answer, then realized the question wasn't for her.

Eupheron laughed. Don't, my beautiful Jillian. Why do you have to?

"And the next time we're...close?"  She let out an exasperated breath. "You're in my space, like you're attached to me. What happens the next time we're in bed?"

He will be putty in our hands.

"My hands!"

Do not be selfish.

Kassandra leaned against Jill, whispered, "How's Eupheron?"

Jill pulled in a deep breath and took a moment too long letting it out. "I do like him, really, but he can't stay in here."  She tapped the side of her head.

Kassandra caught her eyes. Jill shrank back with a spasm of fear, and then realized her sister was just passing some threat in to Eupheron, something to keep him in line. "He's not going to bother you—you need someone to help you control the bleeds. You need a teacher, and there's no one better."

Jill rolled her eyes. "All he's done so far is give me way too much from his alleged hit book on seaborn sex secrets, and every couple hours he goes off to who knows where in my head, setting up a secret lab or something."

Kassandra sighed. "I told him to tone it down. I'll deal with him if he becomes a problem."

Jill frowned, blinking at Kassandra as if she'd only just found time to get a good look at her. "Do you want me to braid your hair? It's looking a little...wild."

"Please. I feel that wildness—not just in my hair. My skin itches. My vision's weird, like I can focus on more than one thing at a time. Freakier than I've ever been in my life, which is saying a lot." She locked her teeth, breathing hard, riding some internal struggle, and then turned around for Jill, everything back under control. "Is Jordan coming tonight?"

Jill didn't answer at first, her fingers working Kassandra's hair into threes, and then threes again, looping, tightening, pulling an orange elastic ring out of her own hair to tie off the middle braid. Her expression soured. "No. Something came up, a family thing. He's at their house on the Cape."  She tied off the second braid, and looked in through the back door at the naiads in the kitchen, disappointed. "It's okay. He wouldn't fit in here anyway."

"That's not a reason—an excuse."  Kassandra looked over her shoulder, tried to catch Jill's eyes, but she knew better and looked away. "Jilly, If he makes you happy, then he will fit in. As long as he makes you happy, he is welcome."  Jill fiddled with the end of the third braid, started to tear up, and Kassandra twirled and hugged her. "I'm sorry. I'm pushing. I'll stop. Come on. Let's go see what Alex and Kaffia are doing—how they're fitting in with our crowd."  Kassandra gave her a meaningful stare and said, "When we're in the study, lock the door."

Corina and Thennas stood near the basement steps, Thennas sticking his tongue in a glass of a dark brown carbonated drink, a worried look on his face. Kassandra led Jill to the kitchen, stopping next to Kaffia and Alex as Michael and Zypheria showed up with grocery bags and a dozen thick white paper wrapped packages from the fish market, tuna, scallops, clams, squid.

Limnoria and Helodes peeled off the tape spreading out the prizes in their paper, leaning in to sniff.

Limnoria already had a fillet knife in one hand, slicing off a strip of fresh tuna, pushing it into her mouth to savor. "Just beautiful."

Helodes stared at the variety. "Kallista's bre—uh—breath."

Scowling, Limnoria followed her sister's gaze to Thennas. "What's particularly bountiful about Kallista's breath?"

Helodes jutted her chin at The guests. "It's. . .kids present."

"Where?"  Limnoria looked from Helodes to Thennas, shaking her head disappointedly. "They never heard the word breasts before?"  She grabbed her own for emphasis. "Teets, tits, titties, hoots, rack, globes, melons?  Kallista's breasts, sometimes I don't know where your head goes, Hel."

Helodes went pink. Alex laughed and continued on to a serious red. Kaffia, Jill and Kassandra tried to hold in their laughter, shaking their heads. Corina smiled sadly. Thennas swallowed the  soda wrong and went into a coughing fit.

"Come on, Alex. I have something to show you."  Kassandra led them to Gregor's study. "This way."  She pointed at the big leather chair, which Kaffia and Alex immediately squeezed into. Jill closed and locked the door behind them, and leaned against the bookcases, wondering what her sister was up to.

Kassandra handed Alex a wide plastic tray with an inch lip all the way around. He took it with a frown, and a sidelong glance at Kaffia. Then he looked up at the water running off the binding of a thick yellowy brown book with hundreds of uneven pages, Kassandra's long sleeved shirt dark and wet above her elbows.

Kaffia leaned back as the book shuddered and made a humming noise...and opened on its own, the front board swinging away, and the pages fanning out, showing the Telkhines lord everything inside, letters still, fixed on the sheets in ink very black and blood red and blues like tropical shallows, diagrams and animal sketches and neat blocks of writing in several hands.

The room was silent, Alex flipping through the book, holding the thing of his dreams in his hands, the flash of discovery—that it had never been a dream, but somehow real—encouraging him to look deeper, to find answers.

It was Jill who surprised them all, including Kassandra, using a slow careful voice, bowing her head first. "King Eupheron wishes to address you, Alexander Shoaler. He says, kinsman and lord, it gladdens me that you have the chance to open our closed city, to see the Nine-cities once again from our second's walls, and lead our brethren back from Rhodes to their true home in the Atlantic. I hope to see it with these eyes."

They all looked up at Kassandra, Kaffia scowling, Jill wondering what the hell Eupheron had just said, Alex fingering the next page somewhere in the middle of the book, all of it readable.

Jill could see a chapter heading clearly, peri exagoges, and Kassandra said it meant, "On drawing out" and probably had something to do with souls drawn from bodies, probably something for Telkhines youngsters to tackle in their fourth year of study.

"The book, Nastaros, has finally found its master."  Kassandra gave them all a crooked smile, one side of her mouth lifting, scheming, everything going right with her plans in this world. Then she took back the book, closed the cover lovingly, and slipped it into the aquarium. "Soon, Alex, it will be yours to read, to teach to others of your House. Soon. As I am the ruler of all the oceans from their depths to the heavens, I promise you that."

Agatha, the eldest naiad sister, nominally in charge of everything in the kitchen—at least she thought so, cleared her throat, and declared dinner served, beginning with plates of cold seaweed strips with a sweet vinegar dressing.

Kassandra nodded to Agatha seated at the other end of the table next to Bachoris.

The Sea stood up as everyone else took their seats, raised her glass of wine, looked into every set of eyes staring back at her.

Kassandra lowered her head and whispered, "Thank you."  Then she raised her glass higher and spoke up. "Thank you all for honoring our house and table—my court in exile—with your presences and your hard work. Friends, family, loves, and guests all dear to my heart...and many of us were enemies at one time, different kinds of adversary, many levels of rivalry."

"On the one hand..."  She stopped her gaze on Agatha, and let her right hand fall to indicate Nicole and Jill. "Mrs. Vilnious. Years ago, you were our teacher in middle school, the Scourge of any classroom. We loved and hated you for your fairness, your command of the class—and, of course we were whiny, thin-skinned teenagers who thought we were the centers of this world."  She smiled sadly and bowed her head to Agathameria Vilnious who governed the entire length of the Merrimack River, spring to the sea. "You are my teacher. I have learned so much, and you have so much more to teach me. I owe much of my intelligence and any common sense I still possess to you."

She moved on to Corina, pale as a ghost, her white hands folded calmly on the table in front of her. "On the other hand...Corina Lairsey, you have tried to kill me several times. With simple deception, and with armies. You were a pawn of the ostologos, Aleximoros, without a way to assert your will. You gathered your army of the dead and fought the forces of Rexenor—against me. In league with the Erratic One, Akastê, you—"  Kassandra's gaze darted to Bachoris. She felt a stab of anxiety from him, from the other side of the table. His gaze dropped, and he stared at his salad. "Corina, you fed that immortal evil to me, hoping to take my soul from the inside. And you are the most resourceful woman I know, waiting for the time to strike back, holding back when that monster Aleximor was killing, capturing the lives of others, trading your own life away, slowly bringing you closer to death. And you vanquished him, locked him away, using his own power against him."  Kassandra bowed to Corina Lairsey. "Studying your path to triumph, I owe any resourcefulness I possess to you."

Her gaze moved up the table to the naiads.

"Parresia, you led your younger sisters against me. I was a frightened fifteen year old who heard voices in her head, cried demons, I was lost in a world I knew wasn't mine. You were in the employ of my grandfather, the king, and we met by chance."  They both glanced at Olivia with faint mocking smiles. "And we talked, and I was afraid you were going to kill me—the way you looked at me, I still have nightmares, and then I got inside your head and put the fear of the sea in you without really knowing what I was doing. Surprised I didn't kill you. And we both figured out that the king was doing some bad stuff that neither of us liked, and we ended up trusting each other. It is not easy, but I am a more trusting person because of you, Parresia Atania Matronis Potamilla. Thank you."

Kassandra nodded to the naiad with sharp teeth.

"Oh, god, Olivia. I met you before any guest in this room except Agatha—and I had no idea she was a naiad—she was just my really strict teacher. You..." Kassandra laughed. "The moment I saw you... You simply scared the shit out of me, Olivia. You showed your teeth, and I knew I was going to die. You dragged me to the bottom of Red Bear Lake. But in the despair I found my courage to fight you. And I did fight you. I just didn't know I had that kind of courage before we met. Thank you, Olivia."

"Limnoria, you are unstoppable. You worked against me, sent the storm that carried the dream of my father in prison. You broke my hope—and then gave it all back to me—even more, hope for things I didn't know I had. You have given me strength of heart like no one else I have ever met. Thank you."

"Helodes, it's difficult to ever say you were my enemy, but you were with your sisters. I don't know anyone as down-to-earth, unassuming, and at the same time so passionate. I liked you the moment I saw you. When I met you and Parresia, Limnoria, and Olivia in Nebraska, before I knew your names, I immediately knew you were the 'nice one.'  You were the first to smile. You did not frighten me. Just the opposite. You were friendly the moment we met."  Kassandra bowed her head. "Thank you, Helodes. I have friends and passion because of you."

"Theupheides...lover of trains, you're a sweet man who has never wished me ill, never tried to kill me with anything deadlier than incessant chatter and indecision."  Limnoria exchanged a glance with Parresia, a look that made it clear that Kassandra obviously wasn't aware how deadly those two things could be when wielded by a master like their cousin. Theupheides just beamed.

Kassandra took a sip of wine, moving up the table.

"Elizabeth, you hate the Alkimides, but somehow you found a way not to hate me. I know what you aren't, Elizabeth Shoaler. I just don't know what you are. I know some things about you. You are a woman who loved a man so much that all of his enemies became your own, his fight yours, that you willingly gave everything, fought, spent your life, stared hard into the face of two thousand years of war, deception, a deep cultural hate, and—somehow—it's still beyond me—you found some way to accept me, an Alkimides. You walked up to a wall a thousand miles high, and with something you have, I don't know, hope?  Love?  With just that, you found a way through. You are not a naiad, not seaborn, you have no bleed, no power that I can detect. And somehow you are more magical than all of us put together."

Alex was staring at his mother, but quickly turned to face Kassandra.

"Alex, I won't say much, just that we are enemies and we don't even know it. Let's show our world that old—even ancient—enemies can once again become friends."  Kassandra set down her glass and bowed low to him.

Then she moved on.

"Kaffia, I'm not sure of you yet. I am sorry if you are not what I have concluded from my perception. I am aware of your special talents. You are a rare sort of person, rare as you are brilliant. I was afraid of you at school—everyone was, even the professors. I have looked back, and I can see what you are today. The ocean, the air, the reaction of the world, your long love for Alex, these tell me things, but not everything. I hope to Poseidon that you and I become friends without ever becoming enemies."  Kassandra looked at the ceiling, moving thoughts into place in her mind. "Perhaps that is a lesson you have just taught me, that information can be misleading, that no amount of information will take the place of certainty, and yet we all must act and decide what is right and what is wrong, and make plans with the information we have."  Kassandra bowed her head to Kaffia. "We have to act or die, and we have to act on what we think we know. There is no other way."

She took in a long shuddery breath, and let it out, staring at the man at the opposite end of the table.

"Bachoris, love, I have fallen for you, and I know in my soul that you will be my downfall. I feel your concern, but do not be afraid, my love. I already know that the end of my reign will come from you."  She bent down, a weight on her shoulders. "There," she gasped. "I have said it for everyone to hear—but it is my own ears that have needed those words."  She leaned forward, one hand flat on the table to hold her body up, trying to catch her breath. She looked to her right, eyes half closed, nodded agreement to Nicole who sat still as stone staring back at her sister, tears running from her eyes. A sob broke from both of them at the same time, but Kassandra pulled hers in, straightened her body, picked up her glass of wine, raised it to Bachoris, took a sip, and then bowed her head. "Because all reigns have an end. You have already taught me that gods and goddesses—mortal and immortal—must perish—and what it really means to perish."

The dining room was silent for ten long seconds. Kassandra sat down, exhausted, up-ended her wine glass, swallowed it, and said, "Let's eat."

There was a long pause, some nervous laughter, napkins being folded nervously. Then Agatha started passing around the platters.

Everyone ate in silence. Fifteen minutes passed with no sound but the clinking of silverware, glasses, whispered "thank yous" when someone passed a dish. Kassandra smiled apologetically back at Agatha, who gave her a dark you-could-have-warned-me-about-the-length-of-your-monologue look, and then mouthed, "I'm surprised the food isn't ice cold."

She caught Gregor's eyes. He looked at her as if he didn't recognize her—but as if he should have been able to. He whispered, "Why?"

She stared back, waited for him to wipe away his tears, and said, "Why do you think I gave you mother?"

They ate and conversations started slowly, most sparked by the first meetings with Kassandra, how enemies like Corina had come to be friends with the Sea. When Jill got up to get more water, Kassandra placed her hand over Nicole's, leaning in to whisper, "Find out what's going on with Jill and Jordan."

Nicole gave her a wary look. "Why?"

Kassandra shook her head, cutting off Nicole's protest. "Please?  Do it for me?  Be discreet."

She spent another hour eyes-locked with Elizabeth Shoaler, asking her about her connection with the Telkhines, where Elizabeth had met a lord of that ancient House, and did she know her son had her husband's bleed—but not full, which meant that the Telkhinos was alive somewhere. "My aunt Phaidra Lady Rexenor is in a lithotomb, in the abyss. I expect to find your husband there, too."

The dinner wrapped up late in the evening. Pushing back from the table, they poured more wine and took their glasses into the living room. Thennas fell asleep on the couch, leaning against Olivia, who startled everyone by being gentle and motherly.

Bachoris was quiet most of the night, finally getting Kassandra alone around 11 o'clock to ask, "I don't understand?  You practically fingered me as your murderer. I've been deflecting questions and nasty looks all night. Your father hates me, and Nicole...well, I already needed to watch my back around her. Now, I'm tasting everything for poison."

Kassandra slid her hands around his neck, wouldn't let him pull away. She kissed him. "Prove me wrong. I beg you, Bachoris."

Kaffia ducked out for fresh air around midnight. "Please, Alex. Everything's been a little heavy. I need some fresh air, need some time...alone."  Kaffia gave his arm a squeeze, and grabbed her backpack. She headed for the front door, sliding past a strange conversation between two of the naiads, Limnoria and Helodes, on her way out.

"Well, Nietzsche certainly knew about them."

"Gods, you're wacky tonight. Lay off the wine. How is it that he knew of them?"  Limnoria leaned closer to stare at her sister as if she were sick, then leaned over to press her fingers to her forehead.  She added a clear that's-the-stupidest-thing-I've-ever-heard expression.

"You know the lines about staring into the abyss and the abyss staring back?  Who else would be in the abyss with the ability to stare?"

"I don't think that's what the old fellow was talking about."

"Seems plain to me."

Kaffia couldn't keep the smile off her face as she slipped out the front door. She walked straight out from the house, stopped with her feet on Atlantic Avenue, looking up and down the street, turned right and headed for the bench that overlooked the ocean.

She hopped over the back and sat down, tucking her pack between her legs, breathing deep, and letting out the breaths slowly.

"Miss Kaffia Lang?"

She turned on the bench, one hand ramming into her backpack for something. The man's voice was rough, but had an educated quality, and although she liked that combination, there was something in the voice that made her skin go cold. He was old, maybe sixty, and bony thin, wearing faded Levis and a windbreaker. His hands were in his pockets. He looked like an old cowboy without a hat, with creek-cold gray eyes pinned to her. Her eyes went immediately to his scar, a pink bevel of healed skin from his right eye to the corner of his mouth.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Fenhals. I mean you no harm. I'd like to speak to you."

"Do it from there."  Kaffia moved off the bench, swinging her backpack in front of her, one arm up to the elbow inside. "Take another step in my direction and I'll kill you."

"I accept those terms, Miss Lang."  He bowed his head.

"What do you want?"

"Nothing now, nothing really. Just a wish that you would pass along my calling card. Perhaps something very small in the future."  He nodded his head as if something had already been decided, then cleared his throat. "Miss Lang, you are a discoverer in your own way. You deal in information, you have the ability—far beyond most people—to find things that no one else can. You are an artist—with a valuable command of your art."  He glanced up at Kassandra's house. "Even if they don't, I understand you. You don't like the locks, the restrictions, the misuse of that information. Above all, you have made yourself the enemy of those who keep it locked up, an enemy of information tyranny—or perhaps tyranny in any form?  Raw ungoverned power in the hands of one person—but in a way, a single point of failure. Say, the ruler of all the seas?  To bring down the entire structure all it takes is the removal of one piece, that one player, one holder of power. You see the dangers and the weaknesses in that kind of power. I know you do not approve of it, and—"  He held up his open hands. "—if you ever tire of it, I would ask that you contact me."  Mr. Fenhals bent and placed two white cards on the ground, setting a stone on top to pin them down in the ocean breeze. "Keep one for yourself, and please pass along the second to Kassandra. At your convenience."

Kaffia watched him without any change in her expression, swallowed tightly, and nodded her head. She allowed her stance to relax, but kept her hand inside her backpack. "I have a question for you."

Fenhals grinned with yellow teeth, hesitating over the decision to use some of the surfacer vernacular he'd picked up, and went with it. "Shoot?"

"How did you get the scar?"

He smiled and the scar stretched, a pink band across one side of his face. He pulled in a breath, and his shoulders dropped as if he was tired of lying about the cause. "I am from the sea. My benevolent employer once had an army—a vast army of the drowned dead, hundreds of thousands of them, the Olethren, they were called. They don't really see, you know, they're dead, and cannot differentiate between sides in a battle. They just kill everything that is alive."  Fenhals ran his fingers over the thick knot of skin. "I was not quick enough to escape without harm when my king sent them to a school in Nebraska to kill one dangerous girl. Just one girl—with all the power in the sea. She destroyed the entire army."  He glanced up at the house across the street. "Good night, Miss Lang."

Chapter 20 - A Morning Visit

The doorbell rang, and Kassandra turned, opened her mouth, tasted the air before pulling the door in. "Good morning, Kaffia."   And looking up the walk to the street. "Where's Alex?"

Kaffia waved toward her, indicating south, and gave Kassandra a hard stare. "He's down at the beach with his autonomous sub, trying to figure out how it made it halfway to England and back in a night."

Kassandra let the start of a smile sharpen one side of her mouth. "So, what's up?"

Kaffia flipped a white card in her hand, one of her fingers sliding curiously over an embossed seashell twist she hadn't noticed last night. She met Kassandra's eyes for a second and then looked down at the card, distracted by the change in its surface. "I met someone...he gave me a card, one for you. I tried to find you after dinner last night, but you'd taken Bachoris upstairs for some fun, and Agatha said you didn't want to be disturbed unless there was an army on the doorstep."

"A card for me?"  Her voice rough with suspicion. "A man?  He said his name?"

Kaffia nodded. "Fenhals. Just his last name, Mr. Fenhals."

Kassandra made no sign that she knew who that was, just nodded thoughtfully, her focus moving beyond Kaffia, to the end of the walk, narrowing against the bright morning sky. She sniffed the air. "An army," whispered Kassandra. "On the doorstep. I did use those words."

Kaffia held out the little white card, and Kassandra reached for it, stopping her fingers an inch from the edge. "Did Mr. Fenhals say anything else?"

Kaffia's expression hardened. "Nothing I didn't already know."

Kassandra took the card and flipped it over, a blank reverse side, the front with the embossed spiral horn of the crown of the seaborn. She smiled to herself, "Archibald Fenhals?  His first name's Archie?  Never knew that. Never would have guessed it."

Kaffia took a step back, scrunching up her lips, shaking her head. "Didn't look like an Archie."

Kassandra's gaze came up cold. "Not his real name anyway. You didn't promise to do anything for him, did you?"

She shook her head, vigorously this time. "Just agreed to deliver his calling card."

Kassandra let the card drift in the air above her open palm, floating and spinning, sang a curl of deep notes, her body twisting with them, fingers hooking. The card burst into flame, a puff of ash in the air. She took in a deep, tired breath and blew the cloud into the air over Kaffia's head.

Then she slammed the door, leaving Kaffia on the doorstep.

"We have a problem," she said to Nicole coming out of the kitchen.

"Who's at the door?"

"Kaffia Lang passing along a card from the king's terrier."

"Fenhals?"

Kassandra stared at her, distracted for a few seconds, and then nodded her head.

"And Kaffia left?  Invite her in."

Kassandra didn't hear her, brushed by her, whispering absently, "Army on the doorstep."

Nicole looked at the front door in alarm and followed Kassandra into the kitchen, grabbing her shoulder as the two of them reached the table. Zypheria was on her feet in a second, pushing back her plate. Gregor was next, "What's wrong?"

Kassandra stared at them as if trying to remember who they were. She managed to shrug off Nicole's grip with a glare over her shoulder, and then lightning speed reached up and caught a tumbling golf-ball sized glob of seawater flying through the air from the basement stairs.

She cupped her hand, bent forward and stuck her tongue into it, tasting miles of messages, every roll of the sea for the last twelve hours, tidal pressure, a sharp metallic tang, a slick starchy chitinous flavor, and acid sourness like yesterday's urine.

Her head jerked up, a spasm of pain, and a long silvery line of a tear rolled along the lashes of her right eye. She let her hands fall away as the teardrop headed for the floor. Everyone, including Jill and Mr. Henderson, was standing by then, watching her, a frozen mix of curiosity and horror on their faces, the response to the look on her face.

Kassandra danced out of the way, reached over the table, took the other side in one hand and yanked it toward her—and then over her head. Three hundred pounds of heavy oak and plates, cutlery, mugs, flew across the room, shattered against the far wall, triangle chunks of broken plaster, smears of food and dark splattery blossoms of coffee, streams of it running to the floor.

She turned to the giant watery humanoid mass that had come out of her teardrop, floating by the sliding back door. "Ochleros."  She caught his eyes, black shiny eternity, took in the story of Nikasia's dragon riding journey in them, the Kirkelatides had taken Barenis south and then came back up the American east coast, stopping to rest along the sand and slow warm waves at Hatteras.

She nodded. "Very good." and both of them returned to the present trouble.

"The gate is locked, milady. They have tried to break it, but do not have the skill. They will come out of the ocean. There is one with a strong pure bleed commanding them.  How did they get this close to you without you knowing about them?"

"Something Fenhals embedded in that card. Maybe.  I don't know.  It jacked my proximity net, whatever it was."

"Who?"  Jill grabbed Zypheria's arm for support.

Nicole demanded, "What the fuck's going on, Kass?"

Kassandra turned to face her, more the Sea now, teeth sharp, serrated like a shark, her shoulders rising with a deep breath.  Slippery silver armor oozed over her body, forming jointed blue seams at her elbows, knees, ankles, spirals of electric blue along her fingers. Yellow stripes moved like glowing sun ribbons just under the hard metallic facings up her forearms, across her chest, the armor alive, feeling the body underneath, bending to its needs. The Sea's trident stood on its end on her right, perfectly vertical, points brushing the ten foot ceiling, waiting while she pulled her braids into a thick bundle down the middle of her back. She reached out with her left as if expecting to find something in empty air and grabbed her helmet by the flat sickle blade neck guard. The cheek plates rattled against the crest of the helmet, flexible pointed ears with fine silver tie-downs.

Kassandra tossed her helmet to Nicole and locked her sword into rings in the armor along her back.

Nicole jutted her chin toward the living room. "Kaffia's out there."

Kassandra grabbed her helmet, let her right hand slide along the cold metal of the trident. "They can have her."

Nicole's fist came around and caught Kassandra high on her face, cheek bone, eye ridge, temple, knocking her back a step. It wasn't a power blow, Nicole not wanting to damage her own hand, but breathing hard, she growled, "Take that back. If you're my sister, you will."

Kassandra rubbed her eye, a smear of blood coming away on her palm. Then she turned to Ochleros as if nothing had happened. "Take them all to Rexenor. Now. Do not come back for me."

And the ocean that made up the body of the giant demon swallowed Nicole and Jill, Zypheria, Henderson and Gregor in flat cold watery sheets. A boiling rush of seafoam and blue lifted them off the floor, taking them into its arms. Nodding at her demon, Kassandra turned and raised a hand. The sliding door at the back of the house dissolved into needle sharp glass fragments, floating fiery waves of them opening in the morning sun to let Ochleros out of the house.

"Go!  Do not come back."

"Kassandra!"  It was Nicole, her voice commanding through the roar of Ochleros and ocean. But there were tears streaming down her face. "Protect her. They cannot have her!  The Sea forgives. Sometimes. Or we would never in our history taken to ships, never have fallen in love the sea. You are not always cruel. You have a heart. Use it!"

Ochleros drifted away through the opening in the back of the house, into the mist coming off the Atlantic, taking her sisters, her father, her mother's bodyguard, her former science teacher who happened to be a really good cook.

Kassandra swallowed hard, trying to keep her feet planted on the floor. She bowed her head to the space where Nicole had stood, and ran for the front door. "Kaffia!"  She screamed the name, waving impatiently. "Hurry. We don't have time. Follow me."  She grabbed her by the hand, dragging her inside, slammed the door behind them, but didn't bother with the deadbolt. "Out the back. That's where we'll face them."

"Face who?"

Kassandra stopped abruptly and when Kaffia ran into her, reached around her waist, slid her fingers into the back pocket of Kaffia's jeans. She flipped Fenhals' other little white card in the air, and it hung there a moment, stung Kaffia like a slap across the face. Then it burst into flames. "The small army my grandfather has sent against the holder of the card, a marker, a beacon for them the follow."

"Calling card...An army on the doorstep."  Kaffia blinked, shaking her head jerkily. "I didn't—"

"You don't know Fenhals. You didn't know what he's capable of, and I was too stupidly unaware, too stubborn—too crab-headed to trust you."  Kassandra drew a breath, forced a resigned end of the world calm into her expression. She bowed her head. "Please forgive me."  And then the facade crashed off her face and she choked on her words. "I've always been told what to do—even when I thought the decisions were mine. New at this...all decisions are really mine thing—and they're not final, and wrongs can be forgiven. Not sure how I'm supposed to...act."

Kaffia shivered at Kassandra's vulnerability, like being told something deeply personal by someone forced to tell you. She looked away with a sharp undertow of shame. "It's what you said at the dinner last night. Then you have learned."  Her fingers snapped tight around Kassandra's hand, a spasm of fear. "They're at the back door."

Kassandra spun, her right hand lifting, stiffening then flexing as one piece, making waving motions. "No. Just archer scouts. The main battle group is still getting the sea out of their lungs."

Six armored seaborn soldiers stood on the concrete walk, raised crossbows sighted through the space that used to be the sliding back door. They pulled triggers.

Instant reaction, Kaffia pulled away from Kassandra to get out of the firing line, bolts streaking through dining room, seawater clouds streaming off their fletching like tracer fire.

They splintered and vanished in powder bursts halfway across the room. Then Kassandra loosened the waving motion of her hand, her fingers coming out of the pattern, tentacle curls catching the floating wall of glass needles, the shattered panes that had been the sliding back door, pointing them east. Muscles tightening up her arm, gathering and rolling back, all of it released in one shoving motion in her hand.

A hiss of glass fragments and the six armored scouts disappeared in streaky lines of red vapor, their armor, bones, tissue, shrieks reduced to particles suspended in tumbling jerky strobe light cloud formations, heavy rolling ripples of transparent red gliding to the ground, slick across the concrete with wet rattling crumbles of bone and hard tissue.

Kassandra lowered her hand, grabbed her trident, and pulled Kaffia after her. "This way."

They dashed out the back, skidding on the blood, then down the stairs and out across the long flow of grass, bristly grey and white in the thick mist coming off the Atlantic.

Kaffia looked over her shoulder at charcoal shadows, gray thickets of spears, broad shoulder plates, the dull sheen off armor, hundreds of them. And swinging back, "Fuck."  More of them, spears with sharp sea-dripping tips leveled.

Kassandra let her go, pulling on her helmet, releasing the cheek guards, but not locking them down. Her trident standing on its own in the grass beside her, she unwound the strap on her sword, slid it out a few inches and then slammed it home.

"Kaffia, when my trident lands in the earth, grab it, hold on with all your might, and think of the place where you first met Alex Shoaler. He will find you there."

Kaffia looked around at the closing army. "I'm sorry for bringing this...to you."

"Not a problem."  Kassandra smiled, waved her hand through the air. "My grandfather, the king likes to annoy me—and he does not care how much blood ends up in the water—or in my backyard—in order to do that."

The ranks closed, spears out, a band of sharp points running at them, a battle chant rumble.

Kaffia swung her gaze along hundreds of weapons closing on them, panic settling into her muscle control, her voice. "But—we—we're going to...die."

Kassandra held up a finger. "Follow me.  Do what I do. We're going to jump in the air just before my trident hits the ground. Just watch me. It has to be the right time."  She slid the trident through her fingers, pulling them into a fist at the end. Then she crouched and heaved it straight up. It twirled, immediately lost in the fog.

Kaffia stared at her, silent, a little bit angry, as if she was caught up in someone else's madness, as if Kassandra was playing some game—but with people and lives.

"That's exactly what I'm doing."

Her back to the raging charge of spears, Kassandra pointed a little to Kaffia's left. "Stand right there. It's going to come down right here. We're going to jump in the air, and you are going to grab it—grab my trident as if it was Alex, and letting go of it would mean letting go of him."

She gave Kaffia a meaningful stare, a quick nod, and looked up at the approaching soldiers, but not focusing on them. Alex, where did you and Kaffia first meet?

Alex's thought came back choppy, startled. On the grounds of the North Hampton Lyceum, in the birch grove behind Livanen Hall.

Good. Go there now. Kaffia will meet you there.

What's wrong?

Kassandra's gaze roamed over the approaching ring of  spear points and raw power and eyes deep in helmets studded with hate, more than two hundred heavy armored seaborn soldiers driving the prey to the center. Nothing at all. Just go there and...kiss Kaffia. Hey, what are you two doing next Saturday?  My dad's setting up a day cruise on Stormwind—Jill's sailboat. You and Kaffia up for that?

Alex didn't answer, too stunned or busy digging out his car keys—maybe even running on foot to their old school a few miles up Atlantic Avenue.

She sighed. I'll catch up with you two later.

Kassandra locked her cheek plates down, bent to her knees, tilted her head to the side listening, blinked and felt the cold sea in her veins. She gave the ring of charging spears a quick glance.

Then she sprang into the air, felt a punch through the mist where Kaffia followed her off the ground with perfect timing.

The trident slammed into the earth, driving several feet. An explosion of grass brushed Kaffia's feet, rolling out, gathering momentum. The shockwave expanded through the ranks of seaborn soldiers, lifting them into the air, throwing them face first into the dirt. The army went down, a forest in a tidal wave, spears flipping through the air.  Then the crash of flattened stacks of armor and shocked yelling and helmets rolling.

Kassandra drew her sword, glanced over her shoulder to see that her trident and Kaffia had vanished, and jumped into a sprint for the army's commander standing on the crest of grass near the stairs at the back of her house.

She cursed him, pushed more strength into her legs, heels pounding across the backs of the army, let her right hand drop with the sword out low, backward in her hand, the blade in. Crossbow bolts snapped and rang off her armor, one snagging in the joint of her elbow. At her call, a handful of sharp silvery wedges of ocean whipped by her, driving through the archer line; wide meaty holes opened in their armor, bolts firing wide, screaming and toy like stumbling into each other. Kassandra breathed in their blood, the saltier taste of their tears, the taste of death and disappointment.

She made the crest in one bound, legs wide and armor flexing, a flash of eeling yellow fire along the hard metal facings. Using all her momentum, she pulled her sword into a smooth blur of black blade, cutting through the commander's arm just above the wrist. His hand flipped in the air, fingers still curling with his song.

She caught his name bracelet, blood running down her arm.

The commander was a man in his fifties, dark braids sticking out from his helmet, arrayed neatly over his shoulders. He stared at her, his mouth gaping with a lost note, a picket of saliva slick teeth, tongue thrashing like a wounded animal in his mouth. His voice came out croaking, angry, childishly demanding, "Do you know who—?"

Kassandra smiled and let the back stroke of her sword slide neatly through his neck, sheering through a bank of armor scales, pieces of them twirling in the air, armor confetti. His head rolled along his shoulder, down the inside of his arm, into the air, and made her think of some basketball player's trick she'd seen years ago in school. She nodded at the soft thump, the commander's head hitting the ground.

"Of course, I know who you are, Akestoridas, General of Dosianax, grandson of that magnificently useless old sorcerer, Sinaruos."

Kassandra pulled off her helmet, curled her fingers and flicked them with a few short notes. Her crown burst into existence, a blinding ring over her braids, its rays cutting through the mist. When she turned, cold, untouchable, smiling, the army was running for the Atlantic, a rush of creaking scale armor and hard breathing over Ocean Boulevard, down the rocky embankment, into the waves, leaving their spears behind.

She lowered her sword, mocking sorrow. "And I thought the party was just getting started."

Chapter 21 - Dangerous Types

Kaffia punched Alex in the arm. "What are you looking at?"

"I thought I saw..."  He shook his head, kept walking, and started up her conversation where she'd left off. "You're buying a car?"

Kaffia pushed him ahead, spilling the specs, a rapid fire list of the vehicle's capabilities, add-on features, her money-saving and investment strategies paying off, low interest loan signed and ready.

Alex's gaze drifted away from her, slipping off her shoulder, focusing across the mall.

She punched him again, this time harder. "Will you stop that."  Kaffia turned, following his gaze, loud pools of forty-something moms shopping, a herd of painfully skinny teenage girls in striped tights, a couple druggy looking guys sloping along the dark windows of an eatery, staring in, resentful, trailing weird blue smoke. Kaffia turned back, nothing worth staring at across the wide sun-splattered tiled mall-way. "What is it?"

"Kassandra."

Kaffia stopped in the flow of mall traffic, turned back. "I don't see her."

Alex caught her hand, folding his fingers in with hers. "I don't anymore, but she was there, keeping pace with us, watching us."  His voice was shaky. "Smiling."

Kaffia frowned and faced Alex. Kassandra stood right behind him, a hint of the smile still on her face.

Alex met Kaffia's eyes, scrunching up his nose.  "I smell...I smell the ocean."

She jutted her chin, and he turned, jumped back, colliding with Kaffia, nearly knocking her to the ground. He found his voice but it was a hoarse rasp. "How did you get from the other side so fast?  I didn't even see you move."

Kaffia glanced over her shoulder, spotting Nicole across the mall, walking toward them. "I didn't see you at all."

"You wouldn't. I can walk through the moisture in the air."  Kassandra looked at her, caught her eyes for a moment, and then another, moments stretching into minutes. Kaffia had her own sort of aura, not like a crown, but something that glowed and connected her to Alex. Kassandra's gaze slid to Alex and then back to Kaffia. He's done something without meaning to. She let a hint of Alkimides bias out of its cage.He's a damn Telkhines who doesn't know he is. They sweat and piss magic, and they control everything they touch.

Kaffia's memories flooded into focus, numbers flowing like rivers, but so many, becoming currents in an ocean. Information, Kaffia lived off it, it wasn't in her blood. It was her blood. Kassandra moved through it, heavy, slick against her skin. Like seawater. She turned to a flash of light, gray buildings, rows of them, office structures with narrow arrow slit windows, very official looking, government. She followed Kaffia's soul into a hundred buildings, apartments, military command centers, research institutes, banking complexes.  Kaffia the hacker.  This was her world.  The buildings faded, washed with a pale tint, and only their doors stood out, bright and inviting.

The doors opened, right in front of her, more of them, doors everywhere, swinging open as she passed, modern glass on magnetic hinges, ancient heavy wood on hinges that should have creaked, but were silent. All of them had numbers on them, addresses, hand-painted flourishes, metal hardware store replacements, stenciled, handwritten, numbers that marked these doors in the world. Location. Everything had a location. Kaffia stored them all in her soul, with a roomful of machines to make keys.

Kassandra moved on, deeper, to a place so choked with horror and pain, that Kassandra felt a jolt of shame intruding there.

She heard a sob break from Kaffia's lips.

And then a smear of dark water and the light of the sun a lifetime away, out of reach, and Kaffia giving her soul to Alex, and she wanted nothing in return. Just to live. Kassandra pushed harder into Kaffia. You owe him your life?  Alex saved your life?  Kaffia nodded without meaning to.

"How?"

"Drowning. I drowned and he brought me back. I owe him everything, freely given because he risked everything to save me."

Kassandra nodded.  He really did risk his life.  He didn't know he couldn't drown.  He went in after you thinking that he might save your life and give up his own.

"Shit.  What are you doing to her?"  Alex shoved Kassandra, getting between the two of them. "Leave her alone."

Kassandra caught her balance, stared at him as if his reaction baffled her, and then she leaned toward Kaffia, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Kaffia, I just didn't get you before...but now I do."  She glanced at Alex then turned back to Kaffia, nodding. "You're a witch—a technology witch."

Kaffia gave her a difficult to read expression, serious doubt, a hint of a smile, a question, wouldn't it be cool if that were true?

Kassandra grabbed her arm, strong conviction in her tone. "There's something about being a witch that has nothing to do with magic—or magic is just another power—or maybe science is the new magic, I don't know. It's a mind-set, a worldview, a way of living and facing existence, and it amounts to something like not letting the world get away with anything you don't approve of. It's making as much of existence you can control play by your rules. There are things in the universe that no human can alter, but there are many things we can. We—you, me, my sisters, we witches, we play right there at the interface, pushing the boundary a millimeter at a time into existential-cannot-change-things territory. Witches push...and when someone pushes us, we push back hard."  Kassandra smiled, and it was soft, genuine. "I do like you, Kaffia Lang. I wasn't sure before, but now I am."

Kaffia couldn't help smiling back, turning it into a grin at Alex as she pushed him out of the way. "Last place you want to find yourself, Alex, is in the middle, between two witches."

"Everything okay, Kass?"  Nicole put her hand on Kassandra's shoulder, giving it a squeeze, but she swung her gaze from Kaffia to Alex, as if the tension in the air was their fault and she might have to do something about it.

A slow smile came to Kassandra's lips. "Always."

Nicole relaxed, took a step back. "Did you get the invite?"  She looked from Alex to Kaffia. "A day of sailing on Saturday. Jill's skippering. My dad's setting the whole thing up. We can lounge on the deck, go swimming. You have to come along."

Alex and Kaffia locked eyes for a second and then nodded. "Sure."

Nicole dug her phone out of her pocket, nodding to Kassandra, turning to Kaffia and Alex to say, "Rye Harbor. This coming Saturday. 9:00 AM."  She took Kassandra's arm. "We've got something to do. Maybe we'll catch up later?"

After a minute of walking in the other direction in silence, Kassandra leaned in with a tired whisper, "Really been a busy last couple days for me. What do we have to do?"

Nicole led her to a bench in the middle of the mall, sitting down. "Jill" was all she said.

Kassandra tilted her head to the side as if listening, smelling, tasting the air. "She's here with Jordan."  She pointed. "Up there, around the bend, in one of the clothing stores."

Nicole gave her a serious stare and flipped her phone around. "I hired someone to look after Jordan.  He just passed along his first report—with pics."

Kassandra jerked away, her fingers about to snap off one of the bench slats, a heavy thump of angry blood through her head. She closed her eyes, opened them and focused on the bright screen. Nice clear shots of Jordan with his mouth open mid-moan, a woman's slim legs wrapping his waist, her feet in the air, one curling climactically, pink polished toenails, her long dark hair spilling across the pillow.

Kassandra's voice was hoarse. "You hired an investigator?"

"You said discreet."  Nicole nodded. "Her name's Kimberly."

"Who?  The investigator?"

"No.  The woman our dear Jordan's fuck fuck fucked on the side for months. I have pics of a couple others. According to our paid cameraman at the scene, Jordo's intercoursed his way through half the debutants on the Cape. This one."  She pointed at another pic of the dark haired woman, this time sitting on the beach in a sheeny lavender bikini top, one hand in Jordan's hair, the other off frame, but obviously playing down the front of his shorts. "Apparently she's his fave, sees her at least once a week, probably when he's not up here with our sweet sister."

Kassandra lifted her head to taste something in the air, jumped to her feet, and strode off without looking back, fingers grinding, crumbling a broken chunk of recycled plastic bench slat, leaving a trail of it.

Catching up, Nicole grabbed her shoulder. "Where are you going?  Let Jill handle it."

"I told Eupheron to stay low for a while," she whispered furiously. "Not thinking we had other problems that would crop up. Damn!  That's how I protect her?  Let this shithead stick his hardon in every hole from here to P-town?  And I stand aside, let it happen?"

"No."  Nicole was getting angry, shouting after her, "You let Jill handle it."

Jill was right there, hanging on Jordan, swinging shopping bags, half a smile and curiosity in her expression. "Let Jill handle what?"

Kassandra shoved her away, bags flipping out of her hand, a papery slap and skid across the tiles. "You can't handle it."

Nicole shouted, "No!"

Jordan blinked. Kassandra spun into his arms, her body pressed against him, her face buried in his hair—all the rush of a woman in his arms except her sharp fingers digging into the soft exposed part of his throat, her other hand curled around the back of his neck for leverage, and her furious whispering in his ear. His throat tightened. He swallowed dryly, and her voice pounded into his head.

Kassandra let him go, stepping away, her fingers still hooked into kill-you claws.

"And you think there's a prison in this world that can hold me?  Try me."

All of her words caught up to Jordan and the blood drained from his face. He shook his head vigorously, stumbling inelegantly to his ass, crab crawled away, got up and ran, clutching at his crotch.

Jill blinked, her mouth dropping open in terror. "What the fuck was that?"  Her hand swept around for a slap.

Kassandra blocked it, holding Jill away by the wrist. "Jordan won't get another chance to hurt you."  She let her go.

"What!  ...don't need you telling me when someone's hurt me, and I don't need you...doing something to scare him off."

"I didn't do anything."

"He pissed in his pants!"

"Really?"  Coming up behind Jill, Nicole turned in the direction Jordan ran. "Wish I could make someone do that."

"I didn't do anything. I just told him to leave you alone."

"What exactly did you say?

Kassandra folded her arms. "Exactly?  I simply said I have a row of the severed heads of little men like him mounted on the wall in my bedroom."

"And?"

"And then I asked him if he'd like to join them—that if he didn't leave you alone, he'd be joining them. Okay, then I said I thought his blue eyes were pretty and that it would give me a lot of pleasure to see them staring out from his dead face."

Jill stared at her, face going red, making little choking noises in her throat.

Nicole was shaking her head, beaming at Kassandra. "That is beautiful."

"Then I said I like to play with the heads, braid their hair, pierce their ears. I might have told him a couple other things, but that's pretty much it."

Jill found her voice, enough to shout, "He pissed in his pants!"

Kassandra shrugged. "Weak bladder?"

Jill jumped at her, tears rolling back into her hair. She released a frustrated wordless scream, and jabbed a finger an inch from her face. "You can't do this to me!  It isn't your life. Stop lording it over the rest of us."

Kassandra leaned back, a hurt look on her face. "I thought you didn't—"

"Well I did!  You didn't think at all. Just because you're a damn princess or goddess—or whatever the fuck you are—doesn't mean we're your fucking subjects!

"Leave me out of this," said Nicole. "She made Jordo piss in his pants."

"You, too!" Jill screamed and ran off sobbing.

They watched her go, Kassandra with a pleading look on her face.

She gathered up Jill's shopping bags, and they walked in silence to the main mall entrance, where Nicole grabbed her arm and pulled her close. "Okay. What else did you tell him?"

Kassandra let the guilty look slide off her face reluctantly, replacing it with a sharp smile. She threw an arm over Nicole's shoulder and leaned in to whisper in her ear.

Nicole stopped in the middle of the walk. "You did not!"

The guilty look was back, and Kassandra's expression hardened. "Yeah, I did. It just came out. You're right. Jill's completely right. I didn't think before I said it."

Bachoris was singing in the shower to music playing in his head, very old music. The water ran down his body, a soggy facecloth draped over one shoulder, soap slipping along his biceps. He lifted his chin, felt the swell of air in his throat, the chorus coming back strong after a swirl of delicately plucked notes, one steady low tone gliding underneath, twelve chilling beats of silence like death.

And then something like death herself slid back the shower curtain, startling him into silence.

Bachoris' voice came and died, and he grabbed the shower curtain to cover himself.

Akastê nodded for him to continue. "Please go on, now you have an audience."

The girl with the mask was going through the medicine cabinet, shaking brown bottles from the rental's previous occupants, reading the warnings on the labels, setting aside the ones with dire warnings, using a purple pen to draw little skulls and crossbones on them.

The young man with the long white blond hair stood next to the dark hair-in-motion Akastê, looking up at Bachoris expectantly. He whispered, "I've Got the Music in Me," when it was clear that Bachoris wasn't going to continue.

Akastê patted his shoulder consolingly, and then reached her arm out, and curled her fingers toward the open bathroom door.

A clear globe half-filled with a pale blue fluid floated into the room, and inside a female figure, Agenika curled in pain, floating in poison. She screamed and choked and begged, clawing blindly at the walls of the sphere.

Bachoris stared in horror, the blood draining from his face. "Please stop. Do not do this. I have promised you."

"But you are spending my time unwisely, Bach—isn't that what the sea bitch calls you, Bach?  How cute."

Eyes stinging with tears, he reached for the globe, and it vanished. "Where is she?  Bring her back!"  He was screaming, made more demands incoherently. He ripped down the shower curtain. "You said—"

"Bring me the crown, Bachoris. I am losing my patience. I said I would give you a little bit of time before I had to hurt her—your sister, I mean."

"But—"

"Lead Kassandra into your desert, let her fade, let her die there, take the crown. Simple. Do not come out without the Sea's crown, Bachoris, or I will consider you a failure, a loss, and I really have no use for Agenika without you."

His lips twitched, "Please don't."

Her voice dropped so low he barely heard her. "Then simply bring me the crown, dear Bachoris, and Agenika can finally go home."

He nodded. "Yes. Give me a little more time. I will take Kassandra inside, let her..."

"Dry up and die?" said Akastê helpfully.

He bowed his head. "Yes."

Then there was only the sound of the running shower, the crinkle of the plastic curtain in Bachoris' shivering hands. The girl with the mask, jumped down from a stool with a handful of pill bottles. The slender man retreated to the bathroom doorway, and the tall dark haired Akastê, fixed her gaze on Bachoris, something sorrowful in her eyes, perhaps even sympathy, which made him shake more, a louder crinkling of the shower curtain.

"You know, I was cursed once," she whispered

He just stared at her.

As if to explain how that could possibly be, she added, "I was once young and stupid. Like you. And cursed to know what death was like. To live, but have death follow me, every footstep, share every breath with me, sleep with me, invade my dreams, decay as I grew."

Akastê blinked as if confused by the need to show her own feelings; her expression hardened, and she turned and left the bathroom with the other two of her.

Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides walked out of the low warm waves off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, the sand smooth and fluttering under her toes. She twisted around, waving to the curling neck and head of Barenis, drifting along the bright green water between a sandbar and the beach, and crying a little when the dragon went under.

She wiped her eyes, looked up at the blue sky, and found a nice fat white cloud to manipulate. She sang down a thread of moisture, and it condensed, vibrating in the sea wind; it spilled from the cloud like a silk thread from a spider, and she caught it, anchored it to her song, and she fed her words into it,

Dear mother, I have met the daughter of my father's killer, and she is a goddess, the Sea. She is the battle mind behind our defeat in the north against Rexenor. She is Kassandra, the Wreath-wearer, the Alkimides princess, granddaughter of Tharsaleos. She is everything I fear in an adversary. Kassandra denied her father's part in Lord Epandros' death, but like all goddesses, tells as many lies as truths. I need you, mother. I cannot face her alone.

A message from Theoxena came back a day later. Remain where you are. I will join you. Together, we will hunt your father's killer. Together we will face an enemy greater than ourselves. Together we will beat her.

Chapter 22 - King's Monster

King Tharsaleos, Lord Dosianax, ruler of all the seaborn, floated in the center of his high study, legs folded, surrounded by a hundred bobbing, drifting, glassy seerspheres. He plucked one from the water, a cold blue glow across his nose and cheeks, peering in to spy on his stepping stone, his footstool to the seaborn throne, his wife, the queen, Isothemis of Alkimides.

She was crying, blurry tears like lacing in the water. The king swiveled the globe in his fingers and spied his young sons, Tharsiadas and Zomenes, looking up at her, concerned, pleading, a gentle clutch at her sleeve, a touch to wake their mother from her grief.

The king tilted the sphere up, turning it slowly to pan through the queen's sitting room, giant oval windows black against the abyss—Helios' Twin had set. Tharsaleos rotated the view, a sweep of her room, caught a pale blue smear of movement outside a window behind the queen, darkness oozing in and it was gone, possibly one of her house guards along the balcony, a reflection off armor.

He shifted back to Isothemis, and she was holding her sons in her arms, sobbing harder, her tears blurring the view entirely, indistinct shapes of things he still recognized, blending until he couldn't tell his son's apart, and when he swiveled the sphere it showed him globs of color and cold light, and nothing more.

A woman's soft chuckling behind him, and he tossed it away, spinning in the water, short bursts of song rolling out of his mouth. He focused, scowling, and dropped his hands, unhooked his fingers, and swallowed the notes gathering momentum in his throat.

The king of the seaborn bowed his head and looked up expressionless.

"My lady Akastê. An honor."

"Of course."  She stepped out of a dark corner of his study, hair rolling along her shoulders, flicked away a seersphere with a little glass tinkling sound. "She's a sad one, your wife."

Tharsaleos' gaze did not move from Akastê's face, even when the skinny man with long pale hair stepped out of the gloom on her left, and the strange masked little girl followed on her right.

"Why are you here?"

"Ah, ah."  Akastê wagged a finger. "Your tone seems to suggest that you have forgotten that it is you who owe me something."

He scowled, looking up in an expression that made it appear that he was trying to remember if he owed her anything—when he knew perfectly well that he did, and it was more than he could afford. He waved one hand ethereally. "Do you waste my time?"

"Your time is not yours to spend, dear king, but mine. You waste it holding the leash tight. I just swung by to make my pet a little hungrier."

He suppressed a twitch, clamped down any other reaction to the sudden scream of guards, raising a call to arms, go to battle ready. He felt the defenses unfold around his residence. Felt a call in his thoughts from one of his trusted Eight. He ignored it all.

"What have you done?"  The king's voice came out a cold growl.

Akastê twirled a strand of hair through her fingers, shrugging childishly, her smile sharp with all the innocence of a skull fracture. "My beauty must eat, and I simply pointed out the abundance of ready prey in the fields beyond the walls of your splendid city."

The king stared at her a moment, bent his head, rubbing his eyes.

"I hope she cries for the loss of her bleed—upset by who the Fates have chosen for it."

"What?"  The king ran his fingers over his short white beard.

"Your wife?  Queen Isothemis?  You remember her, do you not?"

His head came up sharply. "What about her bleed?"

"It goes to feed that whore Kassandra. I thought you knew."

Emandes of the One-eye, of a house of no importance, kicked through shadows and sea-moss up a seam in the high walls of the Queen's Residence, slithering into the weeds, his body going dead still when her guards passed, big Alkimides soldiers in blue scaled armor and loaded crossbows.

He pulled in the sea slowly, carefully, and let it out, holding the oily glob of poison tight under his tongue.

He brought up one butchered hand with the thumb and forefinger intact, the other three fingers lost long ago in a battle that haunted every today. He held a tiny silver tube to his lips, prepared to blow a note. He waited, frozen, watching them move past. The guards slipped into the gloom below, and Emandes didn't have to use the music. He kicked straight up, gliding over the walls, flattening his body along the lip of stone just under the windows of the queen's sitting room.

He waited again, whispered a song to blend into the coral mats, his body covered in thousands of overlapping feathery discs, his eyes peering out to watch for the next round of guards.

After they passed, he reached over the lip to touch the pulsing veil of sensory spells wrapping the queen's windows. Very sophisticated. It would take several minutes for him to disable one pane, but enough to get inside.

A flash of blue underneath him. Emandes jerked his arm back, so startled he lost his camouflage, his body stretched out along the wall, exposed. He saw teeth, gritted, the sharp edge of a helmet's cheek guard right in his face. He tasted the guard's surge of motion, anger, a bitter flavor like metal, an electric snap on the tip of his tongue.

Both of them grappled, wrestling into the open, rolling up over the lip of stone, in view of the queen's windows. Emandes shoved his face forward, lifted his tongue, blew poison into the guard's face.

Emandes followed it with vigorous spitting, digging into the floor of his mouth to scrape out the last of the hypnelos, controller of destinies, spiritsleep.

He felt the guard's fingers go slack on his arms, eyes wide in shock, the dark hole of his mouth opening, lips shuddering as the sleep took hold of him, seeped into his limbs, made them heavy, made his thoughts too heavy to lift, his voice too deep to bring to the surface.

Emandes spun the guard around, sang a careful string of notes to pin the guard to the wall, threads of the rock reached out, fusing to the armor plates, hundreds of them, fingers leeching through the back of the guard's helmet. A tight crunching noise of scales grinding against the stone and coral mats.

"Sleep my friend, wake when I am gone."

Emandes looked above him, and then below. He had enough time before the next round of the queen's protectors kicked by.

He drew a wide box in the window, and without lifting his finger, continued around, writing something across the smooth pane, then repeating the box. The window softened, and dissolved in the water. He slipped through the open space low, pulling his body through, snaking over the floor. The queen was alone in the room, drifting in the center, sobbing softly.

Queen Isothemis, the sister of King Tharsaleos' first wife, Pythias, ran her fingertips along her lashes, gently urging the tears from her eyes. She tugged on her three long gray braids with her other hand, fingers trembling, and bent her head in sorrow. She drifted in the center of the room, her toes brushing the floor, her body encased in a dress and leggings, sewn together panels of some stiff turquoise material, almost like armor, long flowing wings of gold brocade trailing sullenly behind her, a cheerless angel.

Isothemis sniffed in her tears, straightened up, and spun toward the windows. She lowered her hands, made a welcoming gesture with one. "Emandes, it is safe. Show yourself."

The one-eyed old soldier pushed off the floor, let his feet come down softly in the queen's sitting room. Then he bent low into a bow. "My lady, I have so much to tell you."

She motioned for the chair in the room's center, but he declined politely, holding out his incomplete hands like a shopkeeper showing his range of wares. "The Lady Nikasia has found the dragon—took her from me."

Isothemis gave him a sad smile, winked at him to remind him of the loss of his eye. "You could never catch that dragon. She'd catch you first—and eat you."

He inclined his head, agreeing. "If anyone can, it would be Theoxena's daughter, and if she survived, she now seeks her father's murderer. Lady Theoxena is in the Americas. There will be terrible battle if they join to find Gregor Rexenor."

"Enough of the Kirkêlatides. I get their news inside these walls. What of my sister's granddaughter, the Wreath-wearer."  She paused, sucked in deep water, whispering, "Kassandra."

Emandes' head came up, his one eye cold and fixed on the Queen. She frowned at his reaction; there was uncertainty, wonder, but cold fear in a man who had been close enough to death to see over its edge.

He bowed his head. "Oh, my lady, she is so much more than that."

The Queen of the Seaborn deepened her frown, waved Emandes to continue. "What more is there than to be Poseidon's own, the chosen of the Lord of the Sea?"

"To be the ruler of the sea herself, my lady. Kassandra—she has the crown of the Sea. She has the trident. She travels like an immortal. The king of the sea-daimones is her servant. All demons are."

Isothemis let her feet come down on the floor, finding it difficult to keep her balance, her hands curling into small tight fists that trembled. The frail, old queen Isothemis appeared to be real. In all his years of passing information to her, Emandes had never seen genuine weakness in her, only knew her weakness as an act.

He didn't want to break her mood, but time was slipping away. "Milady, I have more."

She turned to him, staring, unfocused. "How?  An Alkimides with the Sea's crown?  Kassandra is seaborn, we share the same blood. How can she become something she is not?  Never was?  And she is the heir to the throne of the seaborn. It belongs to her."  Her questions spilled out of her soul unchecked, no wall of caution, no pretension. She sang, "Secret family, chosen of Poseidon, you wear the wreath, you share the victory of your ancestors, soul-sharer with kings, you are almost like the gods."

He kicked closer to her, picking up her pain-song, flowing with it. "Kassandra was sent to the surface by Tharsaleos, punished for being what she was, the daughter of your niece, Ampharete. Your dear sister had a daughter that she kept from everyone. Your husband killed your sister, my queen. Did you know that?  The assassin was sent by Tharsaleos. He is your sister's killer."

She went still, dropped her gaze, her fists shaking. "I know many things. I did not know that, Emandes. Suspected, but did not know."

"Ampharete had a daughter from a lord of Rexenor."

"Kassandra."

He nodded. "Kassandra—a child caught in the king's trap, but he knew her not. He sent her far inland, away from the sea, some Alkimides brat that would grow up and return to the sea as one of his slaves. Kassandra—and the Wreath—had different plans. She broke her bonds. The Wreath did not reveal itself without preparing the girl, and the king discovered his mistake too late. The king sent the unstoppable weapon, his army of the dead, the Olethren. Released them, sent them to war, and they did not return. Not one of them. You have heard that story. The Wreath-wearers are mighty and many, but not one could face an army the size of the Olethren. Only a goddess, milady."

She bowed to him. "Thank—"

The door shattered, hit by something hard, splinters of it twirling in the water, cutting notes of binding songs eeled into the room, fishing for something that did not belong there.

Isothemis' hand shot out, grabbed Emandes by the hair, pulled him into her arms, whispered furiously into his ear, "Go!"  She shoved him away.

He grabbed her sleeve, jerking her arm up, unfolding the fingers of her fist.

"What are you doing?  Leave at once. I command you."

He looked at her sadly, whispered, "There is no time, milady."

He tilted his head toward shouted commands from the opening he had made through the window. More from the door, and he showed his teeth, recognizing the first three into the room, three of the King's trusted Eight.

Emandes pulled a thin spiked weapon, needle sharp, thick around as a finger, poison tipped. He spun it in his fingers, pushed the handle into the queen's hand, and shouted, "Death to Alkimides!"  Then he snapped her sleeve into motion, her arm and fist and poisoned spike followed, driving the tip into his own throat. He sucked in water, struggled for a moment, and then collapsed in the queen's arms, bleeding all over her dress.

Blue scale armored soldiers flooded the queen's sitting room, taking up position at the windows, while two of the King's Eight tried unsuccessfully to revive Emandes of the one eye, bring him back so that he could be tortured, and returned slowly to death.

"He is gone, milord," said the first of the Eight to King Tharsaleos.

The king paused, grinding his teeth, then waved them out. "All of you. Get out. Take that garbage with you. Post his face in every quarter of the city, find out who he belongs to. Then find his family. Go!"

Tharsaleos moved around the room in sharp angry kicks, circling the queen. He darted at her, fist back for a strike. "Were you ever going to tell me that your bleed is slipping?"  She blocked his punch, but the force knocked her off her feet, set her spinning across the room. "And not to one of our sons, but to that monster, Kassandra?"

He thrust the latest King's Dispatch at her, a curled sheet with headlines, quick blocks of text from the ruler of the seaborn, broadcast to every corner of the Nine-cities, mostly the same assertions they heard every other day:  Kassandra is a killer...not to be trusted with the crown of all the seaborn. This dispatch included a poorly drawn monster with tentacles and teeth, sweeping hungrily past the Nine-cities, as big around as the city walls were tall, snapping screaming seaborn soldiers out of the water, consuming them. The caption read, the monster has a master, Kassandra. She  has unleashed this evil on us. My war-bard is hunting her, and will return with Kassandra's head and bracelet.

Contradictory fragments, because no one really believed the king—or even the Kirkêlatides—could stop Kassandra. The king's dispatches served more to support the rumors about the angry Wreath-wearer, the failed battle against Rexenor. She sent that demon, the basilichalkainos, to terrorize them.  It could not enter our city, through the King's Protection, but it caught many outside the walls, defenseless, crushing float rafts, devouring the entire Gennaides family, father, sons, children on their barge, a chariot from House Dosianax, an eight-orca team from the farms of two of the minor houses.

The King's Dispatch wrapped up with a detailed drawing of Kassandra describing her as the unstable Wreath-wearer, barely able to call herself seaborn, a woman from the surface driven by her anger, destructively unstable, doesn't accept being seaborn. She cannot be stopped. She doesn't want to live in the sea.

Queen Isothemis looked angry, but not really shocked by the news. "But this cannot be true.  And no one is going to believe this."

"Answer me!  Were you ever going to tell me that your bleed is going to feed the enemy?"

"Enemy?  Kassandra is my blood. She is Alkimides."  The Queen pushed off the floor, wincing at the pain shooting up her left arm. She held her right in a fist. "Were you ever going to tell me that you murdered my sister, my dear Pythias?"

Chapter 23 – Sailing

Kassandra caught Jill in the kitchen early in the morning, going over the day's plans with Gregor. As soon as she saw Kassandra at the top of the stairs, Jill bolted for the door. Gregor jumped out of the way, knocking over the kitchen trash can, grabbing the counter to stay on his feet. Kassandra landed at the foot of the stairs in a crouch, bounding sideways in one fluid movement to chase her sister.

They reached the door in the mudroom at the same time, Kassandra pleading, "Stop, please. I was totally stupid. Jordan hurt you and I made it worse by declaring war on the guy."

Jill turned, defeated, her eyes already red and full of tears. "I don't know who you are anymore."  She leaned closer to get a better look. "Are you Kass?  No. You're the Sea, some goddamn soulless divinity."  Jill glared at her, tears tumbling off her chin, waiting for an answer, denial, something. She pulled the door open and ran out, past the van and truck in the driveway, dashing across Ocean Boulevard to the bench that overlooked the Atlantic. She wiped her eyes dry.

Kassandra came up behind her, walking. "I—me—Kassandra, I am so sorry. I am so stupid. I'm learning...I didn't—"

Jill jabbed a finger at her, squeezing back fresh tears, her voice low. "Stay the fuck away from me."  She turned back toward the Atlantic. "I don't want to look at you. I don't want to hear you. Just leave me alone."

Kassandra winced and forced her lips tight so that she wouldn't be tempted to respond. Jill folded her arms, turning away, and Kassandra walked down the rocky grade, over the wrack-covered boulders into the surf, never looking back, just letting the cool Atlantic reach up her body, accept her, slip over her head. A small burst of bubbles, the air in her lungs broke the surface, and she was gone.

Alex waved to Nicole across the Rye Harbor parking lot, looked around, scanned the waves. "Where's Kassandra?"

Nicole's expression closed down protectively. "Not sure."   She took in Kaffia's eager expression, and shrugged. "She said she'll be here."  Nicole followed Alex and Kaffia's gazes into the lot. "She's...not getting along with Jill...at the moment."

Alex looked a little disappointed, pushed something into his sweatshirt pocket.

Kaffia put her arm around him, jutting her chin at the sailboats, trawlers, power boats, in slips, moored out on the calms behind two long finger-pinching breakwaters. "Which one's Stormwind?"

Nicole flattened her hand over her brow, blocking the sun. "She's berthed. Forty-two feet. The one with the dark blue hull."  Pointing, "Right there."

The three of them walked along the gravel to the boardwalk, down the anchored pier to the berths. Jill and Gregor were prepping the boat to sail, stowing coolers below deck in the cabin, checking the lines and cloth. Gregor looked up and waved, a rare almost calm smile on his lean face.

Kaffia glanced over, exchanged a look with Alex, noticing Nicole's shoulders relax, her reaction to her father's smile, the clear joy in seeing the outing come together. Jill straightened at the wheel, gave her sister, Alex and Kaffia a brief smile, widening when her gaze lifted to Michael Henderson and Zypheria coming down the ramp with another cooler, duffle bags over their shoulders.

"Ladies?"  Nicole turned, waving Alex and Kaffia over the rail and onto Stormwind. "Where is Lady Kassandra?"

Nicole jerked her thumb over her shoulder, lowering her voice so Jill couldn't hear her. "She said she'd catch up later. I think we can get underway as soon as you're aboard."  She tugged the duffle off Zypheria's shoulder and jumped the rail.

Stormwind cast off, plodded through the shallows on power, but once Jill had them beyond the breakwater, she called for sail, and the cloth went up snapping at the wind, bellying in the gusts. Jill turned her Sox cap around, her long blond hair loose in the wind.

The bow dipped into a swell, evened out and on the rise with the rail level with the dark green wave, Kassandra walked out of the water, right onto the deck, seawater running everywhere. She wrung out her braids and threw them over her shoulders, bending her knees a little for balance, and, avoiding Jill's death-glare, dropped to the deck with her legs folded.

She nodded to Kaffia, half a smile, and waved to Zypheria just coming out of the cabin with an open bottle of beer at her lips. Zypheria's eyes went a little wide, her face flushing as she held up the slim brown bottle—more of a surfacer with every day that passed. Her eyebrows went up and down, a little nod of her head to the shore, the message in her expression clear, I keep this up, and I'll be driving a minivan, taking kids to soccer, and complaining about the winter chill like the rest of them.

Kassandra caught her gaze, held it gently, lovingly. I wish you would, Zyph.

She blinked up at Alex, moving along the port side toward her, at his eyes half closed against the wind, his feet sure on the deck. "Got some sea legs on you, Mr. Shoaler."

Kaffia came up behind him grabbing the rails tight knuckled with both hands, sliding them, never letting go. Alex took her hand, and wove his fingers with hers, guiding her around the mast to a clear area at the bow.

Kaffia sat down hard on Stormwind's rise up the side of a swell. Alex crumpled into a sitting position after digging something from his pocket. "Made a necklace for you, Kassandra, a gift, a thank you for inviting us to your dinner, showing us some...magic."

"He went into Cambridge last night."  Kaffia folded her arms, frowning.  "He was on campus all last night, in the metals lab, rotary tools and precision threading machines—dangerous stuff to be using without a full night's sleep."  Kaffia gave Kassandra a quick glare as if some of it was her fault, and then threw her arm over Alex's shoulders, not really mad. "Didn't get home until four this morning."

Nicole joined them, coming up the other side of the boat, sitting next to Kassandra, crossing her legs, frowning a little when the water that had come aboard with Kassandra soaked into her shorts. She sighed, but didn't bother with it.

Alex extended one fist, a fine steel chain hanging from his tight fingers. "I wanted to make something for you. Thought of it last night—seemed like a great idea. Maybe I was tired. Now..."  He gave her a mildly embarrassed smile. "It's a, well, pretty stupid thing to give you."

Kaffia nodding. "But he did spend all night on it. It's brilliant work."

"So, here you are."  He opened his hand, let a small heavy cylinder go.

Kassandra caught the chain and held up a slender shaft of metal, thick around as her pinky, and about as long with a grooved cap on each end, and up the center a knurled scaly shield shape pattern. "This..."  She held it close, studying it. She went still, scowling, holding it even closer, rubbing the hard metal surface between her finger and thumb. Then she stuck her tongue out, tasted it, pulling back as if shocked. The Atlantic roared in the background, and Kassandra drew in a quick surprised breath. "This is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever made for me."

He shrugged. "I put the ocean inside."

Nicole looked closer, laughed in a quick burst, but stowed it at Kassandra's serious glare. "Isn't that a little like giving flour to a baker."

Kassandra ignored her sister, letting the dull metal cylinder roll in her cupped hands, a cherished gift, caught Alex's eyes and he went rigid. Your ancestors made the trident for Lord Poseidon, Alex—my trident. Do not underestimate your abilities.

"It's just the ocean," he whispered. "I captured the ocean in a container."

She blinked and released him, feeling Kaffia's alarm. "You did just that."  She ran a finger along the scaly etched metal, slipping the necklace over her head, liking the weight of the gift around her neck. "Just that." She bowed. "Thank you."

Nicole waited until Kaffia and Alex were distracted by a cargo ship coming up the New England coast, and then leaned in close to Kassandra to whisper, "I gave hardcopies of the investigator's Jordan shots to Jill."

"And?"

"She hasn't said anything. I know she's looked through them. Heard her crying."

Kassandra bent her head, rubbing her eyes, grabbed Nicole's arm for support. "You were right when this started. Just let it go. She hates me. I've done enough damage."

Nicole nodded, her expression ratcheted down seriously, and then she looked up and looked along the length of Stormwind, asked, "Hey, where's Bachoris?  I expected you to invite him along."

"Not on this little outing. Perhaps the next."

Nicole caught some thread of discord in her sister, pressed for an answer. "What's he doing?"

Kassandra looked up, her eyes red, weary. She rubbed them, digging in with her thumb and forefinger. "Oh, he's plotting my ruin."

Nicole gave Kassandra a moment to explain, and then punched her in the arm when she didn't. They both looked up at the same time, feeling someone's burning gaze, raw hatred, a tight beam of anger like a laser focused on them.

Jill had fixed them her what-can-I-pay-you-to-get-off-my-boat glare.

Nicole glanced at Kassandra, and she was getting to her feet, making her way steadily toward the stern, toward Jill.

"Don't cause any trouble, Kass. Dad's happy for once."

"I'm not."  Kassandra said, over her shoulder,  "I need to pee."  She jumped down and went below decks. A few minutes later, she bounded up the steps from the cabin wearing nothing but her bathing suit bottoms and a tight bluish-silver long-sleeved rashguard.

Alex stared at her, Kaffia frowned, and said, "She is a sea witch."

Surfer girls in warm San Diego wore them, but it didn't make sense in the north Atlantic, except as fashion.  He considered himself toughened against the chill wind, and was usually the last to come back to shore on a cold stormy surf day. He folded his arms, pulling his sweatshirt snug. With the wind, it's fifty degrees out here.

Kassandra's braids whipped around her face. One stuck out straight from her head. She walked carefully around Jill and rested one hand on Zypheria's shoulder. The two of them stared at each other for longer than anyone would feel comfortable holding someone else's eyes. Then a sly smile pulled one side of Kassandra's mouth sharp and her dark eyes slipped away from Zypheria to snap tight to Alex's.

He was conscious of his intent to pull back from her look, but he couldn't move, couldn't turn his head, caught in her steady gaze. She let him go, jumping to the walkway around the stern, and without a look back, dove into the wake of Stormwind.

Mike Henderson swung around, eyes focused on the spot where Kassandra went under, a smear of white foam sliding rapidly away.

Alex and Kaffia jumped to the stern, keeping their heads low against the boom coming around, because they were certain they were going to come about.

Jill, stared over her shoulder, but kept the wheel straight; Henderson reminded her to watch the bow and keep their course.

Alex kept watching for Kassandra to surface. He exchanged a look with Kaffia, and she shrugged. The boat slipped rapidly over the waves and Kassandra never did come up—and there was nothing in Jill's stance or manner that showed that she had any intention of going back for her sister.

Zypheria also watched the waves, her hands deep in the pockets of a yellow rain jacket. Alex pretended to watch for Kassandra, but kept swinging his eyes to the woman who never showed her hands.

Even when she pulled them out she kept them in fists. He tried not to stare but he couldn't help himself. Partially hidden by Mike Henderson, Zypheria tugged off her shorts and unzipped her jacket, dropping her outer clothes at her feet. She wore a blue two-piece suit with neon green striping that showed off her brown muscled abs. Alex leaned forward to watch the woman whose job seemed to be to protect Kassandra. He looked over at Kaffia—who was watching Zypheria also, fascinated by her. Of all of the family, she looked the most like Kassandra, tall muscular, long brown hair in braids.

Kaffia nudged him, "Did you ask her what she does, if she's a relative, a nanny?"

Alex elbowed her right back. "You ask her. I'm not."

Zypheria's long brown legs were smooth, a soft sheen along the contours of her calves and thigh muscles.

He guessed her age to be somewhere in the late thirties or early forties. Alex whispered, "She could probably kill me. With her bare hands." Then he noticed he was staring at her, and that there was a lot of her showing.

She pulled her braids around over her left shoulder, and hit Alex and then Kaffia with a cold, offended glare.

Both of them looked away at the same time.

Zypheria laughed, held up her fist. "Kaffia?  Alexandros?"

They turned back to her and she unfolded her fingers until they spread apart and the sun came through the sheer web of skin between each. Then she kissed Michael, stepped up to the deck edging at the stern and shot into the Atlantic.

Kaffia nodded. "Cool. Love her hands."

Alex was about to answer, but turned, seeing Nicole jump to the deck. She pulled off her clothes, right down to her swimsuit, said, "Cheerio!" and went over the side, arms out.

Gregor laughed and waved after them, leaning out from the port side, reaching to run his fingers in the cold water.

Alex caught Henderson's eye and pointed aft. Michael Henderson seemed to be the only other normal one on board. "Aren't we going back for them?"

Kaffia nodded, agreeing.

He gave them a bright carefree smile. "They'll catch up."

Kassandra swung under Zypheria, caught her hand, and twirled into the light to find Nicole. The three of them held on to each other, flying free through the ocean, passing Stormwind in a burst of swimming, diving straight down to run with deep sea squid.

An hour later, they caught up to a pod of dolphins rocketing through the water before the prow of Stormwind. Kassandra shot past them, running her hand along the belly of the large female in the group's center. Kassandra's wake hit them and they scattered, diving in different directions.

Nicole grabbed Kassandra's hand tight, Zypheria doing the same on the other side, and the three of them fired out of the water, just as the sailboat's prow passed, Kassandra dancing over the chrome rail with them. They landed square on the deck at the bow, Nicole holding one arm out to catch her balance, found she didn't have to. The water  gripped her feet, kept her fixed to the deck.

Then it released them, and the three of them laughed, jumping down to the deck at the stern.

Zypheria looked over at Alex and Kaffia. "Either of you want a turn?"

Kaffia shook her head. "Looks a little too cold for me."

From behind hem Gregor said, "Just need to get used to it."

Alex exchanged a look with Kaffia, and then shook his head.

Moving away from the wheel, Jill jutted her chin off the starboard side, leaned in to Kassandra to whisper angrily, "Why did you come back?  Can't you stay out of my life?"

Kassandra looked at her without pushing, just watched her eyes, a twitch at her mouth. She wanted to see how serious her sister was. She gave Jill a short bow. "Okay."

She grabbed Nicole's hand, gave her father a farewell nod of her head, and turning to Zypheria, said, "Stay here. See that Alex and Kaffia get back safely. We will return this evening."

Zypheria looked out at the horizon. "Please don't go far, milady, and don't stay out too late."

Kassandra nodded, smiled innocently. "I won't go far or do anything crazy."  She went overboard, pulling Nicole with her.

"Hold on tighter, Nic. We're going to be moving."

The water rocketed past, and Nicole closed her eyes, trying to nod her head, hanging on to Kassandra with both arms, her fingers clutching at her shirt.

They hadn't gone very far before Kassandra's voice came in filtered, tinny sounding. "What is that shit in the water?"

Nicole gave her a muffled wad of noise, trying to get the words past the rush of currents. Kassandra seemed to understand her anyway.

"There's a container ship coming up, dumping something in my ocean. Hang on."

Nicole gave her another garbled question.

"We're going to give them something they'll never forget."  Kassandra sped up, streaks of cold blowing by them. There was a booming noise in her wake, and a roar of violent water following them. They shot under the ship, swinging deep and then Kassandra arched her back and, pulling Nicole with her, jumped into the light, through the surface, straight up the dark painted hull of the ship, twenty meters out of the water.

Nicole screamed.

The deck crew scrambled toward shelter, alarms blaring. The captain managed to turn the ship into the wave—a giant violent wall of water. The deck was drenched; water rapped like fists across the control room windows. Seven containers crashed into the central aisle along the deck, bolts sheered, two eighty-ton steel boxes went through the fore hatch, cutting another container in half, crushing palleted boxes in the hold. The ship listed to starboard on the clear side of the wave, and the horns blared obnoxiously, the captain ordering reports.

The starboard side door of the control room banged open and Kassandra walked in, trident leaning over her shoulder, seawater running off her. She pointed at the captain, pinning him to the back wall.

"This is my ocean. You move on its surface by my leave. Every wave, every drop, every tide is mine."

She made a fist. All the windows in the room blew out.

"Dumping garbage and other shit in my ocean!"  She brought up her hand, pushed the captain up the wall. He made wet nail-scraping sounds in his throat. "If I find you out here again and you've fucking spit in the sea, I'll...you don't want to know what I'll feed you to."  She let him go, and he dropped inelegantly to the floor. She tore off his hat, winged it out the open door, past Nicole who dodged it. "Do you understand me?"

The man nodded slowly, and Kassandra strode across the room, grabbed Nicole's hand at the opposite door, and pulled her into a dive over the railings, another thirty meter drop into the roiling dark sea. When the captain made it to his feet, shoving a lieutenant aside to get to the rail, the two of them were gone. He looked down into the foam streaked cold blue, pockets of ink black shadow, he saw his captain's hat tossed up the face of a wave.

Chapter 24 - The End of the World

Nicole closed her eyes and held on tight, a whirring noise like a dentist's drill in her ears, a chill she hadn't felt since Lady Kallixene had given her the seaborn curse, not the water, but a slow ooze of an icy gel over her skin, slipping along her arms, her stomach, down her legs. Her toes stiffened reflexively.

They weren't exactly in the water anymore. They were between it.

She tried to lift her eyelids, caught a stab of light and shut them; the afterimage burned onto the inner screen in her mind, a steep angled view of Kassandra, her jaw line, the smooth arch of her throat, her eyes open but narrowed with purpose, one side of her mouth turned down, her lips pressed tight with the strain. And the thought, my sister's a goddess, repeating in Nicole's head, a mantra to keep her organs functioning, her heart beating, her lungs swelling.  Her stomach lurched and she caught the acid before it reached her throat.

"You're doing well, Nic."  Kassandra's voice came through faint and tinny, like hearing her through a mile of metal irrigation pipe. Then a sharp laugh. "Bachoris heaved his guts out after a minute of this."

Nicole did everything she could do to hang on, fingers going numb, holding on to Kassandra like she was the edge of a world, and falling off meant oblivion. Then a faint hope that the journey was near its end. A glow coming through her eyelids, wavering light, cold blue, warming to orange with a blast of air against her face, and the bobbing sensation of a calm sea's surface.

"Open your eyes."  Kassandra peeled her sister's fingers off her arm, curling them back into place but without the dear-life grip.

Nicole emptied her lungs, blinked away more water, looking up at towers of glass, sleek mirror framework skyscrapers on her left, a long arching span of a bridge, black metal centered in her view against the sky, green hilly urban beauty on her right.

She sucked in a deep breath, shifting her heart and lungs back into normal rhythm after the journey between the water.

"Where are we?"  Nicole's gaze sliding farther left, gasping when she saw the concentric white conic shapes of the Sydney Opera House. "Australia."  She let the sound of her own voice sink in. "Holy shit, you've taken me to Australia."

"I come here all the time, mainly to think. Sit on the rocks under Fort Denison and ...look up at the city. And think."

"You don't need a passport. You can go anywhere."

"I do. Tokyo Bay is gorgeous, New York is one of my favorites, and Alcatraz Island with San Francisco right in front of you is right up there."

"Do they ever see you, surfacers I mean?"

Kassandra shrugged. "Sometimes."

"What do you do?"

"Nothing usually. They stare. I ignore them."

Nicole scowled at the smile pulling at her sister's lips. She shook her head. "You don't do the whole mermaid thing?  Comb your hair?  Sing songs on the rocks?"

The smile came right out in the open. Kassandra looked over at her, made her eyebrows jump. "Only for sailors."

Nicole laughed and climbed out of the surf, mild rolls of it against her legs. "What time is it?"

Kassandra looked over her shoulder, the sun coming in low. "Early in the morning, guessing seven or eight.  Don't worry about the time.  We're fine."

They sat on the rocks, kicked their feet in the water, talking for an hour about their school days, old teachers, how everyone thought they were weird, how it didn't matter. A ferry passed apparently without any of the passengers noticing them.

Nicole sighed, elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, watching the bands of sunlight come up across the shiny office towers. "Beautiful."

Kassandra leaned forward, got to her feet, and held out her hand. "Let's go. I want to show you a couple more things before we head home."

Nicole swallowed. "How far?"

Kassandra reached down and pulled her to her feet. "Not as far as the last trip. You'll love this. Really just a quick stop to get ready for the main part of our journey."

"Ready for what?"

"You never know. Come on."

They were under the waves, releasing the air in their lungs, taking in the sea, feeding off its power, kicking smoothly into the dark center channel of the harbor. Kassandra swung in, grabbed Nicole, hooked her fingers under her arms, and they were gone, ripping through the ocean, between the currents, inside the smooth cold channel they had followed to the other side of the world.

Teeth rattling, Nicole clamped her mouth closed, trying not to bite her tongue, trying to shut her mind against the intrusions of sharp noise and the icy slippery fluid against her skin. They were slowing down, bright blue waves of light, and they fired out of the water. Blinding blue sky, water below them—everything below then—almost black. They flew fifty feet straight up over the churning sea, leaning back and coming down knee-bending hard on a steep, nearly vertical plane of pale blue ice.

Nicole opened her eyes, gargled out most of the water, and managed a choked scream.

Kassandra held her lips like she was whistling, and let the sea in her lungs stream out, laughing when she was done. "Sorry. I should have warned you. Do not let go of me, hold my hand. Just a quick safety stop."  Kassandra unlocked the fingers of her left hand from Nicole's, tightening the grip on her right to make it clear that she wasn't going to let go.

"The ice?"  Nicole gasped, her eyes wide in terror. "Why aren't we falling?"

"Ice is water. It wouldn't dare let me fall."  Kassandra squeezed her eyes closed, then opened them, let out a deep breath, and slapped her free hand in the middle of Nicole's back. "Or my sister."

They both tipped forward, but kept their feet, and Kassandra's smooth yellow striped armor with the blue at the joints, slipped around Nicole's body, protecting her from the neck down. Kassandra scrunched up her lips thoughtfully. "If you need a helmet, I'll grab it. Otherwise, I think this is fine."

Nicole looked down, bending her knees, trying to get a feel for what the armor was doing—it was active, not like any kind of clothing she had ever worn. It was almost weightless, a smooth current always running through it, anticipating her motion and bending with her. It picked up her breathing, expanding with the swell of her lungs. "This is your armor?"

Kassandra nodded. "Made it myself, with a little help from Eupheron. I grew tired of the crab carapace suit, nice, but a little too showy—and spiky for my taste. Like wearing high heels. They just aren't me. So, I've left it for someone who'll make use of it."

Nicole's gaze drifted up her own legs encased in armor, then, distracted by the blue ice, lifted to the horizon. "Where are we now?"

"Antarctica. Give me your other hand."  Kassandra jutted her chin to the left. "The Weddell Sea is that way."

She grabbed Nicole, gave her an amused smile, and stepped off the edge of the ice ridge into open air.

"Point your toes, Nic."

Nicole bit back a shriek, and found it hard to breathe, the wind whistling by her face, her braids standing straight up, and Kassandra laughing through it all, "Let's stop by the Nine-cities and see what my asshole granddad's up to, shall we?"

They hit the dark waves. Arctic water swallowed them whole, a rush of bubbles shattering, soft mirror fragments flipping past their faces, slowing, then flowering around them with blasts of light from above shooting into the sea.

Kassandra took both of Nicole's hands, spun them around, and they shot into the deeps, slipping along mountain ranges for hundreds of miles, slowing down across sandy flats toward a globe of cold blue white fire hanging in the dark, lighting the city and the surrounding ocean floor like a sun in the abyss.

"Helios' Twin," whispered Nicole. "It really is like our star...at the bottom of the sea."

The Nine-cities of the Thalassogeneis was nothing like Nicole had ever seen on the surface, in games, virtual worlds, anywhere, but it was like pieces out of all of them at once—along with some otherworld influences that raised the hair on her neck in their creepiness: fluid walls, spidery liquid webs, and other sense-jarring organic structures. There were familiar old world shapes. Huge walls with brooding corner towers and then there were floating cities—cities within the city bristling atop long slender wedges of rock the size of Manhattan turned on its end, all floating—mid water—above rows of dark globular structures that could have been houses, alongside ancient looking columned temples and ovoid glassine things with no obvious function. There were miles of farmlands, long even rows of short stalked plants, towering forests of kelp, colorful branching soft corals.

Kassandra pointed out a cluster of tiny darting black and white bullets in the water, orcas and riders, outsea guards on the lookout for unusual visitors.

"Like us."

There were more killer whales and teams of dolphins in the fields, pulling barges loaded with farm hands and baskets of whatever they had picked.

"Calm down."  Kassandra felt Nicole tense up as they dipped to the floor, skimmed the sand, drawing nearer.

"Someone's going to see us."

"Like you and me can't handle that. Let me show you something."  Kassandra tugged Nicole away from the city, swinging her underneath so that they both faced the ocean's floor. Several miles out from the massive front gates of the Nine-cities, Kassandra pointed out faint furrows in the sand, long snaking rows of them, like someone's tracks through snow, covered by a following storm.

"What is it?"

"That, dear Lady Nikoletta, is my army tunneling through the sand. Three-thousand of the dead, clawing out underground passageways."  Her voice tightened. "I can feel them from here."

Nicole shuddered. "Good?"

Kassandra tugged her around to face her, caught her eyes and smiled, one side of her mouth twisting higher than the other. "Very good."

They headed back to the city, skirting the walls low, raising alarms at every corner tower. Nicole watched as soldiers on orcas bolted after them from shielded chutes in the outer wall. Kassandra just laughed, waving as they rocketed past the massive front gates of the city, picking up an entire team of riders in full armor, lances down in pursuit.

She cut another laugh short, looking over her shoulder at one soldier darting off in the opposite direction, presumably to catch them coming around the other side of the city—which would be miles.  She shifted sideways and they angled up, spiraling the clear glistening dome of the King's Protection, the thick see-through shell over the entire city. She let go of Nicole's left hand as they came around the central spires of the royal fortress at the apex.

Kicking from his private quarters at the peak, King Tharsaleos, waved half his trusted Eight to their orcas to the nearest gate. The other four stayed with the king, taking up positions in a half circle around him.

Kassandra slowed to a smooth glide, catching Nicole's right foot on top of hers, swinging her sister to her side, legs braced apart, both of them facing in toward the king and his guards. She laughed, "I'm coming to get you."

Nicole gave the ruler of all the seaborn several vigorous jabs of the finger. Kassandra touched her tongue with one finger and let it slide along the hot charged surface of the King's Protection, trying to feel what it was made of.

She glanced right and swung Nicole around her back, picking up speed along the slow curve of the doming spell. "Nic, take the reins, hold on, head north. I'll catch up in a sec."

Nicole turned her head. "What reins?"

A flash of teeth, pink gums, a huge glossy eye an inch from her own, twisting in the water, killer whale black and white, and she hit the saddle, rammed her tailbone against the base of the dorsal fin, and lost her grip on her sister.

She dug in, swinging the orca north, and over her shoulder spotted Kassandra flipping end over end, wrestling with the former orcaman. Above her, a charge of orcas and riders along the high glistening face of the King's Protection, lances out, coming for her. Nicole urged her mount faster, Andromache shouting commands in her head.

Nicole slid low along the orca's body, dozens of soft plinking sounds at her back, crossbows firing. At a command from Andromache, she reached down and yanked the reins right, the killer whale dropping out from under her. She nearly flew from the saddle, a burn up her forearm, her fist shaking. Her killer whale went into a spiral dive, and a flight of bolts ripped through the water over her head. One winged past her ear, another caught her center in the back, nothing more than a sharp knuckle rap against her spine through Kassandra's armor.

She twisted around, tugged a crossbow free. It was loaded. She steadied her arm, aimed and fired, caught someone's feet flipping into the gloom before she bent to reload. One more. No more than another shot before they'd be on her, closing from all sides. She wrenched the mechanism back, jammed in a bolt, aimed and fired. Took out another one.

She took her time, loaded the weapon. No time to fire. Two orcas dashed alongside, and Nicole jumped from her squatting position, spinning backward, using her momentum to swing the crossbow into the rider on her right, caught her with the butt in the face. Out of the race.

Another orca closed for the kill.

The archer on the left pulled the trigger point blank, a thump like a fist in the ribs shoved Nicole to the front of her saddle. It hurt, but didn't get through the armor. Nicole bent forward over the pain, slid the crossbow across her lap, gasped, "sorry," and put the bolt through the saddle on the orca, not enough kill it, but it would be too angry and uncomfortable to keep up.

It tipped noseward, catapulting the rider and archer into open sea.

She looked up, surrounded by streaks of black and white, gaping mouths, sharp teeth, a shuddery roll of firing noises from twenty archers.

Andromache asked to be of assistance, and danced into control, kicking Nicole out of the saddle with the reins in one hand, heaving the crossbow at the nearest of the king's riders. He caught it, kept his seat, but it slowed him enough to throw his archer off his mark.

Loose in the water, holding long the reins, Nicole swung under the orca, came up around the other side with enough force to kick a rider from his mount.

Then a bolt of lightning cut through the water, blinding lines of fire arcing the spaces between the king's orca riders, slipping through armor, riders screaming and jerking reins. Nicole's pursuers folded in two lines, diving deeper to escape.

Six teams collided, riders and archers cartwheeling into the gloom. Kassandra kicked through them with her trident swinging, and nothing else, just her swimsuit, her hubris, and the helmet of the soldier who used to ride Nicole's orca, the straps cut, flapping around her neck.

She grinned at her sister, pointing north, swung her legs down and landed in the archer's stirrups. Then turned into their wake, waving the captured helmet over her head, crying her joy, "Yeah!  Go tell your king!  You got your asses kicked hard by a couple of surface girls!"

They pushed the orca in a rapid dash north, Kassandra pointing to change their course a couple times. She reached past the dorsal fin and slapped Nicole on the shoulder. "Sorry, Nic. Wonder what's going on. Never would have expected that much reaction."

"Like they were waiting for us."

"You handled it well."  Kassandra shook her head. "Not us."

Nicole slid sideways in the saddle to look back at her sister. "If not us, then who?"

"I was going to say 'what' not who.  That was some serious armed response."

Nicole gave her a frown, a slide of fear when she saw Kassandra tense up, flexing her fingers, and then her teardrop call for Ochleros spinning into the orca's wake. "What is it?"

Kassandra shook her head. "Not sure."

Ochleros fired from the depths, his claws fully extended, keeping pace with the orca, growling something that may have been a curse. Then he turned to the Sea. "Something has come from the Lithotombs, guarding them. Now it hunts you."

Kassandra kicked out of the archer's stirrups. "Take her home. I will deal with whatever my grandfather has summoned."

"What do you believe it is?"

She floated in the sea, perfectly still, tasting the water. "Something very big, my dear Ochleros."

Chapter 25 - Soul Stuff and Open Wounds

She didn't know who she was at first. There seemed to be several choices, but she couldn't even remember who she wanted to be.  That made it worse.

She also didn't know thoughts could have distance, an echo that told you there was some space between you and them, an audible tracing that could tell you how far away the thoughts were. They existed in space. She knew about the space. She'd been inside enough souls to know there could be miles of it in someone's head, made of wispy dark soul stuff, seawater, sludge you had to crawl through. She'd also never thought about time being another dimension, like a clothesline that ran into the soul's recesses along which you could hang memories, visions, voices, fear, even the truth. It made perfect sense, once the idea occurred to her.

"Nic...cole?"

Is that me talking?  My voice sounds...sloppy. Wet.

She heard her sister talking to her, coming out of some temporal pit in her soul, joyfully telling her what she was, You're a siren. Lure them onto the rocks, girl. That's where you're strongest.

Water in her mouth, a gush of it, salty, gurgling; her breathing came out in choppy wet gusts.

My beautiful tides. They're waking me up.

There was something hard and flat against her cheek, and her jaw wasn't working right.

She concentrated on pulling her tongue to the roof of her mouth, pulling it in, curling. Her lips came together without much pressure. Just enough. She sucked in the water, tasting like metallic mouthwash. Held it in her mouth, trying to remember what to do next.

Oh, yeah. She spit it out. Blood in her mouth.

She opened her eyes, nothing but blurry bars of slate gray. She blinked and the bars came in clearer. Not really helpful. She commanded her right hand ...what's wrong with my hand?  Fingers broken. Two that aren't.

I can't feel my left hand.

She pulled one leg up. Her knee bent, skin tearing along her thigh, squeezing open, muscle tissue, bone exposed, and sticky warm blood everywhere. I'm messed up. She dug her toes into the sand, and kicked. A jolt of pain ran up her body, a hammer's thud in her skull. Really messed up.

She imagined a dying fish, on its side at the edge of the surf, foamy seawater sloshing in and out of its gaping mouth, gills flexing, useless. Fish out of water. Hook in its mouth, all its strength spent on getting away from the angler. Dying slowly, the air too thin, too dry.

She kicked again and rolled to her back.

She found her left hand—she had been laying on it, a cold tingling coming through her senses, enough to feel the numb deadweight, life flowing to her fingers, but that may not be a good thing. Could be draining out of my wounds onto the beach.

Her face had been pressed into hard damp sand, loosening up now that she was on her back. Her leg twitched, a spasm of nervous discharge, gnawing cold where the bone was exposed to open air.

There were voices in her head, a woman singing, and what sounded like harp strings, gentle, plucking, merging notes.

God, that's annoying. But it continued, an epaiode to close wounds.

A man's rich voice right in her ear, so close she turned her head with a burning pull up her spine. He wasn't outside. He was in her head, too.

Strates Unwinder, the minor Rexenor lord, his words breathing life, soft, ancient and calm, rolling the r's, savoring the sounds, but every letter so necessary, commands to her bones and muscle, organ tissue reconstruction, part of one lung and her fractured, splintered ribs.

There were others in her head singing, dozens of them contributing their power, their experience, their skills, all toward putting her back together again. Like Humpty Dumpty, only with all the king's men—and women—being a fuck of a lot more useful.

The steel hard voice of Queen Nannakis coming through loud and clear, All the toes on her right foot are broken, two crushed. One on the end is not much more than blood and bone gravel wrapped in dying skin.

I will help you with that, said another woman's voice, old Queen Moirion, Wreath-wearer a thousand years ago, named after King Moiriades, the son of Eupheron, who was working intently on the gaping wound stretching up her right thigh to her hip. A deep clean slice through her skin and muscle from something with very sharp teeth.

Her whole body jumped, an electric punch to every muscle still functional, her eyes bolting wide open. "Ormenos!"  She gargled out the name through seawater and blood pooling in her mouth. A fit of coughing, that wrenched and tore her damaged body.

On their own, three fingers on her left hand clawed through the sand to find the grip of her sword. She fought the night, a dull roar of unconsciousness creeping around her senses as she spent more of her returning strength to summon her trident, then the night was gone, a swift receding tide, and the tall spear with the forked top appeared, planted in the sand next to her.

She pulled her right hand up, dragging it over the sand using her shoulder and upper arm strength, dragging as if everything below the elbow was dead. She managed to hook her broken fingers around the trident, a jolt of gulped down power when she curled in her thumb and forefinger.

"O, Lord Poseidon, please help me."

She felt a rumble up her back, something that made the earth shudder, and then Queen Polyxene's shrill cry, It has found us!  The ocean blackener. Ormenos!

King Moiriades shouting that she wasn't ready, and Queen Onasikleia yelling back that it didn't matter. Lady Kassandra, get to your feet. Now!  Pick up your sword. It is here.

Her voice came out hoarse, "I will need your help, all of you."  God damn my head hurts.

Bachoris waited for her at edge of the Atlantic, starting to get a little nervous. He had walked miles up and down the deserted strip of coast from Hampton Beach to Little Boars Head. And she hadn't come back.

He looked at his watch. A little after four in the morning.

He bent down, picked up a warm sea-rounded stone that fit well in his palm, pulled his arm back, snapped it into the air with more than human fury. It flew in a shallow arc, a hundred yards over the water and hit the calm moonlit surface with an overlapped pluck and thump.

Bachoris stopped, folded his arms, watching the ripples in the water, a wavy dance of light. The pale moon stood a finger's width off the horizon, strings of white slashing the surface, a cold hard beam of it like a carpet rolled into shore, painting the slick rounded hump of something very big in the water.

His eyes narrowed suspiciously, following the thing's movement toward North Hampton Beach a kilometer up from where he stood.

"Do whales beach themselves here?"

A boulder the size of a VW broke the surface of the sea, seemed to float in the air like the moon, crashing into the sea further from shore. He focused and tracked the bulge of ocean running before the monster, and found Kassandra, on her knees at the edge of the water.

Bachoris took one uncertain step toward her, then another, then he ran to meet her, arms pumping, breathing hard. His voice came out a whisper, fear like sand in his throat. "Run, Kassandra."  And the earth shook under his feet.

Kassandra crawled out of the surf, dragging her sword. She staggered, dropped to one knee, and then got to her feet, swaying, held up by her trident.

She didn't look behind her, didn't see the beach shudder and slip out from under Bachoris. He fell, skidding face first across a gravel bed, a sharp surprise of broken mussel shells. He crawled to his knees, blood dripping down his arms. He looked up to see something monstrous rise out of the Atlantic, a small island of slick mottled gray skin and tentacles, some as thick as a mature tree, ringing a smaller group of slender whippy arms thirty feet long ending in gaping holes with snapping, flexing jaws and teeth.

Bachoris froze, the name spilling out of his mouth, drooling the sound, "Ormenos."

Akastê had shown him this beast, one of her pets, one of the hungry things she kept around to frighten him, teasing him with tales of feeding Agenika to it.

Kassandra stood knee-deep in the surf, straightened defiantly, dropped her sword in the shallows behind her. She pulled her arms up, uncurled most of her fingers, conducting the sea. A net of watery cables sprang from the surf to bind the creature, snapping up the tentacles it threw at her.

One got through her net, a mouth full of teeth, a gray and shiny nest of sharp triangles around a hole for ingesting whatever the teeth tore from their prey. It swung low along the water, curved up to snap closed around her thigh, but failed to knock her off her feet.

She lowered her arms, let them swing to her sides as if she didn't have the strength to hold them up anymore.

She looked down, too weary to be afraid. She crouched without turning around, let the teeth dig deeper into the muscle, a gush of warm blood down her leg. She grabbed her sword, hacked through the tentacle's end behind its jaw. It ratcheted open, dropping at her feet, some kind of death reflex.

Then she was running—toward her own death, right at the monster, blood streaming off her, her body streaked with it, a smear up her cheek, thick drops of it thrown into the air, curls of it in the shallows. Her toes touched the sea's surface and didn't go through as it accommodated her dash for death. A quick crouch on the ocean, knees bending, springing her body into the air, up one on the bound groups of thicker tentacles to the massive central body. She kicked over the flexing overlapping plates of armor, rounded knobs poking up out of the skin to trip her. One of its eyes, swiveled up, following her impotently.

Kassandra jumped straight into the air, and came down with the sword in both hands, driving it to her knuckles into the monster. She screamed a battle cry, only half coherent, something about killing, heart beating, seas of blood, and then more killing. She pulled it out and drove it in, repeating the spring and thrust move until she couldn't jump or stand anymore.

Ormenos thrashed, the motion dying after her eighth deep stab, its limbs and tentacles dropping dead in the water, the plates of armor flattening, the bulbous pressurized lumps that had spat poison going slack. Everything about the monster sagged in the water, spreading out, oozing, and the hunger in its eyes died.

Kassandra fell to her knees, holding her sword, and crept to the edge of mottled gray skin, to her net of water cables still holding up Ormenos. She slid down a pair, splashing in the surf, the thump of hard sand jarred her bones. She tried to get to her feet, stumbled, and gave up, crawling up the beach, dragging her sword.

Bachoris' feet came unglued, and he sprinted down the sand, trying to cry her name. It came out in a whisper.

"Kassandra?"  Bachoris raced up, stopping when he saw her eyes.

Her face, twisted in pain, turned up to his, and there was no recognition.

She gasped and let out a desperate yelp, as if she'd been caught in her weakest moment by enemies. She stumbled back on her heels, swinging her arms forward with the same motion. Two thick beams of water fired out of the surf, aimed at her attacker.

Kassandra blinked.

The water stopped, inches from punching Bachoris. She waited, breathing hard, begging for clearer vision. She saw him, nodded, and released the water from her control. It crashed to the sand and shell gravel, splashing him, then curled back on her, washing some of the blood from her face.

She looked up at Bachoris pleadingly. "Help me. Please take me home."

He took a step toward her and paused, his eyes dropping to the sword. She nodded weakly, waved at him, and it dissolved in the air. A soft haze of sea mist haloed her body and then drifted away with the breeze.

He bent, grabbed her under the arms. Kassandra grunted, staggering to her feet. She swayed forward and back in Bachoris' strong grip, sighed, a choppy release of the air in her lungs, and let all her weight fall against him.

Blood dribbled from one of her ears and the braid on that side had been torn off—not cleanly. Bachoris blinked, had trouble seeing her through the tears in his eyes. He bent to pick her up, but her fingers dug insistently into his arm.

"Wait."  Kassandra swung her head toward the sea, waving. She took a step toward the ocean, pulling Bachoris around with her. "Take my hand. Do not let go of me."

He took it, looking down at her torn and broken body. "How?  You can barely stand. How did you kill it?"

She put her weight on her left leg. "He and I have been battling for hours—and not one-sided. He was as bad off as me, but without inside help."

"Ormenos?"

"Yes."  She pointed at the mass of slick gray flesh rolling in the surf. "That is Ormenos."

Bachoris spent a few seconds studying the dead limbs and shattered living armor and dead rings of eyes in the water. "What is left of him."

She nodded. "Do not be afraid."  And a tear rolled down her cheek.

Then he almost dropped Kassandra. Another monster appeared in front of them, human-shaped with bulging muscles, its whole body made entirely of water. The thing came out of the surf and rose twenty feet in the air, its head the size of a beach cottage; sharp ripples of water sloshed along its skin.

"Lady Kassandra."  Its voice thundered against their ears. It was angry. "Why did you not help me find you?  Leave a trace. Call me to your side. I circled the Nine-cities, caught their conversations. The king has told the seaborn that it was you who summoned it, that this thing is yours."  He threw one hand and a thick thumb-like jet of water over his shoulder, indicating the tenctacled monster. Ochleros pleaded, "I beg you not to swim this close to the edge of your life without taking me there with you. Please, my lady."

Kassandra pressed harder against Bachoris, trying to stand up straighter, a smile crooked across her mouth. In a poor attempt at appearing casual, she said, "Oh, it was nothing I couldn't handle on my own."

Ochleros bent down, his eyes level with hers, open to her scrutiny. "Would you like me to take you home?"

Kassandra shook her head. "Bachoris will get me there in one piece."

"Very well. Then would you like me to dump this thing—" He motioned to the mound of dead monster behind him. "—in front of the Nine-cities, and give the king a message from you?"

She closed her eyes, not wanting to open them again. Forced them open, forced them to focus on the slack tentacles rolling in the surf like logs. "I want you to hide it, somewhere deep, where Tharsaleos will not be able to find it. I do not want him knowing what has happened here."

"But he has told all the Thalassogenêis that you raised this monster, that you are evil, that you will destroy them. They fear you. They believe this thing is yours."

Kassandra's weak smile appeared again. "Then let us make them believe that I have merely put my pet back on its leash."

There was absolute silence for a moment. Even the ocean went calm.

Ochleros stared down at her, frowning. "I do not understand you."

"You sound like my father."  She laughed wearily. "I'm tired. Dead on my feet, really. Good night, Ochleros."

She fell into Bachoris' arms, and he scooped her up, her knees over his forearm, her head resting against his shoulder. She closed her eyes, whispering, "Thank you, dearest."

Chapter 26 - Thursday Night

Bachoris stayed through the night, waiting on Kassandra, running down to the kitchen for orange juice, tea, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, anything she ordered. She rarely took more than a sip or a bite of anything he brought her. He cleared the dishes, glasses, brought her more. He helped her get out of bed, and stumble to the bathroom to pee. Blood swirling in the toilet.

She told Nicole and Zypheria to leave Bachoris alone. He was helping, and he was going to stay as long as she wanted him to. She didn't want their help, if they couldn't do it with him. Nicole ran errands, reined in her attitude, and tolerated Bachoris' presence stoically. Jill hid in her room, sobbing, and when she did appear, her eyes were red, swollen, and when she had to speak, to answer a question, she used single syllables, or just nodded or shook her head. The house was dim, a gray mood, and outside, the weather followed with thick mist, a window rattling nor'easter dumping rain and shaking the trees; the Atlantic was angry, coming into the coast milky gray, churning, impatient.

Days passed, and Kassandra's recovery went on with all the power of the kings and queens in her head working without stop, not only because they could, but because she had commanded them to.

She had a schedule to keep.

Nicole made shopping runs in the pouring rain, Gregor helped Bachoris reluctantly, and Michael Henderson made chicken soup, slipping the recipe to Bachoris when Zyph wasn't looking. Zypheria brooded in the living room, sleeping on the couch with her sword and a loaded crossbow; the main task Kassandra had given her was to prevent her father from answering the front door.

Kassandra woke early four days after being shown the edge of death, her head swimming, brain sloshing around. Her mouth was dry, an empty rumbling in her stomach, cramps and aching joints, but she slid out of bed and put on her robe. She smiled down at Bachoris sleeping in an arched uncomfortable lump on the floor.

Zypheria jumped from the couch sword out, when she heard someone in the kitchen, lowering it slowly, forgotten when she saw Kassandra standing in front of the refrigerator, both doors wide open, light spilling over her death-pallid features. Indecision was a good sign. A sign of life.

Kassandra smiled, a sleepy warm smile. "Good morning, Zypheria."

Zypheria dropped her sword. It slipped out of her fingers, clattering to the floor, a burst of tears down her cheeks. "Oh, milady."  She hugged her gingerly. "You will kill us all. Worried to death."

"I am lucky to be surrounded by your love, you and Michael, dad, Nicole."  She hesitated, blinking to hold in her feelings. "Jill."  She shut the fridge door, glancing over her shoulder at Bachoris coming down the stairs barefoot, nearly silent. He sat down on the third step, rubbing his eyes. "And my Bachoris."

His shoulders dropped, relaxed, the burden sliding off them.

Kassandra grinned. "Couldn't pee without you, dear."  She elbowed Zypheria, giving Bachoris a teasing look. "And I wouldn't have gotten one peanut butter sandwich if you hadn't stuck around."

He nodded wearily, rubbing his eyes. "I have met things—immortals—that kill for fun, that enjoy spectacles of pain, who torture their friends. I fear them..."

Kassandra looked up. "What are you trying to say?"

He looked back at her, shoulders hunched, wretched. "I—I don't know. I'm lost, Kassandra. Lost without you. I just didn't know—wasn't sure, until..."

She raised an eyebrow, waved airily, an affected lightness in her tone to try to bring his spirits up. "I'm a demanding bitch. Not sure if you'll be able to stand me after a while."

Bachoris looked away, alarmed.

He didn't like the way she was steering the conversation. "I know its name was Ormenos, but what kind of animal was that thing in the water?  That thing that almost killed you."  He gave her a worried look. "That thing you killed."

She returned an unkind smile, looking directly at him. "Something immortal. Ormenos was one of the original nine Telkhines lords."

Kassandra spent another three days recuperating, in bed more than out of it, feeling well enough by Thursday to leave the house, ignoring King Moiriades in her head complaining about recommended recovery times.   They'd just managed to get her lost braid grown back.

And Bachoris kept his promise.

"Going where?"  Gregor stopped her by the front door, Zypheria jumping up to join them.

She gave her father a don't worry smile. "I feel fine. I won't be out late. I'm just going to Bachoris' for dinner."  She glanced at Zypheria, made her eyebrows jump. "Guys who can cook are total turn on's."

Nicole wandered over, a sandpaper rough undercurrent of suspicion in her tone, in every motion. "Haven't seen you in a skirt in a while."

Kassandra smoothed her hands down the light cotton, shrugging her shoulders. "It's comfortable."  She pulled the thin strap of her top back over her shoulder, bowed, and pulled open the door.

She walked to Bachoris' place, a tiny rental cottage just up from the shore in Hampton. She passed Alex Shoaler's house on the way, glancing in the windows to see if anyone was home. Dark and silent. Elizabeth's car wasn't in the driveway.

Bachoris answered the door wearing an apron. He looked down, following her look, and smiled back. "Something I've gotten used to. I'm usually wearing tailored clothes, something nice, and I can't afford to get anything on them."  He was wearing shorts and a tee shirt underneath, nothing on his feet.

"Smells good. What's for dinner?"

She slid her hand around his waist, under his shirt as he led her back to the kitchen.

"The couscous dish I couldn't hold onto at your party, and I'm just getting the fish out of the oven, a panko encrusted cod."

She slowed down, let him go, wandering around the tiny living room, a bookshelf with someone else's old books. She guessed the two shelves of crack-spined paperback romance novel's were part of the rental agreement.

He stopped her at a closed door at the end of a short hallway, stuck his head out of the  kitchen. "Don't go in there."

"Bedroom?  Hiding something?"

"My world," was all he said, pointing away from the closed door to a narrow open door on her left. "That's the bathroom."

She came back through the kitchen, took another step into the dining space—part of the kitchen space but without counters, to a small wood table for two. She set out the place mats, dishes, silverware. Her smile brightened when Bachoris lit the candles with a snap of his fingers.

He served, pulled her chair out for her, and they ate with all the formality of a state dinner with a visiting monarch—not much to Kassandra's liking.

She indulged him.

She got up, took her dish to the sink. "Delicious, Bachoris. You haven't asked, but the answer's yes, if you can cook like this, I might just marry you."

He had to jump to grab his own dish which had slipped from his fingers.

She took it from him, stuck it in the sink, and led him outside where they could breathe the cool ocean air and listen to the gulls. She untied his apron and tossed it underhand behind her, pushing him forward through the sand toward the beach.

"Loosen up."  Kassandra drummed her fingers up his back. "I've never seen you so nervous."

Bachoris slowed, took a deep breath, let his racing mind wind down, and swung his arm over her shoulder, his fingers playing with the strap that kept falling down her arm.

They followed the sandy path to Hampton Beach with a very calm Atlantic, a sheet of blue steel with low round waves. She was about to dash forward, but he touched her wrist, firm warm fingers against her skin, and she turned, met his eyes, deep enough to swim in, dark beautiful eyes.

And no lifeguard on duty.

He kneeled and then sat down, pulling her to the sand, smiled—a go-ahead-and-swim-in-them smile.

"Gladly," she whispered.

His fingers played up her thigh, pushed her skirt higher. She stared at his hand, warm brown fingers on her skin, the pressure of his finger tips, his palm, a heavy fluid motion over her skin, his touch like sand poured into the shape of his hand.

He is rock, desert, sand... quicksand.

She glanced over her shoulder, back toward his rental cottage, then spun into him, a quick kiss. "I want to see your world," she breathed into his throat, her fingers gripping his arm.

He tried for funny, got about halfway there. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

"Deal."  Playing with hair at the back of his neck.  "Mine first."

She'd already taken him on a few long ocean trips, but the way she pushed her world to the front of the line made it sound like she had something interesting planned.  He made a disappointed humming noise, grimacing. "You won't like mine, waterless—to you a waste."  He tilted his head down to lean his chin against her shoulder, kissed her there. "You'll probably like my world much less than I like yours."

Fingering the collar of his shirt. "Oh, you're going to love mine."  In a tone that added, whether you like it or not.

He shifted his legs to balance himself. "So sure?"

Her fingers glided across his chest, cold when they stroked his throat. She leaned in for a kiss, and then let him go. "Come with me and I'll show you."

She somersaulted backward, long braids whipping by, coming up on her knees behind him, then a smooth glide to her feet. She walked right by, down the beach, into the water, and let it play around her ankles. She smiled over her shoulder, gave him a come-here curl of her finger.

Bachoris jumped to his feet, dashing after her, arms out low to scoop her up. She dodged his grasp with a laugh, dropping flat onto her back in the water, coming up straight and spinning behind him. He was no match for her in the sea. She danced around the sweep of his arm, slapping his hand going by.

She shoved him and he splashed through the surf, spray going everywhere, laughing as he stumbled forward, caught his fall with his hands, and continued into the Atlantic, the blunt rolls of water darkening his swim trunks, baggy pale orange with a fall of sharp green leaf shapes.

She stopped and waited for him. He caught her hand and they went under, laughing, twisting in the shallows, Kassandra grabbing him, taking the lead. They blew the air from their lungs at the same time, and she leaned in and caught his eyes, gave him a kiss, the hard pressure of her lips distracting him from the shock of letting water into his lungs.

She had given him the curse weeks before. No one got used to interfacing quickly, even those born with the ability.

With Kassandra leading, pulling him along, they were a mile from shore in minutes, a smooth angle into darker sea, deeper into her world.

She turned suddenly, kissed and released him, her legs coming around him, climbing up his body, her knees digging into his ribs, her fingers in his hair, curling around the back of his head to bring her throat to his lips.

She was like a different kind of...thing in the water, her skin glassy fluid smooth, reminding him of the warm polished inside of a seashell, but pliable, polished marble that moved and molded to his touch.

She tightened her legs around him, paddling one hand to set them spinning, and they fell deeper into the Atlantic.

"Bachoris dear, this isn't just an extension of my world—this three-dimensional space, the ocean, the Sea. This is me."

"Oh, gods, Kass."  The water caught the s's in her name, currents of it hissing around them. "I do love your world."

"That's right you do."  And she tightened her grip on him, closed her eyes because she didn't need them anymore, and rolled him into the deep.

Chapter 27 - World Without Water

Kassandra danced out of the surf, light as air, her body running with adrenalin, a buzz that made her fingers numb. And she laughed and grabbed Bachoris by the hand, tugging him toward his house.

"Your turn to show me yours, love. Now. I need to see it. You promised."

He tried to protest but she kissed it off his lips.

Bachoris nodded, swung his arms low, scooped Kassandra into them protectively, and carried her to his little rental cottage in Hampton. He felt a cold tap at the base of his neck, looked over his shoulder to see Akastê and her three incarnations, the white-blond haired young man, the little girl with the mask. He shuddered, and nearly dropped Kassandra, but she clutched his arm, her fingers curling around his neck to get a better hold on him, closing her eyes, resting her head against his shoulder.

At the edge of the porch, he looked back one more time.

Akastê gave him a smirk. Her last words to him, oozing in his ears. Lead Kassandra into your desert, let her fade, let her die there, take the crown. Do not come out without the Sea's crown, Bachoris, or I will consider you a failure, a loss, and I really have no use for Agenika without you.

Akastê waved, nodding at him encouragingly. The young man with the long white hair gave him a jaunty salute, tipping a non-existent hat. The girl with the painted porcelain face took off her mask, showed him the rot and maggots underneath, a squirm of wet crackling motion filling out her cheeks, the hole of her nasal cavity, a patchwork of decay and foamy white splatters of bacteria. She bowed low to him before sliding her face back on.

Bachoris kicked in the front door to his house just to get away.

By the time he reached the door at the end of the hall, he was crying softly; a tear rolled down his cheek, and she caught it on her finger, tasted it. "What's wrong?"

He tried to focus on her through more tears. "At the party you told me not to be afraid."  He spun the handle, lifted her higher in his arms and stepped through the soft glowing opening in the air. The tears dried off his face.

The door slammed behind them, and there was no sign of the cottage's bedroom, no bed, no room, no door to go back through.

"Put me down," said Kassandra in a cautious whisper. "Please."

He pulled her closer to him. "Not until I get to the stone house, someplace where the sand will not burn the skin off your feet. She stopped struggling, let him carry her up the slope.

She stared over his shoulder at his world. Blinding light and sand in every direction, dry wind blowing, dust in her eyes, collecting in her lashes. And she couldn't breathe. A world like hell. She held in her complaint, waited to see what he had planned. If he could endure her Atlantic bed for several hours, she could take anything he showed her. She looked around sadly. At least for a while.

She pulled herself up, and he shifted to cradle her, but she felt weak, her muscles not working right. Her body felt heavy, her arms weighed down by the heat, the dryness. I have no power here. I can't feel...my power.

She tried to summon her armor, her trident.

Nothing. I am nothing here.

Her voice sounded scared. "Where are you taking me?"

He didn't answer, stopping to balance her in his arms while he kicked open a thick solid door. It swung in, creaking to a stop about halfway, and he slipped inside sideways, setting her down in the middle of a small empty room of brick walls with a high ceiling.

He didn't look at her, just backed out of the room and slammed the door, a rolling metal grating sound of the bolt. He had locked her inside.

She went to the door. "What are you doing?"  She heard his feet gliding through the sand, around the side of the building. "Bachoris?  Where are you going?"  She followed the sounds.

His footsteps slipped away, soft brushing noises that faded into the wind, not going back the way they had come in, but continuing on past the building, climbing higher. She heard him sobbing, little coughing noises, murmured apologies.

She shrieked, "Where are you going, Bachoris!  Do not leave me here. I cannot stay here!"

Outside, Bachoris turned at the head of a dune, and looked down at the little stone prison. He listened to Kassandra's pleading, and it made his teeth hurt, there was an ache behind his eyes, the sound of her crying burned inside his head. He walked away, sobbing harder, and didn't look back.  He slid his hands over his ears.

Kassandra ran to the wall opposite the door, running her hands over the bricks, begging, "Please!"

She screamed his name as loud as she could. She clawed the stone walls. She kicked the door to her prison in the desert. She felt weaker, her strength draining with every breath, the water in her body drying up. The air was thin like razorblades, every breath cutting into her.

"Bachoris!"  She screamed through the door one more time, pounding with her fist until her knuckles ran with blood. She slid to the floor, a smear of red following her down. "No. This is not supposed to happen."

She slumped onto the stones, propped up on her hands for a moment, then fell on her face, Alex's metal cylinder ringing dully on its chain around her neck. She scrambled for it, knurled tungsten slippery in her hands, fumbling with it, her fingers shaking too much to grip the capped ends. She screamed in rage, and nothing happened. She stuck it in her mouth, grinding her molars on the metal. Her tongue was dry, sticky behind her teeth, chips of tooth, root burning pain.

She tried to spit, but nothing happened. Her lips stuck to her gums. She worked the muscles in her cheeks, her throat, the floor of her mouth, squeezing out enough saliva to make the sharp tooth fragments cut into soft tissue. She scraped them out of her mouth with her fingers.

Frantic, she pulled Alex's metal cylinder full of the ocean over her head. The chain draped along her arm heavily, dry links ringing against each other. The sound hurt her ears. She cupped the cylinder in her shaking hands, rolled it up between her fingers. It weighed so much, she didn't have the strength to hold it off the floor.

She screamed inside her head, a dry wheezing whistle coming from her throat. Too weak. She dropped the container of the ocean on the floor, and it rolled with its chain up against the door.

"Ochleros?  Please find me. Someone help me."

Desperate, she curled her legs up, sobbing with her chin hitting her knees.

She closed her eyes and there was nothing but the sound of the dry wind, a hot drift of light as the sun set, and Bachoris' world became ice cold.

The ambulance backed into the driveway of the house at the end of Atlantic Avenue, an EMT jumping from the passenger side, boots crunching on the gravel. He was a stocky man in a dark blue jumpsuit, a shoulder patch with "EMERGENCY RESPONSE" in bold, and an oval on his chest that read, "Andy" in stitched italics. He dropped panels on the side of the vehicle, pulling out two orange utility boxes, stacking them at the rear passenger corner. He swung the backdoors wide, and the gurney ejected. The wheels dropped and locked, and he unclipped the restraints, letting them dangle, lifted the orange boxes and placed them on top.

"Pan, incoming," Andy called to a jump-suited woman shooting past from the other side of the vehicle, ponytail swinging. Pandora turned at the door to the house, knocking with three sharp raps, looking up Atlantic Avenue to see an NHFD paramedic and a black police cruiser, blue lights pulsing.

Andy caught up to her with the gurney as the front door flew open. An older man—maybe fifty—with a gaunt face and long dark hair threaded gray ushered them inside. "Hurry!  Two of my daughters. They can't breathe. They're bleeding from cuts that just appear on their skin. Please."

"Bruises as well," said a tall slender woman, her long dark hair braided in threes. "They just blossom without anyone touching them. Mostly up the arms."

The paramedics and two police officers joined them, Andy carrying Jill down the stairs through the kitchen. He set her down gently in the living room, and one of the paramedics came in with Nicole, who was shivering, making involuntary shuddering grunts as if she had just been pulled from an ice bath.

Pandora unlatched the orange boxes, flipped them wide open, grabbing two of everything, peeling off sterile packaging. "Andy, vitals. Call her in."  She looked up at Gregor. "What happened?"  Then over at the parameds. "Rich, what do you got?  Compare symptoms."

The windows were tiny, rough-cut narrow slits in the rock high on the wall. Kassandra watched the white bars of sunlight creep across the floor toward her. Nineteen times the bars had slipped across the stones, up the far wall, faded into night. Nineteen days, and Kassandra couldn't stand, could barely crawl, but since there was nowhere to crawl to, didn't bother trying.

She thought of radioactive decay, tissues rupturing, cell wall breakdown, fluids seeping through decomposing tissue. Her braids had unwound, and her hair was brittle, breaking, losing its color; her skin was like paper, flaking off her body in sheets.

She coughed weakly, flecks of blood on her lips, spots of it across the stone floor. Her hand curled, fingernails scraping feebly against the stone. "Bachoris," she wheezed. "Please?"

She had never felt a stronger urge to cry. Nothing came from her eyes, no demons, no seawater, nothing. She curled into a tight protective ball, her knees up to her chin. Her bones felt loose, dry space between them, atrophied muscle clinging, rigid but uselessly weak. Her thoughts spilled around her soul, making no sense.

There are four of us.

That seemed like something set in stone, fixed in her mind. She didn't know what that meant, but she felt them, and it felt right. Two strong paths she could draw on. One hot spark at her core that she could not let die. I will die before I let any harm come to my spark. Protect the core. Let everything else fade. Nothing else matters. Protect the core.

Now there are four of us. Shut it all down, run on as little as possible, consume yourself to keep the core alive.

Kassandra closed her eyes, and did not open them again for two months.

By that time, she was blind.

The scrape of metal against heavy hard wood, the squeal of hinges, and the prison door swung open. Sunlight fanned over the floor, a sharp line across the stones with the stiff curl of a human body in the corner behind the door.

Bachoris found her and trembled, falling to his knees, crying. His voice was lost in the dry wind, the hiss of sand over the paving. "What have I done?"

He reached out, his fingers gliding over Kassandra's shoulder, touching the material of her shirt. Long strands of her hair had stiffened and broken off, scattered like dead grass. He expected death. He felt something, her life banked so low in her body that she made no sign of breathing. Still as death.

He thought about picking her up, but she looked too fragile to move, and Akastê waited somewhere beyond the door to his rental cottage in Hampton. Where would he take her?

A small ripple under his fingers and he jerked back as if burned. Kassandra was alive, her motor functions coming back online after months of decay. She uncurled into a loose ball, making a crackling papery noise, trying to wet her lips. Her voice came out hoarse, dry like dead leaves. "You betrayed me, Bachoris."

He was crying, eyes blurred with tears. "I saved you from her. She cannot find you here. But you cannot live here."  He bent forward, closer to her ear. "I don't know what to do, Kassandra."  He pleaded with her. "If I don't return with your crown, I will lose Agenika forever.  Tell me what to do."

Kassandra rolled on her back with a splintering sound like bones breaking, blind eyes staring up at him. She looked sad for a moment, and then pulled some anger into her expression. "Akastê?"

He spun, pointing through the open prison door. "She waits for me there, waits for me to return with your crown. She wants to be the Sea."

Her angry expression deepened slightly, as if she wanted to respond with something vicious. She froze, pulled in a deeper breath, opened her mouth. Something in the air. She tasted it. Her gums had pulled back from her teeth, her tongue dry and shuddering, moved past her lips, seeking something.

Bachoris closed his eyes, couldn't look at her any longer. "I'm so sorry, Kassandra."

"Yes."  Her voice a dry whisper. "Yes, you are."

"I didn't mean for it end up like this."

Kassandra reached out one shaky hand, blindly extending her finger, joints burning, the tip touching a teardrop on his cheek. "No one ever does."

Her body went rigid, and then bent in the middle. She sucked in a breath, deep painful wheezing. She felt the stir of power inside her. The core is safe. She repeated the thought, trying to find the other parts of her that had kept her alive. I can barely feel the other two paths. Where have they gone?  We have saved the core. That is all that matters.

She felt an oozing of regeneration, her body re-growing muscle tissue, saliva in her mouth—all from a single tear off Bachoris' face. Her hair grew long, winding into braids on its own. She blinked, trying to focus, everything fire bright and blurry. Her sight returned.

Her hand reached out, feeling with her fingers across the stone floor, picked up Alex's vial of the ocean, the metal hot, burning her skin white where she touched it. She pulled it into her other hand, and spun off one of the caps.

And the ocean spilled out of it.

Clark Gerdes stared down at the plastic floor tiles, the delicious color of ground up Oreo cookies, rich dark brown, somewhat chocolaty with smears of white. Cookies and cream ice cream, that's what it reminded him of—and of the peculiar New England obsession with eating ice cream in late fall—or too early in the spring. Nothing says zeal like frozen desert with a forty degree F chill in the air.

Gerdes snapped his fingernail against the side of his coffee mug, a spasm of frustration. The weather was going to hell up there, and no one seemed to know what to do about it.

Weather extraordinary enough to make him question his own perception. But he knew he wasn't the only one concerned with the atmosphere and oceanic irregularities in the Gulf of Maine, off the coasts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. He'd jumped on the anomalies by the protocols, formed a research team to study the...strangeness, sent them off to discover what they could and convene with some predictability data and forecasts. That was a week ago, and nothing but vague status reports with terms like "broadening our scope" and "extremely narrow window of event opportunity," which, when combined, simply meant that they couldn't find a damn thing.

An alarm chirped startlingly loud, gave Gerdes enough of a pause to catch the coffee mug dropping out of his fingers before launching into a rapid pulse of sharp high-pitched machine pleasure. A frown was just starting to form on his face, and then the shock of recognition ripped through his body, launching him to his feet, setting them running.

It was the EOW—end of the world—alarm, a million and a half air, surface and subsurface data gathering devices all signaling something catastrophic, global scale environmental emergency.

Gerdes sprinted to Control, shouting before he'd crossed the double-doored threshold, "What is it?"

A room full of researchers, scientists, engineers staring up at the wall of video panels, some shaking their heads, others with eyebrows knotted in calculation mode, running numbers in their heads.

"What's going on?"  Gerdes repeated, trying to follow the waterfalls of numbers pouring down the panels.

"Sea level," someone whispered without looking over at him. "The sea level's dropped almost six centimeters in the last four minutes. Worldwide."

Gerdes grabbed one of the consoles and brought up the surface change topography, bands of delta pink outlining all continental coastal boundaries, showing him where the oceans had dropped, but no where filling up.

"Where is it?"

Others were following his lead, calling for him to look at the polar landscape.

Someone finally said aloud, "Where's the ocean going?"

Gerdes rubbed his eyes, searching for something that made sense. He kept repeating, "It's not going anywhere."

Then it stopped, the level of the oceans hitting some floor, and the alarms died sullenly. Wherever the seawater had gone, whatever volume of space it had filled, the ocean had flowed into every corner of it.

Kassandra staggered through the shallows, north along Hampton Beach toward home. Her eyes still weren't working well, but she thought she saw Akastê, maybe a couple other immortals with her, but when she summoned her trident and brought her crown to life, the Erratic One had vanished.

"You better run." Her whisper enough to carry a threat. "You touch Bachoris' sister and I'll cut the bones out of your body one by one and let bore-worms eat them.  One by one."

She had left Bachoris sobbing in the depths of his world—his deep ocean theme redecorated world. She walked home, stopping on the doorstep to dig in her pocket for the keys. Just as she pulled them out, Gregor threw the door open, grabbing her by the arm, angry as she had ever seen him.

"Where have you been?  Jill and Nicole are in the hospital while you're off with your boyfriend, not answering your phone. Out all night!"

She stared at him, confused. "What?"

He pulled her into the house and slammed the door. "You're out all night without a care for your sisters."

"What night?  What day is it?"

Zypheria stood behind her father, arms folded, just as angry as he was, biting off the words, "Friday morning, the twenty-first."

Kassandra shook her head, wrapped her arms around herself. She looked smaller, fragile, using everything inside to hold herself up. "But...it was months. I was in there for months."

"Where?"  said Gregor unsympathetically.

Zypheria rubbed her eyes, trying to hold in her feelings. "I wish I had listened to Nicole."

"Me too."  Kassandra looked at Gregor, holding her middle tighter, fingers clutching at her sides. "I was...nowhere."  She withdrew, searching for the other two paths, the two that had given her life for months inside Bachoris' hell world, Nicole and Jill. I fed off them. My own sisters.  I am a monster. "I am so sorry. I've let everyone down."

The phone rang. Zypheria grabbed it, nodding, making sharp acknowledging grunts, then, "Thank you."  She turned to Kassandra. "They...they're better. Their hydration levels are normal. Jill just woke up."

Gregor didn't say anything, just walked quickly through the kitchen to the mud room. He held the door open for Kassandra, and they both got in the car. He started the engine, backed it into Atlantic Avenue, and headed east through the center of North Hampton, out to 101, and then to 95 north.

They were halfway to the hospital in Portsmouth, when Kassandra whispered, "I wish I could cry, dad.  Growing up, that was one of the normal things I wished I could do."

He looked at his daughter, a goddess, the Wreath-wearer, the strongest being he knew, one of the only things in the world that put fear in him, and she looked broken, taken apart, not put back together right. She stared out the window, didn't even look at him when she spoke, repeating herself, "I wish I could cry."

"Why don't you?  Is it really that you can't—or is it that you don't want to?"

"I've never been able to, or it's never been easy."  She made a halfhearted gesture with the hand nearest him. She clutched the door handle with the other, so tight her knuckles looked like bone. She shrugged. "Ochleros will show up."

"So?"

"Maybe more than Ochleros."

"Fill the car with demons. Why is that so hard for you, daughter?"

She shot him a questioning look. "I have summoned others...but it's like they are my slaves."

"You are the Sea. They are. You don't think they feel it when you're in pain—from wherever they are right now?  Whatever is happening inside your soul—right now—they can feel it, Kassandra. If I understand how this world works, they are made from you, a part of you, not by blood, but they have ties to you in this world. You think they don't understand what is troubling your soul?"

"I never thought of it."  She shook her head, and leaned her forehead against the cool glass, staring at the blur of green pines and maples. "I need to see my sisters. Can you speed it up?"

He looked over at her. "Can you help them?"

"Of course. It's the least I can do—since I nearly killed them."

Chapter 28 - The War-bards

Theoxena met her daughter Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides beside a bench just up from the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. They hugged, bowed to each other, unsure of the balance of authority. Theoxena offered a seat to Nikasia, smiled thinly, thinking back on the same awkward moment with her mother, half the bleed split between the two, who is the true Kirkêlatides, who rules the house now?  And she said the same words her mother spoke to her—and probably the same passed down from the beginning.

"If anyone is to die in this next battle, my daughter, my bleed earner, Nikasia, it will be me. The line dies with you. With me, you become the full bleed bearer."

Nikasia stared at Theoxena a moment, frightened, something small and childish and painful, a knot of it rumbling in her stomach. She bowed her head, whispered, "Yes, mother."

Theoxena let the moment pass slowly, held her breath, tried to make it last. It lasted, but only a few minutes, and then she was the commanding war-bard to the crown of the seaborn again, making decisions, planning wars for her king. She put her hand on her daughter's shoulder, bringing in her fingers to get her full attention.

"Something has happened, or is happening. Kassandra has gone. I cannot feel her presence at the house, or anywhere in the world. With the right call and bounce, she stands out like a beacon in the abyss. But she is nowhere."

"What do you mean?"  Nikasia looked at her mother, a concerned questioning stare. "How?  Is it possible that she has gone out of the world?"

"No. She knows I am watching her, waiting for her to slip. She is careful, always has her guardians nearby, in easy reach. She has befriended another immortal, one of the dry sands lords, Bachoris."

Nikasia's mouth fell open wider. "And we must go up against him as well?"

Theoxena went still, thoughtful, and didn't come out of that state for several minutes. Nikasia waited, watching her, running her fingers along her mother's hand when she felt she had given her enough time to find an answer.

"Well?"

Theoxena's mouth tightened at the corners. "I am not certain. I have just recalled everything I know of the barrens and their ladies and lords, and of this one, Bachoris, in particular. They do not get on well with the water ladies and lords. Never have. It makes this union with Kassandra all the stranger."

"Your sense is that he will not support her?"

She nodded.

Nikasia looked relieved, happily so, waved her hands in mock glee. "Oh, well that's excellent news. We just have to destroy Poseidon's own heir and crown wearer, who's a bit over protective of her murdering old dad. It'll be a walk across the flats, a kick in open water, a dance with dolphins. We'll simply walk up to her front door, knock it down, cut the head off Gregor Lord Rexenor, and tell her she'd better not give us any trouble, or she'll be next."

Theoxena had long ago let her sense of humor go to rot, and glared back at her daughter.  The sarcasm didn't even register.

Nikasia went dead serious, commanding her mother, "Make the call again. I want to see the hole she has left in this world."

Theoxena bowed her head, scooped up the Atlantic, and sang for the Sea to show herself.

The call came back, blinding, like a star in the water sloshing around in the cup of Theoxena's hands. Nikasia leaned in, touching the surface gently with a finger, stirring the water. Her voice out low, confused. "She is there, not in her home, very weak, but in this world. Again."

Theoxena looked again, scowling, nodding. "Yes, she is. But she was not here at the last sunset when I looked."  Theoxena let the water spill through her fingers. "Now, we must plan her father's death with her in our way."

Nikasia nodded, not very happy about that.    "There are other problems to solve, players who have a part to play."

Theoxena looked at her sharply, but nodded as if already guessing something about her daughter's next direction. "More than one?  Who?"

"I have found an actual live Telkhinos."  She said it with an air of discovery, as if Alex Shoaler was something on an endangered species list. "A Telkhinos of the lord's line."

Theoxena let a hint of a smile appear on her lips. "I have also seen him. Kassandra is protecting him—or in league with him. Yes, quite the formidable little force she is assembling."

Nikasia nodded. "Another question to answer, I have one of the demons—a deathless one—following me."

Theoxena sat upright. "Who?"

"Their king. Ochleros."

Her expression hardened. "I know Ochleros. He was once a slave of King Tharsaleos."  She gave her daughter a narrowed, uncertain look, then opened, decided to share a secret with her. "I killed their former king, Ephoros—with the help of Tharsaleos. But I would rather not meet any of the Sea-Daimones in the water."  She lifted her chin imperiously, the decision made. "We must remain above the waves where it hurts him to pursue you."

Nikasia looked over her shoulder at the parking lot, the only apparent option not appealing to her. "We're going to get someone to drive us?"

"Have you ever flown in an airplane?"

Nikasia's eyes went wide, shocked that her mother would even consider such a wild idea. She gasped, "No. But I'd love to."

"We'll plan on the way. Let us go."

They stood, Nikasia grabbing her mother's arm. "One more ally I have not told you about. She will become part of our net for the Rexenor killer, a lure."

Suspicion creeping into her mother's voice. "What is it?"

Nikasia led her to edge of the water, lowered one flattened hand, and sang a call for Barenis.

Theoxena went into a fighting stance when the dragon lifted its head from the water twenty yards from shore. Nikasia laughed, pointing up the coast. "North, my dear Barenis. We will meet in the waters off North Hampton, New Hampshire—" She named the place for Theoxena, dragon's not having access to modern cartography. Then nodded at the questioning look in Barenis' eyes, and stepped through a series of whistles, sung a string of low notes, adding in English, "The place with the cut of land that curves out to sea, and there is a tiny diamond shaped island very near shore. Rocks of granite, taste them in the water. You know where I mean, dear Barenis. I will meet you there tomorrow at the latest."

When the dragon had slumped beneath the waves, Theoxena turned to her daughter. "Barenis?"

"You're going to love this one, mother."  She pointed north in the Dragon's curling blue surface disturbance. "Barenis was once the dragon of Gregor Lord Rexenor...and the dear beast has been looking for her master all these years."

Theoxena nodded her head, took the motion deeper, into a bow, acknowledging her daughter's power and planning.

Nikasia flagged down a truck carrying bathroom cleanser, climbed up in the cab to bend the driver to her will. He suddenly found—even after a minute's study of his log and manifest—that he had an urgent delivery to make at one of the departure terminals at Norfolk International Airport up in Virginia. And, yes, he would love the company of two beautiful ladies for the trip.

He chatted about life on the road, pointing out interesting sites like Kill Devil Hills, where the Wright Brothers monument stood, and where they flew some of their famous flights. Theoxena and Nikasia stopped their plotting to listen to that one, but generally ignored him the whole way up, talking in low voices, making a list of questions that needed answering before they attacked.

In Norfolk, Nikasia worked out all the strange procedures that went into getting tickets and flying on an airplane—she worked it out of a pilot she'd captured in a bar in the terminal, dragging him by his tie into the ladies room, pinning him to the wall in one of the stalls, threatening him. Then she took his wallet, credit cards, gate pass, anything that looked useful, dumping his pants, boxers, and shoes in a garbage bin on her way to the ticket counter.

The war-bards went right to the front of the line because they were Kirkêlatides, and never had to wait for anything. They ordered two one-ways, first class, to Boston, putting them on the pilot's card, and convinced their way through airport security. It wasn't difficult.

The flight went smoothly with three exceptions, the takeoff, landing and one in-flight incident that ended without anyone dying. Mother and daughter clawed at the arms of the chairs on takeoff, but not seeing anyone else panicking, kept their reactions to the strange sensation of lifting off the ground damped down.

Twenty minutes out of Boston, Nikasia got to within a moment of killing and drinking all the blood from a stewardess who handed her a glass of wine without the proper amount of reverence, but at a touch on the arm from her mother, pulled back, decided instead to curse the impudent woman with eyebrow horns that would develop over the next week.

They landed at Logan airport around midnight, and without too much trouble forced a ride out of a business man who lived in Manchester, New Hampshire. After Nikasia was through with him, he seemed agreeable to anything, including going a bit out of his way to drop them off in North Hampton, and even a quick stop to grab bagels and coffee at one of the many brightly lit places along the way.

They stepped out of the car in the early morning dark on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Lafayette, waving goodbyes to their driver. After a huddle to discuss strategy, the war-bards, descendants of deadly Circe, the mother and daughter army of two, set out down Atlantic Avenue.

Nikasia stood on the wet sand staring out at the waves, the Atlantic rolling in rough and gray. "I need to warm up, mother."

They had passed Kassandra's house and turned on Ocean Boulevard to prepare for their battle on the beach.

"What are you talking about?"

"Summon Fenhals. I know you can do it. Summon him now."

It was a command. Theoxena went still, lips pressed tightly together, paused to catch a few seconds that still belonged to her, and then nodded, drew a breath of cool ocean air, and sang a slow song to call the king's terrier.

The mother and daughter waited, standing side by side; they had turned their backs to the land. Theoxena tilted her head when she heard the rumble of Fenhals' old truck pulling into a space in the North Hampton Beach parking lot. Nikasia just smiled.

He stepped lightly, carefully over the sand, head down, a whipped dog coming when it was called. He kept glancing at Theoxena for help, but he spoke to the daughter. "Please milady. I was following orders. I am bound to King Tharsaleos. He makes me do things that I perhaps would not do."  He held his hand out, open fingers spread, an appeasing gesture. "Please do not do this, my lady."

Nikasia chirped a note and the last knuckle on his little finger popped with a spurt of blood. He jerked his hand back. She sang another note and the second knuckle collapsed. Fenhals stifled a scream.

"Please, milady," he begged, turning his pain-blurred gaze to Theoxena. She looked away, toward the Atlantic.

The first knuckle on his thumb went with a wet crunch. Shaking, tears running from his eyes, Fenhals took a step back, and Nikasia advanced, cold anger thrum in her in body. She twirled her fingers with a soft flow of notes. His wrist twisted too far with a sharp crisp-vegetable snap.

Fenhals shrieked, staring down at his mangled bleeding hand, dangling at the end of his arm, holding it out as if he didn't want it to belong to him.

"Nikasia," started Theoxena in a voice that sounded like protest.

Her daughter shot her a glare, told her to shut her mouth, and she did.

Nikasia turned back to her prey in time to deflect a bolt of blue lightning Fenhals had summoned and thrown at her. It shot off her defenses, crackling into the ground, lurching up the beach, a scattering blast of sand and molten glass.

She nodded back at his challenge, even a little bit amused by it. "Mr. Fenhals, you poisoned one of the Kirkêlatides, something so offensive I am finding it difficult to come up with punishment that fits your crime."  She sighed, and then shrugged consolingly. "On the good side, we're in a hurry, and there just is not enough time to do this correctly."

She made a claw with her fingers, swiped the air with a short song, and most of the right side of Fenhals' face tore free from his skull. Invisible hooks ripped into his right eye, cutting away the lid and the skin along the brow and cheekbone. His jaw popped and hung loose, teeth spilling out of his mouth, red threads of root and saliva glistening and swaying stiffly like stalks of fishing line. He tried to shove his face back together with his good hand, gargling a scream through the sticky fluid collecting in his throat.

His legs shifted out from under him and he landed clumsily in the sand at her feet, one knee bent wrong, breaking when his weight came down on it. He was breathing now in rapid wet drags of air, his old limbs too weak to hold him up in the Thin. His remaining eye drifted lazily in its socket to find Nikasia, the gray iris floating up, pupil contracting, trying to focus on her.

The sand shifted under his body, loosening to the consistency of oil, and he fell into it, one arm paddling feebly. The eye going wide, gaping ruined mouth sucking in water and sand and air.

"You never were much of an under the waves sort, Mr. Fenhals."  She tapped her chin as if giving this notion her full measure of thought. Then she smiled down at him. "So, I am going to bury you up here in the Thin, under the dry sand. Unable to breathe the air, unable to breathe the water—a fine way for you to go. We'll just let the things that cannot live under the water clean your bones. How's that?"

He shook his head, and he started to cry, his good eye flooding with tears. The cold wet sand of North Hampton Beach tightened around his shoulders, his neck, pulling him under, and with a heavy folding crackling noise, swallowed his body.

Chapter 29 - Scissors

Kassandra paced up and down the back walk, holding a full assembly discussion with herself. "Cut my ties with them, now is the right time. Both of them. I will only drag them down if we remain together."  A bowl full of ideas in her head, most of them swimming in the same direction. "I have proven my own inability to handle this, nearly killed them with my stupidity."

She stepped into the house, bold steps, right to the junk drawer in the kitchen. She pulled out a heavy pair of scissors, big steel ones with painted black loops for fingers.

She peeked into the living room. "Jill?"

Gregor, sitting on the couch, looked up from a half-played chessboard. "Upstairs, I think."  A look of concern swept his face. "What are going to do with the scissors?"

"Cut my ties with the seaborn."

She waved him back, a forced smile on her face. "Not really, dad. Being figurative."  She shrugged. "And I've already done that. Did that during the battle in the north. Showed them what I really was."

What a ruthless fucking monster I am.

He stared at her, taking a moment to remember to breathe. Kassandra turned back into the kitchen to the stairs, bounding up them to the second floor, down the hall to Jill's bedroom. She burst in without knocking.

Jill swung around, startled, sitting on the edge of her bed, one of her hands still rubbing her eyes. Kassandra strode right up to her, jammed the handles of the scissors into her sister's hands, and turned around.

"Do it. As far as you can drive them. I am mortal. I have commanded the past Wreath-wearers to do nothing. I will die. Do it, Jillian. I have hurt you to the core, crushed your heart. I am wrong. I do not deserve your forgiveness. I do not deserve to be your sister. I deserve your anger."

Jill stood up behind her, holding the scissors like a dagger, her hands shaking. She took the sheers in both hands, raising it over her head. Her fingers slipped into the cold metal rings for a better grip.

Kassandra let a minute go by, silence, feeling Jill's rage and indecision, and then let out a long slow breath. She swung her three long braids over her shoulder, penduluming across her back.

"Then please, if you will, cut them off, Jill. They are not me. Cut them off and make the appointment at Maxine's. Get my hair dyed or highlighted, zebra stripes if you want. Just cut them off. Please."

Kassandra felt Jill's relief in the air, and then stiffened at the cold metal sliding across the back of her neck. Fingers shaking, Jill squeezed the handle, a metallic fibrous stomach-squeezing sound, and Kassandra's right braid thumped at her feet, coiling on its own and laying still. Another slide of metal, a crunch and snip through the bundle of hair, and the middle braid fell with the first one. Kassandra let out a deep breath with the last braid gone, reaching her hand around to ruffle her hair loose.

"Thank you."  She desperately wanted to call her "sister," but kept her mouth shut.

Jill didn't say anything, just set down the scissors, and pulled out her phone, went through the receptionist to get to the proprietor, Maxine of Triple M Salon. Then she called in favors, and got an immediate appointment.

Kassandra took the stairs slowly, shaking her head, feeling the brush of her short hair against her ears, the cool air on her neck. She felt different, lighter, a weight taken off her shoulders...and she liked it. Zypheria came in from the mudroom with a bag of vegetables and eggs from the farmer's market, stopped at the foot of the stairs, staring up Kassandra's weird serene smile, dropped the eggs.

"What happened to your hair?"

Kassandra took the last flight of stairs slowly, and at the bottom, held out the three braided loops of hair. "Keep them for me, Zypheria. They used to be me."  She walked past her, stepped over the eggs. "I'm going with Jill to get my hair done. Don't let my father near the door."

Maxine shrieked in ecstasy at the appearance of one of Jill's mysterious sisters. She had heard about them for years, but neither of them had ever set foot inside her salon. "Which is too bad," said Maxine, running her fingers through Kassandra's thick wavy hair. "You have gorgeous hair. What should we do with it?"

On the ride back from Maxine's, Jill turned to Kassandra, put her hand on her arm. "Hey. You did for me what a sister should do. You were just watching out for me."

Kassandra's voice was flat. "A sister would have done it without hurting you."

They drove on in silence, but just as she braked to a stop in the driveway, Jill sighed. "What if there wasn't a way to do it without hurting?

"I don't know. If I hurt this bad doing what I did to you, I cannot even imagine how you feel. And I can't see a way to make that not hurt, or heal faster. You have a heart, Jill that you hold out in front of you, that you use all the time, that you expose for the world to see, share, hold, and hurt. Your heart is like the sun, Jill, beauty and kindness that is blinding. I have trouble finding mine most of the time."

Gregor met them at the front door. Kassandra gave Zypheria a glare for not being there before her father, but that faded quickly. The change in him made her heart jump unexpectedly. He looked happy, smiling, something lifted off his shoulders as well. He looked at her short hair, swaying around her ears, silky right from the salon perfection, parted a little off to one side, a wavy dark angle across one eye, and blue stripes spaced a few inches apart, running vertically.

"I—I love it!"

"Thanks, dad. Can we get away from the front door."  She shut and locked it behind her. "Where's Nic?"

Nicole came up the basement stairs dripping wet, deep shock in her expression when she saw her sister. "I was out for a swim, went to Georges Bank and back with Ochleros. Zypheria showed me your braids. I didn't believe her."  She stammered something, then nodded. "Looks good." A smile at Jill. "You wouldn't let her get anything that made her look bad."

Jill shook her head. "Never."

Kassandra jutted her chin back into the kitchen. "You got a minute, Nic?"  She took the steps into the basement two at a time, calling over her shoulder. "Just need a few minutes alone."

Kassandra stopped next to the far wall, old cemented stone and rows of stacked plastic storage boxes on a pallet. "Nicole."  She pulled in a deep breath, closed her eyes a moment, and then opened them, and released it. "I just want to say that I am sorry for everything I have put you through. I..."  Her voice was getting rough, and she cleared her throat. "I want to give you your life back. I really do."

Nicole scowled at her. "What?"

"But I can't."

"I don't want a different life. What are you talking about?"

"I have so much to tell you, Nicole. Not enough time in the rest of our lives to explain it all, but I have to try. I told you once that that there is no me anymore, no Kassandra left, just the name. Maybe it's the other way around, there's only me, but I have become it. And I have to do what it wants."

"But—"

"I am powerless—me. I am weak, entirely in its control."  Her voice died, her body shuddering with a fresh wave of hatred for what she had become. "I have known you for most of my life, Nicole Garcia. You are the one with power—and loyalty. You are honest, you keep your word. I am just a really hungry animal with way too much force at my disposal. You are free. You have a choice. I do not. I've been used every day of my life, and I use everyone who gets near me, twist every friendship, kill every love. I'm a puppet in someone else's world. Always have been. You."  She poked Nicole in the center of the chest. "You have no strings."

Nicole stared at her, a shiver of pain, confused.

Kassandra stared back, pleading, "Forgive me, Nicole. Please forgive me. Do not answer now, but in the end—if I have not destroyed you—when all of this is over, I would ask...I will beg for your forgiveness...and I ask that you consider it."

"I already—"

Kassandra held up her hand, a startled look on her face.

"What is it?"

"She's here."  Kassandra ran for the basement stairs.

Zypheria, in the living room, turned at a chill up her back, a command from Kassandra. She grabbed Gregor by the arms and pulled. A squeal of timber, and the door flew off its hinges, coming away with half the structure around the entry way, bracing and slats splintering, ripped off the front of the house.

Chapter 30 - The Old Sirens

Theoxena of the Kirkêlatides, war-bard to King Tharsaleos, stood in the ruined doorway, one hand raised, fingers curling. She sang a short hop of notes, and Gregor and Zypheria winced, a snap and squeal noise in their ears, their throats scorched raw. All the breath left Gregor's lungs, an acid burn in his mouth, cutting through wet tissue, vocal cords disintegrating. Gregor gasped, mouth ratcheting open, his hands at his neck, clawing for his voice, for air. He tried to counter with something defensive, but he couldn't make a song, say a word, his voice torn out of him.

In the basement, Kassandra screamed agony, a long wail of pain, and all the windows in the house shattered, burst in with the force of the Atlantic, glass pooling, rolling down the stairs, a deadly skin-cutting flow into the kitchen. And she was running up the stairs, yelling commands at Nicole over her shoulder.

"Take Jill and dad to Stormwind. Henderson's already there. Kill anyone in your way!"

She spun at the head of the stairs, flew into the living room, jumped a chair, and landed in the entry way, sharp stabs of water whirring by her. The war-bard snatched a few of them out of the air, deflecting the rest into walls, one into Zypheria's leg, throwing her to the floor.

Kassandra shook off a tear and Ochleros appeared, a moment's distraction for the Kirkelatides. It gave Kassandra time to will on her armor, smooth flowing metal, yellow bands racing, blue seams flexing with her next move.

Zypheria crawled to her feet, dragging Gregor with her, out the back door, into the yard. Nicole had her sword out, leading the way—Jill with her, sprinting across the grass.

Kassandra looked up in horror as Ochleros spread into life across the couch and chairs, claws expanding, teeth open for attack. Theoxena's song hit him, a ripple of distortion, his body disintegrating, a punch of follow-on force, and the demon vanished in a trailing seawater splatter across the ceiling into the dining room. He rained down on the furniture, the rugs, the dining room table.

Theoxena turned toward the woman with darksea eyes, her short hair dancing and swaying like the ocean in a storm, blue streaks coiling angrily. Songs queued up in the war-bard's soul, a rapid release of them, taking command of the terrain, chairs shredded apart, skidded to the walls, clearing space for combat, plaster walls snapped, lightning bolt lines of fracture running to every joint, corner, ceiling, before they broke and blew out with clouds of dust. Trees in the yard, froze solid and splintered, coming down across the road.

Kassandra drew her sword and swung.

Theoxena didn't recognize her opponent, but hooked her fingers, let a song catch the woman's sword in mid-swing, felt her song try to twist the metal and fail, pushed another string of notes along that path just to stop the blade from coming through her throat, gasping, "Who are—?"

Then she knew, and the songs stopped in her mouth, a moment of shock so deep it made her knees shake. Kassandra's crown flared into life, blinded her. The sword in her left hand shuddered with her strength, but remained locked in the song's vise.

Then she saw what was in the woman's right fist, felt the point of the trident's end, sharp against her chest.

Kassandra caught her soul, held its focus on her, but didn't attempt to climb into her, just enough push to keep her attention. "Theoxena of the Kirkêlatides. We meet in close quarters at last."

The war-bard swallowed the saliva pooling in her mouth.

"Theoxena, please stop what you are about to do. Your husband did not die at the hands of my father."

This goddess was pleading her.

"Don't do this.  Tharsaleos killed Lord Epandros—and I broke Epandros' bones in the final battle with the Olethren. Tharsaleos bound his soul to that army. Epandros led an eighth of the two-hundred and forty thousand dead. He blew a horn you made for the Eight. You—the great Kirkelatides have been duped by my grandfather.   Please stop this before it is too late.  Look into your soul and make these connections. The demon Ochleros, my old friend—you just broke him against the ceiling—Ochleros honored Epandros and the rest of the dead oktoloi with a final burial. I will take you to your husband's grave, show you the horn he possessed in death. Please stop this settling of scores against my father. He is innocen—"

Kassandra grunted, bent with pain, her fingers slipping off her sword. Her father's bleed rammed into her soul in one remaining punch.

Theoxena backed up a step.

"Too late."  When Kassandra straightened, it was no longer her, there was no warmth, no pleading, no humanity in her eyes. Sharks teeth and demon's eyes. She was the Sea, some thing, not someone. And she pulled her sword from the song that held it, looked at it, and tossed it away, ringing across the wood floor.

She drove the trident through Theoxena's body, shattered bone, crushed her heart, snapped vertebrae apart, sliding out of the war-bard's back bloody.

Theoxena's mouth sagged open, tongue moving to say something. Kassandra beat her to it, her voice smooth as a tide, and arctic cold. "That is for Ephoros."  Theoxena's legs collapsed, her body sagging like a doll. Kassandra held her up skewered on the trident's end. "That is for Ochleros. That is for being a fool whore sell-out to the king of the seaborn, Tharsaleos. That is for bringing down the walls of the Rexenor fortress so many years ago. That is for playing a part in my father's death."

The Sea turned, and with a curl of her fingers, assembled Ochleros from the all the water dripping off the ceiling, soaking into the furniture. And when she called, he bowed low to her, following her under the house into the Atlantic.

Gregor kicked hard, fought the surf, and went under, sliding deeper into the Atlantic. Zypheria swam on his left, Nicole on his right, Jill holding her hand. Without warning, Gregor kicked wide, palming the water to slide sideways, shouldering by Zypheria.

He heard someone calling his name.

He opened his mouth, caught somewhere between joy and indecision. He couldn't speak, his throat still burning. He looked over at Nicole, excited. He tried forming the words, mouthing them. He gave up. Only one voice like that in the ocean. It is my dear Barenis, my dragon. Calling for me. He drove his legs harder, Nicole reaching for him to slow him down. He found her actions inexplicable—as much as she did his. He pointed vigorously. Let me go. It is Barenis. She has found me.

Ampharete's excited voice hit his thoughts, It is Barenis?

Her throat burned raw, Zypheria mouthed the word to Nicole, "Trap."  Again when she shook her head, not understanding.

Then she got it.

Nicole dragged Jill under Gregor, reached up with her sword, and slapped him with the flat across his ankles. "Trap!"

He shook his head sadly. It is my dragon. Do not be afraid.

Nicole kicked back in terror, the giant head of a monster coming into view in the dark, horns, and curled teeth and tusks, two great pale eyes, watching Gregor. Zypheria spun in a circle, nearly colliding with Gregor who had stopped his mad rush for safety.

He smiled, then it faded off his face. His mouth opened, pleading, head shaking.

Nikasia kicked out in front of Barenis, songs locked down, three snapped off her fingers, winding up the legs of Zypheria, Nicole, and Jill, and then weight on their bodies too great for them to fight, dragging them to the floor of the ocean.

She kicked closer to the man who murdered her father, her song came out half screaming rage, enough control to bind his arms to his sides. "One chance, you animal. Tell me how my father died. Try to convince me that you were not the one. Speak!"  She pointed, commanding, her hand shaking. "One chance!  I am Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides, daughter of Theoxena war-bard to King Tharsaleos, daughter of Lord Epandros of Dosianax, who died by your hand. I will give you something you did not give my father. Tell me you did not do it!"

Gregor opened his mouth, gagged against the pain, made a scratching noise deep in his throat. He shook his head, pleading with her. I didn't kill!

Ampharete screamed at him in his head, begging him to find his voice, to answer.

Nikasia shrieked, a painful burst of feelings, her tears like blurry tentacles around her face. "Speak!  Tell me what you did to my father. How did he die?  Did he say anything?  What were his last words?  Speak, Rexenor animal, or die."

She screamed at his silence in frustration and rage, a wail of pain to her core. She kicked closer, caught his eyes, tried to claw her way into his soul. It was locked against her, solid walls, and vault doors, nothing for her to see, nothing to hear, no way to penetrate his defenses.

"I have waited all my life for this moment. You will not rob me of an answer!"

He stared at her piteously, mouth half open, shaking his head. She gave him one more moment, looked for a sign of his voice, cried battle, and brought up her hands, released her songs, froze the ocean around them. Barenis made an animal's screech, and shrunk back.

A sharp spike of water hard as iron and as long as Nikasia's forearm fired out of her song-bending fingers. He cupped his hands, swung them wildly, trying to dodge it, a twist of a silent scream on his features. The point went through his chest, compressing bone and organs, snapping his spine, taking everything with it, out of the center of his back in a spray of blood and twisting fragments of hard tissue. The force flipped him upside down. He looked down at his body, stared at the hole in his chest, shaking fingers curling in to touch it in disbelief. He gave up trying find sense in this.

Somewhere inside him, Ampharete was sobbing.

Gregor Lord Rexenor looked at Nikasia, an expression of pity on his face when he saw the pain in hers. Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides was still in pain. It was pain he had not caused, and he wondered how that could be?  Through lies of the king, he had ruined her life. She had spent her entire life hunting him, killing him, spending it all. And it had not made her whole, nothing had been made right, no balance in the world had been reached.

He tried to smile at her, to tell her that he understood that kind of sorrow, that kind of drive to right the world, that House Rexenor had been exiles for hundreds of years, hated for thousands, that no one except perhaps the ruler of the seas could make it right again. Kassandra can make it right. Let her make her own path. That had always been his first rule with Kassandra and Jill and Nicole. He may not have agreed with many of Kassandra's choices, but if anyone could bring the world into balance it would be her.

Then he wondered in his last moment where Kassandra was. He didn't see Jill or Nicole. They had been with him moments before. He wanted to say goodbye. He wanted to say goodbye for Ampharete. He wanted...

He felt cold.

The life faded from his eyes.

Kassandra found Nikasia and her father floating in the gloom not far offshore, Gregor upside down, a hole in his chest, dead, his eyes open, one of his arms outstretched, fingers clawing the water, looking for her.

Nikasia shivered, arms wrapped around, holding herself, her eyes closed in pain, squeezed tight against a shuddering dizzy motion in her stomach.

Nicole and Jill kicked up from the depths with Zypheria, frantic, slowing when they saw Kassandra reaching out a hand to close Gregor's eyes. And all the fury of the flight and trap caught up to them, and Nicole pulled up her sword to charge Nikasia.

Kassandra looked at her, shook her head, and waved her sword away. "Not now, Nicole. Not when it will serve no purpose or bring our father back."  She pointed at Nikasia. "She is nothing but a tool of Tharsaleos' lies. The tool cannot be blamed."  Her gaze swung to Jill, sobbing hard, choppy wracking cries, as she held Gregor in her arms, ignored the blood seeping into her clothes.

Nicole, still angry and scowling, jutted her chin at Theoxena's limp form in Kassandra's arms. "What of her?  I cannot kill the daughter, but you can kill the mother?"

Kassandra sighed. "Nicole, I did not have time to finish our talk before the Kirkêlatides attacked. I will tell you more—and why you cannot—when we next have the chance."

Kassandra kicked over to Nikasia, looking up into Barenis' big pale eyes set in deep angular sockets. "Dragon. I will have Nikasia only for a moment, and then you may depart with her."   She adjusted Theoxena's body to her right arm, reached out and lifted Nikasia's chin, leveling her eyes with her own. "Nikasia of the Kirkêlatides?  Wake and listen to my words."

Nikasia opened her eyes, blinking and confused, as if she had just slid out of a dream, shock twisting her features when she saw her mother's body. Kassandra caught the descendent of Circe, and wouldn't let her go. "Listen to me, Nikasia. I will not harm you. I will let you go. But you must hear me first."

Kassandra was inside her soul a moment later, showed her the burial place for the trusted Eight of the cursed king Tharsaleos. Showed her Epandros as she had seen him, dead, his soul bound by the king, marching with the Olethren. She told her everything she had told Theoxena.

Kassandra released her, and Nikasia nodded, her face frozen in terror, but there was nothing but loss in her eyes, they were empty, the fire of her hate had died, and left nothing behind. She took Theoxena from Kassandra, and bowed deeply. "I am so sorry."  She swung over Barenis' neck, holding her mother tight, and turned south, vanishing into the infinite blue.

The three daughters of the Lord of Rexenor brought his body home to the fortress in the deep north, and the funeral was held for Gregor Lord Rexenor and Lady Ampharete of the Alkimides, both having perished at the songs of the Kirkêlatides acting on the lies of the king.

Kassandra and Nicole and Jill mourned in the deep with all of House Rexenor for one day, before they departed to finish what Kassandra called, "icing the cake."  But she said it with acid, all the subtlety of a sloppy decapitation, adding, "It's time the seaborn had a new ruler."

Chapter 31 - Storm Eating

Jill looked out at the choppy gray Atlantic, a nor'easter blowing in, hovering over the Gulf of Maine—and not one boat going out in it, nothing man-made and floating on the scopes. "I promised," she told Michael Henderson. It didn't mean she wanted to go out in it.

The harbormaster called and sent someone down to warn the skipper of the perils of taking even a cutter like Stormwind out in weather like the gray rage brewing outside the breakwaters. The man in the bright yellow coat yelled at her from the edge of the pier, waving frantically. She ignored him, running out of the harbor under power, the bow already tipping steeply into the swells.

She gave Alex and Kaffia, Elizabeth—and even Bachoris—an apologetic smile, and stared intently into the storm when they shot her questioning looks, elbowing Nicole to do something about it, "You explain what's going on."

Her sister gave her a resigned look and unzipped her jacket, stepping out of her pants. She pulled her sword from bench storage, latching to the hooks running up the back of her armor.

Zypheria got up from the bench with her, stripping down to her armor, pulling out an array of weapons, a crossbow, a sword, eight knives that went into sheathes up her legs, a harness full of bolts and darts, with a lanyard that ran to the crossbow so that it hung free under her left arm—which probably made more sense in underwater combat. She looked over at the three travelers, smirked, and flexed her hand, a flash of the webbing between her fingers.

Michael yelled something from midships, waving, gestured to the mast, lines, sails, and Jill yelled back, made a responding set of signals. The mainsail went up, and Jill tacked into the wind, zigzagging her way out into open sea, very rough sea, sharp green-gray mountains of water, deep valleys of foam and turbulence.

Holding on to the lines, ducking under the boom, Nicole made her way with firmly placed steps to Alex, Kaffia, Elizabeth Shoaler, and Bachoris, all of them huddled on the portside bench, hoods pulled low, bent forward, hanging on to their seats with tight knuckles. Bachoris stared at the deck, clutching at his raincoat as if the wind was going to take off with it. Alex was looking along the length of the boat, facing the bow. Kaffia looked up.

Nicole had no idea what Kassandra wanted her to tell them. Her directions were clear, though, do whatever it takes to get them aboard. Promise anything. Just make sure all of them are with you when you head out of Rye Harbor.

Well, there it was. Promise anything. "Sorry about this," she shouted over the wind, raising her arm, giving the whole storm a sweep. "Kass will take care of all of it, once we get out there."  She had no idea if that was true, but it sounded good.

She wasn't sure if they were buying it anyway. Kaffia pointing at her, yelling something that took her a minute to decipher.

"Armor?"  She shrugged, ignoring Zypheria gearing up behind her. She shook her head, yelling, "I love the way it feels. I'm always wearing it. No, we're not expecting any trouble. Well, not until later. Nothing here on the surface."  She leaned down to Kaffia, her hand cupped to her ear. "What?"

Glaring up at Nicole, Kaffia shouted, "I said, just great!"

Clark Gerdes stopped off in the kitchen for a coffee refill before heading into the control center to watch the progress of a storm system rotating into the New Hampshire and Maine coast. A good old normal nor'easter. A weather pattern seen over and over again, every year off the New England coast.

He took a sip, thumbing through the display to see if the simulation team had come up with anything to explain the rapid drop in sea levels, which ended up being close to eight centimeters in a two hour period, and then nothing, a new stable floor had been reached. The water had simply vanished, billions of cubic meters of ocean had gone somewhere, filled some basin, poured into some whole in the world...just not this world.

And nothing—not a word—from the sim team looking into it, model building, running profile after profile, hiring consultants, oceanographic researchers, banging their heads against the anomaly. The water had vanished.

Another sip of coffee.

Alex stood up, pointing. Nicole swung toward the bow, following his line of sight. Kassandra was standing in the water, sliding down the face of a wave, Stormwind's bow rising to meet her. They met somewhere in the middle of the wave, and Kassandra stepped aboard easily, holding a dark-haired woman under the arms, planting her feet apart to help one more guest aboard.

Nicole braced her own feet, glancing back at Jill's worried too-many-strangers-on-my-boat look. She turned to stand beside Kaffia, wanting to hear Kassandra's explanation as much as any of them. "Where have you been?  What took so long?"

The Sea looked back at her, a lifeless stare, and Nicole glanced away uncomfortably, seeing less Kassandra in the eyes since the Kirkêlatides had killed Gregor. Kassandra's voice was low but carried perfectly through the storm. "I had to kill an immortal."

Nicole waited for an explanation, hoping for a hint of humor, and then held out her hand to Kassandra's guest. "Hello. I'm Nicole."

The woman was short, undernourished thin, with long black hair, center parted, falling in two straight shiny sheets that would probably look the same wet or dry. She blinked at Nicole, and her blank, closed down expression smoothed into a faint smile, long guarded feelings unfolded, appeared in the relaxing of her shoulders, a long slow breath of air. She looked down at the offered hand, her own extending slowly, carefully.

Kassandra interrupted with, "Lady Nikoletta, may I introduce Agenika—Bachoris' sister."

Bachoris choked, shot up from the bench, hood flying off his face. He lost his balance, and would have gone backward over the side if Alex hadn't grabbed him.

Kassandra smiled, and added proudly to Agenika, "Lady Nikoletta is my sister."  She pointed to Jill at the wheel. "And so is Lady Jillian."

Bachoris held on to Agenika, his shaking fingers clutching at her arm, tears spilling down his face with the rain, and when he smiled at Kassandra, mouthing "thank you" through the roar of wind, she bowed back to him, a little sad, whispering to no one but herself, "You could have just asked."

Nicole put a hand on her shoulder, leaned in, keeping her voice low. "So, where are we going?"

"We're going home, Nicole. It is time."  She swung in close, hooking her arms around her, put her lips next to her ear, whispering something that made Nic's eyes go wide, pulling away, releasing her with a finger on her lips, "say nothing, dear sister. I just don't want you to faint or anything."

Nicole blew out a long breath, closed her mouth, and looked away at the raging sea.

Kassandra stepped across the deck as if it wasn't heaving and yawing like a wild animal, right up to Jill. She hugged her, held on to her, whispering, "I will come get you, my beautiful, blinding sunshine, when I can. Next week probably, no more than that. My sisters must be there for the coronation. Before that I have business to attend to, then I will show you the Nine-cities.  A personal tour."  She leaned back, slid one finger up Jill's cheek to catch a tear as it spilled through her lashes, then put it gently on her tongue, took it inside her mouth as if storing it for later. Then bowed deeply to her. "Thank you."

She spun, hopped forward to the roof over the door leading below decks, landed in a crouch, straightened and strolled up the boat's center, and hugged Michael Henderson. Then stepped away, and bowed low to him.

Kassandra turned, singing into the storm, reached up and caught a dripping wad of what looked like thick folded material, a dark spiral weave of fire orange threaded through it. She shook it out, a long shirt and leggings of the same dark material. She hung it over her left forearm, reached up with her right and caught a sword with a satisfying slap in her hand.

She turned and hopped back to the deck, handing the sword to Kaffia, and yanking the raincoat off Alex without asking. She handed him the leggings. "Pull them on. I'll show you how to tie them."  She turned her head as if hearing something in the solid roar of the storm, reached out and caught a slim gold circlet. She slid it over his head so that a crescent with the points down hung in the center of his forehead. Her fingers worked his short hair into knots, holding the ring against his head. "You don't want to lose this," she commented to Kaffia. "Help Alex get the armor on. Snaps run up the front, pull the rings loose along his back. Those are for the sword."

Kaffia stared at her a moment, and then swung the armor top over Alex's shoulders, guiding his arms into the sleeves. They were long, reaching across the backs of his hands, five knobby black plates sticking out to cover his knuckles. Once in place, it fit perfectly, tailor perfect.

Kassandra helped with the snaps, then looked over at Zypheria, waving her over. "Bring me the book, Zyph."

She took the thick Telkhines book in the both hands, holding it out reverently. "Alexandros Lord Telkhines, I present to you, Nastaros, word guardian, may he teach you far more than he thinks he knows."  She placed it in his hands, face up, the same downward crescent in gold on the cover.

She bowed to Alex, took a step back and bowed again to Elizabeth Shoaler. "My lady, please honor my sisters and I by accepting my invitation to the coronation of the next ruler of all the seaborn."  She held out one hand, open, palm up, and a flat silvery line of fire drew in the air, square, triangles, tracing the folds and seal of an envelope. The fire raced the edges and burned out, leaving a flat metallic paper rectangle.

Elizabeth hesitated and picked it up, pulled it close to stare at it, and then slipped it inside her raincoat. "I will come, Lady of the Sea. Gladly."

Bachoris looked at Kassandra, haunted, his soul open to her, spilling out, an hour glass shattered, emptying its contents through her hands. I am damned, Kassandra. I did everything I could to hurt you...and you bring back Agenika, you erase my debt to Akastê. You are—

She glared back. I killed Akastê. She—all of her—is no more. I erased her, not your debt.

He swallowed dryly with all the rain in the air. Your kindness is painful. Why have you done this for me?  Why do you act as if you are still in love with me?

You were not the only one at the dining room table who has tried to do me in, Bachoris. Don't flatter yourself. And I love everyone at that table. She choked on the thoughts. Loved everyone at that table. And as I said at the party, you will have a hand in the ending of my reign, dear—well, not really your hand. Kassandra smiled more to herself than to him, a deep and personal smile. Bachoris, I am pregnant.

He locked his knees to stay on his feet, eyes going wide, ran the water from his hair with his fingers. He gripped his sister harder, staring back at Kassandra, and shook his head. The rain was running down his face, off his chin. He gave her a shaky smile.

The corners of her mouth sharpened, her fingers sliding over the blue-seamed plates of armor between her hips. It's a girl, Bachoris, and she is immortal. I'm going to name her Poseidonis, and I will give her my crown when the time is right. She will be the end of my reign.

Kassandra bowed and side stepped to Kaffia, paused, and then pulled her into a hug, whispering for her ears, "I will not allow anything to happen to your Alex, Kaffia. He is safe with me, but I need him at my side when I seize the city, the Nine-cities of the Thalassogenêis. The mirror I gave you at the party. Use it to call him, sing his name, and he will come to you from any point in this world, from any depth." She pulled back, speaking louder. "But that is only a short term solution—just for the next couple weeks. I want you at the coronation at Alex's side."

Kaffia held her eyes, her muscles going rigid, then loosened at something Kassandra showed her. Her frown sharpened into a smile. "Sure."

Kassandra stepped in front of Alex, her tone going flat and direct. "Mr. Shoaler. I need you to understand something. I'm going to eat this storm, take it with us into the depths. Never mind why. I will dive into the sea, and after the first high wave, you and my sister and Zypheria will dive in after me. Wait for the wave. Then get in the water. I will pick you up from there."  She pulled the collar on his armor closed, locked it.

Turning to Zypheria, "You will guard Alex as if he was me."

"I understand, milady." Zypheria bowed back, her crossbow swinging under her arm.

"Say your goodbyes."

With a nod, Kassandra wheeled and sprinted up the port side to the bow, hooked the rail with her toes and flew ten meters into the air. Her legs flipped vertical, one hand straight out, fingers pointed. She pulled the other back for a punch and drove her fist into the sea.

Then she was gone, deep into the water.

The sea went flat like glass, a sharp expanding ring that cleared two meters beneath Stormwind's hull and keel. Alex gripped the book under one arm, spun, following Kassandra's motion, mountainous waves crushed flat, and above them, perfect blue sky, dark clouds sucked into the sea, walls of gray receding in every direction, miles of storm cleared in seconds.

Then Stormwind hit the Atlantic hard, a short free fall for everyone on board, and they hit the deck. Michael Henderson slipped off the smooth rounded cabin shell, and narrowly avoided going over the rail.

Alex caught his mother. Zypheria spun, long braids whirling with her speed, a slow motion dash to catch Jill, a meter in the air, her toes over her head, arms out at odd angles. She twirled into the water off the stern with a chopped off scream.

Kassandra looked up, raised one hand, flattened out her fingers in a wave. Jill was face down in the water, eyes open wide, arms out to catch her fall. The motion of the world seemed to slow, the roar of the storm and rush of Kassandra's spell cut to silence. Jill focused, found her sister ten meters under her, falling deeper, looking up...smiling and waving slowly at her.

Kassandra pulled her hand to her mouth, kissed and blew it into the water, and Jill felt the contact on her cheek, a soft pressure that lingered.

Clark Gerdes dropped his coffee mug. It shattered on the plastic tiled floor, spraying coffee, painting the cuffs of his khakis darker brown. He tried to warn someone. He pointed at the realtime satellite feed, overlaid Doppler, direct imagery. A perfect circle of clear sky cut through the opaque whirl of the nor'easter raging off the coast of New England.

Like someone scooped it out with an ice-cream scoop.

He stared at the screens, blood pounding hard in his ears, started breathing again. Then he heard the excited chatter of others who had spotted the clearing in the storm's center, the clean carved out core of one of the season's worst nor'easters, leading winds banging against the coast for hours, the center of rotation just off the coast of New Hampshire and southern Maine. Something was cutting a hole out of the center.

An ice-cream scoop.

Clark Gerdes found his voice and it came out in an awed whisper. "Not from this world."

Kassandra glanced away from Jill, her gaze level with her depth, a look of concern replacing her smile. She jabbed a finger at her sister, pointing up. At that moment, Zypheria reached into the sea and yanked Jill out of the water, pulling her aboard Stormwind.

And that's when the storm came back in a different form.

The roll of seawater started at the horizon, glistening bands of light and blue sky reflection, massive rounded hills of black water closing in on all sides. Seawater running off her, Jill jumped into action, spun Stormwind's wheel, heading up the fifty meter high swell, into the toroidal flow of ocean curling in on itself, roaring at them. She screamed at Michael Henderson to give her more cloth.

"She said a wave, which wave?"  Alex went to the rail, looking into the depths, then out at the horizon rising up around them. "Holy shit."   He lost his footing and caught the railing, pulling the book tighter against his side.

Nicole grabbed Alex by the sword latched to the back of his armor. "Wait for it, sailor."  She pointed along the bow. "Jill's going to get us over that hump of water, and then we're out of here."

Kaffia came to his side, taking his arm to spin him for a few words and a goodbye hug from his mother. Then she hugged and kissed him, told him not to get hurt. He fell into Kaffia, grabbing the rail as Stormwind climbed the steep mountain of water, crested the top and then sped down the far side.

The massive ring of water came together where Kassandra had gone in, all sides joining, curling with a sound like thunder. It coiled inside itself. All the rage of the storm folded into the depths and vanished.

The Atlantic was calm to the horizon.

Zypheria stepped up, kissed Michael, and went straight over the side, all knives and blades, and the crossbow hanging from her shoulder. Nicole gave Kaffia a second longer with her goodbye kiss, and then shoved Alex over the side, diving in right after him with a quick smile and nod to Jill.

Something human-shaped, a blur of silvery claws, teeth, ink smear eyes, caught Nicole and Zypheria in its arms, and pulled them deep. A moment later, Kassandra swung in fast beneath Stormwind, snapped up Alex, and they were gone, ripping through the water, a flash of Alex's pale feet. Then nothing but soft lapping waves, dark blue in every direction.

Chapter 32 - The New Dead Army

"Do not be afraid," Kassandra whispered in Alex's ear.

The ocean was dark and cold against his face, icy gel oozing down his nose, smeared over his eyelids; his spiky orange hair that normally stood on end was pressed down around his head, and the tiny knots of it holding the gold circlet pulled at his scalp.

He tried to open his eyes, to turn to look at her. He gave up. "Of what?  That giant watery demon-looking thing?"

"Ochleros?  No, he's a total sweety. No, do not be afraid of my beautiful dead army."

There was a bubbling disturbance in his stomach, something about the speed and thick chill fluid against his skin making him sick. He tried not to focus on illness, and instead pondered an army that was beautiful, one of knights in steel armor blazing gold in the dawn sunlight, cresting a hill, lances raised, stern dark eyes surveying the field, ready to charge, thunder down the slope, meet the enemy, shatter their line, perhaps die for their cause. And then he wondered how an army can be both dead and beautiful, the two ideas circling in his thoughts, glaring and snapping at each other, not getting along.

"No way," he whispered.

The cold seeped out of his hair, slipped off his face, he opened his eyes, and the two ideas, dead and beautiful, slapped together, coiling into one, and hurt his head.

The dead army stood in formation before the walls of the Nine-cities of the Thalassogeneis, thousands of them, lined up evenly, perfectly, beautifully. And they were dead, all of them, dead tissue clotting in the joints of their rot-blackened bones, threads of tendon and cartilage filling the spaces between the ribs, hanging off their knees. Something else kept them wired together, held them upright, made them curl the arrangement of hand bones around the shafts of spears. Every dead warrior wore armor, a black metallic hauberk of smooth square plates.

And every dead warrior was bound to Kassandra's will.  She soared through the water over the ranks, holding Alex under her because he was throwing up—the army of the dead, the taste of them in his mouth, muscles clenching, seizing everything in his stomach and shoving it acid-burning up his throat.

"They really are awful, aren't they?"  Kassandra gave his shoulders a squeeze. "Do not drop the book. We will need that shortly."

She somersaulted in the water at the head of the army, swinging to face her army, yelling for them to close ranks, form into one column four abreast.

Then Kassandra spun in the water, planted her feet in the sand, facing the massive city gates, two giant doors, each the height of a five story building, and nearly as wide. She let out a long breath of water, annoyed at finding them closed and locked against her.

Ochleros set down in the plain next to Kassandra, his massive watery arms circling Zypheria and Nicole protectively. And Alex drifted down to the sand between them, swinging around to face the army, then back to the city, unable to decide where to focus, what to watch.

Zypheria helped him out, pointing out the city walls. She drew her sword and hovered next to him.

Kassandra held up her fist, a gray lightning filled humming ball of energy in her fingers, the entire storm from the surface compressed into one blob of power.

There were thousands of soldiers lined up along the towering walls of the Nine-cities, orcas and riders, phalanxes of spearmen, mostly from House Dosianax, but Kassandra noticed a contingent from her own House Alkimides right over the gate.

She pointed up at them, saying politely in a loud clear voice, "I would move off there if I were you. I'll give you a minute."  She shifted the storm to her left, peeling off a strip of it, which she wadded up in her right. "Then I'm going to take down the gates."

There were shouts, orders passed, battle cries, taunts and questions thrown down to her. One she heard repeated made her smile. "Who are you?"  A few others yelling, "Who do you think you are?"

She braced her feet apart, looked up at the defenders of the seaborn, smiled like a shark. "I'm the big bad wolf."

She over-handed the heavy roiling ball of storm at the front gates.

There was silence, then a sheet of light painted the massive doors, splattered bolts of storm rolling, hitting and burning through rock, metal, everything they touched. The doors flew into hundreds of sharp fragments, bending, molten-edged angles, carved stone framing, bracing of other materials tumbled into the open space in the city's wall, more light splashing, electric lines carving up the face of the gatehouse.

Orcas scattered in clouds of sand, commanders shouting directions, pulling their forces off the walls to make a stand in the boulevard wide gap. More rock, bricks, giant foundation slabs rolled and rumbled as a large section of the wall fell to the seafloor.

Kassandra grinned through the silt. "Told you I would."  Then she peeled off another strip of storm, rolled it in her fingers, brought her arm back and hurled it high over the wall. The storm unraveled in the water, hitting the King's Protection in a long twisting band of blue fire, a sharp rock against glass slap, and lightning fractures ran to the apex. The army of the seaborn, kicked away, fleeing the walls, the streets, the wide open gap full of rubble and the broken panels of the gates.

Kassandra tilted her head sideways, trying to catch the last fading sheen of Helios's Twin off the King's Protection. The clear dome shuddered and bulged, wobbling like gelatin, ripples of uneven thicknesses in the spell rolling along the base. Then it popped like a bubble, glistening dust carried off in the currents.

And the Nine-cities of the Thalassogenêis was defenseless, open to any army from the seafloor, from the open sea, from anywhere. Kassandra smiled a bit cruelly, a ripple of fear sliding up her arms, and the back of her neck—not her own fear. She felt the panic of thousands of seaborn, a tremble in the ocean.

Kassandra swallowed, cleared her throat, and threw off the chill skin-tingling feeling. She kicked forward, raised her hand to signal her army, and with a rush and thud sound like thunder recorded and played backward, three thousand dead soldiers took their first step toward the city. A roll of thunder. Then another. The ground shook. Another step.

Kassandra kicked over the rubble of the gates, followed by Alex and Nicole, Zypheria with her crossbow in one hand, propped against her hip. Ochleros swept through the walls after them. And then the army marched in, climbing the broken hill of stone in even steps.

The Sea stopped and stood a hundred kicks inside the walls, turning to a narrow structure with dark open archer's slots for windows. She held up her hand, called for her army to halt, to remain in march formation. She was about to take a step toward the little building, when something else caught her attention, a small group of soldiers on orcas, the House Dosianax banner and the long eeling tail of the royal flag, a hundred feet of black rippling silk with a gold seashell spiral.

She gave the king and his party an I'm-a-little-busy-here glare, and kicked over to the archer's stand point, tearing off the door, revealing three shrieking children. They couldn't have been older than nine, two boys and a girl, one of the boys, pulling his friends behind him, defending them against the monster who had stormed their city. Kassandra smiled, and backed away from the door, gave them a bow, and waved her hand high in the water. "You have nothing to fear from me, my children. Go home, warn your mothers, your fathers, brothers and sisters, not to flee the city. That Lady Kassandra, ruler of all the oceans, has come only for Tharsaleos—say it just like that: not king. Just Tharsaleos."  She bowed again, and kicked away, looking over her shoulder, smiling at the churning water as they dashed over the channel-lining shopfronts toward home.

The king and his trusted Eight had paused, watching her, wondering what kind of trap she was setting, what game she was playing.

Kassandra folded her arms, setting her feet down in the middle of the Ocean Channel, the main thoroughfare into the city from the front gates. The party of orcas and soldiers stopped within shooting distance of Zypheria, and the king and three of his trusted Eight slid easily from their saddles, kicking low along the road, swinging up to land on their feet, King Tharsaleos in the center, flanked by two enormous soldiers in smooth green armor that flexed with the muscles underneath, their hair braided in eights with gold wire and rings; the third took up his position right behind the king, fingers hooked, a glowing spiral of dust around his shoulders, sharp shoots of fire coming from his fingers.

Kassandra smirked, gave Tharsaleos a nod. "Hey granddad. How do you want to die?"

"You are not welcome here, Alkimides. Who do you think you are, allowing the dead inside these walls?"

Nicole tightened in fear. Kassandra laughed. "What a funny question. Seriously?  Would I be here if I did not know exactly who I am?"

"You can't come in here. Not with them."

Her voice went cold and serious. "But who is going stop me?"

"I will!"

She laughed again, a young carefree chuckle that went a little choppy, almost a giggle. And it went on too long. Seeing his face reddening, she waved at him dismissively. "Oh, I wasn't laughing at you. I was thinking something very silly, grandfather."  She laughed again because she couldn't help it.

Tharsaleos' face shook in rage, jaw twitching. A vein squirmed under the skin of his forehead. "I will stop you."  He pushed the words through his teeth.

The amused expression slid off of Kassandra's face, and in a flat voice, she said, "You and what army?"

He stared at her, fury cresting some mountain in his soul, rolling down the other side without brakes, his shoulders jumping in uncontrolled spasms.

She caught his eyes, smiled when she felt his tug, a stronger pull, trying to break her grip on him. "No really. You and what army?"

Kassandra started with a smile, but it vanished before it made its way completely to her lips. A shudder ran through her, and she looked away, let the king go. She spun, her arms out, fingers spread, sang one sharp note, and the sea went still. She stood in the center of a frozen column of ocean, miles high, floor to the surface. She turned, a slow motion scan of the city, the spaces between the buildings, high on the wall, found what she was looking for.

An archer, by himself, left behind after the rest of the army had fled, braced against a column, weapon aimed, bow flat, spent, its bolt already fired. The point of a slender long range crossbow bolt stood a foot away from Nicole's back, motionless, hanging in the water.

Alarms were blaring along the decks of a US Navy destroyer crossing the Atlantic, clicking emergency lights in the walls, the crew picking themselves up off the floor, rubbing bruises. The ship had run aground, metal screaming as the hull hit and ran over something very solid in the water, twin screws grinding against the force. One of the propellers snapped off at the shaft, spinning blades sliding across the ocean's surface as if it was ice.

The blue waves, frosted along the edges, did not move. It was as if the ship had slid into some kind of stop in time, the tides frozen around her. The broken propeller spun on its face across the waves.

Then time started around the destroyer, and the giant blades spiraled into the deep, vanished beneath the surface, sinking fast, flipping vertical, lost in the dark.

The propeller fell through thousands of feet of water, spinning free in the pure black ocean, through the space that had been shielded by the King's Protection, into the judging stone of Lord Gypselos. The massive carved block shattered, a slow cloud of rock dust, sharp hammered chunks of stone flipping over the tiles of the justice square.

Kassandra swam past Nicole, shoving her aside. She snapped the bolt out of the water, turning to the archer, reached out one hand and pulled him from his position, yanked him toward her. He lost his grip on his weapon and it flipped and rolled into the streets below. A moment later, he was on his knees in front of her, mouth gaping, eyes locked with hers.

Kassandra waved her hand, and released the ocean, let the currents slip free from her hold, return to their normal course.

The king and his trusted three blinked, shaken by what had just happened.

Kassandra had her back to them, leaning over the archer, her voice roaring, "You're an Alkimides."  There was incredulity in her tone. "Keep your eyes on me!"  His face jerked away from the king. Kassandra pointed behind her at her grandfather. "I am Alkimides!  He is not. You look at him one more time and I'll use my fingernails to dig out your eyes. Do you understand me?"  He nodded. She pointed back to the city walls. "Return to your post."  He jumped into the water, kicking away.

She turned back to the king in time to take in the attack from the one with fire at his fingertips. The guard at King Tharsaleos' back, danced into the water over the king's head, his song coiling snakelike fire across the space to Kassandra.

She let out an annoyed sniff, breathed it in, a flare of yellow light sucked into her mouth, the glow coming demonically through her teeth. The blast of fire vanished, and left only the shadows. Kassandra rolled it around as if gargling, and swallowed it.

"Maybe I haven't made it clear who I am?"  She flexed her fingers and her crown came to life, a burst of jagged light, blinding them all. She held out her hand, curling her fingers around her trident, let it slide through them to hit the paving stones with an earthquake's force. "I am the fucking Sea, Tharsaleos. I can feel every cell in the tissue in your lungs, the thump of your heart, every pulse of blood in your veins. I control the ocean's power. I can take away your curse in the time between any one of your heartbeats."

She twirled three fingers, sang softly, and the fire sorcerer curled inside himself; the pressure flattened him into blood vapor and bone chips and the weird glowing dust that lingered, drifting to the stones with his body, darkening, dying with their master. "You should know that the only thing that keeps me from wiping this entire city off the ocean floor is my sister. You know, I promised her some sightseeing."  She pointed to Nicole, who gave him back a slow, serious you-better-do-what-she-says nod. "And I hate to break my promises."

Tharsaleos stood shaking, his feet rooted to the floor of the Ocean Channel, the central thoroughfare running from the main gates.

Kassandra pointed to the remains at her feet. "So, who was your pet fire mage, grandfather?"  She waited while he stammered some name, then nodded as if it didn't matter anyway. "He was a beginner. Let me show you what I am capable of."

Without warning, Kassandra twisted, planted her right foot deep, and threw the rest of the roiling ball of storm almost straight up. She watched him calmly, folded her arms, and waited while everyone else, including the king stared up.

There was a hollow boom that shook the ocean, and Helios' Twin snapped out of its invisible tracing over the city, out of the heavens. The ball of fire that had served the seaborn as a star, a source of heat and light for thousands of years, soared off, a burning smear of gold lost in the abyss night, exploding on the far side of the southern mountain range with streams of white and purple.

The city went dark and Kassandra's laugh made their bones go fluid and cold. She stepped right up to Tharsaleos, standing as tall, her crown making him squint. She tapped him on the shoulder with the crossbow bolt. "Think any the little fire conjurers you're training will be up to that task before everyone in the city dies?  Think you can fix that without me, grandfather?  I'm made of that stuff, old man. Don't test me."

He waved his guards back, and without a word, the two of the trusted Eight at his side retreated, back-kicking up the channel to their orcas.

The king's voice dropped to private bargain levels, but fear stood clear on his face, one of his eyes twitching. "What do you want Alkimides?"

"I've come to take you off the throne. You're going to step down or I'm going to make you."  Her hand snapped out before he could move, caught his short white beard, and yanked him off his feet. "I am the chosen of Lord Poseidon. I am the ruler of the oceans. And I like things done a certain planned and proper way. If you think I can't take your throne as easy as spit, then challenge me one more time."

While Tharsaleos stared angrily, Kassandra pondered something, and then hit him again with the crossbow bolt to keep his attention. "You know it's funny, unlike so much of the surface world where it is the male of the species who is the most feared, who dominates the group, the tribe, the herd, the pride, the pack, in the sea it is in so many cases, the other way around. In the sea, it is the female who is the real killer, the stronger, larger, and real predator of the species. Male sharks are push-overs. It is the females you have to watch out for."  She leaned close, biting down, made a clicking noise with her teeth. "They're much bigger, they're smarter, more controlling, and when they come in for the kill, the males scatter, because, you know, sometimes it's hard to tell them apart from the prey."

The king stared at her, opened his mouth when his lips began to twitch, then clamped them tight and angry. "You cannot have House Alkimides."  He pointed to his party, to one of the orcas in the center, surrounded by his trusted Eight. Pythias' sister had ridden out with the king, along with their two young sons, "You're aunt Isothemis is queen and lady of the House."

Kassandra fixed her gaze on her great aunt. She went completely still for a few moments, and then bowed her head to the queen.

"That is fine, because Dosianax is mine."

The king made a little snorting noise. "That is one house, still one short for the assembly."

She sighed deep, a long gust of water. As if something terribly important had slipped her mind, Kassandra slid back in the water, put a hand on Alex's shoulder. "It really astonishes me that again you underestimate me, grandfather. I cannot imagine what would make you think that I would come to my city unprepared. Do you have any idea how much plotting, manipulating, and outright shoving I had to do to make all of this work?  And you have this silly notion that I'd come all this way, and not be able to follow through with my plans?"  She turned, ran her fingers affectionately through Alex's hair. "Let me introduce Alexandros Lord Telkhines."

The king stared at Alex, his mouth falling open, empty of words. Alex turned to stare at Kassandra. Lord what?

The stunned silence went on too long for the king to dismiss it. He pointed at Alex. "You cannot open gates to the Telkhines fortress."

Alex looked at Kassandra, trying not to look as if he hadn't a clue what was going on. She nudged Alex and pointed at the book.

"Show my grandfather the book. He knows it well. He took it from my father once, and possessed it for years. Go ahead, dear Alex. Open it up, show him the still words, every page under your control—something only a lord of the Telkhines is capable of."

Alex slid the book out in front of him, held it up, and pulled open the end boards. The pages fluttered, Nastaros doing an impressive job of turning pages mockingly.

"You see, Tharsaleos?  I don't think my friend, Alexandros is going to have one bit of trouble getting into his city. A bit overgrown with coral, I'm sure, dormant all these centuries."  She tipped her head to Tharsaleos. "We'll let Alex get settled into his old home, give him time to clean the place up a bit, and then I think all the great houses should get to together—assemble—for a nice chat, grandfather."  Her voice went chilling and rough, returning to the you-and-what-army tone she'd used a moment before. "Then we'll see who is ruler of all the Thalassogenêis."

She turned, waving Ochleros to her. "My old friend and protector, one more task, and then I release you and all of your kin from my authority, release you forever. And may you never again fall under the sway of anyone or anything. "Go, Ochleros, release Phaidra from her prison. Rexenor is ready to come home."

Tharsaleos watched the demon fly back through the open city gates. His voice went thin in desperation. "Who do you think controls the other houses?"

"I do. You have performed well, grandfather. They all fear me. I am the mad Wreath-wearer, with rumored powers, death and destruction, unbalanced, out for their blood. I can unleash death on the Nine-cities at the snap of a finger."  She held one hand up, her fingers pressed together to emphasize the point.

He kicked away from her, his hands trembling.

Kassandra stabbed a finger at him. "Don't piss me off."

The King of the Seaborn bowed his head, retreating to his entourage. He bent to kiss his sons. Then turned to Isothemis. "You have seen much from your position, my queen, but you will not see a blood relation on the seaborn throne."

Tharsaleos put a hand on her shoulder, mock sorrow in his eyes. She tried to shrug it off, but he tightened his grip, wrenching her body toward him. He slid a knife out of his sleeve, gripped it, and drove it into her throat. Her eyes pleading wide, fingers gesturing, trying to work a song, Isothemis Queen of the Seaborn, watched with her final moments of life as Tharsaleos spun and cut the throats of his own sons, Tharsiadas and Zomenes.

Kassandra shot at Tharsaleos like a rocket, broke two of his fingers pulling the knife from his hand. The king's trusted Eight turned on her, jumped into a coordinated attack of swords, spears, two with crossbows, two more with strong bleeds, lightning burned a seam up her armored back. One of the crossbowmen pulled the trigger an arm's length away, the bolt hitting her like hammer, not piercing the armor, but the impact shoved her forward into the swords of two others.

Zypheria grabbed Nicole by the arm, holding her back from the fight, kicking to position herself in front of Alex. It was already over. Kassandra sang a rapid string of notes, twirling in the water, fingers doing an alternating dance of stiff pointing and fluid curling gestures. The Eight kicked back from her, dropping their weapons, clawing at their faces, a burn in their eyes, the sight ripped out of them. The two with bleeds found their throats burned raw, unable to sing, their fingers broken, unable to make the motions.

And Kassandra grabbed Tharsaleos by the throat, wanted so badly to crush the life out of him. She let out an angry gust of water, and let him go.

She drifted away, her head thrown back, and she cried, screamed curses, and the tears came, hundreds of them, and out of them spilled the sea-daimones, demons who grew to Ochleros' size, some larger, demons with tentacles and claws, and demons that glowed with inner fire. They shot out of her tears, spiraling through the city, surrounding the Sea, their goddess. One picked up Tharsaleos and cupped him in his claws like a prison, rumbling something in a language none of them knew—although Kassandra nodded wearily at him.

Nicole broke from Zypheria's hold, and rushed to her sister with two strong kicks.

Kassandra stared at her, shaking her head; her voice came out a rough, bewildered whisper. She sounded like a girl, a very quiet, hurt little girl—who had been punched in the face. "Why?  Can't...That wasn't supposed to happen, not in the plan. Parents aren't supposed to kill their children, aren't supposed to see their children die. They're not. Other way around—I make the mistake that leads to their deaths."  She trembled. "What have I done?"

Nicole took her in her arms. "It isn't your fault."

"Why are you so sure?  How can you be?  Nicole," she cried, "Nicole." Her voice softened to sobbing. "Oh, Nicole, I have made all of this happen—a plan for everything. I hope that I can make up for all the horror I have put you through."  Kassandra dug her face into her sister's shoulder. "My whole life, every moment I had to myself, I just wished...just wished."

Nicole held her like a child, rubbing her back, a gentle whisper, "What?  What did you really wish for?"

Kassandra pulled away, staring at her sister, her voice a hazy lost string of words, clinging together in the currents, a line of drifting debris from a ship that had gone beneath the waves. "I wished I could be you, instead of me."

The assembly of the Great Houses convened in darkness, three days after Kassandra tore the front gates off the Nine-cities and marched in at the head of her dead army.

She had sent her army to wait in formation a mile from the city walls, cold and dead, motionless in the currents, a goddess's vast chess set waiting for the game.

The meeting chamber of the Great Houses wasn't a large room, but it was old, something out of history, carved of pale stone, and grown from directed branching corals, folded delicate weaves of it, vines threaded to form arches, stairs, even the nine seats, arranged in a semi-circle, each identical to the one next to it, thrones carved from heavy green-veined pink stone.

The nine seats ringed one side of a circular platform. An old man knelt in the center of the raised circle, dressed plainly, chains binding his arms. He stared at the floor, the broken king.

Each Great House—Alkimides, Telkhines, Rexenor, Aktaios, Dosianax, Lykos, Damnameneos, Megalesios, and Demonax—had one seat in the chamber, one for the Lady or Lord of the house. The second seat had not been used for more than two thousand years, but it was now occupied by Alexandros Lord Telkhines. Nicole sat in the center for House Alkimides. Kassandra sat five seats in, taking Dosianax as her House. On her left, a young man with long braided hair and beard black as the abyss—and eyes somehow even darker. He had seated himself sideways, toward her, and when she looked over, didn't look away.

Kassandra gave him a polite bow of her head, and a reminiscing smile.

He read it well. "I remind you of someone, my lady?"

"Lord Megalesios, you remind me of the first time I met Lady Kallixene, your great aunt."

He nodded sadly. "I never had that honor."

"I was at the wedding," said an old fat gray haired lord on the other side of Alex. He glanced at Tharsaleos with disappointment. "Had to hide in a vent barge to get outside the city, buried in stink and sulfur. Damned exile laws. Once we got away from the Nine-cities, we kicked and rode like demons into the north, just in time to join the wedding parade, set our lights and banner. Lady Kallixene, beautiful, dark and deep strength with long black braids."  He laughed. "I started a fight with Nausikrates of Rexenor."  He turned to the rest of the lords and ladies of the Great Houses, nodding at some of the younger ones as if they wouldn't know who that was. "Nausikrates was—"

"My father," said Phaidra in a cold voice.

The lord of Aktaios bowed to her. "And Lady Kallixene's new husband. Shrewd damned soldier. It took the dead to kill him. Anyway. Started a fight, and he beat the buggering tides out of me, sent me and my whole sneak party home without accepting our wedding gifts—but you know what?"  He paused dramatically, and Kassandra answered before he could continue.

"Just outside the gates of the Rexenor fortress."  Kassandra leaned toward him. "You passed the gifts to one of Kallixene's maids—Arpalion—who managed to slip them in with all the others, and..."  she paused dramatically. "No one was ever the wiser."

The fat gray-haired lord of Aktaios nearly kicked from this seat, mouth starting to open. He let his head sag forward, and then he lifted it and winked at Kassandra and Phaidra with a soft chuckle. "Forgot who I was story-telling to, my ladies."

Kassandra let all the humor run off her face. She whispered, "Lady Kallixene always considered your pearl clusters her favorite earrings, lord. She was wearing them when she died."

There was silence in the room, every lord and lady listening—and even Tharsaleos looked up at her.

The lord of Aktaios rubbed his neck. "We do not get clear word from the North, my lady. How, if it is permitted to say, did the great lady die?  Honorably it is to be assumed?"

Kassandra turned away from him to stare at her aunt three seats down. "She killed herself in order to pass the remaining portion of her bleed to me."

Lady Phaidra of Rexenor bowed her head. "Yes, lord of Aktaios, that was honorable."

In the murmuring that followed, Tharsaleos straightened, jabbed his chin at Kassandra, "And here you are, sitting happily, a day from setting this demon on the throne of all the seaborn."  He sneered at her. "This whore of the sea will now own all your souls, she will break every last one of you. As she broke the walls of our city. As she kicked in proudly with her dead army. Bow to her, you courage-wanderers, no choice, no souls in your eyes, no straight spine among you. She owns you. Crown the whore. She will—"

Kassandra pointed at Tharsaleos and he shut his mouth. "This is not about my fitness to rule, but yours."

She called them to order, settled the rules of casting, and then they voted to remove Tharsaleos of Dosianax from the throne of the seaborn, not one House dissenting.

Kassandra bolted from of the Nine-cities a day after the Great Houses had ruled against Tharsaleos, a secret journey into the north, the east, and then home to pick up Jill, Elizabeth, Bachoris and Agenika, and drop off a handful of letters Alex had written to Kaffia on a thin flexible plant-like material, telling her that "he had, well, sort of entered a different world."

Then she gave Kaffia Lang the "Telkhines curse" and took her with her into the deep.

Kassandra had left Nicole in charge of House Alkimides with Zypheria to help, and Alex as the only Telkhines inside the walls, opened the gates of the ancient city, and had the whole place to himself for a while.

The Sea and her party returned the following day, swimming through the channels of the Nine-cities with Jill and Kaffia and Elizabeth Shoaler staring at everything, unable to blink, bowing at everyone they passed.

Chapter 33 - Coronation

After a week of abyss dark, Kassandra decided to fix the sun—because she could, and because she woke early, stared up at the pure black heavens and missed the starlight. The thought that even the replica sun of the seaborn would not be rising in the morning depressed her. So, she went out and created another one, bright enough for a great city in the Atlantic abyss.

It rose in glowing perfection, waking the city early, and even those doubters, still not in awe—or in outright fear—of Lady Kassandra, stared and blinked and agreed that seeing the rise of a new Helios' Twin from the dunes of the east was a splendid thing.

It was the work of a goddess.

The light hit the cities of the Great Houses, some of them floating, walled and spelled off sections of space around the central mountain and towers of the royal fortress, which held the justice district and city administration halls, barracks, training space, the vaults, and in one wing carved out of the core of the mountain, the great assembly arena of the seaborn.

The kings and queens of the seaborn had been crowned in the arena for thousands of years. Tharsaleos had ruled for decades, and there were a few generations of seaborn who had never seen a king or queen crowned. By evening, with Helios' Twin at a ducking thirty degree angle off the abyssal plane, there would be a new ruler of the seaborn. An Alkimides queen.

Kassandra swam across the platform at the head of the arena to watch the seats fill, tens of thousands of seaborn of every house and family, with their lights, tiny zipping dots like fireflies, lantern towers with light filtered into patterns, House symbols, thrown over the crowds. She imagined that a surface equivalent would be standing center stage at night at a massive outdoor music festival.

There were banners at the ends of hundred foot tall poles, streaming and coiling in the currents, garlands strung with lights cordoning off areas of seating for a particular powerful family, blocks of movement without any light, the seats occupied by deep dwellers, whole clans of miners, coral smiths, squid butchers sitting and breathing in clouds of swirling ink.

A hush rolled through the crowds, blossoming silence, heads turning, banners drifting down heavy, going still in the water. Several hundred seaborn in blue scaly armor kicked past the lines of Alkimides honor guard at the entrance, swimming in with the Lady of Rexenor, Phaidra, her standard bearer holding a tall staff high, with slender darting black birds moving and rippling like a banner, one of the tricks he had taught a hundred cormorants with the seaborn curse. Phaidra led her guard and a few hundred House Rexenor visitors through the center of the arena, to a clear space near the front saved for honored guests and family.

Thousands of seaborn were just catching their breaths from the shock of the arrival of the Rexenors, when a glow from the entrance pulled them around. The entire arena went silent.

Demons, hundreds of them, watery human-shaped giants, some of them six meters tall with spindly coralliferous limbs, jagged teeth and clusters of symbiotic blue and black fish following them like rainclouds. Most were like Ochleros, thick blurry human shapes with icicle teeth and claws, eyes glistening, wise, measurelessly deep. Some had horns that coiled like rams, others had antler-like branches of coral. Many had tentacles, slithering long suction-cupped legs, and one appeared only to be a mass of mottled purple tentacles—with no visible body, but had several mouths, and rows of eyes on stalks that probed the water. Another watery demon glowed a blinding molten orange and looked as if he was about to go off at any moment.

Kassandra swam down to them, bowing to some of the statelier lords and ladies, curling in the fingers of a couple of the demons, kissing others gravely on the forehead, a few on their cheeks, one wanted something more, grabbing one of her ankles, and she batted his tentacles away playfully, laughing something in a language she only shared with him.

She kicked last to Ochleros, king of the sea daimones, hugged him as best she could, reaching out with her hands and legs, and then kicked up to stand on his shoulder to watch the last of the entrants, just coming to the arena.

The guards at the entrance swam aside, bowing a little too late, stunned at the small party kicking through the arches. Sixteen of them.

"So few," said Kassandra sadly.

They flowed into the center channel to the front, majestic, power rolling off them in swift little currents. Sixteen of them with long intricate braids of reddish brown and clothes in styles that hadn't been seen in the swims of the Nine-cities in a thousand years. Colors far too bright for all but the most eccentric of seaborn, yellow bands and lime green ovals on long shirts and leggings with gossamer fins. Concentric rings of fuchsia and cobalt in motion up the leggings of one of the newcomers, her clothes like some psychedelic pond's surface after a stone has been thrown through it. She smiled, the only one among them who seemed to have the slightest interest in the widening silences and bursts of whispering and bold stares from the thousands of seaborn already seated for the crowning event. She nodded her head politely, letting her braids—three of them longer than she was tall—coil into rings, pulse and pump like corkscrew propellers. She waved a hand when voices drifted down, the name "Telkhines" whispered in them.

Kassandra kicked off Ochleros' shoulder with a loving squeeze of his ear, and shot across the arena to greet the Telkhines, took their hands, bowed, and introduced Alex and Kaffia, and Elizabeth and her husband, Agathanax, rescued from the Lithotombs—very thin and still recovering. The ocean lit up pale blue around them, sparks of light, visible display of their excitement at meeting their own, a companion of the Sea, a lord of the Telkhines bloodline.

And finally Kassandra slid down next to Bachoris, Agenika leaning over him from the other side to take her hand, "Now it gets exciting. Watch this."

She said her farewells and returned to her sisters. The three of them stood at the head of the arena, Kassandra in the middle, Nicole on her right, Jill on her left.  Kassandra reached her arms out to draw them both into a hug. "We made it. We're here. One long damn road of sorrow and pain. But we're here. Stand up straight. Look out on our realm, our people, our city, our Nine-cities at the bottom of the Atlantic."

"But we're not from here," said Jill curiously, shaking her head.

Kassandra looked at her, playing with that idea in her soul, flipping it over, dunking it underwater, seeing if it floated, whether it died, or breathed and lived. "You're right. We're not.  We are something new, a new power, new sisters, the new rulers, the new sirens."

She let them go, her fingers curling fluidly, ready for something.

The last person to enter the arena was the archon, a tradition going back to the beginning, a figurehead role for one of the lords or ladies of the Great Houses, a new one selected every year at the seabirth festival. This year's archon was the large lord of Aktaios, swimming slowly, solemnly down the center channel to the high stage at the end.

He gave Kassandra a quick smile, and then hid it, and held out the ring of gold spirals and points. Kassandra bowed low to the archon, lifted the crown from his fingers, and held it up high over her head, twisting spirals of gleaming gold like horns. The murmuring tide of the seaborn audience washed over her, thousands of whispering voices, gasps, deep pulls of the ocean sighing between their teeth. She stood motionless, tall, holding the crown high, and the hum of voices slowly faded.

She waited for the silence to be complete.

Then Kassandra spun in the water, to her right, and set the crown of the ruler of all the seaborn gently over Nicole's black braids.

The silence lasted only a moment more. There was a spike of noise, everyone gasping at once, drowning Nicole's own sound of surprise. Then there was the rustling sound of thousands of the seaborn, immortals, demons of the sea, bowing to the new queen. Nicole couldn't speak, just staring back at Kassandra's look of sorrow. At any other time—the middle of battle, fleeing armies, the edge of death—Kassandra would have laughed at the shock on Nicole's face. But not in this. Kassandra looked as stunned as she felt, staggering back a step, letting her arms fall to her sides.

She looked down at Nicole's bare feet, focusing on the rings on her toes, and closed her eyes.

Nicole sobbed a command, "Look at me, Kassandra.  You look me in the eyes. Now!"

When she opened her eyes and looked up, there was only some of Kassandra staring back at Nicole. "Please, let me do this, Nicole."

The Sea summoned her trident, letting it stand obediently at her side, and then her own crown, a blinding flash from hers hit the crown Nicole wore, sharp square reflections cutting across the vast arena, a dance of gold blocks, spirals of pale green painting the bowing thousands, splatters of shock light flashing in and out over the faces in the crowd.

Kassandra, the Sea, the ruler of all the world's oceans, bent to her knees, put her hands on the stones, and bowed down to the Queen of the Seaborn.

Nicole stared at her sister, her lips moving, no sound coming out. She looked over at Jill, who was nodding, smiling back at her, and with her eyes squinting—something she only did when she couldn't contain how happy she was. There was a glow of yellow, and she wore a crown like the sun, lacy coral and delicate fiery spikes sticking up from her hair.

Kassandra sat back on her heels, and stood up. She took Nicole's hands, gripping them tight, bowing her head again. "Please forgive me, Nic. I won't ask for it now. I will wait years, but before the end, I hope you will find it in your heart to forget how much I have hurt you, manipulated you, dragged you into this."

Nicole swallowed hard, sucked in a deep pull of the sea, and stepped between her sisters, taking their hands. She glanced at Jill, and then Kassandra. "You told me once that you would see to it that I would one day get to see the Nine-cities from its most commanding position. I heard your words. No one dragged me here. I came on my feet, I came on the currents of a goddess."

Nicole straightened, faced the seaborn, the demons, the immortals, and she gave them a very regal bow of her head. Out of the side of her mouth, she whispered, "Where's my throne?"

Kassandra smiled.

Epilogue

Rain came through the rig like knives, and Jordan Chandler shouted in frustration at the storm, his sail up in knots, wouldn't come down, catching the storm greedily, pulling his boat on its side. He knew it was cut the sail free or be dragged to the bottom. He crawled along the starboard rail, rain blind, fingers freezing on the chrome. A loose rope whistled over his head, an end knot whipping around, caught him in the neck. A flash of white from the impact, and his fingers slipped from the rails. He grabbed the mast standing horizontal from the deck; he fell into it, his legs swinging under him, into the cold water. The storm-full sail slammed the boat over. He clawed at the knife holster at his waist, found that it was empty—and he remembered pulling it, trying to cut the lines to the sail, then losing it to the storm, the metal slick in his fingers.

He didn't want to die. He cried to god, pleading for his life, the cold Atlantic soaking into his jeans, into his skin, weighing him down. He begged anyone to save his life.

And an angel appeared, wearing armor made from the shells of crabs, spines of bony white and hard sheets of splotchy purple. She was cruel, he saw it in her eyes, but she danced up the mast like a gymnast, singing sweetly, her long gold braids swinging in the wind. She stepped over him, and one by one kicked his fingers loose.

He screamed at her but the storm stole his voice, whipping it away in the wind. He pleaded, promised anything, and she kicked him into the waves, diving into the water after him.

He woke, swallowing gritty stuff in his mouth, and for a moment he thought the storm and angel were part of a nightmare. His head hurt. Had he been drinking?  He couldn't remember where he was.

"Oh, wait."  His voice scraped up the inside of his throat, burning. The regatta, single skipper, Nantucket Island to...he couldn't remember, somewhere on the Cape, across the sound to...nowhere.

He tasted saltwater in his mouth, and he spit, and rolled in the sand. He opened his eyes, and they stung, rubbed raw by the storm. The angel was still there. He focused on her face, her unkind smile, hair like gold in the breeze. He knew her.

"Jillian?"

"Hello, Jordan."

He stared at her face, and then shot a confused look at what she was wearing, some kind of armor with rows of spines, and red spots like blood, rich purple plates and seams up her arms. "Jill, what are you doing here?  What happened?"   He tried to focus on her chest. "What are you wearing?"

"I saved your life, dragged you into shore, got the water out of your lungs. The sea was about to take your soul. You're just lucky I was there. So, services rendered."  She laughed unexpectedly, and Jordan found his fingers clawing into the sand, a feeble attempt to get away from her. She smiled down at him. "I expect some form of payment."

He stared at her, breathing hard, half his mind telling him to run, but the rest of his thoughts were fuzzy, his bones hurt from the cold, his clothes heavy on his body. "What do you want?"

"I don't do anything for free."  She kneeled down, leaned over him, slid her fingers under his chin, and lifted his face to hers. Then her lips opened over his mouth, and she was inside him, her tongue touching him, tasting the salt. She was warm, a spill of warmth in his mouth, and she pushed it inside him. The heat spread into his throat, into his head, down his arms and legs. She let him go, licking her lips.

Jill sat up, gave his face a slap, and it stung, just on the wrong side of playful.

Then she smiled, and said happily, "I just cursed you."

"Cursed?"

"Despair, Jordan. A curse called despair."

He looked lost. "I don't know what that means."

"Desperation?  Dashed hopes?  Melancholy?  It's the loss of hope, Jordan, all hope. A little something from some girl you once screwed."

He trembled, his skin going cold; he felt her slip away. "But I'm sorry. I said sorry, Jill."

"I know you are, Jordan."

"I still think of you...sometimes. Miss you. Will you ever forgive me?"

"No, that's just my curse. It's starting to sink in. Think of it like tea steeping—it's not hot water anymore and there's no going back to hot water, or maybe it's like a stain that won't come out even with bleach."

"What are you talking about?"

She stood over him again, smiled, folding her arms, and her spiky crab armor crinkled. "When you kiss a woman, any woman, you will think of me, you will want me, beg to have me, but you will never have me again."  She waited while that took hold in his mind, and she saw the questions surfacing, looking for a way out, forgiveness, redemption, another chance. "The Sea, she only ever gives you one chance, unless one of her sisters happens by. Then you get two. Forgiveness?   Never. The Sea does not forgive, Jordan."

Jill walked into the surf, and never looked back.

Kassandra kissed Bachoris goodbye on a cliff high over the Atlantic coast of Maine, a line of thick pines standing against the wind, a wide space of barren rock jutting out from the forest as if it was afraid to creep too close to the edge. The morning sun came in foamy yellow through clouds low on the horizon.

Bachoris went back to the car, leaning on the fender, folding his arms against the chill, and Kassandra walked away, right to the edge, held out her arm, one finger dipping delicately into the sea a hundred feet from shore. She closed one eye and the world in her vision flattened, taking away depth. The tip of her finger poked a hole in the waves.

Kassandra pulled her finger up with a drop of water that she licked away. She opened both her eyes, and the world had depth again—and there was a whirling rush of water where she had touched the surface of the Atlantic, a growing ship-swallowing maelstrom, a dark hole opening like the eye of a cyclone.

She walked back toward Bachoris, eyes on the ground, her bare feet skipping lightly over the stones, and she let her armor crawl to life over her body, slipping gloves over her fingers, a high collar with yellow bands that moved and flashed. She held out her fist and it curled around her trident. She stopped, bowed to Bachoris with a sad smile. Then turned to face the ocean, bowing again, this time with a courtier's flourish, and held the trident high.

She let it slip through her fingers, a cold hiss against her gloves and armor, and the earth rumbled when it hit the rocks; the forest shook behind her, rattling pine cones loose, dead limbs snapped and crashed to the ground.

Kassandra paused a moment, and then brought one leg back and planted it, shifting her body into a throwing stance. The trident weighed more than some worlds. She tossed it in the air, and caught it underhanded, leaning deep into her stance. Then she hurled it into the sky, her body thrown back by the force, her feet kicking up stones.

Then she was running, Bachoris whispering goodbye, a tickle in her ears that made her smile reappear. She sprinted for the end of the cliff, her feet coming down and bounding away, pulling her faster. She caught the edge with her toes, and flew into the sky after her trident, soaring out over the jagged rocks at the cliff's foot, twirling slowly in the air, her back to the ocean.

The surface came at her fast, and the world went black. She was inside the core of the cyclone, chasing her trident, the flash of her crown pulsing around her. She reached up and poked the high-speed spinning walls, and they collapsed behind her, bubbling around her toes. She caught her trident, closed her eyes and she was into solid water, blowing out the last of her air, racing down the vertical drop of the continental shelf and out over the deep flats, south and east. She went between the water, and vanished in the dark of the deep ocean.

Bachoris waited for the Atlantic's surface to settle, unfolded his arms, his fingers playing with the edge of the car's hood. He watched and waited, sorrow in his eyes. The waves rolled in their eternal motion, and there was no sign of the Sea or her passing. He got back in the car, turned, and drove along the road through the trees.

Kassandra emerged just south of the Nine-cities, swung around the walls at high-speed, and spiraled up the apex, running her finger along the smooth shielding spell and smiled. She pointed her toes, tucked in her trident, and slid right through the Queen's Protection.

A dozen guards came out to meet her, bowed when they saw her crown and who she was, and formed up to lead her inside for an audience with the queen. She returned a bow and followed them through tall open swim ways, and up into a high chamber that caught the light of Helios' Twin from any angle and directed the light to a diffusion ball in the room's center. Kassandra stared up, smiling at the design; the whole room glowing like the inside of a seashell.

Nicole kicked into open water, a quick burst of swimming across the room right at her, off her throne before her guards had finished announcing her sister. Kassandra leaned to one side, unsure of the angry expression on Nicole's face.

"Nicole?"

The queen planted her feet right in front of her, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her hard, her face an inch from hers. "You never told us anything. " She gave her a shove, waved her hand dramatically. "You did all this stuff, all this planning, battling, everything like a damn chess game, and you never really told us a thing."

"What's this about?"

Nicole clenched her jaw, tilting her head, looked as if she was about to slap her. "Don't play stupid. Never dying. Goddess. Immortal?  Ring a damn bell?"

Kassandra drew in a long pull of water, released it, a liquid sigh. Her shoulders dropped. "How did you find out?"

"Eupheron."

"Shit. Should have known."  Kassandra nodded. "What did Jill have to do to get it out of him?"

"What do you mean?  He told her—wanted to. She was looking for a curse, something really nasty—non-fatal, but cruel enough to make anyone wish that it was. He's into that sort of thing, and somewhere in the discussion he turned the talk to living forever."  Nicole's tone went sarcastic. "Guess who's name came up?"

Kassandra ignored her, staring off into the pink and yellow glow of the throne room. "That doesn't sound like our Jillian. She still wants Eupheron?  Last time I asked her, she wasn't sure she wanted someone that wild inside her head."

"Well, she left a day ago, and it looked to me like she and Eupheron are getting along swimmingly. He's her best friend. Have you seen her lately?"

"Why?"

"She does look wild. Dangerous wild. She's a siren."

"We all are."  Kassandra started to smile, then Nicole shoved her, shook it off her face. "What?  Jill getting tough's a good thing."

"Okay, we're not talking about Jill. You were immortal. You were going to live forever. How could you give that up?  You're a goddess."

Kassandra shook her head. "I have arrived, Nicole. I don't have to be what I was anymore. I have found everything, pushed everyone enough. I'm done."  She looked away with a distant smile, her face calm, a sharp amused pull at one corner of her mouth. "I'm really good at planning and playing games with people's lives, and that's about it. I am not a goddess, Nicole. I don't deserve to be. But I will be the mother of one."

A year passed, three, nine years, and the Sea returned to New Hampshire to visit her old home, her friends, her family.

Jill—with Zypheria and Michael helping—made a sand castle, an exact replica of the Nine-cities, complete with floating wedge shaped cities of wet sand, and a shimmery dome for the Queen's Protection. Jill wanted to create a small burning orb for Helios' Twin, but thought it might attract too much attention.

Bachoris and Agenika sat across from each other on a beach towel, bent over the chessboard, into their ninetieth game of the day. He didn't play Kassandra anymore because she beat him with her eyes closed—literally. Agenika curled a strand of hair behind one ear, tapping her chin thoughtfully, and moved a rook.

Kassandra wandered away, dancing across the wet sand, watching a little girl at the edge of the waves, stopping a minute to watch the two of them play together, child and the Atlantic. Kassandra smiled, stepping over a clump of dying seaweed, made her way across the dry stretch high along North Hampton Beach, and leaned against the low concrete wall, just down from a woman with her face in a big textbook.

Kassandra let a minute pass, and then looked over at her. "What are you studying?"

The woman lifted the book to show Kassandra the cover, gave her a distracted look, and didn't respond. She was halfway through a college chemistry text.

"You go to UNH?  What's your major?"

The woman straightened, cleared her throat, and gave Kassandra an appraising look. "Dual. Marine chemistry and physics."

Kassandra nodded, and the woman went on as if in justification, as if to head off the next question. "Not biology. Everyone always asks me why not marine biology."

"Really?  What do you tell them?"

"That's not where the power in the sea is."

Kassandra's smile was slow, taking in what the woman was wearing, a t-shirt several sizes too large over a dull black wet suit. Sandals on her feet, a gold ring on her pinky. She had pulled her thick dark hair into a curl and jammed a pencil through to hold it up. Small pearl earrings in her ears. There was something very beautiful and functional and serious about her. But there was energy in the air around her, rolling off her body, something in motion even as she leaned against the concrete wall. Then the right word came Kassandra: something hydrodynamic about her.

Their eyes met and Kassandra showed her a tiny piece of her soul.

The chemistry book slipped from the woman's hands.

Kassandra held out a finger as if she was about to say something, and then turned and shouted to the little girl right at the edge of the ocean, "Posey, no!  Leave it alone."  She glanced at the UNH student. "There's a dead seagull there."  Then back to the girl at the water's edge. "Come here. Mommy wants you to meet someone."

The girl in a shimmery silver swimsuit who may have been eight or nine years old, ran up, stopping right in front of the woman with the book—the book hovered a foot off sand, and the girl grabbed it, looked at the open page number before closing it.

"Page three-seventy."  She handed the chemistry text to the woman.

"Thank you."  A stunned whisper.

Kassandra bent toward her daughter. "I would like you to meet an old friend of mine. This is Shelly Mallozzi. She goes to the university. She's studying the sea."

"No finer pursuit."  The little girl bowed. "Pleased to meet you, Shelly Mallozzi. I am Lady Poseidonis."

"Tell Shelly what mommy does."

The girl twirled happily, raising her arm. "All that?  It's hers."  She pointed at the ocean. "You are studying the sea?  My mommy rules it all. The oceans belong to her. She is the Sea."

Shelly gripped the book, her fingers white, but she looked into Kassandra's eyes, dark pools with nothing but the deep end. She leaned forward, and fell in.

Kassandra whispered, her voice gentle as a tide coming in. "I can show you many beautiful things, Shelly. Cliffs of ice blue at the world's end, the Nine-cities on the Atlantic's floor, fire in the ocean's heart. Is there anything you would like to see?  Anything I can show you?"

Shelly let the book fall, and held out her hand to Kassandra. "The cliffs, the city, the fire. All of it. I want to see it all."

Table of Contents

2 - The War-bard's Daughter

3 - New Sirens

4 - Alexandros

5 - Bachoris

6 - The Boot and the Vents

7 - Nikasia's Chain

8 - The Untrusting Book

9 - Nothing Left For Me

10 - Strange and Wonderful

11 - The Vents

12 - Connections

13 - Mortal

14 - Barenis

15 - Monsters

16 - The Book and the King's Trusted Eight

17 - Gifts from the Sea

18 - Mirrors

19 - Dining with the Sea

20 - A Morning Visit

21 - Dangerous Types

22 - King's Monster

23 - Sailing

24 - The End of the World

25 - Soul Stuff and Open Wounds

26 - Thursday Night

27 - World Without Water

28 - The War-bards

29 - Scissors

30 - The Old Sirens

31 - Storm Eating

32 - The New Dead Army

33 - Coronation

Epilogue